Mr Knight had written a polite letter back in which he begged to differ. He said that, upon the contrary, Mr Norrell’s system of education was well known. He directed Mr Lascelles’s attention to page 47 of The Friends of English Magic from the Autumn of 1810 in which Lord Portishead had declared that the only basis for training up more magicians approved by Mr Norrell was that devised by Francis Sutton-Grove. Mr Knight (who declared himself a sincere admirer of Mr Norrell’s) had bought a copy of Sutton-Grove’s De Generibus Artium Magicarum Anglorum and studied it. He took the opportunity to wonder whether Mr Norrell would do him the honour of becoming the school’s Visiting Tutor and giving lectures and so forth. He had intended to tutor four young men, but he had been so overpowered by applications that he had been obliged to rent another house to accommodate them and hire more teachers to teach them. Other schools were being proposed in Bath, Chester and Newcastle.
Almost worse than the schools were the shops. Several establishments in London had begun to sell magical philtres, magic mirrors and silver basins which, the manufacturers claimed, had been specially constructed for seeing visions in. Mr Norrell had done what he could to halt the trade, with diatribes against them in The Friends of English Magic. He had persuaded the editors of all the other magical publications over which he had any influence to publish articles explaining that there never ever had been any such thing as magical mirrors, and that the magic performed by magicians using mirrors (which were in any case only a few sorts and hardly any that Mr Norrell approved) were performed using ordinary mirrors. Nevertheless the magical articles continued to sell out as fast as the shopkeepers could put them on the shelves and some shopkeepers were considering whether they ought not to give up their other business and devote their whole shop to magical accoutrements.
51
A family by the name of Greysteel
October to November 1816
Campo Santa Maria Zobenigo, Venice
Oct. 16th, 1816.
Jonathan Strange to Sir Walter Pole
We left terra firma at Mestre. There were two gondolas. Miss Greysteel and her aunt were to go in one, and the doctor and I were to go in the other. But whether there was some obscurity in my Italian when I explained it to the gondolieri or whether the distribution of Miss Greysteel’s boxes and trunks dictated another arrangement I do not know, but matters did not fall out as we had planned. The first gondola glided out across the lagoon with all the Greysteels inside it, while I still stood upon the shore. Dr Greysteel stuck his head out and roared his apologies, like the good fellow that he is, before his sister – who I think is a little nervous of the water – pulled him back in again. It was the most trivial incident yet somehow it unnerved me and for some moments afterwards I was prey to the most morbid fears and imaginings. I looked at my gondola. Much has been said, I know, about the funereal appearance of these contraptions – which are something between a coffin and a boat. But I was struck by quite another idea. I thought how much they resembled the black-painted, black-curtained conjuring boxes of my childhood – the sort of boxes into which quack-sorcerers would put country people’s handkerchiefs and coins and lockets. Sometimes these articles could never be got back – for which the sorcerer was always very sorry – “but fairy-spirits, Sir, is very giddy, wexatious creatures.” And all the nursemaids and kitchenmaids I ever knew when I was a child, always had an aunt, who knew a woman, whose first cousin’s boy had been put into just such a box, and had never been seen again. Standing on the quayside at Mestre I had a horrible notion that when the Greysteels got to Venice they would open up the gondola that should have conveyed me there and find nothing inside. This idea took hold of me so strongly that for some minutes I forgot to think of any thing else and there were actual tears standing in my eyes – which I think may serve to shew how nervous I have become. It is quite ridiculous for a man to begin to be afraid that he is about to disappear. It was towards evening and our two gondolas were as black as night and quite as melancholy. Yet the sky was the coldest, palest blue imaginable. There was no wind or hardly any, and the sea was nothing but the sky’s mirror. There were immeasurable spaces of still cold light above us and immeasurable spaces of still cold light beneath. But the city ahead of us received no illumination either from sky or lagoon, and appeared like a vast collection of shadow-towers and shadow-pinnacles, all pierced with tiny lights and set upon the shining water. As we entered Venice the water became crowded with scraps and rubbish – splinters of wood and hay, orange peels and cabbage stalks. I looked down and saw a ghostly hand for a moment – it was only a moment – but I quite believed that there was a woman beneath the dirty water, trying to find her way back to the light. Of course it was only a white glove, but the fright, while it lasted, was very great. But you are not to worry about me. I am very well occupied, working on the second volume of The History and Practice and when I am not working I am generally with the Greysteels, who are just such a set of people as you yourself would like – cheerful, independent, and well-informed. I confess to being a little fretful that I have heard nothing as yet of how the first volume was received. I am tolerably certain of its being a great triumph – I know that when he read it, N. fell down on the floor in a jealous fit and foamed at the mouth – but I cannot help wishing that someone would write and tell me so.
