Jonathan Strange And Mr Norrell Part 40

"So it is. I had not observed. I have not been out of the house since Sunday."

"Your servant tells me that you are very much occupied with your studies. I beg your pardon for interrupting you, but I have something to tell you which can wait no longer."

"Oh! There is no explanation necessary. And how is your . . ." Strange paused and tried to remember whether Mr Hyde had a wife, any children, brothers, sisters or friends. He found he was entirely without information upon the subject. "Farm," he finished. "I recollect it is at Aston."

"It is nearer to Clunbury."

"Clunbury. Yes."

"All is well with me, Mr Strange, except for something rather . . . unsettling which happened to me three days ago. I have been debating with myself ever since whether I ought to come and speak to you about it. I have asked the advice of my friends and my wife and all are agreed that I ought to tell you what I have seen. Three days ago I had business on the Welsh side of the border, with David Evans I dare say you know him, sir?"

"I know him by sight. I have never spoken to him. Ford knows him, I believe." (Ford was the agent who managed all the business of Strange's estate.) "Well, sir, David Evans and I had finished our business by two o'clock and I was very anxious to get home. There was a thick snow lying everywhere and the roads between here and Llanfair Waterdine were very bad. I dare say you do not know it, sir, but David Evans's house is high up on a hill with a long view westwards and the moment he and I stepped outside we saw great grey clouds full of snow coming towards us. Mrs Evans, Davey's mother, pressed me to stay with them and come home the next day, but Evans and I talked it over and we both agreed that all would be well providing I left instantly and came home by the most direct way possible in other words I should ride up to the d.y.k.e and cross over into England before the storm was upon me."1 "The d.y.k.e?" said Strange, frowning, "That is a steep ride even in summer and a very lonely place if any thing were to happen to you. I do not think I would have attempted it. But I dare say you know these hills and their temper better than I."

"Perhaps you are wiser than I was, sir. As I rode up to the d.y.k.e a hard, high wind began to blow and it caught up the snow that had already fallen and carried it up into the air. The snow stuck to my horse's coat and to my own greatcoat so that when I looked down we were as white as the hillside, as white as the air. As white as everything. The wind made eerie shapes with the snow so that I seemed to be surrounded by spinning ghosts and the kind of evil spirits and bad angels that are in the Arabian lady's stories. My poor horse who is not generally a nervous beast seemed to be seeing all manner of things to frighten him. As you may imagine, I was beginning to wish very heartily that I had accepted Mrs Evans's hospitality when I heard the sound of a bell tolling."

"A bell?" said Strange.

"Yes, sir."

"But what bell could there have been?"

"Well, none at all, sir, in that lonely place. Indeed it is a wonder to me that I could have heard any thing at all what with the horse snorting and the wind howling."

Strange, who imagined that Mr Hyde must have come in order to have this queer bell explained to him, began to talk of the magical significance of bells: how bells were used as a protection against fairies and other evil spirits and how a bad fairy might sometimes be frightened away by the sound of a church bell. And yet, at the same time, it was well known that fairies loved bells; fairy magic was often accompanied by the tolling of a bell; and bells often sounded when fairies appeared. "I cannot explain this odd contradiction," he said. "Theoretical magicians have puzzled over it for centuries."

Mr Hyde listened to this speech with every appearance of politeness and attentiveness. When Strange had finished, Mr Hyde said, "But the bell was just the beginning, sir."

"Oh!" said Strange, a little annoyed. "Very well. Continue."

"I got so far up the hill that I could see the d.y.k.e where it runs along the top. There were a few bent trees, some broken-down walls of loose stones. I looked to the south and I saw a lady walking very fast along the d.y.k.e towards me . . ."

"A lady!"

"I saw her very clearly. Her hair was loose and the wind was setting it on end and making it writhe about her head." Mr Hyde gestured with his hands to shew how the lady's hair had danced in the snowy air. "I think I called out to her. I know that she turned her head and looked at me, but she did not stop or slow her pace. She turned away again and walked on along the d.y.k.e with all the snowy wraiths around her. She wore only a black gown. No shawl. No pelisse. And that made me very afraid for her. I thought that some dreadful accident must have befallen her. So I urged my horse up the hill, as fast as the poor creature could go. I tried to keep her in sight the whole time, but the wind kept carrying the snow into my eyes. I reached the d.y.k.e and she was nowhere to be seen. So I rode back and forth along the d.y.k.e. I searched and cried myself hoa.r.s.e I was sure she must have fallen down behind a heap of stones or snow, or tripped in some rabbit-hole. Or perhaps been carried away by the person who had done her the evil in the first place."

