Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

by Susanna Clarke

  “Mr Norrell,” said Lord Liverpool, “these girls were thirteen. Their parents are adamant that they have never so much as seen a magical text. There are no magicians in Stamford, no magic books of any kind.”

  Mr Norrell opened his mouth to say something, realized he was quite at a loss and fell silent.

  Lascelles said, “This is very odd. What explanation did the girls give?”

  “The girls told their parents that they looked down and saw the spell written upon the path in grey pebbles. They said the stones told them what to do. Other people have since examined the path; there are indeed some grey pebbles, but they form no symbols, no mystical writing. They are ordinary grey pebbles.”

  “And you say that there have been other instances of magic, in other places besides Stamford?” said Mr Norrell.

  “Many other instances and many other places – mostly, but by no means solely, in the north, and almost all within the past two weeks. Seventeen fairy roads have opened up in Yorkshire. Of course the roads have existed since the reign of the Raven King, but it is centuries since they actually led anywhere and the local inhabitants allowed them to become overgrown. Now without warning they are clear again. The weeds are gone and the inhabitants report that they can see strange destinations at the end of them – places no one has ever seen before.”

  “Has any one …?” Mr Norrell paused and licked his lips. “Has any one come down the roads?”

  “Not yet,” said Lord Liverpool. “But presumably it is only a matter of time.”

  Lord Sidmouth had been impatient to speak for some moments. “This is worst of all!” he declared in a passion, “It is one thing to change Spain by magic, Mr Norrell, but this is England! Suddenly we border upon places no one knows any thing about – places no one has ever even heard of! I can scarcely describe my feelings at this juncture. It is not treason exactly – I do not think there is even a name for what you have done!”

  “But I did not do it!” said Mr Norrell in a tone of desperation. “Why would I? I detest fairy roads! I have said so upon many occasions.” He turned to Lord Liverpool. “I appeal to your lordship’s memory. Have I ever given you reason to suppose that I approve of fairies or their magic? Have I not censured and condemned them at every turn?”

  This was the first thing that Mr Norrell had said that seemed in any way to mollify the Prime Minister. He inclined his head slightly. “But if it is not your doing, whose is it?”

  This question seemed to strike at some particularly vulnerable spot in Mr Norrell’s soul. He stood, eyes staring, mouth opening and closing, entirely unable to answer.

  Lascelles, however, was in complete command of himself. He had not the least idea in the world whose magic it was, nor did he care. But he did know precisely what answer would serve his and Mr Norrell’s interest best. “Frankly I am surprized that your lordship need put the question,” he said, coolly. “Surely the wickedness of the magic proclaims its author; it is Strange.”

  “Strange!” Lord Liverpool blinked. “But Strange is in Venice!”

  “Mr Norrell believes that Strange is no longer the master of his own desires,” said Lascelles. “He has done all sorts of wicked magic; he has trafficked with creatures that are enemies of Great Britain, of Christianity, of Mankind itself! This catastrophe may be some sort of experiment of his, which has gone awry. Or it may be that he has done it deliberately. I feel it only right to remind your lordship that Mr Norrell has warned the Government on several occasions of the great danger to the Nation from Strange’s present researches. We have sent your lordship urgent messages, but we have received no replies. Fortunately for us all Mr Norrell is what he always was: firm and resolute and watchful.” As he spoke, Lascelles’s glance fell upon Mr Norrell, who was at the moment the very picture of everything which was dismayed, defeated and impotent.

  Lord Liverpool turned to Mr Norrell. “Is this your opinion also, sir?”

  Mr Norrell was lost in thought, murmuring over and over, “This is my doing. This is my doing.” Although he spoke to himself, it was just loud enough for everyone else in the room to hear.

  Lascelles’s eyes widened; but he was master of himself in an instant. “It is only natural that you feel that now, sir,” he said quickly, “but in a while you will realize that nothing could be further from the truth. When you taught Mr Strange magic, you could not have known that it would end like this. No one could have known.”

