The Charwoman's Shadow
by Lord Dunsany
XXIX: The Casket of Silver and Oak Is Given to Señor Gulvarez
This was the seventh day of the Duke’s illness. Of his wrath none knew, for he had no wrath for Mirandola, and none else durst venture into his presence to see. But his illness was waning fast, and it was clear that all his strength would soon be recovered. Soon he would be up and away. “And then,” thought Gonsalvo, “Father Joseph must come, and farewell to my fair fields.” So he went that morning to see the three fields that he loved, with the dew still on them, and the shade of the forest lying still over half of them. He had gone wondering if they could be really so fair as they seemed to be in the picture his memory had of them. Alas! They were. It would have cheered him to find that they were but common fields. But no, there was a glamour about them; something dwelling perhaps in the forest seemed to have stolen out and enchanted them; they lay there deep as ever in their old mystery, under a gauzy grey of spiders’ webs and dew. And that old feeling lay over them all in the morning, which we feel when we speak of home. They were very ordinary fields, lying under dew in the morning; and very ordinary tears came into Gonsalvo’s eyes, for he was a simple man, and the roots of the grasses that grew there seemed tangled up somehow or other all amongst his heartstrings.
Looking there long at his fields he became aware of a man approaching across them and looking carefully at them as he came. It was Gulvarez. He also had come to see if they were really as fair as had been thought.
The sun now came over the tips of the trees, and Gonsalvo stared at it awhile. “Very bright,” he said, as Gulvarez came up.
“Aye,” said Gulvarez jovially, “a merry day.” And then he spake more gravely. “Yonder stile,” he said, “will need much repairing.”
It was an old stile whose wood was damp and soft, and moss and strange things grew on it. Grand old timbers had made it, and it had been thus through all Gonsalvo’s time.
“It was a good stile once,” said Gonsalvo.
“Maybe,” said Gulvarez.
Gonsalvo sighed.
“They are fair fields, are they not?” Gonsalvo said.
“Aye,” said Gulvarez. But he looked all round at them before he answered, which somehow saddened Gonsalvo.
“It is time for breakfast,” Gonsalvo said.
“Aye,” said Gulvarez, again with that jovial voice, “I have a merry appetite.”
So back they went together from those fair fields, and the morning seemed to shine bright for Gulvarez only.
The Lady of the Tower awaited them, but not Mirandola, nor did she appear while they breakfasted. Gulvarez, refreshed by the morning and charmed at the sight of those fields, was full of a joviality that he would have expressed by gallant sayings told to a beautiful girl. But where was Mirandola?
“She is taking her breakfast with the Duke,” said Mirandola’s mother.
So Gulvarez waited. And the morning went by and still she did not come, and the stress of impatience caused a change in the nature of Gulvarez’ joviality, as the nature of fruit changes when it ferments.
She came to them in the early afternoon with little in her face to show whether the Duke fared well or ill, and saying nothing of him until asked by her father.
“He prospers,” she said, “and will take the road tomorrow.”
“He will go?” said Gonsalvo.
“Yes, tomorrow,” said Mirandola.
“Is he wroth with us yet?” said Gonsalvo.
“I know not,” she answered.
They would know tomorrow. Gonsalvo thought again of his plan, and went into the garden with Gulvarez to discuss how Mirandola should lead the Duke to the road while he and his lady and Gulvarez were elsewhere. Within the house her mother looked at Mirandola and was about to speak, but in all the moments that she looked at her daughter she saw no sign of the matter upon which she would have spoken, so closed her lips again and did not speak. When Gonsalvo and Gulvarez came back from the garden Mirandola had gone again with more food and drink to the Duke.
And now Gulvarez sat silent, speaking indeed when spoken to, but always returning to brood, as it seemed to Gonsalvo, upon the same theme, whatever that theme might be. He seemed to be thinking some thought, or working upon some problem, that was surprisingly new, and that could only be followed with difficulty, and yet could not be left. Once he opened his lips to speak, but what he was going to say seemed so strange to him that in the end he said nothing. So he sat there brooding upon his new thought, a man unaccustomed to thinking, and all the more perplexed at having to brood alone, yet the thought was too strange to share it with Gonsalvo; it seemed too near to madness. And, as he brooded there, from amongst the things that he could see in his mind the three fields faded away.
Next morning the Duke rose. The four chiefs of his bowmen, who all that week had moved about the house seldom speaking to any, like stately silent shadows, showed now an alertness such as comes to the swallows when they know that September is here; and all was prepared for departure.
