Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

by Susanna Clarke

  “Actually no,” said Strange, surprized. “I have nothing of that sort.”

  The gentleman frowned. He looked hard, first at a chamber-pot half-hidden under the table, then at a mourning-ring that contained a miniature of an angel painted on ivory, and finally at a painted pottery jar that had once contained candied peaches and plums. “Perhaps you have come upon it by accident?” he asked. “Such objects can be very powerful even if the magician has no idea that they are present.”

  “I really do not think so,” said Strange. “That jar, for instance, was purchased in Genoa from a confectioner’s. And there were dozens in the shop, just the same. I cannot see why one would be magical and the others not.”

  “No, indeed,” agreed the gentleman. “And really there does not seem to be any thing here apart from the usual objects. I mean,” he added quickly, “the objects that I would expect to find in the apartments of a magician of your genius.”

  There was a short pause.

  “You make no reply to my offer,” said Strange. “You are undecided until you know more of me. That is just as it should be. In a day or two I will do myself the honour of soliciting your company again and we shall talk some more.”

  “It has been a most interesting conversation!” said the gentleman.

  “The first of many, I hope,” said Strange, politely, and bowed.

  The gentleman bowed in return.

  Then Strange released the gentleman from the spell of summoning and he promptly disappeared.

  Strange’s excitement was immense. He supposed he ought to sit down and make sober, scholarly notes of what he had seen, but it was difficult to keep from dancing, laughing and clapping his hands. He actually performed several figures of a country-dance, and if the carved wooden figure had not been attached by its feet to a wooden pillar he would certainly have made it his partner and whirled about the room with it.

  When the dancing fit left him he was sorely tempted to write to Norrell. In fact he did sit down and begin a letter full of triumph and steeped in sarcasm. (“You will no doubt be delighted to learn …”) But then he thought better of it. “It will only provoke him to make my house disappear, or something. Ha! How furious he will be when I arrive back in England. I must publish the news immediately I return. I shall not wait for the next issue of The Famulus. That would take much too long. Murray will complain but I cannot help that. The Times would be best. I wonder what he meant by all that nonsense about rings of power and chamberpots? I suppose he was trying to account for my success in summoning him.”

  Upon the whole he could not have been more pleased with himself if he had conjured up John Uskglass himself and had half an hour of civil conversation with him. The only unsettling part of the business was the memory – returning to him in scraps and fragments – of the form his madness had taken this time. “I think I turned into Lascelles or Drawlight! How perfectly horrible!”

  The next morning Stephen Black had business to conduct for Sir Walter. He paid a visit to a banker in Lombard-street; he spoke to a portrait-painter in Little-Britain; he delivered instructions to a woman in Fetter-lane about a gown for Lady Pole. His next appointment was at the office of an attorney. A soft, heavy snow was falling. All around him were the customary sounds of the City: the snorting and stamping of the horses, the rattle of the carriages, the cries of the street-vendors, the slamming of doors and the padding of feet through the snow.

  He was standing at the corner of Fleet-street and Mitre-court. He had just taken out his pocket-watch (a present from the gentleman with the thistle-down hair), when every sound ceased as if it had been cut off with a knife. For a moment it seemed he must have been struck deaf. But almost before he could feel any alarm he looked round and realized that this was not the only peculiarity. The street was suddenly empty. There were no people, no cats, no dogs, no horses, no birds. Everyone was gone.

  And the snow! That was the oddest thing of all. It hung, suspended in the air, in huge, soft white flakes, as big as sovereigns.

  “Magic!” he thought in disgust.

  He walked a little way down Mitre-court, looking in the windows of the shops. Lamps were still lit; goods were lying heaped or scattered over the counters – silks, tobacco, sheet-music; fires were still burning in the hearths but their flames were frozen. He looked back and discovered that he had made a sort of tunnel through the three-dimensional lace-work of snow. It was, of all the strange things he had seen in his life, the strangest.

