Jonathan Strange And Mr Norrell Part 64

"Oh! You would be surprized how many problems a pair of pistols can solve!"

They returned within five minutes. There was Lucas, looking reluctant and unhappy, holding the chains and locks; Lascelles with his pistols; and four or five more manservants.

"Where do you suppose he is?" asked Lascelles.

"In the library. Where else?" said Mr Norrell. "Come."

They left the drawing-room and entered the dining-room. From here they pa.s.sed into a short corridor which contained an inlaid ebony sideboard, the marble statue of a centaur and its foal, and a painting of Salome carrying St John's head on a silver platter. There were two doors ahead of them. The one on the right had an unfamiliar look to Lascelles, as if he had never seen it before. Mr Norrell led them through it and they immediately found themselves back in the drawing-room.

"Wait," said Mr Norrell in confusion. He looked behind him. "I must have . . . No. Wait. I have it now! Come!"

Once again they pa.s.sed through the dining-room into the corridor. This time they went through the door upon the left. It too led straight back to the drawing-room.

Mr Norrell gave a loud, despairing cry. "He has broken my labyrinth and woven another against me!"

"In some ways, sir," remarked Lascelles, "I could have wished that you had not taught him so well."

"Oh! I never taught him to do this and you may be sure that he never learnt it from any one else! Either the Devil taught him or he learnt it this very night in my house. This is the genius of my enemy! Lock a door against him and all that happens is that he learns first how to pick a lock and second how to build a better one against you!"

Lucas and the other servants lit more candles as if light could somehow help them see through Strange's spells and help them distinguish reality from magic. Soon each of the three apartments was ablaze with light. Candlesticks and candelabras were crowded upon every surface, but it only served to confuse them more. They went from dining-room to drawing-room, from drawing-room to corridor "Like foxes in a stopt earth," said Lascelles. But, try as they might, they could not leave the three apartments.

Time pa.s.sed. It was impossible to say how much. The clocks had all turned to midnight. Every window shewed the black of Eternal Night and the unknown stars.

Mr Norrell stopt walking. He closed his eyes. His face was as dark and tight as a fist. He stood quite still and only his lips moved slightly. Then he opened his eyes briefly and said, "Follow me." Closing his eyes again, he walked. It was as if he were following the plan of an entirely different house that had somehow got wedged inside his own. The turns he took, the rights and lefts, made a new path one he had never taken before.

After three or four minutes he opened his eyes. There before him was the corridor he had been searching for the one with the floor of stone flags and at the end of it the tall shadowy shape of the library door.

"Now, we shall see what he is doing!" he cried. "Lucas, keep the lead chains and locks ready. There is no better prophylactic against magic than lead. We will bind his hands and that will hinder him a little. Mr Lascelles, how quickly do you suppose we might get a letter to one of the Ministers?" He was a little surprized that none of them made any reply and so he turned.

He was quite alone.

A little way off he heard Lascelles say something; his cold, languid voice was unmistakable. He heard one of the other servants reply and then Lucas. But gradually all the noise grew less. The sounds of the servants rushing from room to room were gone. There was silence.

1 It has often been observed that the Northern English, though never wavering in their loyalty to John Uskgla.s.s, do not always treat him with the respect he commands in the south. In fact Uskgla.s.s's subjects take a particular delight in stories and ballads that shew him at a decided disadvantage, c.f c.f. the tale of John Uskgla.s.s and the Charcoal Burner of Ullswater or the tale of the Hag and the Sorceress. There are many versions of the latter (some of them quite vulgar); it tells how Uskgla.s.s almost lost his heart, his kingdoms and his power to a common Cornish witch.

2 Like John Uskgla.s.s, the Magician of Athodel ruled his own island or kingdom. Athodel seems to have been one of the Western Isles of Scotland. But either it has sunk or else it is, as some people think, invisible. Some Scottish historians like to see Athodel as evidence of the superiority of Scottish magic over English; John Uskgla.s.s's kingdom, they argue, has fallen and is in the hands of the Southern English, whereas Athodel remains independent. Since Athodel is both invisible and inaccessible this is a difficult proposition to prove or disprove.

3 In the tale of John Uskgla.s.s and the Charcoal Burner of Ullswater, Uskgla.s.s engages in a contest of magic with a poor charcoal-burner and loses. It bears similarities to other old stories in which a great ruler is outwitted by one of his humblest subjects and, because of this, many scholars have argued that it has no historical basis.

