Time passed. It was impossible to say how much. The clocks had all turned to midnight. Every window shewed the black of Eternal Night and the unknown stars.

Mr Norrell stopt walking. He closed his eyes. His face was as dark and tight as a fist. He stood quite still and only his lips moved slightly. Then he opened his eyes briefly and said, “Follow me.” Closing his eyes again, he walked. It was as if he were following the plan of an entirely different house that had somehow got wedged inside his own. The turns he took, the rights and lefts, made a new path – one he had never taken before.

After three or four minutes he opened his eyes. There before him was the corridor he had been searching for – the one with the floor of stone flags – and at the end of it the tall shadowy shape of the library door.

“Now, we shall see what he is doing!” he cried. “Lucas, keep the lead chains and locks ready. There is no better prophylactic against magic than lead. We will bind his hands and that will hinder him a little. Mr Lascelles, how quickly do you suppose we might get a letter to one of the Ministers?” He was a little surprized that none of them made any reply and so he turned.

He was quite alone.

A little way off he heard Lascelles say something; his cold, languid voice was unmistakable. He heard one of the other servants reply and then Lucas. But gradually all the noise grew less. The sounds of the servants rushing from room to room were gone. There was silence.

64
Two versions of Lady Pole

Mid February 1817

“Well!” said Lascelles. “That was unexpected!” He and the servants were gathered at the north wall of the dining-room – a wall through which Mr Norrell had just walked, with all the composure in the world.

Lascelles put out his hand and touched it; it was perfectly solid. He pressed it hard; it did not move.

“Did he mean to do that, do you think?” wondered one of the servants.

“I do not think it much matters what he meant,” said Lucas. “He has gone to be with Mr Strange now.”

“Which is as much as to say he has gone to the Devil!” added Lascelles.

“What will happen now?” asked another servant.

No one answered him. Images of magical battles flitted through the minds of everyone present: Mr Norrell hurling mystical cannonballs at Strange; Strange calling up devils to come and carry Mr Norrell away. They listened for sounds of a struggle. There were none.

A shout came from the next room. One of the servants had opened the drawing-room door and found the breakfast-room on the other side of it. Beyond the breakfast-room was Mr Norrell’s sitting-room, and beyond that, his dressing-room. The old sequence of rooms was suddenly re-established; the labyrinth was broken.

The relief of this discovery was very great. The servants immediately abandoned Lascelles and went down to the kitchen, the natural refuge and solace of their class. Lascelles – just as naturally – sat down in solitary state in Mr Norrell’s sitting-room. He had some idea of staying there until Mr Norrell returned. Or if Mr Norrell never came back, of waiting for Strange and then shooting him. “After all,” he thought, “what can a magician do against a lead ball? Between the pistol firing and his heart exploding, there is no time for magic.”