Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (29 page)

Arabella curtsied to the young woman and, blushing slightly, said, “I thought there was no one here! I beg your pardon for intruding upon you.” She turned to leave.

“Oh!” said the young woman. “I hope you do not think of going! I so rarely see any one — scarcely any one at all! And besides you wished to see the paintings! You cannot deny it, you know, for I saw you in that mirror as you entered the room and your intention was plain.” A large Venetian mirror hung above the fireplace. It had a most elaborate frame which was also made of mirror-glass and it was decorated with the ugliest glass flowers and scrolls imaginable. “I hope,” said the young woman, “that you will not allow me to prevent you.”

“But I fear I disturb you,” said Arabella.

“Oh, but you do not!” The young woman gestured towards the paintings, “Pray. Continue.”

So, feeling it would be a still worse breach of manners to refuse, Arabella thanked the young woman and went and examined the other paintings, but she did it less minutely than before because she was conscious that the young woman watched her in the mirror the entire time.

When she had finished, the young woman asked Arabella to sit. “And how do they please you?” she asked.

“Well,” said Arabella, “they are certainly very beautiful. I particularly like the pictures of processions and feasts — we have nothing like them in England. So many fluttering banners! So many gilded boats and exquisite costumes! But it seems to me that the artist loves buildings and blue skies more than people. He has made them so small, so insignificant! Among so many marble palaces and bridges they seem almost lost. Do not you think so?”

This seemed to amuse the young woman. She smiled a wry smile. “Lost?” she said. “Oh, I should think they are indeed lost, poor souls! For, when all is said and done, Venice is only a labyrinth — a vast and beautiful labyrinth to be sure, but a labyrinth nonetheless and none but its oldest inhabitants can be sure of finding their way about — or, at least, that is my understanding.”

“Indeed?” said Arabella. “That must certainly be very inconvenient. But then the sensation of being lost in a labyrinth must be so delightful! Oh! I believe I should give almost any thing to go there!”

The young woman regarded her with an odd, melancholy smile. “If you had spent months, as I have done, wearily parading through endless dark passageways, you would think very differently. The pleasures of losing oneself in a maze pall very quickly. And as for curious ceremonies, processions and feasts, well …” She shrugged. “I quite detest them!”

Arabella did not very well comprehend her, but thought that it might help if she discovered who the young woman was, and so she inquired as to her name.

“I am Lady Pole.”

“Oh! Of course!” said Arabella and wondered why she had not thought of this before. She told Lady Pole her own name and that her husband had business with Sir Walter, which was the reason of her being there.

A sudden burst of loud laughter was heard from the direction of the library.

“They are supposed to be talking of the war,” Arabella ob-served to her ladyship, “but either the war has got a great deal more entertaining recently, or else — as I suspect — they have left business far behind and have got to gossiping about their acquaintance. Half an hour ago Mr Strange could think of nothing but his next appointment, but now I suppose Sir Walter has drawn him off to talk of other things and I dare say he has forgot all about it.” She smiled to herself as wives do when they pretend to criticize their husbands, but are really boasting of them. “I really do believe he is the most easily distracted creature in the world. Mr Norrell’s patience must be sorely tried sometimes.”

“Mr Norrell?” said Lady Pole.

“Mr Strange has the honour to be Mr Norrell’s pupil,” said Arabella.

She expected her ladyship to reply with some praise for Mr Norrell’s extraordinary magical ability or some words of gratitude for his kindness. But Lady Pole said nothing and so Arabella continued in an encouraging tone, “Of course we have heard a great deal of the wonderful magic which Mr Norrell performed on your ladyship’s behalf.”

“Mr Norrell has been no friend to me,” said Lady Pole in a dry, matter-of-fact tone. “I had far better be dead than be as I am.”

