Jonathan Strange And Mr Norrell Part 60

"Flora! Something very peculiar has happened. I do not know quite how to tell you, but there is a mirror . . ."

"Yes, I know," said Flora, quickly. "It belongs to me."

"Belongs to you!" Aunt Greysteel was more perplexed than ever. A pause of some moments' duration. "Where did you buy it?" she asked. It was all she could think of to say.

"I do not remember exactly. It must have been delivered just now."

"But surely no one would deliver any thing in the middle of a storm! And even if any body had been so foolish as to do such a thing, they would have knocked upon the door and not done it in this strange, secret way."

To these very reasonable arguments Flora made no reply.

Aunt Greysteel was not sorry to let the subject drop. She was quite sick of storms and frights and unexpected mirrors. The question of why why the mirror had appeared was now resolved and so, for the present, she put aside the question of the mirror had appeared was now resolved and so, for the present, she put aside the question of how how it had appeared. She was glad to fall back upon the more soothing subjects of Flora's gown and Flora's shoes and the likelihood of Flora's catching cold and the necessity for Flora drying herself immediately and putting on her dressing-gown and coming and sitting by the fire in the sitting-room and eating something hot. it had appeared. She was glad to fall back upon the more soothing subjects of Flora's gown and Flora's shoes and the likelihood of Flora's catching cold and the necessity for Flora drying herself immediately and putting on her dressing-gown and coming and sitting by the fire in the sitting-room and eating something hot.

When they were both in the sitting-room again, Aunt Greysteel said, "See! The storm is almost pa.s.sed. It seems to be going back towards the coast. How odd! I thought that was the direction it came from. I suppose your embroidery silks were ruined by the rain along with everything else."

"Embroidery silks?" said Flora. Then, remembering, "Oh! I did not get so far as the shop. It was, as you say, a foolish under- taking."

"Well, we can go out later and get whatever you need. How sorry I am for the poor market people! Everything on the stalls will have been spoilt. Bonifazia is making your gruel, my love. I wonder if I told her to use the new milk?"

"I do not remember, aunt."

"I had better go and just mention it."

"I can go, aunt," said Flora, proposing to stand up.

But her aunt would not hear of it. Flora must remain exactly where she was, at the fire-side, with her feet upon a footstool.

It was becoming lighter by the moment. Before proceeding to the kitchen, Aunt Greysteel surveyed the mirror. It was very large and ornate; the sort of mirror, in fact, that is made on the island of Murano in the Venetian Lagoon. "I confess I am surprized at you liking this mirror, Flora. It has so many scrolls and curlicues and gla.s.s flowers. Generally you prefer simple things."

Flora sighed and said she supposed she had acquired a taste for what was sumptuous and elaborate since she had been in Italy.

"Was it expensive?" asked Aunt Greysteel. "It looks expensive."

"No. Not expensive at all."

"Well, that is something, is it not?"

Aunt Greysteel went down the stairs to the kitchen. She was feeling a good deal recovered, and felt confident that the train of shocks and alarms of which the morning seemed to have been composed was now at an end. But in this she was quite wrong.

Standing in the kitchen with Bonifazia and Minich.e.l.lo were two men she had never seen before. Bonifazia did not appear to have begun making Flora's gruel. She had not even fetched the oatmeal and milk out of the pantry.

The moment Bonifazia laid eyes upon Aunt Greysteel, she took her by the arm and unleashed a flood of eager dialect words upon her. She was speaking of the storm that much was clear and saying it was evil, but beyond that Aunt Greysteel understood very little. To her absolute astonishment it was Minich.e.l.lo who helped her comprehend it. In a very reasonable counterfeit of the English language he said, "The magician Engliss makes it. The magician Engliss makes the tempesta tempesta."

"I beg your pardon?"

With frequent interruptions from Bonifazia and the two men, Minich.e.l.lo informed her that in the midst of the storm several people had looked up and seen a cleft in the black clouds. But what they had seen through the cleft had astonished and terrified them; it had not been the clear azure they were expecting, but a black, midnight sky full of stars. The storm had not been natural at all; it had been contrived in order to hide the approach of Strange's Pillar of Darkness.

This news was soon known all over the town and the citizens were greatly disturbed by it. Until now the Pillar of Darkness had been a horror confined to Venice, which seemed to the Paduans at least a natural setting for horrors. Now it was clear that Strange had stayed in Venice by choice rather than enchantment. Any city in Italy any city in the world might suddenly find itself visited by Eternal Darkness. This was bad enough, but for Aunt Greysteel it was much worse; to all her fear of Strange was added the unwelcome conviction that Flora had lied. She debated with herself whether it was more likely that her niece had lied because she was under the influence of a spell, or because her attachment to Strange had weakened her principles. She did not know which would be worse.

