Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (124 page)

2 One autumn morning the Cumbrian child went out into her grandmother's garden. In a forgotten corner she discovered a house about the height and largeness of a bee-skep, built of spiders' webs stiffened and whitened with hoar-frost. Inside the lacy house was a tiny person who at times appeared immeasurably old and at other times no older than the child herself. The little person told the Cumbrian child that she was a songbird-herd and that for ages past it had been her task to watch over the fieldfares, redwings and mistle-thrushes in that part of Cumbria. All winter the Cumbrian child and the songbird-herd played together and the progress of their friendship was not in the least impeded by the difference in their sizes. In fact the songbird-herd generally did away with this obstacle by making herself as large as the Cumbrian child — or sometimes by making them both as small as birds, or beetles, or snowflakes. The songbird-herd introduced the Cumbrian child to many odd and interesting persons, some of whom lived in houses even more eccentric and delightful than the songbird-herd's own.

3 Like most of Martin Pale's magic, Restoration and Rectification involves the use of a tool or key made specifically for the purpose. In this case the key is a small cross-like object made of two thin pieces of metal. The four arms of the cross represent past state and future state, wholeness (or wellness) and incompleteness (or sickness). As he later reported in
The Modern Magician
, Mr Segundus used a spoon and a bodkin from Lady Pole's dressing-case which Lady Pole's maid tied together with a ribbon.

65
The ashes, the pearls,
the counterpane and the kiss

Mid February 1817

A
S LUCAS AND the others were leaving Hurtfew Abbey, Stephen was dressing in his bed-chamber at the top of the house in Harley-street.

London is a city with more than its fair share of eccentricities, but of all the surprizing places it contained at this time the most extraordinary was undoubtedly Stephen's bed-chamber. It was full of things that were precious, rare or wonderful. If the Cabinet, or the gentlemen who direct the Bank of England, had been somehow able to acquire the contents of Stephen's bed-chamber their cares would have all been over. They could have paid off Britain's debts and built London anew with the change. Thanks to the gentleman with the thistle-down hair Stephen possessed crown jewels from who-knew-what kingdoms, and embroidered robes that had once belonged to Coptic popes. The flowerpots upon his windowsill contained no flowers, but only ruby-and-pearl crosses, carved jewels and the insignia of long-dead military orders. Inside his small cupboard was a piece of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and the thigh-bone of a Basque saint. St Christopher's hat hung upon a peg behind the door and a marble statue of Lorenzo de Medici by Michael Angel (which had stood, until recently, upon the great man's tomb in Florence) occupied most of the floor.

Stephen was shaving himself in a little mirror balanced upon Lorenzo de Medici's knee when the gentleman appeared at his shoulder.

"The magician has returned to England!" he cried. "I saw him last night in the King's Roads, with the Darkness wrapped about him like a mystical cloak! What does he want? What can he be planning? Oh! This will be the end of me, Stephen! I feel it! He means me great harm!"

Stephen felt a chill. The gentleman was always at his most dangerous in this mood of agitation and alarm.

"We should kill him!" said the gentleman.

"Kill him? Oh no, sir!"

"Why not? We could be rid of him for ever! I could bind his arms, eyes and tongue with magic, and you could stab him through the heart!"

Stephen thought rapidly. "But his return may have nothing to do with you at all, sir," he offered. "Consider how many enemies he has in England — human enemies, I mean. Perhaps he has come back to continue his quarrel with one of them."

The gentleman looked doubtful. Any reasoning that did not contain a reference to himself was always difficult for him to follow. "I do not think
that
very likely," he said.

"Oh, but yes!" said Stephen, beginning to feel upon surer ground. "There have been terrible things written about him in the newspapers and the magical journals. There is a rumour that he killed his wife. Many people believe it. Were it not for his present situation, he would very likely have been arrested by now. And it is common knowledge that the other magician is the author of all these lies and half-truths. Probably, Strange has come to take revenge upon his master."

