After everything had been got out in the open, it surprised Arabella that Jonathan was still adamant that he should not contact Norrell.
“I really do not mind him visiting,” Arabella had insisted, “it would be good for you to see him again.”
Jonathan looked at her in horror, as though she had grown an extra head, and that extra head was now making inappropriate suggestions. “My darling, you really don’t know what you’re saying!”
“There you go again, assuming that I am completely ignorant of your thoughts and feelings,” she said, folding her arms across her chest in a defensive manner. “I understand you very well, Jonathan Strange.”
Jonathan just shook his head. “You do not understand,” he said as he gathered his papers together for his visit to the Admiralty. “If you understood then you would know exactly why I cannot have Norrell here.”
He planted a kiss on her forehead and said his goodbyes.
“He must think I’m an absolute simpleton,” she said to the empty room. “He still thinks that I’m the innocent young girl he married. He’s the most infuriating…” she trailed off, looking around the room. “And now I’m talking to myself. Wonderful!”
Since her husband would not budge on this matter, Arabella, being the determined and enterprising sort, decided to take matters into her own hands. A letter was dispatched that very day.
A week later, Gilbert Norrell stood outside their house, waiting to be admitted.
Arabella had been the one to greet him in the hallway. She had quite forgotten what he looked like; all she could remember was an old fashioned wig, so she was much surprised to see that, when he politely removed his hat he was without his wig. In its place was his natural hair; a light brown set of short curls, as liberally streaked with grey as Jonathan’s hair.
She took in his round face and the small blue eyes that seemed set very far back in his face. He was still as pale as ever and as plain as ever, with just a slight hint of something lurking beneath the surface of him; as though his outward appearance was superficial, merely the shell of something much darker and more interesting.
For some reason her eyes kept wandering back to his hair. She stared at his hair for longer than was appropriate and she could have kicked herself for being so discourteous. Especially as it seemed to be making him very uncomfortable.
“Sorry,” she said, stepping forward to greet him properly. “It has been such a long time since I saw you last.”
“Your letter said that there was something the matter with Mr Strange,” he said, getting straight to the heart of the matter, bypassing the meandering small talk that almost anybody with any social grace would have gone through. That she had remembered. Perhaps all those years spent with just her husband for company had made him worse.
“Yes,” she said, gesturing towards the sitting room. “Come, sit down and I will tell you more.”
“Is Jona…Mr Strange not home?” he asked, correcting himself, as though using his Christian name was an admission of some sort of guilt.
“He is meeting with his publisher today,” Arabella said as the two of them sat down across from each other, the table between them laid for tea. She noticed that Mr Norrell looked alarmed at hearing that Jonathan was writing again, but he said no more about it.
She poured the tea like a good hostess, stopping only momentarily to think how fantastically odd this situation was. Sitting down to tea with her husband’s other lover.
She looked at him, sitting there, looking smaller than she had remembered. She could feel the same misery radiating from him that she had felt from Jonathan; worse, for Norrell was all alone. At least Jonathan had her love to find solace in. More than ever she felt as though she had done the right thing in bringing Mr Norrell here.
“Now, about Jonathan,” she started, handing Mr Norrell his tea.
“Yes, your letter seemed to suggest some urgency,” Mr Norrell interrupted. “I confess, I had expected that Jon…Mr Strange would be home, perhaps ill in bed.”
“Oh, no, his malady is not physical,” Arabella clarified. “It is his spirit I am worried about.”
Mr Norrell blinked at her. “His spirit?”
“Yes, since his return he has seemed happy most of the time, but there is a sadness in him that I can’t explain, something that seems to be eating him up from the inside. He will not speak to me on the subject, but I fear that there is…a piece missing from him.”
She only felt a little guilty about lying so shamelessly. It was, after all, in a good cause. “I wondered if it was some magical malady, and who would be better equipped to help him with this than yourself?”
She could see in his face that Norrell was torn between being flattered and suspicious. He not said more than a few words to Arabella Strange in the past, and had not considered that she thought him so eminent a person. He would be even more suspicious if he had any idea how much Arabella really knew about Jonathan’s condition.
