49.

Wildness and madness March 1816 A FEW DAYS AFTER the visit to the engravers Strange invited Sir Walter and Lord Portishead to dinner. Both gentlemen had dined with Strange upon many occasions, but this was the first time they had entered the house in Soho-square since the death of Mrs Strange. They found it sadly changed. Strange seemed to have reverted to all his old bachelor habits. Tables and chairs were fast disappearing under piles of papers. Half-finished chapters of his book were to be found in every part of the house and in the drawing-room he had even taken to making notes upon the wallpaper. FEW DAYS AFTER the visit to the engravers Strange invited Sir Walter and Lord Portishead to dinner. Both gentlemen had dined with Strange upon many occasions, but this was the first time they had entered the house in Soho-square since the death of Mrs Strange. They found it sadly changed. Strange seemed to have reverted to all his old bachelor habits. Tables and chairs were fast disappearing under piles of papers. Half-finished chapters of his book were to be found in every part of the house and in the drawing-room he had even taken to making notes upon the wallpaper.

Sir Walter started to remove a pile of books from a chair.

"No, no!" cried Strange, "Do not move those! They are in a very particular order."

"But where shall I sit?" asked Sir Walter in some perplexity. Strange made a small sound of exasperation as if this were a most unreasonable request. Nevertheless he moved the books and only once became distracted in the process and fell to reading one of them. As soon as he had read through the pa.s.sage twice and made a note of it upon the wallpaper he was able to attend to his guests again.

"I am very pleased to see you here again, my lord," he said to Portishead. "I have been asking everyone about Norrell as much, I believe, as he has been asking about me. I hope you have a great deal to tell me."

"I thought I had already told you all about that," said Sir Walter, plaintively.

"Yes, yes. You told me where Norrell has been and whom he has been speaking to and how he is regarded by all the Ministers, but I am asking his lordship about magic magic and what you understand about magic would barely . . ." and what you understand about magic would barely . . ."

". . . fill a square inch of wallpaper?" offered Sir Walter.

"Quite. Come, my lord. Tell me. What has Mr Norrell been doing lately?"

"Well," said Lord Portishead, "at the request of Lord Liverpool he has been working on some magic to help guard against Napoleon Buonaparte ever escaping again and he has been studying the Discourses upon the Kingdom of Light and the Kingdom of Darkness Discourses upon the Kingdom of Light and the Kingdom of Darkness. He believes he has made some discoveries."

"What is this?" cried Strange in alarm. "Something new in the Discourses Discourses?"1 "It is something he has found on page 72 of Cromford's edition. A new application of the Spell to Conjure Death. I do not understand it very well.2 Mr Norrell seems to think that the principle might be adapted to cure diseases in men and animals by conjuring the disease to come forth out of the body as if it were a demon." Mr Norrell seems to think that the principle might be adapted to cure diseases in men and animals by conjuring the disease to come forth out of the body as if it were a demon."

"Oh, that that!" exclaimed Strange in relief. "Yes, yes! I know what you mean now. I made the connexion last June. So Norrell has only just arrived there, has he? Oh, excellent!"

"Many people were surprized that he did not take another pupil after you," continued Lord Portishead, "and I know that he has received a number of applications. But he has taken none of them. Indeed I do not believe he even spoke to the young men in question or answered their letters. His standards are so very exacting and no one comes up to you, sir."

Strange smiled. "Well, all that is just as I would have expected. He can scarcely bear the existence of a second magician. A third will probably be the death of him. I shall soon have the advantage of him. In the struggle to decide the character of English magic the sides will be very unevenly matched. There will only be one Norrellite magician and dozens of Strangite magicians. Or at least, as many as I can educate. I am thinking of setting up Jeremy Johns as a sort of anti-Childerma.s.s. He can go about the country seeking out all the people whom Norrell and Childerma.s.s have persuaded out of the study of magic and then he and I can persuade them back into it. I have had conversations with several young men already. Two or three are very promising. Lord Chaldecott's second son, Henry Purfois, has read a great many fourth-rate books about magic and fifth-rate biographies of magicians. It makes his conversation a little tedious, but he is scarcely to blame for that, poor fellow. Then there is William Hadley-Bright who was one of Wellington's aides-de-camp aides-de-camp at Waterloo, and an odd little man called Tom Levy who is presently employed as a dancing-master in Norwich." at Waterloo, and an odd little man called Tom Levy who is presently employed as a dancing-master in Norwich."

"A dancing-master?" frowned Sir Walter. "But is that really the sort of person whom we should be encouraging to take up magic? Surely it is a profession that ought to be reserved for gentlemen?"

