Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (100 page)

There was a silence. Or rather some moments passed filled with nothing but the breathing of fifty cats.

Dr Greysteel dabbed at his sweating brow with his handkerchief and shifted about inside his clothes. "We are here, ma'am," he began, "at the particular request of Mr John McKean of Aber- deenshire. He wishes to be remembered to you. He hopes that you are well and sends every good wish for your future health."

Dr Greysteel spoke rather louder than usual, for he had begun to suspect that the old lady was deaf. This had no other effect, however, than to disturb the cats, many of which began to stalk around the room, brushing against each other and sending up sparks into the twilight air. A black cat dropped from somewhere or other on to the back of Dr Greysteel's chair and walked it as if it were a tightrope.

Dr Greysteel took a moment to recover himself and then said, "May we take back some report of your health and situation to Mr McKean, ma'am?"

But the old lady said nothing.

Miss Greysteel was next. "I am glad, ma'am," she said, "to see you so well provided with good friends. They must be a great comfort to you. That little honey-coloured puss at your feet – what an elegant form she has! And such a dainty way of washing her face! What do you call her?"

But the old lady did not answer.

So, prompted by a glance from Dr Greysteel, the little Venetian lawyer began to relate much of what had already been said, but this time in Italian. The only difference was that now the old lady no longer troubled to look at them, but fixed her gaze upon a great grey cat, which was, in its turn, looking at a white cat, which was, in
ts
turn staring at the moon.

"Tell her that I have brought her money," said Dr Greysteel to the lawyer. "Tell her it is a gift made to her on behalf of John McKean. Tell her she must not thank me . . ." Dr Greysteel waved his hand vigorously as if a reputation for generous deeds and benevolent actions were a little like a mosquito and he hoped in this way to prevent one from landing on him.

"Mr Tosetti," said Aunt Greysteel, "you are not well. You are pale, sir. Will you have a glass of water? I am sure that Mrs Delgado could furnish you with a glass of water."

"No, Madamina Greysteel, I am not ill. I am . . ." Signor Tosetti looked round the room to find the word he wanted. "Fearful," he whispered.

"Fearful?" whispered Dr Greysteel. "Why? What of?"

"Ah, Signor Dottore, this is a terrible place!" returned the other in a whisper, and his eyes wandered in a kind of horror first to where one of the cats was licking its paw, in preparation to washing its face, and then back to the old lady, as if in expectation of seeing her perform the same action.

Miss Greysteel whispered that in their concern to shew Mrs Delgado attention they had come in too great a number and arrived too suddenly at her door. Clearly they were the first visitors she had had in years. Was it any wonder her wits seemed temporarily to be wandering? It was too severe a trial!

"Oh, Flora!" whispered Aunt Greysteel. "Only think! To pass years and years without society of any kind!"

To be all whispering together in such a small room – for the old lady was not three feet distant from any of them – appeared to Dr Greysteel to be very ridiculous and, from not knowing what else to do, he became rather irritable with his companions, so that his sister and daughter judged it best to go.

Aunt Greysteel insisted on taking a long and fond farewell of the old lady, telling her that they would all return when she was feeling better – which Aunt Greysteel hoped would be soon.

Just as they passed through the door, they looked back. At that moment a new cat appeared upon the sill of the window with a stiff, spiky something in its mouth – a thing remarkably like a dead bird. The old lady made a little joyous sound and sprang with surprizing energy out of her chair. It was the oddest sound in all the world and bore not the slightest resemblance to human speech. It made Signor Tosetti, in his turn, cry out in alarm and pull the door shut, and hide whatever it was that the old lady was about to do next.
¹

1 Signor Tosetti later confessed to the Greysteels that he believed he knew who the old lady of Cannaregio was. He had heard her story often as he went about the city, but until he had seen her with his own eyes he had dismissed it as a mere fable, a tale to frighten the young and foolish.

