Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (17 page)

“Are you certain you do not hear it?”

“No.”

“I cannot stay.” He looked as if he meant to say something more — indeed he opened his mouth to say it, but the bell seemed to intrude itself upon his attention again and he was silent. “Good evening to you!” He rose and, with a rapid half-bow, he walked out.

In St James’s-street the bell continued to toll. He walked like a man in a fog. He had just reached Piccadilly when an aproned porter carrying a basket full of fish came very suddenly out of a little alleyway. In trying to get out of the porter’s way, Stephen collided with a stout gentleman in a blue coat and a Bedford hat who was standing on the corner of Albemarle-street.

The stout gentleman turned and saw Stephen. Instantly he was all alarm; he saw a black face close to his own face and black hands near his pockets and valuables. He paid no attention to Stephen’s expensive clothes and respectable air but, immediately concluding that he was about to be robbed or knocked down, he raised his umbrella to strike a blow in his own defence.

It was the moment that Stephen had dreaded all his life. He supposed that constables would be called and he would be dragged before the magistrates and it was probable that even the patronage and friendship of Sir Walter Pole would not save him. Would an English jury be able to conceive of a black man who did not steal and lie? A black man who was a respectable person? It did not seem very likely. Yet now that his fate had come upon him, Stephen found he did not care very much about it and he watched events unfold as though he were watching a play through thick glass or a scene at the bottom of a pond.

The stout gentleman opened his eyes wide in fright, anger and indignation. He opened his mouth wide to begin accusing Stephen but in that moment he began to change. His body became the trunk of a tree; he suddenly sprouted arms in all directions and all the arms became branches; his face became a bole and he shot up twenty feet; where his hat and umbrella had been there was a thick crown of ivy.

“An oak tree in Piccadilly,” thought Stephen, not much interested. “That is unusual.”

Piccadilly was changing too. A carriage happened to be passing. It clearly belonged to someone of importance for as well as the coachman upon his box, two footmen rode behind; there was a coat of arms upon the door and it was drawn by four matched greys. As Stephen watched the horses grew taller and thinner until they seemed about to disappear entirely and at that point they were suddenly transformed into a grove of delicate silver birches. The carriage became a holly bush and the coachman and the footmen became an owl and two nightingales which promptly flew away. A lady and gentleman walking along together suddenly sprouted twigs in every direction and became an elder-bush, a dog became a shaggy clump of dry bracken. The gas lamps that hung above the street were sucked up into the sky and became stars in a fretwork of winter trees and Piccadilly itself dwindled to a barely discernible path through a dark winter wood.

But just as in a dream where the most extraordinary events arrive complete with their own explanation and become reason-able in an instant, Stephen found nothing to be surprized at. Rather, it seemed to him that he had always known that Piccadilly stood in close proximity to a magical wood.

He began to walk along the path.

The wood was very dark and quiet. Above his head the stars were the brightest he had ever seen and the trees were nothing more than black shapes, mere absences of stars.

The thick grey misery and stupidity which had enveloped his mind and spirit all day disappeared and he began to muse upon the curious dream he had the night before about meeting a strange green-coated person with thistle-down hair who had taken him to a house where he had danced all night with the queerest people.

The sad bell sounded much clearer in the wood than it had in London and Stephen followed the sound along the path. In a very short while he came to an immense stone house with a thousand windows. A feeble light shone out of some of these openings. A high wall surrounded the house. Stephen passed through (though he did not quite understand how, for he saw no sign of a gate) and found himself in a wide and dreary courtyard where skulls, broken bones, and rusting weapons were scattered about, as if they had lain there for centuries. Despite the size and grandeur of the house its only entrance was a mean little door and Stephen had to bend low to pass through. Immediately he beheld a vast crowd of people all dressed in the finest clothes.

Two gentlemen stood just inside the door. They wore fine dark coats, spotless white stockings and gloves and dancing pumps. They were talking together, but the moment Stephen appeared, one turned and smiled.

“Ah, Stephen Black!” he said. “We have been waiting for you!”

At that moment the viol and pipe started up again.