4 At the engravers' house in Spitalfields in the early spring of 1816, Strange had told Childerma.s.s, "One can never help one's training, you know . . ." Childerma.s.s had had several careers before he became Mr Norrell's servant and adviser. His first was as a highly talented child pick-pocket. His mother, Black Joan, had once managed a small pack of dirty, ragged child-thieves that had worked the towns of the East Riding in the late 1770s.

5 A Yorkshire word meaning "cloth".

64.

Two versions of Lady Pole Mid February 1817 WELL!" SAID LASCELLES. "That was unexpected!" He and the servants were gathered at the north wall of the dining-room a wall through which Mr Norrell had just walked, with all the composure in the world.

Lascelles put out his hand and touched it; it was perfectly solid. He pressed it hard; it did not move.

"Did he mean to do that, do you think?" wondered one of the servants.

"I do not think it much matters what he meant," said Lucas. "He has gone to be with Mr Strange now."

"Which is as much as to say he has gone to the Devil!" added Lascelles.

"What will happen now?" asked another servant.

No one answered him. Images of magical battles flitted through the minds of everyone present: Mr Norrell hurling mystical cannonb.a.l.l.s at Strange; Strange calling up devils to come and carry Mr Norrell away. They listened for sounds of a struggle. There were none.

A shout came from the next room. One of the servants had opened the drawing-room door and found the breakfast-room on the other side of it. Beyond the breakfast-room was Mr Norrell's sitting-room, and beyond that, his dressing-room. The old sequence of rooms was suddenly re-established; the labyrinth was broken.

The relief of this discovery was very great. The servants immediately abandoned Lascelles and went down to the kitchen, the natural refuge and solace of their cla.s.s. Lascelles just as naturally sat down in solitary state in Mr Norrell's sitting-room. He had some idea of staying there until Mr Norrell returned. Or if Mr Norrell never came back, of waiting for Strange and then shooting him. "After all," he thought, "what can a magician do against a lead ball? Between the pistol firing and his heart exploding, there is no time for magic."

But such thoughts as these provided only a temporary comfort. The house was too silent, the darkness too magical. He was too aware of the servants gathered together sociably in one place, and the two magicians doing G.o.d-knew-what in another place, and himself, alone, in a third place. There was an old longcase clock that stood in one corner of the room, a last remnant of Mr Norrell's childhood home in York. This clock had, like all the others in the house, turned to midnight when Strange arrived. But it had not done so willingly; it protested very volubly against such an unexpected turn of events. Its ticking was all askew; it seemed to be drunk or possibly in a fever and from time to time it made a sound that was remarkably like an indrawn breath; and every time it did so Lascelles thought that Strange had entered the room and was about to say something.

He got up and followed the servants to the kitchen.

The kitchen at Hurtfew Abbey was very much like the undercroft of a great church, full of cla.s.sical angles and cla.s.sical gloom. In the centre of the room was a huge number of tallow candles and gathered there was every servant that Lascelles had ever seen at Hurtfew, and a great many that he had not. He leant against a pillar at the top of a flight of steps.

Lucas glanced up at him. He said, "We have been discussing what to do, sir. We shall leave within the half hour. We can do Mr Norrell no good by staying here and may do ourselves some harm. That is our intention, sir, but if you have another opinion I shall be glad to hear it."

"My opinion!" exclaimed Lascelles. He looked all amazement, and only part of it was feigned. "This is the first time I was ever asked myopinion by a footman. Thank you, but I believe I shall decline my share of this . . ." He thought for a moment, before settling upon the most offensive word in his vocabulary. ". . . by a footman. Thank you, but I believe I shall decline my share of this . . ." He thought for a moment, before settling upon the most offensive word in his vocabulary. ". . . democracy democracy."

"As you wish, sir," said Lucas, mildly.

"It must be daylight in England by now," said one of the maids, looking longingly at the windows set high in the walls.

"This is England, silly girl!" declared Lascelles.

"No, sir. Begging your pardon," said Lucas, "but it is not. England is a natural place. Davey, how long to turn the horses out?"

"Oh!" cried Lascelles. "You are all very bold, I must say, to discuss your thievery in front of me! What? You think I shall not speak out against you? On the contrary I shall see you all hanged!"

