Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (40 page)

Strange was somewhat lost for an answer to this question. While he was considering what to say, the King continued, “Of course if you are a wicked demon, then you should know that I am Eternal and cannot die. If I discover that you are my Enemy, I shall stamp my foot and send you straight back to Hell!”

“Really? Your Majesty must teach me the trick of that. I should like to know something so useful. But permit me to observe that, with such powerful magic at your command, Your Majesty has nothing to fear from accompanying me outside. We should leave as quickly and discreetly as we can. The Willises are sure to be here soon. Your Majesty must be very quiet!”

The King said nothing, but he tapped his nose and looked very sly.

Strange’s next task was to discover a way out without alerting the madhouse attendants. The King was no help at all in this regard. When asked where the various doors led to, he gave it as his opinion that one door led to America, another to Everlasting Perdition and a third might possibly be the way to next Friday. So Strange picked one — the one the King thought led to America — and quickly escorted His Majesty through several rooms. All had painted ceilings in which English monarchs were depicted as dashing about the sky in fiery chariots, vanquishing persons who symbolized Envy, Sin and Sedition, and establishing Temples of Virtue, Palaces of Eternal Justice and other useful institutions of that sort. But though the ceilings were full of the most intense activity, the rooms beneath them were forlorn, threadbare and full of dust and spiders. The furniture was all covered up with sheets so that it appeared as if these chairs and tables must have died some time ago and these were their gravestones.

They came to a sort of back-staircase. The King, who had taken Strange’s warning to be quiet very much to heart, insisted upon tip-toeing down the stairs in the highly exaggerated manner of a small child. This took some time.

“Well, Your Majesty,” said Strange, cheerfully, when at last they reached the bottom, “I think we managed that rather well. I do not hear any sounds of pursuit. The Duke of Wellington would be glad to employ either of us as Intelligence Officers. I do not believe that Captain Somers-Cocks or Colquhoun Grant himself could have crossed enemy territory with more …”

He was interrupted by the King playing a very loud, very triumphant blare upon his flute.

“D—!” said Strange and listened for sounds of the madhouse attendants coming or, worse still, the Willises.

But nothing happened. Somewhere close at hand there was an odd, irregular thumping and clattering, accompanied by screams and wailing — rather as if someone were being beaten by a whole cupboardful of brooms at once. Apart from that, all was quiet.

A door opened on to a broad stone terrace. From here the land descended steeply and at the foot of the slope lay a Park. On the right a long, double line of winter trees could be just seen.

Arm in arm the King and Strange walked along the terrace to the corner of the Castle. Here Strange found a path leading down the slope and into the Park. They descended this path and had not walked far into the Park when they came upon an ornamental pool, bounded by a low stone rim.
³
At its centre stood a little stone pavilion decorated with carved creatures. Some resembled dogs — except that their bodies were long and low like lizards and each had a row of spines along its back. Others were meant to represent curved stone dolphins which had somehow contrived to fasten themselves to the walls. On the roof half a dozen classical ladies and gentlemen were sitting in classical attitudes, holding vases. It had clearly been the architect’s intention that fountains of water should gush out of the mouths of all these strange animals and out of the vases on the roof and tumble decoratively into the pool, but just now all was frozen and silent.

Strange was about to make some remark on the melancholy sight which this frozen pool presented, when he heard several shouts. He looked back and saw that a group of people was descending the slope of the Castle very rapidly. As they drew nearer he saw that they were four in number: two gentlemen he had never seen before and the two madhouse attendants — the one with the face like a Cheshire cheese and the one who had been sent to fetch the Willises. They all looked angry.

The gentlemen hurried up, frowning in an important, offended sort of manner. They shewed every symptom of having dressed in a great hurry. One was attempting to fasten the buttons of his coat, but without much success. As soon as he did up the buttons, they flew open again. He was about Mr Norrell’s age and wore an old-fashioned wig (rather like Mr Norrell’s) which from time to time made a little jump and spun round on his head. But he differed from Mr Norrell in that he was rather tall, rather handsome and had an imposing, decisive manner. The other gentleman (who was several years younger) was plagued by his boots, which seemed to have developed opinions of their own. While he was struggling to walk forwards, they were attempting to carry him off in an entirely different direction. Strange could only suppose that his earlier magic had been rather more successful than he had expected and had made the clothes themselves difficult to manage.

The tallest gentleman (the one who wore the playful wig) gave Strange a furious stare. “Upon whose authority is the King outside?” he demanded.

Strange shrugged. “Mine, I suppose.”

“You! Who are you?”