"The evil?"

"Well, sir, I supposed that she must have been carried to the d.y.k.e by someone who meant her harm. One hears such terrible things nowadays."

"You knew the lady?"

"Yes, sir."

"Who was it?"

"Mrs Strange."

There was a moment's silence.

"But it could not have been," said Strange, perplexed. "Mr Hyde, if any thing of a distressing nature had happened to Mrs Strange, I think someone would have told me. I am not so shut up with my books as that. I am sorry, Mr Hyde, but you are mistaken. Whoever this poor woman was, it was not Mrs Strange."

Mr Hyde shook his head. "If I saw you, sir, in Shrewsbury or Ludlow, I might not know you immediately. But Mrs Strange's father was curate of my parish for forty-seven years. I have known Mrs Strange Miss Woodhope as she was then since she was an infant taking her first steps in Clunbury churchyard. Even if she had not looked at me I would have known her. I would have known her by her figure, by her way of walking, by her everything."

"What did you do after you had lost sight of the woman?"

"I rode straight here but your servant would not let me in."

"Jeremy? The man you spoke to just now?"

"Yes. He told me that Mrs Strange was safe within. I confess that I did not believe him and so I walked around your house and looked in at all the windows, until I saw her seated upon a sopha in this very room." Mr Hyde pointed to the sopha in question. "She was wearing a pale blue gown not black at all."

"Well, there is nothing remarkable in that. Mrs Strange never wears black. It is not a colour I like to see a young woman wear."

Mr Hyde shook his head and frowned. "I wish I could convince you, sir, of what I saw. But I see that I cannot."

"And I wish I could explain it to you. But I cannot."

They shook hands at parting. Mr Hyde looked solemnly at Strange and said, "I never wished her harm, Mr Strange. n.o.body could be more thankful that she is safe."

Strange bowed slightly. "And we intend to keep her so."

The door closed upon Mr Hyde's back.

Strange waited a moment and then went to find Jeremy. "Why did not you tell me that he had been here before?"

Jeremy made a sort of snorting noise of derision. "I believe I know better, sir, than to trouble you with such nonsense! Ladies in black dresses walking about in snow-storms!"

"I hope you did not speak too harshly to him."

"Me, sir? No, indeed!"

"Perhaps he was drunk. Yes, I expect that was it. I dare say he and David Evans were celebrating the successful conclusion of their business."

Jeremy frowned. "I do not think so, sir. David Evans is a Methodist preacher."

"Oh! Well, yes. I suppose you are right. And indeed it is not much like a hallucination brought on by drunkenness. It is more the sort of thing one might imagine if one took opium after reading one of Mrs Radcliffe's novels."

Strange found himself unsettled by Mr Hyde's visit. The thought of Arabella even an ideal, imaginary Arabella lost in the snow, wandering upon the hilltops, was disturbing. He could not help but be reminded of his own mother, who had taken to walking those same hills alone to escape the miseries of an unhappy marriage and who had caught a chill in a rainstorm and died.

That evening at dinner he said to Arabella, "I saw John Hyde today. He thought he saw you walking upon the d.y.k.e last Tuesday in the middle of a snow-storm."

"No!"

"Yes."

"Poor man! He must have been a good deal startled."

"I believe he was."

"I shall certainly visit Mr and Mrs Hyde when Henry is here."

"You seem intent upon visiting every body in Shrops.h.i.+re when Henry is here," said Strange. "I hope you will not be disappointed."

"Disappointed! What do you mean?"

"Only that the weather is bad."

"Then we will tell Harris to drive slowly and carefully. But he would do that anyway. And Starling is a very steady horse. It takes a great deal of snow and ice to frighten Starling. He is not easily daunted. Besides, you know, there are people whom Henry must must visit people who would be most unhappy if he did not. Jenny and Alwen my father's two old servants. They talk of nothing but Henry's coming. It is five years since they saw him last and they are scarcely likely to last another five years, poor things." visit people who would be most unhappy if he did not. Jenny and Alwen my father's two old servants. They talk of nothing but Henry's coming. It is five years since they saw him last and they are scarcely likely to last another five years, poor things."