Some of the servants nervously eyed the pistols in Lascelles's hands. Lucas, however, ignored him.

The servants soon agreed that those among them who had relations or friends in the neighbourhood would go to them. The rest would be dispatched with the horses to the various farms which stood upon Mr Norrell's estate.

"So, you see, sir," said Lucas to Lascelles, "n.o.body is stealing. n.o.body is a thief. All of Mr Norrell's property is to remain on Mr Norrell's land and we will take as good care of his horses as if they were still in his stables, but it would be a wicked cruelty to leave any creature in this Perpetual Darkness."

Sometime later the servants left Hurtfew (there was no saying exactly how much later it was their pocket-watches, like the clocks, had all turned to midnight). With baskets and valises slung over their arms and knapsacks on their backs, they led the horses by the halter. There were also two donkeys and a goat who had always lived in the stables because the horses found him agreeable company. Lascelles followed at a distance; he had no desire to appear part of this rag-tag and bobtail procession, but neither did he want to be left alone in the house.

Ten yards short of the river they walked out of the Darkness into the Dawn. There was a sudden rush of scents upon the air scents of frost, winter earth and the nearby river. The colours and shapes of the park seemed simplified, as if England had been made afresh during the night. To the poor servants, who had been in some doubt whether they would ever see any thing but Dark and stars again, the sight was an exceedingly welcome one.

Their watches had started up again and they found by a general consultation that it was a quarter to eight.

But the alarms of that night were not quite over yet. Two bridges now led across the river where only one had been before.

Lascelles came hurrying up. "What is that?" he demanded, pointing at the new bridge.

An old servant a man with a beard like a miniature white cloud stuck to the end of his chin said that it was a fairy bridge. He had seen it in his youth. It had been built long ago, when John Uskgla.s.s still ruled Yorkshire. It had fallen into disrepair and been dismantled in the time of Mr Norrell's uncle.

"And yet here it is, back again," said Lucas with a shudder.

"And what lies on the other side?" asked Lascelles.

The old servant said that it had led to Northallerton once upon a time, by way of various queer places.

"Does it meet up with the road we saw near the Red House?" asked Lascelles.

The old servant shook his head. He did not know.

Lucas was losing patience. He wished to be away.

"Fairy roads are not like Christian roads," he said. "Often they do not go where they are supposed to at all. But what does it matter? n.o.body here is going to put so much as a foot upon the wicked thing."

"Thank you," said Lascelles, "but I believe I shall make up my own mind upon that point." He hesitated a moment and then strode forward on to the fairy bridge.

Several of the servants called out to him to come back.

"Oh, let him go!" cried Lucas, tightening his hold upon a basket which contained his cat. "Let him be d.a.m.ned if he wishes! I am sure no one could deserve it more." He threw Lascelles one last, hearty look of dislike and followed the others into the Park.

Behind them the Black Pillar rose up into the grey Yorkshire sky and the end of it could not be seen.

Twenty miles away Childerma.s.s was crossing over the packhorse bridge that led into Starecross village. He rode through the village to the Hall and dismounted.

"Hey! Hey!" He banged on the door with his whip. He shouted some more and gave the door a few vigorous kicks.

Two servants appeared. They had been alarmed enough by all the shouting and banging, but when they held up their candle and found that its author was a wild-eyed, cutthroat-looking person with a slit in his face and his shirt all b.l.o.o.d.y, they were not in the least rea.s.sured.

"Do not stand there gawping!" he told them. "Go fetch master! He knows me!"

Ten minutes more brought Mr Segundus in a dressing-gown. Childerma.s.s, waiting impatiently just within the door, saw that as he came along the pa.s.sage his eyes were closed and the servant led him by the hand. It looked for all the world as if he had gone blind. The servant placed him just before Childerma.s.s. He opened his eyes.

"Good Lord, Mr Childerma.s.s!" he cried. "What happened to your face?"

"Someone mistook it for an orange. And you, sir? What has happened to you? Have you been ill?"

"No, not ill." Mr Segundus looked embarra.s.sed. "It is living in constant proximity to strong magic. I had not realized before how weakening that can be. To a person who is susceptible to it, I mean. The servants feel no effects whatsoever, I am glad to say."

There was a queer insubstantiality about him. He looked as if he were painted on the air. The merest draught from a gap in the cas.e.m.e.nt took his hair and made little corkscrews and curlicues of it, as if it weighed nothing at all.