She wrote to her brother in Venice, begging him to come. In the meantime she determined to say nothing. For the rest of the day she observed Flora closely. Flora was much as usual, except that there sometimes seemed to be a tinge of penitence in her behaviour to her aunt, where no tinge ought to have been.

At one o'clock on the next day some hours before Aunt Greysteel's letter could have reached him Dr Greysteel arrived with Frank from Venice. They told her that it had been no secret in Venice when Strange left the parish of Santa Maria Zobenigo and went to terrafirma terrafirma. The Pillar of Darkness had been seen from many parts of the city, moving across the face of the sea. Its surface had flickered and twists and spirals of Darkness had darted in and out, so that it appeared to be made of black flames. How Strange had contrived to cross over the water whether he had travelled in a boat, or whether his pa.s.sage had been purely magical was not known. The storm by which he had tried to hide his approach had not been conjured up until he got to Straa , eight miles from Padua.

"I tell you, Louisa," said Dr Greysteel, "I would not exchange with him now upon any consideration. Everyone fled at his approach. From Mestre to Straa he could not have seen another living creature nothing but silent streets and abandoned fields. Henceforth the world is an empty place to him."

A few moments before, Aunt Greysteel had been thinking of Strange with no very tender feelings, but the picture that her brother conjured up was so shocking that tears started into her eyes. "And where is he now?" she asked in a softened tone.

"He has gone back to his rooms in Santa Maria Zobenigo," said Dr Greysteel. "All is just as it was. As soon as we heard he had been in Padua, I guessed what his object was. We came as soon as we could. How is Flora?"

Flora was in the drawing-room. She had been expecting her father indeed she seemed relieved that the interview had come at last. Dr Greysteel had scarcely got out his first question when she burst forth with her confession. It was the release of an overcharged heart. Her tears fell abundantly and she admitted that she had seen Strange. She had seen him in the street below and known that he was waiting for her and so she had run out of the house to meet him.

"I will tell you everything, I promise," she said. "But not yet. I have done nothing wrong. I mean . . ." She blushed. ". . . apart from the falsehoods I told my aunt for which I am very sorry. But these secrets are not mine to tell."

"But why must there be secrets at all, Flora?" asked her father. "Does that not tell you that there is something wrong? People whose intentions are honourable do not have secrets. They act openly."

"Yes, I suppose . . . Oh, but that does not apply to magicians! Mr Strange has enemies that terrible old man in London and others besides! But you must not scold me for doing wrong. I have tried so hard to do good and I believe I have! You see, there is a sort of magic which he has been practising and which is destroying him and yesterday I persuaded him to give it up! He made me a promise to abandon it completely."

"But, Flora!" said her father, sadly. "This distresses me more than all the rest. That you should regard yourself as ent.i.tled to exact promises from him is something which requires explanation. Surely you must see that? My dear, are you engaged to him?"

"No, papa!" Another burst of tears. It took a great many caresses from her aunt to restore her to tolerable calm. When she could speak again, she said, "There is no engagement. It is true that I was attached to him once. But that is all over and done with. You must not suspect me of it! It was for friendship's sake that I asked him to promise me. And for his wife's sake. He thinks he is doing it for her, but I know that she would not want him to do magic so destructive of his health and reason whatever the object, however desperate the circ.u.mstances! She is no longer able to guide his actions and so it fell to me to speak on her behalf."

Dr Greysteel was silent. "Flora," he said after a minute or two, "you forget, my dear, that I have seen him often in Venice. He is in no condition to keep promises. He will not even remember what promise he has made."

"Oh! But he will! I have arranged matters so that he must!"

A fresh return of tears seemed to shew that she was not quite as free of love as she claimed. But she had said enough to make her father and aunt a little easier in their minds. They were convinced that her attachment to Jonathan Strange must come to a natural close sooner or later. As Aunt Greysteel said later that evening, Flora was not the sort of girl to spend years in longing for an impossible love; she was too rational a creature.

Now that they were all together again Dr Greysteel and Aunt Greysteel were eager to continue their travels. Aunt Greysteel wished to go to Rome to see the ancient buildings and artefacts which they had heard were so remarkable. But Flora no longer had any interest in remains or works of art. She was happiest, she said, where she was. Most of the time she would not even leave the house unless absolutely forced to it.Whenthey proposed a walk or a visit to a church with a Renaissance altarpiece, she declined to accompany them. She would complain that it was raining or that the streets were wet all of which was true; there was a great deal of rain in Padua that winter, but the rain had never troubled her before.