The gentleman stared at Stephen for a moment or two. Then he laughed, his spirits as elevated as moments before they had been the reverse. "We have nothing to fear Stephen!" he cried, in delight. "The magicians have quarrelled and hate each other! Yet they are nothing without one another. How glad that makes me! How happy I am to have you to advise me! And it so happens that I intend to give you a wonderful present today — something you have long desired!"

"Indeed, sir?" said Stephen with a sigh. "That will be most delightful."

"Yet we ought to kill someone," said the gentleman, immediately reverting to his former subject. "I have been quite put out of temper this morning and someone ought to die for it. What do you say to the old magician? — Oh, but wait! That would oblige the younger one, which I do not want to do! What about Lady Pole's husband? He is tall and arrogant and treats you like a servant!"

"But I
am
a servant, sir."

"Or the King of England! Yes, that is an excellent plan! Let you and I go immediately to the King of England. Then you can put him to death and be King in his place! Do you have the orb, crown and sceptre that I gave you?"

"But the laws of Great Britain do not allow . . ." began Stephen.

"The laws of Great Britain! Pish tush! What nonsense! I thought you would have understood by now that the laws of Great Britain are nothing but a flimsy testament to the idle wishes and dreams of mankind. According to the ancient laws by which my race conducts itself, a king is most commonly succeeded by the person who killed him."

"But, sir! Remember how much you liked the old gentleman when you met him?"

"Hmm, that is true. But in a matter of such importance I am willing to put aside my personal feelings. The difficulty is that we have too many enemies, Stephen! There are too many wicked persons in England! I know! I shall ask some of my allies to tell us who is our greatest enemy of all. We must be careful. We must be cunning. We must frame our question with exactitude.
¹
I shall ask the North Wind and the Dawn to bring us immediately into the presence of the one person in England whose existence is the greatest threat to me! And then we can kill him, whoever he is. You observe, Stephen, that I make reference to my own life, but I consider your fate and mine as bound so closely together that there is scarcely any difference between us. Whosoever is a danger to me, is a danger to you also! Now take up your crown and orb and sceptre and say a last farewell to the scenes of your slavery! It may be that you shall never see them again!"

"But . . ." began Stephen.

It was too late. The gentleman raised his long, white hands and gave a sort of flourish.

Stephen expected to be brought before one or other of the magicians — possibly both. Instead the gentleman and he found themselves upon a wide, empty moor covered in snow. More snow was falling. On one side the ground rose up to meet the heavy, slate-coloured sky; on the other was a misty view of far-away, white hills. In all that desolate landscape there was only one tree — a twisted hawthorn not far from where they stood. It was, thought Stephen, very like the country around Starecross Hall.

"Well, that is very odd!" said the gentleman. "I do not see any body at all, do you?"

"No, sir. No one," said Stephen, in relief. "Let us return to London."

"I cannot understand . . . Oh, but wait! Here is someone!"

Half a mile or so away there seemed to be a road or track of some sort. A horse and cart were coming slowly along it. When the cart drew level with the hawthorn tree, it stopped and someone got out. This person began to stump across the moor towards them.

"Excellent!" cried the gentleman. "Now we shall see our wickedest and most powerful enemy! Put on your crown, Stephen! Let him tremble before our power and majesty! Excellent! Raise your sceptre! Yes, yes! Hold forth your orb! How handsome you look! How regal! Now, Stephen, since we have a little time before he arrives . . ." The gentleman gazed at the little figure in the distance labouring across the snowy moor. ". . . I have something else to tell you. What is the date today?"

"The fifteenth of February, sir. St Anthony's Day."

"Ha! A dreary saint indeed! Well, in future the people of England will have something better to celebrate on the fifteenth of February than the life of a monk who keeps the rain off people and finds their lost thimbles!"
²

"Will they indeed, sir? And what is that?"

"The Naming of Stephen Black!"

"I beg your pardon, sir?"

"I told you, Stephen, that I would find your true name!"

"What! Did my mother really name me, sir?"

