Magic making
Emma Cobley performs her black magic
literally by the book - a spell-book that she wrote herself. She also makes
potions, draws diagrams and sticks pins in figurines made from mandrake roots.
She uses ingredients such as animal blood, boiled frogs and wolf’s bane.
This is all very traditional.
One of her potions makes a man dote upon a
woman. It is possible that she used this one on Hugo Valerian. If so, his
promise to marry her was obtained illegitimately. This is similar to what
happened in the case of Helen Penclosa and Austin Gilroy.
The retired doctor whose housekeeper Emma
became was very fond of her: he educated her; he left her some money when he
died. She was able to live quite like a
lady.
We are not told whether or not Emma used any
of her potions and spells on the doctor to get his money and his knowledge. We
are told that she was beautiful, clever and quick to learn, which together with
the fact that he left his house and most of his money to his sister suggests that
she did not. She just used her natural attributes to charm him.
It is a pity that she didn’t do this to find
someone else after Hugo Valerian rejected her instead of taking revenge on him.
Another of her spells causes a man and woman
who love each other to become estranged; it is very likely that she later used
this one on Hugo and Lady Alicia.
The spells that she used may have affected
her for the worse.
By
using spells that cut people in a relationship off from each other, Emma may
have activated forces that isolated her from the good, decent people in her
village and prevented her from finding someone else. She never married and associated mainly with unpleasant people.
The wisdom of Uncle Ambrose
Uncle Ambrose is a vicar, a scholar and a
former schoolmaster. He is strict and
exacting with the children, but is also just and understanding.
Uncle Ambrose provides a little private parlour for Nan, who is aged 12 and is the oldest of the four children. He says to her:
“Your temperament, my dear, is reflective, as
mine is, and as you grow older you will increasingly need somewhere to go when
you wish to be private. I suggest that the younger children and myself enter
this room only with your permission...”
He is a very good judge of character:
“Nan
sat down,,,. Something inside her seemed to expand like a flower opening and
she sighed with relief. She had not known before that she liked to be alone.”
Nan is very lucky to have someone at that
stage in her life who both understands and is able to meet her need for solitude.
Uncle Ambrose’s kindly action by chance results in the finding by Nan of Emma Cobley’s old spell book, which decades ago had
been stolen by Lady Alicia and hidden in a small, concealed, locked cupboard in
the room.
Uncle Ambrose has this to say about women:
“Women are gifted with narrative power, but I
make it a practice to believe only one third of what they tell me, for their
notions of veracity, like their notions of love, are not to be relied upon.“
Unfortunately, he is quite right. This is my
experience too. Not many women put respect for the truth above everything else,
as I try to do.
He does make an exception in Nan’s case; he says that he will
always believe every word that she tells him and rely on her affection for him.
Perhaps honesty, loyalty and the need for solitude go together.
Uncle Ambrose tells the children that manual
labour can be of great assistance in the development of both intellectual and
spiritual powers:
“The Cistercian monks are agriculturists,
continued Uncle Ambrose, and all great saints either dig or cook.“
This is not what many of us want to hear!
Officially, Uncle Ambrose is not a believer
in magic. As a churchman, he must be careful what he says.
When the children ask whether he believes
that witches and warlocks, the black ones and the white ones, can really harm
or help people with their spells, he replies that spells and charms are
nonsense and mere superstition. In these enlightened days, there is no need to
fear them any more than there is to fear a bad dream.
This is strange considering what was going on
all around him - and some of his beliefs and activities. His servant has fairy
blood. Uncle Ambrose is sad because
people have stopped believing in the great god Pan, and he greets the bees by
raising his top hat. If this isn’t superstition, I don’t know what is!
Interestingly, he does say that the thoughts
of an unloving mind can possibly have power to do harm if they are not
confronted by a corresponding power for good. This is a description of psychological
black and white magic.
He has this to say about taking revenge:
“Vengeance, sir, is cruel, stupid, useless,
and vulgar.”
Not necessarily!
Magic breaking
Emma becomes very angry when the children go
somewhere she told them not to, a place where she and her associates get up to
no good. She and her henchmen attack them, but Uncle Ambrose and his magical
servant come to their rescue.
Witches will not tolerate interference in
their affairs, whether justified or not. Emma goes back to her old tricks and
tries to destroy Uncle Ambrose, his servant Ezra and the children by making
more figurines and sticking pins in them. Luckily, Ezra guesses that she will do
this and makes protective figures of his own.
The children find both sets of
figurines. They help Ezra to lift the
curses by removing the pins and burning the images. They burn the spell-book
too.
Time had stopped for Emma’s victims. Living
in a void and a vacuum is often an effect of being preyed on by energy vampires
or attacked by black magic practitioners.
After the burnings, the spells break and the
bad energy dissolves.
Everything comes right. Everything comes alive again.
Lady Alicia starts to revive and orders her
house to be cleaned after decades of neglect. She slowly returns the house and
garden to their old order and beauty.
The missing people come back with their memories
and the ability to speak restored; Hugo Valerian, Lady Alicia and their son
become a family once again.
All this is more independent confirmation of
what happens when good people get out from under bad influences. It reminds me
of Diana Wynne Jones’s Cat in Charmed Lives and the man buried alive for 20
years in Black Maria.
Emma is rendered harmless and accepts defeat.
The behaviour of her associates improves. They become quite pleasant and
helpful, which reminds me of the Gregsons in the Whitby Witches books.
The wickedness that has plagued the village
for many years disappears. There is no more ill-wishing, poaching, pin-sticking
or quarrelling.
They enjoy the finest summer in living
memory.
At least one more article to come
There are some more elements of interest in
this little book, and there are some J. K. Rowling and Kathleen Raine
connections to be made.
Nan and Uncle Ambrose on the cover of another
edition:
