“Oh, Flora!” whispered Aunt Greysteel. “Only think! To pass years and years without society of any kind!”
To be all whispering together in such a small room – for the old lady was not three feet distant from any of them – appeared to Dr Greysteel to be very ridiculous and, from not knowing what else to do, he became rather irritable with his companions, so that his sister and daughter judged it best to go.
Aunt Greysteel insisted on taking a long and fond farewell of the old lady, telling her that they would all return when she was feeling better – which Aunt Greysteel hoped would be soon.
Just as they passed through the door, they looked back. At that moment a new cat appeared upon the sill of the window with a stiff, spiky something in its mouth – a thing remarkably like a dead bird. The old lady made a little joyous sound and sprang with surprizing energy out of her chair. It was the oddest sound in all the world and bore not the slightest resemblance to human speech. It made Signor Tosetti, in his turn, cry out in alarm and pull the door shut, and hide whatever it was that the old lady was about to do next.1
53
A little dead grey mouse
End of November 1816
The following evening in a room where Venetian gloom and Venetian magnificence mingled in a highly romantic and satisfactory manner, the Greysteels and Strange sat down to dinner together. The floor was of cracked, worn marble, all the colours of a Venetian winter. Aunt Greysteel’s head, in its neat white cap, was set off by the vast, dark door that loomed in the distance behind her. The door was surmounted by dim carvings and resembled nothing so much as some funerary monument wreathed in dreary shadows. On the plaster walls, were the ghosts of frescoes painted in the ghosts of colours, all glorifying some ancient Venetian family whose last heir had drowned long ago. The present owners were as poor as church mice and had not been able to repair their house for many years. It was raining outside and, what was more surprizing, inside too; from somewhere in the room came the disagreeable sound of large quantities of water dripping liberally upon floor and furniture. But the Greysteels were not to be made gloomy, nor put off a very good dinner, by such trifles as these. They had banished the funereal shadows with a good blaze of candlelight and were masking the sound of dripping water with laughter and conversation. They were generally bestowing a cheerful Englishness on that part of the room where they sat.
“But I do not understand,” said Strange, “Who takes care of the old woman?”
Dr Greysteel said, “The Jewish gentleman – who seems a very charitable old person – provides her with a place to live, and his servants put dishes of food for her at the foot of the stairs.”
“But as to how the food is conveyed to her,” exclaimed Miss Greysteel, “no one knows for certain. Signor Tosetti believes that her cats carry it up to her.”
“Such nonsense!” declared Dr Greysteel. “Whoever heard of cats doing anything useful!”
“Except for staring at one in a supercilious manner,” said Strange. “That has a sort of moral usefulness, I suppose, in making one feel uncomfortable and encouraging sober reflection upon one’s imperfections.”
The Greysteels’ odd adventure had supplied a subject of conversation since they had sat down to dinner. “Flora, my dear,” said Aunt Greysteel, “Mr Strange will begin to think we cannot talk of any thing else.”
“Oh! Do not trouble upon my account,” said Strange. “It is curious and we magicians collect curiosities, you know.”
“Could you cure her by magic, Mr Strange?” asked Miss Greysteel.
“Cure madness? No. Though it is not for want of trying. I was once asked to visit a mad old gentleman to see what I could do for him and I believe I cast stronger spells upon that occasion than upon any other, but at the end of my visit he was just as mad as ever.”
“But there might be recipes for curing madness, might there not?” asked Miss Greysteel eagerly. “I dare say the Aureate magicians might have had one.” Miss Greysteel had begun to interest herself in magical history and her conversation these days was full of words like Aureate and Argentine.
“Possibly,” said Strange, “but if so, then the prescription has been lost for hundreds of years.”
“And if it were a thousand years, then I am sure that it need be no impediment to you. You have related to us dozens of examples of spells which were thought to be lost and which you have been able to recover.”
“True, but generally I had some idea of how to begin. I never heard of a single instance of an Aureate magician curing madness. Their attitude towards madness seems to have been quite different from ours. They regarded madmen as seers and prophets and listened to their ramblings with the closest attention.”