"Yes, indeed! It is all just as I supposed! — which is scarcely surprizing since I am rarely wrong in such matters. She named you with a name in her own tongue. With a name she had heard often among her own people when she was a young girl. She named you, but she did not tell the name to a single soul. She did not even whisper it into your infant ear. She had no time because Death stole upon her and took her unawares."

A picture rose up in Stephen's mind — the dark, fusty hold of the ship — his mother, worn out by the pains of childbirth, surrounded by strangers — himself a tiny infant. Did she even speak the language of the other people on board? He had no way of knowing. How alone she must have felt! He would have given a great deal at that moment to be able to reach out and comfort her, but all the years of his life lay between them. He felt his heart harden another degree against the English. Only a few minutes ago he had struggled to persuade the gentleman not to kill Strange, but why should he care what became of one Englishman? Why should he care what became of any of that cold, callous race?

With a sigh, he put these thoughts aside and discovered that the gentleman was still talking.

". . . It is a most edifying tale and demonstrates to perfection all those qualities for which I am especially famed; namely self- sacrifice, devoted friendship, nobility of purpose, perceptiveness, ingenuity and courageousness."

"I beg your pardon, sir?"

"The story of my finding your name, Stephen, which I am now going to relate! Know then that your mother died in the hold of a ship, the
Penlaw
,
³
that was sailing from Jamaica to Liverpool. And then," he added in a matter-of-fact tone, "the English sailors stripped her body and flung it into the sea."

"Ah!" breathed Stephen.

"Now, as you may imagine, this made the task of recovering your name extremely difficult. After thirty or forty years, all that was left of your mother was four things: her screams in childbirth, which had sunk into the planks of the ship; her bones, which was all that was left of her, once the flesh and softer parts had been devoured by fishes . . ."

"Ah!" exclaimed Stephen again.

". . . her gown of rose-coloured cotton which had passed into the possession of a sailor; and a kiss which the captain of the ship had stolen from her, two days earlier. Now," said the gentleman (who was clearly enjoying himself immensely), "you will observe with what cleverness and finesse I traced the passage of each part of her through the world, until I was able to recover them and so divine your glorious name! The
Penlaw
sailed on to Liverpool where the wicked grandfather of Lady Pole's wicked husband disembarked with his servant — who carried your own infant person in his arms. On the
Penlaw
's next voyage, which was to Leith in Scotland, it met with a storm and was wrecked. Various spars and bits of broken hull were cast up upon the rocky shore, including the planks that contained your mother's screams. These were taken by a very poor man to make a roof and walls for his house. I found the house very easily. It stood upon a windy promontory, overlooking a stormy sea. Inside, several generations of the poor man's family were living in the utmost poverty and degradation. Now, you should know, Stephen, that wood has a stubborn, proud nature; it does not readily tell what it knows — even to its friends. It is always easier to deal with the ashes of the wood, rather than wood itself. So I burnt the poor man's house to the ground, placed the ashes in a bottle and continued on my way."

"Burnt, sir! I hope no one was hurt!"

"Well, some people were. The strong, young men were able to run out of the conflagration in time, but the older, enfeebled members of the family, the women and infants were all burnt to death."

"Oh!"

"Next I traced the history of her bones. I believe I mentioned before that she was cast into the ocean where, due to the movement of the waters and the importunate interference of the fishes, the body became bones, the bones became dust, and the dust was very soon transformed by a bed of oysters into several handfuls of the most beautiful pearls. In time the pearls were harvested and sold to a jeweller in Paris, who created a necklace of five perfect strands. This he sold to a beautiful French Comtesse. Seven years later the Comtesse was guillotined and her jewels, gowns and personal possessions became the property of a Revolutionary official. This wicked man was, until quite recently, the mayor of a small town in the Loire valley. Late at night he would wait until all his servants had gone to bed and then, in the privacy of his bed-chamber, he would put on the Comtesse's jewels and gowns and other finery and parade up and down in front of a large mirror. Here I found him one night, looking, I may say, very ridiculous. I strangled him upon the spot — using the pearl necklace."