Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (58 page)

“I am sorry, sir. I don’t think I ever saw her before.”

At the foot of the carriage steps Mr Marston was growing more insistent and Mr Norrell was growing angrier. Mr Norrell looked around; he saw Lucas and Childermass close at hand and beckoned to them.

Just then the fashionably dressed lady took a step towards him. For a moment it seemed that she too was going to address him, but that was not her intention. She took a pistol from her muff and, with all the calm in the world, aimed it at his heart.

Mr Norrell and Mr Marston both stared at her.

Several things happened at once. Lucas loosed his hold of Childermass — who dropt like a stone to the ground — and ran to help his master. Mr Marston seized hold of the lady around her waist. Davey, Mr Norrell’s coachman, jumped down from his box and grabbed the arm which held the pistol.

Childermass lay amid the snow and shards of glass. He saw the woman shrug herself free of Mr Marston’s grasp with what seemed like remarkable ease. She pushed him to the ground with such force that he did not get up again. She put one small, gloved hand to Davey’s chest and Davey was flung several yards backwards. Mr Norrell’s footman — the one who had opened the carriage door — tried to knock her down, but his blow had not the least effect upon her. She put her hand upon his face — it looked like the lightest touch in the world — he crumpled to the ground. Lucas she simply struck with the pistol.

Childermass could make very little sense of what was happening. He dragged himself upright and stumbled forward for half a dozen yards, scarcely knowing whether he was walking upon the cobblestones of Hanover-square or an ancient road in Faerie.

Mr Norrell stared at the lady in the utmost horror, too frightened to cry out or run away. Childermass put up his hands to her in a gesture of conciliation. “Madam …” he began.

She did not even look at him.

The dizzying fall of white flakes confused him. Try as he might, he could not keep his hold upon Hanover-square. The eerie landscape was claiming him; Mr Norrell would be killed and there was nothing he could do to prevent it.

Then something strange happened.

Something strange happened. Hanover-square disappeared. Mr Norrell, Lucas and all the rest of them disappeared.

But the lady remained.

She stood facing him, upon the ancient road, beneath the sky with its tumble and seethe of black birds. She raised her pistol and aimed it out of Faerie and into England at Mr Norrell’s heart.

"Madam,” said Childermass again.

She looked at him with a cold, burning fury. There was nothing in the world he could say to deter her. Nothing in this world nor any other. And so he did the only thing he could think of. He seized hold of the barrel of the pistol.

There was a shot, an intolerably loud sound.

It was the force of the noise, Childermass supposed, which pushed him back into England.

Suddenly he was half-sitting, half-lying in Hanover-square with his back to the carriage-steps. He wondered where Norrell was and whether he was dead. He supposed he ought to go and find out, but he found he did not much care about it and so he stayed where he was.

It was not until a surgeon arrived that he understood that the lady had indeed shot someone and that the someone was himself.

The rest of that day and most of the following one passed in a confusion of pain and laudanum-dreams. Sometimes Childermass thought he was standing on the ancient road under the speaking sky, but now Lucas was with him talking of maids-of-honour and coal-scuttles. A tight-rope was strung across the sky and a great many people were walking on it. Strange was there and so was Norrell. They both had piles of books in their hands. There was John Murray, the publisher, and Vinculus and many others. Sometimes the pain in Childermass’s shoulder escaped from him and ran about the room and hid. When this happened he thought it became a small animal. No one else knew it was there. He supposed he ought to tell them so that they could chase it out. Once he caught sight of it; it had flame-coloured fur, brighter than a fox …

On the evening of the second day he was lying in bed with a much clearer notion of who he was, and where he was, and what had happened. At about seven o’clock Lucas entered the room, carrying one of the dining-chairs. He placed it by the bed. A moment later Mr Norrell entered the room and sat upon it.

For some moments Mr Norrell did nothing but stare at the counterpane with an anxious expression. Then he muttered a question.

Childermass did not hear what was said, but he naturally supposed that Mr Norrell must be inquiring about his health, so he began to say that he hoped he would be better in a day or two.