It seems her father had been a Jew, and her mother was descended from half the races of Europe. As a child she had learnt several languages and spoke them all perfectly. There was nothing she could not make herself mistress of if she chose. She learnt for the pleasure of it. At sixteen she spoke – not only French, Italian and German – which are part of any lady's commonplace accomplishments – but all the languages of the civilized (and uncivilized) world. She spoke the language of the Scottish Highlands (which is like singing). She spoke Basque, which is a language which rarely makes any impression upon the brains of any other race, so that a man may hear it as often and as long as he likes, but never afterwards be able to recall a single syllable of it. She even learnt the language of a strange country which, Signor Tosetti had been told, some people believed still existed, although no one in the world could say where it was. (The name of this country was Wales.)

She travelled through the world and appeared before kings and queens; archdukes and archduchesses; princes and bishops; Grafs and Grafins, and to each and every one of these important people she spoke in the language he or she had learnt as a child and every one of them proclaimed her a wonder.

And at last she came to Venice.

But this lady had never learnt to moderate her behaviour in any thing. Her appetite for learning was matched by her appetite in other things and she had married a man who was the same. This lady and her husband came at Carnevale and never went away again. All their wealth they gambled away in the
Ridottos
. All their health they lost in other pleasures. And one morning, when all of Venice's canals were silver and rose-coloured with the dawn, the husband lay down upon the wet stones of the Fondamenta dei Mori and died and there was nothing anyone could do to save him. And the wife would perhaps have done as well to do the same – for she had no money and nowhere to go. But the Jews remembered that she had some claim to their charity, being in a manner of speaking a Jewess herself (though she had never before acknowledged it) or perhaps they felt for her as a suffering creature (for the Jews have endured much in Venice). However it was, they gave her shelter in the Ghetto. There are different stories of what happened next, but what they all agree upon is that she lived among the Jews, but she was not one of them. She lived quite alone and whether the fault was hers or whether the fault was theirs I do not know. And a great deal of time went by and she did not speak to a living soul and a great wind of madness howled through her and overturned all her languages. And she forgot Italian, forgot English, forgot Latin, forgot Basque, forgot Welsh, forgot every thing in the world except Cat – and that, it is said, she spoke marvellously well.

53
A little dead grey mouse

End of November 1816

T
HE FOLLOWING EVENING in a room where Venetian gloom and Venetian magnificence mingled in a highly romantic and satisfactory manner, the Greysteels and Strange sat down to dinner together. The floor was of cracked, worn marble, all the colours of a Venetian winter. Aunt Grey- steel's head, in its neat white cap, was set off by the vast, dark door that loomed in the distance behind her. The door was surmounted by dim carvings and resembled nothing so much as some funerary monument wreathed in dreary shadows. On the plaster walls, were the ghosts of frescoes painted in the ghosts of colours, all glorifying some ancient Venetian family whose last heir had drowned long ago. The present owners were as poor as church mice and had not been able to repair their house for many years. It was raining outside and, what was more surprizing, inside too; from somewhere in the room came the disagreeable sound of large quantities of water dripping liberally upon floor and furniture. But the Greysteels were not to be made gloomy, nor put off a very good dinner, by such trifles as these. They had banished the funereal shadows with a good blaze of candlelight and were masking the sound of dripping water with laughter and conversation. They were generally bestowing a cheerful Englishness on that part of the room where they sat.

"But I do not understand," said Strange, "Who takes care of the old woman?"

Dr Greysteel said, "The Jewish gentleman – who seems a very charitable old person – provides her with a place to live, and his servants put dishes of food for her at the foot of the stairs."

"But as to how the food is conveyed to her," exclaimed Miss Greysteel, "no one knows for certain. Signor Tosetti believes that her cats carry it up to her."

"Such nonsense!" declared Dr Greysteel. "Whoever heard of cats doing anything useful!"

"Except for staring at one in a supercilious manner," said Strange. "That has a sort of moral usefulness, I suppose, in making one feel uncomfortable and encouraging sober reflection upon one's imperfections."