“How strange! Why?”
“Mr Norrell believed it was something to do with the sympathy which fairies feel for madmen – that and the fact that madmen can perceive fairy-spirits when no one else can.” Strange paused. “You say this old woman is very mad?” he said.
“Oh, yes! I believe so.”
In the drawing-room after dinner Dr Greysteel fell soundly asleep in his chair. Aunt Greysteel nodded in hers, waking every now and then to apologize for her sleepiness and then promptly falling asleep again. So Miss Greysteel was able to enjoy a tête-a-tête with Strange for the rest of the evening. She had a great deal to say to him. On his recommendation she had recently been reading Lord Portishead’s A Child’s History of the Raven King and she wished to ask him about it. However, he seemed distracted and several times she had the disagreeable impression that he was not attending to her.
The following day the Greysteels visited the Arsenal and were full of admiration for its gloom and vastness, they idled away an hour or two in curiosity shops (where the shopkeepers seemed nearly as quaint and old-fashioned as the curiosities themselves), and they ate ices at a pastry-cook’s near the Church of San Stefano. To all the pleasures of the day Strange had been invited, but early in the morning Aunt Greysteel had received a short note presenting his compliments and thanks, but he had come quite by accident upon a new line of inquiry and dare not leave it, “… and scholars, madam, as you know by the example of your own brother, are the most selfish beings in creation and think that devotion to their researches excuses any thing …” Nor did he appear the next day when they visited the Scuola di Santa Maria della Caritá. Nor the following one when they went by gondola to Torcello, a lonely, reed-choked island shrouded in grey mists where the first Venetian city had been raised, been magnificent, been deserted and finally crumbled away, all long, long ago.
But, though Strange was shut away in his rooms near Santa Maria Zobenigo, doing magic, Dr Greysteel was spared the anguish of missing him greatly by the frequency with which his name was mentioned among them. If the Greysteels walked by the Rialto – and if the sight of that bridge drew Dr Greysteel on to talk of Shylock, Shakespeare and the condition of the modern theatre, then Dr Greysteel was sure to have the benefit of Strange’s opinions upon all these subjects – for Miss Greysteel knew them all and could argue for them quite as well as for her own. If, in a little curiosity shop, the Greysteels were struck by a painting of a quaint dancing bear, then it only served as an opportunity for Miss Greysteel to tell her father of an acquaintance of Mr Strange who had a stuffed brown bear in a glass case. If the Greysteels ate mutton, then Miss Greysteel was sure to be reminded of an occasion, of which Mr Strange had told her, when he had eaten mutton at Lyme Regis.
On the evening of the third day Dr Greysteel sent Strange a message proposing that the two of them should take a coffee and a glass of Italian spirit together. They met at Florian’s a little after six o’clock.
“I am glad to see you,” said Dr Greysteel, “but you look pale. Are you remembering to eat? To sleep? To take exercise?”
“I believe I ate something today,” said Strange, “although I really cannot recall what it was.”
They talked for a while of indifferent matters, but Strange was distracted. Several t
imes he answered Dr Greysteel almost at random. Then, swallowing the last of his grappa, he took out his pocket-watch and said, “I hope you will forgive my hurrying away. I have an engagement. And so, good night.”
Dr Greysteel was a little surprized at this and he could not help but wonder what sort of an engagement it might be. A man might behave badly any where in the world, but it seemed to Dr Greysteel that in Venice he might behave worse and do so more frequently. No other city in the world was so bent upon providing opportunities for every sort of mischief and Dr Greysteel happened to be particularly concerned at this period that Strange should have a character beyond reproach. So he inquired with as careless an air as he could manage whether the appointment was with Lord Byron?
“No, indeed. To own the truth,” Strange narrowed his eyes and grew confidential, “I believe I may have found someone to aid me.”
“Your fairy?”
“No. Another human being. I have high hopes of this collaboration. Yet at the same time I am not quite sure how the other person will greet my proposals. You will understand that under such circumstances I have no desire to keep them waiting.”