Mr Norrell interrupted him and said again more sharply, “Why were you performing Belasis’s Scopus?”

“What?” asked Childermass.

“Lucas said that you were doing magic,” said Mr Norrell. “I made him describe it to me. Naturally I recognized Belasis’s Scopus.”
¹
His face grew sharp and suspicious. “Why were you performing it? And — which is even more to the point — where in the world did you learn such a thing? How can I do my work when I am constantly betrayed in this manner? It is astonishing to me that I have achieved any thing at all, when I am surrounded by servants who learn spells behind my back and pupils who set themselves to undo my every accomplishment!”

Childermass gave him a look of mild exasperation. “You taught it to me yourself.”

“I?” cried Mr Norrell, his voice several pitches higher than usual.

“It was before you came to London, in the days when you kept to your library at Hurtfew, when I used to go about the country for you buying up valuable books. You taught me the spell in case I should ever meet with any one who claimed to be a practical magician. You were afraid that there might be another magician who could …”

“Yes, yes,” said Mr Norrell, impatiently. “I remember now. But that does not explain why you were performing it in the square yesterday morning.”

“Because there was magic everywhere.”

“Lucas did not notice any thing.”

“It is not part of Lucas’s duties to know when there is magic going on. That falls to me. It was the strangest thing I ever knew. I kept thinking that I was somewhere else entirely. I believe that for a while I was in real danger. I do not understand very well where the place was. It had some curious features — which I will describe to you in a moment — but it was certainly not England. I think it was Faerie. What sort of magic produces such an effect? And where was it coming from? Can it be that that woman was a magician?”

“Which woman?”

“The woman who shot me.”

Mr Norrell made a small sound of irritation. “That bullet affected you more than I supposed,” he said contemptuously. “If she had been a great magician, do you really suppose that you could have thwarted her so easily? There was no magician in the square. Certainly not that woman.”

“Why? Who was she?”

Mr Norrell was silent a moment. Then he said, “Sir Walter Pole’s wife. The woman I brought back from the dead.”

Childermass was silent a moment. “Well, you astonish me!” he said at last. “I can think of several people who have good cause to aim a pistol at your heart, but for the life of me I cannot understand why this woman should be one of them.”

“They tell me she is mad,” said Mr Norrell. “She escaped the people who were set to watch her and came here to kill me — which, as I think you will agree, is proof enough of her madness.” Mr Norrell’s small grey eyes looked away. “After all I am known everywhere as her benefactor.”

Childermass was barely listening to him. “But where did she get the pistol? Sir Walter is a sensible man. It is hard to imagine that he leaves firearms in her way.”

“It was a duelling pistol — one of a pair that belongs to Sir Walter. It is kept in a locked box in a locked writing-desk in his private study. Sir Walter says that until yesterday he would have taken an oath that she knew nothing about it. As to how she contrived to get the key — both keys — that is a mystery to every one.”

“It does not seem much of a mystery to me. Wives, even mad wives, have ways of getting what they want from husbands.”

“But Sir Walter did not have the keys. That is the strange part of it. These pistols were the only firearms in the house and Sir Walter had some natural concerns for the security of his wife and possessions since he is so frequently away from home. The keys were in the keeping of the butler — that tall black man — I dare say you know who I mean. Sir Walter cannot understand how he came to make such a mistake. Sir Walter says he is generally the most reliable and trustworthy fellow in the world. Of course one never really knows what servants are thinking,” continued Mr Norrell blithely, forgetting that he was speaking to one at that moment, “yet it can hardly be supposed that this man bears any grudge against me. I never spoke three words to him in my life. Of course,” he continued, “I could prosecute Lady Pole for trying to kill me. Yesterday I was quite determined upon it. But it has been represented to me by several people that I must consider Sir Walter. Lord Liverpool and Mr Lascelles both say so, and I believe that they are right. Sir Walter has been a good friend to English magic. I should not wish to give Sir Walter any reason to regret that he has been my friend. Sir Walter has given me his solemn oath that she will be put away somewhere in the country where she will see no one and no one will see her.”