"Very well! Very well! I only said that the weather would be bad. That is all."

But that was not quite all. Strange was aware that Arabella had high hopes of this visit. She had seen her brother only rarely since her marriage. He had not come to Soho-square as often as she would have liked and, once there, he had never stayed as long as she wished. But this Christmas visit would restore all their old intimacy. They would be together among all the scenes of their childhood and Henry had promised to stay almost a month.

Henry arrived and at first it seemed that Arabella's dearest wishes would all be answered. The conversation at dinner that evening was very animated. Henry had a great deal of news to relate about Great Hitherden, the Northamptons.h.i.+re village where he was Rector.2 Great Hitherden was a large and prosperous village. There were several gentlemen's families in the neighbourhood. Henry was highly pleased with the respectable place he occupied in its society. After a long description of his friends and their dinner-parties and b.a.l.l.s, he ended by saying, "But I would not have you think that we neglect charitable works. We are a very active neighbourhood. There is much to do and many distressed persons. The day before yesterday I paid a visit to a poor, sick family and I found Miss Watkins already at the cottage, dispensing money and good advice. Miss Watkins is a very compa.s.sionate young lady." Here he paused as if expecting someone to say something.

Strange looked blank; then, suddenly, a thought seemed to strike him. "Why, Henry, I do beg your pardon. You will think us very remiss. You have now mentioned Miss Watkins five times in ten minutes and neither Bell nor I have made the least inquiry about her. We are both a little slow tonight it is this cold Welsh air it chills the brain but now that I have awoken to your meaning I shall be happy to quiz you about her quite as much as you could wish for. Is she fair or dark? A brown complexion or a pale one? Does she favour the piano or the harp? What are her favourite books?"

Henry, who suspected he was being teased, frowned and seemed inclined to say no more about the lady.

Arabella, with a cool look at her husband, took up the inquiries in a gentler style and soon got out of Henry the following information that Miss Watkins had only lately removed to the neighbourhood of Great Hitherden that her Christian name was Sophronia that she lived with her guardians, Mr and Mrs Swoonfirst (persons to whom she was distantly related) that she was fond of reading (though Henry could not say precisely what) that her favourite colour was yellow and that she had a particular dislike of pineapples.

"And her looks? Is she pretty?" asked Strange.

The question seemed to embarra.s.s Henry.

"Miss Watkins is not generally considered one of the first in beauty, no. But then upon further acquaintance, you know that is worth a great deal. People of both s.e.xes, whose looks are very indifferent at the beginning, may appear almost handsome on further acquaintance. A well-informed mind, nice manners and a gentle nature all of these are much more likely to contribute to a husband's happiness than mere transient beauty."

Strange and Arabella were a little surprized at this speech. There was a pause and then Strange asked, "Money?"

Henry looked quietly triumphant. "Ten thousand pounds," he said.

"My dear Henry!" cried Strange.

Later, when they were alone, Strange said to Arabella, "As I understand it, Henry is to be congratulated upon his cleverness. It seems that he has found the lady before any one else could. I take it that she has not been overpowered by offers there is something in her face or figure that protects her from a too universal admiration."

"But I do not think that it can be only the money," said Arabella, who was inclined to defend her brother. "I think there must be some liking too. Or Henry would not have thought of it."

"Oh, I dare say," said Strange. "Henry is a very good fellow. And, besides, I never interfere, as you know."

"You are smiling," said Arabella, "which you have no right to do. I I was just as clever as Henry in my time. I do not believe that 616 any one had thought of marrying you, with your long nose and unamiable disposition, until it occurred to me to do so." was just as clever as Henry in my time. I do not believe that 616 any one had thought of marrying you, with your long nose and unamiable disposition, until it occurred to me to do so."

"That is true," said Strange thoughtfully. "I had forgotten that. It is a family failing."

