Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (66 page)

Colquhoun Grant gave the Nottinghamshire gentleman a very cool look and remarked to nobody in particular, "It is no wonder to me that farming is in such a parlous condition. Farmers nowadays are always upon the gad. One meets with them at all the idlest haunts in the kingdom. They consult nothing but their own pleasure. Is there no wheat to be sown in Nottinghamshire, I wonder? No pigs to be fed?"

"Mr Tantony and I are not farmers, sir!" exclaimed the Nottinghamshire gentleman indignantly. "We are brewers. Gatcombe and Tantony's Entire Stout is our most celebrated beer and it is famed throughout three counties!"

"Thank you, but we have beer and brewers enough in London already," remarked Colonel Manningham. "Pray, do not stay upon our account."

"But we are not here to sell beer! We have come for a far nobler purpose than that! Mr Tantony and I are enthusiasts for magic! We consider that it is every patriotic Englishman's duty to interest himself in the subject. London is no longer merely the capital of Great Britain — it is the centre of our magical scholarship. For many years it was Mr Tantony's dearest wish that he might learn magic, but the art was in such a wretched condition that it made him despair. His friends bade him be more cheerful. We told him that it is when things are at their worst that they start to mend. And we were right, for almost immediately there appeared two of the greatest magicians that England has ever known. I refer of course to Mr Norrell and Mr Strange! The wonders which they have performed have given Englishmen cause to bless the country of their birth again and encouraged Mr Tantony to hope that he might one day be of their number."

"Indeed? Well, it is my belief that he will be disappointed," observed Strange.

"Then, sir, you could not be more wrong!" cried the Nottinghamshire gentleman triumphantly. "Mr Tantony is being instructed in the magical arts by Mr Strange himself!"

Unfortunately, Strange happened at that moment to be leaning across the table, balanced upon one foot to take aim at a billiard ball. So surprized was he at what he heard that he missed the shot entirely, struck his cue against the side of the table and promptly fell over.

"I think there must be some mistake," said Colquhoun Grant.

"No, sir. No mistake," said the Nottinghamshire gentleman with an air of infuriating calmness.

Strange, getting up from the floor, asked, "What does he look like, this Mr Strange?"

"Alas," said the Nottinghamshire gentleman, "I cannot give you any precise information upon that point. Mr Tantony has never met Mr Strange. Mr Tantony's education is conducted entirely by letters. But we have great hopes of seeing Mr Strange in the street. We go to Soho-square tomorrow expressly for the purpose of looking at his house."

"Letters!" exclaimed Strange.

"I would think an education by correspondence must of a very inferior sort," said Sir Walter.

"Not at all!" cried the Nottinghamshire gentleman. "Mr Strange's letters are full of sage advice and remarkable insights into the condition of English magic. Why, only the other day Mr Tantony wrote and asked Mr Strange for a spell to make it stop raining — we get a great deal of rain in our part of Nottinghamshire. The very next day Mr Strange wrote back and said that, though there were indeed spells that could move rain and sunshine about, like pieces on a chessboard, he would never employ them except in the direst need, and he advised Mr Tantony to follow his example. English magic, said Mr Strange, had grown up upon English soil and had in a sense been nurtured by English rain. Mr Strange said that in meddling with English weather, we meddled with England, and in meddling with England we risked destroying the very foundations of English magic. We thought that a very striking instance of Mr Strange's genius, did we not, Mr Tantony?" The Nottinghamshire man gave his friend a little shake which made him blink several times.

"Did you ever say that?" murmured Sir Walter.

"Why! I think I did," answered Strange. "I believe I said something of the sort . . . when would it have been? Last Friday, I suppose."

"And to whom did you say it?"

"To Norrell, of course."

"And was there any other person in the room?"

Strange paused. "Drawlight," he said slowly.

"Ah!"

