Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

by Susanna Clarke

  “Perhaps there would be difficulty in acquiring pupils?” said Mrs Lennox.

  “No, indeed! I can think of four young men immediately.”

  “And if you were to advertise …”

  “Oh! But I would never do that!” said Mr Segundus, rather shocked. “Magic is the noblest profession in the world – well, the second noblest perhaps, after the Church. One ought not to soil it with commercial practices. No, I would only take young men upon private recommendation.”

  “Then all that remains is for someone to find you a little money and a house. Nothing could be easier. But I dare say your friend, Mr Honeyfoot, of whom you speak with such regard, would wish to lend you the money. I dare say he would want to claim that honour for his own.”

  “Oh, no! Mr Honeyfoot has three daughters – the dearest girls in the world. One of them is married and another is engaged and the third cannot make up her mind. No, Mr Honeyfoot must think of his family. His money is quite tied up.”

  “Then I can tell you my hope with a clear conscience! Why should I not lend you the money?”

  Mr Segundus was all amazement and for several moments quite at a loss for an answer. “You are very kind, madam!” he stammered at last.

  Mrs Lennox smiled. “No, sir. I am not. If magic is as popular as you say – and I shall, of course, ascertain the opinion of other people upon this point – then I believe the profits will be handsome.”

  “But my experience of business is woefully small,” said Mr Segundus. “I should fear to make a mistake and lose you your money. No, you are very kind and I thank you with all my heart, but I must decline.”

  “Well, if you dislike the notion of becoming a borrower of money – and I know it does not suit everyone – then that is easily solved. The school shall be mine – mine alone. I will bear the expence and the risk. You will be master of the school and our names will appear upon the prospectus together. After all, what better purpose for this house could there be than as a school for magicians? As a residence it has many drawbacks, but its advantages as a school are considerable. It is a very isolated situation. There is no shooting to speak of. There would be little opportunity for the young men to gamble or hunt. Their pleasures will be quite restricted and so they will apply themselves to their studies.”

  “I would not chuse young men who gamble!” said Mr Segundus, rather shocked.

  She smiled again. “I do not believe you have ever given your friends a moment’s anxiety – except for worrying that this wicked world would quickly take advantage of someone so honest.”

  After dinner Mr Segundus dutifully returned to the library and in the early evening he took his leave of the two ladies. They parted in a most friendly manner and with a promise on Mrs Lennox’s side that she would soon invite him to Bath.

  On the way back he gave himself stern warnings not to place any reliance on these wonderful plans for Future Usefulness and Happiness, but he could not help indulging in ideal pictures of teaching the young men and of their extraordinary progress; of Jonathan Strange coming to visit the school; of his pupils being delighted to discover that their master was a friend and intimate of the most famous magician of the Modern Age; of Strange saying to him, “It is all excellent, Segundus. I could not be better pleased. Well done!”

  It was after midnight when he got home, and it took all his resolve not to run to Mr Honeyfoot’s house immediately to tell them the news. But the following morning when he arrived at the house at a very early hour, their raptures were scarcely to be described. They were full of the happiness he had hardly dare allow himself to feel. Mrs Honeyfoot still had a great deal of the schoolgirl in her and she caught up her husband’s hands and danced around the breakfast-table with him as the only possible means of expressing what she felt. Then she took Mr Segundus’s hands and danced around the table with him, and when both magicians protested against any more dancing, she continued by herself. Mr Segundus’s only regret (and it was a very slight one) was that Mr and Mrs Honeyfoot did not feel the surprize of the thing quite as he intended they should; their opinion of him was so high that they found nothing particularly remarkable in great ladies wishing to establish schools solely for his benefit.

  “She may consider herself very lucky to have found you!” declared Mr Honeyfoot. “For who is better fitted to direct a school for magicians? No one!”

  “And after all,” reasoned Mrs Honeyfoot, “what else has she to do with her money? Poor, childless lady!”

  Mr Honeyfoot was convinced that Mr Segundus’s fortune was now made. His sanguine temper would not permit him to expect less. Yet he had not lived so long in the world without acquiring some sober habits of business and he told Mr Segundus that they would make some inquiries about Mrs Lennox, who she was and whether she was as rich as she seemed.

