Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (73 page)

“Because you are standing here.”

“I do not understand.”

“Did not you listen to the prophecy when it was told to you?”

“The prophecy, madam?”

“Yes, the prophecy of …” She finished by saying a name, but it was in her own language and Strange could not make it out.
⁴

“I beg your pardon?”

“The prophecy of the King.”

Strange thought back to Vinculus climbing out from under the winter hedge with bits of dry, brown grass and empty seed pods stuck to his clothes; he remembered Vinculus reciting something in the winter lane. But what Vinculus had said he had no idea. He had had no notion of becoming a magician just then and had not paid any attention. “I believe there was a prophecy of some sort, madam,” he said, “but to own the truth it was long ago and I do not remember. What does the prophecy say we must do? — the other magician and I?”

“Fail.”

Strange blinked in surprize. “I … I do not think … Fail? No, madam, no. It is too late for that. Already we are the most successful magicians since Martin Pale.”

She said nothing.

Was it too late to fail? wondered Strange. He thought of Mr Norrell in the house in Hanover-square, of Mr Norrell at Hurtfew Abbey, of Mr Norrell complimented by all the Ministers and politely attended to by the Prince Regent. It was perhaps a little ironic that he of all people should take comfort from Norrell’s success, but at that moment nothing in the world seemed so solid, so unassailable. The fairy woman was mistaken.

For the next few minutes they were occupied in going down the dance. When they had resumed their places in the set, she said, “You are certainly very bold to come here, Magician.”

“Why? What ought I to fear, madam?”

She laughed. “How many English magicians do you suppose have left their bones lying in this
brugh
? Beneath these stars?”

“I have not the least idea.”

“Forty-seven.”

Strange began to feel a little less comfortable.

“Not counting Peter Porkiss, but he was no magician. He was only a
cowan
"
⁵

“Indeed.”

“Do not pretend that you know what I mean,” she said sharply. “When it is as plain as Pandemonium that you do not.”

Strange was once again perplexed what to reply. She seemed so bent upon being displeased. But then again, he thought, what was so unusual about it? In Bath and London and all the cities of Europe ladies pretended to scold the men they meant to attract. For all he knew she was just the same. He decided to treat her severe manner as a kind of flirtation and see if that soothed her. So he laughed lightly and said, “It seems you know a great deal of what has passed in this
brugh
, madam.” It gave him a little thrill of excitement to say the word, a word so ancient and romantic.

She shrugged. “I have been a visitor here for four thousand years.”
⁶

“I should be very glad to talk you about it whenever you are at liberty.”

“Say rather when
you
are next at liberty! Then I shall have no objection to answering any of your questions.”

“You are very kind.”

“Not at all. A hundred years from tonight then?”

“I … I beg your pardon?”

But she seemed to feel she had talked enough and he could get nothing more from her but the most commonplace remarks upon the ball and their fellow-dancers.

The dance ended; they parted. It had been the oddest and most unsettling conversation of Strange’s life. Why in the world should she think that magic had not yet been restored to England? And what was all that nonsense about a hundred years? He consoled himself with the thought that a woman who passed much of her life in an echoing mansion in a deep, dark wood was unlikely to be very well informed upon events in the wider worlds.

He rejoined the watchers by the wall. The course of the next dance brought a particularly lovely woman close to him. He was struck by the contrast between the beauty of her face and the deep, settled unhappiness of her expression. As she raised her hand to join hands with her partner, he saw that her little finger was missing.

“Curious!” he thought and touched the pocket of his coat where the box of silver and porcelain lay. “Perhaps …” But he could not conceive any sequence of events which would result in a magician giving the fairy a finger belonging to someone in the fairy’s own household. It made no sense. “Perhaps the two things are not connected at all,” he thought.

But the woman’s hand was so small and white. He was sure that the finger in his pocket would fit it perfectly. He was full of curiosity and determined to go and speak to her and ask her how she had lost her finger.

The dance had ended. She was speaking to another lady, who had her back to him.

“I beg your pardon …” he began.

Instantly the other lady turned. It was Arabella.

She was dressed in a white gown with an overdress of pale blue net and diamonds. It glittered like frost and snow, and was far prettier than any gown she had possessed when she lived in England. In her hair were sprays of some tiny, star-like blossoms and there was a black velvet ribbon tied around her throat.

She gazed at him with an odd expression — an expression in which surprize was mixed with wariness, delight with disbelief. “Jonathan! Look, my love!” she said to her companion. “It is Jonathan!”

