My first venture into Strange & Norrell fic
This is for fengirl88, and is the first piece that I have written in the Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell fandom; I had the initial thought at least a year ago, but was put off because I would very much like to have made it compatible with the book as well as the television dramatisation. But that is impossible, because they contradict each other on the central point - whether Arabella Strange retains her memory while enchanted. I formed ingenious ideas for reasons why she might have it at some times and not at others, but they foundered on the key scene. In the book, when Jonathan Strange stumbles into Lost-hope, his wife turns to Lady Pole and says "Look, my love! It is Jonathan! ...I think that he must have come to help us!" But in the television version, she has no idea who he is, though Lady Pole and Stephen do.
So in the end I had to accept that I could not superimpose these two realities in the way that Childermass can eventually see two versions of Lady Pole, and that I could write this story only in the television universe, although I sometimes prefer the paths chosen by Susanna Clark.
Another thing that puzzled me was which names to use; my feeling was that the two women called each other "Lady Pole" and "Mrs Strange" in London, and that Emma (retaining her memory) would still incline to "Mrs Strange". But as I was in the TVverse, where they cry out "Emma!" and "Bell!" in the brief encounter before Arabella loses her memory, it seemed Lady Pole would use her friend's Christian name (as of course she would put it), though I generally found it more natural to use the long form rather than the nickname. And presumably she thinks of herself as Emma...
THE ROSE AT HER MOUTH
"He considered you might be very distressed by the death of Mrs Strange."
"I am very distressed by what has happened. No one is more distressed than I. I considered at least it would have given me someone to talk to. But she is so very, very far away."
For a moment, Emma had felt a guilty pleasure - she was to be reunited with the one friend she had known in these eight wretched years. And for a moment, Bell had known her - had tried to run to her, to give comfort or seek it. But then the fairy creature who had stolen them from their lives stole one more thing - Bell's memory.
Emma did not know why - was it to spite her, by depriving her of the reunion which would have brought her some relief? Or was it some thing he would have done to her, had he been master of her whole existence, and not just the half that Mr Norrell had bargained away? Stephen, too - she had never understood the nature of the fairy's hold over him, but it had always been plain enough that he remembered both worlds, whichever one they met in. When they first came to Lost-hope, from time to time they had tried to speak to one another, though if they danced together the fairy quickly moved in to part them. Over the years, however, Stephen began to keep away from her of his own accord, and rarely allowed himself to meet her eyes. He must be ashamed to serve this vile creature - but she supposed servitude came naturally to him, who was born a slave. The fairy played with him like a favourite toy, though he swore he would make him a king. She could tell Stephen thought this mere foolishness, and yet some part of her mind believed that the creature was right; one day, Stephen would be a king, and govern his kingdom as well as he managed her husband's house in Harley-street. But all she could see in him now was the instrument who had delivered Arabella Strange into captivity.
At least Arabella did not share the misery of knowing what had been done to her. And yet, as the months passed, Emma's envy gave way to pity. In London, she had been accustomed to think of her friend as the best of women - warm, impulsive, interested in every thing she saw, and eager to share her thoughts. To see her reduced to a pretty doll, who danced and smiled and seemed to give no thought to any thing else, was unbearable. If that was all the fairy king wanted, he might as well have taken the moss-oak that he had made into Bell's likeness, and left the real woman with Mr Strange. But, of course, half his satisfaction in stealing the wife lay in depriving the husband.
Emma had often complained that she had far better be dead than be as she was. But now she added "Far better be dead than be as she is." And, to her surprise, she began to wonder "Would I rather be as I am than as she is? At least my mind and soul are my own, whatever power this monster has over my body. Perhaps it is better to know my own misery than be fooled into thinking it pleasure."
