Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

by Susanna Clarke

  A silence.

  “Oh!” said Mr Robinson. “Well, that is … Are you quite sure, sir, that you should not like to sign the document? You see how all your friends have done it? You will be quite alone.”

  “I am quite sure,” said Mr Segundus, “thank you.”

  “Oh!” said Mr Robinson. “Well, in that case I must confess that I do not know quite how to proceed. My principal gave me no instruction what to do if only some of the gentlemen signed. I shall consult with my principal in the morning.”

  Dr Foxcastle was heard to remark to Mr Hart or Hunt that once again it was the newcomer who brought a world of trouble upon everyone’s heads.

  But two days later Mr Robinson waited upon Dr Foxcastle with a message to say that on this particular occasion Mr Norrell would be happy to overlook Mr Segundus’s refusal to sign; he would consider that his contract was with all the members of the York society except for Mr Segundus.

  The night before Mr Norrell was due to perform the magic, snow fell on York and in the morning the dirt and mud of the city had disappeared, all replaced by flawless white. The sounds of hooves and footsteps were muffled, and the very voices of York’s citizens were altered by a white silence that swallowed up every sound. Mr Norrell had named a very early hour in the day. In their separate homes the York magicians breakfasted alone. They watched in silence as a servant poured their coffee, broke their warm white-bread rolls, fetched the butter. The wife, the sister, the daughter, the daughter-in-law, or the niece who usually performed these little offices was still in bed; and the pleasant female domestic chat, which the gentlemen of the York society affected to despise so much, and which was in truth the sweet and mild refrain in the music of their ordinary lives, was absent. And the breakfast rooms where these gentlemen sat were changed from what they had been yesterday. The winter gloom was quite gone and in its place was a fearful light – the winter sun reflected many times over by the snowy earth. There was a dazzle of light upon the white linen tablecloth. The rosebuds that patterned the daughter’s pretty coffee-cups seemed almost to dance in it. Sunbeams were struck from the niece’s silver coffee-pot, and the daughter-in-law’s smiling china shepherdesses were all become shining angels. It was as if the table were laid with fairy silver and crystal.

  Mr Segundus, putting his head out of a third-storey window in Lady-Peckitt’s-yard, thought that perhaps Norrell had already done the magic and this was it. There was an ominous rumble above him and he drew in his head quickly to avoid a sudden fall of snow from the roof. Mr Segundus had no servant any more than he had a wife, sister, daughter, daughter-in-law, or niece, but Mrs Pleasance, his landlady, was an early riser. Many times in the last fortnight she had heard him sigh over his books and she hoped to cheer him up with a breakfast of two freshly grilled herrings, tea and fresh milk, and white bread and butter on a blue-and-white china plate. With the same generous aim she had sat down to talk to him. On seeing how despondent he looked she cried, “Oh! I have no patience with this old man!”

  Mr Segundus had not told Mrs Pleasance that Mr Norrell was old and yet she fancied that he must be. From what Mr Segundus had told her she thought of him as a sort of miser who hoarded magic instead of gold, and as our narrative progresses, I will allow the reader to judge the justice of this portrait of Mr Norrell’s character. Like Mrs Pleasance I always fancy that misers are old. I cannot tell why this should be since I am sure that there are as many young misers as old. As to whether or not Mr Norrell was in fact old, he was the sort of man who had been old at seventeen.

  Mrs Pleasance continued, “When Mr Pleasance was alive, he used to say that no one in York, man or woman, could bake a loaf to rival mine, and other people as well have been kind enough to say that they never in their lives tasted bread so good. But I have always kept a good table for love of doing a thing well and if one of those queer spirits from the Arabian fables came out of this very teapot now and gave me three wishes I hope I would not be so ill-natured as to try to stop other folk from baking bread – and should their bread be as good as mine then I do not see that it hurts me, but rather is so much the better for them. Come, sir, try a bit,” she said, pushing a plateful of the celebrated bread towards her lodger. “I do not like to see you get so thin. People will say that Hettie Pleasance has lost all her skill at housekeeping. I wish you would not be so downcast, sir. You have not signed this perfidious document and when the other gentlemen are forced to give up, you will still continue and I very much hope, Mr Segundus, that you may make great discoveries and perhaps then this Mr Norrell who thinks himself so clever will be glad to take you into partnership and so be brought to regret his foolish pride.”

