Such were the hopes and schemes that animated the heart of Mr Norrell’s dearest friend but, unfortunately for Mr Drawlight, so cast down was Mr Norrell by Sir Walter’s rejection that he scarcely noticed the change in the style of entertainments and Drawlight succeeded in punishing no one but himself.
Now that Sir Walter was quite beyond Mr Norrell’s reach, Mr Norrell became more and more convinced that Sir Walter was exactly the patron he wished for. A cheerful, energetic man, with pleasant, easy manners, Sir Walter Pole was everything that Mr Norrell was not. Therefore, reasoned Mr Norrell, Sir Walter Pole would have achieved everything that he could not. The influential men of the Age would have listened to Sir Walter.
“If only he had listened to me,” sighed Mr Norrell one evening as he and Drawlight dined alone. “But I could not find the words to convince him. Of course I wish now that I had asked you or Mr Lascelles to come with me. Men of the world prefer to be talked to by other men of the world. I know that now. Perhaps I should have done some magic to shew him – turned the teacups into rabbits or the teaspoons into goldfish. At least then he would have believed me. But I do not think the old lady would have been pleased if I had done that. I do not know. What is your opinion?”
But Drawlight, who had begun to believe that if anyone had ever died of boredom then he was almost certain to expire within the next quarter of an hour, found that he had lost the will to speak and the best he could manage was a withering smile.
7
An opportunity unlikely to occur again
October 1807
“Well, sir! you have your revenge!” cried Mr Drawlight appearing quite suddenly in the library in Hanover-square.
“My revenge!” said Mr Norrell. “What do you mean?”
“Oh!” said Mr Drawlight. “Sir Walter’s bride, Miss Wintertowne, is dead. She died this very afternoon. They were to be married in two days’ time, but, poor thing, she is quite dead. A thousand pounds a year! – Imagine his despair! Had she only contrived to remain alive until the end of the week, what a difference it would have made! His need of the money is quite desperate – he is all to pieces. I should not be at all surprized if we were to hear tomorrow that he has cut his throat.”
Mr Drawlight leant for a moment upon the back of a good, comfortable chair by the fire and, looking down, discovered a friend. “Ah, Lascelles, I declare. There you are behind the newspaper I see. How do you do?”
Meanwhile Mr Norrell stared at Mr Drawlight. “The young woman is dead, you say?” he said in amazement. “The young woman that I saw in that room? I can scarcely believe it. This is very unexpected.”
“Oh! Upon the contrary,” said Drawlight, “nothing was more probable.”
“But the wedding!” said Mr Norrell. “All the necessary arrangements! They could not have known how ill she was.”
“But I assure you,” said Drawlight, “they did know. Everyone knew. Why! there was a fellow called Drummond, who saw her at Christmas at a private ball in Leamington Spa, and wagered Lord Carlisle fifty pounds that she would be dead within a month.”
Mr Lascelles tutted in annoyance and put down his newspaper. “No, no,” he said, “that was not Miss Wintertowne. You are thinking of Miss Hookham-Nix, whose brother has threatened to shoot her, should she bring disgrace upon the family – which everyone supposes she must do sooner or later. But it happened at Worthing – and it was not Lord Carlisle who took the bet but the Duke of Exmoor.”
Drawlight considered this a moment. “I believe you are right,” he said at last. “But it does not matter, for everyone did know that Miss Wintertowne was ill. Except of course the old lady. She thought her daughter perfection – and what can Perfection have to say to ill-health? Perfection is only to be admired; Perfection has only to make a great marriage. But the old lady has never allowed that Perfection might be ill – she could never bear to hear the subject mentioned. For all Miss Wintertowne’s coughs and swoonings upon the ground and lyings-down upon the sopha, I never heard that any physician ever came near her.”
“Sir Walter would have taken better care of her,” said Lascelles, shaking out his newspaper before he began once more to read it. “One may say what one likes about his politics, but he is a sensible man. It is a pity she could not have lasted till Thursday.”