With this in mind, she began to debate with herself whether it was her duty to try to bring Arabella Strange back to self-knowledge. Some days, she thought this would be selfish, as well as unkind: she feared that she wanted only to secure a companion in her unhappiness, such as Stephen Black could not be. Surely it would be cruel to take away Bell's childish pleasures and force her to face her painful position? As the victim of an uninterrupted enchantment, she would not even have the solace of spending half her days with her husband. Emma did not share her friend's belief in Mr Strange, but there was no doubting that Arabella loved him; her distress during his long absence in the Peninsula proved it. This separation would be even harder for her.
And yet, as Emma watched her face, and that smile that expressed no true feeling, she felt sure that the real Bell would not want this imitation of happiness - she would want to understand her predicament so that she might fight against it. Emma hardly dared to hope that, as sisters in arms, they might fight more effectively than she had been able to do alone - that together they might find a way to escape the enchantments that held them fast.
Emma waited for an evening when their captor was not there, and approached Arabella as she was completing her curtsey at the end of a cotillion.
"Will you sit out the next dance with me?" she asked. "I would enjoy a rest."
Bell smiled and acquiesced, all too easily. "Oh, indeed! It will be delightful to watch the dance for once. I love to dance, but it is charming to admire the skill and grace of our companions, is it not? I am sure you must love dancing as much as I do."
"No!" cried Emma, before remembering that she should not draw attention by showing any sign of agitation, in case there were spies watching them. She forced herself to laugh gaily. "Dancing is a fine thing for the body. But the mind needs to be entertained as well."
"I suppose so," said Arabella. They sat down side by side on a bench by the wall.
"You have not been here very long," said Emma.
"Oh, but I have! It is so long that I cannot recall when I came."
"I remember it very well. Let me remind you. You were conducted here in a carriage, and Stephen Black led you into this hall."
"Stephen who is the king's favourite?"
"The very man. Do you remember it now?"
Arabella sighed. "No doubt you are right. It was all a very long time ago."
"Not as long as you think - it is a few months, no more. Can you remember where you lived before?"
"It was..." Her brow wrinkled. "A long, long way from here. But it does not matter now."
"It does matter!" insisted Emma. "It is of very great importance. Do you remember..." She wanted to say "Jonathan Strange", but suddenly the scent of roses filled her nostrils, and she seemed to feel some thing prick her tongue. She pressed on regardless.
"On the 15th December 1809 the Emperor Napoleon Buonaparte summoned his court to the Tuileries and told them there was no sacrifice beyond his courage if it was for the good of France, and therefore he must dissolve his marriage in order to provide the empire with an heir, despite the fact that he had nothing but praise for his beloved wife. The Empress, in turn, said that she was offering the greatest proof of devotion that any wife had ever given in agreeing to this dissolution. They bade each other well farewell in her rooms, embracing until she fainted; he hurried away and she, on regaining consciousness, was taken with all her servants and possessions to the chateau of Malmaison."
She frowned. "That is not what I wished to say." It was just the same as in England, when she could speak of nothing but fairies, but in this fairy kingdom her tongue ran towards the world they had left behind.
"It is a very sad tale," said Arabella.
"Yes! So sad! Imagine the poor lady's grief when she was forced to leave her husband!"
Her friend nodded, but her eyes were straying to the dancers, who were chusing their partners for a reel. She rose to her feet. "It has been such a pleasure talking to you - now I think I must dance again."
"Wait!" exclaimed Emma. "I have so much more to tell you." She grabbed her hand, and Arabella sat down once more, looking doubtful.
Emma tried to focus her thoughts, although the thorns felt very real now, and she was all but suffocated by the perfume of roses. She must explain that, however charming all this seemed to Bell, they were prisoners.
"A Lieutenant Strenowitz of the German Hussars once surprised and captured a score of French soldiers, including the officer, and their horses. Lord Wellington commended him for the deed but, as such attacks did not promote the principal object of the campaign and were contrary to the courtesies of war, forbade such exploits for the future. The French refused to send along the officer's baggage, to punish him for his carelessness in allowing himself to be captured; the British, for their part, finding they had more horses than they could deal with, held horse fairs to sell them off, and ran races."