“Arabella …” he began. He did not know what he meant to say. He held out his hands to her; but she did not take them. Without appearing to know what she did, she withdrew slightly and joined her hands with those of the unknown woman, as if this was now the person to whom she went for comfort and support.

The unknown woman looked at Strange in obedience to Arabella’s request. “He looks as most men do,” she remarked, coldly. And then, as if she felt the meeting were now concluded, “Come,” she said. She tried to lead Arabella away.

“Oh, but wait!” said Arabella softly. “I think that he must have come to help us! Do not you think he might have?”

“Perhaps,” said the unknown woman in a doubtful tone. She stared at Strange again. “No. I do not think so. I believe he came for another reason entirely.”

“I know that you have warned me against false hopes,” said Arabella, “and I have tried to do as you advise. But he is here! I was sure he would not forget me so soon.”

“Forget you!” exclaimed Strange. “No, indeed! Arabella, I …”

“
Did
you come here to help us?” asked the unknown woman, suddenly addressing Strange directly.

“What?” said Strange. “No, I … You must understood that until now I did not know … Which is to say, I do not quite understand …”

The unknown woman made a small sound of exasperation. “Did you or did you not come here to help us? It is a simple enough question I should think.”

“No,” said Strange. “Arabella, speak to me, I beg you. Tell me what has …”

“There? You see?” said the unknown woman to Arabella. “Now let you and me find a corner where we can be peaceful together. I believe I saw an unoccupied bench near the door.”

But Arabella would not be persuaded to walk away just yet. She continued to gaze at Strange in the same odd way; it was as if she were looking at a picture of him, rather than the flesh-and-blood man. She said, “I know you do not put a great deal of faith in what men can do, but …”

“I put no faith in them at all,” interrupted the unknown woman. “I know what it is to waste years and years upon vain hopes of help from this person or that. No hope at all is better than ceaseless disappointment!”

Strange’s patience was gone. “You will forgive my interrupting you, madam,” he said to the unknown woman, “though I observe you have done nothing but interrupt since I joined you! I fear I must insist on a minute’s private conversation with my wife! Perhaps if you will have the goodness to retire a pace or two …”

But neither she nor Arabella was attending to him. They were directing their gaze a little to his right. The gentleman with thistledown hair was just at his shoulder.

Stephen pushed through the crowd of dancers. His conversation with the gentleman had been most unnerving. Something had been decided upon, but the more Stephen thought about it, the more he realized he had not the least idea what it was. “It is still not too late,” he muttered as forced his way through. “It is not still too late.” Part of him — the cold, uncaring, enchanted half — wondered what he meant by that. Not too late to save himself? To save Lady Pole and Mrs Strange? The magician?

Never had the lines of dancers seemed so long, so like a fence barring his way. On the other side of the room he thought he saw a head of gleaming, thistle-down hair. “Sir!” he cried. “Wait! I must speak with you again!”

The light changed. The sounds of music, dancing and conversation were swept away. Stephen looked around, expecting to find himself in a new city or upon another continent. But he was still in the great hall of Lost-hope. It was empty; the dancers and musicians were gone. Three people remained: Stephen himself and, some way off, the magician and the gentleman with the thistle-down hair.

The magician called out his wife’s name. He hastened towards a dark door as if he intended to dash off into the house in search of her.

“Wait!” cried the gentleman with the thistle-down hair. The magician turned and Stephen saw that his face was black with anger, that his mouth was working as if a spell were about to explode out of him.

The gentleman with the thistle-down hair raised his hands.
The great hall was filled with a flock of birds. In the blink of an eye they were there; in the blink of an eye they were gone.

The birds had struck Stephen with their wings. They had knocked the breath out of him. When he recovered enough to lift his head, he saw that the gentleman with the thistle-down hair had raised his hands a second time.

The great hall was full of spinning leaves. Winter-dry and brown they were, turning in a wind that had come out of nowhere. In the blink of an eye they were there; in the blink of an eye they were gone.

The magician was staring wildly. He did not seem to know what to do in the face of such overwhelming magic. “He is lost,” thought Stephen.

The gentleman with the thistle-down hair raised his hands a third time.
The great hall was full of rain — not a rain of water, a rain of blood. In the blink of an eye it was there; in the blink of an eye it was gone.

The magic ended. In that instant the magician disappeared and the gentleman with the thistle-down hair dropped to the floor, like a man in a swoon.

“Where is the magician, sir?” cried Stephen, rushing to kneel beside him. “What has happened?”

