What is there to say about John Childermass? Mr Norrell's man-of-business, his manipulator and closest advisor, is a remarkable person indeed. A Yorkshireman, first and foremost, with all the reverence for magic, for plain-speaking and thrift that characterises that ancient and noble county.
A wise and wily person, who keeps secrets that no man can guess, and has a face like a twisted hedge root. A magician, a seer and a pickpocket, who knows how to see around corners and can turn himself into shadows. A man whose hand-drawn Tarot deck, (the Cards of Marseilles, copied from the instructions of a drunken sailor at Whitby), seems to hold the key to the twists and turns of our long and baffling story.
When all other mysteries have been revealed, Childermass will still be an enigma. He will follow his own path in all matters, and we are unlikely ever to know where that path leads...
