Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (64 page)

50
The History and Practice of English Magic

April to late September 1816

Strange’s friends were glad to be assured that he did not intend to give up his comfortable houses, his good income and his servants to go and be a gypsy in the wind and the rain, but still very few of them were entirely comfortable with his new practices. They had good reason to fear that he had lost all restraint and was prepared to indulge in any and all kinds of magic. His promise to Arabella kept him from the King’s Roads for the present, but all Sir Walter’s warnings could not prevent him from continually talking and wondering about John Uskglass and his fairy subjects.

By the end of April, Strange’s three new pupils, the Honourable Henry Purfois, William Hadley-Bright and Tom Levy, the dancing-master, had all taken lodgings near Soho-square. Every day they attended Strange’s house to study magic. In the intervals between directing their magical education Strange worked at his book and performed magic on behalf of the Army and the East India Company. He had also received applications for assistance from the Corporation of Liverpool and the Society of Merchant Venturers in Bristol.

That Strange should still receive commissions from official bodies — or indeed from any one at all — so incensed Mr Norrell that he complained to Lord Liverpool, the Prime Minister, about it.

Lord Liverpool was not sympathetic. “The generals may do as they wish, Mr Norrell. The Government does not interfere in military matters, as well you know.
¹
The generals have employed Mr Strange as their magician for a number of years and they see no reason to stop simply because you and he have quarrelled. As for the East India Company I am told that its officials applied to you in the first place and that you declined to help them.”

Mr Norrell blinked his little eyes rapidly. “My work for the Government — my work for you, my lord — takes up so much of my time. I cannot, in conscience, neglect it for the sake of a private company.”

“And believe me, Mr Norrell, we are grateful. Yet I need scarcely tell you how vital the success of the East India Company is to the prosperity of the Nation and the Company’s need for a magician is immense. It has fleets of ships at the mercy of storms and bad weather; it has vast territories to administer and its armies are continually harassed by Indian princelings and bandits. Mr Strange has undertaken to controul the weather around the Cape and in the Indian Ocean and he has offered advice on the best use of magic in hostile territories. The Directors of the East India Company believe that Mr Strange’s experience in the Spanish Peninsula will prove invaluable. It is yet another demonstration of Britain’s sore need for more magicians. Mr Norrell, as diligent as you are, you cannot be everywhere and do everything — and no one expects that you should. I hear that Mr Strange has taken pupils. It would please me immensely to hear that you intended to do the same.”

Despite Lord Liverpool’s approval, the education of the three new magicians, Henry Purfois, William Hadley-Bright and Tom Levy, progressed no more smoothly than Strange’s own six years before. The only difference was that whereas Strange had had Norrell’s evasiveness to contend with, the young men were continually thwarted by Strange’s low spirits and restlessness.

By early June the first volume of
The History and Practice of English Magic
was finished. Strange delivered it to Mr Murray and it surprized no one when, on the following day, he told Henry Purfois, William Hadley-Bright and Tom Levy that they must defer their magical education for a while as he had decided to go abroad.

“I think it an excellent plan!” said Sir Walter as soon as Strange told him of it. “A change of scene. A change of society. It is exactly what I would prescribe for you. Go! Go!”

“You do not think that it is too soon?” asked Strange anxiously. “I shall be leaving Norrell in possession of London so to speak.”

“You think we have such short memories as that? Well, we shall make every endeavour not to forget you in the space of a few months. Besides, your book will be published soon and that will serve as a standing reminder to us all of how ill we get on without you.”

“That is true. There is the book. It will take Norrell months to refute forty-six chapters and I shall be back long before he is finished.”

“Where shall you go?”

“Italy, I think. The countries of southern Europe have always had a strong attraction for me. I was often struck by the appearance of the countryside when I was in Spain — or at least I believe I would have found it very striking had it not been covered in soldiers and gunsmoke.”

“I hope you will write occasionally? Some token of your impressions?”

“Oh! I shall not spare you. It is the right of a traveller to vent their frustration at every minor inconvenience by writing of it to their friends. Expect long descriptions of everything.”