“I have sent him back to Altinum’s sea colony,”
⁷
he said in a hoarse whisper. He tried to smile, but seemed quite unable. “I have done it, Stephen! I have done what you advised! It has taken all my strength. My old alliances have been stretched to their utmost limit. But I have changed the world! Oh! I have dealt him such a blow! Darkness, misery and solitude! He will not hurt us any more!” He attempted a triumphant laugh, but it turned into a fit of coughing and retching. When it was done he took Stephen’s hand. “Do not be concerned about me, Stephen. I am a little tired, that is all. You are a person of remarkable vision and penetration. Henceforth you and I are no longer friends: we are brothers! You have helped me defeat my enemy and in return I shall find your name. I shall make you King!” His voice faded to nothing.

“Tell me what you have done!” whispered Stephen.

But the gentleman closed his eyes.

Stephen remained kneeling in the ballroom, grasping the gentleman’s hand. The tallow candles went out; the shadows closed about them.

56
The Black Tower

3rd/4th December 1816

Dr Greysteel was asleep and dreaming. In his dream someone was calling for him and something was required of him. He was anxious to oblige whoever it was and so he went to this place and that, searching for them; but he did not find them and still they called his name. Finally he opened his eyes.

“Who’s there?” he asked.

“It’s me, sir. Frank, sir.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Mr Strange is here. He wants to speak to you, sir.”

“Is something wrong?”

“He don’t say, sir. But, I think there must be.”

“Where is he, Frank?”

“He won’t come in, sir. He won’t be persuaded. He’s outside, sir.”

Dr Greysteel lowered his legs out of the bed and drew in his breath sharply. “It’s cold, Frank!” he said.

“Yes, sir.” Frank helped Dr Greysteel on with his dressing-gown and slippers. They padded through numerous dark rooms, across acres of dark marble floors. In the vestibule a lamp was burning. Frank pulled back the great iron double doors and then he picked up the lamp and went outside. Dr Greysteel followed him.

A flight of stone steps descended into darkness. Only the smell of the sea, the lap of water against stone and a certain occasional glitter and shifting-about of the darkness gave the observer to understand that at the bottom of the steps there was a canal. A few houses round about had lamps burning in windows or upon balconies. Beyond this all was silence and darkness.

“There is no one here!” cried Dr Greysteel. “Where is Mr Strange?”

For answer Frank pointed off to the right. A lamp bloomed suddenly under a bridge and by its light Dr Greysteel saw a gondola, waiting. The
gondoliero
poled his boat towards them. As it approached, Dr Greysteel could see there was a passenger. Despite all that Frank had said, it took a moment or two for Dr Greysteel to recognize him. “Strange!” he cried. “Good God! What has happened? I did not know you! My … my … my dear friend.” Dr Greysteel’s tongue stumbled, trying to find a suitable word. He had grown accustomed in the last few weeks to the idea that he and Strange would soon stand in a much closer relationship. “Come inside! Frank, quick! Fetch a glass of wine for Mr Strange!”

“No!” cried Strange in a hoarse, unfamiliar voice. He spoke urgently in Italian to the
gondoliero
. His Italian was considerably more fluent than Dr Greysteel’s and Dr Greysteel did not understand him, but the meaning soon became clear when the
gondoliero
began to move his boat away.

“I cannot come inside!” cried Strange. “Do not ask me!

“Very well, but tell me what has happened.”

“I am cursed!”

“Cursed? No! Do not say so.”

“But I do say so. I have been wrong from start to finish! I told this fellow to take me a little way off. It is not safe for me to be too close to your house. Dr Greysteel! You must send your daughter away!”

“Flora! Why?”

“There is someone nearby who means her harm!”

“Good God!”

Strange’s eyes grew wider. “There is someone who means to bind her to a life of ceaseless misery! Slavery and subjugation to a wild spirit! An ancient prison built as much of cold enchantments as of stone and earth. Wicked, wicked! And then again, perhaps not so wicked after all — for what does he do but follow his nature? How can he help himself?”

Neither Dr Greysteel nor Frank could make any thing of this.

“You are ill, sir,” said Dr Greysteel. “You have a fever. Come inside. Frank can make you a soothing drink to take away these evil thoughts. Come inside, Mr Strange.” He drew away slightly from the steps so that Strange might approach, but Strange took no notice.

“I thought …” began Strange, and then stopt immediately. He paused so long it seemed he had forgotten what he was going to say, but then he began again. “I thought,” he began again, “that Norrell had only lied to me. But I was wrong. Quite wrong. He has lied to everybody. He has lied to us all.” Then he spoke to the
gondoliero
and the gondola moved away into the darkness.

