Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (7 page)

“It is a marriage,” said the majestic lady.

“I beg your pardon, madam?” said Mr Norrell.

But the lady only nodded in the direction of the painting and bestowed a stately smile upon Mr Norrell.

The painting which hung above the young lady shewed, like every other picture in the room, Venice. English cities are, for the most part, built upon hills; their streets rise and fall, and it occurred to Mr Norrell that Venice, being built upon the sea, must be the flattest, as well as the queerest, city in the world. It was the flatness which made the painting look so much like an exercise in perspective; statues, columns, domes, palaces, and cathedrals stretched away to where they met a vast and melancholy sky, while the sea that lapped at the walls of those buildings was crowded with ornately carved and gilded barges, and those strange black Venetian vessels that so much resemble the slippers of ladies in mourning.

“It depicts the symbolic marriage of Venice to the Adriatic,” said the lady (whom we must now presume to be Mrs Wintertowne), “a curious Italian ceremony. The paintings which you see in this room were all bought by the late Mr Wintertowne during his travels on the Continent; and when he and I were married they were his wedding-gift to me. The artist — an Italian — was then quite unknown in England. Later, emboldened by the patronage he received from Mr Wintertowne, he came to London.”

Her manner of speech was as stately as her person. After each sentence she paused to give Mr Norrell time to be impressed by the information it contained.

“And when my dear Emma is married,” she continued, “these paintings shall be my wedding-present to her and Sir Walter.”

Mr Norrell inquired if Miss Wintertowne and Sir Walter were to be married soon.

“In ten days’ time!” answered Mrs Wintertowne triumphantly.

Mr Norrell offered his congratulations.

“You are a magician, sir?” said Mrs Wintertowne. “I am sorry to hear it. It is a profession I have a particular dislike to.” She looked keenly at him as she said so, as though her disapproval might in itself be enough to make him renounce magic instantly and take up some other occupation.

When he did not she turned to her prospective son-in-law. “My own stepmother, Sir Walter, placed great faith in a magician. After my father’s death he was always in the house. One could enter a room one was quite sure was empty and find him in a corner half hidden by a curtain. Or asleep upon the sopha with his dirty boots on. He was the son of a leather tanner and his low origins were frankly displayed in all he did. He had long, dirty hair and a face like a dog, but he sat at our table like a gentleman. My stepmother deferred to him in all she did and for seven years he governed our lives completely.”

“And your own opinion was disregarded, ma’am?” said Sir Walter. “I am surprized at that!”

Mrs Wintertowne laughed. “I was only a child of eight or nine when it began, Sir Walter. His name was Dreamditch and he told us constantly how happy he was to be our friend, though my brother and I were equally constant in assuring him that we considered him no friend of ours. But he only smiled at us like a dog that has learned how to smile and does not know how to leave off. Do not misunderstand me, Sir Walter. My stepmother was in many ways an excellent woman. My father’s esteem for her was such that he left her six hundred a year and the care of his three children. Her only weakness was foolishly to doubt her own capabilities. My father believed that, in understanding and in knowledge of right and wrong and in many other things, women are men’s equals and I am entirely of his opinion. My stepmother should not have shrunk from the charge. When Mr Wintertowne died
I
did not.”

“No, indeed, ma’am,” murmured Sir Walter.

“Instead,” continued Mrs Wintertowne, “she placed all her faith in the magician, Dreamditch. He had not an ounce of magic in him and was consequently obliged to invent some. He made rules for my brother, my sister and me, which, he assured my stepmother, would keep us safe. We wore purple ribbons tied tightly round our chests. In our room six places were laid at the table, one for each of us and one for each of the spirits which Dreamditch said looked after us. He told us their names. What do you suppose they were, Sir Walter?”

“I have not the least idea in the world, ma’am.”

Mrs Wintertowne laughed. “Meadowlace, Robin Summerfly and Buttercup. My brother, Sir Walter, who resembled myself in independence of spirit, would often say in my stepmother’s hearing, ‘Damn Meadowlace! Damn Robin Summerfly! Damn Buttercup!’ and she, poor silly woman, would plead very piteously with him to stop. They did us no good those fairy spirits. My sister became ill. Often I went to her room and found Dreamditch there, stroking her pale cheeks and unresisting hand with his long yellow unclean fingernails. He was almost weeping, the fool. He would have saved her if he could. He made spells, but she died. A beautiful child, Sir Walter. For years I hated my stepmother’s magician. For years I thought him a wicked man, but in the end, Sir Walter, I knew him to be nothing but a sad and pitiful fool.”