  Mr Segundus smiled and thanked her. “But I do not think that will happen. My chief difficulty will be lack of materials. I have very little of my own, and when the society is disbanded, – well I cannot tell what will happen to its books, but I doubt that they will come to me.”

  Mr Segundus ate his bread (which was just as good as the late Mr Pleasance and his friends had said it was) and his herrings and drank some tea. Their power to soothe a troubled heart must have been greater than he had supposed for he found that he felt a little better and, fortified in this manner, he put on his greatcoat and his hat and his muffler and his gloves and stamped off through the snowy streets to the place that Mr Norrell had appointed for this day’s wonders – the Cathedral of York.

  And I hope that all my readers are acquainted with an old English Cathedral town or I fear that the significance of Mr Norrell’s chusing that particular place will be lost upon them. They must understand that in an old Cathedral town the great old church is not one building among many; it is the building – different from all others in scale, beauty and solemnity. Even in modern times when an old Cathedral town may have provided itself with all the elegant appurtenances of civic buildings, assembly and meeting rooms (and York was well-stocked with these) the Cathedral rises above them – a witness to the devotion of our forefathers. It is as if the town contains within itself something larger than itself. When going about one’s business in the muddle of narrow streets one is sure to lose sight of the Cathedral, but then the town will open out and suddenly it is there, many times taller and many times larger than any other building, and one realizes that one has reached the heart of the town and that all streets and lanes have in some way led here, to a place of mysteries much deeper than any Mr Norrell knew of. Such were Mr Segundus’s thoughts as he entered the Close and stood before the great brooding blue shadow of the Cathedral’s west face. Now came Dr Foxcastle, sailing magisterially around the corner like a fat, black ship. Spying Mr Segundus there he steered himself towards that gentleman and bid him good morning.

  “Perhaps, sir,” said Dr Foxcastle, “you would be so kind as to introduce me to Mr Norrell? He is a gentleman I very much wish to know.”

  “I shall be only too happy, sir.” said Mr Segundus and looked about him. The weather had kept most people within doors and there were only a few dark figures scuttling over the white field that lay before the great grey Church. When scrutinized these were discovered to be gentlemen of the York society, or clergymen and Cathedral attendants – vergers and beadles, sub-choirmasters, provosts, transept-sweepers and such-like persons – who had been sent by their superiors out into the snow to see to the Church’s business.

  “I should like nothing better, sir,” said Mr Segundus, “than to oblige you, but I do not see Mr Norrell.”

  Yet there was someone.

  Someone was standing in the snow alone directly in front of the Minster. He was a dark sort of someone, a not-quite-respectable someone who was regarding Mr Segundus and Dr Foxcastle with an air of great interest. His ragged hair hung about his shoulders like a fall of black water; he had a strong, thin face with something twisted in it, like a tree root; and a long, thin nose; and, though his skin was very pale, something made it seem a dark face – perhaps it was the darkness of his eyes, or the proximity of that long, black
greasy hair. After a moment this person walked up to the two magicians, gave them a sketchy bow and said that he hoped they would forgive his intruding upon them but they had been pointed out to him as gentlemen who were there upon the same business as himself. He said that his name was John Childermass, and that he was Mr Norrell’s steward in certain matters (though he did not say what these were).

  “It seems to me,” said Mr Segundus thoughtfully, “that I know your face. I have seen you before, I think?”

  Something shifted in Childermass’s dark face, but it was gone in a moment and whether it had been a frown or laughter it was impossible to say. “I am often in York upon business for Mr Norrell, sir. Perhaps you have seen me in one of the city bookselling establishments?”

  “No,” said Mr Segundus, “I have seen you … I can picture you … Where? … Oh! I shall have it in a moment!”

  Childermass raised an eyebrow as if to say he very much doubted it.