“But, Mr Norrell,” said Drawlight turning to their friend, “you look quite pale and sick! You are shocked, I dare say, at the spectacle of a young and innocent life cut off. Your good feelings, as ever, do you credit, sir – and I am entirely of your opinion – the thought of the poor young lady crushed out of existence like a lovely flower beneath someone’s boot – well, sir, it cuts my heart like a knife – I can hardly bear to think of it. But then, you know, she was very ill and must have died at some time or other – and by your own account she was not very kind to you. I know it is not the fashion to say so, but I am the sternest advocate in the world for young people giving respectful attention to scholarly old persons such as yourself. Impudence, and sauciness, and everything of that sort I hate.”
But Mr Norrell did not appear to hear the comfort his friend was so kind as to give him and when at last he spoke his words seemed chiefly addressed to himself, for he sighed deeply and murmured, “I never thought to find magic so little regarded here.” He paused and then said in a quick, low voice, “It is a very dangerous thing to bring someone back from the dead. It has not been done in three hundred years. I could not attempt it!”
This was rather extraordinary and Mr Drawlight and Mr Lascelles looked round at their friend in some surprize.
“Indeed, sir,” said Mr Drawlight, “and no one proposes that you should.”
“Of course I know the form of it,” continued Mr Norrell as if Drawlight had not spoken, “but it is precisely the sort of magic that I have set my face against! – It relies so much upon … It relies so much … That is to say the outcome must be entirely unpredictable. – Quite out of the magician’s power to determine. No! I shall not attempt it. I shall not even think of it.”
There was a short silence. But despite the magician’s resolve to think no more about the dangerous magic, he still fidgeted in his chair and bit his finger-ends and breathed very quick and exhibited other such signs of nervous agitation.
“My dear Mr Norrell,” said Drawlight slowly, “I believe I begin to perceive your meaning. And I must confess that I think the idea an excellent one! You have in mind a great act of magic, a testimony to your extraordinary powers! Why, sir! Should you succeed all the Wintertownes and Poles in England will be on your doorstep soliciting the acquaintance of the wonderful Mr Norrell!”
“And if he should fail,” observed Mr Lascelles, drily, “every one else in England will be shutting his door against the notorious Mr Norrell.”
“My dear Lascelles,” cried Drawlight, “what nonsense you talk! Upon my word, there is nothing in the world so easy to explain as failure – it is, after all, what every body does all the time.”
Mr Lascelles said that that did not follow at all, and they were just beginning to argue about it when an anguished cry burst from the lips of their friend, Mr Norrell.
“Oh, God! What shall I do? What shall I do? I have laboured all these months to make my profession acceptable in the eyes of men and still they despise me! Mr Lascelles, you know the world, tell me …”
“Alas, sir,” interrupted Mr Lascelles quickly, “I make a great point of never giving advice to any one.” And he went back to his newspaper.
“My dear Mr Norrell!” said Drawlight (who did not wait to be asked for his opinion). “Such an opportunity is hardly likely to occur again …” (A potent argument this, and one which caused Mr Norrell to sigh very deeply.) “… and I must say I do not think that I could forgive myself if I allowed you to pass it by. With one stroke you return to us that sweet young woman – whose death no one can hear of without shedding a tear; you restore a fortune to a worthy gentleman; and you re-establish magic as a power in the realm for gen
erations to come! Once you have proved the virtue of your skills – their utility and so forth – who will be able to deny magicians their dues of veneration and praise? They will be quite as much respected as admirals, a great deal more than generals, and probably as much as archbishops and lord chancellors! I should not be at all surprized if His Majesty did not immediately set up a convenient arrangement of degrees with magicians-in-ordinary and magicians-canonical, non-stipendiary magicians and all that sort of thing. And you, Mr Norrell, at the top as Arch-Magician! And all this with one stroke, sir! With one stroke!”
Drawlight was pleased with this speech; Lascelles, rustling the paper in his irritation, clearly had a great many things to say in contradiction of Drawlight, but had put it out of his power to say any of them by his declaration that he never gave advice.
“There is scarcely any form of magic more dangerous!” said Mr Norrell in a sort of horrified whisper. “It is dangerous to the magician and dangerous to the subject.”
