Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (54 page)

“No, no,” said the gentleman, “This must be done …”

At that instant Stephen experienced the queerest sensation: he was plucked out of his chair and stood upon his feet. At the same moment the coffee-house disappeared and was replaced by a pitch-black, ice-cold nothingness. Though he could see nothing at all, Stephen had the sense that he was in a wide, open place. A bitter wind howled about his ears and a thick rain seemed to be falling upon him from all directions at once.

“… properly,” continued the gentleman in exactly the same tone as before. “There is a very fine piece of moss-oak hereabouts. At least I think I remember …” His voice, which had been somewhere near Stephen’s right ear, moved away. “Stephen!” he cried, “Have you brought a flaughter, a rutter and a tusker?”

“What, sir? Which, sir? No, sir. I have not brought any of those things. To own the truth, I did not quite understand that we were going any where.” Stephen found that his feet and ancles were deep in cold water. He tried to step aside. Immediately the ground lurched most alarmingly and he sank suddenly into it up to the middle of his calves. He screamed.

“Mmm?” inquired the gentleman.

“I … I would never presume to interrupt you, sir. But the ground appears to be swallowing me up.”

“It is a bog,” said the gentleman, helpfully.

“It is certainly a most terrifying substance.” Stephen attempted to mimic the gentleman’s calm, uninterested tone. He knew only too well that the gentleman set a great value upon dignity in every situation and he feared that if he let the gentleman hear how terrified he was, there was every possibility that the gentleman would grow disgusted with him and wander off, leaving him to be sucked into the bog. He tried to move, but found nothing solid beneath his feet. He flailed about, almost fell and the only result was that his feet and legs slipped a little further into the watery mud. He screamed again. The bog made a series of most unpleasant sucking noises.

“Ah, God! I take the liberty of observing, sir, that I am sinking by degrees. Ah!” He began to slip sideways. “You have often been so kind as to express an affection for me, sir, and to say how much you prefer my society to that of any other person. If it would not inconvenience you in any way, perhaps I might prevail upon you to rescue me from this horrible bog?”

The gentleman did not trouble to reply. Instead Stephen found himself plucked by magic out of the bog and stood upon his feet. He was quite weak with fright and would have liked to lie down, but dared not move. The ground here seemed solid enough, but it was unpleasantly wet and he had no idea where the bog was.

“I would gladly help you, sir,” he called into the darkness, “but I dare not move for fear of falling into the bog again!”

“Oh, it does not matter!” said the gentleman. “In truth, there is nothing to do but wait. Moss-oak is most easily discovered at dawn.”

“But dawn is not for another nine hours!” exclaimed Stephen in horror.

“No, indeed! Let us sit down and wait.”

“Here, sir? But this is a dreadful place. Black and cold and awful!”

“Oh, quite! It is most disagreeable!” agreed the gentleman with aggravating calmness. He fell silent then and Stephen could only suppose that he was pursuing this mad plan of waiting for the dawn.

The icy wind blew upon Stephen; the damp seeped up into every part of his being; the blackness pressed down upon him; and the long hours passed with excruciating slowness. He had no expectation of being able to sleep, but at some time during the night he experienced a little relief from the misery of his situation. It was not that he fell asleep exactly, but he did fall to dreaming.

In his dream he had gone to the pantry to fetch someone a slice of a magnificent pork pie. But when he cut the pie open he found that there was very little pork inside it. Most of the interior was taken up by the city of Birmingham. Within the pie-crust forges and smithies smoked and engines pounded. One of the citizens, a civil-looking person, happened to stroll out from the cut that Stephen had made and when his glance fell upon Stephen, he said …

Just then a high, mournful sound broke in upon Stephen’s dream — a slow, sad song in an unknown language and Stephen understood without ever actually waking that the gentleman with the thistle-down hair was singing.

It may be laid down as a general rule that if a man begins to sing, no one will take any notice of his song except his fellow human beings. This is true even if his song is surpassingly beautiful. Other men may be in raptures at his skill, but the rest of creation is, by and large, unmoved. Perhaps a cat or a dog may look at him; his horse, if it is an exceptionally intelligent beast, may pause in cropping the grass, but that is the extent of it. But when the fairy sang, the whole world listened to him. Stephen felt clouds pause in their passing; he felt sleeping hills shift and murmur; he felt cold mists dance. He understood for the first time that the world is not dumb at all, but merely waiting for someone to speak to it in a language it understands. In the fairy’s song the earth recognized the names by which it called itself.