Arabella laughed a little. Perhaps it was amusement that made her seem more attentive now, but Emma thought - or did she merely hope - that she saw a flicker of recognition in Bell's eyes. Did she recall the name of Lord Wellington? Emma knew that her friend had once danced with him at a ball celebrating Buonaparte's abdication.
"That is a happier story," said Bell. "Though I do not quite understand..." She stared into Emma's face, as if seeing her properly for the first time. Her smile had faded into puzzlement, an expression familiar from their days in London, when Emma had tried and failed so often to communicate her predicament. Was it that which had awoken some fragment of Arabella's memory - a sense that they had held such ridiculous conversations before?
"Why, not dancing?" purred a voice just above her. Emma raised her head to see the detestable fairy creature looking down at them, while Stephen stood apprehensive behind him. "I have come home to my halls, and I desire - I expect - to see my brightest jewels glittering in the ball. Come, my lady!"
He pulled Arabella to her feet, and steered her back into the circling crowd of dancers. Emma rose slowly, glaring at Stephen, who gave a helpless shrug and walked away. Another gentleman proffered his arm.
She tasted blood in her mouth as he led her into the dance, but at least it dispelled the dreadful perfume. The room and its people swirled around her, though she could clearly see the fairy king smile with childish malice as he glanced across to satisfy himself that she was once more conforming to his wishes.
"But I will not submit to this enchantment," she thought. "I am Emma Pole - I know myself, and I know all here. I will chew through roses until some one listens to me. Because it is better to be as I am than to lose hope of ever being any thing more."
She had not danced with such passion for years.
Notes: I don't think it's suggested in book or television that Lady Pole feels the rose at her mouth (except in the final TV episode, during the confrontation with the gentleman at Starecross Hall). But the idea of it, like the Little Mermaid who feels as if she is walking on knives, seemed such a natural fairytale trope that I couldn't resist it.
I drew Lady Pole's attempts to explain the situation from Napoleon.org, Ida Tarbell's A Life of Napoleon Bonaparte: with a sketch of Josephine, Empress of the French and On The Road With Wellington: The Diary of a War Commissary in the Peninsular Campaigns by August Ludolf Friedrich Schaumann and Rough Sketches of the Life of an Old Soldier by Jonathan Leach.
Also posted on Dreamwidth, with
comments.
So in the end I had to accept that I could not superimpose these two realities in the way that Childermass can eventually see two versions of Lady Pole, and that I could write this story only in the television universe, although I sometimes prefer the paths chosen by Susanna Clark.
Another thing that puzzled me was which names to use; my feeling was that the two women called each other "Lady Pole" and "Mrs Strange" in London, and that Emma (retaining her memory) would still incline to "Mrs Strange". But as I was in the TVverse, where they cry out "Emma!" and "Bell!" in the brief encounter before Arabella loses her memory, it seemed Lady Pole would use her friend's Christian name (as of course she would put it), though I generally found it more natural to use the long form rather than the nickname. And presumably she thinks of herself as Emma...
THE ROSE AT HER MOUTH
"He considered you might be very distressed by the death of Mrs Strange."
"I am very distressed by what has happened. No one is more distressed than I. I considered at least it would have given me someone to talk to. But she is so very, very far away."
For a moment, Emma had felt a guilty pleasure - she was to be reunited with the one friend she had known in these eight wretched years. And for a moment, Bell had known her - had tried to run to her, to give comfort or seek it. But then the fairy creature who had stolen them from their lives stole one more thing - Bell's memory.