  From out of nowhere a furious voice cried, “I thought myself quite safe from him! What tricks can he be using?” The gentleman with the thistle-down hair suddenly appeared immediately before Stephen, with blazing face and glittering eyes.

  The shock was so great that for a moment Stephen feared he would drop down in a swoon. But he was well aware how highly the gentleman prized coolness and composure, so he hid his fright as best he could and gasped, “Safe from whom, sir?”

  “Why, the magician, Stephen! The magician! I thought that he must have acquired some potent object that would reveal my presence to him. But I could not see any thing in his rooms and he swore that he had nothing of the sort. Just to be sure I have circled the globe in the past hour and examined every ring of power, every magical chalice and quern. But none of them are missing. They are all exactly where I thought they were.”

  From this rather incomplete explanation Stephen deduced that the magician must have succeeded in summoning and speaking to the gentleman with the thistle-down hair. “But surely, sir,” he said, “there was a time when you wished to aid the magicians and do magic with them and gain their gratitude. That is how you came to rescue Lady Pole, is it not? Perhaps you will find you like it better than you think.”

  “Oh, perhaps! But I really do not think so. I tell you, Stephen, apart from the inconvenience of having him summon me whenever he chuses, it was the dreariest half hour I have spent in many a long age. I have never heard any one talk so much! He is quite the most conceited person I have ever met. People like that who must be continually talking themselves and have no time to listen to any one else are quite disgusting to me.”

  “Oh, indeed, sir! It is most vexatious. And I dare say that, since you will be busy with the magician, we will have to put off making me King of England?”

  The gentleman said something very fierce in his own language – presumably a curse. “I believe you are right – and that makes me angrier than all the rest put together!” He thought for a moment. “But then again, it may not be so bad as we fear. These English magicians are generally very stupid. They usually want the same things. The poor ones desire an unending supply of turnips or porridge; the rich ones want yet more riches, or power over the whole world; and the young ones want the love of some princess or queen. As soon as he asks for one of those things, I will grant it to him. It is sure to bring a world of trouble on his head. It always does. He will become distracted and then you and I can pursue our plan to make you King of England! Oh, Stephen! How glad I am that I came to you! I always hear better sense from you than from anyone else!” Upon the instant the gentleman’s anger evaporated and he was full of delight. The sun actually appeared from behind a cloud and all the strange, suspended fall of snow glittered and blazed around them (though whether this was the gentleman’s doing or no, Stephen could not tell).

  He was about to point out that he had not actually suggested any thing, but in that instant the gentleman disappeared. All the people, horses, carriages, cats and dogs immediately reappeared, and Stephen walked straight into a fat woman in a purple pelisse.

  Strange rose from his bed in excellent spirits. He had slept for eight hours without interruption. For the first time in weeks he had not got up in the middle of the night to do magic. As a reward to himself for his success in summoning the fairy, he decided that today should be a holiday. Shortly after ten o’clock, he presented himself at the palazzo where the Greysteels were staying and found the family at their breakfast. He accepted their i
nvitation to sit down, ate some hot rolls, drank some coffee and told Miss Greysteel and Aunt Greysteel that he was entirely at their service.

  Aunt Greysteel was happy to give up her share of the favour to her niece. Miss Greysteel and Strange passed the forenoon in reading books about magic together. These were books that he had lent to her or that she had bought upon his recommendation. They were Portishead’s A Child’s History of the Raven King, Hickman’s Life of Martin Pale and Hether-Gray’s The Anatomy of a Minotaur. Strange had read them when he first began to study magic and he was amused to discover how simple, almost innocent, they seemed to him now. It was the most agreeable thing in the world to read them to Miss Greysteel, and answer her questions, and listen to her opinions upon them – eager, intelligent and, it seemed to him, slightly over-serious.

  At one o’clock, after a light repast of cold meat, Aunt Greysteel declared that they had all sat still long enough and she proposed a walk. “I dare say, Mr Strange, that you will be glad of the fresh air. Scholars often neglect exercise.”