Not liking the manner in which he was addressed, Strange retorted, “Who are you?”

“I am Dr John Willis. This is my brother, Dr Robert Darling Willis. We are the King’s physicians. We have charge of the King’s person by order of the Queen’s Council. No one is allowed to see His Majesty without our permission. I ask you again: who are you?”

“I am Jonathan Strange. I have come at the request of their Royal Highnesses the Dukes of York, Clarence, Sussex, Kent and Cambridge to see whether or not His Majesty might be cured by magic.”

“Ha!” cried Dr John contemptuously. “Magic! That is chiefly used for killing Frenchmen, is it not?”

Dr Robert laughed in a sarcastic manner. But the effect of cold, scientific disdain was rather spoilt when his boots suddenly carried him off with such force that he banged his nose against a tree.

“Well, Magician!” said Dr John. “You mistake your man if you think you may mistreat me and my servants with impunity. You will admit, I dare say, that you glued the doors of the Castle shut by magic, so that my men could not prevent you leaving?”

“Certainly not!” declared Strange. “I did nothing of the sort! I
might
have done it,” he conceded, “if there had been any need. But your men are as idle as they are impertinent! When His Majesty and I left the Castle they were nowhere to be seen!”

The first madhouse attendant (the one with a face like a Cheshire cheese) almost exploded upon hearing this. “That is not true!” he cried. “Dr John, Dr Robert, I beg that you will not listen to these lies! Martin here,” he indicated the other madhouse attendant, “has had his voice entirely taken from him. He could not make a sound to raise the alarm!” The other madhouse attendant mouthed and gestured furiously in confirmation. “As for me, sir, I was in the passageway at the bottom of the stairs, when the door opened at the top. I was just readying myself to speak to this magician — and some strong words I was going to give him too, sir, on your behalf — when I was pulled by magic into a broom cupboard and the door shut fast upon me …”

“What nonsense!” cried Strange.

“Nonsense, is it?” cried the man. “And I suppose you did not make the brooms in the cupboard beat me! I am all over bruises.”

This, at least, was perfectly true. His face and hands were covered in red marks.

“There, Magician!” cried Dr John, triumphantly. “What do you say now? Now that all your tricks are exposed?”

“Oh, really!” said Strange. “He has done that to himself to make his story more convincing!”

The King blew a vulgar noise on his flute.

“Be assured,” said Dr John, “that the Queen’s Council will soon hear of your impudence!” Then, turning away from Strange, he cried out, “Your Majesty! Come here!”

The King skipped nimbly behind Strange.

“You will oblige me by returning the King to my care,” said Dr John.

“I will do no such thing,” declared Strange.

“And you know how lunatics should be treated, do you?” said Dr Robert with a sneer. “You have studied the matter?”

“I know that to keep a man without companionship, to deny him exercise and a change of air cannot possibly cure any thing,” said Strange. “It is barbaric! I would not keep a dog so.”

“In speaking as you do,” added Dr Robert, “you merely betray your ignorance. The solitude and tranquility of which you complain so vigorously are the cornerstones of our whole system of treating the King.”

“Oh!” said Strange. “You call it a system, do you? And what does it consist of, this system?”

“There are three main principles,” declared Dr Robert. “Intimidation …”

The King played a few sad notes upon his flute …

“… isolation …”

… which became a lonely little tune …

“… and restraint.”

… ending in a long note like a sigh.

“In this way,” continued Dr Robert, “all possible sources of excitement are suppressed and the patient is denied material with which to construct his fantasies and improper notions.”

“But in the end,” added Dr John, “it is by the imposition of his will upon his patient that the doctor effects his cure. It is the forcefulness of the doctor’s own character which determines his success or failure. It was observed by many people that our father could subdue lunatics merely by fixing them with his eye.”

“Really?” said Strange, becoming interested in spite of himself. “I had never thought of it before, but something of the sort is certainly true of magic. There are all sorts of occasions when the success of a piece of magic depends upon the forcefulness of the magician’s character.”

“Indeed?” said Dr John, glancing briefly to his left.

“Yes. Take Martin Pale for example. Now he …” Strange’s eyes involuntarily followed where Dr John had looked. One of the madhouse attendants — the one who could not speak — was creeping around the ornamental pool towards the King with a pale-coloured something in his hands. Strange could not think at first what it could be. And then he recognized it. It was a strait waistcoat.

Several things happened at once. Strange shouted something — he did not know what — the other madhouse attendant lunged towards the King — both Willises attempted to grab Strange — the King blew piercing shrieks of alarm on his flute — and there was an odd noise as if a hundred or so people had all cleared their throats at once.