The Duke had breakfasted before he descended. He was all ready for the road. Nothing remained but that Mirandola, meeting him at the foot of the stairs, should lead him by a path through an arm of the forest, the four bowmen following, and out on to the road at a point at which Peter should have his horse for him; when, not seeing his host or Gulvarez where he would be given to expect them, he would ride away, and Mirandola would carry any farewells for him. These were the plans of Gonsalvo, whereby he hoped to escape the wrath of the Duke if that magical anger still smouldered. He had told them to Mirandola overnight, and she had dutifully hearkened and promised to do the bidding of her father. “All will be well,” he had said to Gulvarez. But Gulvarez had maintained that silence of his that was troubled by his new broodings.
The step of the Duke was heard on the stair; behind him tramped his four bowmen. Mirandola looked up.
“Your horse is on the road at the end of the path,” she said. “I will show you.”
“Is it not at the door?” he asked.
“I think my father sent it to the end of the path,” she answered. She gave no reason; there was none. It was the weak part of Gonsalvo’s scheme. She watched his face a moment with anxiety. But a glad smile came on his face.
“We will go by the path,” he said.
Great indeed was the wrong that had been done him in that house, but it pleased the Duke to think, and he invented many reasons to help his contention, that Mirandola could have no part in it. From this he had come to believe that she had no real part in that house, but was something almost elfin that had haunted it out of the forest, or something that had come for a little while to cheer its hateful rooms, as a ray from the sun may briefly enter a dungeon. Indeed it is hard to say what the Duke was thinking, for his brain was all awhirl. Whatever he thought was unjust, for Mirandola was the one light to him in the dark inhospitality of that house. Whereas—but never mind: it all happened so long ago.
So they went by the path. It ran through a part of the garden; then to the wild, then turned from the heather and rocks and ran awhile through the forest and out to the high road. It was the way that Peter and the dairymaids took, for it brought them into the Tower by a small door at the back, but the road went by the front door.
The Duke walked slowly, full of thought and quite silent. He had looked long for this day, when he could go forth again a hale man once more, and be in the sunlight and hear the birds and ride away, and never have any more to do with that house. Yet here were the sunlight and birds, and the house was behind him, and his horse was waiting for him a little way off, and none of the joy he had looked for came near him at all. He was free of that house at last and unhappy to be free. Never had he thought so much or thought less clearly, for all his thoughts were contradicting each other; and Mirandola’s eyes made it harder to think than ever. They were happy eyes, caring little, it seemed, for his trouble. And what was his trouble? Something profoundly wrong with the bright morning, that could not be easily cured; and the future coming up all dull and listless for years and years and years. Indeed his brain was in a whirl.
“You are glad to be leaving us?” said Mirandola as they crossed the strip of heather.
“Yes,” said the Duke, “I am sorry.”
It was the Duke that thought over what he had answered more than Mirandola. She said no more, but he pondered on his own words. He had said he was sorry. Yes, that was the truth of it. An accursed house no doubt, and yet it had hold of his heartstrings. Sighing he walked on slowly and came to the forest with Mirandola beside him, and the four chiefs of his bowmen a short way behind. And now his thoughts became fewer and simpler.
“Señorita,” he said, “are you glad that I am leaving you?”
“Yes,” she said, “I am sorry.”
She had repeated his own confused words! Which did she mean?
He turned round to his four men, who halted to hear his order.
“Hunt rabbits,” he said.
And at once the chiefs of the bowmen disappeared in the forest; and the Duke with Mirandola walked on in silence. And no words came to him to say what was weighing upon his heart to this flashing elfin lady. He that ruled over the deeps of so great a forest had many affairs to weigh and discharged them with many commands, and his words had earned from men a repute for wisdom; but as for the fawns he loved, that slipped noiselessly across clearings; and wide-winged herons that came down at evening along a slant of the air; foxes, eagles, and roe-deer; he knew not their language. And now he felt as he had sometimes felt, watching alone by the clearings, when the things of the wild came gliding by through a hush that seemed all theirs; and he loved their beautiful shapes and their shy wild ways, and his heart went out towards them; but there lay the gulf between him and them across which no words could call. So he felt now as he looked on Mirandola, fearing that words were not shaped for what he would say. He halted and looked long on her, and no words came to his lips. They were near the road at the spot where his horse waited, and he feared that they soon might part, with all unsaid. But those proud eyes of his were saying all he would say; the twinkle of merriment in Mirandola’s eyes died down under the gaze of them, and a graver look came to her face, and her merry look did not return till he spoke and she heard common human words again.
