Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (42 page)

35
The Nottinghamshire gentleman

November 1814

During strange’s three-year absence Mr Drawlight and Mr Lascelles had enjoyed a little revival of their influence over Mr Norrell. Any one wishing to talk to Mr Norrell or ask for Mr Norrell’s assistance had been obliged to apply first to them. They had advised Mr Norrell upon the best way of managing the Ministers and the Ministers upon the best way of managing Mr Norrell. As friends and counsellors of England’s most eminent magician their acquaintance had been solicited by all the wealthiest and most fashionable people in the kingdom.

After Strange’s return they continued to wait upon Mr Norrell as assiduously as ever, but now it was Strange’s opinion which Mr Norrell most wished to hear and Strange’s advice which he sought before any other. Naturally, this was not a state of affairs to please them and Drawlight, in particular, did all that was in his power to increase those little annoyances and resentments which each magician occasionally felt at the behaviour of the other.

“I cannot believe that I do not know something that would harm him,” he said to Lascelles. “There are some very odd stories about what he did in Spain. Several people have told me that he raised a whole army of dead soldiers to fight the French. Corpses with shattered limbs and eyes hanging by a thread and every sort of horror that you can imagine! What do you suppose Norrell would say if he heard that?”

Lascelles sighed. “I wish I could convince you of the futility of trying to manufacture a quarrel between them. They will do that themselves sooner or later.”

A few days after Strange’s visit to the King a crowd of Mr Norrell’s friends and admirers gathered in the library at Hanover-square with the object of admiring a new portrait of the two magicians by Mr Lawrence.
¹
Mr Lascelles and Mr Drawlight were there, as were Mr and Mrs Strange and several of the King’s Ministers.

The portrait shewed Mr Norrell in his plain grey coat and his old-fashioned wig. Both coat and wig seemed a little too large for him. He appeared to have withdrawn inside them and his small, blue eyes looked out at the world with a curious mixture of fearfulness and arrogance that put Sir Walter Pole in mind of his valet’s cat. Most people, it seemed, were having to put themselves to a little effort to find any thing flattering to say of Mr Norrell’s half of the picture, but everyone was happy to admire Strange’s half. Strange was painted behind Mr Norrell, half-sitting, half-leaning against a little table, entirely at his ease, with his mocking half-smile and his eyes full of smiles and secrets and spells — just as magicians’ eyes should be.

“Oh! it is an excellent thing,” enthused a lady. “See how the darkness of the mirror behind the figures sets off Mr Strange’s head.” “People always imagine that magicians and mirrors go together,” complained Mr Norrell. “There is no mirror in that part of my library.”

“Artists are tricky fellows, sir, forever reshaping the world according to some design of their own,” said Strange. “Indeed they are not unlike magicians in that. And yet he has made a curious piece of work of it. It is more like a door than a mirror — it is so dark. I can almost feel a draught coming from it. I do not like to see myself sitting so close to it — I am afraid that I may catch cold.”

One of the Ministers, who had never been in Mr Norrell’s library before, made some admiring remark about its harmonious proportions and style of fitting up, which led other people to say how beautiful they thought it.

“It is certainly a very fine room,” agreed Drawlight, “but it is really nothing in comparison with the library at Hurtfew Abbey! That is truly a charming room. I never in my life saw any thing so delightful, so complete. There are little pointed arches and a dome with pillars in the Gothic style and the carvings of leaves — dried and twisted leaves, as if withered by some horrid winter blast, all done in good English oak and ash and elm — are the most perfect things I ever saw. ‘Mr Norrell,’ I said, when I saw them, ‘there are depths in you that we have not suspected. You are quite a Romantic, sir.’ ”

Mr Norrell looked as if he did not much like to hear the library at Hurtfew talked about so much, but Mr Drawlight continued regardless: “It is like being in a wood, a pretty little wood, late in the year, and the bindings of the books, being all tan and brown and dry with age, compound that impression. Indeed there are as many books, it seems, as the leaves in a wood.” Mr Drawlight paused. “And were you ever at Hurtfew, Mr Strange?”

Strange replied that he had not yet had that pleasure.

“Oh, you should go,” Drawlight smiled spitefully. “Indeed you should. It is truly wonderful.”