Campo Santa Maria Zobenigo, Venice
Oct. 27th, 1816.
Jonathan Strange to John Murray Oct. 27th, 1816.
… from eight separate persons of what Norrell has done. Oh, I could be angry. I could, I dare say, wear out both my pen and myself in a long tirade – but to what end? I do not chuse to be governed any longer by this impudent little man. I shall return to London in the early spring, as I planned, and we shall have a new edition. We shall have lawyers. I have my friends, just as he has his. Let him say in court (if he dares) why he thinks that Englishmen have become children and may not know the things that their forefathers knew. And if he dares to use magic against me again, then we shall have some counter-magic and then we shall finally see who is the Greatest Magician of the Age. And I think, Mr Murray, that you will be best advised to print a great many more copies than before – this has been one of Norrell’s most notorious acts of magic and I am sure that people will like to see the book that forced him to it. By the by when you print the new edition we shall have corrections – there are some horrible blunders. Chapters six and forty-two are particularly bad …
Harley-street, London
Oct. 1st, 1816.
Sir Walter Pole to Jonathan Strange
… a bookseller in St Paul’s Churchyard, Titus Watkins, has printed up a very nonsensical book and is selling it as Strange’s lost History and Practice of English Magic. Lord Portishead says some of it is copied out of Absalom1 and some of it is nonsense. Portishead wonders which you will find the most insulting – the Absalom part or the nonsense. Like a good fellow, Portishead contradicts this imposition wherever he goes, but a great many people have already been taken in and Watkins has certainly made money. I am glad you like Miss Greysteel so much …
Campo Santa Maria Zobenigo, Venice
Nov. 16th., 1816.
Jonathan Strange to John Murray
My dear Murray,
You will be pleased, I think, to hear that some good at least has come from the destruction of The History and Practice of English Magic – I have made up my quarrel with Lord Byron. His lordship knows nothing of the great controversies which are rending English magic in two and frankly cares less. But he has the greatest respect for books. He informs me that he is constantly on guard lest your over-cautious pen, Mr Murray, should alter some of his own poems and render some of the more surprizing words a little more respectable. When he heard that a whole book had been magicked out of existence by the author’s enemy, his indignation was scarcely to be described. He sent me a long letter, vilifying Norrell in the liveliest terms. Of all the letters I received upon that sad occasion, this is my favourite. No Englishm
an alive can equal his lordship for an insult. He arrived in Venice about a week ago and we met at Florian’s.2 I confess to being a little anxious lest he should bring that insolent young person, Mrs Clairmont, but happily she was nowhere to be seen. Apparently he dismissed her some time ago. Our new friendly relations have been sealed by the discovery that we share a fondness for billiards; I play when I am thinking about magic and he plays when he is hatching his poems … The sunlight was as cold and clear as the note struck by a knife on a fine wine-glass. In such a light the walls of the Church of Santa Maria Formosa were as white as shells or bones – and the shadows on the paving stones were as blue as the sea.
