Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke
Next the Master’s daughter came to the village of Hoveringham. A man and his wife who were both squeezed together atop a little pony advised her not to enter the village, but led her around it by narrow lanes and paths. From a little green knoll the Master’s daughter looked down and saw that everyone in the village wore a thick blindfold round his eyes. They were not at all used to their self-created blindness and constantly banged their faces against walls, tripped over stools and carts, cut themselves on knives and tools and burnt themselves in the fire. As a consequence they were covered in gashes and wounds, yet not one of them removed his blindfold.
“Oh!” said the wife. “The priest of Hoveringham has been bold enough to denounce the wickedness of Margaret Ford from his pulpit. Bishops, abbots and canons have all been silent, but this frail old man defied her and so she has cursed the whole village. It is their fate to have vivid images of all their worst fears constantly before their eyes. These poor souls see their children starve, their parents go mad, their loved ones scorn and betray them. Wives and husbands see each other horribly murdered. And so, though these sights be nought but illusions, the villagers must blindfold themselves or else be driven mad by what they see.”
Shaking her head over the appalling wickedness of Margaret Ford, the Master’s daughter continued on her way to John Ford’s manor, where she found Margaret and her maidservants, each with a wooden stick in her hand, driving the cows to their evening’s milking.
The Master’s daughter went boldly up to Margaret Ford. Upon the instant Margaret Ford turned and struck her with her stick. “Wicked girl!” she cried. “I know who you are! My ring has told me. I know that you plan to lie to me, who have never done you any harm at all, and ask to become my servant. I know that you plan to steal my ring. Well, know this! I have set strong spells upon my ring. If any thief were foolish enough to touch it, then within a very short space of time bees and wasps and all kinds of insects would fly up from the earth and sting him; eagles and hawks and all kinds of birds would fly down from the sky and peck at him; then bears and boars and all kinds of wild creatures would appear and tear and trample him to pieces!”
Then Margaret Ford beat the Master’s daughter soundly, and told the maids to put her to work in the kitchen.
Margaret Ford’s servants, a miserable, ill-treated lot, gave the Master’s daughter the hardest work to do and whenever Margaret Ford beat them or raged at them – which happened very often – they relieved their feelings by doing the same to her. Yet the Master’s daughter did not allow herself to become low-spirited. She stayed working in the kitchen for several months and thought very hard how she might trick Margaret Ford into dropping the ring or losing it.
Margaret Ford was a cruel woman, quick to take offence and her anger, once roused, could never be appeased. But for all that she adored little children; she took every opportunity to nurse babies and once she had a child in her arms she was gentleness itself. She had no child of her own and no one who knew her doubted that this was a source of great sorrow to her. It was widely supposed that she had expended a great deal of magic upon trying to conceive a child, but without success.
One day Margaret Ford was playing with a neighbour’s little girl, and saying how if she ever were to have a child then she would rather it were a girl and how she would wish it to have a creamy white skin and green eyes and copper curls (this being Margaret Ford’s own colouring).
“Oh!” said the Master’s daughter innocently “The wife of the Reeve in Epperstone has a baby of exactly that description, the prettiest little creature that ever you saw.”
Then Margaret Ford made the Master’s daughter take her to Epperstone and shew her the Reeve’s wife’s baby, and when Margaret Ford saw that the baby was indeed the sweetest, prettiest child that ever there was (just as the Master’s daughter had said) she announced to the horrified mother her intention of taking the child away with her.
As soon as she had possession of the Reeve’s wife’s baby Margaret Ford became almost a different person. She spent her days in looking after the baby, playing with her and singing to her. Margaret Ford became contented with her lot. She used her magic ring a great deal less than she had before and scarcely ever lost her temper.
So things went on until the Master of Nottingham’s daughter had lived in Margaret Ford’s house for almost a year. Then one summer’s day Margaret Ford, the Master’s daughter, the baby and the other maids took their midday meal upon the banks of the river. After eating, Margaret Ford rested in the shade of a rose-bush. It was a hot day and they were all very sleepy.
As soon as she was certain that Margaret Ford was asleep the Master’s daughter took out a sugar-plum and shewed it to the baby. The baby, knowing only too well what should be done to sugar-plums, opened its mouth wide and the Master’s daughter popped it in. Then, as quick as she could and making sure that none of the other maids saw what she did, she slipped the magic ring from Margaret Ford’s finger.
Then, “Oh! Oh!” she cried. “Wake up, madam! The baby has taken your ring and put it in her mouth! Oh, for the dear child’s sake, undo the spell. Undo the spell!”
Margaret Ford awoke and saw the baby with its cheek bulging out, but for the moment she was too sleepy and surprized to understand what was happening.
A bee flew past and the Master’s daughter pointed at it and screamed. All the other maids screamed too. “Quickly, madam, I beg you!” cried the Master’s daughter. “ Oh!” She looked up. “Here are the eagles and hawks approaching! Oh!” She looked into the distance. “Here are the bears and boars running to tear the poor little thing to pieces!”
