Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (101 page)

"I am glad to see you," said Dr Greysteel, "but you look pale. Are you remembering to eat? To sleep? To take exercise?"

"I believe I ate something today," said Strange, "although I really cannot recall what it was."

They talked for a while of indifferent matters, but Strange was distracted. Several times he answered Dr Greysteel almost at random. Then, swallowing the last of his
grappa
, he took out his pocket-watch and said, "I hope you will forgive my hurrying away. I have an engagement. And so, good night."

Dr Greysteel was a little surprized at this and he could not help but wonder what sort of an engagement it might be. A man might behave badly any where in the world, but it seemed to Dr Greysteel that in Venice he might behave worse and do so more frequently. No other city in the world was so bent upon providing opportunities for every sort of mischief and Dr Greysteel happened to be particularly concerned at this period that Strange should have a character beyond reproach. So he inquired with as careless an air as he could manage whether the appointment was with Lord Byron?

"No, indeed. To own the truth," Strange narrowed his eyes and grew confidential, "I believe I may have found someone to aid me."

"Your fairy?"

"No. Another human being. I have high hopes of this colla- boration. Yet at the same time I am not quite sure how the other person will greet my proposals. You will understand that under such circumstances I have no desire to keep them waiting."

"No, indeed!" exclaimed Dr Greysteel. "Go! Go!"

Strange walked away and became one of the many black figures on the piazza, all with black faces and no expressions, hurrying across the face of moon-coloured Venice. The moon itself was set among great architectural clouds so that there appeared to be another moon-lit city in the sky, whose grandeur rivalled Venice and whose great palaces and streets were crumbling and falling into ruins, as if some spirit in a whimsical mood had set it there to mock the other's slow decline.

Meanwhile, Aunt Greysteel and Miss Greysteel had taken advantage of the doctor's absence to return to the terrible little room at the top of the house in the Ghetto. They had come in secret, having an idea that Dr Greysteel, and perhaps even Mr Strange, might try to prevent them going, or else insist upon accompanying them – and they had no wish for male companion- ship upon this occasion.

"They will want to be talking about it," said Aunt Greysteel, "they will be trying to guess how she came to this sad condition. But what good will that do? How does that help her?"

Miss Greysteel had brought some candles and a candlestick. She lit the candle so that they could see what they were doing. Then, out of their baskets they took a nice savoury dish of veal fricassee that filled the stale, desperate room with a good smell, some fresh white rolls, some apples and a warm shawl. Aunt Greysteel placed the plate of veal fricassee before Mrs Delgado, but she found that Mrs Delgado's fingers and fingernails were as curved and stiff as claws, and she could not coax them round the handles of the knife and fork.

"Well, my dear," said Aunt Greysteel at last, "she shews great interest in it, and I am sure it will do her good. But I think we will leave her to eat it in whatever way she thinks best."

They wentdowninto the street. As soon as they were outside Aunt Greysteel exclaimed, "Oh, Flora! Did you see? She had her supper already prepared. There was a little china saucer – quite a pretty saucer – rather likemytea-service with rosebuds and forget-me-nots – and she had laid a mouse in it – a little dead grey mouse!"

Miss Greysteel looked thoughtful. "I dare say a head of chicory – boiled and dressed with a sauce, as they prepare it here – looks a little like a mouse."

"Oh my dear!" said Aunt Greysteel. "You know it was nothing of the sort . . ."

They were walking through the Ghetto Vecchio towards Can- naregio canal when Miss Greysteel turned suddenly away into the shadows and disappeared from sight.

"Flora! What is the matter?" cried Aunt Greysteel. "What do you see? Do not linger, my love. It is so very dark here among the houses. Dearest! Flora!"

Miss Greysteel moved back into the light as quickly as she had gone away. "It is nothing, aunt," she said. "Do not be startled. It is only that I thought I heard someone say my name and I went to see. I thought it was someone I knew. But there is no one there."

