Jonathan Strange And Mr Norrell Part 3

"Oh, Childerma.s.s!" cried the small man, as if all was now perfectly plain. "Yes, of course! How stupid of me! That is Childerma.s.s! Oh, Mr Norrell! I can hardly begin to express my delight in making your acquaintance. My name, sir, is Drawlight."

"Do you know Childerma.s.s?" asked Mr Norrell, puzzled.

"I . . ." Mr Drawlight paused. "I have seen such a person as I described coming out of your house and I . . . Oh, Mr Norrell! Such a noodle I am upon occasion! I mistook him for you! Pray do not be offended, sir! For now that I behold you, I plainly see that whereas he he has the wild, romantic looks one a.s.sociates with magicians, has the wild, romantic looks one a.s.sociates with magicians, you you have the meditative air of a scholar. Lascelles, does not Mr Norrell have the grave and sober bearing of a scholar?" have the meditative air of a scholar. Lascelles, does not Mr Norrell have the grave and sober bearing of a scholar?"

The tall man said, without much enthusiasm, that he supposed so.

"Mr Norrell, my friend, Mr Lascelles," said Drawlight.

Mr Lascelles made the slightest of bows.

"Oh, Mr Norrell!" cried Mr Drawlight. "You cannot imagine the torments I have suffered tonight, in wondering whether or not you would come! At seven o'clock my anxieties upon this point were so acute that I could not help myself! I actually went down to the Gla.s.shouse-street boiling-cellar expressly to inquire of Davey and Lucas to know their opinions! Davey was certain that you would not come, which threw me, as you may imagine, into the utmost despair!"

"Davey and Lucas!" said Mr Norrell in tones of the greatest astonishment. (These, it may be remembered, were the names of Mr Norrell's coachman and footman.) "Oh, yes!" said Mr Drawlight. "The Gla.s.shouse-street boiling-cellar is where Davey and Lucas occasionally take their mutton, as I dare say you know."Mr Drawlight paused in his flow of chatter, just long enough for Mr Norrell to murmur that he had not known that.

"I have been most industriously talking up your extraordinary powers to all my wide acquaintance," continued Mr Drawlight. "I have been your John the Baptist, sir, preparing the way for you! and I felt no hesitation in declaring that you and I were great friends for I had a presentiment from the first, my dear Mr Norrell, that we would be; and as you see I was quite right, for now here we are, chatting so comfortably to one another!"

5.

Drawlight Spring to autumn 1807

EARLY NEXT MORNING Mr Norrell's man of business, Childerma.s.s, answered a summons to attend his master in the breakfast-room. He found Mr Norrell pale-faced and in a state of some nervous agitation.

"What is the matter?" asked Childerma.s.s.

"Oh!" cried Mr Norrell, looking up. "You dare to ask me that! You, who have so neglected your duties that any scoundrel may put a watch upon my house and question my servants without fear of disturbance! Aye, and get answers to those questions, too! What do I employ you for, I should like to know, if not to protect me from such impertinence as this?"

Childerma.s.s shrugged. "You mean Drawlight, I suppose."

A short, astonished silence.

"You knew of it?" cried Mr Norrell. "Good G.o.d, man! What were you thinking of? Have you not told me a hundred times that, in order to secure my privacy, the servants must be kept from gossiping?"

"Oh! certainly!" said Childerma.s.s. "But I am very much afraid, sir, that you must give up some of your habits of privacy. Retirement and seclusion are all very well in Yorks.h.i.+re, but we are not in Yorks.h.i.+re any more."

"Yes, yes!" said Mr Norrell irritably. "I know that we are not. But that is not the question. The question is: what does this Drawlight want?"

"To have the distinction of being the first gentleman in London to make the acquaintance of a magician. That is all."

But Mr Norrell was not to be reasoned out of his fears. He rubbed his yellow-white hands nervously together, and directed fearful glances into the shadowy corners of the room as though suspecting them of harbouring other Drawlights, all spying upon him. "He did not look like a scholar in those clothes," he said, "but that is no guarantee of any thing. He wore no rings of power or allegiance but still . . ."

"I do not well understand you," said Childerma.s.s. "Speak plainly."