As often happened these days, Strange’s mood darkened suddenly. His light, ironic air evaporated upon the instant and he sat frowning at the coal-scuttle. “I wondered if you …” he said at last. “That is, I wish to ask you …” He made a sound of exasperation at his own hesitancy. “Would you convey a message to Lady Pole from me? I would be most grateful. Arabella was greatly attached to her ladyship and I know she would not have liked me to leave England without sending some message to Lady Pole.”

“Certainly. What shall I tell her?”

“Oh! Simply give her my heartfelt wishes for her better health. Whatever you think best. It does not matter what you say. But you must say that the message is from Arabella’s husband. I wish her ladyship to understand that her friend’s husband has not forgotten her.”

“With the greatest goodwill,” said Sir Walter. “Thank you.”

Strange had half-expected that Sir Walter would invite him to speak to Lady Pole himself, but Sir Walter did not. No one even knew whether her ladyship was still at the house in Harley-street. There was a rumour circulating the Town that Sir Walter had sent her to the country.

Strange was not alone in wishing to go abroad. It had suddenly become very fashionable. For far too long the British had been confined to their own island by the war with Buonaparte. For far too long they had been forced to satisfy their desire to look upon new scenes and curious people by visits to the Scottish Highlands or the English Lakes or the Derbyshire Peak. But now the war was over they could go to the Continent and see mountains and shores of quite a different character. They could view for themselves those celebrated works of art which hitherto they had only seen in books of engravings. Some went abroad hoping to find that it was cheaper to live on the Continent than at home. Some went to avoid debts or scandal and some, like Strange, went to find a tranquillity that eluded them in England.

Jonathan Strange to John Segundus

Bruxelles
Jun. 12th, 1816.

I am, as far as I can tell, about a month behind Lord Byron.
²
In every town we stop at we discover innkeepers, postillions, officials, burghers, potboys and all kinds and sorts of ladies whose brains still seem somewhat deranged from their brief exposure to his lordship. And though my companions are careful to tell people that I am that dreadful being, an English magician, I am clearly nothing in comparison to an English poet and everywhere I go I enjoy the reputation — quite new to me, I assure you — of the quiet, good Englishman, who makes no noise and is no trouble to any one …

It was a queer summer that year. Or rather it was no summer at all. Winter had extended its lease into August. The sun was scarcely seen. Thick grey clouds covered the sky; bitter winds blew through towns and withered crops; storms of rain and hail, enlivened by occasional displays of thunder and lightning, fell upon every part of Europe. In many ways it was worse than winter: the long hours of daylight denied people the consolation of darkness which would have hidden all these miseries for a while.

London was half empty. Parliament was dissolved and the Members of Parliament had all gone to their country houses, the better to stare at the rain. In London Mr John Murray, the publisher, sat in his house in Albermarle-street. At other times Mr Murray’s rooms were the liveliest in London — full of poets, essayists, reviewers and all the great literary men of the kingdom. But the great literary men of the kingdom had gone to the country. The rain pattered upon the window and the wind moaned in the chimney. Mr Murray heaped more coals upon the fire and then sat down at his desk to begin reading that day’s letters. He picked each letter up and held it close to his left eye (the right being quite blind and useless).

It so happened that on this particular day there were two from Geneva in Swisserland. The first was from Lord Byron complaining of Jonathan Strange and the second was from Strange complaining of Byron. The two men had met at Mr Murray’s house a handful of times, but until now they had never got acquainted. Strange had visited Byron at Geneva a couple of weeks before. The meeting had not been a success.

Strange (who was just now in a mood to place the highest value upon matrimony and all that he had lost in Arabella) was unsettled by Byron’s domestic arrangements. “I found his lordship at his pretty villa upon the shores of the lake. He was not alone. There was another poet called Shelley, Mrs Shelley and another young woman — a girl really — who called herself Mrs Clairmont and whose relationship to the two men I did not understand. If you know, do not tell me. Also present was an odd young man who talked nonsense the entire time — a Mr Polidori.”