"Sir," said Strange to the Nottinghamshire gentleman. "I beg your pardon if I offended you before. But you must admit that there was something about the way in which you spoke to me which was not quite . . . In short I have a temper and you piqued me. I am Jonathan Strange and I am sorry to tell you that I never heard of you or Mr Tantony until today. I suspect that Mr Tantony and I are both the dupes of an unscrupulous man. I presume that Mr Tantony pays me for his education? Might I ask where he sends the money? If it is to Little Ryder-street then I shall have the proof I need."

Unfortunately the Nottinghamshire gentleman and Mr Tantony had formed an idea of Strange as a tall, deep-chested man with a long white beard, a ponderous way of speaking and an antiquated mode of dress. As the Mr Strange who stood before them was slender, clean-shaven, quick of speech and dressed exactly like every other rich, fashionable gentleman in London, they could not at first be persuaded that this was the right person.

"Well, that is easily resolved," said Colquhoun Grant.

"Of course," said Sir Walter, "I will summon a waiter. Perhaps the word of a servant will do what the word of a gentleman cannot. John! Come here! We want you!"

"No, no, no!" cried Grant, "That was not what I meant at all. John, you may go away again. We do not want you. There are any number of things which Mr Strange could do which would prove his incomparable magicianship far better than any mere assurances. He is after all the Greatest Magician of the Age."

"Surely," said the Nottinghamshire man with a frown, "that title belongs to Mr Norrell?"

Colquhoun Grant smiled. "Colonel Manningham and I had the honour, sir, to fight with his Grace the Duke of Wellington in Spain. I assure you we knew nothing of Mr Norrell there. It was Mr Strange — this gentleman here — whom we trusted. Now, if he were to perform some startling act of magic then I do not think you could doubt any longer and then I am sure your great respect for English magic and English magicians would not allow you to remain silent a moment longer. I am sure you would wish to tell him all you know about these forged letters." Grant looked at the Nottinghamshire gentleman inquiringly.

"Well," said the Nottinghamshire gentleman, "you are a very queer set of gentlemen, I must say, and what you can mean by spinning me such a tale as this, I do not know. For I tell you plainly I will be very much surprized if the letters prove to be forgeries when every line, every word breathes good English magic!"

"But," said Grant, "if, as we suppose, this scoundrel made use of Mr Strange's own words to concoct his lies, then that would explain it, would it not? Now, in order to prove that he is who we say he is, Mr Strange shall now shew you something that no man living has ever seen!"

"Why?" said the Nottinghamshire man. "What will he do?"

Grant smiled broadly and turned to Strange, as if he too were suddenly struck with curiosity. "Yes, Strange, tell us. What will you do?"

But it was Sir Walter who answered. He nodded in the direction of a large Venetian mirror which took up most of one wall and was at that moment reflecting only darkness, and he declared, "He will walk into that mirror and he will not come out again."

1 This portrait, now lost, hung in Mr Norrell's library from November 1814 until the summer of the following year when it was removed. It has not been seen since.

The following extract from a volume of memoirs describes the difficulties experienced by Mr Lawrence (later Sir Thomas Lawrence) in painting the portrait. It is also of interest for the light it sheds upon the relationship of Norrell and Strange in late 1814. It seems that, in spite of many provocations, Strange was still struggling to bear patiently with the older magician and to encourage others to do the same.

"The two magicians sat for the picture in Mr Norrell's library. Mr Lawrence found Mr Strange to be a most agreeable man and Strange's part of the portrait progressed very well. Mr Norrell, on the other hand, was very restless from the start. He would shift about in his chair and crane his neck as if he were trying to catch sight of Mr Lawrence's hands — a futile endeavour as the easel stood between them. Mr Lawrence supposed he must be anxious about the picture and assured him it went well. Mr Lawrence added that Mr Norrell might look if he wished, but this did nothing to cure Mr Norrell's fidgets.