Stephen began to dream again. This time he dreamt that hills walked and the sky wept. Trees came and spoke to him and told him their secrets and also whether or not he might regard them as friends or enemies. Important destinies were hidden inside pebbles and crumpled leaves. He dreamt that everything in the world — stones and rivers, leaves and fire — had a purpose which it was determined to carry out with the utmost rigour, but he also understood that it was possible sometimes to persuade things to a different purpose.

When he awoke it was dawn. Or something like dawn. The light was watery, dim and incomparably sad. Vast, grey, gloomy hills rose up all around them and in between the hills there was a wide expanse of black bog. Stephen had never seen a landscape so calculated to reduce the onlooker to utter despair in an instant.

“This is one of your kingdoms, I suppose, sir?” he said.

“My kingdoms?” exclaimed the gentleman in surprize. “Oh, no! This is Scotland!”

The gentleman disappeared suddenly — and reappeared a moment later with an armful of tools. There was an axe and a spit and three things Stephen had never seen before. One was a little like a hoe, one was a little like a spade and the last was a very strange object, something between a spade and a scythe. He handed all of them to Stephen, who examined them with a puzzled air. “Are they new, sir? They shine so brightly.”

“Well, obviously one cannot employ tools of ordinary metal for such a magical undertaking as I am proposing. These are made of a compound of quicksilver and starshine. Now, Stephen, we must look for a patch of ground where the dew has not settled and if we dig there we are sure to find moss-oak!”

All through the glen all the grasses and tiny coloured bog-plants were covered with dew. Stephen’s clothes, hands, hair and skin had a velvety, grey bloom, and the gentleman’s hair — which was always extraordinary — had added the sparkle of a million tiny spheres of water to its customary brilliance. He appeared to be wearing a jewelled halo.

The gentleman walked slowly across the glen, his eyes fixed upon the ground. Stephen followed.

“Ah!” cried the gentleman. “Here we are!”

How the gentleman knew this, Stephen could not tell.

They were standing in the middle of a boggy expanse, exactly like every other part of the glen. There was no distinguishing tree or rock nearby to mark the spot. But the gentleman strode on with a confident air until he came to a shallow depression. In the middle of the depression was a long, broad stripe where there was no dew at all.

“Dig here, Stephen!”

The gentleman proved surprizingly knowledgeable about the art of peat cutting. And though he did none of the actual work himself he carefully instructed Stephen how to cut away the uppermost layer of grasses and moss with one tool, how to cut the peat with another tool and how to lift out the pieces with a third.

Stephen was unaccustomed to hard labour and he was soon out of breath and every part of him ached. Fortunately, he had not cut down very far when he struck something much harder than the peat.

“Ah!” cried the gentleman, very well pleased. “That is the moss oak. Excellent! Now, Stephen, cut around it!”

This was easier said than done. Even when Stephen had cut away enough of the peat to expose the moss-oak to the air it was still very difficult to see what was oak and what was peat — both were black, wet and oozing. He dug some more and he began to suspect that, though the gentleman called it a log, this was in fact an entire tree.

“Could you not lift it out by magic, sir?” he asked.

“Oh, no! No, indeed! I shall ask a great deal of this wood and therefore it is incumbent upon us to make its passage from the bog into the wider world as easy as we can! Now, do you take this axe, Stephen, and cut me a piece as tall as my collar-bone. Then with the spit and the tusker we will prise it out!”

It took them three more hours to accomplish the task. Stephen chopped the wood to the size the gentleman had asked for, but the task of manoeuvring it out of the bog was more than one man could manage and the gentleman was obliged to descend into the muddy, stinking hole with him and they strained and pulled and heaved together.

When at last they had finished, Stephen threw himself upon the ground in a condition of the utmost exhaustion, while the gentleman stood, regarding his log with delight.

“Well,” he said, “that was a great deal easier than I had imagined.”

Stephen suddenly found himself once more in the upper room of the Jerusalem Coffee-house. He looked at himself and at the gentleman. Their good clothes were in tatters and they were covered from head to foot with bog-mud.