“When you say ‘a piece missing from him’…” Norrell began, not quite understanding her.
“It feels as though not all of him has returned to me, I can’t quite explain it…sometimes he just seems so far away. He gets these terribly black moods, where he just sits and stares into space, doesn’t speak a word. Jonathan is such an energetic person usually.”
“Perhaps he has not quite recovered from his experiences in Faerie,” Norrell suggested, seeming to grow more and more uncomfortable with this conversation the longer it went on, and Arabella knew it had nothing to do with Norrell’s natural reclusiveness. “I myself am finding it difficult to adapt to life outside the Pillar of Darkness. As terrible as it was, it had become home. Normality.”
“Maybe you need to share your experiences of being back home,” Arabella suggested. “This is why I wrote to you, I thought for certain that if Jonathan was to see you again he would feel so much better.”
Norrell’s eyes went wide. “You have not discussed this with Jonath…Mr Strange!”
Arabella blushed and fidgeted a little on the sofa. “No. When I mentioned that he should invite you to stay, he became very adamant that he should not. I found that very strange.”
Mr Norrell stood up. “Please Mrs Strange, I must go.”
“Oh, but Jonathan will be back soon,” she said, standing with him. She nearly laughed at the look of horror on his face. He and Jonathan really were the most hopeless pair.
She was about to say something further, to try and persuade Norrell that he should stay, when they heard the front door open and shut, and Jonathan’s voice echo around the hallway. Mr Norrell looked about him frantically, as though he was looking for a place to hide. He eyed the curtains for a moment, before deciding that it would not be dignified. Arabella just rolled her eyes.
Jonathan came through the door a second later and promptly dropped all his papers as he took in the sight of Gilbert Norrell standing in his sitting room.
“Jonathan,” Arabella said cheerfully, moving to take Jonathan’s arm in her own. “Look who has come to visit.”
Jonathan looked at Norrell, then to Arabella and then back again. He did this a few times before he said, “will you excuse us for just a moment,” and then practically dragged Arabella into the hallway and then across into the dining room.
“Jonathan, stop dragging me about,” Arabella complained, snatching her arm away. “And that was a fine greeting for you to give.”
“Arabella Strange, what on earth have you done?” he asked, his voice an angry stage whisper. He looked furious and frightened.
“I finally grew tired of your moping about, and I did what you wanted to do but were too stubborn to admit to,” she said firmly. “You can’t live without him, Jonathan, and from the looks of him, he can’t live without you either.”
Jonathan let out a mirthless laugh. “And what are we to do? Have him live here with us?”
“Well, why not?”
He stared at her, nonplussed. “Are you out of your mind?” He was getting that wild look again. “Arabella, you cannot possibly understand what you’re saying.”
“Oh stop it!” she finally snapped. “Stop telling me what I do and do not understand. I understand perfectly what this means and what I am saying. He should come to live here, with you, with us. Then you can be together. It’s all very simple, why wouldn’t I be able to understand it?”
“We were lovers, Arabella, with everything that that word entails.”
Arabella just looked at him as though she hadn’t ever realised she had married such an idiot. “Well I didn’t think you had taken up crocheting together!” She slapped his arm lightly. “Really, Jonathan!”
Her husband looked down at her in wonder. And partly in fear, as though she had given him a gift that he expected to explode at any moment. “Why are you doing this?” he asked in awe.
“Because he is a piece of you,” she admitted. “Maybe he always was and you just feel the loss of that piece more keenly now, maybe it was something that happened whilst you were in Faerie. Without him you’re not my Jonathan anymore, and I want my Jonathan back.”
“Even if it means you also gain Gilbert Norrell?” Jonathan asked tentatively, wondering if Arabella had even considered this.
Arabella just smiled and nodded. “It came as quite a surprise to me as well.”
“Oh Arabella!” he said, grinning his silly big grin that made him look like an overgrown child. Arabella had not seen that smile in many years.
“I know,” she replied, kissing him. “You don’t deserve me.”