Margaret Ford cried out to the ring to stop the magic which it did immediately, and almost at the same moment the baby swallowed the sugar-plum. While Margaret Ford and the maids begged and coaxed the baby and shook it to make it cough up the magic ring, the Master of Nottingham’s daughter began to run along the riverbank towards Nottingham.
The rest of the story has all the usual devices. As soon as Margaret Ford discovered how she had been tricked she fetched horses and dogs to chase the Master’s daughter. Upon several occasions the Master’s daughter seemed lost for sure – the riders were almost upon her and the dogs just behind her. But the story tells how she was helped by all the victims of Margaret Ford’s magic: how the villagers of Hoveringham tore off their blindfolds and, in spite of all the horrifying sights they saw, rushed to build barricades to prevent Margaret Ford from passing; how poor Joscelin Trent reached up out of the river and tried to pull Margaret Ford down into the muddy water; how the burning wood threw down flaming branches upon her.
The ring was returned to the Master of Nottingham who undid all the wrongs Margaret Ford had perpetrated and restored his own fortune and reputation.
There is another version of this story which contains no magic ring, no eternally-burning wood, no phoenix – no miracles at all, in fact. According to this version Margaret Ford and the Master of Nottingham’s daughter (whose name was Donata Torel) were not enemies at all, but the leaders of a fellowship of female magicians that flourished in Nottinghamshire in the twelfth century. Hugh Torel, the Master of Nottingham, opposed the fellowship and took great pains to destroy it (though his own daughter was a member). He very nearly succeeded, until the women left their homes and fathers and husbands and went to live in the woods under the protection of Thomas Godbless, a much greater magician than Hugh Torel. This less colourful version of the story has never been as popular as the other but it is this version which Jonathan Strange said was the true one and which he included in The History and Practice of English Magic.
5 “I have a hunger which soup can never satisfy!”
26 Orb, crown and sceptre
1 Stephen described how, not long after Julius Caesar had arrived upon these shores, he had left his army and wandered into a little green wood. He had not gone far when he came upon two young men, sighing deeply and striking the ground in their frustration. Both were remarkably h
They led him a short way through the wood to a grassy hollow between smooth green hills. Here he found a thousand or so of the handsomest men and women that he had ever seen. He sat down upon the hillside and heard all their complaints and accusations; and when he had heard them he gave judgements so wise that everyone was delighted and no one went away feeling himself ill-used.
So pleased were they with Julius Caesar’s judgements that they offered him any thing he liked as payment. Julius Caesar thought for a moment and said that he would like to rule the world. This they promised him.
27 The magician’s wife
1 On May 14th, 1810 Strange wrote to John Segundus:
“… There is a great passion here for seeing visions, which I am always glad to satisfy whenever I can. Whatever Norrell may say, it is very little trouble and nothing delights the layman so much. My only complaint is that people always end by asking me to shew them their relations. I was in Tavistock-square on Tuesday at the house of a family called Fulcher. I spilt some wine upon the table, did the magic and shewed them a sea-battle which was at that moment raging in the Bahamas, a view of a ruined Neapolitan monastery by moonlight and finally the Emperor Napoleon Buonaparte drinking a cup of chocolate with his feet in a steaming bowl of water.
“The Fulchers were well-bred enough to seem interested in what I was doing, but at the end of the evening they asked me if I might be able to shew them their aunt who lives in Carlisle. For the next half an hour Arabella and I were obliged to converse with each other while the family stared, enraptured, at the spectacle of an old lady seated by the fire, in a white cap, knitting.” Letters and Miscellaneous Papers of Jonathan Strange, ed. John Segundus, pub. John Murray, London, 1824.
2 One of Mr Norrell’s books. Mr Norrell mentioned it, somewhat obliquely, when Mr Segundus and Mr Honeyfoot waited upon him in early January 1807.
3 These were Venetian paintings which Mr Norrell had seen at Mrs Wintertowne’s house two years before. Mrs Wintertowne had informed Mr Norrell at the time that she intended to give them to Sir Walter and Miss Wintertowne as a wedding-present.
28 The Duke of Roxburghe’s library
1 Among the forms of magic which Strange and Norrell performed in 1810 were: causing an area of sea in the Bay of Biscay to silt up and a vast wood of monstrous trees to appear there (thus destroying twenty French ships); causing unusual tides and winds to baffle French ships and destroy French crops and livestock; the fashioning of rain into fleets of ships, walled cities, gigantic figures, flights of angels, etc., etc., in order to frighten, confuse or charm French soldiers and sailors; bringing on night when the French were expecting day and vice versa.
All the above are listed in De Generibus Artium Magicarum Anglorum by Francis Sutton-Grove.
2 The previous Secretary of War, Lord Castlereagh, had quarrelled violently with Mr Canning in late 1809. The two gentlemen had fought a duel, after which both had been obliged to resign from the Government. The present Secretary of War, Lord Liverpool, was in fact the same person as Lord Hawkesbury, who has been mentioned before in these pages. He had left off one title and assumed another when his father died in December 1808.