For the first time he was able to see the log of moss-oak properly. It was as black as sin, extremely fine-grained, and it oozed black water.

“We must dry it out before it will be fit for any thing,” he said.

“Oh, no!” said the gentleman with a brilliant smile. “For my purposes it will do very well as it is!”

43
The curious adventure of Mr Hyde

December 1815

One morning in the first week of December Jeremy knocked upon the door of Strange’s library at Ashfair House and said that Mr Hyde begged the favour of a few minutes’ conversation with him.

Strange was not best pleased to be interrupted. Since he had been in the country he had grown almost as fond of quiet and solitude as Norrell. “Oh, very well!” he muttered.

Delaying only to write another paragraph, look up three or four things in a biography of Valentine Greatrakes, blot his paper, correct some spellings and blot his paper again, he went immediately to the drawing-room.

A gentleman was sitting alone by the fire, staring pensively into the flames. He was a vigorous-looking, active sort of man of fifty or so years, dressed in the stout clothes and boots of a gentleman-farmer. On a table at his side there was a little glass of wine and a small plate of biscuits. Clearly Jeremy had decided that the visitor had sat alone long enough to require some refreshment.

Mr Hyde and Jonathan Strange had been neighbours all their lives, but the marked differences in their fortunes and tastes had meant that they had never been more than common acquaintances. This was in fact the first time they had met since Strange had become a magician.

They shook hands.

“I dare say, sir,” began Mr Hyde, “you are wondering what can bring me to your door in such weather.”

“Weather?”

“Yes, sir. It is very bad.”

Strange looked out of the window. The high hills surrounding Ashfair were sheathed in snow. Every branch, every twig bore its burden of snow. The very air seemed white with frost and mist.

“So it is. I had not observed. I have not been out of the house since Sunday.”

“Your servant tells me that you are very much occupied with your studies. I beg your pardon for interrupting you, but I have something to tell you which can wait no longer.”

“Oh! There is no explanation necessary. And how is your …” Strange paused and tried to remember whether Mr Hyde had a wife, any children, brothers, sisters or friends. He found he was entirely without information upon the subject. “Farm,” he finished. “I recollect it is at Aston.”

“It is nearer to Clunbury.”

“Clunbury. Yes.”

“All is well with me, Mr Strange, except for something rather … unsettling which happened to me three days ago. I have been debating with myself ever since whether I ought to come and speak to you about it. I have asked the advice of my friends and my wife and all are agreed that I ought to tell you what I have seen. Three days ago I had business on the Welsh side of the border, with David Evans — I dare say you know him, sir?”

“I know him by sight. I have never spoken to him. Ford knows him, I believe.” (Ford was the agent who managed all the business of Strange’s estate.)

“Well, sir, David Evans and I had finished our business by two o’clock and I was very anxious to get home. There was a thick snow lying everywhere and the roads between here and Llanfair Waterdine were very bad. I dare say you do not know it, sir, but David Evans’s house is high up on a hill with a long view westwards and the moment he and I stepped outside we saw great grey clouds full of snow coming towards us. Mrs Evans, Davey’s mother, pressed me to stay with them and come home the next day, but Evans and I talked it over and we both agreed that all would be well providing I left instantly and came home by the most direct way possible — in other words I should ride up to the Dyke and cross over into England before the storm was upon me.”
¹

“The Dyke?” said Strange, frowning, “That is a steep ride — even in summer — and a very lonely place if any thing were to happen to you. I do not think I would have attempted it. But I dare say you know these hills and their temper better than I.”

“Perhaps you are wiser than I was, sir. As I rode up to the Dyke a hard, high wind began to blow and it caught up the snow that had already fallen and carried it up into the air. The snow stuck to my horse’s coat and to my own greatcoat so that when I looked down we were as white as the hillside, as white as the air. As white as everything. The wind made eerie shapes with the snow so that I seemed to be surrounded by spinning ghosts and the kind of evil spirits and bad angels that are in the Arabian lady’s stories. My poor horse — who is not generally a nervous beast — seemed to be seeing all manner of things to frighten him. As you may imagine, I was beginning to wish very heartily that I had accepted Mrs Evans’s hospitality when I heard the sound of a bell tolling.”

“A bell?” said Strange.

“Yes, sir.”

“But what bell could there have been?”