The next day Strange stayed in the library while Arabella and Henry drove out to visit Jenny and Alwen. But the enjoyment of the first few days did not last long. Arabella soon discovered that she no longer had a great deal in common with her brother. Henry had pa.s.sed the last seven years in a small country village. She, on the other hand, had been in London where she had observed at close hand some of the most important events of recent years. She had the friends.h.i.+p of more than one Cabinet Minister. She was acquainted with the Prime Minister and had danced several times with the Duke of Wellington. She had met the Royal Dukes, curtsied to the Princesses and could always rely upon a smile and a word from the Prince Regent whenever she happened to be at Carlton House. As for her large acquaintance with every one connected with the glorious revival of English magic, that that went without saying. went without saying.

But, while she was greatly interested in all her brother's news, he had next to no interest in hers. Her descriptions of London life drew no more than a polite, "Ah, indeed?" from him. Once when she was speaking of something the Duke of Wellington had said to her and relating what she had said in reply, Henry turned and looked at her with a raised eye-brow and a bland smile a look and smile which said very plainly, "I do not believe you." Such behaviour wounded her. She did not believe she was boasting such encounters had been part of the daily tenor of her London life. She realized with a little pang that whereas his letters had always delighted her, he must have found her replies tedious and affected.

Meanwhile, poor Henry had dissatisfactions of his own. When he had been a boy he had greatly admired Ashfair House. Its size, its situation and the great importance of its owner in the neigh-bourhood of Clun, had all seemed equally wonderful to him. He had always looked forward to the day when Jonathan Strange would inherit and he could visit Ashfair in the important character of Friend of The Master. Now that all of this had come to pa.s.s he discovered that he did not really enjoy being there. Ashfair was inferior to many houses that he had seen in the intervening years. It had almost as many gables as windows. Its rooms were all low-ceilinged and oddly shaped. The many generations of inhabitants had placed the windows in the walls just as it had pleased them without any thought to the general appearance of the house and the windows themselves were darkened, every one, by the roses and ivy growing up the walls. It was an old-fas.h.i.+oned house the sort of house in fact, as Strange expressed it, which a lady in a novel might like to be persecuted in.

Several houses in the neighbourhood of Great Hitherden had recently been improved and elegant new cottages built for ladies and gentlemen with rustic inclinations and so partly because it was impossible for Henry to keep any thing connected to his parish to himself and partly because he was intending to be married soon and so his mind rather ran upon domestic improvements he was quite unable to refrain from giving Strange advice upon the matter. He was particularly distressed by the position of the stable yard which, as he told Strange, "One is obliged to walk through to get to the southerly part of the pleasure-grounds and the orchard. You could very easily pull it down and build it again somewhere else."

Strange did not exactly reply to this, but instead suddenly addressed his wife. "My love, I hope you like this house? I am very much afraid that I never thought to ask you before. Say if you do not and we shall instantly remove elsewhere!"

Arabella laughed and said that she was quite satisfied with the house. "And I am sorry, Henry, but I am just as satisfied with the stable-yard as with everything else."

Henry tried again. "Well, surely, you will agree that a great improvement could be made simply by cutting down those trees that crowd about the house so much and darken every room? They grow just as they please just where the acorn or seed fell, I suppose."

"What?" asked Strange, whose eyes had wandered back to his book during the latter part of the conversation.

"The trees," said Henry.

"Which trees?"

"Those," said Henry, pointing out of the window to a whole host of ancient and magnificent oaks, ashes and beech trees.

"As far as neighbours go, those trees are quite exemplary. They mind their own affairs and have never troubled me. I rather think that I will return the compliment."

"But they are blocking the light."

"So are you, Henry, but I have not yet taken an axe to you."

The truth was that, though Henry saw much to criticize in the grounds and position of Ashfair, this was not his real complaint. What really disturbed him about the house was the all-pervading air of magic. When Strange had first taken up the profession of magic, Henry had not thought any thing of it. At that time news of Mr Norrell's wonderful achievements was only just beginning to spread throughout the kingdom. Magic had seemed little more than an esoteric branch of history, an amus.e.m.e.nt for rich, idle gentlemen; and Henry still somehow contrived to regard it in that light. He prided himself upon Strange's wealth, his estate, his important pedigree, but not upon his magic. He was always a little surprized whenever any one congratulated him on his close connexion with the Second Greatest Magician of the Age.