At the
Fondamenta
their gondola was waiting for them. The oarsman handed them in and then, with slow strokes, moved away. Aunt Greysteel made herself snug under the covering in the centre of the boat. Rain began to patter upon the canvas. "Perhaps when we get home we shall find Mr Strange with papa," she said.

"Perhaps," said Miss Greysteel.

"Or maybe he has gone to play billiards with Lord Byron again," said Aunt Greysteel. "It is odd that they should be friends. They seem such very different gentlemen."

"Oh, indeed! Though Mr Strange told me that he found Lord Byron a great deal less agreeable when he met him in Swisserland. His lordship was with some other poetical people who claimed all his attention and whose company he clearly preferred to that of any one else. Mr Strange says that he was barely civil."

"Well, that is very bad. But not at all surprizing. Should not you be afraid to look at him, my love? Lord Byron, I mean. I think that perhaps I might – a little."

"No, I should not be afraid."

"Well, my love, that is because you are more clear-headed and steady than other people. Indeed I do not know what there is in the world that you would be afraid of."

"Oh! I do not think it is because of any extraordinary courage on my part. As to extraordinary virtue – I cannot tell. I was never yet much tempted to do any thing very bad. It is only that Lord Byron could never have any power over me or sway the least of my thoughts or actions. I am quite safe from him. But that is not to say that there might not be someone in the world – I do not say that I have seen him yet – whom I would be a little afraid to look at sometimes – for fear that he might be looking sad – or lost – or thoughtful, or – what, you know, might seem worst of all – brooding on some private anger or hurt and so not knowing or caring if I looked at him at all."

In the little attic at the top of the house in the Ghetto, Miss Greysteel's candles guttered and went out. The moon shone down into the nightmare apartment and the old lady of Cannaregio began to devour the veal fricassee which the Greysteel ladies had brought her.

She was about to swallow the last bite when an English voice suddenly said, "Unfortunately, my friends did not stay to perform the introductions and it is always an awkward business, is it not, madam, when two people are left together in a room to get acquainted? My name is Strange. Yours, madam, though you do not know it, is Delgado, and I am delighted to meet you."

Strange was leaning against the windowsill with his arms crossed, looking intently at her.

She, on the other hand, took as little notice of him as she had of Aunt Greysteel or Miss Greysteel or any of her visitors of the last few days. She took as little notice of him as a cat takes of any body who does not interest it.

"Let me first assure you," said Strange, "that I am not one of those tiresome visitors who have no real purpose for their visit and nothing to say for themselves. I have a proposal to make to you, Mrs Delgado. It is our excellent fortune, madam, that you and I should meet at this time. I am able to give you your heart's desire and in return you shall give me mine."

Mrs Delgado made no sign that she had heard any of this. She had turned her attention to the saucer with the dead mouse and her ancient mouth gaped to devour it.

"Really, madam!" cried Strange. "I must insist that you put off your dinner for a moment and attend to what I am saying." He leant forward and removed the saucer. For the first time Mrs Delgado seemed to know he was there. She made a little mew of displeasure and looked resentfully at him.

"I want you to teach me how to be mad. The idea is so simple, I wonder I did not think of it before."

Mrs Delgado growled very low.

"Oh! You question the wisdom of my proceedings? You are probably right. To wish madness upon oneself is very rash. My tutor, my wife and my friends would all be angry if they knew any thing of it." He paused. The sardonic expression disappeared from his face and the light tone disappeared from his voice. "But I have cast off my tutor, my wife is dead and I am separated from my friends by twenty miles of chill water and the best part of a continent. For the first time since I took up this odd profession, I am not obliged to consult any one else. Now, how to begin? You must give me something – something to serve as a symbol and vessel of your madness." He glanced around the room. "Unfortu- nately, you do not appear to possess any thing, except your gown . . ." He looked down at the saucer which he held in his hand. ". . . and this mouse. I believe I prefer the mouse."