Her aunt and father were patient, though Dr Greysteel in particular thought it a little hard. He had not come to Italy to sit quietly in an apartment half the size of the rooms in his own comfortable house in Wiltshire. In private he grumbled that it was perfectly possible to read novels or embroider in Wiltshire (these were now Flora's favourite pursuits) and a good deal cheaper too, but Aunt Greysteel scolded him and made him hush. If this was the way in which Flora intended to grieve for Jonathan Strange, then they must let her.

Flora did propose one expedition, but that was of a most peculiar sort. After Dr Greysteel had been in Padua about a week she announced that she had a great desire to be upon the sea.

Did she mean a sea-voyage, they asked. There was no reason why they should not go to Rome or Naples by sea.

But she did not mean a sea-voyage. She did not wish to leave Padua. No, what she would like would be to go out in a yacht or other sort of boat. Only for an hour or two, perhaps less. But she would like to go immediately. The next day they repaired to a small fishing village.

The village had no particular advantages of situation, prospect, architecture or history in fact it had very little to recommend it at all, other than its proximity to Padua. Dr Greysteel inquired in the little wine-shop and at the priest's house until he heard of two steady fellows who would be willing to take them out upon the water. The men had no objection to taking Dr Greysteel's money, but they were obliged to point out that there was nothing to see; there would have been nothing to see even in good weather. But it was not good weather; it was raining hard enough to make an excursion on the water most uncomfortable, not quite hard enough to dispel the heavy, grey mist.

"Are you sure, my love, that this is what you want?" asked Aunt Greysteel. "It is a dismal spot and the boat smells very strongly of fish."

"I am quite sure, Aunt," said Flora and climbed into the boat and settled herself at one end. Her aunt and father followed her. The mystified fishermen sailed out until all that could be seen in any direction was a shifting ma.s.s of grey water confined by walls of dull, grey mist. The fishermen looked expectantly at Dr Greysteel. He, in turn, looked questioningly at Flora.

Flora took no notice of any of them. She was seated, leaning against the side of the boat in a pensive att.i.tude. Her right arm was stretched out over the water.

"There it is again!" cried Dr Greysteel.

"There is what again?" asked Aunt Greysteel, irritably.

"That smell of cats and mustiness! A smell like the old woman's room. The old woman we visited in Cannaregio. Is there a cat on board?"

The question was absurd. Every part of the fishing-boat was visible from every other part; there was no cat.

"Is any thing the matter, my love?" asked Aunt Greysteel. There was something in Flora's posture she did not quite like. "Are you ill?"

"No, Aunt," said Flora, straightening herself and adjusting her umbrella. "I am well. We can go back now if you wish."

For a moment Aunt Greysteel saw a little bottle floating upon the waves, a little bottle with no stopper. Then it sank beneath the water and was gone for ever.

This peculiar expedition was the last time for many weeks that Flora would shew any inclination to go out. Sometimes Aunt Greysteel would try to persuade her to sit in a chair by the window so that she could see what was going on in the street. In an Italian street there is often something amusing going on. But Flora was greatly attached to a chair in a shadowy corner, beneath the eerie mirror; and she acquired a peculiar habit of comparing the picture of the room as it was contained in the mirror and the room as it really was. She might, for example, suddenly become interested in a shawl that was thrown across a chair and look at its reflection and say, "That shawl looks different in the mirror."

"Does it?" Aunt Greysteel would say, puzzled.

"Yes. It looks brown in the mirror, whereas in truth it is blue. Do not you think so?"

"Well, my dear, I am sure you are right, but it looks just the same to me."

"No," Flora would say, with a sigh, "you are right."

61.

Tree speaks to Stone; Stone speaks to Water January-February 1817 WHEN MR NORRELL had destroyed Strange's book, public opinion in England had been very much against him and very much in favour of Strange. Comparisons were made, both publicly and privately, between the two magicians. Strange was open, courageous and energetic, whereas secrecy seemed to be the beginning and end of Mr Norrell's character. Nor was it forgotten how, when Strange was in the Peninsula in the service of his country, Norrell had bought up all the books of magic in the Duke of Roxburghe's library so that no one else could read them. But by the middle of January the newspapers were full of reports of Strange's madness, descriptions of the Black Tower and speculations concerning the magic which held him there. An Englishman called Lister had been at Mestre on the Italian coast on the day Strange had left Venice and gone to Padua. Mr Lister had witnessed the pa.s.sage of the Pillar of Darkness over the sea and sent back an account to England; three weeks later accounts appeared in several London newspapers of how it had glided silently over the face of the waters. In the s.p.a.ce of a few short months Strange had become a symbol of horror to his countrymen: a d.a.m.ned creature scarcely human.