Strange was a long way from Henry's ideal of a rich English gentleman. He had pretty well abandoned those pursuits with which gentlemen in the English countryside customarily occupy their time. He took no interest in farming or hunting. His neighbours went shooting Henry heard their shots echoing in the snowy woods and fields and the barking of their dogs but Strange never picked up a gun. It took all Arabella's persuasion to make him go outside and walk about for half an hour. In the library the books that had belonged to Strange's father and grandfather those works in English, Greek and Latin which every gentleman has upon his shelves had all been removed and piled up upon the floor to make room for Strange's own books and notebooks.3 Periodicals concerned with the practice of magic, such as Periodicals concerned with the practice of magic, such as The Friends of English Magic The Friends of English Magic and and The Modern Magician The Modern Magician, were everywhere scattered about the house. Upon one of the tables in the library there stood a great silver dish, which was sometimes full of water. Strange would often sit for half an hour peering into the water, tapping the surface and making odd gestures and writing down notes of what he saw there. On another table amid a jumble of books there lay a map of England upon which Strange was marking the old fairy roads which once led out of England to who-knows-where.

There were other things too which Henry only half-understood but which he disliked even more. He knew for instance that Ashfair's rooms often had an odd look, but he did not see that this was because the mirrors in Strange's house were as likely as not to be reflecting the light of half an hour ago, or a hundred years ago. And in the morning, when he awoke, and at night, just before he fell asleep, he heard the sound of a distant bell a sad sound, like the bell of a drowned city heard across a waste of ocean. He never really thought of the bell, or indeed remembered any thing about it, but its melancholy influence stayed with him through the day.

He found relief for all his various disappointments and dissatisfactions in drawing numerous comparisons between the way things were done in Great Hitherden and the way they were done in Shrops.h.i.+re (much to the detriment of Shrops.h.i.+re), and in wondering aloud that Strange should study so hard "quite as if he had no estate of his own and all his fortune was still to make." These remarks were generally addressed to Arabella, but Strange was often in earshot and pretty soon Arabella found herself in the unenviable position of trying to keep the peace between the two of them.

"When I want Henry's advice," said Strange, "I shall ask for it. What business is it of his, I should like to know, where I chuse to build my stables? Or how I spend my time?"

"It is very aggravating, my love," agreed Arabella, "and no one should wonder if it put you out of temper, but only consider . . ."

"My temper! It is he who keeps quarrelling with me!"

"Hus.h.!.+ Hus.h.!.+ He will hear you. You have been very sorely tried and any one would say that you have borne it like an angel. But, you know, I think he means to be kind. It is just that he does not express himself very well, and for all his faults we shall miss him greatly when he is gone."

Upon this last point Strange did not perhaps look as convinced as she could have wished. So she added, "Be kind to Henry? For my sake?"

"Of course! Of course! I am patience itself. You know that! There used to be a proverb quite defunct now something about priests sowing wheat and magicians sowing rye, all in the same field. The meaning is that priests and magicians will never agree.4 I never found it so until now. I believe I was on friendly terms with the London clergy. The Dean of Westminster Abbey and the Prince Regent's chaplain are excellent fellows. But Henry irks me." I never found it so until now. I believe I was on friendly terms with the London clergy. The Dean of Westminster Abbey and the Prince Regent's chaplain are excellent fellows. But Henry irks me."

On Christmas-day the snow fell thick and fast. Whether from the vexations of recent days or from some other cause, Arabella awoke in the morning quite sick and wretched with a headach, and unable to rise from her bed. Strange and Henry were obliged to keep each other company the whole day. Henry talked a great deal about Great Hitherden and in the evening they played ecarte. This was a game they were both rather fond of. It might perhaps have produced a more natural state of enjoyment, but halfway through the second game Strange turned over the nine of spades and was immediately struck by several new ideas concerning the magical significance of this card. He abandoned the game, abandoned Henry and took the card with him to the library to study it. Henry was left to his own devices.

Sometime in the early hours of the following morning he woke or half-woke. There was a faint silvery radiance in the room which might easily have been a reflection of the moonlight on the snow outside. He thought he saw Arabella, dressed and seated on the foot of the bed with her back towards him. She was brus.h.i.+ng her hair. He said something to her or at least thought he said something.

Then he went back to sleep.

At about seven o'clock he woke properly, anxious to get to the library and work for an hour or two before Henry appeared. He rose quickly, went to his dressing-room and rang for Jeremy Johns to come and shave him.