“Well, sir,” said Drawlight reasonably, “I suppose you are the best judge of the danger as it applies to yourself, but the subject, as you term her, is dead. What worse can befall her?”
Drawlight waited a moment for a reply to this interesting question, but Mr Norrell made none.
“I shall now ring for the carriage,” Drawlight declared and did so. “I shall go immediately to Brunswick-square. Have no fear, Mr Norrell, I have every expectation that all our proposals will meet with most ready acquiesence on all sides. I shall return within the hour!”
After Drawlight had hurried away, Mr Norrell sat for a quarter of an hour or so simply staring in front of him and though Lascelles did not believe in the magic that Mr Norrell said would be done (nor, therefore, in the danger that Mr Norrell said would be braved) he was glad that he could not see what Mr Norrell seemed to see.
Then Mr Norrell roused himself and took down five or six books in a great hurry and opened them up – presumably searching out those passages which were full of advice for magicians who wished to awaken dead young ladies. This occupied him until another three-quarters of an hour had passed, when a little bustle could be heard outside the library, and Mr Drawlight’s voice preceded him into the room.
“… the greatest favour in the world! So very much obliged to you …” Mr Drawlight danced through the library-door, his face one immense smile. “All is well, sir! Sir Walter did hold back a little at first, but all is well! He asked me to convey to you his gratitude for your kind attention, but he did not think that it could do any good. I said that if he were thinking of the thing getting out afterwards and being talked about, then he need not fear at all, for we had no wish to see him embarrassed – and that Mr Norrell’s one desire was to be of service to him and that Lascelles and I were discretion itself – but he said he did not mind about that, for people would always laugh at a Minister, only he had rather Miss Wintertowne were left sleeping now – which he thought more respectful of her present situation. My dear Sir Walter! cried I, how can you say so? You cannot mean that a rich and beautiful young lady would gladly quit this life on the very eve of her marriage – when you yourself were to be the happy man! Oh! Sir Walter! – I said – you may not believe in Mr Norrell’s magic, but what can it hurt to try? Which the old lady saw the sense of immediately and added her arguments to mine – and she told me of a magician she had known in her childhood, a most talented person and a devoted friend to all her family, who had prolonged her sister’s life several years beyond what any one had expected. I tell you, Mr Norrell, nothing can express the gratitude Mrs Wintertowne feels at your goodness and she begs me to say to you that you are to come immediately – and Sir Walter himself says that he can see no sense in putting it off – so I told Davey to wait at the door and on no account to go anywhere else. Oh! Mr Norrell, it is to be a night of reconciliations! All misunderstandings, all unfortunate constructions which may have been placed on one or two ill-chosen words – all, all are to be swept away! It is to be quite like a play by Shakespeare!”
Mr Norrell’s greatcoat was fetched and he got into the carriage; and from the expression of surprize upon his face when the carriage-doors opened and Mr Drawlight jumped in one side and Mr Lascelles jumped in the other I am tempted to suppose that he had not originally intended that those two gentlemen should accompany him to Brunswick-square.
Lascelles threw himself into the carriage, snorting with laughter and saying that he had never in his life heard of anything so ridiculous and comparing their snug drive through the London streets in Mr Norrell’s carriage to ancient French and Italian fables in which fools set sail in milk-pails to fetch the moon’s reflection from the bottom of a duckpond – all of which might well have offended Mr Norrell had Mr Norrell been in spirits to attend to him.
When they arrived at Brunswick-square they found, gathered upon the steps, a little crowd of people. Two men ran out to catch the horses’ heads and the light from the oil-lamp above the steps shewed the crowd to be a dozen or so of Mrs Wintertowne’s servants all on the look-out for the magician who was to bring back their young lady. Human nature being what it is, I dare say there may have been a few among them who were merely curious to see what such a man might look like. But many shewed in their pale faces signs that they had been grieving and these were, I think, prompted by some nobler sentiment to keep their silent vigil in the cold midnight street.
