Strange was a long way from Henry’s ideal of a rich English gentleman. He had pretty well abandoned those pursuits with which gentlemen in the English countryside customarily occupy their time. He took no interest in farming or hunting. His neighbours went shooting – Henry heard their shots echoing in the snowy woods and fields and the barking of their dogs – but Strange never picked up a gun. It took all Arabella’s persuasion to make him go outside and walk about for half an hour. In the library the books that had belonged to Strange’s father and grandfather – those works in English, Greek and Latin which every gentleman has upon his shelves – had all been removed and piled up upon the floor to make room for Strange’s own books and notebooks.³ Periodicals concerned with the practice of magic, such as The Friends of English Magic and The Modern Magician, were everywhere scattered about the house. Upon one of the tables in the library there stood a great silver dish, which was sometimes full of water. Strange would often sit for half an hour peering into the water, tapping the surface and making odd gestures and writing down notes of what he saw there. On another table amid a jumble of books there lay a map of England upon which Strange was marking the old fairy roads which once led out of England to who-knows-where.

There were other things too which Henry only half-understood but which he disliked even more. He knew for instance that Ashfair’s rooms often had an odd look, but he did not see that this was because the mirrors in Strange’s house were as likely as not to be reflecting the light of half an hour ago, or a hundred years ago. And in the morning, when he awoke, and at night, just before he fell asleep, he heard the sound of a distant bell – a sad sound, like the bell of a drowned city heard across a waste of ocean. He never really thought of the bell, or indeed remembered any thing about it, but its melancholy influence stayed with him through the day.

He found relief for all his various disappointments and dissatisfactions in drawing numerous comparisons between the way things were done in Great Hitherden and the way they were done in Shropshire (much to the detriment of Shropshire), and in wondering aloud that Strange should study so hard – “quite as if he had no estate of his own and all his fortune was still to make.” These remarks were generally addressed to Arabella, but Strange was often in earshot and pretty soon Arabella found herself in the unenviable position of trying to keep the peace between the two of them.

“When I want Henry’s advice,” said Strange, “I shall ask for it. What business is it of his, I should like to know, where I chuse to build my stables? Or how I spend my time?”

“It is very aggravating, my love,” agreed Arabella, “and no one should wonder if it put you out of temper, but only consider …”