Jonathan Strange And Mr Norrell Part 32

Pale was much addicted to writing his beloved's name which was Francis and in one letter he made a sort of punning poem or riddle upon her surname: Pevensey. At first the eighteenth-century magical scholars were inclined to argue that Pale's mistress must have been the sister or wife of the other Francis Pevensey. In the sixteenth century Francis had been a common name for both men and women. Then Charles Hether-Gray published seven different extracts from the letters which mentioned Eighteen Eighteen Wonders Wonders in in the the House House of of Albion Albion and shewed plainly that Pale's mistress and the author of the book were one and the same person. and shewed plainly that Pale's mistress and the author of the book were one and the same person.

William Pantler argued that the letters were forgeries. The letters had been found in the library of a Mr Whittlesea. Mr Whittlesea had a wife who had written several plays, two of which had been performed at the Drury Lane Theatre. Clearly, said Pantler, a woman who would stoop to writing plays would stoop to any thing and he suggested that Mrs Whittlesea had forged the letters ". . . in order to elevate her s.e.x above the natural place that G.o.d had ordained for it . . ." Mr Whittlesea challenged William Pantler to a duel and Pantler, who was a scholar through and through and knew nothing of weapons, apologized and published a formal retraction of his accusations against Mrs Whittlesea.

Mr Norrell was quite happy to employ Pevensey's magic, since he had settled it in his own mind long ago that Pevensey was a man. As to the letters since they contained no word of magic he did not concern himself with them. Jonathan Strange took a different view. According to him only one question needed to be asked and answered in order to settle the matter: would Martin Pale have taught a woman magic? The answer was, again according to Strange, yes. After all Martin Pale claimed to have been taught by a woman Catherine of Winchester.

3 Thaddeus Hickman (170038), author of a life of Martin Pale.

4 The ivy promised to bind England's enemies Briars and thorns promised to whip them The hawthorn said he would answer any question The birch said he would make doors to other countries The yew brought us weapons The raven punished our enemies The oak watched the distant hills The rain washed away all sorrow This traditional English saying supposedly lists the various contracts which John Uskgla.s.s, the Raven King, made on England's behalf with the forests.

36.

All the mirrors of the world November 1814 THE VILLAGE OF Hampstead is situated five miles north of London. In our grandfathers' day it was an entirely unremarkable collection of farmhouses and cottages, but the existence of so rustic a spot close to London attracted large numbers of people to go there to enjoy the sweet air and verdure. A racecourse and bowling-green were built for their amus.e.m.e.nt. Bun shops and tea-gardens provided refreshment. Rich people bought summer cottages there and Hampstead soon became what it is today: one of the favourite resorts of fas.h.i.+onable London society. In a very short s.p.a.ce of time it has grown from a country village to a place of quite respectable size almost a little town.

Two hours after Sir Walter, Colonel Grant, Colonel Manningham and Jonathan Strange had quarrelled with the Nottinghams.h.i.+re gentleman a carriage entered Hampstead on the London road and turned into a dark lane which was overhung with elder bushes, lilacs and hawthorns. The carriage drove to a house at the end of the lane where it stopped and Mr Drawlight got out.

The house had once been a farmhouse, but it had been much improved in recent years. Its small country windows more useful for keeping out the cold than letting in the light had all been made large and regular; a pillared portico had replaced the mean country doorway; the farm-yard had been entirely swept away and a flower garden and shrubbery established in its place.

Mr Drawlight knocked upon the door. A maidservant answered his knock and immediately conducted him to a drawing-room. The room must once have been the farmhouse-parlour, but all signs of its original character had disappeared beneath costly French wallpapers, Persian carpets and English furniture of the newest make and style.

Drawlight had not waited there more than a few minutes when a lady entered the room. She was tall, well-formed and beautiful. Her gown was of scarlet velvet and her white neck was set off by an intricate necklace of jet beads.

Through an open door across the pa.s.sageway could be glimpsed a dining-parlour, as expensively got up as the drawing-room. The remains of a meal upon the table shewed that the lady had dined alone. It seemed that she had put on the red gown and black necklace for her own amus.e.m.e.nt.

"Ah, madam!" cried Drawlight leaping up. "I hope you are well?"

She made a little gesture of dismissal. "I suppose I am well. As well as I can be with scarcely any society and no variety of occupation."

"What!" cried Drawlight in a shocked voice. "Are you all alone here?"

"I have one companion an old aunt. She urges religion upon me."

"Oh, madam!" cried Drawlight. "Do not waste your energies upon prayers and sermons. You will get no comfort there. Instead, fix your thoughts upon revenge revenge."

"I shall. I do," she said simply. She sat down upon the sopha opposite the window. "And how are Mr Strange and Mr Norrell?"