Mr Norrell did not trouble to ascertain Childermass’s wishes upon this point. Despite the fact that it was Childermass who was lying upon the bed sick with pain and loss of blood, and that Mr Norrell’s injuries had consisted chiefly of a slight headach and a small cut upon one finger, it was clear to Mr Norrell that he was the more sinned against of the two.

“So what was the magic?” asked Childermass.

“Mine, of course!” declared Mr Norrell, angrily. “Who else’s should it be? It was the magic I did to bring her back from the dead. That was what you felt and that is what Belasis’s Scopus revealed. It was early in my career and I dare say there were some irregularities that may have caused it to take an odd turn and …”

“An odd turn?” cried Childermass, hoarsely. He was seized with a fit of coughing. When he had regained his breath, he said, “At every moment I was in danger of being transported to some realm where everything breathed magic. The sky spoke to me! Everything spoke to me! How could that have been?”

Mr Norrell raised an eyebrow. “I do not know. Perhaps you were drunk.”

“And have you ever known me to be drunk in the performance of my duties?” asked Childermass, icily.

Mr Norrell shrugged defensively. “I have not the least idea what you do. It seems to me that you have been a law unto yourself from the first moment you entered my house.”

“But surely the idea is not so strange when considered in the light of ancient English magic,” insisted Childermass. “Have you not told me that
Aureates
regarded trees, hills, rivers and so on as living creatures with thoughts, memories and desires of their own? The
Aureates
thought that the whole world habitually worked magic of a sort.”

“Some of the
Aureates
thought so, yes. It is a belief that they imbibed from their fairy-servants, who attributed some of their own extraordinary magic to their ability to talk to trees and rivers and so forth, and to form friendships and alliances with them. But there is no reason to suppose that they were right. My own magic does not rely upon any such nonsensical ideas.”

“The sky spoke to me,” said Childermass. “If what I saw was true, then …” He paused.

“Then what?” asked Mr Norrell.

In his weakened state Childermass had been thinking aloud. He had meant to say that if what he had seen was true, then everything that Strange and Norrell had ever done was child’s-play and magic was a much stranger and more terrifying thing than any of them had thought of. Strange and Norrell had been merely throwing paper darts about a parlour, while real magic soared and swooped and twisted on great wings in a limitless sky far, far above them.

But then he realized that Mr Norrell was unlikely to take a very sanguine view of such ideas and so he said nothing.

Curiously, Mr Norrell seemed to guess his thoughts anyway.

“Oh!” he cried in a sudden passion. “Very well! You are there, are you? Then I advise you to go and join Strange and Murray and all the other traitors immediately! I believe you will find that their ideas suit your present frame of mind much better! I am sure that they will be very glad to have you. And you will be able to tell them all my secrets! I dare say they will pay you handsomely for it. I shall be ruined and …”

“Mr Norrell, calm yourself. I have no intention of taking up any new employment. You are the last master I shall ever have.”

There was another short silence which perhaps allowed Mr Norrell time to reflect upon the inappropriateness of quarrelling with the man who had saved his life only yesterday. In a more reasonable tone he said, “I dare say no one has told you yet. Strange’s wife is dead.”

“What?”

“Dead. I had the news from Sir Walter. Apparently she went for a walk in the snow. Most ill-advised. Two days later she was dead.”

Childermass felt cold. The dreary landscape was suddenly very close, just beneath the skin of England. He could almost fancy himself upon the ancient road again …

… and Arabella Strange was on the road ahead of him. Her back was turned towards him and she walked on alone into the chill, grey lands, under the magic-speaking sky …

"I am told,” continued Mr Norrell, quite oblivious to Childermass’s sudden pallor and laboured breathing, “that Lady Pole has been made very unhappy by the death of Mrs Strange. Her distress has been out of all reason. It seems they were friends. I did not know that until now. Had I had known it, I might perhaps have …” He paused and his face worked with some secret emotion. “But it cannot matter now — one of them is mad and the other one is dead. From all that Sir Walter can tell Lady Pole seems to consider me in some way culpable for Mrs Strange’s death.” He paused. Then, in case there should be any doubt about the matter, he added, “Which is nonsense, of course.”