Everyone stopped and looked about them. The sound appeared to have come from the little stone pavilion at the centre of the frozen pool. Suddenly out of the mouths of each stone creature a dense white cloud appeared, as if they had all exhaled at once. The breath-clouds glittered and sparkled in the thin, misty light, and then fell upon the ice with a faint tinkling sound.

There was a silence, followed immediately by a horrible sound like blocks of marble being ripped apart. Then the stone creatures tore themselves from the walls of the pavilion and began to crawl and waddle down and across the ice towards the Willises. Their blank stone eyes rolled in their sockets. They opened their stone mouths and from every stone throat came a plume of water. Stone tails snaked from side to side and stone legs went stiffly up and down. The lead pipes which conducted water to their mouths extended magically behind them.

The Willises and the madhouse attendants stared, quite unable to comprehend what was happening. The grotesque creatures crawled, dragging their pipes behind them and dousing the Willises with water. The Willises shrieked and leapt about, more from fright than because of any real hurt they had sustained.

The madhouse attendants ran away and as to the Willises remaining any longer with the King, there could be no question of it. In the cold air their drenched clothes were turning icy.

“Magician!” cried Dr John, as he turned to run back to the Castle. “Why! It is just another name for liar! Lord Liverpool shall know of it, Magician! He shall know how you use the King’s physicians! Ow! Ow!” He would have said more but the stone figures on the roof of the pavilion had stood up and begun pelting him with stones.

Strange merely bestowed a contemptuous smile on both Willises. But he was acting more confident than he felt. The truth was he was beginning to feel decidedly uncomfortable. Whatever magic had just been done, had not been done by him.

33
Place the moon at my eyes

November 1814

It was most mysterious. Could someone in the Castle be a magician? One of the servants perhaps? Or one of the Princesses? It did not seem likely. Could it be Mr Norrell’s doing? Strange pictured his tutor sitting in his little room upon the second floor at Hanover-square peering into his silver dish, watching all that had happened and finally driving away the Willises with magic. It was possible, he supposed. Bringing statues to life was, after all, something of a speciality of Mr Norrell’s. It had been the first magic to bring him to the public notice. And yet, and yet … Why would Mr Norrell suddenly decide to help him? Out of the kindness of his heart? Hardly. Besides there had been a dark humour in the magic which was not like Norrell at all. The magician had not merely wanted to frighten the Willises; he had wanted to make them ridiculous. No, it could not be Norrell. But who then?

The King did not seem in the least fatigued. In fact he was more inclined to dance and skip about and generally rejoice over the defeat of the Willises. So, thinking that further exercise would certainly do His Majesty no harm, Strange walked on.

The white mist had erased all detail and colour from the landscape and left it ghostly. Earth and sky were blended together in the same insubstantial grey element.

The King took Strange’s arm in a most affectionate manner and seemed to have quite forgot that he disliked magicians. He began to talk about the things that preoccupied him in his madness. He was convinced that a great many disasters had befallen Great Britain since he had become mad. He seemed to imagine that the wreck of his own reason must be matched by a corresponding wreck of the kingdom. Chief among these delusions was the belief that London had been drowned in a great flood. “… and when they came to me and said that the cold, grey waters had closed over the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral and that London was become a domain of fishes and sea-monsters, my feelings are not to be described! I believe I wept for three weeks together! Now the buildings are all covered in barnacles and the markets sell nothing but oysters and sea-urchins! Mr Fox told me that three Sundays ago he went to St Vedast in Foster-lane where he heard an excellent sermon preached by a turbot.
¹
But I have a plan for my kingdom’s restoration! I have dispatched ambassadors to the King of the Fishes with proposals that I should marry a mermaid and so end the strife between our two great Nations! …”

The other subject which preoccupied His Majesty was that of the silver-haired person whom only he could see. “He says he is a king,” he whispered eagerly, “but I believe he is an angel! With all that silver hair I think it very likely. And those two Evil Spirits — the ones you were talking to — he has been abusing them most horribly. It is my belief he has come to smite them and cast them into a fiery pit! Then, no doubt, he will carry you and me away to glory in Hanover!”

“Heaven,” said Strange. “Your Majesty means Heaven.”

They walked on. Snow began to fall, a slow tumble of white over a pale grey world. It was very quiet.

Suddenly the sound of a flute was heard. The music was unutterably lonely and mournful, but at the same time full of nobility.

Thinking that it must be the King who was playing, Strange turned to watch. But the King was standing with his hands at his side and his flute in his pocket. Strange looked around. The mist was not dense enough to hide anyone who might have been standing near them. There was no one. The Park was empty.