“Wait! Wait!” cried Dr Greysteel, but it was gone. He stared into the darkness, hoping that Strange would reappear, but he did not.

“Should I go after him, sir?” asked Frank.

“We do not know where he has gone.”

“I dare say he has gone home, sir. I can follow him on foot.”

“And say what to him, Frank? He would not listen to us just now. No, let us go inside. There is Flora to consider.”

But once inside Dr Greysteel stood helpless, quite at a loss to know what to do next. He suddenly looked as old as his years. Frank took him gently by the arm and led him down a dark stone staircase into the kitchen.

It was a very small kitchen to service so many large marble rooms upstairs. In daylight it was a dank, gloomy place. There was only one window. It was high up on the wall, just above the level of the water outside, and it was covered by a heavy iron grille. This meant that most of the room was below the level of the canal. Yet after their encounter with Strange, it seemed a warm and friendly place. Frank lit more candles and stirred the fire into life. Then he filled a kettle to make them both some tea.

Dr Greysteel, seated in a homely kitchen chair, stared into the fire, lost in thought. “When he spoke of someone meaning harm to Flora …” he said at last.

Frank nodded as if he knew what came next.

“… I could not help thinking he meant himself, Frank,” said Dr Greysteel. “He fears he will do something to hurt her and so he comes to warn me.”

“That’s it, sir!” agreed Frank. “He comes here to warn us. Which shews that he is a good man at heart.”

“He is a good man,” said Dr Greysteel, earnestly. “But something has happened. It is this magic, Frank. It must be. It is a very queer profession and I cannot help wishing he were something else — a soldier or a clergyman or a lawyer! What will we tell Flora, Frank? She will not want to go — you may be sure of that! She will not want to leave him. Especially when … when he is sick. What can I tell her? I ought to go with her. But then who will remain in Venice to take care of Mr Strange?”

“You and I will stay here and help the magician, sir. But send Miss Flora away with her aunt.”

“Yes, Frank! That’s it! That’s what we shall do!”

“Tho’ I must say, sir,” added Frank, “that Miss Flora scarcely needs people to take care of her. She is not like other young ladies.” Frank had lived long enough with the Greysteels to catch the family habit of regarding Miss Greysteel as someone of exceptional abilities and intelligence.

Feeling that they had done all that they could for the present, Dr Greysteel and Frank went back to bed.

But it is one thing to form plans in the middle of the night, it is quite another to carry them out in the broad light of day. As Dr Greysteel had predicted, Flora objected in the strongest terms to being sent away from Venice and from Jonathan Strange. She did not understand. Why must she go?

Because, said Dr Greysteel, he was ill.

All the more reason to stay then, she said. He would need someone to nurse him.

Dr Greysteel tried to imply that Strange’s illness was contagious, but he was, by principle and inclination, an honest man. He had had little practice at lying and he did it badly. Flora did not believe him.

Aunt Greysteel scarcely understood the change of plan any better than her niece. Dr Greysteel could not stand against their united opposition and so he was obliged to take his sister into his confidence and tell her what had happened during the night. Unfortunately he had no talent for conveying atmospheres. The peculiar chill of Strange’s words was entirely absent from his explanation. Aunt Greysteel understood only that Strange had been incoherent. She naturally concluded that he had been drunk. This, though very bad, was not unusual among gentlemen and seemed no reason for them all to remove to another city.

“After all, Lancelot,” she said, “I have known
you
very much the worse for wine. There was the time we dined with Mr Sixsmith and you insisted upon saying good night to all the chickens. You went out into the yard and pulled them one by one out of the henhouse and they all escaped and ran about and half of them were eaten by the fox. I never saw Antoinette so angry with you.” (Antoinette was the Doctor’s late wife.)

This was an old story and very demeaning. Dr Greysteel listened with mounting exasperation. “For God’s sake, Louisa! I am a physician! I know drunkenness when I see it!”

So Frank was brought in. He remembered much more precisely what Strange had said. The visions he conjured up of Flora shut away in prison for all eternity were quite enough to terrify her aunt. In a very short space of time Aunt Greysteel was as eager as any one else to send Flora away from Venice. However she insisted upon one thing — something which had never occurred to Dr Greysteel and Frank: she insisted that they tell Flora the truth.

It cost Flora Greysteel a great deal of pain to hear that Strange had lost his reason. She thought at first they must be mistaken, and even when they had persuaded her that it might be true, she was still certain there was no necessity for her to leave Venice; she was sure he would never hurt her. But she could now see that her father and aunt believed otherwise and that they would never be comfortable until she went. Most reluctantly she agreed to leave.