Norrell looked anxiously at Strange but Strange did not reply. He had turned his back on them all and was gazing intently at his own portrait.

As the others moved away and began to speak of something else, Sir Walter murmured, “You must not mind his malice.”

“Mmmm?” said Strange. “Oh, it is not that. It is the mirror. Does it not look as if one could just walk into it? It would not be so difficult I think. One could use a spell of revelation. No, of unravelling. Or perhaps both. The way would be clear before one. One step forward and away.” He looked around him and said, “And there are days when I would be away.”

“Where?” Sir Walter was surprized; there was no place he found so much to his liking as London with its gaslights and its shops, its coffee-houses and clubs, its thousand pretty women and its thousand varieties of gossip and he imagined it must be the same for every one.

“Oh, wherever men of my sort used to go, long ago. Wandering on paths that other men have not seen. Behind the sky. On the other side of the rain.”

Strange sighed again and his right foot tapped impatiently on Mr Norrell’s carpet, suggesting that, if he did not make up his mind soon to go to the forgotten paths, then his feet would carry him there of their own accord.

By two o’clock the visitors had gone and Mr Norrell, who was rather anxious to avoid any conversation with Strange, went upstairs and hid himself away in his little room at the back of the house on the second floor. He sat down at his table and began to work. Very soon he had forgot all about Strange and the library at Hurtfew and all the disagreeable sensations which Drawlight’s speech had produced. He was therefore somewhat dismayed when a few minutes later there was a knock at the door and Strange walked in.

“I beg your pardon for disturbing you, sir,” he said, “but there is something I wish to ask you.”

“Oh!” said Mr Norrell nervously. “Well, of course I am always very happy to answer any questions you may have, but just now there is a piece of business which I fear I cannot neglect. I have spoken to Lord Liverpool about our plan to secure the coast of Great Britain from storms by magic and he is quite delighted with it. Lord Liverpool says that every year property to the value of many hundreds of thousands of pounds is destroyed by the sea. Lord Liverpool says that he considers the preservation of property to be the first task of magic in peacetime. As always his lordship wishes it done immediately and it is a great deal of work. The county of Cornwall alone will take a week. I fear we must postpone our conversation until some other time.”

Strange smiled. “If the magic is as urgent as that, sir, then I had better assist you and we can talk while we work. Where do you begin?”

“At Yarmouth.”

“And what are you using? Belasis?”

“No, not Belasis. There is a reconstruction of Stokesey’s magic or calming stormy waters in Lanchester’s
Language of Birds
. I am not so foolish as to suppose that Lanchester greatly resembles Stokesey but he is the best we have. I have made some revisions to Lanchester and I am adding Pevensey’s spells of Ward and Watch.”
²
Mr Norrell pushed some papers towards Strange. Strange studied the papers and then he too began to work.

After a while Strange said, “I recently found a reference in Ormskirk’s
Revelations of Thirty-Six Other Worlds
to the kingdom that lies behind mirrors, a kingdom which is apparently full of the most convenient roads by which a traveller may get from one place to another.”

This would not ordinarily have been a subject to please Mr Norrell, but he was so relieved to discover that Strange did not intend to quarrel with him about the library at Hurtfew that he grew quite communicative. “Oh yes, indeed! There is indeed a path which joins all the mirrors of the world. It was well-known to the Great Mediaevals. No doubt they trod it often. I fear I cannot give you any more precise information. The writers I have seen all describe it in different ways. Ormskirk says it is a road across a wide, dark moor, whereas Hickman calls it a vast house with many dark passages and great staircases.
³
Hickman says that within this house there are stone bridges spanning deep chasms and canals of black water flowing between stone walls — to what destination or for what purpose no one knows.” Suddenly Mr Norrell was in an excellent humour. To sit quietly doing magic with Mr Strange was to him the very height of enjoyment. “And how does the article for the next
Gentleman’s Magazine
come along?” he asked.

Strange thought for a moment. “I have not quite completed it,” he said.

“What is it about? No, do not tell me! I greatly look forward to reading it! Perhaps you will bring it with you tomorrow?”

“Oh! Tomorrow certainly.”