“Will you marry me, Mirandola?” he said at last.
It was then that the twinkle dawned again in her eyes.
“I am engaged to Señor Gulvarez,” she said.
“Gulvarez!” he said.
“Yes, my father arranged it,” said Mirandola.
“Gulvarez shall hang,” said the Duke.
“I thought he was your friend,” said Mirandola.
“Aye,” said the Duke, “truly. But he shall hang.”
And one last favour she did for Gulvarez, that had had so few favours of her hitherto; for when she saw that the Duke was truly bent upon hanging him, and was indeed earnest in the matter, she besought him to put it aside, and would not answer the question that he had asked her until he had sworn that Gulvarez should go unhung. Then she consented.
And now from the obscurer part of the garden, where they had lurked while the Duke went by, Gonsalvo and Gulvarez came forth. Gonsalvo walked with all the lightness of one from whom a burden has slipped; and Gulvarez with downcast head and moody air, and silence grudgingly broken when at all: so they walked in the garden.
“He never saw us,” said Gonsalvo cheerily.
“No,” said Gulvarez.
Little light shells crunched under their feet along the path while Gonsalvo waited for a further answer.
“He is gone,” said Gonsalvo.
This time Gulvarez made no answer at all, and the shells crunched on in silence.
Gonsalvo believed that all things were as bright as his own mood, but when he perceived that this was not so with Gulvarez he spoke to him of the three fair fields, though it cost him a sigh to do it. And even this made no rift in the heavy mood of Gulvarez.
“They are fair, are they not?” asked Gonsalvo.
“Yes, yes,” said Gulvarez impatiently, and fell to nursing again that curious silence.
And at this Gonsalvo wondered, until he wondered at a new thing. For all of a sudden he wondered, “Where is Peter?”
Peter was holding the horse of the Duke a little way down the road: why had he not returned? Was the man straying away to wanton in idleness when there was work to be done in the stables? He peered about in vexation, and still no sign of Peter.
The Duke must have reached the road long since, and ridden away: Peter should have returned immediately. No work, no wages, he thought. And in his anger his mind dwelt long on Peter.
And then he thought: “Where ever is Mirandola?”
“It is curious,” he said to Gulvarez, “I do not see Mirandola returning.”
Almost a look of contempt seemed to colour the gloom of Gulvarez as he turned to the Lord of the Tower.
“No,” he said.
“It is curious,” said Gonsalvo.
And an uneasiness began to grow in his mind slowly, until it was two silent men that walked in the garden together.
“A little this way,” said Gonsalvo, going through a gap in the hedge to a knoll that rose in a field outside the garden, from which one saw more of the road. Gulvarez moodily followed. And there was the Duke’s horse, and Peter waiting; not even wondering, as his whole attitude showed, but holding the horse in the road and merely waiting, as flowers and vegetables wait. “Still there,” said Gonsalvo. And Gulvarez grunted.
There was nothing to gaze at; a patient man and an almost patient horse; and presently Gonsalvo turned from them, and came with Gulvarez slowly back to the garden. They walked again upon the small seashells.
And then, with the summer burning in their faces, with the splendours of wonderful hopes and imaginations, led by such inspirations as trouble the hills in Spring, came Mirandola and the Duke of Shadow Valley, together back from the forest.
“He returns,” said Gonsalvo.
Gulvarez nodded his head.
“But he comes back,” Gonsalvo said.
And on walked Mirandola and the Duke of Shadow Valley, as though they had crossed the border of a land full of the morning and were walking further and further into its golden brightness, which lit their faces more and more as they went, while behind them lay colder lands, lonelier and lacking enchantment.
And Gonsalvo said nothing but little words of surprise, and Gulvarez said nothing at all, for his gloomy mood was set for these very events. But the Lady of the Tower as she passed by a high window, looking out saw all at once Mirandola’s story. Soon these five met by their three separate ways, at the door that led to the garden. And the Lady of the Tower looking out on the huge gloom of Gulvarez and the radiance of Mirandola, while her husband repeated phrases and questions all shrill with surprise, recalled a thunderstorm she had seen long since, coming over the sea at sunrise, while small white birds ran crying along the coast.
And then with a gasp Gonsalvo’s eyes were opened to the obvious situation, which had long been clear to Gulvarez. They entered the house, Gonsalvo walking behind in silence. My story draws near to its close.