"Might he not have some skill skill of his own, do you suppose?" said Mr Norrell. "Or perhaps he has friends who are jealous of my success! Who are his a.s.sociates? What is his education?" of his own, do you suppose?" said Mr Norrell. "Or perhaps he has friends who are jealous of my success! Who are his a.s.sociates? What is his education?"

Childerma.s.s smiled a long smile that went all up one side of his face. "Oh! You have talked yourself into a belief that he is the agent of some other magician. Well, sir, he is not. You may depend upon me for that. Far from neglecting your interests, after we received Mrs G.o.desdone's letter I made some inquiries about the gentleman as many, I dare say, as he has made about you. It would be an odd sort of magician, I think, that employed such a creature as he is. Besides, if such a magician had existed you would have long since found him out, would not you? and discovered the means to part him from his books and put an end to his scholars.h.i.+p? You have done it before, you know."

"You know no harm of this Drawlight then?"

Childerma.s.s raised an eyebrow and smiled his sideways smile. "Upon the contrary," he said.

"Ah!" cried Mr Norrell, "I knew it! Well then, I shall certainly make a point of avoiding his society."

"Why?" asked Childerma.s.s. "I did not say so. Have I not just told you that he is no threat to you? What is it to you that he is a bad man? Take my advice, sir, make use of the tool which is to hand."

Then Childerma.s.s related to Mr Norrell what he had discovered about Drawlight: how he belonged to a certain breed of gentlemen, only to be met with in London, whose main occupation is the wearing of expensive and fas.h.i.+onable clothes; how they pa.s.s their lives in ostentatious idleness, gambling and drinking to excess and spending months at a time in Brighton and other fas.h.i.+onable watering places; how in recent years this breed seemed to have reached a sort of perfection in Christopher Drawlight. Even his dearest friends would have admitted that he possessed not a single good quality.1 Despite Mr Norrell's tuttings and suckings-in of air at every new revelation, there is no doubt that this conversation did him good. When Lucas entered the room ten minutes later with a pot of chocolate, he was composedly eating toast and preserves and appeared entirely different from the anxious, fretful creature he had been earlier that morning.

A loud rap was heard at the door and Lucas went to answer it. A light tread was next heard upon the stairs and Lucas re-appeared to announce, "Mr Drawlight!"

"Ah, Mr Norrell! How do you do, sir?" Mr Drawlight entered the room. He wore a dark blue coat, and carried an ebony stick with a silver k.n.o.b. He appeared to be in excellent spirits, and bowed and smiled and walked to and fro so much that five minutes later there was scarcely an inch of carpet in the room that he had not stood upon, a table or chair he had not lightly and caressingly touched, a mirror he had not danced across, a painting that he had not for a moment smiled upon.

Mr Norrell, though confident now that his guest was no great magician or great magician's servant, was still not much inclined to take Childerma.s.s's advice. His invitation to Mr Drawlight to sit down at the breakfast-table and take some chocolate was of the coldest sort. But sulky silences and black looks had no effect upon Mr Drawlight whatsoever, since he filled up the silences with his own chatter and was too accustomed to black looks to mind them.

"Do you not agree with me, sir, that the party last night was the most charming in the world? Though, if I may say so, I think you were quite right to leave when you did. I was able to go round afterwards and tell everyone that the gentleman that they had just espied walking out of the room was indeed Mr Norrell! Oh! believe me, sir, your departure was not un.o.bserved. The Honourable Mr Masham was quite certain he had just caught sight of your esteemed shoulder, Lady Barclay thought she had seen a neat grey curl of your venerable wig, and Miss Fiskerton was quite ecstatic to think that her gaze had rested momentarily upon the tip of your scholarly nose! And the little that they have seen of you, sir, has made them desire more. They long to view the complete man!"

"Ah!" said Mr Norrell, with some satisfaction.

Mr Drawlight's repeated a.s.surances that the ladies and gentlemen at Mrs G.o.desdone's party had been utterly enchanted by Mr Norrell went some way to diminish Mr Norrell's prejudices against his guest. According to Mr Drawlight, Mr Norrell's company was like seasoning: the smallest pinch of it could add a relish to the entire dish. Mr Drawlight made himself so agreeable that Mr Norrell grew by degrees more communicative.