Fill: Everything You Always Wanted (4/10)
After everything had been got out in the open, it surprised Arabella that Jonathan was still adamant that he should not contact Norrell.
“I really do not mind him visiting,” Arabella had insisted, “it would be good for you to see him again.”
Jonathan looked at her in horror, as though she had grown an extra head, and that extra head was now making inappropriate suggestions. “My darling, you really don’t know what you’re saying!”
“There you go again, assuming that I am completely ignorant of your thoughts and feelings,” she said, folding her arms across her chest in a defensive manner. “I understand you very well, Jonathan Strange.”
Jonathan just shook his head. “You do not understand,” he said as he gathered his papers together for his visit to the Admiralty. “If you understood then you would know exactly why I cannot have Norrell here.”
He planted a kiss on her forehead and said his goodbyes.
“He must think I’m an absolute simpleton,” she said to the empty room. “He still thinks that I’m the innocent young girl he married. He’s the most infuriating…” she trailed off, looking around the room. “And now I’m talking to myself. Wonderful!”
Since her husband would not budge on this matter, Arabella, being the determined and enterprising sort, decided to take matters into her own hands. A letter was dispatched that very day.
A week later, Gilbert Norrell stood outside their house, waiting to be admitted.
Arabella had been the one to greet him in the hallway. She had quite forgotten what he looked like; all she could remember was an old fashioned wig, so she was much surprised to see that, when he politely removed his hat he was without his wig. In its place was his natural hair; a light brown set of short curls, as liberally streaked with grey as Jonathan’s hair.
She took in his round face and the small blue eyes that seemed set very far back in his face. He was still as pale as ever and as plain as ever, with just a slight hint of something lurking beneath the surface of him; as though his outward appearance was superficial, merely the shell of something much darker and more interesting.
For some reason her eyes kept wandering back to his hair. She stared at his hair for longer than was appropriate and she could have kicked herself for being so discourteous. Especially as it seemed to be making him very uncomfortable.
“Sorry,” she said, stepping forward to greet him properly. “It has been such a long time since I saw you last.”
“Your letter said that there was something the matter with Mr Strange,” he said, getting straight to the heart of the matter, bypassing the meandering small talk that almost anybody with any social grace would have gone through. That she had remembered. Perhaps all those years spent with just her husband for company had made him worse.
“Yes,” she said, gesturing towards the sitting room. “Come, sit down and I will tell you more.”
“Is Jona…Mr Strange not home?” he asked, correcting himself, as though using his Christian name was an admission of some sort of guilt.
“He is meeting with his publisher today,” Arabella said as the two of them sat down across from each other, the table between them laid for tea. She noticed that Mr Norrell looked alarmed at hearing that Jonathan was writing again, but he said no more about it.
She poured the tea like a good hostess, stopping only momentarily to think how fantastically odd this situation was. Sitting down to tea with her husband’s other lover.
She looked at him, sitting there, looking smaller than she had remembered. She could feel the same misery radiating from him that she had felt from Jonathan; worse, for Norrell was all alone. At least Jonathan had her love to find solace in. More than ever she felt as though she had done the right thing in bringing Mr Norrell here.
“Now, about Jonathan,” she started, handing Mr Norrell his tea.
“Yes, your letter seemed to suggest some urgency,” Mr Norrell interrupted. “I confess, I had expected that Jon…Mr Strange would be home, perhaps ill in bed.”
“Oh, no, his malady is not physical,” Arabella clarified. “It is his spirit I am worried about.”
Mr Norrell blinked at her. “His spirit?”
“Yes, since his return he has seemed happy most of the time, but there is a sadness in him that I can’t explain, something that seems to be eating him up from the inside. He will not speak to me on the subject, but I fear that there is…a piece missing from him.”
She only felt a little guilty about lying so shamelessly. It was, after all, in a good cause. “I wondered if it was some magical malady, and who would be better equipped to help him with this than yourself?”
She could see in his face that Norrell was torn between being flattered and suspicious. He not said more than a few words to Arabella Strange in the past, and had not considered that she thought him so eminent a person. He would be even more suspicious if he had any idea how much Arabella really knew about Jonathan’s condition.
