Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell (94 page)

"Many," said Lord Portishead, "but I am sure you will have tried them all already, Mr Strange. We look to you, sir, to reconstruct for us all that has been lost."

"Oh!" sighed Strange. "Sometimes I think that nothing has been lost. The truth is that it is all at the library at Hurtfew."

"You said there was another person present who both saw and heard the fairy?" said Sir Walter.

"Yes."

"And I take it that this other person was not Norrell?"

"No."

"Very well then. What did this other person say?"

"He was . . . confused. He believed he was seeing an angel, but owing to his general style of living and habits of mind he did not find this quite as extraordinary as you might think. I beg your pardon but discretion forbids me to say any thing more of the circumstances."

"Yes, yes! Very well! But your companion saw the fairy. Why?"

"Oh, I know why. There was something very particular about him which enabled him to see fairies."

"Well, can you not use that somehow?"

Strange considered this. "I do not see how. It is a mere chance like one man having blue eyes and another brown." He was silent a moment, musing. "But then again perhaps not. Perhaps you are right. It is not such a very outlandish notion when you come to consider it. Think of the
Aureates
! Some of them were the fairies' near-neighbours in wildness and madness! Think of Ralph Stokesey and his fairy-servant, Col Tom Blue! When Stokesey was a young man there was scarcely any thing to chuse between them. Perhaps I amtoo tame, too
domestic
a magician. But how
does
one work up a little madness? I meet with mad people every day in the street, but I never thought before to wonder how they got mad. Perhaps I should go wandering on lonely moors and barren shores. That is always a popular place for lunatics - in novels and plays at any rate. Perhaps wild England will make me mad."

Strange got up and went to the drawing-room window, as if he expected to be able to survey wild England from there - although all it shewed was the very ordinary sight of Soho-square in a thick and mizzling rain. "I think you may have hit upon something, Pole."

"I?" cried Sir Walter, somewhat alarmed at where his remarks appeared to be leading, "I meant to suggest no such thing!"

"But, Mr Strange," reasoned the gentle Lord Portishead, "you cannot possibly mean this. For a man of such erudition as you possess to propose that he become a . . . a vagabond. Well, sir, it is a very shocking thought."

Strange crossed his arms and took another look at Soho-square and said, "Well, I shall not go today." And then he smiled his self- mocking smile and looked almost like his old self. "I shall wait," he said, "until it stops raining."
⁴

1 Scholars of magic are always particularly excited about any new discovery concerning the great Dr Pale. He occupies an unique position in English magical history. Until the advent of Strange and Norrell he was the only noteworthy practical magician who wrote down his magic for other people to read. Naturally his books are esteemed above all others.

2 For centuries this passage was considered an interesting curiosity, but of no practical value since no one nowadays believes that Death is a person capable of being interrogated in the manner Pale suggests.

3 Most of us are naturally inclined to struggle against the restrictions our friends and family impose upon us, but if we are so unfortunate as to lose a loved one, what a difference then! Then the restriction becomes a sacred trust.

4 Even John Uskglass who had three kingdoms to rule over and all of English magic to direct was not entirely free from this tendency to go on long mysterious journeys. In 1241 he left his house in Newcastle in some mysterious fashion known only to magicians. He told a servant that he would be found asleep upon a bench in front of the fire in one day's time.

The following day the servant and members of the King's household looked for the King upon the bench in front of the fire, but he was not there. They looked for him every morning and every evening but he did not appear.

William, Earl of Lanchester, governed in his stead and many decisions were postponed "until the King shall return". But as time went on many people were inclined to doubt that this would ever happen. Then, a year and a day after his departure, the King was discovered, sleeping on the bench before the fire.

He did not seem aware that any thing untoward had happened and he told no one where he had been. No one dared ask him if he had always intended to be away so long or if something terrible had happened. William of Lanchester summoned the servant and asked him to repeat yet again the exact words that the King had said. Could it be that he had actually said he would be away for a year and a day?

Perhaps said the man. The King was generally quietly spoken. It was quite possible that he had not heard correctly.

50
The History and Practice of English Magic

April to late September 1816

S
TRANGE'S FRIENDS WERE glad to be assured that he did not intend to give up his comfortable houses, his good income and his servants to go and be a gypsy in the wind and the rain, but still very few of them were entirely comfortable with his new practices. They had good reason to fear that he had lost all restraint and was prepared to indulge in any and all kinds of magic. His promise to Arabella kept him from the King's Roads for the present, but all Sir Walter's warnings could not prevent him from continually talking and wondering about John Uskglass and his fairy subjects.

By the end of April, Strange's three new pupils, the Honourable Henry Purfois, William Hadley-Bright and Tom Levy, the dan- cing-master, had all taken lodgings near Soho-square. Every day they attended Strange's house to study magic. In the intervals between directing their magical education Strange worked at his book and performed magic on behalf of the Army and the East India Company. He had also received applications for assistance from the Corporation of Liverpool and the Society of Merchant Venturers in Bristol.

That Strange should still receive commissions from official bodies – or indeed from any one at all – so incensed Mr Norrell that he complained to Lord Liverpool, the Prime Minister, about it.

Lord Liverpool was not sympathetic. "The generals may do as they wish, Mr Norrell. The Government does not interfere in ilitary matters, as well you know.
¹
The generals have employed Mr Strange as their magician for a number of years and they see no reason to stop simply because you and he have quarrelled. As for the East India Company I am told that its officials applied to you in the first place and that you declined to help them."

Mr Norrell blinked his little eyes rapidly. "My work for the Government – my work for you, my lord – takes up so much of my time. I cannot, in conscience, neglect it for the sake of a private company."