"Oh, busy, madam! Busy, busy, busy! I could wish for their sakes, as well as yours, that they were less occupied. Only yesterday Mr Strange inquired most particularly after you. He wished to know if you were in good spirits. 'Oh! Tolerable,' I told him, 'merely tolerable.' Mr Strange is shocked, madam, frankly shocked at the heartless behaviour of your relations."

"Indeed? I wish that his indignation might shew itself in more practical ways," she said coolly. "I have paid him more than a hundred guineas and he has done nothing. I am tired of trying to arrange matters through an intermediary, Mr Drawlight. Convey to Mr Strange my compliments. Tell him I am ready to meet him wherever he chuses at any hour of the day or night. All times are alike to me. I have no engagements."

"Ah, madam! How I wish I could do as you ask. How Mr Strange wishes it! But I fear it is quite impossible."

"So you say, but I have heard no reason at least none that satisfies me. I suppose Mr Strange is nervous of what people will say if we are seen together. But our meeting may be quite private. No one need know."

"Oh, madam! You have quite misunderstood Mr Strange's character! Nothing in the world would please him so much as an opportunity to shew the world how he despises your persecutors. It is entirely upon your account that he is so circ.u.mspect. He fears . . ."

But what Mr Strange feared the lady never learnt, for at that moment Drawlight stopt suddenly and looked about him with an expression of the utmost perplexity upon his face. "What in the world was that?" he asked.

It was as if a door had opened somewhere. Or possibly a series of doors. There was a sensation as of a breeze blowing into the house and bringing with it the half-remembered scents of childhood. There was a s.h.i.+ft in the light which seemed to cause all the shadows in the room to fall differently. There was nothing more definite than that, and yet, as often happens when some magic is occurring, both Drawlight and the lady had the strongest impression that nothing in the visible world could be relied upon any more. It was as if one might put out one's hand to touch any thing in the room and discover it was no longer there.

A tall mirror hung upon the wall above the sopha where the lady sat. It shewed a second great white moon in a second tall dark window and a second dim mirror-room. But Drawlight and the lady did not appear in the mirror-room at all. Instead there was a kind of an indistinctness, which became a sort of shadow, which became the dark shape of someone coming towards them. From the path which this person took, it could clearly be seen that the mirror-room was not like the original at all and that it was only by odd tricks of lighting and perspective such as one might meet with in the theatre that they appeared to be the same. It seemed that the mirror-room was actually a long corridor. The hair and coat of the mysterious figure were stirred by a wind which could not be felt in their own room and, though he walked briskly towards the gla.s.s which separated the two rooms, it was taking him some time to reach it. But finally he reached the gla.s.s and then there was a moment when his dark shape loomed very large behind it and his face was still in shadow.

Then Strange hopped down from the mirror very neatly, smiled his most charming smile and bid both Drawlight and the lady, "Good evening."

He waited a moment, as if allowing someone else time to speak and then, when no one did, he said, "I hope you will be so kind, madam, as to forgive the lateness of my visit. To say the truth the way was a little more meandering than I had antic.i.p.ated. I took a wrong turning and very nearly arrived in . . . well, I do not quite know where."

He paused again, as if waiting for someone to invite him to sit down. When no one did, he sat down anyway.

Drawlight and the lady in the red gown stared at him. He smiled back at them.

"I have been getting acquainted with Mr Tantony," he told Drawlight. "A most pleasant gentleman, though not very talkative. His friend, Mr Gatcombe, however, told me all I wished to know."

"You are Mr Strange?" asked the lady in the red gown.

"I am, madam."

"This is most fortunate. Mr Drawlight was just explaining to me why you and I could never meet."

"It is true, madam, that until tonight circ.u.mstances did not favour our meeting. Mr Drawlight, pray make the introductions."

Drawlight muttered that the lady in the red gown was Mrs Bullworth.

Strange rose, bowed to Mrs Bullworth and sat down again.

"Mr Drawlight has, I believe, told you of my horrible situation?" said Mrs Bullworth.

Strange made a small gesture with his head which might have meant one thing or might have meant another thing or might have meant nothing at all. He said, "A narration by an unconnected person can never match the tale told by someone intimately concerned with the events. There may be vital points which Mr Drawlight has, for one reason or another, omitted. Indulge me, madam. Let me it hear from you."

"All?"

"All."