Shortly after the departure of the two ladies, Dr Greysteel was sitting in one of the
palazzo
’s chill marble rooms. He was comforting himself with a glass of brandy and trying to find the courage to go and look for Strange, when Frank entered the room and said something about a black tower.

“What?” said Dr Greysteel. He was in no mood to be puzzling out Frank’s eccentricities.

“Come to the window and I will shew you, sir.”

Dr Greysteel got up and went to the window.

Something was standing in the centre of Venice. It could best be described as a black tower of impossible vastness. The base of it seemed to cover several acres. It rose up out of the city into the sky and the top of it could not be seen. From a distance its colour was uniformly black and its texture smooth. But there were moments when it seemed almost translucent, as if it were made of black smoke. One caught glimpses of buildings behind — or possibly even
within
— it.

It was the most mysterious thing Dr Greysteel had ever seen. “Where can it have come from, Frank? And what has happened to the houses that were there before?”

Before these or any other questions could be answered, there was a loud, official-sounding knock upon the door. Frank went to answer it. He returned a moment later with a small crowd of people, none of whom Dr Greysteel had ever seen before. Two of them were priests, and there were three or four young men of military bearing who all wore brightly coloured uniforms decorated with an extravagant amount of gold lace and braid. The most handsome of the young men stepped forward. His uniform was the most splendid of all and he had long yellow moustaches. He explained that he was Colonel Wenzel von Ottenfeld, secretary to the Austrian Governor of the city. He introduced his companions; the officers were Austrian like himself, but the priests were Venetian. This in itself was enough to cause Dr Greysteel some surprize; the Venetians hated the Austrians and the two races were hardly ever seen in each other’s company.

“You are the Sir Doctor?” said Colonel von Ottenfeld. “The friend of the
Hexenmeister
¹
of the Great Vellinton?”

Dr Greysteel agreed that he was.

“Ah! Sir Doctor! We are beggars under your feet today!” Von Ottenfeld put on a melancholy expression which was much enhanced by his long, drooping moustaches.

Dr Greysteel said he was astonished to hear it.

“We come today. We ask your …” Von Ottenfeld frowned and snapped his fingers. “
Vermittlung
.
Wir bitten um Ihre Vermittlung. Wie kann man das sagen?
" There was some discussion how this word ought to be translated. One of the Italian priests suggested “intercession”.

“Yes, yes,” agreed von Ottenfeld, eagerly. “We ask your intercession from us to the
Hexenmeister
of the Great Vellinton. Sir Doctor, we esteem very much the
Hexenmeister
of the Great Vellinton. But now the
Hexenmeister
of the Great Vellinton has done something. What calamity! The people of Venice are afraid. Many must leave their houses and go away!”

“Ah!” said Dr Greysteel, knowingly. He thought for a moment and comprehension dawned. “Oh! You think Mr Strange has something to do with this Black Tower.”

“No!” declared von Ottenfeld. “It is not a Tower. It is the Night! What calamity!”

“I beg your pardon?” said Dr Greysteel and looked to Frank for help. Frank shrugged.

One of the priests, whose English was a little more robust, explained that when the sun had risen that morning, it had risen in every part of the city except one — the parish of Santa Maria Zobenigo, which was where Strange lived. There, Night continued to reign.

“Why does the
Hexenmeister
of the Great Vellinton this?” asked von Ottenfeld, “We do not know. We beg you go, Sir Doctor. Ask him, please, for the sun to come back to Santa Maria Zobenigo? Ask him, respectfully, to do no more magic in Venice?”

“Of course I will go,” said Dr Greysteel. “It is a most distressing situation. And, though I am quite sure that Mr Strange has not done this deliberately — that it will prove to be all a mistake — I will gladly help in any way I can.”

“Ah!” said the priest with the good English, anxiously, and put up his hand, as if he feared that Dr Greysteel would rush out to Santa Maria Zobenigo upon the instant. “But you will take your servant, please? You will not go alone?”

Snow was falling thickly. All of Venice’s sad colours had become shades of grey and black. St Mark’s Piazza was a faint grey etching of itself done on white paper. It was quite deserted. Dr Greysteel and Frank stumped through the snow together. Dr Greysteel carried a lantern and Frank held a black umbrella over the Doctor’s head.

Beyond the Piazza rose up the Black Pillar of Night; they passed beneath the arch of the Atrio and between the silent houses. The Darkness began halfway across a little bridge. It was the eeriest thing in the world to see how the flakes of snow, falling aslant, were sucked suddenly into it, as if it were a living thing that ate them up with greedy lips.