  Lord Liverpool looked more than a little irritated at this attempt to make Mr Norrell appear in the character of a victim. For years and years Mr Norrell had set himself up as the chief magician in England and if magic had been done in England then Lord Liverpool considered him partly responsible at least. “I ask you again, Mr Norrell. Answer me plainly, if you please. Is it your opinion that this was done by Strange?”

  Mr Norrell looked at each gentleman in turn. “Yes,” he said in a frightened voice.

  Lord Liverpool gave him a long, hard look. Then he said, “The matter shall not rest here, Mr Norrell. But whether it is Strange or not, one thing is clear. Great Britain already has a mad King; a mad magician would be the outside of enough. You have repeatedly asked for commissions; well, here is one. Prevent your pupil from returning to England!”

  “But …” began Mr Norrell. Then he caught sight of Lascelles’s warning glance and fell silent.

  Mr Norrell and Lascelles returned to Hanover-square. Mr Norrell went immediately to the library. Childermass was working at the table as before.

  “Quick!” cried Mr Norrell, “I need a spell which no longer works!”

  Childermass shrugged. “There are thousands. Chauntlucet;4 Daedalus’s Rose;5 the Unrobed Ladies;6 Stokesey’s Vitrification7 …”

  “Stokesey’s Vitrification! Yes! I have a description of that!”

  Mr Norrell rushed to a shelf and pulled out a book. He searched for a page, found it and looked hurriedly around the room. On a table near the fireside stood a vase of mistletoe, ivy, red-berried holly and some sprays of a winter-flowering shrub. He fixed his eye upon the vase and began to mutter to himself.

  All the shadows in the room did something odd, something not easy to describe or explain. It was as if they all turned and faced another way. Even when they were motionless again Childermass and Lascelles would have been hard pressed to say whether they were the same as they had been or not.

  Something fell out of the vase and shattered upon the table with a tinkling sound.

  Lascelles went over to the table and examined it. One of the branches of holly had been turned into glass. The glass branch had been too heavy for the vase and so it had toppled out; two or three unbroken holly leaves lay on the table.

  “That spell has not worked for almost four hundred years,” said Mr Norrell. “Watershippe specifically mentions it in A Faire Wood Withering as one of the spells which worked in his youth and was entirely ineffective by the time he was twenty!”

  “Your superior skill …” began Lascelles.

  “My superior skill has nothing to do with it!” snapped Mr Norrell. “I cannot do magic that is not there. Magic is returning to England. Strange has found a way to bring it back.”

  “Then I was right, was I not?” said Lascelles. “And our first task is to prevent him returning to England. Succeed in that and Lord Liverpool will forgive a great many other things.”

  Mr Norrell thought for a moment. “I can prevent him arriving by sea,” he said.

  “Excellent!” said Lascelles. Then something in the way Mr Norrell had phrased this last statement gave him pause. “Well, he is scarcely likely to come any other way. He cannot fly!” He gave a light laugh at the idea. Then another thought struck him. “Can he?”

  Childermass shrugged.

  “I do not know what Strange might be capable of by now,” said Mr Norrell. “But I was not thinking of that. I was thinking of the King’s Roads.”

  “I thought the King’s Roads led to Faerie,” said Lascelles.

  �
�Yes, they do. But not only Faerie. The King’s Roads lead everywhere. Heaven. Hell. The Houses of Parliament … They were built by magic. Every mirror, every puddle, every shadow in England is a gate to those roads. I cannot set a lock upon all of them. No body could. It would be a monstrous task! If Strange comes by the King’s Roads then I know nothing to prevent him.”

  “But …” began Lascelles.

  “I cannot prevent him!” cried Mr Norrell, wringing his hands. “Do not ask me! But …” He made a great effort to calm himself. “… I can be ready to receive him. The Greatest Magician of the Age. Well, soon we shall see, shall we not?”

  “If he comes to England,” said Lascelles, “where will he go first?”

  “Hurtfew Abbey,” said Childermass. “Where else?”