Lord Byron, on the other hand, took exception to Strange’s mode of dress. “He wore half-mourning. His wife died at Christmas, did she not? But perhaps he thinks black makes him look more mysterious and wizardly.”

Having taken an immediate dislike to each other, they had progressed smoothly to quarrelling about politics. Strange wrote: “I do not quite know how it happened, but we immediately fell to talking of the battle of Waterloo — an unhappy subject since I am the Duke of Wellington’s magician and they all hate Wellington and idolize Buonaparte. Mrs Clairmont, with all the impertinence of eighteen, asked me if I was not ashamed to be an instrument in the fall of so sublime a man. No, said I.”

Byron wrote: “He is a great partisan for the Duke of W. I hope for your sake, my dear Murray, that his book is more interesting than he is.”

Strange finished: “People have such odd notions about magicians. They wanted me to tell them about
vampyres
.”

Mr Murray was sorry to find that his two authors could not agree better, but he reflected that it probably could not be helped since both men were famous for quarrelling: Strange with Norrell, and Byron with practically everybody.
³

When he had finished reading his letters, Mr Murray thought he would go downstairs to the bookshop. He had printed a very large number of copies of Jonathan Strange’s book and he was anxious to know how it was selling. The shop was kept by a man called Shackleton who looked exactly as you would wish a bookseller to look. He would never have done for any other sort of shopman — certainly not for a haberdasher or milliner who must be smarter than his customers — but for a bookseller he was perfect. He appeared to be of no particular age. He was thin and dusty and spotted finely all over with ink. He had an air of learning tinged with abstraction. His nose was adorned with spectacles; there was a quill pen stuck behind his ear and a half-unravelled wig upon his head.

“Shackleton, how many of Mr Strange’s book have we sold today?” demanded Mr Murray.

“Sixty or seventy copies, I should think.”

“Excellent!” said Mr Murray.

Shackleton frowned and pushed his spectacles further up his nose. “Yes, you would think so, would you not?”

“What do you mean?”

Shackleton took the pen from behind his ear “A great many people have come twice and bought a copy both times.”

“Even better! At this rate we shall overtake Lord Byron’s
Corsair
! At this rate we shall need a second printing by the end of next week!” Then, observing that Shackleton’s frown did not grow any less, Mr Murray added, “Well, what is wrong with that? I dare say they want them as presents for their friends.”

Shackleton shook his head so that all the loose hairs of his wig jiggled about. “It is queer. I have never known it happen before.”

The shop door opened and a young man entered. He was small in stature and slight in build. His features were regular and, truth to tell, he would have been quite handsome had it not been for his rather unfortunate manner. He was one of those people whose ideas are too lively to be confined in their brains and spill out into the world to the consternation of passers-by. He talked to himself and the expression of his face changed constantly. Within the space of a single moment he looked surprized, insulted, resolute and angry — emotions which were presumably the consequences of the energetic conversations he was holding with the ideal people inside his head.

Shops, particularly London shops, are often troubled with lunatics and Mr Murray and Shackleton were immediately upon their guard. Nor were their suspicions at all allayed when the young man fixed Shackleton with a piercing look of his bright blue eyes and cried, “This is treating your customers well! This is gentility!” He turned to Mr Murray and addressed him thus, “Be advised by me, sir! Do not buy your books here. They are liars and thieves!”

“Liars and thieves?” said Mr Murray. “No, you are mistaken, sir. I am sure we can convince you that you are.”

“Ha!” cried the young man and gave Mr Murray a shrewd look to shew he had now understood that Mr Murray was not, as he had first supposed, a fellow customer.

“I am the proprietor,” explained Mr Murray hurriedly. “We do not rob people here. Tell me what the matter is and I will be glad to serve you in any way I can. I am quite sure it is all a misunderstanding.”

But the young man was not in the least mollifed by Mr Murray’s polite words. He cried, “Do you deny, sir, that this establishment employs a rascally cheat of magician — a magician called Strange?”