That evening Arabella entered the drawing-room of her house in Soho-square and was somewhat surprized to discover that the carpet was now covered with small pieces of paper upon which were written spells and notes and fragments of Norrell’s conversation. Strange was standing in the middle of the room, staring down at the papers and pulling his hair.

“What in the world can I put in the next article for the
Gentleman’s Magazine
?” he demanded.

“I do not know, my love. Has Mr Norrell made no suggestion?” Strange frowned. “For some reason he thinks it is already done.”

“Well, what about trees and magic?” suggested Arabella. “You were only saying the other day how interesting the subject is and very much neglected.”

Strange took a clean sheet of paper and began rapidly scribbling notes upon it. “Oak trees can be befriended and will aid you against your enemies if they think your cause is just. Birch woods are well known for providing doors into Faerie. Ash-trees will never cease to mourn until the Raven King comes home again.
⁴
No, no! That will never do. I cannot say that. Norrell would have a fit.” He crumpled up the paper and threw it in the fire.

“Oh! Then perhaps you will listen for a moment to what I have to say,” said Arabella. “I paid a visit to Lady Westby’s house today, where I met a very odd young lady who seems to be under the impression that you are teaching her magic.”

Strange looked up briefly. “I am not teaching any one magic,” he said.

“No, my love,” said Arabella patiently, “I know that you are not. That is what makes it so extraordinary.”

“And what is the name of this confused young person?”

“Miss Gray.”

“I do not know her.”

“A smart, stylish girl, but not handsome. She is apparently very rich and absolutely wild for magic. Everybody says so. She has a fan decorated with your pictures — yours and Mr Norrell’s — and she has read every word that you and Lord Portishead have ever published.”

Strange stared thoughtfully at her for several seconds, so that Arabella mistakenly supposed he must be considering what she had just said. But when he spoke it was only to say in a tone of gentle reproof, “My love, you are standing on my papers.” He took her arm and moved her gently aside.

“She told me that she has paid you four hundred guineas for the privilege of being your pupil. She says that in return you have sent her letters with descriptions of spells and recommendations of books to read.”

“Four hundred guineas! Well, that is odd. I might forget a young lady, but I do not think I could forget four hundred guineas.” A piece of paper caught Strange’s eye and he picked it up and began to read it.

“I thought at first that she might have invented this story in order to make me jealous and cause a quarrel between us, but her mania does not seem to be of that sort. It is not your person she admires, it is your profession. I cannot make head nor tail of it. What can these letters be? Who can have written them?”

Strange picked up a little memorandum book (it happened to be Arabella’s housekeeping book and nothing to do with him at all) and began to scribble notes in it.

“Jonathan!”

“Mmm?”

“What should I say to Miss Gray when I see her next?”

“Ask her about the four hundred guineas. Tell her I have not received it yet.”

“Jonathan! This is a serious matter.”

“Oh! I quite agree. There are few things as serious as four hundred guineas.”

Arabella said again that it was the oddest thing in the world. She told Strange that she was quite concerned upon Miss Gray’s account and she said she wished he would speak to Miss Gray so that the mystery might be resolved. But she said all this for her own satisfaction, since she knew perfectly well that he was no longer attending to her.

A few days later Strange and Sir Walter Pole were playing at billiards at the Bedford in Covent-garden. The game had come to an
impasse
as Sir Walter had begun, as usual, to accuse Strange of transporting billiard balls about the table by magic.

Strange declared that he had done no such thing.

“I saw you touch your nose,” complained Sir Walter.

“Good God!” cried Strange. “A man may sneeze, mayn’t he? I have a cold.”

Two other friends of Strange and Sir Walter, Lieutenant-Colonel Colquhoun Grant and Colonel Manningham, who were watching the game, said that if Strange and Sir Walter merely wished to quarrel then was it entirely necessary for them to occupy the billiards table to do it? Colquhoun Grant and Colonel Manningham hinted that there were other people — more interested in the game itself — who were waiting to play. This, developing into a more general argument, unfortunately led two country gentlemen to put their heads round the door and inquire when the table might be free for a game, unaware that on Thursday evenings the billiards room at the Bedford was generally considered to be the personal property of Sir Walter Pole and Jonathan Strange and their particular friends.