  “But surely Mr Norrell is coming himself?” said Dr Foxcastle.

  Childermass begged Dr Foxcastle’s pardon, but he did not think Mr Norrell would come; he did not think Mr Norrell saw any reason to come.

  “Ah!” cried Dr Foxcastle. “then he concedes, does he? Well, well, well. Poor gentleman. He feels very foolish, I dare say. Well indeed. It was a noble attempt at any rate. We bear him no ill-will for having made the attempt.” Dr Foxcastle was much relieved that he would see no magic and it made him generous.

  Childermass begged Dr Foxcastle’s pardon once more; he feared that Dr Foxcastle had mistaken his meaning. Mr Norrell would certainly do magic; he would do it in Hurtfew Abbey and the results would be seen in York. “Gentlemen,” said Childermass to Dr Foxcastle, “do not like to leave their comfortable firesides unless they must. I dare say if you, sir, could have managed the seeing part of the business from your own drawing-room you would not be here in the cold and wet.”

  Dr Foxcastle drew in his breath sharply and bestowed on John Childermass a look that said that he thought John Childermass very insolent.

  Childermass did not seem much dismayed by Dr Foxcastle’s opinion of him, indeed he looked rather entertained by it. He said, “It is time, sirs. You should take your stations within the Church. You would be sorry, I am sure, to miss anything when so much hangs upon it.”

  It was twenty minutes past the hour and gentlemen of the York society were already filing into the Cathedral by the door in the south transept. Several looked about them before going inside, as if taking a last fond farewell of a world they were not quite sure of seeing again.

  3

  The stones of York

  February 1807

  A great old church in the depths of winter is a discouraging place at the best of times; the cold of a hundred winters seems to have been preserved in its stones and to seep out of them. In the cold, dank, twilight interior of the Cathedral the gentlemen of the York society were obliged to stand and wait to be astonished, without any assurance that the surprize when it came would be a pleasant one.

  Mr Honeyfoot tried to smile cheerfully at his companions, but for a gentleman so practised in the art of a friendly smile it was a very poor attempt.

  Upon the instant bells began to toll. Now these were nothing more than the bells of St Michael-le-Belfrey telling the half hour, but inside the Cathedral they had an odd, far-away sound like the bells of another country. It was not at all a cheerful sound. The gentlemen of the York society knew very well how bells often went with magic and in particular with the magic of those unearthly beings, fairies; they knew how, in the old days, silvery bells would often sound just as some Englishman or Englishwoman of particular virtue or beauty was about to be stolen away by fairies to live in strange, ghostly lands for ever. Even the Raven King – who was not a fairy, but an Englishman – had a somewhat regrettable habit of abducting men and women and taking them to live with him in his castle in the Other Lands.1 Now, had you and I the power to seize by magic any human being that took our fancy and the power to keep that person by our side through all eternity, and had we all the world to chuse from, then I dare say our choice might fall on someone a little more captivating than a member of the Learned Society of York Magicians, but this comforting thought did not occur to the gentlemen inside York Cathedral and several of them began to wonder how angry Dr Foxcastle’s letter had made Mr Norrell and they began to be seriously frightened.

  As the sounds of the bells died away a voice began to speak from somewhere high up in the gloomy shadows above their heads. The magicians strained their ears to hear it. Many of them were now in such a state of highly-strung nervousness that they imagined that instructions were being given to them as in a fairy-tale. They thought that perhaps mysterious prohibitions were being related to them. Such instructions and prohibitions, the magicians knew from the fairy-tales, are usually a little queer, but not very difficult to conform to – or so it seems at first sight. They generally follow the style of: “Do not eat the last candied plum in the blue jar in the corner cupboard,” or “Do not beat your wife with a stick made from wormwood.” And yet, as all fairy-tales relate, circumstances always conspire against the person who receives the instructions and they find themselves in the middle of doing the very thing that was forbidden to them and a horrible fate is thereby brought upon their heads.