"I do not see why. And besides I like Levy best. He is the first person I have met in years who regards magic as something to be enjoyed and he is also the only one of the three who has managed to learn any practical magic. He made the window frame over there sprout branches and leaves. I dare say you were wondering why it is in that odd condition."

"To own the truth," said Sir Walter, "the room is so full of oddities that I had not even noticed."

"Of course Levy did not intend that it should remain like that," said Strange, "but after he did the magic he could not make it go back and neither could I. I suppose I must tell Jeremy to find a carpenter to repair it."

"I am delighted you have found so many young men to suit you," said Sir Walter. "That bodes well for English magic."

"I have also had several applications from young ladies," said Strange.

"Ladies!" exclaimed Lord Portishead.

"Of course! There is no reason why women should not study magic. That is another of Norrell's fallacies."

"Hmm. They come thick and fast now," remarked Sir Walter. "What do?"

"Norrell's fallacies."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Nothing! Nothing! Do not take offence. But I notice you do not mention taking any ladies as pupils yourself."

Strange sighed. "It is purely a matter of practicalities. That is all. A magician and his pupil must spend a great deal of time together, reading and discussing. Had Arabella not died, then I believe I might have taken female pupils. But now I would be obliged to rely upon chaperones and all sorts of tediousness that I do not have patience for at the moment. My own researches must come first."

"And what new magic are you intending to shew us, Mr Strange?" asked Lord Portishead, eagerly.

"Ah! I am glad you ask me that! I have been giving the matter a great deal of consideration. If the revival of English magic is to continue or rather if it is not to remain under the sole direction of Gilbert Norrell then I must learn something new. But new magic is not easily come by. I could go upon the King's Roads and try and reach those countries where magic is the general rule, rather than the exception."

"Good G.o.d!" exclaimed Sir Walter. "Not this again! Are you quite mad? I thought we had agreed that the King's Roads were far too dangerous to justify . . ."

"Yes, yes! I am well acquainted with your opinions. You lectured me long enough upon the subject. But you do not let me finish! I merely name possibilities. I shall not go upon the King's Roads. I gave my word to my . . . to Arabella that I would not."3 There was a pause. Strange sighed and his expression darkened. He was clearly now thinking of something or someone else.

Sir Walter observed quietly, "I always had the highest regard for Mrs Strange's judgement. You cannot do better than follow her advice. Strange, I sympathize of course you wish to do new magic any scholar would but surely the only safe way to learn magic is from books?"

"But I do not have any books!" exclaimed Strange. "Good G.o.d! I promise to be as meek and stay-at-home as any maiden aunt if the Government will just pa.s.s a law saying Norrell must shew me his library! But as the Government will not do me this kindness, I have no choice but to increase my knowledge in any way I can."

"So what will you do?" asked Lord Portishead.

"Summon a fairy," said Strange, briskly. "I have made several attempts already."

"Did not Mr Norrell lay it down as a general rule that summoning fairies is full of hazards?" asked Sir Walter.

"There is not much that Mr Norrell does not regard as full of hazards," said Strange in tones of some irritation.

"True." Sir Walter was satisfied. After all, summoning fairies was a long-established part of English magic. All the Aureates Aureates had done it and all the had done it and all the Argentines Argentines had wished to. had wished to.

"But are you sure that it is even possible, sir?" asked Lord Portishead. "Most authorities agree that fairies hardly ever visit England any more."

"That is indeed the general opinion, yes," agreed Strange, "but I am almost certain that I was in company with one in November 1814, a month or two before Norrell and I parted."

"Were you indeed!" exclaimed Lord Portishead.

"You never mentioned this before," said Sir Walter.

"I was quite unable to mention it before," said Strange. "My position as Norrell's pupil depended upon my never breathing a word of it. Norrell would have fallen over in a blue fit at the least suggestion of such a thing."

"What did he look like, Mr Strange?" asked Lord Portishead.

"The fairy? I do not know. I did not see him. I heard him. He played music. There was someone else present who, I believe, both heard and saw him. Now, consider the advantages of dealing with such a person! No magician, living or dead, could teach me as much. Fairies are the source of everything we magicians desire. Magic is their native condition! As for the disadvantages, well, there is only the usual one that I have almost no idea how to accomplish it. I have cast spells by the dozen, done everything I ever heard or read of, to try and get this fairy back again, but it has all been to no avail. I cannot for the life of me tell why Norrell expends so much energy in proscribing what no one can achieve. My lord, I don't suppose you know any spells for raising fairies?"