Emma did not know why - was it to spite her, by depriving her of the reunion which would have brought her some relief? Or was it some thing he would have done to her, had he been master of her whole existence, and not just the half that Mr Norrell had bargained away? Stephen, too - she had never understood the nature of the fairy's hold over him, but it had always been plain enough that he remembered both worlds, whichever one they met in. When they first came to Lost-hope, from time to time they had tried to speak to one another, though if they danced together the fairy quickly moved in to part them. Over the years, however, Stephen began to keep away from her of his own accord, and rarely allowed himself to meet her eyes. He must be ashamed to serve this vile creature - but she supposed servitude came naturally to him, who was born a slave. The fairy played with him like a favourite toy, though he swore he would make him a king. She could tell Stephen thought this mere foolishness, and yet some part of her mind believed that the creature was right; one day, Stephen would be a king, and govern his kingdom as well as he managed her husband's house in Harley-street. But all she could see in him now was the instrument who had delivered Arabella Strange into captivity.
At least Arabella did not share the misery of knowing what had been done to her. And yet, as the months passed, Emma's envy gave way to pity. In London, she had been accustomed to think of her friend as the best of women - warm, impulsive, interested in every thing she saw, and eager to share her thoughts. To see her reduced to a pretty doll, who danced and smiled and seemed to give no thought to any thing else, was unbearable. If that was all the fairy king wanted, he might as well have taken the moss-oak that he had made into Bell's likeness, and left the real woman with Mr Strange. But, of course, half his satisfaction in stealing the wife lay in depriving the husband.
Emma had often complained that she had far better be dead than be as she was. But now she added "Far better be dead than be as she is." And, to her surprise, she began to wonder "Would I rather be as I am than as she is? At least my mind and soul are my own, whatever power this monster has over my body. Perhaps it is better to know my own misery than be fooled into thinking it pleasure."
With this in mind, she began to debate with herself whether it was her duty to try to bring Arabella Strange back to self-knowledge. Some days, she thought this would be selfish, as well as unkind: she feared that she wanted only to secure a companion in her unhappiness, such as Stephen Black could not be. Surely it would be cruel to take away Bell's childish pleasures and force her to face her painful position? As the victim of an uninterrupted enchantment, she would not even have the solace of spending half her days with her husband. Emma did not share her friend's belief in Mr Strange, but there was no doubting that Arabella loved him; her distress during his long absence in the Peninsula proved it. This separation would be even harder for her.
And yet, as Emma watched her face, and that smile that expressed no true feeling, she felt sure that the real Bell would not want this imitation of happiness - she would want to understand her predicament so that she might fight against it. Emma hardly dared to hope that, as sisters in arms, they might fight more effectively than she had been able to do alone - that together they might find a way to escape the enchantments that held them fast.
Emma waited for an evening when their captor was not there, and approached Arabella as she was completing her curtsey at the end of a cotillion.
"Will you sit out the next dance with me?" she asked. "I would enjoy a rest."
Bell smiled and acquiesced, all too easily. "Oh, indeed! It will be delightful to watch the dance for once. I love to dance, but it is charming to admire the skill and grace of our companions, is it not? I am sure you must love dancing as much as I do."
"No!" cried Emma, before remembering that she should not draw attention by showing any sign of agitation, in case there were spies watching them. She forced herself to laugh gaily. "Dancing is a fine thing for the body. But the mind needs to be entertained as well."
"I suppose so," said Arabella. They sat down side by side on a bench by the wall.
"You have not been here very long," said Emma.
"Oh, but I have! It is so long that I cannot recall when I came."
"I remember it very well. Let me remind you. You were conducted here in a carriage, and Stephen Black led you into this hall."
"Stephen who is the king's favourite?"
"The very man. Do you remember it now?"
Arabella sighed. "No doubt you are right. It was all a very long time ago."
"Not as long as you think - it is a few months, no more. Can you remember where you lived before?"
"It was..." Her brow wrinkled. "A long, long way from here. But it does not matter now."
"It does matter!" insisted Emma. "It is of very great importance. Do you remember..." She wanted to say "Jonathan Strange", but suddenly the scent of roses filled her nostrils, and she seemed to feel some thing prick her tongue. She pressed on regardless.