"And to what fortunate circ.u.mstance, sir," asked Mr Drawlight, "do we owe the happiness of your society? What brings you to London?"

"I have come to London in order to further the cause of modern magic. I intend, sir, to bring back magic to Britain," answered Mr Norrell gravely. "I have a great deal to communicate to the Great Men of our Age. There are many ways in which I may be of service to them."

Mr Drawlight murmured politely that he was sure of it.

"I may tell you, sir," said Mr Norrell, "that I heartily wish this duty had fallen to the lot of some other magician." Mr Norrell sighed and looked as n.o.ble as his small, pinched features would allow. It is an extraordinary thing that a man such as Mr Norrell a man who had destroyed the careers of so many of his fellow-magicians should be able to convince himself that he would rather all the glory of his profession belonged to one of them, but there is no doubt that Mr Norrell believed it when he said it.

Mr Drawlight murmured sympathetically. Mr Drawlight was sure that Mr Norrell was too modest. Mr Drawlight could not suppose for a moment that anyone could be better suited to the task of bringing back magic to Britain than Mr Norrell.

"But I labour under a disadvantage, sir," said Mr Norrell.

Mr Drawlight was surprized to hear it.

"I do not know the world, sir. I know that I do not. I have a scholar's love of silence and solitude. To sit and pa.s.s hour after hour in idle chatter with a roomful of strangers is to me the worst sort of torment but I dare say there will be a good deal of that sort of thing. Childerma.s.s a.s.sures me that there will be." Mr Norrell looked wistfully at Drawlight as if hopeful that Drawlight might contradict him.

"Ah!" Mr Drawlight considered a moment. "And that is exactly why I am so happy that you and I have become friends! I do not pretend to be a scholar, sir; I know next to nothing of magicians or magical history, and I dare say that, from time to time, you may find my society irksome, but you must set any little irritations of that nature against the great good that I may do you in taking you about and shewing you to people. Oh, Mr Norrell, sir! You cannot imagine how useful I may be to you!"

Mr Norrell declined to give his word there and then to accompany Mr Drawlight to all the places that Mr Drawlight said were so delightful and to meet all those people whose friends.h.i.+p, Mr Drawlight said, would add a new sweetness to Mr Norrell's existence, but he did consent to go with Mr Drawlight that evening to a dinner at Lady Rawtenstall's house in Bedford-square.

Mr Norrell got through the dinner with less fatigue than he expected, and so agreed to meet Mr Drawlight upon the morrow at Mr Plumtree's house. With Mr Drawlight as his guide, Mr Norrell entered society with greater confidence than before. His engagements became numerous; he was busy from eleven o'clock in the morning to past midnight. He paid morning-visits; he ate his dinner in dining-parlours all over the Town; he attended evening-parties, b.a.l.l.s and concerts of Italian music; he met baronets, viscounts, viscountesses, and honourable thises and thats; he was to be met with walking down Bond-street, arm-in-arm with Mr Drawlight; he was observed taking the air in a carriage in Hyde-park with Mr Drawlight and Mr Drawlight's dear friend, Mr Lascelles.

On days when Mr Norrell did not dine abroad Mr Drawlight took his mutton at Mr Norrell's house in Hanover-square which Mr Norrell imagined Mr Drawlight must be very glad to do, for Childerma.s.s had told him that Mr Drawlight had scarcely any money. Childerma.s.s said that Drawlight lived upon his wits and his debts; none of his great friends had ever been invited to visit him at home, because home was a lodging above a shoemaker's in Little Ryder-street.