The Greysteels' odd adventure had supplied a subject of con- versation since they had sat down to dinner. "Flora, my dear," said Aunt Greysteel, "Mr Strange will begin to think we cannot talk of any thing else."

"Oh! Do not trouble upon my account," said Strange. "It is curious and we magicians collect curiosities, you know."

"Could you cure her by magic, Mr Strange?" asked Miss Greysteel.

"Cure madness? No. Though it is not for want of trying. I was once asked to visit a mad old gentleman to see what I could do for him and I believe I cast stronger spells upon that occasion than upon any other, but at the end of my visit he was just as mad as ever."

"But there might be recipes for curing madness, might there not?" asked Miss Greysteel eagerly. "I dare say the
Aureate
magicians might have had one." Miss Greysteel had begun to interest herself in magical history and her conversation these days was full of words like
Aureate
nd
Argentine
.

"Possibly," said Strange, "but if so, then the prescription has been lost for hundreds of years."

"And if it were a thousand years, then I am sure that it need be o impediment to
ou
. You have related to us dozens of examples of spells which were thought to be lost and which you have been able to recover."

"True, but generally I had some idea of how to begin. I never heard of a single instance of an
Aureate
magician curing madness. Their attitude towards madness seems to have been quite different from ours. They regarded madmen as seers and prophets and listened to their ramblings with the closest attention."

"How strange! Why?"

"Mr Norrell believed it was something to do with the sympathy which fairies feel for madmen – that and the fact that madmen can perceive fairy-spirits when no one else can." Strange paused. "You say this old woman is very mad?" he said.

"Oh, yes! I believe so."

In the drawing-room after dinner Dr Greysteel fell soundly asleep in his chair. Aunt Greysteel nodded in hers, waking every now and then to apologize for her sleepiness and then promptly falling asleep again. So Miss Greysteel was able to enjoy a teà te-a- teà te with Strange for the rest of the evening. She had a great deal to say to him. On his recommendation she had recently been reading Lord Portishead's
A Child's History of the Raven King
and she wished to ask him about it. However, he seemed distracted and several times she had the disagreeable impression that he was not attending to her.

The following day the Greysteels visited the Arsenal and were full of admiration for its gloom and vastness, they idled away an hour or two in curiosity shops (where the shopkeepers seemed nearly as quaint and old-fashioned as the curiosities themselves), and they ate ices at a pastry-cook's near the Church of San Stefano. To all the pleasures of the day Strange had been invited, but early in the morning Aunt Greysteel had received a short note presenting his compliments and thanks, but he had come quite by accident upon a new line of inquiry and dare not leave it, ". . . and scholars, madam, as you know by the example of your own brother, are the most selfish beings in creation and think that devotion to their researches excuses any thing . . ." Nor did he appear the next day when they visited the Scuola di Santa Maria della CaritaÁ . Nor the following one when they went by gondola to Torcello, a lonely, reed-choked island shrouded in grey mists where the first Venetian city had been raised, been magnificent, been deserted and finally crumbled away, all long, long ago.

But, though Strange was shut away in his rooms near Santa Maria Zobenigo, doing magic, Dr Greysteel was spared the anguish of missing him greatly by the frequency with which his name was mentioned among them. If the Greysteels walked by the Rialto – and if the sight of that bridge drew Dr Greysteel on to talk of Shylock, Shakespeare and the condition of the modern theatre, then Dr Greysteel was sure to have the benefit of Strange's opinions upon all these subjects – for Miss Greysteel knew them all and could argue for them quite as well as for her own. If, in a little curiosity shop, the Greysteels were struck by a painting of a quaint dancing bear, then it only served as an opportunity for Miss Greysteel to tell her father of an acquaintance of Mr Strange who had a stuffed brown bear in a glass case. If the Greysteels ate mutton, then Miss Greysteel was sure to be reminded of an occasion, of which Mr Strange had told her, when he had eaten mutton at Lyme Regis.

On the evening of the third day Dr Greysteel sent Strange a message proposing that the two of them should take a coffee and a glass of Italian spirit together. They met at Florian's a little after six o'clock.