"And believe me, Mr Norrell, we are grateful. Yet I need scarcely tell you how vital the success of the East India Company is to the prosperity of the Nation and the Company's need for a magician is immense. It has fleets of ships at the mercy of storms and bad weather; it has vast territories to administer and its armies are continually harassed by Indian princelings and bandits. Mr Strange has undertaken to controul the weather around the Cape and in the Indian Ocean and he has offered advice on the best use of magic in hostile territories. The Directors of the East India Company believe that Mr Strange's experience in the Spanish Peninsula will prove invaluable. It is yet another demonstration of Britain's sore need for more magicians. Mr Norrell, as diligent as you are, you cannot be everywhere and do everything – and no one expects that you should. I hear that Mr Strange has taken pupils. It would please me immensely to hear that you intended to do the same."

Despite Lord Liverpool's approval, the education of the three new magicians, Henry Purfois, William Hadley-Bright and Tom Levy, progressed no more smoothly than Strange's own six years before. The only difference was that whereas Strange had had Norrell's evasiveness to contend with, the young men were con- tinually thwarted by Strange's low spirits and restlessness.

By early June the first volume of
The History and Practice of English
Magic
was finished. Strange delivered it to Mr Murray and it surprized no one when, on the following day, he told Henry Purfois, William Hadley-Bright and Tom Levy that they must defer their magical education for a while as he had decided to go abroad.

"I think it an excellent plan!" said Sir Walter as soon as Strange told him of it. "A change of scene. A change of society. It is exactly what I would prescribe for you. Go! Go!"

"You do not think that it is too soon?" asked Strange anxiously. "I shall be leaving Norrell in possession of London so to speak."

"You think we have such short memories as that? Well, we shall make every endeavour not to forget you in the space of a few months. Besides, your book will be published soon and that will serve as a standing reminder to us all of how ill we get on without you."

"That is true. There is the book. It will take Norrell months to refute forty-six chapters and I shall be back long before he is finished."

"Where shall you go?"

"Italy, I think. The countries of southern Europe have always had a strong attraction for me. I was often struck by the appear- ance of the countryside when I was in Spain – or at least I believe I would have found it very striking had it not been covered in soldiers and gunsmoke."

"I hope you will write occasionally? Some token of your im- pressions?"

"Oh! I shall not spare you. It is the right of a traveller to vent their frustration at every minor inconvenience by writing of it to their friends. Expect long descriptions of everything."

As often happened these days, Strange's mood darkened sud- denly. His light, ironic air evaporated upon the instant and he sat frowning at the coal-scuttle. "I wondered if you . . ." he said at last. "That is, I wish to ask you . . ." He made a sound of exasperation at his own hesitancy. "Would you convey a message to Lady Pole from me? I would be most grateful. Arabella was greatly attached to her ladyship and I know she would not have liked me to leave England without sending some message to Lady Pole."

"Certainly. What shall I tell her?"

"Oh! Simply give her my heartfelt wishes for her better health. Whatever you think best. It does not matter what you say. But you must say that the message is from Arabella's husband. I wish her ladyship to understand that her friend's husband has not forgotten her."

"With the greatest goodwill," said Sir Walter. "Thank you."

Strange had half-expected that Sir Walter would invite him to speak to Lady Pole himself, but Sir Walter did not. No one even knew whether her ladyship was still at the house in Harley-street. There was a rumour circulating the Town that Sir Walter had sent her to the country.

Strange was not alone in wishing to go abroad. It had suddenly become very fashionable. For far too long the British had been confined to their own island by the war with Buonaparte. For far too long they had been forced to satisfy their desire to look upon new scenes and curious people by visits to the Scottish Highlands or the English Lakes or the Derbyshire Peak. But now the war was over they could go to the Continent and see mountains and shores of quite a different character. They could view for themselves those celebrated works of art which hitherto they had only seen in books of engravings. Some went abroad hoping to find that it was cheaper to live on the Continent than at home. Some went to avoid debts or scandal and some, like Strange, went to find a tranquillity that eluded them in England.

Jonathan Strange to John Segundus

Bruxelles
Jun. 12th, 1816.

I am, as far as I can tell, about a month behind Lord Byron.
²
In every town we stop at we discover innkeepers, postillions, officials, burghers, potboys and all kinds and sorts of ladies whose brains still seem somewhat deranged from their brief exposure to his lordship. And though my companions are careful to tell people that I am that dreadful being, an English magician, I am clearly nothing in comparison to an English poet and everywhere I go I enjoy the reputation – quite new to me, I assure you – of the quiet, good Englishman, who makes no noise and is no trouble to any one . . .

It was a queer summer that year. Or rather it was no summer at all. Winter had extended its lease into August. The sun was scarcely seen. Thick grey clouds covered the sky; bitter winds blew through towns and withered crops; storms of rain and hail, enlivened by occasional displays of thunder and lightning, fell upon every part of Europe. In many ways it was worse than winter: the long hours of daylight denied people the consolation of darkness which would have hidden all these miseries for a while.

London was half empty. Parliament was dissolved and the Members of Parliament had all gone to their country houses, the better to stare at the rain. In London Mr John Murray, the publisher, sat in his house in Albermarle-street. At other times Mr Murray's rooms were the liveliest in London – full of poets, essayists, reviewers and all the great literary men of the kingdom. But the great literary men of the kingdom had gone to the country. The rain pattered upon the window and the wind moaned in the chimney. Mr Murray heaped more coals upon the fire and then sat down at his desk to begin reading that day's letters. He picked each letter up and held it close to his left eye (the right being quite blind and useless).

It so happened that on this particular day there were two from Geneva in Swisserland. The first was from Lord Byron complain- ing of Jonathan Strange and the second was from Strange com- plaining of Byron. The two men had met at Mr Murray's house a handful of times, but until now they had never got acquainted. Strange had visited Byron at Geneva a couple of weeks before. The meeting had not been a success.