“No, indeed!” exclaimed Dr Greysteel. “Go! Go!”
Strange walked away and became one of the many black figures on the piazza, all with black faces and no expressions, hurrying across the face of moon-coloured Venice. The moon itself was set among great architectural clouds so that there appeared to be another moon-lit city in the sky, whose grandeur rivalled Venice and whose great palaces and streets were crumbling and falling into ruins, as if some spirit in a whimsical mood had set it there to mock the other’s slow decline.
Meanwhile, Aunt Greysteel and Miss Greysteel had taken advantage of the doctor’s absence to return to the terrible little room at the top of the house in the Ghetto. They had come in secret, having an idea that Dr Greysteel, and perhaps even Mr Strange, might try to prevent them going, or else insist upon accompanying them – and they had no wish for male companionship upon this occasion.
“They will want to be talking about it,” said Aunt Greysteel, “they will be trying to guess how she came to this sad condition. But what good will that do? How does that help her?”
Miss Greysteel had brought some candles and a candlestick. She lit the candle so that they could see what they were doing. Then, out of their baskets they took a nice savoury dish of veal fricassee that filled the stale, desperate room with a good smell, some fresh white rolls, some apples and a warm shawl. Aunt Greysteel placed the plate of veal fricassee before Mrs Delgado, but she found that Mrs Delgado’s fingers and fingernails were as curved and stiff as claws, and she could not coax them round the handles of the knife and fork.
“Well, my dear,” said Aunt Greysteel at last, “she shews great interest in it, and I am sure it will do her good. But I think we will leave her to eat it in whatever way she thinks best.”
They went down into the street. As soon as they were outside Aunt Greysteel exclaimed, “Oh, Flora! Did you see? She had her supper already prepared. There was a little china saucer – quite a pretty saucer – rather like my tea-service with rosebuds and forget-me-nots – and she had laid a mouse in it – a little dead grey mouse!”
Miss Greysteel looked thoughtful. “I dare say a head of chicory – boiled and dressed with a sauce, as they prepare it here – looks a little like a mouse.”
“Oh my dear!” said Aunt Greysteel. “You know it was nothing of the sort …”
They were walking through the Ghetto Vecchio towards Cannaregio canal when Miss Greysteel turned suddenly away into the shadows and disappeared from sight.
“Flora! What is the matter?” cried Aunt Greysteel. “What do you see? Do not linger, my love. It is so very dark here among the houses. Dearest! Flora!”
Miss Greysteel moved back into the light as quickly as she had gone away. “It is nothing, aunt,” she said. “Do not be startled. It is only that I thought I heard someone say my name and I went to see. I thought it was someone I knew. But there is no one there.”
At the Fondamenta their gondola was waiting for them. The oarsman handed them in and then, with slow strokes, moved away. Aunt Greysteel made herself snug under the covering in the centre of the boat. Rain began to patter upon the canvas. “Perhaps when we get home we shall find Mr Strange with papa,” she said.
“Perhaps,” said Miss Greysteel.
“Or maybe he has gone to play billiards with Lord Byron again,” said Aunt Greysteel. “It is odd that they should be friends. They seem such very different gentlemen.”
“Oh, indeed! Though Mr Strange told me that he found Lord Byron a great deal less agreeable when he met him in Swisserland. His lordship was with some other poetical people who claimed all his attention and whose company he clearly preferred to that of any one else. Mr Strange says that he was barely civil.”
“Well, that is very bad. But not at all surprizing. Should not you be afraid to look at him, my love? Lord Byron, I mean. I think that perhaps I might – a little.”
“No, I should not be afraid.”
“Well, my love, that is because you are more clear-headed and steady than other people. Indeed I do not know what there is in the world that you would be afraid of.”