18
Sir Walter consults
gentlemen in several professions

February 1808

Lady pole sat by the window, pale and unsmiling. She said very little and whenever she did say any thing her remarks were odd and not at all to the point. When her husband and friends anxiously inquired what the matter was, she replied that she was sick of dancing and wished to dance no more. As for music, it was the most detestable thing in the world — she wondered that she had never realized it before.

Sir Walter regarded this lapse into silence and indifference as highly alarming. It was altogether too like that illness which had caused her ladyship so much suffering before her marriage and ended so tragically in her early death. Had she not been pale before? Well, she was pale now. Had she not been cold before? She was so again.

During her ladyship’s previous illness no doctor had ever attended her and naturally doctors everywhere resented this as an insult to their profession. “Oh!” they cried whenever Lady Pole’s name was mentioned, “the magic which brought her back to life was no doubt very wonderful, but if only the proper medicines had been administered in time then there would have been no need for the magic in the first place.”

Mr Lascelles had been right when he declared the fault to be entirely Mrs Wintertowne’s. She detested doctors and had never allowed one to come near her daughter. Sir Walter, however, was hindered by no such prejudice; he sent immediately for Mr Baillie.

Mr Baillie was a Scottish gentleman who had long been considered the foremost practitioner of his profession in London. He had written a great many books with important-sounding titles and he was Physician Extraordinary to the King. He had a sensible face and carried a gold-topped stick as a symbol of his pre-eminence. He answered Sir Walter’s summons swiftly, eager to prove the superiority of medicine to magic. The examination done, he came out again. Her ladyship was in excellent health, he said. She had not got so much as a cold.

Sir Walter explained again how different she was today from what she had been only a few days ago.

Mr Baillie regarded Sir Walter thoughtfully. He said he believed he understood the problem. Sir Walter and her ladyship had not been married long, had they? Well, Sir Walter must forgive him, but doctors were often obliged to say things which other people would not. Sir Walter was not accustomed to married life. He would soon discover that married people often quarrelled. It was nothing to be ashamed of — even the most devoted couples disagreed sometimes, and when they did it was not uncommon for one partner to pretend an indisposition. Nor was it always the lady that did so. Was there perhaps something that Lady Pole had set her heart upon? Well, if it were a small thing, like a new gown or a bonnet, why not let her have it since she wanted it so much? If it were a large thing like a house or a visit to Scotland, then perhaps it would be best to talk to her about it. Mr Baillie was sure that her ladyship was not an unreasonable person.

There was a pause during which Sir Walter stared at Mr Baillie down his long nose. “Her ladyship and I have not quarrelled,” he said at last.

Ah, said Mr Baillie in a kindly fashion. It might well appear to Sir Walter that there had been no quarrel. It was often the case that gentlemen did not observe the signs. Mr Baillie advised Sir Walter to think carefully. Might he not have said something to vex her ladyship? Mr Baillie did not speak of blame. It was all part of the little accommodations that married people must make in beginning their life together.

“But it is not Lady Pole’s character to behave like a spoilt child!”

No doubt, no doubt, said Mr Baillie. But her ladyship was very young and young persons ought always be permitted some licence for folly. Old heads did not sit upon young shoulders. Sir Walter ought not to expect it. Mr Baillie was rather warming to his subject. He had examples to hand (drawn from history and literature) of sober-minded, clever men and women who had all done foolish things in their youth, however a glance at Sir Walter’s face persuaded him that he should press the point no further.

Sir Walter was in a similar situation. He too had several things to say and a great mind to say some of them, but he felt himself on uncertain ground. A man who marries for the first time at the age of forty-two knows only too well that almost all his acquaintance are better qualified to manage his domestic affairs than him. So Sir Walter contented himself with frowning at Mr Baillie and then, since it was almost eleven o’clock, he called for his carriage and his secretary and drove to Burlington House where he had an appointment to meet the other Ministers.