Like every new house, the house in Hanover-square which had seemed perfection at first was soon discovered to be in need of every sort of improvement. Naturally, Mr Norrell was impatient to have it all accomplished as soon as possible, but when he appealed to Drawlight to agree with him that the London workmen were extraordinarily slow, Drawlight took the opportunity to ascertain all Mr Norrell's plans for colours, wallpapers, carpets, furniture and ornaments, and to find fault with all of them. They argued the point for a quarter of an hour and then Mr Drawlight ordered Mr Norrell's carriage to be got ready and directed Davey to take him and Mr Norrell straight to Mr Ackermann's shop in the Strand. There Mr Drawlight shewed Mr Norrell a book which contained a picture by Mr Repton of an empty, old-fas.h.i.+oned parlour, where a stony-faced old person from the time of Queen Elizabeth stared out of a painting on the wall and the empty chairs all gaped at each other like guests at a party who discover they have nothing to say to one another. But on the next page, ah! what changes had been wrought by the n.o.ble arts of joinery, paper-hanging and upholstery! Here was a picture of the same parlour, new-furnished and improved beyond all recognition! A dozen or so fas.h.i.+onably-dressed ladies and gentlemen had been enticed into the smart new apartment by the prospect of refres.h.i.+ng their spirits by reclining in elegant postures upon the chairs, or walking in the vine-clad conservatory which had mysteriously appeared on the other side of a pair of French windows. The moral, as Mr Drawlight explained it, was that if Mr Norrell hoped to win friends for the cause of modern magic, he must insert a great many more French windows into his house.

Under Mr Drawlight's tutelage Mr Norrell learnt to prefer picture-gallery reds to the respectable dull greens of his youth. In the interests of modern magic, the honest materials of Mr Norrell's house were dressed up with paint and varnish, and made to represent things they were not like actors upon a stage. Plaster was painted to resemble wood, and wood was painted to resemble different sorts of wood. By the time it came to select the appointments for the dining-parlour, Mr Norrell's confidence in Drawlight's taste was so complete that Drawlight was commissioned to chuse the dinner-service without reference to any one else.

"You will not regret it, my dear sir!" cried Drawlight, "for three weeks ago I chose a set for the d.u.c.h.ess of B-- and she declared the moment she saw it that she never in her life saw anything half so charming!"

On a bright May morning Mr Norrell was seated in a drawing-room in Wimpole-street at the house of a Mrs Littleworth. Among the people gathered there were Mr Drawlight and Mr Lascelles. Mr Lascelles was exceedingly fond of Mr Norrell's society, indeed he came second only to Mr Drawlight in this respect, but his reasons for courting Mr Norrell's notice were quite different. Mr Lascelles was a clever, cynical man who thought it the most ridiculous thing in the world that a scholarly old gentleman should have talked himself into the belief that he could perform magic. Consequently, Mr Lascelles took great pleasure in asking Mr Norrell questions about magic whenever the opportunity arose so that he might amuse himself with the answers.

"And how do you like London, sir?" he asked.

"Not at all," said Mr Norrell.

"I am sorry to hear it," said Mr Lascelles. "Have you discovered any brother-magicians to talk to?"

Mr Norrell frowned and said he did not believe there were any magicians in London, or if so, then all his researches had not been able to uncover them.

"Ah, sir!" cried Mr Drawlight. "There you are mistaken! You have been most abominably misinformed! We have magicians in London Oh! forty at least. Lascelles, would not you agree that we have hundreds of magicians in London? One may see them upon practically every street corner. Mr Lascelles and I will be very happy to make you acquainted with them. They have a sort of king whom they call Vinculus a tall, ragged scarecrow of a man who has a little booth just outside St Christopher Le Stocks, all splashed with mud, with a dirty yellow curtain and, if you give him two pennies, he will prophesy."

"Vinculus's fortunes are nothing but calamities," observed Mr Lascelles, laughing. "Thus far he has promised me drowning, madness, the destruction by fire of all my property and a natural daughter who will do me great injury in my old age by her spitefulness."

"I shall be glad to take you, sir," said Drawlight to Mr Norrell. "I am as fond as any thing of Vinculus."

"Take care if you do go, sir," advised Mrs Littleworth. "Some of these men can put one in a dreadful fright. The Cruickshanks brought a magician a very dirty fellow to the house to shew their friends some tricks, but when he got there it seemed he did not know any and so they would not pay him. In a great rage he swore that he would turn the baby into a coal scuttle; and then they were in great confusion because the baby was nowhere to be found though no new coal scuttles had appeared, just the old familiar ones. They searched the house from top to bottom and Mrs Cruikshank was half-dead with anxiety and the physician was sent for until the nursemaid appeared with the baby at the door and it came out that she had taken it to shew her mother in James-street."