"Many," said Lord Portishead, "but I am sure you will have tried them all already, Mr Strange. We look to you, sir, to reconstruct for us all that has been lost."

"Oh!" sighed Strange. "Sometimes I think that nothing has been lost. The truth is that it is all at the library at Hurtfew."

"You said there was another person present who both saw and heard the fairy?" said Sir Walter.

"Yes."

"And I take it that this other person was not Norrell?"

"No."

"Very well then. What did this other person say?"

"He was . . . confused. He believed he was seeing an angel, but owing to his general style of living and habits of mind he did not find this quite as extraordinary as you might think. I beg your pardon but discretion forbids me to say any thing more of the circ.u.mstances."

"Yes, yes! Very well! But your companion saw the fairy. Why?"

"Oh, I know why. There was something very particular about him which enabled him to see fairies."

"Well, can you not use that somehow?"

Strange considered this. "I do not see how. It is a mere chance like one man having blue eyes and another brown." He was silent a moment, musing. "But then again perhaps not. Perhaps you are right. It is not such a very outlandish notion when you come to consider it. Think of the Aureates Aureates! Some of them were the fairies' near-neighbours in wildness and madness! Think of Ralph Stokesey and his fairy-servant, Col Tom Blue! When Stokesey was a young man there was scarcely any thing to chuse between them. Perhaps I am too tame, too domestic domestic a magician. But how a magician. But how does does one work up a little madness? I meet with mad people every day in the street, but I never thought before to wonder how they got mad. Perhaps I should go wandering on lonely moors and barren sh.o.r.es. That is always a popular place for lunatics in novels and plays at any rate. Perhaps wild England will make me mad." one work up a little madness? I meet with mad people every day in the street, but I never thought before to wonder how they got mad. Perhaps I should go wandering on lonely moors and barren sh.o.r.es. That is always a popular place for lunatics in novels and plays at any rate. Perhaps wild England will make me mad."

Strange got up and went to the drawing-room window, as if he expected to be able to survey wild England from there although all it shewed was the very ordinary sight of Soho-square in a thick and mizzling rain. "I think you may have hit upon something, Pole."

"I?" cried Sir Walter, somewhat alarmed at where his remarks appeared to be leading, "I meant to suggest no such thing!"

"But, Mr Strange," reasoned the gentle Lord Portishead, "you cannot possibly mean this. For a man of such erudition as you possess to propose that he become a . . . a vagabond. Well, sir, it is a very shocking thought."

Strange crossed his arms and took another look at Soho-square and said, "Well, I shall not go today." And then he smiled his self-mocking smile and looked almost like his old self. "I shall wait," he said, "until it stops raining."4 1 Scholars of magic are always particularly excited about any new discovery concerning the great Dr Pale. He occupies an unique position in English magical history. Until the advent of Strange and Norrell he was the only noteworthy practical magician who wrote down his magic for other people to read. Naturally his books are esteemed above all others.

2 For centuries this pa.s.sage was considered an interesting curiosity, but of no practical value since no one nowadays believes that Death is a person capable of being interrogated in the manner Pale suggests.

3 Most of us are naturally inclined to struggle against the restrictions our friends and family impose upon us, but if we are so unfortunate as to lose a loved one, what a difference then! Then the restriction becomes a sacred trust.

4 Even John Uskgla.s.s who had three kingdoms to rule over and all of English magic to direct was not entirely free from this tendency to go on long mysterious journeys. In 1241 he left his house in Newcastle in some mysterious fashion known only to magicians. He told a servant that he would be found asleep upon a bench in front of the fire in one day's time.

The following day the servant and members of the King's household looked for the King upon the bench in front of the fire, but he was not there. They looked for him every morning and every evening but he did not appear.

William, Earl of Lanchester, governed in his stead and many decisions were postponed "until the King shall return". But as time went on many people were inclined to doubt that this would ever happen. Then, a year and a day after his departure, the King was discovered, sleeping on the bench before the fire.

He did not seem aware that any thing untoward had happened and he told no one where he had been. No one dared ask him if he had always intended to be away so long or if something terrible had happened. William of Lanchester summoned the servant and asked him to repeat yet again the exact words that the King had said. Could it be that he had actually said he would be away for a year and a day?

Perhaps said the man. The King was generally quietly spoken. It was quite possible that he had not heard correctly.

50.

The History and Practice of English Magic April to late September 1816 STRANGE'S FRIENDS WERE glad to be a.s.sured 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 Uskgla.s.s 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 dan- cing-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 a.s.sistance 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." 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 hara.s.sed 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 The History and Practice of English Magic 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. 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 s.p.a.ce 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 appear- ance 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.