3 Thaumatomane: a person possessed of a passion for magic and wonders, Dictionary of the English Language by Samuel Johnson.
4 Floors Castle is the home of the Dukes of Roxburghe.
5 The Committee of Privileges eventually decided in favour of Sir James Innes and, just as Mr Lascelles had predicted, the new Duke immediately put the library up for sale.
The auction in the summer of 1812 (while Strange was in the Peninsula) was possibly the most notable bibliographic event since the burning of the library at Alexandria. It lasted for forty-one days and was the cause of at least two duels.
Among the Duke’s books there were found seven magical texts, all of them extraordinary.
Rosa et Fons was a mystical meditation upon magic by an unknown fourteenth-century magician.
Thomas de Dundelle, a hitherto undiscovered poem by Chrétien de Troyes, was a colourful version of the life of Thomas Dundale, the Raven King’s first human servant.
The Book of Loveday Ingham was an account of the day-to-day occupations of a fifteenth-century magician in Cambridge.
Exercitatio Magica Nobilissima was a seventeenth-century attempt to describe all of English magic.
The History of Seven was a very muddled work, partly in English, partly in Latin and partly in an unknown fairy language. Its age could not be guessed at, the author could not be identified and the purpose of the said author in writing the book was entirely obscure. It appeared to be, upon the whole, the history of a city in Faerie, called “Seven”, but the information was presented in a very confusing style and the author would frequently break off from his narrative to accuse some unspecified person of having injured him in some mysterious way. These parts of the text more resembled an indignant letter than any thing else.
The Parliament of Women was an allegorical sixteenth-century description of the wisdom and magic that belongs particularly to women.
But by far the most wonderful was The Mirrour of the Lyf of Ralph Stokesie, which along with a first edition of Boccaccio’s Decameron was put up for auction on the last day. Even Mr Norrell had been entirely ignorant of the existence of this book until that day. It appeared to have been written by two authors, one a fifteenth-century magician called William Thorpe, the other Ralph Stokesey’s fairy servant, Col Tom Blue. For this treasure Mr Norrell paid the quite unheard-of sum of 2,100 guineas.
Such was the general respect for Mr Norrell that not a single gentleman in the room bid against him. But a lady bid against him for every book. In the weeks before the auction Arabella Strange had been very busy. She had written numerous letters to Strange’s relations and paid visits to all her friends in London in attempt to borrow enough money to buy some of the books for her husband, but Norrell outbid her for every one.
Sir Walter Scott, the author, was present and he described the end of the auction. “Such was Mrs Strange’s disappointment at losing The Life of Ralph Stokesey that she sat in tears. At that moment Mr Norrell walked by with the book in his hand. Not a word, not a glance did this man have for his pupil’s wife. I do not know when I last saw behaviour so little to my liking. Several people observed this treatment and I have heard some harsh things said of Norrell. Even Lord Portishead, whose admiration of the magician knows no bounds, admits that he thinks Norrell has behaved remarkably ill towards Mrs Strange.”
But it was not only Mr Norrell’s treatment of Mrs Strange that drew unfavourable comment. In the weeks that followed the auction scholars and historians waited to hear what new knowledge was to be found in the seven wonderful books. In particular they were in high hopes that The Mirrour of the Lyf of Ralph Stokesey would provide answers to some of the most puzzling mysteries in English magic. It was commonly supposed that Mr Norrell would reveal his new discoveries in the pages of The Friends of English Magic or that he would cause copies of the books to be printed. He did neither of these things. One or two people wrote him letters asking him specific questions. He did not reply. When letters appeared in the newspapers complaining of this behaviour h
29 At the house of José Estoril
1 St Serlo’s Blessing had been captured from the French. Its French name was Le Temple Foudroyé. Saint Serlo’s Blessing was, of course, the name of one of the four magical woods which surrounded and protected the Raven King’s capital city, Newcastle.
2 Of course it may be objected that Wellington himself was Irish, but a patriotic English pen does not stoop to answer such quibbling.
3 There were three great fortresses which guarded the border into Spain: Almeida, Badajoz and Ciudad Rodriguez. In the early months of 1811 all three were held by the French. While Wellington advanced upon the Almeida he despatched General Beresford with the Portuguese Army to besiege the fortress of Badajoz further south.
30 The book of Robert Findhelm
1 Yorkshire was part of the Raven King’s kingdom of Northern England. Childermass and Norrell’s respect for Vinculus would have increased a little, knowing that he was, like them, a Northerner.
2 Many people besides Lascelles remarked upon the odd circumstance that Mr Norrell who hated any mention of the Raven King should have lived in a house built of stones quarried upon the King’s instruction, and upon land which the King had once owned and knew well.
3 Book-murder was a late addition to English magical law. The wilful destruction of a book of magic merited the same punishment as the murder of a Christian.