The door to the church opened and a little party came out into the campo. These ladies and gentlemen were visitors to the city of Venice who had been looking at the interior of the church, its altars and objects of interest, and now that they had got out of it, they were inclined to be talkative and filled up the water-lapped silence of the place with loud, cheerful conversation. They were excessively pleased with the Campo Santa Maria Formosa. They thought the façades of the houses very magnificent – they could not praise them highly enough. But the sad decay, which buildings, bridges and church all displayed, seemed to charm them even more. They were Englishmen and, to them, the decline of other nations was the most natural thing in the world. They belonged to a race blessed with so sensitive an appreciation of its own talents (and so doubtful an opinion of any body else’s) that they would not have been at all surprized to learn that the Venetians themselves had been entirely ignorant of the merits of their own city – until Englishmen had come to tell them it was delightful.
One lady, having got to the end of her raptures, began to speak of the weather to the other lady.
“You know, it is a very odd thing, my dear, but when we were in the church, while you and Mr Strange were looking at the pictures, I just popped my head out of the door and I thought then that it was raining and I was very much afraid that you would get wet.”
“No, aunt. See, the stones are perfectly dry. There is not a spot of rain upon them.”
“Well then, my dear, I hope that you are not inconvenienced by this wind. It is a little sharp about the ears. We can always ask Mr Strange and papa to walk a little faster if you do not like it.”
“Thank you, aunt, but I am perfectly comfortable. I like this breeze – I like the smell of the sea – it clears the brain, the senses – every thing. But perhaps, aunt, you do not like it.”
“Oh no, my dear. I never mind any such thing. I am quite hardy. I only think of you.”
“I know you do, aunt,” said the young lady. The young lady was perhaps aware that the sunlight and breeze which shewed Venice to so much advantage, made its canals so blue and its marble so mystically bright, did as much – or almost as much – for her. Nothing could so well draw attention to the translucency of Miss Greysteel’s complexion, as the rapid progression across it of sunlight and shadow. Nothing could be so becoming to her white muslin gown as the breeze which blew it about.
“Ah,” said the aunt, “now papa is showing Mr Strange some new thing or other. Flora, my dear, would not you like to see?”
“I have seen enough. You go, aunt.”
So the aunt hurried away to the other end of the campo and Miss Greysteel walked slowly on to the little white bridge that stood just by the church, fretfully poking the point of her white parasol between the white paving stones and murmuring to herself, “I have seen enough. Oh, I have seen quite enough!” The repetition of this mysterious exclamation did not appear to afford her spirits much relief – indeed it only served to make her more melancholy, and to make her sigh more frequently.
“You are very quiet today,” said Strange suddenly. She was startled. She had not known he was so close by.
“Am I? I was not aware of it.” But she then gave her attention to the view and was silent for several moments. Strange leant back against the bridge, folded his arms and looked very intently at her.
“Quiet,” he repeated, “and a little sad, I think. And so, you know, I must talk to you.”
This made her smile in spite of herself. “Must you?” she said. But then the very act of smiling and of speaking to him seemed to give her pain and so she sighed and looked away again.
“Indeed. Because, whenever I am melancholy you talk to me of cheerful things and cure my low spirits and so I must now do the same for you. That is what friendship is.”
“Openness and honesty, Mr Strange. Those are the best foundations for friendship, I think.”
“Oh! You think me secretive. I see by your face that you do. You may be right, but I … That is … No, I dare say you are right. It is not, I suppose, a profession that encourages …”
Miss Greysteel interrupted him. “I did not mean a fling at your profession. Not at all. All professions have their different sorts of discretion. That, I think, is quite understood.”
“Then I do not understand you.”
“It is no matter. We should rejoin my aunt and papa.”
“No, wait, Miss Greysteel, it will not do. Who else will put me right, when I am going wrong, if not you? Tell me – whom do you think I deceive?”
Miss Greysteel was silent a moment and then, with some reluctance, said, “Your friend of last night, perhaps?”
“My friend of last night! What do you mean?”
Miss Greysteel looked very unhappy. “The young woman in the gondola who was so anxious to speak to you and so unwilling – for a full half hour – that any one else should.”
“Ah!” Strange smiled and shook his head. “No, you have run away with a wrong idea. She is not my friend. She is Lord Byron’s.”