  Mr Norrell and Lascelles were both about to answer him, but at that moment Lucas entered the room with a silver tray upon which lay a letter. He offered it to Lascelles. Lascelles broke the seal and read it rapidly.

  “Drawlight is back,” he said. “Wait for me here. I will return within a day.”

  62

  I came to them in a cry that broke the silence of a winter wood

  Early February 1817

  First light in early February: a crossroads in the middle of a wood. The space between the trees was misty and indistinct; the darkness of the trees seeped into it. Neither of the two roads was of any importance. They were rutted and ill-maintained; one was scarcely more than a cart-track. It was an out-of-the-way place, marked on no map. It did not even have a name.

  Drawlight was waiting at the crossroads. There was no horse standing nearby, no groom with a trap or cart, nothing to explain how he had come there. Yet clearly he had been standing at the crossroads for some time; his coat-sleeves were white with frost. A faint click behind him made him spin round. But there was nothing: only the same stretch of silent trees.

  “No, no,” he muttered to himself. “It was nothing. A dry leaf fell – that is all.” There was a sharp snap, as ice cracked wood or stone. He stared again, with eyes addled by fear. “It was only a dry leaf,” he murmured.

  There was a new sound. For a moment he was all in a panic, uncertain where it was coming from; until he recognized it for what it was: horses’ hooves. He peered up the road. A dim, grey smudge in the mist shewed where a horse and rider were approaching.

  “He is here at last. He is here,” muttered Drawlight and hastened forward. “Where have you been?” he cried. “I have been waiting here for hours.”

  “So?” said Lascelles’s voice. “You have nothing else to do.”

  “Oh! But you are wrong! You could not be more wrong. You must take me to London as quickly as possible!”

  “All in good time.” Lascelles emerged from the mist and reined in his horse. His fine clothes and hat were beaded with a silvery dusting of dew.

  Drawlight regarded him for a moment and then, with something of his old character, said sulkily, “How nicely you are dressed! But really, you know, it is not very clever of you to parade your wealth like that. Are not you afraid of robbers? This is a very horrid spot. I dare say there are all sorts of desperate characters close at hand.”

  “You are probably right. But you see I have my pistols with me, and am quite as desperate as any of them.”

  Drawlight was struck by a sudden thought. “Where is the other horse?” he asked.

  “What?”

  “The other horse! The one that is to take me to London! Oh, Lascelles, you noodlehead! How am I to get to London without a horse?”

  Lascelles laughed. “I would have thought you would be glad to avoid it. Your debts may have been paid off – I have paid them – but London is still full of people who hate you and will do you an ill turn if they can.”

  Drawlight stared as if he had understood none of this. In a shrill, excited voice, he cried, “But I have instructions from the magician! He has given me messages to deliver to all sorts of people! I must begin immediately! I must not delay a single hour!”

  Lascelles frowned. “Are you drunk? Are you dreaming? Norrell has not asked you to do any thing. If he had tasks for you, he would convey them through me, and besides …”

  “Not Norrell. Strange!”

  Lascelles sat stock still upon his horse. The horse shifted and fidgeted, but Lascelles moved not at all. Then, in a softer, more dangerous voice, he said, “What in the world are you talking about? Strange? How dare you talk to me of Strange? I advise you to think very carefully before you speak again. I am already seriously displeased. Your instructions were quite plain, I think. You were to remain at Venice until Strange left. But here you are. And there he is.”

  “I could not help it! I had to leave! You do not understand. I saw him and he told me …”

  Lascelles held up his hand. “I have no wish to conduct this conversation in the open. We will go a little way into the trees.”

  “Into the trees!” The little colour that was left in Drawlight’s face drained away. “Oh, no! Not for the world! I will not go there! Do not ask me!”

  “What do you mean?” Lascelles looked round, a little less comfortable than before. “Has Strange set the trees to spy on us?”

  “No, no. That is not it. I cannot explain it. They are waiting for me. They know me! I cannot go in there!” Drawlight had no words for what had happened to him. He held out his arms for a moment as if he thought he could shew Lascelles the rivers that had curled about his feet, the trees that had pierced him, the stones that had been his heart and lungs and guts.