  At the very least the magicians supposed that their doom was being slowly recited to them. But it was not at all clear what language the voice was speaking. Once Mr Segundus thought he heard a word that sounded like “maleficient” and another time “interficere” a Latin word meaning “to kill”. The voice itself was not easy to understand; it bore not the slightest resemblance to a human voice – which only served to increase the gentlemen’s fear that fairies were about to appear. It was extraordinarily harsh, deep and rasping; it was like two rough stones being scraped together and yet the sounds that were produced were clearly intended to be speech – indeed were speech. The gentlemen peered up into the gloom in fearful expectation, but all that could be seen was the small, dim shape of a stone figure that sprang out from one of the shafts of a great pillar and jutted into the gloomy void. As they became accustomed to the queer sound they recognized more and more words; old English words and old Latin words all mixed up together as if the speaker had no conception of these being two distinct languages. Fortunately, this abominable muddle presented few difficulties to the magicians, most of whom were accustomed to unravelling the ramblings and writings of the scholars of long ago. When translated into clear, comprehensible English it was something like this: Long, long ago, (said the voice), five hundred years ago or more, on a winter’s day at twilight, a young man entered the Church with a young girl with ivy leaves in her hair. There was no one else there but the stones. No one to see him strangle her but the stones. He let her fall dead upon the stones and no one saw but the stones. He was never punished for his sin because there were no witnesses but the stones. The years went by and whenever the man entered the Church and stood among the congregation the stones cried out that this was the man who had murdered the girl with the ivy leaves wound into her hair, but no one ever heard us. But it is not too late! We know where he is buried! In the corner of the south transept! Quick! Quick! Fetch picks! Fetch shovels! Pull up the paving stones. Dig up his bones! Let them be smashed with the shovel! Dash his skull against the pillars and break it! Let the stones have vengeance too! It is not too late! It is not too late!

  Hardly had the magicians had time to digest this and to wonder some more who it was that spoke, when another stony voice began. This time the voice seemed to issue from the chancel and it spoke only English; yet it was a queer sort of English full of ancient and forgotten words. This voice complained of some soldiers who had entered the Church and broken some windows. A hundred years later they had come again and smashed a rood screen, erased the faces of the saints, carried off plate. Once they had sharpened their arrowheads on the brim of the font; three hundred years later they had fired t
heir pistols in the chapter house. The second voice did not appear to understand that, while a great Church may stand for millennia, men cannot live so long. “They delight in destruction!” it cried. “And they themselves deserve only to be destroyed!” Like the first, this speaker seemed to have stood in the Church for countless years and had, presumably, heard a great many sermons and prayers, yet the sweetest of Christian virtues – mercy, love, meekness – were unknown to him. And all the while the first voice continued to lament the dead girl with ivy leaves in her hair and the two gritty voices clashed together in a manner that was very disagreeable.

  Mr Thorpe, who was a valiant gentleman, peeped into the chancel alone, to discover who it was that spoke. “It is a statue,” he said.

  And then the gentlemen of the York society peered up again into the gloom above their heads in the direction of the first unearthly voice. And this time very few of them had any doubts that it was the little stone figure that spoke, for as they watched they could perceive its stubby stone arms that it waved about in its distress.

  Then all the other statues and monuments in the Cathedral began to speak and to say in their stony voices all that they had seen in their stony lives and the noise was, as Mr Segundus later told Mrs Pleasance, beyond description. For York Cathedral had many little carved people and strange animals that flapped their wings.

  Many complained of their neighbours and perhaps this is not so surprizing since they had been obliged to stand together for so many hundreds of years. There were fifteen stone kings that stood each upon a stone pedestal in a great stone screen. Their hair was tightly curled as if it had been put into curl papers and never brushed out – and Mrs Honeyfoot could never see them without declaring that she longed to take a hairbrush to each of their royal heads. From the first moment of their being able to speak the kings began quarrelling and scolding each other – for the pedestals were all of a height, and kings – even stone ones – dislike above all things to be made equal to others. There was besides a little group of queer figures with linked arms that looked out with stone eyes from atop an ancient column. As soon as the spell took effect each of these tried to push the others away from him, as if even stone arms begin to ache after a century or so and stone people begin to tire of being shackled to each other.