“Tell me what you have done!” whispered Stephen.
But the gentleman closed his eyes.
Stephen remained kneeling in the ballroom, grasping the gentleman’s hand. The tallow candles went out; the shadows closed about them.
56
The Black Tower
3rd/4th December 1816
Dr Greysteel was asleep and dreaming. In his dream someone was calling for him and something was required of him. He was anxious to oblige whoever it was and so he went to this place and that, searching for them; but he did not find them and still they called his name. Finally he opened his eyes.
“Who’s there?” he asked.
“It’s me, sir. Frank, sir.”
“What’s the matter?”
“Mr Strange is here. He wants to speak to you, sir.”
“Is something wrong?”
“He don’t say, sir. But, I think there must be.”
“Where is he, Frank?”
“He won’t come in, sir. He won’t be persuaded. He’s outside, sir.”
Dr Greysteel lowered his legs out of the bed and drew in his breath sharply. “It’s cold, Frank!” he said.
“Yes, sir.” Frank helped Dr Greysteel on with his dressing-gown and slippers. They padded through numerous dark rooms, across acres of dark marble floors. In the vestibule a lamp was burning. Frank pulled back the great iron double doors and then he picked up the lamp and went outside. Dr Greysteel followed him.
A flight of stone steps descended into darkness. Only the smell of the sea, the lap of water against stone and a certain occasional glitter and shifting-about of the darkness gave the observer to understand that at the bottom of the steps there was a canal. A few houses round about had lamps burning in windows or upon balconies. Beyond this all was silence and darkness.
“There is no one here!” cried Dr Greysteel. “Where is Mr Strange?”
For answer Frank pointed off to the right. A lamp bloomed suddenly under a bridge and by its light Dr Greysteel saw a gondola, waiting. The gondoliero poled his boat towards them. As it approached, Dr Greysteel could see there was a passenger. Despite all that Frank had said, it took a moment or two for Dr Greysteel to recognize him. “Strange!” he cried. “Good God! What has happened? I did not know you! My … my … my dear friend.” Dr Greysteel’s tongue stumbled, trying to find a suitable word. He had grown accustomed in the last few weeks to the idea that he and Strange would soon stand in a much closer relationship. “Come inside! Frank, quick! Fetch a glass of wine for Mr Strange!”
“No!” cried Strange in a hoarse, unfamiliar voice. He spoke urgently in Italian to the gondoliero. His Italian was considerably more fluent than Dr Greysteel’s and Dr Greysteel did not understand him, but the meaning soon became clear when the gondoliero began to move his boat away.
“I cannot come inside!” cried Strange. “Do not ask me!
“Very well, but tell me what has happened.”
“I am cursed!”
“Cursed? No! Do not say so.”
“But I do say so. I have been wrong from start to finish! I told this fellow to take me a little way off. It is not safe for me to be too close to your house. Dr Greysteel! You must send your daughter away!”
“Flora! Why?”
“There is someone nearby who means her harm!”
“Good God!”
Strange’s eyes grew wider. “There is someone who means to bind her to a life of ceaseless misery! Slavery and subjugation to a wild spirit! An ancient prison built as much of cold enchantments as of stone and earth. Wicked, wicked! And then again, perhaps not so wicked after all – for what does he do but follow his nature? How can he help himself?”
Neither Dr Greysteel nor Frank could make any thing of this.
“You are ill, sir,” said Dr Greysteel. “You have a fever. Come inside. Frank can make you a soothing drink to take away these evil thoughts. Come inside, Mr Strange.” He drew away slightly from the steps so that Strange might approach, but Strange took no notice.
“I thought …” began Strange, and then stopt immediately. He paused so long it seemed he had forgotten what he was going to say, but then he began again. “I thought,” he began again, “that Norrell had only lied to me. But I was wrong. Quite wrong. He has lied to everybody. He has lied to us all.” Then he spoke to the gondoliero and the gondola moved away into the darkness.