“Well, none at all, sir, in that lonely place. Indeed it is a wonder to me that I could have heard any thing at all what with the horse snorting and the wind howling.”

Strange, who imagined that Mr Hyde must have come in order to have this queer bell explained to him, began to talk of the magical significance of bells: how bells were used as a protection against fairies and other evil spirits and how a bad fairy might sometimes be frightened away by the sound of a church bell. And yet, at the same time, it was well known that fairies loved bells; fairy magic was often accompanied by the tolling of a bell; and bells often sounded when fairies appeared. “I cannot explain this odd contradiction,” he said. “Theoretical magicians have puzzled over it for centuries.”

Mr Hyde listened to this speech with every appearance of politeness and attentiveness. When Strange had finished, Mr Hyde said, “But the bell was just the beginning, sir.”

“Oh!” said Strange, a little annoyed. “Very well. Continue.”

“I got so far up the hill that I could see the Dyke where it runs along the top. There were a few bent trees, some broken-down walls of loose stones. I looked to the south and I saw a lady walking very fast along the Dyke towards me …”

“A lady!”

“I saw her very clearly. Her hair was loose and the wind was setting it on end and making it writhe about her head.” Mr Hyde gestured with his hands to shew how the lady’s hair had danced in the snowy air. “I think I called out to her. I know that she turned her head and looked at me, but she did not stop or slow her pace. She turned away again and walked on along the Dyke with all the snowy wraiths around her. She wore only a black gown. No shawl. No pelisse. And that made me very afraid for her. I thought that some dreadful accident must have befallen her. So I urged my horse up the hill, as fast as the poor creature could go. I tried to keep her in sight the whole time, but the wind kept carrying the snow into my eyes. I reached the Dyke and she was nowhere to be seen. So I rode back and forth along the Dyke. I searched and cried myself hoarse — I was sure she must have fallen down behind a heap of stones or snow, or tripped in some rabbit-hole. Or perhaps been carried away by the person who had done her the evil in the first place.”

“The evil?”

“Well, sir, I supposed that she must have been carried to the Dyke by someone who meant her harm. One hears such terrible things nowadays.”

“You knew the lady?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Who was it?”

“Mrs Strange.”

There was a moment’s silence.

“But it could not have been,” said Strange, perplexed. “Mr Hyde, if any thing of a distressing nature had happened to Mrs Strange, I think someone would have told me. I am not so shut up with my books as that. I am sorry, Mr Hyde, but you are mistaken. Whoever this poor woman was, it was not Mrs Strange.”

Mr Hyde shook his head. “If I saw you, sir, in Shrewsbury or Ludlow, I might not know you immediately. But Mrs Strange’s father was curate of my parish for forty-seven years. I have known Mrs Strange — Miss Woodhope as she was then — since she was an infant taking her first steps in Clunbury churchyard. Even if she had not looked at me I would have known her. I would have known her by her figure, by her way of walking, by her everything.”

“What did you do after you had lost sight of the woman?”

“I rode straight here — but your servant would not let me in.”

“Jeremy? The man you spoke to just now?”

“Yes. He told me that Mrs Strange was safe within. I confess that I did not believe him and so I walked around your house and looked in at all the windows, until I saw her seated upon a sopha in this very room.” Mr Hyde pointed to the sopha in question. “She was wearing a pale blue gown — not black at all.”

“Well, there is nothing remarkable in that. Mrs Strange never wears black. It is not a colour I like to see a young woman wear.”

Mr Hyde shook his head and frowned. “I wish I could convince you, sir, of what I saw. But I see that I cannot.”

“And I wish I could explain it to you. But I cannot.”

They shook hands at parting. Mr Hyde looked solemnly at Strange and said, “I never wished her harm, Mr Strange. Nobody could be more thankful that she is safe.”

Strange bowed slightly. “And we intend to keep her so.”

The door closed upon Mr Hyde’s back.

Strange waited a moment and then went to find Jeremy. “Why did not you tell me that he had been here before?”

Jeremy made a sort of snorting noise of derision. “I believe I know better, sir, than to trouble you with such nonsense! Ladies in black dresses walking about in snow-storms!”

“I hope you did not speak too harshly to him.”

“Me, sir? No, indeed!”

“Perhaps he was drunk. Yes, I expect that was it. I dare say he and David Evans were celebrating the successful conclusion of their business.”