“When you say ‘a piece missing from him’…” Norrell began, not quite understanding her.
“It feels as though not all of him has returned to me, I can’t quite explain it…sometimes he just seems so far away. He gets these terribly black moods, where he just sits and stares into space, doesn’t speak a word. Jonathan is such an energetic person usually.”
“Perhaps he has not quite recovered from his experiences in Faerie,” Norrell suggested, seeming to grow more and more uncomfortable with this conversation the longer it went on, and Arabella knew it had nothing to do with Norrell’s natural reclusiveness. “I myself am finding it difficult to adapt to life outside the Pillar of Darkness. As terrible as it was, it had become home. Normality.”
“Maybe you need to share your experiences of being back home,” Arabella suggested. “This is why I wrote to you, I thought for certain that if Jonathan was to see you again he would feel so much better.”
Norrell’s eyes went wide. “You have not discussed this with Jonath…Mr Strange!”
Arabella blushed and fidgeted a little on the sofa. “No. When I mentioned that he should invite you to stay, he became very adamant that he should not. I found that very strange.”
Mr Norrell stood up. “Please Mrs Strange, I must go.”
“Oh, but Jonathan will be back soon,” she said, standing with him. She nearly laughed at the look of horror on his face. He and Jonathan really were the most hopeless pair.
She was about to say something further, to try and persuade Norrell that he should stay, when they heard the front door open and shut, and Jonathan’s voice echo around the hallway. Mr Norrell looked about him frantically, as though he was looking for a place to hide. He eyed the curtains for a moment, before deciding that it would not be dignified. Arabella just rolled her eyes.
Jonathan came through the door a second later and promptly dropped all his papers as he took in the sight of Gilbert Norrell standing in his sitting room.
“Jonathan,” Arabella said cheerfully, moving to take Jonathan’s arm in her own. “Look who has come to visit.”
Jonathan looked at Norrell, then to Arabella and then back again. He did this a few times before he said, “will you excuse us for just a moment,” and then practically dragged Arabella into the hallway and then across into the dining room.
“Jonathan, stop dragging me about,” Arabella complained, snatching her arm away. “And that was a fine greeting for you to give.”
“Arabella Strange, what on earth have you done?” he asked, his voice an angry stage whisper. He looked furious and frightened.
“I finally grew tired of your moping about, and I did what you wanted to do but were too stubborn to admit to,” she said firmly. “You can’t live without him, Jonathan, and from the looks of him, he can’t live without you either.”
Jonathan let out a mirthless laugh. “And what are we to do? Have him live here with us?”
“Well, why not?”
He stared at her, nonplussed. “Are you out of your mind?” He was getting that wild look again. “Arabella, you cannot possibly understand what you’re saying.”
“Oh stop it!” she finally snapped. “Stop telling me what I do and do not understand. I understand perfectly what this means and what I am saying. He should come to live here, with you, with us. Then you can be together. It’s all very simple, why wouldn’t I be able to understand it?”
“We were lovers, Arabella, with everything that that word entails.”
Arabella just looked at him as though she hadn’t ever realised she had married such an idiot. “Well I didn’t think you had taken up crocheting together!” She slapped his arm lightly. “Really, Jonathan!”
Her husband looked down at her in wonder. And partly in fear, as though she had given him a gift that he expected to explode at any moment. “Why are you doing this?” he asked in awe.
“Because he is a piece of you,” she admitted. “Maybe he always was and you just feel the loss of that piece more keenly now, maybe it was something that happened whilst you were in Faerie. Without him you’re not my Jonathan anymore, and I want my Jonathan back.”
“Even if it means you also gain Gilbert Norrell?” Jonathan asked tentatively, wondering if Arabella had even considered this.
Arabella just smiled and nodded. “It came as quite a surprise to me as well.”
“Oh Arabella!” he said, grinning his silly big grin that made him look like an overgrown child. Arabella had not seen that smile in many years.
“I know,” she replied, kissing him. “You don’t deserve me.”