“Wait! Wait!” cried Dr Greysteel, but it was gone. He stared into the darkness, hoping that Strange would reappear, but he did not.
“Should I go after him, sir?” asked Frank.
“We do not know where he has gone.”
“I dare say he has gone home, sir. I can follow him on foot.”
“And say what to him, Frank? He would not listen to us just now. No, let us go inside. There is Flora to consider.”
But once inside Dr Greysteel stood helpless, quite at a loss to know what to do next. He suddenly looked as old as his years. Frank took him gently by the arm and led him down a dark stone staircase into the kitchen.
It was a very small kitchen to service so many large marble rooms upstairs. In daylight it was a dank, gloomy place. There was only one window. It was high up on the wall, just above the level of the water outside, and it was covered by a heavy iron grille. This meant that most of the room was below the level of the canal. Yet after their encounter with Strange, it seemed a warm and friendly place. Frank lit more candles and stirred the fire into life. Then he filled a kettle to make them both some tea.
Dr Greysteel, seated in a homely kitchen chair, stared into the fire, lost in thought. “When he spoke of someone meaning harm to Flora …” he said at last.
Frank nodded as if he knew what came next.
“… I could not help thinking he meant himself, Frank,” said Dr Greysteel. “He fears he will do something to hurt her and so he comes to warn me.”
“That’s it, sir!” agreed Frank. “He comes here to warn us. Which shews that he is a good man at heart.”
“He is a good man,” said Dr Greysteel, earnestly. “But something has happened. It is this magic, Frank. It must be. It is a very queer profession and I cannot help wishing he were something else – a soldier or a clergyman or a lawyer! What will we tell Flora, Frank? She will not want to go – you may be sure of that! She will not want to leave him. Especially when … when he is sick. What can I tell her? I ought to go with her. But then who will remain in Venice to take care of Mr Strange?”
“You and I will stay here and help the magician, sir. But send Miss Flora away with her aunt.”
“Yes, Frank! That’s it! That’s what we shall do!”
“Tho’ I must say, sir,” added Frank, “that Miss Flora scarcely needs people to take care of her. She is not like other young ladies.” Frank had lived long enough with the Greysteels to catch the family habit of regarding Miss Greysteel as someone of exceptional abilities and intelligence.
Feeling that they had done all that they could for the present, Dr Greysteel and Frank went back to bed.
But it is one thing to form plans in the middle of the night, it is quite another to carry them out in the broad light of day. As Dr Greysteel had predicted, Flora objected in the strongest terms to being sent away from Venice and from Jonathan Strange. She did not understand. Why must she go?
Because, said Dr Greysteel, he was ill.
All the more reason to stay then, she said. He would need someone to nurse him.
Dr Greysteel tried to imply that Strange’s illness was contagious, but he was, by principle and inclination, an honest man. He had had little practice at lying and he did it badly. Flora did not believe him.
Aunt Greysteel scarcely understood the change of plan any better than her niece. Dr Greysteel could not stand against their united opposition and so he was obliged to take his sister into his confidence and tell her what had happened during the night. Unfortunately he had no talent for conveying atmospheres. The peculiar chill of Strange’s words was enti
rely absent from his explanation. Aunt Greysteel understood only that Strange had been incoherent. She naturally concluded that he had been drunk. This, though very bad, was not unusual among gentlemen and seemed no reason for them all to remove to another city.
“After all, Lancelot,” she said, “I have known you very much the worse for wine. There was the time we dined with Mr Sixsmith and you insisted upon saying good night to all the chickens. You went out into the yard and pulled them one by one out of the henhouse and they all escaped and ran about and half of them were eaten by the fox. I never saw Antoinette so angry with you.” (Antoinette was the Doctor’s late wife.)
This was an old story and very demeaning. Dr Greysteel listened with mounting exasperation. “For God’s sake, Louisa! I am a physician! I know drunkenness when I see it!”