“Oh! …” Miss Greysteel reddened a little. “She seemed rather an agitated young person.”
“She is not best pleased with his lordship’s behaviour.” Strange shrugged. “Who is? She wished to discover if I were able to influence his lordship and I was at some pains to persuade her that there is not now, nor ever was, I think, magic enough in England to do that.”
“You are offended.”
“Not in the least. Now I believe we are closer to that good understanding which you require for friendship. Will you shake hands with me?”
“With the greatest goodwill,” she said.
“Flora? Mr Strange?” cried Dr Greysteel, striding up to them. “What is this?”
Miss Greysteel was a little confused. It was of the greatest importance to her that her aunt and father should have a good opinion of Mr Strange. She did not want them to know that she herself had suspected him of wrongdoing. She feigned not to have heard her father’s question and began to speak energetically of some paintings in the Scuola di Giorgio degli Schiavoni that she had a great desire to see. “It is really no distance. We could go now. You will come with us, I hope?” she said to Strange.
Strange smiled ruefully at her. “I have work to do.”
“Your book?” asked Dr Greysteel.
“Not today. I am working to uncover the magic which will bring forth a fairy-spirit to be my assistant. I have lost count of how many times I have tried – and how many ways. And never, of course, with the least success. But such is the predicament of the modern magician! Spells which were once taken for granted by every minor sorcerer in England are now so elusive that we despair of ever getting them back. Martin Pale had twenty-eight fairy servants. I would count myself fortunate to have one.”
“Fairies!” exclaimed Aunt Greysteel. “But by all accounts they are very mischievous creatures! Are you quite certain, Mr Strange, that you really wish to burden yourself with such a troublesome companion?”
“My dear aunt!” said Miss Greysteel. “Mr Strange knows what he is doing.”
But Aunt Greysteel was concerned and to illustrate her point she began to speak of a river that flowed through the village in Derbyshire where she and Dr Greysteel had grown up. It had been enchanted by fairies long ago and as a consequence had shrunk from a noble
torrent to a gentle brook and, though this had happened centuries and centuries ago, the local population still remembered and resented it. They still talked of the workshops they might have set up and the industries they might have founded if only the river had been strong enough to supply the power.3
Strange listened politely and when she had finished he said, “Oh, to be sure! Fairies are naturally full of wickedness and exceedingly difficult to control. Were I successful, I should certainly have to take care whom my fairy – or fairies – associated with.” He cast a glance at Miss Greysteel. “Nevertheless their power and knowledge are such that a magician cannot lightly dispense with their help – not unless he is Gilbert Norrell. Every fairy that ever drew breath has more magic in his head, hands and heart than could be contained in the greatest library of magical books that ever existed.”4
“Has he indeed?” said Aunt Greysteel. “Well, that is remarkable.”
Dr Greysteel and Aunt Greysteel wished Strange success with his magic and Miss Greysteel reminded him that he had promised to go with her one day soon to look at a pianoforte which they had heard was for hire from an antiquarian who lived near the Campo San Angelo. Then the Greysteels went on to the rest of the day’s pleasures while Strange returned to his lodgings near Santa Maria Zobenigo.
Most English gentlemen who come to Italy nowadays write poems or descriptions of their tour, or they make sketches. Italians who wish to rent apartments to these gentlemen are well advised to provide them with rooms where they can pursue these occupations. Strange’s landlord, for example, had set aside a shadowy little chamber at the top of his house for his tenant’s use. It contained an ancient table with four carved gryphons to serve for its legs; there was a sea-captain’s chair, a painted wooden cupboard such as one might find in a church and a wooden figure two or three feet tall, which stood upon a pillar. It represented a smiling man holding something round and red in his hand, which might have been an apple, might have been a pomegranate or might have been a red ball. It was difficult to imagine quite where this gentleman could have come from: he was a little too cheerful for a saint in a church and not quite comical enough for a coffeehouse sign.
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell Page 68