All at once Mr Norrell addressed Mr Strange, who was in the room and busy writing a letter to one of the Ministers. `Mr Strange, I feel a draught! I do believe that the window behind Mr Lawrence is open! Pray, Mr Strange, go and see if the window is open!' Without looking up, Strange replied, `No, the window is not open. You are mistaken.' A few minutes later Mr Norrell thought he heard a pie-seller in the square and begged Mr Strange to go to the window and look out, but once again Mr Strange refused. Next it was a duchess's coach that Mr Norrell heard. He tried everything that he could think of to make Mr Strange go to the window, but Mr Strange would not go. This was very odd, and Mr Lawrence began to suspect that all Mr Norrell's agitation had nothing to with imaginary draughts or pie-sellers or duchesses but that it had something to do with the painting.

So when Mr Norrell went out of the room Mr Lawrence asked Mr Strange what the matter was. At first Mr Strange insisted that nothing was wrong, but Mr Lawrence was determined to find out and pressed Mr Strange to tell him the truth. Mr Strange sighed. `Oh, very well! He has got it into his head that you are copying spells out of his books behind your easel.'

Mr Lawrence was shocked. He had painted the greatest in the land and never before been suspected of stealing. This was not the sort of treatment he expected.

`Come,' said Mr Strange, gently, `do not be angry. If any man in England deserves our patience, it is Mr Norrell. All the future of English magic is on his shoulders and I assure you he feels it very keenly. It makes him a little eccentric. What would be your sensations, I wonder, Mr Lawrence, if you woke one morning and found yourself the only artist in Europe? Would not you feel a little lonely? Would you not feel the watchful gaze of Michelangelo and Raphael and Rembrandt and all the rest of them upon you, as if they both defied and implored you to equal their achievements? Would you not sometimes be out of spirits and out of temper?' "

From
Recollections
of
Sir
Thomas
Lawrence
during
an
intimacy
of
nearly
thirty
years
by
Miss
Croft

2 Francis Pevensey, sixteenth-century magician. Wrote
Eighteen
Wonders
to
be
found
in
the
House
of
Albion
. We know that Pevensey was trained by Martin Pale. The
Eighteen
Wonders
has all the characteristics of Pale's magic, including his fondness for complicated diagrams and intricate magical apparatus. For many years Francis Pevensey occupied a minor but respectable place in English magical history as a follower of Martin Pale and it was a great surprize to everyone when he suddenly became the subject of one of the bitterest controversies in eighteenth-century magical theory.

It began in 1754 with the discovery of a number of letters in the library of a gentleman in Stamford in Lincolnshire. They were all in an antique hand and signed by Martin Pale. The magical scholars of the period were besides themselves with joy.

But upon closer examination the letters proved to be
love
letters
with no word of magic in them from beginning to end. They were of the most passionate description imaginable: Pale compared his beloved to a sweet shower of rain falling upon him, to a fire at which he warmed himself, to a torment that he preferred to any comfort. There were various references to milk-white breasts and perfumed legs and long soft, brown hair in which stars became entangled, and other things not at all interesting to the magical scholars who had hoped for magic spells.

Pale was much addicted to writing his beloved's name — which was Francis — and in one letter he made a sort of punning poem or riddle upon her surname: Pevensey. At first the eighteenth-century magical scholars were inclined to argue that Pale's mistress must have been the sister or wife of the other Francis Pevensey. In the sixteenth century Francis had been a common name for both men and women. Then Charles Hether-Gray published seven different extracts from the letters which mentioned
Eighteen
Wonders
in
the
House
of
Albion
and shewed plainly that Pale's mistress and the author of the book were one and the same person.

William Pantler argued that the letters were forgeries. The letters had been found in the library of a Mr Whittlesea. Mr Whittlesea had a wife who had written several plays, two of which had been performed at the Drury Lane Theatre. Clearly, said Pantler, a woman who would stoop to writing plays would stoop to any thing and he suggested that Mrs Whittlesea had forged the letters ". . . in order to elevate her Sex above the natural place that God had ordained for it . . ." Mr Whittlesea challenged William Pantler to a duel and Pantler, who was a scholar through and through and knew nothing of weapons, apologized and published a formal retraction of his accusations against Mrs Whittlesea.