The Charwoman's Shadow
by Lord Dunsany
VI: There Is Talk of Gulvarez
To the Tower beside the forest rumour came seldom, for it was the last house that stood in the open lands; on the one side the forest cut it off entirely from converse with other folk, on the other only the strongest rumours that blew over the fields of men ever came so far as the Tower. But many rumours from over the fields were reaching the Tower now, and every one of them brought the name of Gulvarez.
Gulvarez was a small squire of meagre lands, twelve miles away from the Tower, where he dwelt in a rude castle and kept two men-at-arms. They knew his name at the Tower and knew that his pigs came sometimes to market at Aragona, and that their price was good, for the pigs of Gulvarez were noted.
But now they heard that the Duke of Shadow Valley, being upon a journey, would rest a night at his castle with Gulvarez. Nor did this rumour fade, as such often did, that came so far over the fields, but others came to verify it. They told how the Duke had sent messengers to Gulvarez, praying him to receive him in ten days’ time, when he would pass that way on his homeward journey.
This was that very potent Magnifico, the second Duke of Shadow Valley, of whose illustrious father some tale was told in the Chronicles of Rodriguez. He ruled over all those leafy lands that of late were held by his father, and had amongst many honours the perpetual right to stop any bullfight in Spain whilst he went to his seat, if it should be his pleasure to arrive late; and this he did by merely holding up his left hand, after one of his men-at-arms had sounded a call upon a small trumpet. So rare a privilege he exercised seldom, but it was his undoubted right and that of his heirs after him forever. The news that so serene a prince was to visit Gulvarez spread over the countryside as fast as gossips could tell it, and came like the final ripple of a spent flood, lapping at its last field, to the walls of the Tower that stood by the Rocky Forest.
“Gonsalvo,” said the Lady of the Tower, addressing her lord, “it is surely time that Señor Gulvarez married.”
“Gulvarez?” he said.
“He is past thirty-five,” she answered.
“But his castle is small and dark,” said he, “and much of it bare rock. Who would live there with him?”
“The Duke of Shadow Valley,” she said, “is to stay with him on a visit.”
And so said everyone who spoke of Gulvarez, and many spoke of him now who had thought little about him hitherto.
The Lord of the Tower and Rocky Forest reflected one silent moment. “But he is a greedy man,” he said, “and will demand a dowry such as a man cannot give.”
“It is not for us to punish his greed,” she said. “Those that cannot pay his dowry must go without him.”
“But the coffer,” he explained, “that I have set apart for Mirandola’s dowry is empty. I saw it only lately.”
“Ramon Alonzo will fill it for us,” she answered with as much faith in her husband’s scheme as he himself had had when it was new to him. And her hopefulness set him pondering as to whether all was wholly well with his scheme. And in the end of his pondering, although he said nothing to her, he decided that the time was come to renew his exhortations to his son.
For this purpose he sent Peter, from the garden, with a message to a certain Father Joseph, who dwelt not far away, asking him to come to the Tower. For he needed Father Joseph in order to write a letter to Ramon Alonzo, not deeming this to be a suitable occasion on which to employ his own skill with the pen, the art of which he had learned a long while ago. And before Father Joseph came he called Mirandola, and spoke with her in the same room as that in which he had had the long talk with his son, the room on the walls of which he hung his boar-spears.
“Mirandola,” he said, “you must surely one day marry, and are now well past fifteen, and it not seldom happens that those that marry not when they may, come soon to a time when none will marry them, so that they are spinsters all their days. What now think you of our neighbour Gulvarez, whom some have called handsome?”
A look like one of those flashes from storms too far for thunder lit for one moment Mirandola’s eyes. Then she smiled again.
“Gulvarez?” she said to her father.
“Yes,” he said. “He tends a little perhaps toward avarice,” for he thought he had seen the look in his daughter’s eyes, “but there are many worse sins than that, many worse, if it be a sin at all, which is by no means clear, but I will ask Father Joseph about that for you, I will ask him at once. For myself I believe it to be no sin, but a fault. But we shall ask, we shall ask.”
“As you will,” she said.
“You like him then,” said her father. “He is not ill to look on; two women not long since have called him handsome. And he is a friend of the Duke of Shadow Valley.”
“I like him not yet,” she said. “But haply if he come …”
“Yes,” said he, “he shall come to visit us.”
“If he come with his friend,” said she.
“We cannot ask that,” he said in gentle reproof. “He could not bring the duke to visit us.”
“Then he is not his friend,” said Mirandola.
Thus lightly was brushed away the claim of Gulvarez to the excited interest of all that neighbourhood.
The Lord of the Tower held up his hand to check her hasty utterance while he thought of appropriate words with which to reprove her error. And when he found no suitable words at all, with which to show his daughter she was mistaken, and yet felt the need to speak, he said that he would consult Gulvarez on this; which he had not intended to say. And afterwards, conferring with his wife, they did not find between them a ready reason for refusing this curious whim of their dark-haired daughter; and in the end they decided to humour her, judging it best to do so at such a time, though both of them feared the arrival, if indeed he should ever come, of that dread Magnifico and illustrious prince, the serene and potent Duke of Shadow Valley.