One of them took a candle and went before Mr Norrell and his friends to shew them the way, for the house was very dark and cold. They were upon the staircase when they heard Mrs Wintertowne’s voice calling out from above, “Robert! Robert! Is it Mr Norrell? Oh! Thank God, sir!” She appeared before them very suddenly in a doorway. “I thought you would never come!” And then, much to Mr Norrell’s consternation, she took both his hands in her own and, pressing them hard, entreated him to use his most potent spells to bring Miss Wintertowne back to life. Money was not to be thought of. He might name his price! Only say that he would return her darling child to her. He must promise her that he would!
Mr Norrell cleared his throat and was perhaps about to embark upon one of his long, uninteresting expositions of the philosophy of modern magic, when Mr Drawlight glided forward, took Mrs Wintertowne’s hands and rescued them both.
“Now I beg of you, my dear madam,” cried Drawlight, “to be more tranquil! Mr Norrell is come, as you see, and we must try what his power may do. He begs that you will not mention payment again. Whatever he does tonight will be done for friendship’s sake …” And here Mr Drawlight stood upon tiptoes and lifted his chin to look over Mrs Wintertowne’s shoulder to where Sir Walter Pole was standing within the room. Sir Walter had just risen from his chair and stood a little way off, regarding the newcomers. In the candlelight he was pale and hollow-eyed and there was about him a kind of gauntness which had not been there before. Mere common courtesy said that he ought to have come forward to speak to them, but he did not do so.
It was curious to observe how Mr Norrell hesitated in the doorway and exhibited great unwillingness to be conducted further into the house until he had spoken to Sir Walter. “But I must just speak to Sir Walter! Just a few words with Sir Walter! – I shall do my utmost for you, Sir Walter!” he called out from the door. “Since the young lady is, ahem!, not long gone from us, I may say that the situation is promising. Yes, I think I may go so far as to say that the situation is a promising one. I shall go now, Sir Walter, and do my work. I hope, in due course, I shall have the honour of bringing you good news!”
All the assurances that Mrs Wintertowne begged for – and did not get – from Mr Norrell, Mr Norrell was now anxious to bestow upon Sir Walter who clearly did not want them. From his sanctuary in the drawing-room Sir Walter nodded and then, when Mr Norrell still lingered, he called out hoarsely, “Thank you, sir. Thank you!” And his mouth stretched out in a curious way. It was, perhaps, meant for a smile.
“I wish with all my heart, Sir Walter,” called out Mr Norrell, “that I might
invite you to come up with me and to see what it is I do, but the curious nature of this particular magic demands solitude. I will, I hope, have the honour of shewing you some magic upon another occasion.”
Sir Walter bowed slightly and turned away.
Mrs Wintertowne was at that moment speaking to her servant, Robert, and Drawlight took advantage of this slight distraction to pull Mr Norrell to one side and whisper frantically in his ear: “No, no, sir! Do not send them away! My advice is to gather as many of them around the bed as can be persuaded to come. It is, I assure you, the best guarantee of our night’s exploits being generally broadcast in the morning. And do not be afraid of making a little bustle to impress the servants – your best incantations if you please! Oh! What a noodle-head I am! Had only I thought to bring some Chinese powders to throw in the fire! I don’t suppose that you have any about you?”
Mr Norrell made no reply to this but asked to be brought without delay to where Miss Wintertowne was.
But though the magician particularly asked to be taken there alone, his dear friends, Mr Drawlight and Mr Lascelles, were not so unkind as to leave him to face this great crisis of his career alone and consequently the three of them together were conducted by Robert to a chamber upon the second floor.
8
A gentleman with thistle-down hair
October 1807
There was no one there.
Which is to say there was someone there. Miss Wintertowne lay upon the bed, but it would have puzzled philosophy to say now whether she were someone or no one at all.
They had dressed her in a white gown and hung a silver chain about her neck; they had combed and dressed her beautiful hair and put pearl-and-garnet earrings in her ears. But it was extremely doubtful whether Miss Wintertowne cared about such things any more. They had lit candles and laid a good fire in the hearth, they had put roses about the room, which filled it with a sweet perfume, but Miss Wintertowne could have lain now with equal composure in the foulest-smelling garret in the city.