It was such a shocking thing to hear that for several moments Arabella could think of nothing to say. She had no reason to love Mr Norrell. He had never done her any kindness — indeed he had several times gone out of his way to shew how little he regarded her, but for all that he was the only other representative of her husband’s profession. So, just as the wife of an admiral will always take the part of the Navy or the wife of a bishop will speak up in favour of the Church, Arabella felt obliged to say something in defence of the other magician. “Pain and suffering are the very worst of companions and no doubt your ladyship grows heartily sick of them. No one in the world could blame you for wishing to be rid of them …” (Yet even as Arabella spoke these words, she was thinking, “It is very odd but she does not look ill. Not in the least.”) “But if what I hear be true, then your ladyship is not without solace in your suffering. I must confess that I have never heard your ladyship’s name spoken without its being accompanied by some praise for your devoted husband. Surely you would not gladly leave him? Surely, your ladyship, you must feel a little grateful to Mr Norrell — if only for Sir Walter’s sake.”

Lady Pole did not reply to this; instead she began to question Arabella about her husband. How long had he practised magic? How long had he been Mr Norrell’s pupil? Was his magic generally successful? Did he perform magic by himself or only under Norrell’s direction?

Arabella did her best to answer all the questions adding, “If there is any thing your ladyship would like me to ask Mr Strange on your behalf, if there is any service he can do, then your ladyship has only to name it.”

“Thank you. But what I have to tell you is as much for your husband’s sake as mine. I think Mr Strange ought to hear how I was left to a horrible fate by Mr Norrell. Mr Strange should know what sort of man he has to deal with. Will you tell him?”

“Of course. I …”

“Promise me that you will.”

“I will tell Mr Strange any thing your ladyship wishes.”

“I should warn you that I have made many attempts to tell people of my misery and I have never yet succeeded.”

As Lady Pole said this something happened which Arabella did not quite understand. It was as if something in one of the paintings had moved, or someone had passed behind one of the mirrors, and the conviction came over her once again that this room was no room at all, that the walls had no real solidity but instead the room were only a sort of crossroads where strange winds blew upon Lady Pole from faraway places.

“In 1607,” began Lady Pole, “a gentleman named Redeshawe in Halifax, West Yorkshire inherited £10 from his aunt. He used the money to buy a Turkish carpet, which he then brought home and spread over the stone flags of his parlour. Then he drank some beer and fell asleep in a chair by the fire. He awoke at two in the morning to find the carpet covered with three or four hundred people, each about two or three inches high. Mr Redeshawe observed that the most important individuals among them, both men and women, were gorgeously attired in gold and silver armour and that they rode white rabbits — which were to them as elephants are to us. When he asked what they were doing, one brave soul among them climbed up to his shoulder and bellowed in his ear that they intended to fight a battle according to the rules of Honoreé Bonet and Mr Redeshawe’s carpet was exactly suited to their purpose because the regularity of the patterns helped the heralds determine that each army was positioned correctly and took no unfair advantage over the other. However Mr Redeshawe did not chuse that a battle should be fought upon his new carpet and so he took a broom and …No, wait!”Lady Pole stopt and suddenly covered her face with her hands. “That is not what I wished to say!”

She began again. This time she told a story of a man who had gone hunting in a wood. He had become separated from his friends. His horse had caught its hoof in a rabbit-hole and he had tumbled off. As he fell he had had the strangest impression that he was somehow falling into the rabbit-hole. When he picked himself up he found he was in a strange country lit by its own sun and nurtured by its own rain. In a wood very like the one he had just left, he found a mansion where a party of gentlemen — some of them rather odd — were all playing cards together.

Lady Pole had just got to the part where the gentlemen invited the lost huntsman to join them, when a slight sound — scarcely more than an indrawn breath — made Arabella turn. She discovered that Sir Walter had entered the room and was gazing down at his wife in dismay.

“You are tired,” he said to her.

Lady Pole looked up at her husband. Her expression at that moment was curious. There was sadness in it and pity too and, oddly enough, a little amusement. It was as if she were saying to herself, “Look at us! What a sad pair we make!” Aloud she said, “I am only as tired as I usually am. I must have walked for miles and miles last night. And danced for hours too!”

“Then you must rest,” he insisted. “Let me take you upstairs to Pampisford and she will take care of you.”

At first her ladyship seemed inclined to resist him. She seized Arabella’s hand and held it, as if to shew him that she would not consent to be parted from her. But then just as suddenly she gave it up and allowed him to lead her away.