Strange began to say a spell. There was a burst of silver lights in the room. It was something between white flames and the glitter- ing effect which fireworks produce. For a moment it hung in the air between Mrs Delgado and Strange. Then Strange made a gesture as if he intended to throw it at her; the light flew towards her and, just for a moment, she was bathed in a silver radiance. Suddenly Mrs Delgado was nowhere to be seen and in her place was a solemn, sulky girl in an old-fashioned gown. Then the girl too disappeared to be replaced by a beautiful young woman with a wilful expression. She was followed swiftly by an older woman of imperious bearing but with a glint of impending madness in her eyes. All the women Mrs Delgado had ever been flickered for an instant in the chair. Then all of them disappeared.

On the chair was only a heap of crumpled silk. Out of it stepped a little grey cat. The cat jumped daintily down, sprang up on the windowsill and vanished into the darkness.

"Well, that worked," said Strange. He picked up the half-rotten dead mouse by its tail. Instantly he became interesting to several of the cats who mewed and purred and rubbed themselves against his legs to attract his attention.

He grimaced. "And what was John Uskglass forced to endure, I wonder, in order to forge English magic?"

He wondered if he would notice any difference. Would he find, after he had done the spell, that he was trying to guess if he were mad now? Would he stand about, trying to think mad thoughts to discover if any of them seemed more natural? He took a last look around at the world, opened his mouth and gingerly lowered the mouse into it . . .

It was like plunging beneath a waterfall or having two thousand trumpets
sound in one's ear. Everything he thought before, everything he knew,
everything he had been was swept away in a great flood of confused emotion
and sensation. The world was made again in flame-like colours that were
impossible to bear. It was shot through with new fears, new desires, new
hatreds. He was surrounded by great presences. Some had wicked mouths full
of teeth and huge, burning eyes. There was a thing like a horribly crippled
spider that reared up beside him. It was full of malice. He had something in
his mouth and the taste of it was unspeakable. Unable to think, unable to
know, he found from God-knows-where the presence of mind to spit it out.
Someone screamed . . .

He found that he was lying on his back staring up into a confusion of darkness, roof beams and moonlight. A shadowy face appeared and peered into his own face in an unnerving manner. Its breath was warm, damp and malodorous. He had no recollection of lying down, but then he did not have much recollection of any thing. He wondered vaguely if he were in London or Shropshire. There was the queerest sensation all over his body as if several cats were walking on him at once. After a moment he raised his head and found that this was indeed the case.

He sat up and the cats leapt away. The full moon shone down through a broken window. Then, mounting from recollection to recollection, he began to piece the evening together. He remem- bered the spell by which he had transformed the old woman, his plan to bring madness upon himself in order to see the fairy. At first it seemed to him so distant that he thought he must be remembering events that had happened, oh!, perhaps a month or so ago. Yet here he was in the room and he found by his pocket- watch that scarcely any time had passed at all.

He managed to rescue the mouse. By luck his arm had fallen upon it and kept it safe from the cats. He tucked it into his pocket and left the room hurriedly. He did not want to remain there a moment longer; the room had been nightmarish to begin with – now it seemed to him a place of untold horror.

He met several people on the stairs, but they took not a scrap of notice of him. He had previously cast a spell over the inhabitants of the house and they were quite convinced that they saw him every day, that he frequented these rooms regularly, and that nothing was more natural than that he should be there. But if any one had asked them who he was, they would have been quite unable to say.

He walked back to his lodgings at Santa Maria Zobenigo. The old woman's madness still seemed to infect him. People he passed in the street were strangely changed; their expressions seemed ferocious and unintelligible, and even their gait was lumbering and ugly. "Well one thing is clear," he thought, "the old woman was very mad indeed. I could not possibly summon the fairy in that condition."

The next day he rose early and immediately after breakfast began the process of reducing the flesh and guts of the mouse to a powder, according to various well-known principles of magic. The bones he preserved intact. Then he turned the powder into a tincture. This had two advantages. First (and by no means least), it was considerably less repulsive to swallow a few drops of tincture than to put a dead mouse in his mouth. Secondly, he believed that in this way he might be able to regulate the degree of madness he imposed upon himself.