Sir Walter turned in his chair. “Miss Wintertowne!” he said. “You spoke — but I did not hear what it was you said.”

“Emma! What is it?” cried Mrs Wintertowne.

There was a soft sigh from the sopha. Then a quiet, clear voice said, “I said that you were quite wrong, Mama.”

“Am I, my love?” Mrs Wintertowne, whose character was so forceful and whose opinions were handed down to people in the manner of Moses distributing the commandments, did not appear in the least offended when her daughter contradicted her. Indeed she seemed almost pleased about it.

“Of course,” said Miss Wintertowne, “we must have magicians. Who else can interpret England’s history to us and in particular her northern history, her black northern King? Our common historians cannot.” There was silence for a moment. “I am fond of history,” she said.

“I did not know that,” said Sir Walter.

“Ah, Sir Walter!” cried Mrs Wintertowne. “Dear Emma does not waste her energies upon novels like other young women. Her reading has been extensive; she knows more of biography and poetry than any young woman I know.”

“Yet I hope,” said Sir Walter eagerly, leaning over the back of his chair to speak to his betrothed, “that you like novels as well, and then, you know, we could read to each other. What is your opinion of Mrs Radcliffe? Of Madame d’Arblay?”

But what Miss Wintertowne thought of these distinguished ladies Sir Walter did not discover for she was seized by a second fit of coughing which obliged her to struggle — with an appearance of great effort — into a sitting position. He waited some moments for an answer, but when her coughing had subsided she lay back on the sopha as before, with looks of pain and exhaustion, and closed her eyes.

Mr Norrell wondered that no one thought to go to her assistance. There seemed to be a sort of conspiracy in the room to deny that the poor young woman was ill. No one asked if they could bring her anything. No one suggested that she go to bed, which Mr Norrell — who was often ill himself — imagined would be by far the best thing for her.

“Mr Norrell,” said Sir Walter, “I cannot claim to understand what this help is that you offer us …”

“Oh! As to particulars,” Mr Norrell said, “I know as little of warfare as the generals and the admirals do of magic, and yet …”

“… but whatever it is,” continued Sir Walter, “I am sorry to say that it will not do. Magic is not respectable, sir. It is not,” Sir Walter searched for a word, “serious. The Government cannot meddle with such things. Even this innocent little chat that you and I have had today, is likely to cause us a little embarrassment when people get to hear of it. Frankly, Mr Norrell, had I understood better what you were intending to propose today, I would not have agreed to meet you.”

Sir Walter’s manner as he said all this was far from unkind, but, oh, poor Mr Norrell! To be told that magic was not serious was a very heavy blow. To find himself classed with the Dreamditches and the Vinculuses of this world was a crushing one. In vain he protested that he had thought long and hard about how to make magic respected once more; in vain he offered to shew Sir Walter a long list of recommendations concerning the regulation of magic in England. Sir Walter did not wish to see them. He shook his head and smiled, but all he said was: “I am afraid, Mr Norrell, that I can do nothing for you.”

When Mr Drawlight arrived at Hanover-square that evening he was obliged to listen to Mr Norrell lamenting the failure of all his hopes of succeeding with Sir Walter Pole.

“Well, sir, what did I tell you?” cried Drawlight. “But, oh! Poor Mr Norrell! How unkind they were to you! I am very sorry for it. But I am not in the least surprized! I have always heard that those Wintertownes were stuffed full of pride!”

But there was, I regret to say, a little duplicity in Mr Drawlight’s nature and it must be said that he was not quite as sorry as he professed to be. This display of independence had provoked him and he was determined to punish Mr Norrell for it. For the next week Mr Norrell and Mr Drawlight attended only the quietest dinners and, without quite arranging matters so that Mr Norrell would find himself the guest of Mr Drawlight’s shoe-maker or the old lady who dusts the monuments in Westminster Abbey, Mr Drawlight took care that their hosts were people of as little consequence, influence, or fashion, as possible. In this way Drawlight hoped to create in Mr Norrell the impression that not only the Poles and Wintertownes slighted him, but the whole world, so that Mr Norrell might be brought to understand who was his true friend, and might become a little more accommodating when it came to performing those small tricks of magic that Drawlight had been promising for many months now.

Such were the hopes and schemes that animated the heart of Mr Norrell’s dearest friend but, unfortunately for Mr Drawlight, so cast down was Mr Norrell by Sir Walter’s rejection that he scarcely noticed the change in the style of entertainments and Drawlight succeeded in punishing no one but himself.