At Burlington House he walked through pillared courtyards and gilded ante-rooms. He mounted great marble staircases that were overhung by painted ceilings in which impossible numbers of painted gods, goddesses, heroes and nymphs tumbled out of blue skies or reclined on fluffy white clouds. He was bowed at by a whole host of powdered, liveried footmen until he came to the room where the Ministers were looking at papers and arguing with one another.

“But why do you not send for Mr Norrell, Sir Walter?” asked Mr Canning, the moment he heard what the matter was. “I am astonished that you have not already done so. I am sure that her ladyship’s indisposition will prove to be nothing more than some slight irregularity in the magic which brought her back to life. Mr Norrell can make some small adjustment to a spell and her ladyship will be well again.”

“Oh, quite!” agreed Lord Castlereagh. “It seems to me that Lady Pole has gone beyond physicians. You and I, Sir Walter, are set upon this earth by the Grace of God, but her ladyship is here by the grace of Mr Norrell. Her hold upon life is different from the rest of us — theologically and, I dare say, medically as well.”

“Whenever Mrs Perceval is unwell,” interjected Mr Perceval, a small, precise lawyer of unremarkable aspect and manners who held the exalted position of Chancellor of the Exchequer, “the first person I apply to is her maid. After all, who knows a lady’s state of health better than her maid? What does Lady Pole’s maid say?”

Sir Walter shook his head. “Pampisford is as mystified as I am. She agreed with me that her ladyship was in excellent health two days ago and now she is cold, pale, listless and unhappy. That is the beginning and end of Pampisford’s information. That and a great deal of nonsense about the house being haunted. I do not know what is the matter with the servants just now. They are all in an odd, nervous condition. One of the footmen came to me this morning with a tale of meeting someone upon the stairs at midnight. A person with a green coat and a great quantity of pale, silvery hair.”

“What? A ghost? An apparition?” asked Lord Hawkesbury.

“I believe that is what he meant, yes.”

“How very extraordinary! Did it speak?” asked Mr Canning.

“No. Geoffrey said it gave him a cold, disdainful look and passed on.”

“Oh! Your footman was dreaming, Sir Walter. He was certainly dreaming,” said Mr Perceval.

“Or drunk,” offered Mr Canning.

“Yes, that occurred to me too. So naturally I asked Stephen Black,” said Sir Walter, “but Stephen is as foolish as the rest of them. I can scarcely get him to speak to me.”

“Well,” said Mr Canning, “you will not, I think, attempt to deny that there is something here that suggests magic? And is it not Mr Norrell’s business to explain what other people cannot? Send for Mr Norrell, Sir Walter!”

This was so reasonable that Sir Walter began to wonder why he had not thought of it himself. He had the highest opinion of his own abilities and did not think he would generally miss so obvious a connection. The truth was, he realized, that he did not really
like
magic. He had never liked it — not at the beginning when he had supposed it to be false and not now that it had proved to be real. But he could hardly explain this to the other Ministers — he who had persuaded them to employ a magician for the first time in two hundred years!

At half-past three he returned to Harley-street. It was the eeriest part of a winter day. Twilight was turning all the buildings and people to blurred, black nothingnesses while, above, the sky remained a dizzying silver-blue and was full of cold light. A winter sunset was painting a swathe of rose-colour and blood-colour at the end of all the streets — pleasing to the eyes but some how chilling to the heart. As Sir Walter gazed from his carriage-window, he thought it fortunate that he was not in any way a fanciful person. Someone else might have been quite unsettled by the combination of the disagreeable task of consulting a magician and this queer, black-and-bloody dissolution of the London streets.

Geoffrey opened the door of no. 9 Harley-street and Sir Walter rapidly mounted the stairs. On the first floor he passed the Venetian drawing-room where her ladyship had been sitting that morning. A sort of presentiment made him look inside. At first it did not seem as though any body could be there. The fire was low in the grate, creating a sort of second twilight within the room. No body had lit a lamp or candle yet. And then he saw her.

She was sitting very upright in a chair by the window. Her back was towards him. Everything about her — chair, posture, even the folds of her gown and shawl — was precisely the same as when he had left her that morning.

The moment he reached his study, he sat down and wrote an urgent message to Mr Norrell.