In the room where the boar-spears hung they planned the future—as far as men ever do—for they turned blindly and confidently towards the strange dark ways to speak as though they could see them; and would have spoken, but the Duke talked instead, fervidly, gaily, and lyrically: it was a great while before Gonsalvo had opportunity to touch on the matter that had long lain near his heart, the matter of the casket and Mirandola’s dowry.
“As for dowry,” said the Duke, “give me …” but he spoke incoherently, naming foolish things, a lock of her hair, an eyelash, a common fan.
“Then Your Magnificence,” said Gonsalvo, when opportunity came to speak again, “accept at least that casket which, had the fortunes of my house been grander, had long been filled with gold; for it was ever destined for my daughter’s dowry, though still by ill fortune empty as you shall see.”
And he took its key and opened the casket there, showing it to be empty as he had said, and was about to hold it forth in his two hands to the Duke. But Mirandola said: “Father, it was promised to Señor Gulvarez.”
Gonsalvo, as he bowed forward with his casket, stopped with a sudden jerk and looked with amaze at his daughter. But Mirandola’s eyes under curved black lashes remained unwavering, and she said no more. And after awhile, in silence, and puzzled at his own action, Gonsalvo handed the casket to Gulvarez, who took it without any thanks, midmost in that courteous age, and put it under his arm and walked from the room and went away from the house. And then the Lady of the Tower would have spoken, but the Duke spoke again. It was more like the words of such songs as they sometimes sang in youth, upon moonlight nights, in the Golden Age, to the tune of a mandolin, than any sober prevision of the future. And as he spoke, thoughts so swam through Gonsalvo’s mind, so swift and so unrelated, that he longed with a great yearning for Father Joseph, who had such an easeful way with unruly thoughts, and wondered upon what pretext he could summon him, for the need of a priest was not yet. And then he thought of his son, and that business of gold for the dowry, and the propriety of acquainting him with his sister’s betrothal. The occasion was well worthy of a letter. And he slipped from the room and sent Peter in haste for the priest.
Plump and mellow and calm, in due course Father Joseph appeared; and his calmness came to Gonsalvo like snow upon torrid sands. And they greeted and spoke awhile, and Father Joseph said soothing things that were easy to understand. And this was the letter that was written:
“My dear Son, a thing has befallen so strange that I am readier to marvel at it than to acquaint you with the truth of it or to tell you how it befell, if indeed this could be told, but it is of those things whose ways are inscrutable and that befall as they may and are not to be traced to their origins, or to be studied by any of the arts of philosophy, but are only indeed to be marvelled at. The Duke of Shadow Valley is betrothed to your sister and will marry her. That is as it is. Ask me not how it became so, for I am no philosopher to unravel the causes of events; and methinks that many events are only made for our wonder, and have no cause and no meaning but that we should wonder at them, as indeed I do at this event most heartily. Now this being as I have said, with the aid of Father Joseph, whose pen has been most ready in this matter, there is no need any longer of that business which we have discussed heretofore. Return home therefore with all speed and abide with us. But of all earthly needs place this the foremost: to wed in due course (and may the Saints whose care it is hasten the happy occasion) only the daughter of some illustrious house; for the Duke of Shadow Valley is, as the world knows, the loved companion of the King’s self, and they have hunted the magpie together with their falcons, and have strolled abroad when all the city slept, seeking such adventures together as were appropriate to their youth. Bring no shame therefore on so illustrious a head by marriage with any house not well established in honour before the coming of the Moors. Your loving father, Gonsalvo of the Tower and Rocky Forest.”
After the dictation of so long a letter and the work of signing it with his own hand, and all his wonderings and perplexities, Gonsalvo sat in his chair so much bewildered that he could not wholly extricate his thoughts, nor could even Father Joseph make their meaning perfectly clear to him. And in this perplexed state there came to him all of a sudden one vivid, lucid thought of his three fair fields. He rose, and though Father Joseph would have assisted him with his counsel, he went forth in silence out of the house alone. And soon he was walking on those remembered grasses, dewy now with the evening.
With folded hands in a chair Father Joseph ordered his thoughts. But to Gonsalvo, pacing his fields again, there came a calm along the slanting rays, and out of the turf he trod, and from the cool of evening and glitter of leaves; it came from that quiet moment in which day ceases to burn, and it welled up out of memories of other evenings that had illumined those fields. Far off he saw the form of Gulvarez riding away, bent on his horse, his two men-at-arms behind him: he turned to call to him some word as he went: he filled his lungs to hail him; but turned instead to some flowers among the grasses that the sun had touched in his fields.