Jeremy frowned. “I do not think so, sir. David Evans is a Methodist preacher.”

“Oh! Well, yes. I suppose you are right. And indeed it is not much like a hallucination brought on by drunkenness. It is more the sort of thing one might imagine if one took opium after reading one of Mrs Radcliffe’s novels.”

Strange found himself unsettled by Mr Hyde’s visit. The thought of Arabella — even an ideal, imaginary Arabella — lost in the snow, wandering upon the hilltops, was disturbing. He could not help but be reminded of his own mother, who had taken to walking those same hills alone to escape the miseries of an unhappy marriage and who had caught a chill in a rainstorm and died.

That evening at dinner he said to Arabella, “I saw John Hyde today. He thought he saw you walking upon the Dyke last Tuesday in the middle of a snow-storm.”

“No!”

“Yes.”

“Poor man! He must have been a good deal startled.”

“I believe he was.”

“I shall certainly visit Mr and Mrs Hyde when Henry is here.”

“You seem intent upon visiting every body in Shropshire when Henry is here,” said Strange. “I hope you will not be disappointed.”

“Disappointed! What do you mean?”

“Only that the weather is bad.”

“Then we will tell Harris to drive slowly and carefully. But he would do that anyway. And Starling is a very steady horse. It takes a great deal of snow and ice to frighten Starling. He is not easily daunted. Besides, you know, there are people whom Henry
must
visit — people who would be most unhappy if he did not. Jenny and Alwen — my father’s two old servants. They talk of nothing but Henry’s coming. It is five years since they saw him last and they are scarcely likely to last another five years, poor things.”

“Very well! Very well! I only said that the weather would be bad. That is all.”

But that was not quite all. Strange was aware that Arabella had high hopes of this visit. She had seen her brother only rarely since her marriage. He had not come to Soho-square as often as she would have liked and, once there, he had never stayed as long as she wished. But this Christmas visit would restore all their old intimacy. They would be together among all the scenes of their childhood and Henry had promised to stay almost a month.

Henry arrived and at first it seemed that Arabella’s dearest wishes would all be answered. The conversation at dinner that evening was very animated. Henry had a great deal of news to relate about Great Hitherden, the Northamptonshire village where he was Rector.
²

Great Hitherden was a large and prosperous village. There were several gentlemen’s families in the neighbourhood. Henry was highly pleased with the respectable place he occupied in its society. After a long description of his friends and their dinner-parties and balls, he ended by saying, “But I would not have you think that we neglect charitable works. We are a very active neighbourhood. There is much to do and many distressed persons. The day before yesterday I paid a visit to a poor, sick family and I found Miss Watkins already at the cottage, dispensing money and good advice. Miss Watkins is a very compassionate young lady.” Here he paused as if expecting someone to say something.

Strange looked blank; then, suddenly, a thought seemed to strike him. “Why, Henry, I do beg your pardon. You will think us very remiss. You have now mentioned Miss Watkins five times in ten minutes and neither Bell nor I have made the least inquiry about her. We are both a little slow tonight — it is this cold Welsh air — it chills the brain — but now that I have awoken to your meaning I shall be happy to quiz you about her quite as much as you could wish for. Is she fair or dark? A brown complexion or a pale one? Does she favour the piano or the harp? What are her favourite books?”

Henry, who suspected he was being teased, frowned and seemed inclined to say no more about the lady.

Arabella, with a cool look at her husband, took up the inquiries in a gentler style and soon got out of Henry the following information — that Miss Watkins had only lately removed to the neighbourhood of Great Hitherden — that her Christian name was Sophronia — that she lived with her guardians, Mr and Mrs Swoonfirst (persons to whom she was distantly related) — that she was fond of reading (though Henry could not say precisely what) — that her favourite colour was yellow — and that she had a particular dislike of pineapples.

“And her looks? Is she pretty?” asked Strange.

The question seemed to embarrass Henry.

“Miss Watkins is not generally considered one of the first in beauty, no. But then upon further acquaintance, you know — that is worth a great deal. People of both sexes, whose looks are very indifferent at the beginning, may appear almost handsome on further acquaintance. A well-informed mind, nice manners and a gentle nature — all of these are much more likely to contribute to a husband’s happiness than mere transient beauty.”