  Lascelles raised his riding-whip. “I have no idea what you are talking about.” He urged his horse at Drawlight and flourished the whip. Poor Drawlight had never possessed the least physical courage and he was driven, whimpering, into the trees. A briar caught the edge of his sleeve and he screamed.

  “Oh, do be quiet!” said Lascelles. “Any one would think there is murder going on.”

  They walked on until they came to a small clearing. Lascelles got down from his horse and tethered him to a tree. He removed the two pistols from the saddle-holsters and stuck them in the pockets of his great coat. Then he turned to Drawlight. “So you actually saw Strange? Good. Excellent, in fact. I was sure you were too cowardly to face him.”

  “I thought he would change me into something horrible.”

  Lascelles surveyed Drawlight’s stained clothing and haunted face with some distaste. “Are you sure he did not do it?”

  “What?” said Drawlight.

  “Why did you not simply kill him? There, in the Darkness? You were alone, I presume? No one would have known.”

  “Oh, yes. That is very likely, is it not? He is tall and clever and quick and cruel. I am none of those things.”

  “I would have done it,” said Lascelles.

  “Would you? Well then, you are very welcome to go to Venice and try.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “In the Darkness – in Venice – but he is coming to England.”

  “He said so?”

  “Yes, I told you – I have messages: one for Childermass, one for Norrell and one for all the magicians in England.”

  “And what are they?”

  “I am to tell Childermass that Lady Pole was not raised from the dead in the way Norrell said – he had a fairy to help him and the fairy has done things – wrong things – and I am to give Childermass a little box. That is the first message. And I am to tell Norrell that Strange is coming back. That is the third message.”

  Lascelles considered. “This little box, what does it contain?”

  “I do not know.”

  “Why? Is it sealed shut in some way? By magic?”

  Drawlight shut his eyes and shook his head. “I do not know that either.”

  Lascelles laughed out loud. “You do not mean to tell me that you have had a box in your possession for weeks and not tried to open it? You of all people? Why, when you used to come to my house, I never dared leave you alone for a moment. My letters wo
uld have been read; my business would have been common knowledge by the next morning.”

  Drawlight’s glance sank to the ground. He seemed to shrink inside his clothes. He grew, if it were possible, several degrees more miserable. One might have supposed that he was ashamed to hear his past sins described, but it was not that. “I am afraid,” he whispered.

  Lascelles made a sound of exasperation. “Where is the box?” he cried. “Give it to me!”

  Drawlight reached into a pocket of his coat and brought out something wrapped in a dirty handkerchief. The handkerchief was tied into many wonderfully complicated knots to guard against the box coming open of its own accord. Drawlight gave it to Lascelles.

  With a series of grimaces, expressive of extreme distaste, Lascelles set himself to undo the knots. When he had done so, he opened the box.

  A moment’s silence.

  “You are a fool,” said Lascelles and shut the box with a snap and put it in his own pocket.

  “Oh! But I have to …” began Drawlight, reaching out ineffectually.

  “You said that there were three messages. What is the other one?”

  “I do not think you will understand it.”

  “What? You understand it, yet I will not? You must have grown a great deal cleverer in Italy.”

  “That is not what I meant.”

  “Then what do you mean? Tell me quickly. I am growing bored of this conversation.”

  “Strange said that tree speaks to stone. Stone speaks to water. He said magicians can learn magic from woods and stones and such. He said John Uskglass’s old alliances still held.”

  “John Uskglass, John Uskglass! How sick I am of that name! Yet they all rattle on about him nowadays. Even Norrell. I cannot understand why; his day was done four hundred years ago.”

  Drawlight held out his hand again. “Give me back my box. I must …”

  “What the devil is the matter with you? Do not you understand? Your messages will never be delivered – except for the one to Norrell and that I shall deliver myself.”

  A howl of anguish burst from Drawlight. “Please, please! Do not make me fail him! You do not understand. He will kill me! Or worse!”