LOYALTY

As he looks around the room John Childermass takes in the piles of books and papers that cover every surface, the scribbled notes upon the wall, the plate of food, uneaten, upon the floor. It is a number of years since last he stood in this room and it is much changed. Then he was sent to inquire after the death of the man who stands before him. Now it is another who is gone.

Jonathan Strange pushes his hand through his reddish hair and sighs, making a gesture of helplessness against the rising tide of chaos. “I miss her,” he says at last, then pauses, looking round as though seeking something lost. “A woman's touch...” he murmurers, perhaps to himself. Then, raising his eyes to meet those of the other man, “I cannot believe that she is gone.”

Hearing these words Childermass feels a shiver of ice run down his spine, as though he has been touched by a ghost, but as a distant bell tolls the hour he only nods. There seems no reply to be made to the bereaved or the lost. No comfort in the bitter winter landscape of grief.

“So, Magician,” Strange says with a half hearted attempt at his previous ironic manner. “The shadow trick. Will you tell me how it is done?”

Childermass inclines his head. “There is a short word in Omskirk that tells of a cloak of darkness. There is little to the working of it. You must grasp an existing shadow with your mind and twist it about yourself.” He thinks for a moment, then gestures with his hands. “A little like putting on a coat.”

Strange smiles as though the explanation makes perfect sense and scribbles a note into the margin of an open book. “And you say that Norrell does not know?”

Childermass shakes his head, his black hair falling around his face, shadowing the dark eyes that reflect the firelight. “He does not. He taught me a little, long ago, that I might serve him better. He thinks I can go no further alone, that I can know nothing he does not teach me.” The corner of his mouth twitches into a wry smile. “For a clever man he can be...” he pauses, searching for a word.

“Foolish?” Strange suggests.

Childermass chuckled. “Wilfully ignorant, perhaps.”

“And yet you stay,” Strange raises ironic eyebrows as he probes Childermass with his gaze. “Why? My offer to you still stands.”

“As does my answer.”

Strange frowns, studying the other man's expression. “But why?” he asks again. Childermass does not reply and after a moment staring into the silent and impassive face he is suddenly struck by a realisation.

“Loyalty?” he asks, incredulous. “To Norrell?”

“Loyalty?” Childermass repeats the word as though it is new to him, as though he is tasting it for the first time. “Perhaps,” he says at last. “Perhaps it is that,” his furrowed brow shows that he is considering the matter. “I have made... promises...”

Suddenly Strange laughs. “Good God! I do believe you are a man of your word!” He slaps his thigh and laughs again.

Childermass appears discomforted by the merriment. “And is that so foolish?”

“No, indeed!” Strange hastens to assure him. “My dear Mr Childermass, it is admirable. It is simply not what I would have expected. Yet I must say that it raises Norrell somewhat in my estimation to know that he inspires such loyalty.”

Childermass curls his lip. “You mock me, Sir.”

“Forgive me,” Strange rubs his hand across tired eyes. “My... my wife... she always said I had a mocking tone. She said...” He turned away, staring through the window at the street beyond. “She was kindness itself.” For a time he stands there in silence, lost in reverie. When he turns back to the room his eyes shine a little in the firelight though his cheeks are dry. “You came for the... instructions?” He waved a hand at the mirror upon the wall, glancing at it wistfully, hatefully, as though it both attracted and repelled him. “I have them here for you...” He begins to rummage through a pile of papers upon a chair. Part of the heap slides sideways, scattering across the floor, but Strange rises in triumph, a document clasped in his hand.
“Here,” he says, pressing the few sheets of paper into the other man's grasp as though glad to be rid of the temptation they contained.. “Take them.”

Childermass reads quickly through the instructions written large in a bold hand, annotated here and there with marginalia, some apparently relevant, some not. “Thank you, Sir,” he says. “Perhaps I will see you there, one day?”

“Where?” Strange, distracted by the papers upon the floor has begun to read, upside down, the description of a 16th century madman who was said to have had converse with faeries.

Childermass gestures at the mirror and shrugs. “On the other side of the rain, perhaps?”

Strange looks up, frowning. “Perhaps,” he says. “One day.”

As Childermass turns to leave he can almost see, from the corner of his eye, the ghostly figure of Arabella Strange as she walks across the room toward her husband. He hears again the bell that tolls the hour and gently closes the door behind himself as he walks out into the rain.