"Very well. I am, as you know, the daughter of a gentleman in Northamptons.h.i.+re. My father's property is extensive. His house and income are large. We are among the first people in that county. But my family have always encouraged me to believe that with my beauty and accomplishments I might occupy an even higher position in the world. Two years ago I made a very advantageous marriage. Mr Bullworth is rich and we moved in the most fas.h.i.+onable circles. But still I was not happy. In the summer of last year I had the misfortune to meet a man who is everything Mr Bullworth is not: handsome, clever, amusing. A few short weeks were enough to convince me that I preferred this man to any one I had ever seen." She gave a little shrug of her shoulders. "Two days before Christmas I left my husband's house in his company. I hoped indeed expected to divorce Mr Bullworth and marry him. But that was not his intention. By the end of January we had quarrelled and my friend had deserted me. He returned to his house and all his usual pursuits, but there was to be no such revival of a former life for me. My husband cast me off. My friends refused to receive me. I was forced back upon the mercy of my father. He told me that he would provide for me for the rest of my life, but in return I must live in perfect retirement. No more b.a.l.l.s for me, no more parties, no more friends. No more any thing." She gazed into the distance for a moment, as if in contemplation of all that she had lost, but just as quickly she shook off her melancholy and declared, "And now to business!" She went to a little writing-table, opened a drawer and drew out a paper which she offered to Strange. "I have, as you suggested, made a list of all the people who have betrayed me," she said.

"Ah, I told you to make a list, did I?" said Strange, taking the paper. "How businesslike I am! It is quite a long list."

"Oh!" said Mrs Bullworth. "Every name will be considered a separate commission and you shall have your fee for each. I have taken the liberty of writing by each name the punishment which I believe ought to be theirs. But your superior knowledge of magic may suggest other, more appropriate fates for my enemies. I should be glad of your recommendations."

" 'Sir James Southwell. Gout,' " read Strange.

"My father," explained Mrs Bullworth. "He wearied me to death with speeches upon my wicked character and exiled me for ever from my home. In many ways it is he who is the author of all my miseries. I wish I could harden my heart enough to decree some more serious illness for him. But I cannot. I suppose that is what is meant by the weakness of women."

"Gout is exceedingly painful," observed Strange. "Or so I am told."

Mrs Bullworth made a gesture of impatience.

" 'Miss Elizabeth Church,' " continued Strange. " 'To have her engagement broken off.' Who is Miss Elizabeth Church?"

"A cousin of mine a tedious, embroidering sort of girl. No one ever paid her the least attention until I married Mr Bullworth. Yet now I hear she is to be married to a clergyman and my father has given her a banker's draft to pay for wedding clothes and new furniture. My father has promised Lizzie and the clergyman that he will use his interest to get them all sorts of preferments. Their way is to be made easy. They are to live in York where they will attend dinners and parties and b.a.l.l.s, and enjoy all those pleasures which ought to have been mine. Mr Strange," she cried, growing more energetic, "surely there must be spells to make the clergyman hate the very sight of Lizzie? To make him shudder at the sound of her voice?"

"I do not know," said Strange. "I never considered the matter before. I suppose there must be." He returned to the list. " 'Mr Bullworth' . . ."

"My husband," she said.

". . . 'To be bitten by dogs.' "

"He has seven great black brutes and thinks more of them than of any human creature."

" 'Mrs Bullworth senior' your husband's mother, I suppose To be drowned in a laundry tub. To be choked to death on her own apricot preserves. To be baked accidentally in a bread oven.' That is three deaths for one woman. Forgive me, Mrs Bullworth, but the greatest magician that ever lived could not kill the same person three different ways."

"Do as much as you can manage," said Mrs Bullworth stubbornly. "The old woman is so insufferably proud of her house-keeping. She bored me to death upon the subject."

"I see. Well, this is all very Shakespearian. And so we come to the last name. 'Henry Lascelles.' I know this gentleman." Strange looked inquiringly at Drawlight.

Mrs Bullworth said, "That is the person under whose protection I left my husband's house."

"Ah! And what shall his fate be?"

"Bankruptcy," she said in a fierce, low voice. "Lunacy. Fire. A disfiguring disease. A horse to trample upon him! A villain to lie in wait for him and cut his face with a knife! A vision of horror to haunt him and drive away sleep night after night!" She rose and began to pace about the room. "Let every mean and dishonourable action he ever did be published in the newspaper! Let everyone in London shun him! Let him seduce some country girl who will go mad for love of him. Let her follow him wherever he goes for years and years. Let him become an object of ridicule because of her. Let her never leave him in peace. Let some mistake upon the part of an honest man lead to his being accused of a crime. Let him suffer all the indignities of trial and imprisonment. Let him be branded! Let him be beaten! Let him be whipped! And let him be executed!"

"Mrs Bullworth," said Strange, "pray, calm yourself."

Mrs Bullworth stopped pacing. She ceased calling down horrible fates upon Mr Lascelles's head, but still she could hardly have been said to be calm. Her breath came rapidly, she trembled all over and her face still worked furiously.