“Ah, listen!” cried the King. “He is describing the tragedy of the King of Great Britain. That run of notes there! That is for past powers all gone! That melancholy phrase! That is for his Reason destroyed by deceitful politicians and the wicked behaviour of his sons. That little tune fit to break your heart — that is for the beautiful young creature whom he adored when he was a boy and was forced by his friends to give up. Ah, God! How he wept then!”

Tears rolled down the King’s face. He began to perform a slow, grave dance, waving his body and his arms from side to side and spinning slowly over the ground. The music moved away, deeper into the Park and the King danced after it.

Strange was mystified. The music seemed to be leading the King in the direction of a grove of trees. At least Strange had supposed it was a grove. He was almost certain that a moment ago he had seen a dozen trees — probably fewer. But now the grove had become a thicket — no, a wood — a deep, dark wood where the trees were ancient and wild. Their great branches resembled twisted limbs and their roots tumbling nests of snakes. They were twined about thickly with ivy and mistletoe. There was a little path between the trees; it was pitted with deep, ice-rimmed hollows and fringed with frost-stiffened weeds. Pale pinpricks of light deep within the wood suggested a house where no house ought to be.

“Your Majesty!” cried Strange. He ran after the King and caught him by the hands. “Your Majesty must forgive me, but I do not quite like the look of those trees. I think perhaps that we would be as well to return to the Castle.”

The King was quite enraptured by the music and did not wish to leave. He grumbled and pulled his arm away from Strange’s grasp. Strange caught him again and half-led, half-dragged him back towards the gate.

But the invisible flute-player did not seem inclined to give them up so easily. The music suddenly grew louder; it was all around them. Another tune crept in almost imperceptibly and blended sweetly with the first.

“Ah! Listen! Oh, listen!” cried the King, spinning round. “He is playing for you now! That harsh melody is for your wicked tutor who will not teach you what you have every right to learn. Those discordant notes describe your anger at being prevented from making new discoveries. That slow, sad march is for the great library he is too selfish to shew you.”

“How in the world …” began Strange and then stopped. He heard it too — the music that described his whole life. He realized for the first time how full of sadness his existence was. He was surrounded by mean-spirited men and women who hated him and were secretly jealous of his talent. He knew now that every angry thought he had ever had was justified and that every generous thought was misplaced. His enemies were despicable and his friends were treacherous. Norrell (naturally) was worst of all, but even Arabella was weak and unworthy of his love.

“Ah!” sighed His Majesty, “So you have been betrayed too.”

“Yes,” said Strange, sadly.

They were facing the wood again. The lights among the trees — tiny as they were — conveyed to Strange a strong idea of the house and its comforts. He could almost see the soft candlelight falling upon the comfortable chairs, the ancient hearths where cheerful fires blazed, the glasses of hot spiced wine which would be provided to warm them after their walk through the dark wood. The lights suggested other ideas too. “I think there is a library,” he said.

“Oh, certainly!” declared the King, clapping his hands together in his enthusiasm. “You shall read the books and when your eyes grow tired, I shall read them to you! But we must hurry! Listen to the music! He grows impatient for us to follow him!”

His Majesty reached out to take Strange’s left arm. In order to accommodate him, Strange found that he must move something he was holding in his left hand. It was Ormskirk’s
Revelations of Thirty-Six Other Worlds
.

“Oh,
that
!” he thought. “Well, I do not need that any longer. There are sure to be better books at the house in the wood!” He opened his hand and let
Revelations
fall upon the snowy ground.

The snow fell thicker. The flute-player played. They hurried towards the wood. As they ran, the King’s scarlet nightcap fell over his eyes. Strange reached up and straightened it. As he did so, he suddenly remembered what it was that he knew about the colour red: it was powerful protection against enchantment.

“Hurry! Hurry!” cried the King.

The flute-player played a series of rapid notes which rose and fell to mimic the sound of the wind. A real wind appeared out of nowhere and half-lifted, half-pushed them over the ground towards the wood. When it set them down again they were a great deal nearer to the wood.

“Excellent!” cried the King.

The nightcap caught Strange’s eye again.

… Protection against enchantment …

The flute-player conjured up another wind. This one blew the King’s nightcap off.

“No matter! No matter!” cried the King cheerfully. “He has promised me nightcaps a-plenty when we get to his house.”

But Strange let go of the King’s arm and staggered back through the snow and the wind to fetch it. It lay in the snow, bright scarlet among all the misty shades of white and grey.

