Arabella’s conscience was sorely racked over the two promises she had made. She put the problem to several matrons, friends of hers in whose good sense and careful judgement she reposed a great deal of confidence. Naturally she presented it in an ideal form without naming any one or mentioning any of the particular circumstances. Unfortunately this had the effect of making her dilemma entirely incomprehensible and the wise matrons were unable to help her. It distressed her that she could not confide in Strange, but clearly even to mention it would be to break her word to Sir Walter. After much deliberation she decided that a promise to a person in their senses ought to be more binding than a promise to someone out of their senses. For, after all, what was to be gained by repeating the nonsensical ramblings of a poor madwoman? So she never told Strange what Lady Pole had said.

A few days later, Mr and Mrs Strange were at a house in Bedford-square attending a concert of Italian music. Arabella found much to enjoy, but the room where they sat was not quite warm and so in a little pause that ensued when a new singer was joining the musicians, she slipped away without any fuss to fetch her shawl from where it lay in another room. She was just wrapping it around herself when there was a whisper of sound behind her and she looked up to see Drawlight, approaching her with the rapidity of a dream and crying out, “Mrs Strange! How glad I am to see you! And how is dear Lady Pole? I hear that you have seen her?”

Arabella agreed reluctantly that she had.

Drawlight drew her arm through his as a precaution against her running away, and said, “The trouble I have been at to procure an invitation to that house you would scarcely believe! None of my efforts have met with the least success! Sir Walter puts me off with one paltry excuse after another. It is always exactly the same – her ladyship is ill or she is a little better, but she is never well enough to see any body.”

“Well, I suppose …” offered Arabella.

“Oh! Quite!” interrupted Drawlight. “If she is ill, then of course the rabble must be kept away. But that is no reason for excluding me. I saw her when she was a corpse! Oh, yes! You did not know that, I dare say? On the night he brought her back from the dead Mr Norrell came to me and pleaded with me to accompany him to the house. His words were, ‘Come with me, my dear Drawlight, for I do not think that my spirits can support the sight of a lady, young, fair and innocent, cut off in the sweetest period of existence!’ She stays in the house and sees no one. Some people think that her resurrection has made her proud and unwilling to mix with ordinary mortals. But I think the truth is quite different. I believe that her death and resurrection have bred in her a taste for odd experiences. Do not you think they might? It seems to me entirely possible that she takes something in order to see horrors! I suppose you saw no evidence of any thing of that sort? She took no sips from a glass of odd-coloured liquid? There was no folded paper pushed hurriedly into a pocket as you entered the room? – A paper such as might contain a teaspoon or two of powder? No? Laudanum generally comes in a little blue glass vial two or three inches high. In cases of addiction the family always believe that they can conceal the truth, but it is quite in vain. It is always found out in the end.” He gave an affected laugh, “I always find it out.”