  They wrote to a friend of Mr Honeyfoot’s who lived in Bath. Fortunately Mrs Lennox was well known as a great lady, even in Bath, a city beloved by the rich and the elevated. She had been born rich and married an even richer husband. This husband had died young and not much regretted, leaving her at liberty to indulge her active temperament and clever mind. She had increased her fortune with good investments and careful management of her lands and estates. She was famed for her bold, decisive temper, her many charitable activities and the warmth of her friendship. She had houses in every part of the kingdom, but resided chiefly at Bath with Mrs Blake.

  Meanwhile Mrs Lennox had been asking the same sort of questions about Mr Segundus, and she must have been pleased with the answers because she soon invited him up to Bath where every detail of the projected school was quickly decided.

  The next months were spent in repairing and fitting up Starecross Hall. The roof leaked, two chimneys were blocked and part of the kitchen had actually fallen down. Mr Segundus was shocked to discover how much everything would cost. He calculated that if he did not clear the second chimney, made do with old country settles and wooden chairs instead of buying new furniture, and confined the number of servants to three, he could save £60. His letter to this effect produced an immediate reply from Mrs Lennox; she informed him he was not spending enough. His pupils would all be from good families; they would expect good fires and comfort. She advised him to engage nine servants, in addition to a butler and a French cook. He must completely refurnish the house and purchase a cellar of good French wines. The cutlery, she said, must all be silver and the dining-service Wedgwood.

  In early December Mr Segundus received a letter of congratulation from Jonathan Strange, who promised to visit the school the following spring. But in spite of everyone’s good wishes and everyone’s endeavours, Mr Segundus could not get rid of the feeling that the school would never actually come into being; something would occur to prevent it. This idea was constantly at the back of his thoughts, do what he would to suppress it.

  One morning around the middle of December he arrived at the Hall and found a man seated, quite at his ease, upon the steps. Though he did not believe he had ever seen the man before, he knew him instantly: he was Bad Fortune personified; he was the Ruin of Mr Segundus’s Hopes and Dreams. The man was dressed in a black coat of an old-fashioned cut, as worn and shabby as Mr Segundus’s own, and he had mud on his boots. With his long, ragged dark hair he looked like the portent of doom in a bad play.

  “Mr Segundus, you cannot do this!” he said in a Yorkshire accent.

  “I beg your pardon?” said Mr Segundus.

  “The school, sir. You must give up this notion of a school!”

  “What?” cried Mr Segundus, bravely pretending that he did not know the man spoke an inevitable truth.

  “Now, sir,” continued the dark man, “you know me and you know that when I say a thing is so, that thing will be so – however much you and I might privately regret it.”

  “But you are quite mistaken,” said Mr Segundus. “I do not know you. At least I do not believe I ever saw you before.”

  “I am John Childermass, Mr Norrell’s servant.
We last talked nine years ago, outside the Cathedral in York. When you confined yourself to a few pupils, Mr Segundus, I was able to turn a blind eye. I said nothing and Mr Norrell remained in ignorance of what you were doing. But a regular school for grown-up magicians, that is a different matter. You have been too ambitious, sir. He knows, Mr Segundus. He knows and it is his desire that you wind up the business immediately.”

  “But what has Mr Norrell or Mr Norrell’s desires to do with me? I did not sign the agreement. You should know that I am not alone in this undertaking. I have friends now.”

  “That is true,” said Childermass, mildly amused. “And Mrs Lennox is a very rich woman, and an excellent woman for business. But does she have the friendship of every Minister in the Cabinet like Mr Norrell? Does she have his influence? Remember the Society of Learned Magicians, Mr Segundus! Remember how he crushed them!”

  Childermass waited a moment and then, since the conversation appeared to be at an end, he strode off in the direction of the stables.

  Five minutes later he reappeared on a big, brown horse. Mr Segundus was standing, just as before, with his arms crossed, glaring at the paving-stones.