Then Father Joseph came. He had walked scarce a mile, but he had hurried to do the Lord of the Tower’s bidding, and, being now slender no longer, he panted heavily; and his tonsure shone warm and damp so that there was a light about it. He held that before all else are the things of the spirit, and in many ways he sought their triumph on earth; and for this purpose was ever swift to do the behests of the Lord of the Tower, who in that small neighbourhood at the edge of the forest had such power as is permitted on earth, which Father Joseph hoped to turn towards heavenly uses. Therefore he came running.
“In what can I serve you?” he said.
The Lord of the Tower motioned him to a chair.
“Long ago,” he said, “I learned the art of writing in case that the occasion should ever arise on which it should be needful to use the pen.”
“It is indeed a noble art,” said Father Joseph. “You did well to acquaint yourself with it.”
“The occasion however,” said the other, “did not arise. My pen hath therefore had but little practice, save for such strokes as I may have sometimes made in idleness to see the ink run. In short, for want of this practice my manner of writing is slow, while you, putting your pen daily to many sacred uses, have a speed with it that is no doubt swift as thought.”
“ ’Tis but a poor pen, and an aged hand,” said Father Joseph, “but such as it is …”
“Now I have need of a letter to be written in haste,” continued the Lord of the Tower, “for which I deemed your pen to be suited beyond the pens of any, and if you will write what I shall say the work will be speedily accomplished.”
“Gladly will I,” answered Father Joseph, his breath already beginning to come more easily from the rest he had had in the chair. “Gladly will I,” and he brought forward an ink-horn that hung at his girdle, and drew from under his robe a roll of parchment that was curled round a plume, for he had all these things upon him; and as soon as the Lord of the Tower had lent him a knife he had shaped the end of the quill for a pen in a moment, and pared it and all was ready. These things he took to a table and dipped the pen, and was readier to write than Gonsalvo was to think. For there was this difficulty about the letter that he desired to send to his son: he wished to exhort him to continue his studies with a redoubled vigour; such a message as Father Joseph would smile to hear, glowing for some while after with an inner satisfaction; but then again those studies were nothing less than the Black Art, and the produce of them no ordinary lucre, but a dross that might well seem to Father Joseph to come hot from the hands of Satan. How was he to ask that some of this dross should be sent full soon for the righteous purpose of settling his daughter comfortably in the holy bonds of wedlock, without shocking the good man by too open a reference to the method of its manufacture? It cost him some moments of thought and nigh puzzled him altogether. Then he began thus: and the pen of Father Joseph scurried behind his words.
“My dear son, I trust that you apply yourself diligently to your tasks and that you are already well advanced in your studies, and, in especial, in that study which I most commended to you. That coffer which I showed you the day before you left is in no better state than it was then. We urgently require somewhat that will cover the satin lining, which is in such ill repair. Your studies will have acquainted you with what material is best suited for this purpose, and you will be able to acquire some of it more easily than we and to send us sufficient. We have a neighbour shortly coming to visit us, and he will doubtless see the coffer, and, should he see the satin lining (in its present state of ill repair), it would shame us and Mirandola. Hasten therefore to send us some of that material that will best cover it. And the covering will need to be thick, for this neighbour has shrewd eyes. Your mother sends her love, and Mirandola. Your loving father, Gonsalvo of the Tower and Rocky Forest.”
“What studies does your worthy son pursue?” said Father Joseph.
“He is studying to take his proper place,” said Gonsalvo; “learning to be a man. He is being taught such things as concern his sphere in life; fitting himself for such responsibilities as will fall on him; learning to take an interest in the proper things; studying to concern himself with the things that matter.”
“I apprehend,” said Father Joseph.
But still the Lord of the Tower felt that more phrases yet were required of him, and he poured out all those he knew which, although having no meaning, could yet be introduced into conversation. There were far fewer of them then than there are now, so that he soon came to an end of them, but then he quoted proverbs and popular sayings and such circumlocution as had come down to him after serving various needs in former ages.
“I apprehend,” said Father Joseph.
Then the Lord of the Tower took the parchment and sealed it up with his seal. And Father Joseph sat there rubicund, affable, blinking; a study for anything rather than thought. Yet years of familiarity with incomplete confessions had given him a knack with the loose ends of parts of stories that enabled him to unravel them almost without thinking. This he had done already with the story now before him, but he desired to be sure, for he was a careful man.
“I have myself,” he said, “some material that might line a coffer, a very antique leather, or some damask that …”
“No, no,” said the Lord of the Tower, “I should not think of depriving you of these fair things.”
And Father Joseph knew from his haste to refuse this offer, and his eagerness to send the letter quickly, that he had indeed unravelled the story of Ramon Alonzo. Behind that beneficent smile that lingered after his speaking he pondered somewhat thus, so far as thoughts may be overtaken by words: “The Black Art! An evil matter. The earning of gold by dark means, perhaps even the making of it. Let us see to it that it be put to righteous uses, so that it be not entirely evil, both end and origin.”
And he began to plan uses for some of the gold that Ramon Alonzo should so sinfully earn, blessed and holy uses, so that not all should be evil about this wicked work, but that good should manifestly arise from it, like the flower blooming in April above the dark of the thorn; and the Powers of Darkness should see and be brought to shameful confusion.