So Frank was brought in. He remembered much more precisely what Strange had said. The visions he conjured up of Flora shut away in prison for all eternity were quite enough to terrify her aunt. In a very short space of time Aunt Greysteel was as eager as any one else to send Flora away from Venice. However she insisted upon one thing – something which had never occurred to Dr Greysteel and Frank: she insisted that they tell Flora the truth.
It cost Flora Greysteel a great deal of pain to hear that Strange had lost his reason. She thought at first they must be mistaken, and even when they had persuaded her that it might be true, she was still certain there was no necessity for her to leave Venice; she was sure he would never hurt her. But she could now see that her father and aunt believed otherwise and that they would never be comfortable until she went. Most reluctantly she agreed to leave.
Shortly after the departure of the two ladies, Dr Greysteel was sitting in one of the palazzo’s chill marble rooms. He was comforting himself with a glass of brandy and trying to find the courage to go and look for Strange, when Frank entered the room and said something about a black tower.
“What?” said Dr Greysteel. He was in no mood to be puzzling out Frank’s eccentricities.
“Come to the window and I will shew you, sir.”
Dr Greysteel got up and went to the window.
Something was standing in the centre of Venice. It could best be described as a black tower of impossible vastness. The base of it seemed to cover several acres. It rose up out of the city into the sky and the top of it could not be seen. From a distance its colour was uniformly black and its texture smooth. But there were moments when it seemed almost translucent, as if it were made of black smoke. One caught glimpses of buildings behind – or possibly even within – it.
It was the most mysterious thing Dr Greysteel had ever seen. “Where can it have come from, Frank? And what has happened to the houses that were there before?”
Before these or any other questions could be answered, there was a loud, official-sounding knock upon the door. Frank went to answer it. He returned a moment later with a small crowd of people, none of whom Dr Greysteel had ever seen before. Two of them were priests, and there were three or four young men of military bearing who all wore brightly coloured uniforms decorated with an extravagant amount of gold lace and braid. The most handsome of the young men stepped forward. His uniform was the most splendid of all and he had long yellow moustaches. He explained that he was Colonel Wenzel von Ottenfeld, secretary to the Austrian Governor of the city. He introduced his companions; the officers were Austrian like himself, but the priests were Venetian. This in itself was enough to cause Dr Greysteel some surprize; the Venetians hated the Austrians and the two races were hardly ever seen in each other’s company.
“You are the Sir Doctor?” said Colonel von Ottenfeld. “The friend of the Hexenmeister1 of the Great Vellinton?”
Dr Greysteel agreed that he was.
“Ah! Sir Doctor! We are beggars under your feet today!” Von Ottenfeld put on a melancholy expression which was much enhanced by his long, drooping moustaches.
Dr Greysteel said he was astonished to hear it.
“We come today. We ask your …” Von Ottenfeld frowned and snapped his fingers. “Vermittlung. Wir bitten um Ihre Vermittlung. Wie kann man das sagen?” There was some discussion how this word ought to be translated. One of the Italian priests suggested “intercession”.
“Yes, yes,” agreed von Ottenfeld, eagerly. “We ask your intercession from us to the Hexenmeister of the Great Vellinton. Sir Doctor, we esteem very much the Hexenmeister of the Great Vellinton. But now the Hexenmeister of the Great Vellinton has done something. What calamity! The people of Venice are afraid. Many must leave their houses and go away!”
“Ah!” said Dr Greysteel, knowingly. He thought for a moment and comprehension dawned. “Oh! You think Mr Strange has something to do with this Black Tower.”
“No!” declared von Ottenfeld. “It is not a Tower. It is the Night! What calamity!”
“I beg your pardon?” said Dr Greysteel and looked to Frank for help. Frank shrugged.
One of the priests, whose English was a little more robust, explained that when the sun had risen that morning, it had risen in every part of the city except one – the parish of Santa Maria Zobenigo, which was where Strange lived. There, Night continued to reign.