Despite such enticements as these, Mr Norrell declined Mr Drawlight's kind offer to take him to see Vinculus in his yellow booth.

"And what is your opinion of the Raven King, Mr Norrell?" asked Mrs Littleworth eagerly.

"I have none. He is a person I never think of."

"Indeed?" remarked Mr Lascelles. "You will excuse my saying so, Mr Norrell, but that is rather an extraordinary statement. I never met a magician yet who did not declare that the Black King was the greatest of them all the magician par excellence par excellence! A man who could, had he so desired, have wrested Merlin from the tree, spun the old gentleman on his head and put him back in again."2 Mr Norrell said nothing. Mr Norrell said nothing.

"But surely," continued Mr Lascelles, "none of the other Aureates Aureates could rival his achievements? Kingdoms in all the worlds that ever were. could rival his achievements? Kingdoms in all the worlds that ever were.3 Bands of human knights and fairy knights to carry out his bidding. Magic woods that walked about. To say nothing of his longevity a three-hundred-year reign and at the end of it we are told that he was still, in appearance at least, a young man." Bands of human knights and fairy knights to carry out his bidding. Magic woods that walked about. To say nothing of his longevity a three-hundred-year reign and at the end of it we are told that he was still, in appearance at least, a young man."

Mr Norrell said nothing.

"But perhaps you think that the histories lie? I have frequently heard it suggested that the Raven King never existed that he was not one magician at all, but a long train of magicians, all looking much the same. Perhaps that is what you think?"

Mr Norrell looked as if he would prefer to remain silent, but the directness of Mr Lascelles's question obliged him to give a reply. "No," he said at last, "I am quite certain that he existed. But I cannot consider his influence upon English magic as any thing other than deplorable. His magic was of a particularly pernicious sort and nothing would please me more than that he should be forgot as completely as he deserves."

"And what of your fairy-servants, sir?" said Mr Lascelles. "Are they visible only to yourself? Or may other people perceive them?"

Mr Norrell sniffed and said he had none.

"What none?" exclaimed a lady in a carnation-pink gown, much surprized.

"You are wise, Mr Norrell," said Mr Lascelles. "Tubbs versus versus Starhouse must stand as a warning to all magicians." Starhouse must stand as a warning to all magicians."4 "Mr Tubbs was no magician," said Mr Norrell. "Nor did I ever hear that he claimed to be one. But had he been the greatest magician in Christendom, he would still have been wrong to wish for the company of fairies. A more poisonous race or one more inimical to England has never existed. There have been far too many magicians too idle or ignorant to pursue a proper course of study, who instead bent all their energies upon acquiring a fairy-servant and when they had got such a servant they depended upon him to complete all their business for them. English history is full of such men and some, I am glad to say, were punished for it as they deserved. Look at Bloodworth."5 Mr Norrell made many new acquaintances, but kindled no pure flame of friends.h.i.+p in the hearts of any. In general, London found him disappointing. He did no magic, cursed no one, foretold nothing. Once at Mrs G.o.desdone's house he was heard to remark that he thought it might rain, but this, if a prophecy, was a disappointing one, for it did not rain indeed no rain fell until the following Sat.u.r.day. He hardly ever spoke of magic, and when he did it was like a history lesson and no one could bear to listen to him. He rarely had a good word to say for any other magician, except once when he praised a magician of the last century, Francis Sutton-Grove.6 "But I thought, sir," said Mr Lascelles, "that Sutton-Grove was unreadable. I have always heard that De Generibus Artium De Generibus Artium was entirely unreadable." was entirely unreadable."

"Oh!" said Mr Norrell, "how it fares as an amus.e.m.e.nt for ladies and gentlemen I do not know, but I do not think that the serious student of magic can value Sutton-Grove too highly. In Sutton-Grove he will find the first attempt to define those areas of magic that the modern magician ought to study, all laid out in lists and tables. To be sure, Sutton-Grove's system of cla.s.sification is often erroneous perhaps that is what you mean by 'unreadable'? nevertheless I know of no more pleasant sight in the world than a dozen or so of his lists; the student may run his eye over them and think 'I know this,' or, 'I have this still to do,' and there before him is work enough for four, perhaps five years."