Now that Sir Walter was quite beyond Mr Norrell’s reach, Mr Norrell became more and more convinced that Sir Walter was exactly the patron he wished for. A cheerful, energetic man, with pleasant, easy manners, Sir Walter Pole was everything that Mr Norrell was not. Therefore, reasoned Mr Norrell, Sir Walter Pole would have achieved everything that he
could
not. The influential men of the Age would have listened to Sir Walter.

“If only he had listened to me,” sighed Mr Norrell one evening as he and Drawlight dined alone. “But I could not find the words to convince him. Of course I wish now that I had asked you or Mr Lascelles to come with me. Men of the world prefer to be talked to by other men of the world. I know that now. Perhaps I should have done some magic to shew him — turned the teacups into rabbits or the teaspoons into goldfish. At least then he would have believed me. But I do not think the old lady would have been pleased if I had done that. I do not know. What is your opinion?”

But Drawlight, who had begun to believe that if anyone had ever died of boredom then he was almost certain to expire within the next quarter of an hour, found that he had lost the will to speak and the best he could manage was a withering smile.

7
An opportunity unlikely to occur again

October 1807

Well, sir! You have your revenge! cried Mr Drawlight appearing quite suddenly in the library in Hanover-square.

“My revenge!” said Mr Norrell. “What do you mean?”

“Oh!” said Mr Drawlight. “Sir Walter’s bride, Miss Wintertowne, is dead. She died this very afternoon. They were to be married in two days’ time, but, poor thing, she is quite dead. A thousand pounds a year! — Imagine his despair! Had she only contrived to remain alive until the end of the week, what a difference it would have made! His need of the money is quite desperate — he is all to pieces. I should not be at all surprized if we were to hear tomorrow that he has cut his throat.”

Mr Drawlight leant for a moment upon the back of a good, comfortable chair by the fire and, looking down, discovered a friend. “Ah, Lascelles, I declare. There you are behind the newspaper I see. How do you do?”

Meanwhile Mr Norrell stared at Mr Drawlight. “The young woman is dead, you say?” he said in amazement. “The young woman that I saw in that room? I can scarcely believe it. This is very unexpected.”

“Oh! Upon the contrary,” said Drawlight, “nothing was more probable.”

“But the wedding!” said Mr Norrell. “All the necessary arrangements! They could not have known how ill she was.”

“But I assure you,” said Drawlight, “they did know. Everyone knew. Why! there was a fellow called Drummond, who saw her at Christmas at a private ball in Leamington Spa, and wagered Lord Carlisle fifty pounds that she would be dead within a month.”

Mr Lascelles tutted in annoyance and put down his newspaper. “No, no,” he said, “that was not Miss Wintertowne. You are thinking of Miss Hookham-Nix, whose brother has threatened to shoot her, should she bring disgrace upon the family — which everyone supposes she must do sooner or later. But it happened at Worthing — and it was not Lord Carlisle who took the bet but the Duke of Exmoor.”

Drawlight considered this a moment. “I believe you are right,” he said at last. “But it does not matter, for everyone
did
know that Miss Wintertowne was ill. Except of course the old lady.
She
thought her daughter perfection — and what can Perfection have to say to ill-health? Perfection is only to be admired; Perfection has only to make a great marriage. But the old lady has never allowed that Perfection might be ill — she could never bear to hear the subject mentioned. For all Miss Wintertowne’s coughs and swoonings upon the ground and lyings-down upon the sopha, I never heard that any physician ever came near her.”

“Sir Walter would have taken better care of her,” said Lascelles, shaking out his newspaper before he began once more to read it. “One may say what one likes about his politics, but he is a sensible man. It is a pity she could not have lasted till Thursday.”

“But, Mr Norrell,” said Drawlight turning to their friend, “you look quite pale and sick! You are shocked, I dare say, at the spectacle of a young and innocent life cut off. Your good feelings, as ever, do you credit, sir — and I am entirely of your opinion — the thought of the poor young lady crushed out of existence like a lovely flower beneath someone’s boot — well, sir, it cuts my heart like a knife — I can hardly bear to think of it. But then, you know, she was very ill and must have died at some time or other — and by your own account she was not very kind to
you
. I know it is not the fashion to say so, but I am the sternest advocate in the world for young people giving respectful attention to scholarly old persons such as yourself. Impudence, and sauciness, and everything of that sort I hate.”

But Mr Norrell did not appear to hear the comfort his friend was so kind as to give him and when at last he spoke his words seemed chiefly addressed to himself, for he sighed deeply and murmured, “I never thought to find magic so little regarded here.” He paused and then said in a quick, low voice, “It is a very dangerous thing to bring someone back from the dead. It has not been done in three hundred years. I could not attempt it!”