  “We are very sad fellows, madam,” agreed Strange, cheerfully.

  It was a fine day. They wandered through the narrow streets and alleys and chanced upon a happy succession of intriguing objects: a carving of a dog with a bone in its mouth; a shrine to a saint that none of them recognized; a set of windows whose curtains seemed at first to be made of heavy swags of the most exquisite lace, but which were found upon closer examination to be only spiders’ webs – vast, intermingling spiders’ webs which permeated every part of the room inside. They had no guide to tell them about these things; there was no one standing near whom they could ask; and so they entertained themselves by making up their own explanations.

  Just before twilight they entered a chilly, stony, little square with a well at its centre. It was a curiously blank and empty place. The ground was paved with ancient stones. The walls were pierced with surprizingly few windows. It was as if the houses had all been offended by something the square had done and had resolutely turned their backs and looked the other way. There was one tiny shop that appeared to sell nothing but Turkish Delight of an infinite number of varieties and colours. It was closed, but Miss Greysteel and Aunt Greysteel peered into the window and wondered aloud when it might open and whether they would be able to find their way back to it.

  Strange walked about. He was thinking of nothing in particular. The air was very cold – pleasantly so – and overhead the first star of evening appeared. He became aware of a peculiar scraping sound behind him and he turned to see what was making it.

  In the darkest corner of the little square something was standing – a thing the like of which he had never seen before. It was black – so black that it might have been composed of the surrounding darkness. Its head or top took the form of an old-fashioned sedan chair, such as one might occasionally see conveying a dowager about Bath. It had windows with black curtains pulled across. But beneath the windows it dwindled into the body and legs of a great black bird. It wore a tall black hat and carried a thin, black walking-stick. It had no eyes, yet Strange could tell it was looking at him. It was scraping the tip of the walking-stick across the paving stones with a horrible jerking motion.

  He supposed he ought to feel afraid. He supposed that he ought perhaps to do some magic to try and fend it off. Spells of dispersal, spells of dismissal, spells of protection flowed through his brain but he somehow failed to catch hold of any of them. Although the thing reeked of evil and malevolence, he had a strong sense that it was no danger to himself or any one else just at present. It seemed more like a sign of evil-yet-to-come.

  He was just beginning to wonder how the Greysteels bore with this sudden appearance of horror in their midst when something shifted in his brain; the thing was no longer there. In its place stood the stout form of Dr Greysteel – Dr Greysteel in black clothes, Dr Greysteel with a walking-stick in his hand.

  “Well?” called out Dr Greysteel.

  “I … I beg your pardon!” Strange called back. “Did you speak? I was thinking of … of something else.”

  “I asked you if you intended to dine with us tonight!”

  Strange stared at him.

  “What is the matter? Are you sick?” asked Dr Greysteel. He looked rather probingly at Strange as if he saw something in the magician’s face or manner he did not like.

  “I am perfectly well, I assure you,” said Strange. “And I will dine with you gladly. I should like nothing better. Only I have promised Lord Byron that I will play billiards with him at four.”

  “We should find a gondola to take us back,” said Dr Greysteel. “I believe Louisa is more tired than she admits to.” (He meant Aunt Greysteel.) “Where do you meet his lordship? Where shall we tell the fellow to take you?”

  “Thank you,” said Strange, “but I shall walk. Your sister was right. I am in need of fresh air and exercise.”

  Miss Greysteel was a little disappointed to find that Strange was not to return with them. The two ladies and the magician took a somewhat prolonged leave of each other and reminded each other several times that they were all to meet again in a few hours, until Dr Greysteel began to lose patience with them all.

  The Greysteels walked off in the direction of the Rio. Strange followed at a distance. Despite his cheerful assurances to Dr Greysteel, he was feeling badly shaken. He tried to persuade himself that the apparition had been nothing more than a trick of the light, but it would not do. He was obliged to admit to himself that what it most resembled was a return of the old lady’s madness.