  Childermass looked down at him. “I am sorry it ends like this, sir. Yet, surely all is not lost? This house is just as suited to another kind of school as it is for a magical one. You would not think it to look at me, but I am a very fine fellow with a wide acquaintance among great people. Chuse some other sort of school and the next time I hear that a lord or lady has need of such an establishment for their little lordlings, I will send them your way.”

  “I do not want another kind of school!” said Mr Segundus, peevishly.

  Childermass smiled his sideways smile and rode away.

  Mr Segundus travelled to Bath and informed his patroness of their dismal situation. She was full of indignation that some gentleman she had never even met should presume to instruct her in what she could and could not do. She wrote Mr Norrell an angry letter. She got no reply, but her bankers, lawyers and partners in other business ventures suddenly found themselves in receipt of odd letters from great people of their acquaintance, all complaining in an oblique fashion of Mr Segundus’s school. One of the bankers – an argumentative and obdurate old person – was unwise enough to wonder publicly (in the lobby of the House of Commons) what a school for magicians in Yorkshire could possibly have to do with him. The result was that several ladies and gentlemen – friends of Mr Norrell – withdrew their patronage from his bank.

  In Mrs Honeyfoot’s drawing-room in York a few evenings later Mr Segundus sat with his head in his hands, lamenting. “It is as if some evil fortune is determined to torment me, holding out great prizes in front of me, only to snatch them away again.”

  Mrs Honeyfoot clucked sympathetically, patted his shoulder and offered the same damning censure of Mr Norrell with which she had consoled both Mr Segundus and Mr Honeyfoot for the past nine years: to wit, that Mr Norrell seemed a very odd gentleman, full of queer fancies, and that she would never understand him.

  “Why not write to Mr Strange?” said Mr Honeyfoot, suddenly. “He will know what to do!”

  Mr Segundus looked up. “Oh! I know that Mr Strange and Mr Norrell have parted, but still I should not like to be a cause of argument between them.”

  “Nonsense!” cried Mr Honeyfoot. “Have you not read the recent issues of The Modern Magician? This is the very thing Strange wants! – some principle of Norrellite magic that he can attack openly and so bring the whole edifice tumbling down. Believe me, he will consider himself obliged to you for the opportunity. You know, Segundus, the more I think of it, the more I like this plan!”

  Mr Segundus thought so too. “Let me only consult Mrs Lennox and if she is in agreement, then I shall certainly do as you suggest!”

  Mrs Lennox’s ignorance concerning recent magical events was extensive. She knew very little of Jonathan Strange other than his name and that he had some vague connexion to the Duke of Wellington. But she was quick to assure Mr Segundus that if Mr Strange disliked Mr Norrell, then she was very much in his favour. So on the 20th December Mr Segundus sent Strange a letter informing him of Gilbert Norrell’s actions in regard to the school at Starecross Hall.

  Unfortunately, far from leaping to Mr Segundus’s defence, Strange never even replied.

  42

  Strange decides to write a book

  June–December 1815

  It may very easily be imagined with what pleasure Mr Norrell received the news that on his return to England Mr Strange had gone straight to Shropshire.

  “And the best part of it is,” Mr Norrell told Lascelles, “that in the country he is unlikely to publish any more of those mischievous articles upon the magic of the Raven King.”

  “No indeed, sir,” said Lascelles, “for I very much doubt that he will have time to write them.”

  Mr Norrell took a moment to consider what this might mean.

  “Oh! Have you not heard, sir?” continued Lascelles. “Strange is writing a book. He writes to his friends of nothing else. He began very suddenly about two weeks ago and is, by his own account, making very rapid progress. But then we all know with what ease Strange writes. He has sworn to put the entirety of English magic into his book. He told Sir Walter that he would be greatly astonished if he could cram it all into two volumes. He rather thinks that it will need three. It is to be called The History and Practice of English Magic and Murray has promised to publish it when it is done.”