Strange watched until he judged her enough in command of herself to understand what he wanted to say and then he began, "I am sorry, Mrs Bullworth, but you have been the victim of a cruel deception. This," he glanced at Drawlight, "person has lied to you. Mr Norrell and I have never undertaken commissions for private individuals. We have never employed this person as an agent to find business for us. I never even heard your name until tonight."

Mrs Bullworth stared at him a moment and then turning upon Drawlight. "Is this true?"

Drawlight fixed his miserable gaze upon the carpet and mumbled some sort of speech in which only the words "madam" and "peculiar situation" were discernible.

Mrs Bullworth reached up and rang the bellpull.

The maid who had let Drawlight into the house reappeared.

"Haverhill," said Mrs Bullworth, "remove Mr Drawlight."

Unlike the majority of maids in fas.h.i.+onable households who are chosen mainly for their pretty faces, Haverhill was a competent- looking person of the middle age with strong arms and an unforgiving expression. But on this occasion she was required to do very little since Mr Drawlight was only too grateful for the opportunity to remove himself. He picked up his stick and scuttled out of the room the moment Haverhill opened the door.

Mrs Bullworth turned to Strange. "Will you help me? Will you do what I ask? If the money is not sufficient . . ."

"Oh, the money!" Strange made a dismissive gesture. "I am sorry, but as I have just told you, I do not undertake private commissions."

She stared at him, and then said in a wondering tone, "Can it be that you are entirely unmoved by the misery of my situation?"

"Upon the contrary, Mrs Bullworth, a system of morality which punishes the woman and leaves no share of blame to the man seems to me quite detestable. But beyond that I will not go. I will not hurt innocent people."

"Innocent!" she cried. "Innocent! Who is innocent? No one!"

"Mrs Bullworth, there is nothing to be said. I can do nothing for you. I am sorry."

She regarded him sourly. "Hmm, well. At least you have the grace to refrain from recommending repentance or good works or needlework or whatever it is the other fools hold up as a cure for a blank life and a broken heart. Nevertheless I think it will be best for both of us if this interview is brought to a conclusion. Good night, Mr Strange."

Strange bowed. As he left the room he gave a wistful glance at the mirror above the sopha, as if he would have preferred to depart by that means, but Haverhill held the door open and common politeness obliged him to go through it.

Having neither horse nor carriage, he walked the five miles from Hampstead to Soho-square. On arriving at his own front door he discovered that although it was almost two o'clock in the morning there was a light in every window of the house. Before he could even fish in his pocket for his doorkey, the door was flung open by Colquhoun Grant.

"Good heavens! What are you doing here?" cried Strange.

Grant did not trouble to answer him, but instead turned back into the house and called, "He is here, ma'am! He is quite safe."

Arabella came running, almost tumbling, out of the drawing-room, followed a moment later by Sir Walter. Then Jeremy Johns and several of the servants appeared in the pa.s.sageway leading to the kitchen.

"Has something happened? Is something wrong?" asked Strange, gazing at them all in surprize.

"Blockhead!" laughed Grant, striking him affectionately on the head. "We were concerned about you! Where in the world have you been?"

"Hampstead."

"Hampstead!" exclaimed Sir Walter. "Well, we are very glad to see you!" He glanced at Arabella and added nervously, "I fear we have made Mrs Strange anxious for no good reason."

"Oh!" said Strange to his wife. "You were not afraid, were you? I was perfectly well. I always am."

"There, ma'am!" declared Colonel Grant cheerfully. "It is just as I told you. In Spain Mr Strange was often in great peril, but we were never in the least concerned about him. He is too clever to come to any harm."

"Must we stand in the hallway?" asked Strange. On the way from Hampstead he had been thinking about magic and he had intended to continue doing so at home. Instead, he found a house full of people all talking together. It put him out of humour.

He led the way into the drawing-room and asked Jeremy to bring him some wine and something to eat. When they were all seated he said, "It was just as we supposed. Drawlight has been arranging for Norrell and I to perform every sort of Black Magic you can think of. I found him with a most excitable young woman who wanted me to inflict torments upon her relations."

"How horrible!" said Colonel Grant.

"And what did Drawlight say?" asked Sir Walter. "How did he explain himself?"

"Ha!" Strange let out a short burst of uncheerful laughter. "He did not say any thing. He simply ran away which was a pity, as I had a great mind to challenge him to a duel."

"Oh!" said Arabella suddenly. "It is duels now, is it?"

Sir Walter and Grant both looked at her in alarm, but Strange was too absorbed in what he was saying to notice her angry expression. "Not that I suppose he would have accepted, but I should have liked to frighten him a little. G.o.d knows he deserves it."

"But you have not said any thing about this kingdom, path whatever it is behind the mirror," said Colonel Grant. "Did it answer your expectations?"