"I suppose that is what you have come about," he continued. "But you should tell Mr Norrell that I have done nothing but study the occurrences that presented themselves. I confess I have made a few notes, but really he has nothing to complain about."

"What magic?" asked Childerma.s.s. "What are you talking about? And you need not concern yourself any longer about Mr Norrell. He has problems of his own and knows nothing of my being here. What have you been doing, Mr Segundus?"

"Only watching and recording as a magician should." Mr Segundus leant forward eagerly. "And I have come to some surprizing conclusions concerning Lady Pole's illness!"

"Oh?"

"In my opinion it is not madness at all. It is magic!" Mr Segundus waited for Childerma.s.s to be amazed. He looked a little disappointed when Childerma.s.s simply nodded.

"I have something that belongs to her ladyship," said Childerma.s.s. "Something she has long missed. So I beg that you will do me the kindness of taking me to her."

"Oh, but . . ."

"I mean her no harm, Mr Segundus. And I believe I may be able to do her some good. I swear it by Bird and Book. By Bird and Book."1 "I cannot take you to her," said Mr Segundus. He put up his hand to forestall Childerma.s.s's objection. "I do not mean that I am unwilling. I mean I cannot cannot. Charles will take us." He indicated the servant at his side.

This seemed rather eccentric, but Childerma.s.s was in no mood to argue about it. Mr Segundus grasped Charles's arm and closed his eyes.

Behind the stone-and-oak pa.s.sages of Starecross Hall, a vision of another house leapt up. Childerma.s.s saw high corridors that stretched away into unthinkable distances. It was as if two transparencies had been put into a magic lantern at the same time, so that one picture overlaid the other. The impression of walking through both houses at once rapidly brought on a sensation akin to sea-sickness. Confusion mounted in his mind and, had he been alone, he would soon have been at a loss to know which way to go. He could not tell whether he was walking or falling, whether he climbed one step, or mounted a staircase of impossible length. Sometimes he seemed to be skimming across an acre of stone flags, while at the same time he was scarcely moving at all. His head spun and he felt sick.

"Stop! Stop!" he cried and sank to the ground with his eyes closed.

"It affects you badly," said Mr Segundus. "Worse even than me. Close your eyes and take hold of my arm. Charles will lead us both."

They walked on, eyes closed. Charles guided them round a right-hand turning and up a staircase. At the top of the staircase there was a murmured conversation between Mr Segundus and someone. Charles drew Childerma.s.s forward. Childerma.s.s had the impression of entering a room. It smelt of clean linen and dried roses.

"This is the person you wish me to see?" said a woman's voice. There was something odd about it, as if it were coming from two places at once, as if there were an echo. "But I know this person! He is the magician's servant! He is . . ."

"I am the person your ladyship shot," said Childerma.s.s and he opened his eyes.

He saw not one woman, but two or perhaps it would be more accurate to say he saw the same woman doubled. Both sat in the same posture, looking up at him. They occupied the same s.p.a.ce, so that he had the same giddy feeling in looking at her as he had had walking through the corridors.

One version of Lady Pole sat in the house in Yorkshire; she wore an ivory-coloured morning dress and regarded him with calm indifference. The other version was fainter more ghostly. She sat in the gloomy, labyrinthine house, dressed in a blood-red evening gown. There were jewels or stars in her dark hair and she regarded him with fury and hatred.

Mr Segundus pulled Childerma.s.s to the right. "Stand just here!" he said, excitedly. "Now close one eye! Can you see it? Observe! A red-and-white rose where her mouth ought to be."

"The magic affects us differently," said Childerma.s.s. "I see something very strange, but I do not see that."

"You are very bold to come here," said both versions of Lady Pole, addressing Childerma.s.s, "considering who you are and whom you represent."

"I am not here on Mr Norrell's business. To own the truth I am not entirely sure who it is I represent. I think it is Jonathan Strange. It is my belief that he sent me a message and I think it was about your ladyship. But the messenger was prevented from reaching me and the message was lost. Do you know, your ladyship, what Mr Strange might have wished to tell me about you?"

"Yes," said both versions of Lady Pole.

"Will you tell me what it is?"

"If I speak," they said, "I shall speak nothing but madness."

Childerma.s.s shrugged his shoulders. "I have pa.s.sed twenty years in the society of magicians. I am accustomed to it. Speak."