But Strange's sudden fall from grace did little to benefit Mr Norrell. He received no new commissions from the Government and, worse yet, commissions from other sources were cancelled. In early January the Dean of St Paul's Cathedral had inquired whether Mr Norrell might be able to discover the burial place of a certain dead young woman. The young woman's brother wished to erect a new monument to all the members of his family. This entailed moving the young woman's coffin, but the Dean and Chapter were most embarra.s.sed to discover that her burial place had been written down wrongly and they did not know where she was. Mr Norrell had a.s.sured him that it would be the easiest thing in the world to find her. As soon as the Dean informed him of the young lady's name and one or two other details he would do the magic. But the Dean did not send Mr Norrell her name. Instead an awkwardly phrased letter had arrived in which the Dean made many elaborate apologies and said how he had recently been struck by the inappropriateness of clergymen employing magicians.

Lascelles and Norrell agreed that the situation was a worrying one.

"It will be difficult to sustain the restoration of English magic if no new magic is done," said Lascelles. "At this crisis it is imperative that we bring your name and achievements continually before the public."

Lascelles wrote articles for the newspapers and he denounced Strange in all the magical journals. He also took the opportunity to review the magic that Mr Norrell had done in the past ten years and suggest improvements. He decided that he and Mr Norrell should go down to Brighton to look at the wall of spells that Mr Norrell and Jonathan Strange had cast around Britain's coast. It had occupied the greater part of Mr Norrell's time for the past two years and had cost the Government a vast sum of money.

So on a particularly icy, windy day in February they stood together at Brighton and contemplated a wide stretch of feature- less grey sea.

"It is invisible," said Lascelles.

"Invisible, yes!" agreed Mr Norrell, eagerly, "But no less efficacious for that! It will protect the cliffs from erosion, people's houses from storm, livestock from being swept away and it will capsize any enemies of Britain who attempt to land."

"But could you not have placed beacons at regular intervals to remind people that the magic wall is there? Burning flames hovering mysteriously over the face of the waters? Pillars shaped out of sea-water? Something of that sort?"

"Oh!" said Mr Norrell. "To be sure! I could create the magical illusions you mention. They are not at all difficult to do, but you must understand that they would be purely ornamental. They would not strengthen the magic in any way whatsoever. They would have no practical effect."

"Their effect," said Lascelles, severely, "would be to stand as a constant reminder to every onlooker of the works of the great Mr Norrell. They would let the British people know that you are still the Defender of the Nation, eternally vigilant, watching over them while they go about their business. It would be worth ten, twenty articles in the Reviews."

"Indeed?" said Mr Norrell. He promised that in future he would always bear in mind the necessity of doing magic to excite the public imagination.

They stayed that night in the Old Ship Tavern and the following morning they returned to London. As a rule Mr Norrell detested long journeys. Though his carriage was a most superior example of the carriage-makers' art with everything in the way of iron springs and thick-padded seats, still he felt every b.u.mp and dent in the road. After half an hour or so, he would begin to suffer from pains in his back and aches in his head and queasinesses in his stomach. But upon this particular morning he scarcely gave any thought to his back or his stomach at all. From the first moment of setting off from the Old Ship he was in a curiously nervous condition, beset by unexpected ideas and half-formed fears.

Through the carriage gla.s.s he saw great numbers of large black birds whether ravens or crows he did not know, and in his magician's heart he was sure that they meant something. Against the pale winter sky they wheeled and turned, and spread their wings like black hands; and as they did so each one became a living embodiment of the Raven-in-Flight: John Uskgla.s.s's banner. Mr Norrell asked Lascelles if he thought the birds were more numerous than usual, but Lascelles said he did not know. After the birds the next thing to haunt Mr Norrell's imagination were the wide, cold puddles that were thickly strewn across every field. As the carriage pa.s.sed along the road each puddle became a silver mirror for the blank, winter sky. To a magician there is very little difference between a mirror and a door. England seemed to be wearing thin before his eyes. He felt as if he might pa.s.s through any of those mirror-doors and find himself in one of the other worlds which once bordered upon England. Worse still, he was beginning to think that other people might do it. The Suss.e.x landscape began to look uncomfortably like the England described in the old ballad:

This land is all too shallow It is painted on the sky It is painted on the sky And trembles like the wind-shook rain And trembles like the wind-shook rain When the Raven King pa.s.sed by When the Raven King pa.s.sed by1 For the first time in his life Mr Norrell began to feel that perhaps there was too much magic in England.