“Why does the Hexenmeister of the Great Vellinton this?” asked von Ottenfeld, “We do not know. We beg you go, Sir Doctor. Ask him, please, for the sun to come back to Santa Maria Zobenigo? Ask him, respectfully, to do no more magic in Venice?”
“Of course I will go,” said Dr Greysteel. “It is a most distressing situation. And, though I am quite sure that Mr Strange has not done this deliberately – that it will prove to be all a mistake – I will gladly help in any way I can.”
“Ah!” said the priest with the good English, anxiously, and put up his hand, as if he feared that Dr Greysteel would rush out to Santa Maria Zobenigo upon the instant. “But you will take your servant, please? You will not go alone?”
Snow was falling thickly. All of Venice’s sad colours had become shades of grey and black. St Mark’s Piazza was a faint grey etching of itself done on white paper. It was quite deserted. Dr Greysteel and Frank stumped through the snow together. Dr Greysteel carried a lantern and Frank held a black umbrella over the Doctor’s head.
Beyond the Piazza rose up the Black Pillar of Night; they passed beneath the arch of the Atrio and between the silent houses. The Darkness began halfway across a little bridge. It was the eeriest thing in the world to see how the flakes of snow, falling aslant, were sucked suddenly into it, as if it were a living thing that ate them up with greedy lips.
They took one last look at the silent white city and stepped into the Darkness.
The alleys were deserted. The inhabitants of the parish had fled to relatives and friends in other parts of the city. But the cats of Venice – who are as contrary a set of creatures as the cats of any other city – had flocked to Santa Maria Zobenigo to dance and hunt and play in the Endless Night which seemed to them to be a sort of high holiday. In the Darkness cats brushed past Dr Greysteel and Frank; and several times Dr Greysteel caught sight of glowing eyes watching him from a doorway.
When they reached the house where Strange lodged it was quiet. They knocked and called out, but no one came. Finding the door was unlocked, they pushed it open. The house was dark. They found the staircase and went up to Strange’s room at the top of the house where he did magic.
After all that had happened they were rather expecting something remarkable, to find Strange in conversation with a demon or haunted by horrible apparitions. It was somewhat disconcerting that the scene which presented itself was so ordinary. The room looked as it had upon numerous occasions. It was lit by a generous number of candles and an iron stove gave out a welcome heat. Strange was at the table, bending over his silver dish with a pure white light radiating up into his face. He did not look up. A clock ticked quietly in the corner. Books, papers and writing things were thickly scattered over every surface as usual. Strange passed the tip of his finger over the surface of the wa
ter and struck it twice very gently. Then he turned and wrote something in a book.
“Strange,” said Dr Greysteel.
Strange glanced up. He did not look so frantic as he had the night before, but his eyes had the same haunted look. He regarded the doctor for a long moment without any sign of recognition. “Greysteel,” he murmured at last. “What are you doing here?”
“I have come to see how you are. I am concerned about you.”
Strange made no reply to this. He turned back to his silver dish and made a few gestures over it. But immediately he seemed dissatisfied with what he had done. He took a glass and poured some water into it. Then he took a tiny bottle and carefully tipped two drops of liquid into the glass.
Dr Greysteel watched him. There was no label upon the bottle; the liquid was amber-coloured; it could have been any thing.
Strange observed Dr Greysteel’s eyes upon him. “I suppose you are going to say I ought not to take this. Well, you may spare yourself the trouble!” He drank it down in one draught. “You will not say so when you know the reason!”
“No, no,” said Dr Greysteel in his most placating tone —the one he employed for his most difficult patients. “I assure you I was going to say nothing of the kind. I only wish to know if you are in pain? Or ill? I thought last night that you were. Perhaps I can advise …” He stopped. He smelt something. It was quite overpowering – a dry, musty scent mixed with something rank and animal; and the curious thing was that he recognized it. Suddenly he could smell the room where the old woman lived: the mad old woman with all the cats.
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell Page 75