At the door she turned. “Goodbye, Mrs Strange. I hope they will let you come again. I hope you will do me that honour. I see no one. Or rather, I see whole roomfuls of people, but not a Christian among them.”

Arabella stepped forward, intending to shake Lady Pole’s hand and to assure her that she would gladly come again, but Sir Walter had already removed her ladyship from the room. For the second time that day Arabella was left alone in the house in Harley-street.

A bell began to toll.

Naturally she was a little surprized after all that Sir Walter had said about the bells of Mary-le-bone standing silent out of deference to Lady Pole’s illness. This bell sounded very sad and far-away and it brought before her imagination all sorts of melancholy scenes …

… bleak, wind-swept fens and moors; empty fields with broken walls and gates hanging off their hinges; a black, ruined church; an open grave; a suicide buried at a lonely crossroads; a fire of bones blazing in the twilit snow; a gallows with a man swinging from its arm; another man crucified upon a wheel; an ancient spear plunged into the mud with a strange talisman, like a little leather finger, hanging from it; a scarecrow whose black rags blew about so violently in the wind that he seemed about to leap into the grey air and fly towards you on vast black wings …

“I must beg your pardon if you have seen any thing here to disturb you,” said Sir Walter, coming suddenly back into the room.

Arabella caught hold of a chair to steady herself.

“Mrs Strange? You are not well.” He took hold of her arm and helped her sit down. “May I fetch someone? Your husband? Her ladyship’s maid?”

“No, no,” said Arabella, a little out of breath. “I want no one, nothing. I thought … I did not know you were here. That is all.

“ Sir Walter stared at her in great concern. She tried to smile at him, but she was not quite sure that the smile turned out well.

He put his hands in his pockets, took them out, ran his fingers through his hair, and sighed deeply. “I dare say her ladyship has been telling you all sorts of odd tales,” he said, unhappily.

Arabella nodded.

“And hearing them has distressed you. I am very sorry for it.”

“No, no. Not at all. Her ladyship did talk a little of … of what seemed rather odd, but I did not mind it. Not in the least! I felt a little faint. But do not connect the two, I beg you! It was nothing to do with her ladyship! I had a sort of foolish idea that there was a sort of mirror before me with all sorts of strange landscapes in it and I thought I was falling into it. I suppose I must have been about to faint and your coming in just then prevented it. But it is very odd. I never did such a thing before.”

“Let me fetch Mr Strange.”

Arabella laughed. “You may if you wish, but I assure you he will be a great deal less concerned about me than you are. Mr Strange has never been much interested in other people’s indispositions. His own are quite another matter! But, there is no need to fetch any body. See! I am myself again. I am perfectly well.”

There was a little pause.

“Lady Pole …” began Arabella and paused, not knowing quite how to continue.

“Her ladyship is generally calm enough,” said Sir Walter, “not exactly at peace, you understand, but calm enough. But on the rare occasions when any one new comes to the house, it always excites her to these outlandish speeches. I am sure you are too good to repeat any thing of what she has said.”

“Oh! Of course! I would not repeat it for the world!”

“You are very kind.”

“And may … may I come again? Her ladyship seems to wish it very much and I would be very happy in the acquaintance.”

Sir Walter took a long moment to consider this proposal. Finally he nodded. Then he somehow turned his nod into a bow. “I shall consider that you do us both great honour,” he said. “Thank you.”

Strange and Arabella left the house in Harley-street and Strange was in high spirits. “I see the way to do it,” he told her. “Nothing could be simpler. It is a pity that I must wait for Norrell’s opinion before beginning or I believe I might solve the entire problem in the next half hour. As I see it, there are two crucial points. The first … Whatever is the matter?”

With a little “Oh!” Arabella had stopt.

It had suddenly occurred to her that she had given two entirely contradictory promises: one to Lady Pole to tell Strange about the gentleman in Yorkshire who had purchased a carpet; and the second to Sir Walter not to repeat any thing that Lady Pole had said. “It is nothing,” she said.

“And which of the many occupations that Sir Walter was preparing for you did you fix upon?”