The tale of the statues in the Cathedral of York grew so stale in the retelling that people began to wonder if Mr Norrell had ever done anything else and Mr Drawlight was obliged to invent some new examples.

"But what can this magician do, Drawlight?" asked Mrs G.o.desdone one evening when Mr Norrell was not present.

"Oh, madam!" cried Drawlight. "What can he not do? Why! It was only a winter or so ago that in York which as you may know, madam, is Mr Norrell's native city a great storm came out of the north and blew everybody's was.h.i.+ng into the mud and the snow and so the aldermen, thinking to spare the ladies of the town the labour of was.h.i.+ng everything again, applied to Mr Norrell and he sent a troop of fairies to wash it all anew and all the holes in people's s.h.i.+rts and nightcaps and petticoats were mended and all the frayed edges were made whole and good again and everybody said that they had never seen such a dazzling whiteness in all their days!"

This particular story became very popular and raised Mr Norrell in everyone's estimation for several weeks that summer, and consequently when Mr Norrell spoke, as he sometimes did, of modern magic, most of his audience supposed that this was the sort of thing he must mean.

But if the ladies and gentlemen whom Mr Norrell met in London's drawing-rooms and dining-parlours were generally disappointed in him him, then he was becoming equally dissatisfied with them them. He complained constantly to Mr Drawlight of the frivolous questions that they put to him, and said that the cause of English magic had not been furthered one whit by the hours he had spent in their company.

One dull Wednesday morning at the end of September Mr Norrell and Mr Drawlight were seated together in the library in Hanover-square. Mr Drawlight was in the middle of a long tale of something that Mr F. had said in order to insult Lord S., and what Lady D. had thought about it all, when Mr Norrell suddenly said, "I would be grateful, Mr Drawlight, if you could advise me on the following important point: has any body informed the Duke of Portland of my arrival in London?"7 "Ah! sir," cried Drawlight, "only you, with your modest nature, could suppose it possible. I a.s.sure you all all the Ministers have heard of the extraordinary Mr Norrell by now." the Ministers have heard of the extraordinary Mr Norrell by now."

"But if that is the case," said Mr Norrell, "then why has his Grace sent me no message? No, I begin to think that they must be entirely ignorant of my existence and so, Mr Drawlight, I would be grateful if you could inform me of any connexions in Government that you may have to whom I could apply."

"The Government, sir?" replied Mr Drawlight.

"I came here to be useful," said Mr Norrell, plaintively. "I had hoped by now to play some distinguished part in the struggle against the French."

"If you feel yourself neglected, sir, then I am heartily sorry for it!" cried Drawlight. "But there is no need, I do a.s.sure you. There are ladies and gentlemen all over Town who would be happy to see any little tricks or illusions you might like to shew us one evening after dinner. You must not be afraid of overwhelming us our nerves are all pretty strong."

Mr Norrell said nothing.

"Well, sir," said Mr Drawlight, with a smooth smile of his white teeth and a conciliatory look in his dark, liquid eyes, "we must not argue about it. I only wish I were able to oblige you but, as you see, it is entirely out of my power. The Government has its sphere. I have mine."

In fact Mr Drawlight knew several gentlemen in various Government posts who might be very glad to meet Mr Drawlight's friend and to listen to what that friend might have to say, in return for a promise from Mr Drawlight never to tell one or two curious things he knew about them. But the truth was that Mr Drawlight could see no advantage to himself in introducing Mr Norrell to any of these gentlemen; he preferred to keep Mr Norrell in the drawing-rooms and dining-parlours of London where he hoped, in time, to persuade him to perform those little tricks and what-not that Mr Drawlight's acquaintance longed to see.

Mr Norrell began writing urgent letters to gentlemen in Government, which he shewed to Mr Drawlight before giving them to Childerma.s.s to deliver, but the gentlemen in Government did not reply. Mr Drawlight had warned Mr Norrell that they would not. Gentlemen in Government are generally kept pretty busy.