  There could scarcely have been worse news. Mr Norrell had always intended to write a book himself. He intended to call it Precepts for the Education of a Magician and he had begun it when he had first become tutor to Mr Strange. His notes already filled two shelves of the little book-lined room on the second floor. Yet he had always spoken of his book as something for the distant future. He had a quite unreasonable terror of committing himself to paper which eight years of London adulation had not cured. All his volumes of private notes and histories and journals had yet to be seen by anyone (except, in a few instances, by Strange and Childermass). Mr Norrell could never believe himself ready to publish: he could never be sure that he had got at the truth; he did not believe he had thought long enough upon the matter; he did not know if it were a fit subject to place before the public.

  As soon as Mr Lascelles had gone, Mr Norrell called for a silver dish of clear water to be brought to him in his room on the second floor.

  In Shropshire, Strange was working upon his book. He did not look up, but suddenly he smiled a little wryly and wagged his finger at the empty air as if to tell some unseen person No. All the mirrors in the room had been turned to face the wall and, though Mr Norrell spent several hours bent over his silver dish, by the end of the evening he was no wiser.

  On an evening at the beginning of December Stephen Black was polishing silver in his room at the end of the kitchen-passage. He looked down and discovered that the strings of his polishing-apron were untying themselves. It was not that the bow had come loose (Stephen had never tied a lazy bow in his life), but rather that the strings were snaking about in a bold, decisive way like apron-strings that knew what they were about. Next his polishing-sleeves and polishing-gloves slipped off his arms and hands and folded themselves up neatly upon the table. Then his coat leapt from the chairback where he had hung it. It took firm hold of him and helped him on with itself. Finally the butler’s room itself disappeared.

  Suddenly he was standing in a small apartment panelled in dark wood. A table took up most of the space. The table was laid with a cloth of scarlet linen with a deep and ornate border of gold and silver. It was crowded with gold and silver dishes and the dishes were heaped with food. Jewelled ewers were filled with wine. Wax candles in gold candlesticks made a blaze of light and incense burnt in two golden censers. Besides the table the only other furniture were two carved wooden chairs draped with cloth of gold and made luxurious with embroidered cushions. In one of these chairs the gentleman with the thistle
-down hair was sitting.

  “Good evening, Stephen!”

  “Good evening, sir.”

  “You look a little pale tonight, Stephen. I hope you are not unwell.”

  “I am merely a little out of breath, sir. I find these sudden removals to other countries and continents a little perplexing.”

  “Oh! But we are still in London, Stephen. This is the Jerusalem Coffee-house in Cowper’s-court. Do you not know it?”

  “Oh, yes indeed, sir. Sir Walter would often sup here with his rich friends when he was a bachelor. It is just that it was never so magnificent before. As for this banquet, there are hardly any dishes here I recognize.”

  “Oh! That is because I have ordered an exact copy of a meal I ate in this very house four or five hundred years ago! Here is a haunch of roasted wyvern and a pie of honeyed hummingbirds. Here is roasted salamander with a relish of pomegranates; here a delicate fricassee of the combs of cockatrices spiced with saffron and powdered rainbows and ornamented with gold stars! Now sit you down and eat! That will be the best cure for your dizziness. What will you take?”

  “It is all very wonderful, sir, but I believe I see some plain pork steaks which look very good indeed.”

  “Ah, Stephen! As ever your noble instincts have led you to pick the choicest dish of all! Though the pork steaks are indeed quite plain, they have been fried in fat that was rendered down from the exorcised ghosts of black Welsh pigs that wander through the hills of Wales at night terrifying the inhabitants of that deplorable country! The ghostliness and ferocity of the pigs lends the steaks a wonderful flavour which is quite unlike any other! And the sauce which accompanies them is made from cherries that were grown in a centaur’s orchard!”

  Taking up a jewelled and gilded ewer, the gentleman poured Stephen a glass of ruby-red wine. “This wine is one of the vintages of Hell – but do not allow yourself to be dissuaded from tasting it upon that account! I dare say you have heard of Tantalus? The wicked king who baked his little son in a pie and ate him? He has been condemned to stand up to his chin in a pool of water he cannot drink, beneath a vine laden with grapes he cannot eat. This wine is made from those grapes. And, since the vine was planted there for the sole purpose of tormenting Tantalus, you may be sure the grapes have an excellent flavour and aroma – and so does the wine. The pomegranates too are from Persephone’s own orchard.”