Mr Norrell did not come immediately. An hour or two passed. At last he arrived with an expression of fixed calm upon his face. Sir Walter met him in the hall and described what had happened. He then proposed that they go upstairs to the Venetian drawing-room.

“Oh!” said Mr Norrell, quickly. “From what you tell me, Sir Walter, I am quite certain there is no need to trouble Lady Pole because, you see, I fear I can do nothing for her. Much as it pains me to say this to you, my dear Sir Walter — for as you know I should always wish to serve you when I can — but whatever it is that has distressed her ladyship I do not believe that it is in the power of magic to remedy.”

Sir Walter sighed. He ran his hand through his hair and looked unhappy. “Mr Baillie found nothing wrong and so I thought …”

“Oh! But it is precisely that circumstance which makes me so certain that I cannot help you. Magic and medicine are not always so distinct from one another as you seem to imagine. Their spheres often overlap. An illness may have both a medical cure and a magical one. If her ladyship were truly ill or if, God forbid!, she were to die again, then certainly there is magic to cure or restore her. But forgive me, Sir Walter, what you have described seems more a spiritual ailment than a physical one and as such belongs neither to magic nor medicine. I am no expert in these matters but perhaps a clergyman might be found to answer better?”

“But Lord Castlereagh thought — I do not know if it is true — Lord Castlereagh thought that since Lady Pole owes her life to magic — I confess that I did not understand him very well, but I believe he meant to say that since her ladyship’s life is founded upon magic, she would only be susceptible to cure by magic.”

“Indeed? Lord Castlereagh said that? Oh! He is quite mistaken, but I am most intrigued that he should have thought of it. That is what used to be called the Meraudian Heresy.
¹
A twelfth-century abbot of Rievaulx dedicated himself to its destruction and was later made a saint. Of course the theology of magic has never been a favourite subject of mine, but I believe I am correct in saying that in the sixty-ninth chapter of William Pantler’s
Three Perfectible States of Being
. .”
²

Mr Norrell seemed about to embark upon one of his long, dull speeches upon the history of English magic, full of references to books no one had ever heard of. Sir Walter interrupted him with, “Yes, yes! But do you have any notion who the person with the green coat and the silver hair might be?”

“Oh!” said Mr Norrell. “You think there was somebody then? But that seems to me most unlikely. Might it not be something more in the nature of a dressing gown left hanging on a hook by a negligent servant? Just where one does not expect to see it? I myself have often been badly startled by this wig which you see now upon my head. Lucas ought to put it away each night — he knows he ought — but several times now he has left it on its wig stand on the mantelpiece where it is reflected in the mirror above the fireplace and resembles nothing so much in the world as two gentlemen with their heads together, whispering about me.”

Mr Norrell blinked his small eyes rapidly at Sir Walter. Then, having declared that he could do nothing, he wished Sir Walter good evening and left the house.

Mr Norrell went straight home. As soon as he arrived at his house in Hanover-square he immediately went up to a little study upon the second floor. This was a quiet room at the back of the house, overlooking the garden. The servants never entered when he was working in this room and even Childermass needed some unusually pressing reason to disturb him there. Though Mr Norrell rarely gave warning of when he intended to use this little study, it was one of the rules of the household that it was always kept in readiness for him. Just now a fire was burning brightly in the grate and all the lamps were lit, but someone had neglected to draw the curtains and consequently the window had become a black mirror, in which the room was reflected.

Mr Norrell sat down at the desk which faced the window. He opened a large volume, one of many upon the desk, and began to murmur a spell to himself.

A coal falling from the grate, a shadow moving in the room, caused him to look up. He saw his own alarmed reflection in the dark window and he saw someone standing behind him — a pale, silvery face with a mass of shining hair around it.

Mr Norrell did not turn but instead addressed the reflection in the window in a bitter, angry tone. “When you said that you would take half the young lady’s life, I thought you would permit her to remain with her friends and family for half seventy-five years. I thought it would appear as if she had simply died!”

“I never said so.”

“You cheated me! You have not helped me at all! You risk undoing everything by your tricks!” cried Mr Norrell.