When they reached Hanover-square Mr Norrell and Lascelles went immediately to the library. Childerma.s.s was there, seated at a desk. A pile of letters lay in front of him and he was reading one of them. He looked up when Mr Norrell entered the room. "Good! You are back! Read this."

"Why? What is it?"

"It is from a man called Traquair. A young man in Notting-hamshire has saved a child's life by magic and Traquair was a witness to it."

"Really, Mr Childerma.s.s!" said Lascelles, with a sigh. "I thought you knew better than to trouble your master with such nonsense." He glanced at the pile of opened letters; one had a large seal displaying someone's arms. He stared at it for several moments before he realized that he knew it well and s.n.a.t.c.hed it up. "Mr Norrell!" he cried. "We have a summons from Lord Liverpool!"

"At last!" exclaimed Mr Norrell. "What does he say?"

Lascelles took a moment to read the letter. "Only that he begs the favour of our attendance at Fife House upon a matter of the utmost urgency!" He thought rapidly. "It is probably the Johannites. Liverpool ought to have requested your a.s.sistance years ago to deal with the Johannites. I am glad he realizes it at last. And as for you," he said, turning upon Childerma.s.s, "are you quite mad? Or do you have some game of your own to play? You chatter on about false claims of magic, while a letter from the Prime Minister of England lies unattended on the desk!"

"Lord Liverpool can wait," said Childerma.s.s to Mr Norrell. "Believe me when I tell you that you need to know the contents of this letter!"

Lascelles gave a snort of exasperation.

Mr Norrell looked from one to the other. He was entirely at a loss. For years he had been accustomed to rely upon both of them, and their quarrels (which were becoming increasingly frequent) unnerved him completely. He might have stood there, unable to chuse between them, for some time, had not Childerma.s.s decided matters by seizing his arm and pulling him bodily into a small, panelled ante-chamber which led off the library. Childerma.s.s shut the door with a bang and leant on it.

"Listen to me. This magic happened at a grand house in Nottinghamshire. The grown-ups were talking in the drawing-room; the servants were busy and a little girl wandered off into the garden. She climbed a high wall that borders a kitchen-garden and walked along the top of it. But the wall was covered in ice and she tumbled down and fell through the roof of a hot-house. The gla.s.s broke and pierced her in many places. A servant heard her screaming. There was no surgeon nearer than ten miles away. One of the party, a young man called Joseph Abney, saved her by magic. He drew the shards of gla.s.s out of her and mended the broken bones with Martin Pale's Restoration and Rectification,2 and he stopped the flow of blood using a spell which he claimed was Teilo's Hand." and he stopped the flow of blood using a spell which he claimed was Teilo's Hand."3 "Ridiculous!" declared Mr Norrell. "Teilo's Hand has been lost for hundreds of years and Pale's Restoration and Rectification is a very difficult procedure. This young man would have had to study for years and years . . ."

"Yes, I know and he admits that he has hardly studied at all. He barely knew the names of the spells, let alone their execution. Yet Traquair said that he performed the spells fluidly, without hesitation. Traquair and the other people who were present spoke to him and asked him what he was doing the girl's father was much alarmed to see Abney perform magic upon her but, so far as they could tell, Abney did not hear them. Afterwards he was like a man coming out of a dream. All he could say was: 'Tree speaks to stone; stone speaks to water.' He seemed to think that the trees and the sky had told him what to do."

"Mystical nonsense!"

"Perhaps. And yet I do not think so. Since we came to London I have read hundreds of letters from people who think they can do magic and are mistaken. But this is different. This is true. I would stake money upon it. Besides there are other letters here from people who have tried spells and the spells have worked. But what I do not understand is . . ."

But at that moment the door against which Childerma.s.s was leaning was subject to a great rattling and shaking. A blow hit it and Childerma.s.s was thrown away from the door and against Mr Norrell. The door opened to reveal Lucas and, behind him, Davey the coachman.

"Oh!" said Lucas, somewhat surprized. "I beg your pardon, sir. I did not know you were here. Mr Lascelles said the door had jammed shut, and Davey and I were trying to free it. The carriage is ready, sir, to take you to Lord Liverpool."

"Come, Mr Norrell!" cried Lascelles from within the library. "Lord Liverpool is waiting!"

Mr Norrell cast a worried glance at Childerma.s.s and went.