“Oh! I do not think it is because of any extraordinary courage on my part. As to extraordinary virtue – I cannot tell. I was never yet much tempted to do any thing very bad. It is only that Lord Byron could never have any power over me or sway the least of my thoughts or actions. I am quite safe from him. But that is not to say that there might not be someone in the world – I do not say that I have seen him yet – whom I would be a little afraid to look at sometimes – for fear that he might be looking sad – or lost – or thoughtful, or – what, you know, might seem worst of all – brooding on some private anger or hurt and so not knowing or caring if I looked at him at all.”
In the little attic at the top of the house in the Ghetto, Miss Greysteel’s candles guttered and went out. The moon shone down into the nightmare apartment and the old lady of Cannaregio began to devour the veal fricassee which the Greysteel ladies had brought her.
She was about to swallow the last bite when an English voice suddenly said, “Unfortunately, my friends did not stay to perform the introductions and it is always an awkward business, is it not, madam, when two people are left together in a room to get acquainted? My name is Strange. Yours, madam, though you do not know it, is Delgado, and I am delighted to meet you.”
Strange was leaning against the windowsill with his arms crossed, looking intently at her.
She, on the other hand, took as little notice of him as she had of Aunt Greysteel or Miss Greysteel or any of her visitors of the last few days. She took as little notice of him as a cat takes of any body who does not interest it.
“Let me first assure you,” said Strange, “that I am not one of those tiresome visitors who have no real purpose for their visit and nothing to say for themselves. I have a proposal to make to you, Mrs Delgado. It is our excellent fortune, madam, that you and I should meet at this time. I am able to give you your heart’s desire and in return you shall give me mine.”
Mrs Delgado made no sign that she had heard any of this. She had turned her attention to the saucer with the dead mouse and her ancient mouth gaped to devour it.
“Really, madam!” cried Strange. “I must insist that you put off your dinner for a moment and attend to what I am saying.” He leant forward and removed the saucer. For the first time Mrs Delgado seemed to know he was there. She made a little mew of displeasure and looked resentfully at him.
“I want you to teach me how to be mad. The idea is so simple, I wonder I did not think of it before.”
Mrs Delgado growled very low.
“Oh! You question the wisdom of my proceedings? You are probably right. To wish madness upon oneself is very rash. My tutor, my wife and my friends would all be angry if they knew any thing of it.” He paused. The sardonic expression disappeared from his fa
ce and the light tone disappeared from his voice. “But I have cast off my tutor, my wife is dead and I am separated from my friends by twenty miles of chill water and the best part of a continent. For the first time since I took up this odd profession, I am not obliged to consult any one else. Now, how to begin? You must give me something – something to serve as a symbol and vessel of your madness.” He glanced around the room. “Unfortunately, you do not appear to possess any thing, except your gown …” He looked down at the saucer which he held in his hand. “… and this mouse. I believe I prefer the mouse.”
Strange began to say a spell. There was a burst of silver lights in the room. It was something between white flames and the glittering effect which fireworks produce. For a moment it hung in the air between Mrs Delgado and Strange. Then Strange made a gesture as if he intended to throw it at her; the light flew towards her and, just for a moment, she was bathed in a silver radiance. Suddenly Mrs Delgado was nowhere to be seen and in her place was a solemn, sulky girl in an old-fashioned gown. Then the girl too disappeared to be replaced by a beautiful young woman with a wilful expression. She was followed swiftly by an older woman of imperious bearing but with a glint of impending madness in her eyes. All the women Mrs Delgado had ever been flickered for an instant in the chair. Then all of them disappeared.
On the chair was only a heap of crumpled silk. Out of it stepped a little grey cat. The cat jumped daintily down, sprang up on the windowsill and vanished into the darkness.
“Well, that worked,” said Strange. He picked up the half-rotten dead mouse by its tail. Instantly he became interesting to several of the cats who mewed and purred and rubbed themselves against his legs to attract his attention.
He grimaced. “And what was John Uskglass forced to endure, I wonder, in order to forge English magic?”
He wondered if he would notice any difference. Would he find, after he had done the spell, that he was trying to guess if he were mad now? Would he stand about, trying to think mad thoughts to discover if any of them seemed more natural? He took a last look around at the world, opened his mouth and gingerly lowered the mouse into it …