A week or so later Mr Drawlight was invited to a house in Soho-square to hear a famous Italian soprano, newly arrived from Rome. Naturally, Mr Norrell was invited too. But on arriving at the house Drawlight could not find the magician among the crowd. Lascelles was leaning upon the mantelpiece in conversation with some other gentlemen. Drawlight went up to him and inquired if he knew where Mr Norrell was.

"Oh!" said Mr Lascelles. "He is gone to pay a visit to Sir Walter Pole. Mr Norrell has important information which he wishes conveyed to the Duke of Portland immediately. And Sir Walter Pole is the man that Mr Norrell intends to honour with the message."

"Portland?" cried another gentleman. "What? Are the Ministers got so desperate as that? Are they consulting magicians?"

"You have run away with a wrong idea," smiled Mr Lascelles. "It is all Norrell's own doing. He intends to offer his services to the Government. It seems he has a plan to defeat the French by magic. But I think it highly improbable that he will persuade the Ministers to listen to him. What with the French at their throats on the Continent, and everybody else at their throats in Parliament I doubt if a more hara.s.sed set of gentlemen is to be found anywhere, or one with less attention to spare for a Yorks.h.i.+re gentleman's eccentricities."

Like the hero of a fairy-tale Mr Norrell had discovered that the power to do what he wished had been his own all along. Even a magician must have relations, and it so happened that there was a distant connexion of Mr Norrell (on his mother's side) who had once made himself highly disagreeable to Mr Norrell by writing him a letter. To prevent such a thing ever occurring again Mr Norrell had made this man a present of eight hundred pounds (which was what the man wanted), but I am sorry to say that this failed to suppress Mr Norrell's mother's relative, who was steeped in villainy, and he had written a second second letter to Mr Norrell in which he heaped thanks and praise upon his benefactor and declared that, ". . . henceforth I shall consider myself and my friends as belonging to your interest and we hold ourselves ready to vote at the next election in accordance with your n.o.ble wishes, and if, in time to come, it should appear that any service of mine might be useful to you, your commands will only honour, and elevate in the opinion of the World, your humble and devoted servant, Wendell Markworthy." letter to Mr Norrell in which he heaped thanks and praise upon his benefactor and declared that, ". . . henceforth I shall consider myself and my friends as belonging to your interest and we hold ourselves ready to vote at the next election in accordance with your n.o.ble wishes, and if, in time to come, it should appear that any service of mine might be useful to you, your commands will only honour, and elevate in the opinion of the World, your humble and devoted servant, Wendell Markworthy."

Thus far Mr Norrell had never found it necessary to elevate Mr Markworthy in the opinion of the world by honouring him with any commands, but it now appeared (it was Childerma.s.s that had found it out) that Mr Markworthy had used the money to secure for himself and his brother clerks.h.i.+ps in the East India Company. They had gone to India and ten years later had returned very rich men. Having never received any Instructions from Mr Norrell, his first patron, as to which way to vote, Mr Markworthy had followed the lead of Mr Bonnell, his superior at the East India Company, and had encouraged all his friends to do the same. He had made himself very useful to Mr Bonnell, who was in turn a great friend of the politician, Sir Walter Pole. In the busy worlds of trade and government this gentleman owes that one a favour, while he in his turn is owed a favour by someone else, and so on until a chain is formed of promises and obligations. In this case the chain extended all the way from Mr Norrell to Sir Walter Pole and Sir Walter Pole was now a Minister.

1. He had once found himself in a room with Lady Bessborough's long-haired white cat. He happened to be dressed in an immaculate black coat and trousers, and was therefore thoroughly alarmed by the cat's stalking round and round and making motions as if it proposed to sit upon him. He waited until he believed himself to be un.o.bserved, then he picked it up, opened a window and tossed it out. Despite falling three storeys to the ground, the cat survived, but one of its legs was never quite right afterwards and it always evinced the greatest dislike to gentlemen in black clothes.

2. Merlin is presumed to have been imprisoned in a hawthorn tree by the sorceress, Nimue.

3. Mr Lascelles exaggerates. The Raven King's kingdoms were never more than three in number.

4. Tubbs versus versus Starhouse: a famous case brought before the Quarter Sessions at Nottingham a few years ago. Starhouse: a famous case brought before the Quarter Sessions at Nottingham a few years ago.