"On the 15th December 1809 the Emperor Napoleon Buonaparte summoned his court to the Tuileries and told them there was no sacrifice beyond his courage if it was for the good of France, and therefore he must dissolve his marriage in order to provide the empire with an heir, despite the fact that he had nothing but praise for his beloved wife. The Empress, in turn, said that she was offering the greatest proof of devotion that any wife had ever given in agreeing to this dissolution. They bade each other well farewell in her rooms, embracing until she fainted; he hurried away and she, on regaining consciousness, was taken with all her servants and possessions to the chateau of Malmaison."
She frowned. "That is not what I wished to say." It was just the same as in England, when she could speak of nothing but fairies, but in this fairy kingdom her tongue ran towards the world they had left behind.
"It is a very sad tale," said Arabella.
"Yes! So sad! Imagine the poor lady's grief when she was forced to leave her husband!"
Her friend nodded, but her eyes were straying to the dancers, who were chusing their partners for a reel. She rose to her feet. "It has been such a pleasure talking to you - now I think I must dance again."
"Wait!" exclaimed Emma. "I have so much more to tell you." She grabbed her hand, and Arabella sat down once more, looking doubtful.
Emma tried to focus her thoughts, although the thorns felt very real now, and she was all but suffocated by the perfume of roses. She must explain that, however charming all this seemed to Bell, they were prisoners.
"A Lieutenant Strenowitz of the German Hussars once surprised and captured a score of French soldiers, including the officer, and their horses. Lord Wellington commended him for the deed but, as such attacks did not promote the principal object of the campaign and were contrary to the courtesies of war, forbade such exploits for the future. The French refused to send along the officer's baggage, to punish him for his carelessness in allowing himself to be captured; the British, for their part, finding they had more horses than they could deal with, held horse fairs to sell them off, and ran races."
Arabella laughed a little. Perhaps it was amusement that made her seem more attentive now, but Emma thought - or did she merely hope - that she saw a flicker of recognition in Bell's eyes. Did she recall the name of Lord Wellington? Emma knew that her friend had once danced with him at a ball celebrating Buonaparte's abdication.
"That is a happier story," said Bell. "Though I do not quite understand..." She stared into Emma's face, as if seeing her properly for the first time. Her smile had faded into puzzlement, an expression familiar from their days in London, when Emma had tried and failed so often to communicate her predicament. Was it that which had awoken some fragment of Arabella's memory - a sense that they had held such ridiculous conversations before?
"Why, not dancing?" purred a voice just above her. Emma raised her head to see the detestable fairy creature looking down at them, while Stephen stood apprehensive behind him. "I have come home to my halls, and I desire - I expect - to see my brightest jewels glittering in the ball. Come, my lady!"
He pulled Arabella to her feet, and steered her back into the circling crowd of dancers. Emma rose slowly, glaring at Stephen, who gave a helpless shrug and walked away. Another gentleman proffered his arm.
She tasted blood in her mouth as he led her into the dance, but at least it dispelled the dreadful perfume. The room and its people swirled around her, though she could clearly see the fairy king smile with childish malice as he glanced across to satisfy himself that she was once more conforming to his wishes.
"But I will not submit to this enchantment," she thought. "I am Emma Pole - I know myself, and I know all here. I will chew through roses until some one listens to me. Because it is better to be as I am than to lose hope of ever being any thing more."
She had not danced with such passion for years.
Notes: I don't think it's suggested in book or television that Lady Pole feels the rose at her mouth (except in the final TV episode, during the confrontation with the gentleman at Starecross Hall). But the idea of it, like the Little Mermaid who feels as if she is walking on knives, seemed such a natural fairytale trope that I couldn't resist it.
I drew Lady Pole's attempts to explain the situation from Napoleon.org, Ida Tarbell's A Life of Napoleon Bonaparte: with a sketch of Josephine, Empress of the French and On The Road With Wellington: The Diary of a War Commissary in the Peninsular Campaigns by August Ludolf Friedrich Schaumann and Rough Sketches of the Life of an Old Soldier by Jonathan Leach.
Also posted on Dreamwidth, with
comments.