This was rather extraordinary and Mr Drawlight and Mr Lascelles looked round at their friend in some surprize.

“Indeed, sir,” said Mr Drawlight, “and no one proposes that you should.”

“Of course I know the form of it,” continued Mr Norrell as if Drawlight had not spoken, “but it is precisely the sort of magic that I have set my face against! — It relies so much upon … It relies so much … That is to say the outcome must be entirely unpredictable. — Quite out of the magician’s power to determine. No! I shall not attempt it. I shall not even think of it.”

There was a short silence. But despite the magician’s resolve to think no more about the dangerous magic, he still fidgeted in his chair and bit his finger-ends and breathed very quick and exhibited other such signs of nervous agitation.

“My dear Mr Norrell,” said Drawlight slowly, “I believe I begin to perceive your meaning. And I must confess that I think the idea an excellent one! You have in mind a great act of magic, a testimony to your extraordinary powers! Why, sir! Should you succeed all the Wintertownes and Poles in England will be on your doorstep soliciting the acquaintance of the wonderful Mr Norrell!”

“And if he should fail,” observed Mr Lascelles, drily, “every one else in England will be shutting his door against the notorious Mr Norrell.”

“My dear Lascelles,” cried Drawlight, “what nonsense you talk! Upon my word, there is nothing in the world so easy to explain as failure — it is, after all, what every body does all the time.”

Mr Lascelles said that that did not follow at all, and they were just beginning to argue about it when an anguished cry burst from the lips of their friend, Mr Norrell.

“Oh, God! What shall I do? What shall I do? I have laboured all these months to make my profession acceptable in the eyes of men and still they despise me! Mr Lascelles, you know the world, tell me …”

“Alas, sir,” interrupted Mr Lascelles quickly, “I make a great point of never giving advice to any one.” And he went back to his newspaper.

“My dear Mr Norrell!” said Drawlight (who did not wait to be asked for
his
opinion). “Such an opportunity is hardly likely to occur again …” (A potent argument this, and one which caused Mr Norrell to sigh very deeply.) “… and I must say I do not think that I could forgive myself if I allowed you to pass it by. With one stroke you return to us that sweet young woman — whose death no one can hear of without shedding a tear; you restore a fortune to a worthy gentleman;
and
you re-establish magic as a power in the realm for generations to come! Once you have proved the virtue of your skills — their utility and so forth — who will be able to deny magicians their dues of veneration and praise? They will be quite as much respected as admirals, a great deal more than generals, and probably as much as archbishops and lord chancellors! I should not be at all surprized if His Majesty did not immediately set up a convenient arrangement of degrees with magicians-in-ordinary and magicians-canonical, non-stipendiary magicians and all that sort of thing. And you, Mr Norrell, at the top as Arch-Magician! And all this with one stroke, sir! With one stroke!”

Drawlight was pleased with this speech; Lascelles, rustling the paper in his irritation, clearly had a great many things to say in contradiction of Drawlight, but had put it out of his power to say any of them by his declaration that he never gave advice.

“There is scarcely any form of magic more dangerous!” said Mr Norrell in a sort of horrified whisper. “It is dangerous to the magician and dangerous to the subject.”

“Well, sir,” said Drawlight reasonably, “I suppose you are the best judge of the danger as it applies to yourself, but the subject, as you term her, is dead. What worse can befall her?”

Drawlight waited a moment for a reply to this interesting question, but Mr Norrell made none.

“I shall now ring for the carriage,” Drawlight declared and did so. “I shall go immediately to Brunswick-square. Have no fear, Mr Norrell, I have every expectation that all our proposals will meet with most ready acquiesence on all sides. I shall return within the hour!”

After Drawlight had hurried away, Mr Norrell sat for a quarter of an hour or so simply staring in front of him and though Lascelles did not believe in the magic that Mr Norrell said would be done (nor, therefore, in the danger that Mr Norrell said would be braved) he was glad that he could not see what Mr Norrell seemed to see.

Then Mr Norrell roused himself and took down five or six books in a great hurry and opened them up — presumably searching out those passages which were full of advice for magicians who wished to awaken dead young ladies. This occupied him until another three-quarters of an hour had passed, when a little bustle could be heard outside the library, and Mr Drawlight’s voice preceded him into the room.