… Protection against enchantment …

He remembered saying to one of the Willises that in order to practise magic successfully a magician must employ the forcefulness of his own character; why should he think of that now?

Place the moon at my eyes
(he thought)
and her whiteness shall devour the false sights the deceiver has placed there
.

The moon’s scarred white disc appeared suddenly — not in the sky, but somewhere else. If he had been obliged to say exactly where, he would have said that it was inside his own head. The sensation was not a pleasant one. All he could think of, all he could see was the moon’s face, like a sliver of ancient bone. He forgot about the King. He forgot he was a magician. He forgot Mr Norrell. He forgot his own name.

He forgot everything except the moon …

The moon vanished. Strange looked up and found himself in a snowy place a little distance from a dark wood. Between him and the wood stood the blind King in his dressing-gown. The King must have walked on when he stopped. But without his guide to lean on, the King felt lost and afraid. He was crying out, “Magician! Magician! Where are you?”

The wood no longer struck Strange as a welcoming place. It appeared to him now as it had at first — sinister, unknowable,
unEnglish
. As for the lights, he could barely see them; they were the merest pricks of white in the darkness and suggested nothing except that the inhabitants of the house could not afford many candles.

“Magician!” cried the King.

“I am here, Your Majesty.”

Place a swarm of bees at my ears
(he thought)
. Bees love truth and will destroy the deceiver’s lies
.

A low murmuring noise filled his ears, blocking out the music of the flute-player. It was very like language and Strange thought that in a little while he would understand it. It grew, filling his head and his chest to the very tips of his fingers and toes. Even his hair seemed electrified and his skin buzzed and shook with the noise. For one horrible moment he thought that his mouth was full of bees and that there were bees buzzing and flying under his skin, in his guts and his ears.

The buzzing stopped. Strange heard the flute-player’s music again but it did not sound as sweet as before and it no longer seemed to be describing his life.

Place salt in my mouth
(he thought)
lest the deceiver attempt to delight me with the taste of honey or disgust me with the taste of ashes
.

This part of the spell had no effect whatsoever.
²
Nail my hand with an iron nail so that I shall not raise it to do the deceiver’s bidding
.

“Aaaghh! Dear God!” screamed Strange. There was an excruciating pain in the palm of his left hand. When it ceased (as suddenly as it had begun) he no longer felt compelled to hurry towards the wood.

Place my heart in a secret place so that all my desires shall be my own and the deceiver shall find no hold there
.

He pictured Arabella, as he had seen her a thousand times, prettily dressed and seated in a drawing-room among a crowd of people who were all laughing and talking. He gave her his heart. She took it and placed it quietly in the pocket of her gown. No one observed what she did.

Strange next applied the spell to the King and at the last step he gave the King’s heart to Arabella to keep in her pocket. It was interesting to observe the magic from the outside. There had been so many unusual occurrences in the King’s poor head that the moon’s sudden appearance there seemed to occasion him no surprize. But he did not care for the bees; he was brushing them away for some time afterwards.

When the spell was finished, the flute-player abruptly ceased playing.

“And now, Your Majesty,” said Strange, “I think it is time we returned to the Castle. You and I, Your Majesty, are a British King and a British magician. Though Great Britain may desert us, we have no right to desert Great Britain. She may have need of us yet.”

“True, true! I swore an oath at my coronation always to serve her! Oh, my poor country!” The King turned and waved in the direction he supposed the mysterious flute-player to be. “Goodbye! Goodbye, dear sir! God bless you for your kindness to George III!”

Revelations of Thirty-Six Other Worlds
lay half-covered up by the snow
.
Strange picked it up and brushed off the snow. He looked back. The dark wood had gone. In its place was a most innocent clump of five leafless beech trees.

On the ride back to London Strange was deep in thought. He was aware that he ought to have been disturbed by his experience at Windsor, perhaps even frightened. But his curiosity and excitement far exceeded his uneasiness. Besides, whatever, or whoever, had done the magic, he had defeated them and imposed his will upon theirs. They had been strong, but he had been stronger. The whole adventure had confirmed something he had long suspected: that there was more magic in England than Mr Norrell admitted.

Consider the matter from whichever point of view he would, he continually came back to the silver-haired person whom only the King could see. He tried to recall what exactly the King had said about this person, but he could recall nothing beyond the simple fact of his silver hair.

He reached London at about half past four. The city was growing dark. Lights were glowing in all the shops, and the lamplighters were out in the streets. When he got to the corner of Oxford-street and New Bond-street he turned aside and rode to Hanover-square. He found Mr Norrell in his library, drinking tea.