“Which raises another question,” said another Minister. “There are only two magicians in England. How can we decide between them? Who can say which of them is right and which is wrong?”

The Ministers looked at each other in perplexity.

Only Lord Liverpool, the Prime Minister, was unperturbed. “We will know them as we know other men,” he declared, “by the fruits that they bear.”⁶

There was a pause for the Ministers to reflect that the fruits Mr Norrell was currently bearing were not very promising: arrogance, theft and malice.

It was agreed that the Home Secretary should speak to Mr Lascelles privately and ask that he would convey to Mr Norrell the extreme displeasure of the Prime Minister and all the Ministers at what Mr Norrell had done.

There seemed no more to be said, but the Ministers were unable to leave the subject without indulging in a little gossip. They had all heard how Lord Portishead had severed himself from Mr Norrell. But Sir Walter was able to tell them how Childermass – who up to this moment had seemed like his master’s shadow – had distanced himself from Mr Norrell’s interests and spoken to Strange’s assembled friends as an independent person, assuring them that the book was not destroyed. Sir Walter sighed deeply. “I cannot help thinking that in many ways this is a worse sign than all the rest. Norrell never was a good judge of men, and now the best of his friends are deserting him – Strange is gone, John Murray and now Portishead. If Childermass and Norrell quarrel there will only be Henry Lascelles left.”

Strange’s friends all sat down that evening and wrote him letters full of indignation. The letters would take two weeks to reach Italy, but Strange moved about so much that it might be another two weeks before they found him. At first Strange’s friends felt confident that the instant he read them he would immediately set out for England in a blaze of anger, ready to contend with Norrell in the courts and the newspapers. But in September they received news which made them think that perhaps they would have to wait a while after all.

As long as Strange had been travelling towards Italy he had seemed generally to be in good spirits. His letters had been full of cheerful nonsense. But as soon as he arrived there his mood changed. For the first time since Arabella’s death he had no work to do and nothing to distract him from his widowed state. Nothing he saw pleased him and for some weeks it seemed that he could only find any relief for his misery in continual change of scene.⁷ In early September he reached Genoa. Liking this place a little better than other Italian towns he had seen, he stayed almost a week. During this time an English family arrived at the hotel where he was staying. Though he had previously declared to Sir Walter his intention of avoiding the society of Englishmen while he was abroad, Strange struck up an acquaintance with this family. In no time at all he was writing letters back to England full of praise for the manners, cleverness and kindness of the Greysteels. At the end of the week he travelled to Bologna, but finding no pleasure there he very soon returned to Genoa to remain with the Greysteels until the end of the month when they all planned to travel together to Venice.