“… the greatest favour in the world! So very much obliged to you …” Mr Drawlight danced through the library-door, his face one immense smile. “All is well, sir! Sir Walter did hold back a little at first, but all is well! He asked me to convey to you his gratitude for your kind attention, but he did not think that it could do any good.
I
said that if he were thinking of the thing getting out afterwards and being talked about, then he need not fear at all, for we had no wish to see him embarrassed — and that Mr Norrell’s one desire was to be of service to him and that Lascelles and I were discretion itself — but he said he did not mind about that, for people would always laugh at a Minister, only he had rather Miss Wintertowne were left sleeping now — which he thought more respectful of her present situation. My dear Sir Walter! cried I, how can you say so? You cannot mean that a rich and beautiful young lady would gladly quit this life on the very eve of her marriage — when you yourself were to be the happy man! Oh! Sir Walter! — I said —
you
may not believe in Mr Norrell’s magic, but what can it hurt to try? Which the old lady saw the sense of immediately and added her arguments to mine — and she told me of a magician she had known in her childhood, a most talented person and a devoted friend to all her family, who had prolonged her sister’s life several years beyond what any one had expected. I tell you, Mr Norrell, nothing can express the gratitude Mrs Wintertowne feels at your goodness and she begs me to say to you that you are to come immediately — and Sir Walter himself says that he can see no sense in putting it off — so I told Davey to wait at the door and on no account to go anywhere else. Oh! Mr Norrell, it is to be a night of reconciliations! All misunderstandings, all unfortunate constructions which may have been placed on one or two ill-chosen words — all, all are to be swept away! It is to be quite like a play by Shakespeare!”

Mr Norrell’s greatcoat was fetched and he got into the carriage; and from the expression of surprize upon his face when the carriage-doors opened and Mr Drawlight jumped in one side and Mr Lascelles jumped in the other I am tempted to suppose that he had not originally intended that those two gentlemen should accompany him to Brunswick-square.

Lascelles threw himself into the carriage, snorting with laughter and saying that he had never in his life heard of anything so ridiculous and comparing their snug drive through the London streets in Mr Norrell’s carriage to ancient French and Italian fables in which fools set sail in milk-pails to fetch the moon’s reflection from the bottom of a duckpond — all of which might well have offended Mr Norrell had Mr Norrell been in spirits to attend to him.

When they arrived at Brunswick-square they found, gathered upon the steps, a little crowd of people. Two men ran out to catch the horses’ heads and the light from the oil-lamp above the steps shewed the crowd to be a dozen or so of Mrs Wintertowne’s servants all on the look-out for the magician who was to bring back their young lady. Human nature being what it is, I dare say there may have been a few among them who were merely curious to see what such a man might look like. But many shewed in their pale faces signs that they had been grieving and these were, I think, prompted by some nobler sentiment to keep their silent vigil in the cold midnight street.

One of them took a candle and went before Mr Norrell and his friends to shew them the way, for the house was very dark and cold. They were upon the staircase when they heard Mrs Wintertowne’s voice calling out from above, “Robert! Robert! Is it Mr Norrell? Oh! Thank God, sir!” She appeared before them very suddenly in a doorway. “I thought you would never come!” And then, much to Mr Norrell’s consternation, she took both his hands in her own and, pressing them hard, entreated him to use his most potent spells to bring Miss Wintertowne back to life. Money was not to be thought of. He might name his price! Only say that he would return her darling child to her. He must promise her that he would!

Mr Norrell cleared his throat and was perhaps about to embark upon one of his long, uninteresting expositions of the philosophy of modern magic, when Mr Drawlight glided forward, took Mrs Wintertowne’s hands and rescued them both.

“Now I beg of you, my dear madam,” cried Drawlight, “to be more tranquil! Mr Norrell is come, as you see, and we must try what his power may do. He begs that you will not mention payment again. Whatever he does tonight will be done for friendship’s sake …” And here Mr Drawlight stood upon tiptoes and lifted his chin to look over Mrs Wintertowne’s shoulder to where Sir Walter Pole was standing within the room. Sir Walter had just risen from his chair and stood a little way off, regarding the newcomers. In the candlelight he was pale and hollow-eyed and there was about him a kind of gauntness which had not been there before. Mere common courtesy said that he ought to have come forward to speak to them, but he did not do so.

It was curious to observe how Mr Norrell hesitated in the doorway and exhibited great unwillingness to be conducted further into the house until he had spoken to Sir Walter. “But I must just speak to Sir Walter! Just a few words with Sir Walter! — I shall do my utmost for you, Sir Walter!” he called out from the door. “Since the young lady is, ahem!, not long gone from us, I may say that the situation is promising. Yes, I think I may go so far as to say that the situation is a promising one. I shall go now, Sir Walter, and do my work. I hope, in due course, I shall have the honour of bringing you good news!”