  “It is really most aggravating! The effects of the tincture seemed to have worn off entirely! Well, pray God, I do not need to drink any more of it. If this fairy refuses to serve me, I shall simply have to find another way of summoning someone else.”

  He emerged from the alley into the clearer light of the Rio and saw that the Greysteels had found a gondola and that someone – a gentleman – was helping Miss Greysteel into it. He thought at first that it was a stranger, but then he saw that this person had a head of shining thistle-down hair. He hurried to meet him.

  “What a beautiful young woman!” said the gentleman, as the gondola pulled away from the quayside. His eyes sparkled with brilliance. “And she dances most delightfully, I expect?”

  “Dances?” said Strange. “I do not know. We were supposed to attend a ball together in Genoa, but she had the toothach and we did not go. I am surprized to see you. I had not expected that you would come until I summoned you again.”

  “Ah, but I have been thinking about your proposal that we do magic together! And I now perceive it to be an excellent plan!”

  “I am pleased to hear it,” said Strange, suppressing a smile. “But tell me something. I have been trying to summon you for weeks. Why did you not come before?”

  “Oh! That is easily explained!” declared the gentleman, and he began a long story about a cousin of his who was very wicked and very jealous of all his talents and virtues; who hated all English magicians; and who had somehow contrived to distort Strange’s magic so that the gentleman had not known of the summons until last night. It was an exceedingly complicated tale and Strange did not believe a word of it. But he thought it prudent to look as if he did and so he bowed his acceptance.

  “And to shew you how sensible I am of the honour you do me,” finished up the gentleman, “I will bring you any thing you desire.”

  “Any thing?” repeated Strange, with a sharp look. “And this offer is – if I understand correctly – in the nature of a binding agreement. You cannot deny me something once I have named it?”

  “Nor would I wish to!”

  “And I can ask for riches, dominion over all the world? That sort of thing?”

  “Exactly!” said the gentleman with a delighted air. He raised his hands to begin.

  “Well, I do not want any of those things. What I chiefly want is information. Who was the last English magician you dealt with?”

  A moment’s paus
e.

  “Oh, you do not want to hear about that!” declared the gentleman. “I assure you it is very dull. Now, come! There must be something you desire above all else? A kingdom of your own? A beautiful companion? Princess Pauline Borghese is a most delightful woman and I can have her here in the twinkling of an eye!”

  Strange opened his mouth to speak and then stopt a moment. “Pauline Borghese, you say? I saw a picture of her in Paris.”2 Then, recollecting himself, he continued, “But I am not interested in that just at present. Tell me about magic. How would I go about turning myself into a bear? Or a fox? What are the names of the three magical rivers that flow through the Kingdom of Agrace?3 Ralph Stokesey thought that these rivers influenced events in England; is that true? There is mention in The Language of Birds of a group of spells that are cast by manipulating colours; what can you tell me about that? What do the stones in the Doncaster Squares represent?”

  The gentleman threw up his hands in mock surprize. “So many questions!” He laughed; it was clearly meant to be a merry, carefree laugh, but it sounded a little forced.

  “Well then, tell me the answer to one of them. Any one you like.”

  The gentleman only smiled pleasantly.

  Strange stared at him in undisguised vexation. Apparently the offer did not extend to knowledge, only objects. “And if I wanted to give myself a present, I would go and buy something!” thought Strange. “If I wanted to see Pauline Borghese, I would simply go to her and introduce myself. I do not need magic for that! How in the world do I …” A thought struck him. Out loud he said, “Bring me something that you gained from your last dealings with an English magician!”

  “What?” said the gentleman, startled. “No, you do not want that! It is worthless, utterly worthless! Think again!”

  Clearly he was much perturbed by Strange’s request – though Strange could not tell why he should be. “Perhaps,” he thought, “the magician gave him something valuable and he is loath to give it up. No matter. Once I have seen what it is, and learnt what I can from it I shall give it back to him. That ought to persuade him of my good intentions.”