The Charwoman's Shadow
by Lord Dunsany
XXVII: They Dread That a Witch Has Ridden from the Country Towards Moon's Rising
As Ramon Alonzo and Anemone wandered away from the wood her memories of pails and old age and the magical house dwindled faster, and she seemed even younger than her face amongst its little curls, and that was the face of a girl of seventeen. Often she glanced at her shadow to see if it was there, prompted by some dark memory like the fears that frighten children, but when she saw it going lightly with her light steps over the grass and small leaves she laughed to see it and forgot the memory. At such moments Ramon Alonzo tried to comfort her for those dark ages that she had known and all those wasted years, telling her that the future and years of his love should repay her; but more and more as they wandered away from the wood he noticed that talk of the past would puzzle her. She would listen attentively as though trying to remember or trying to understand, and then she would suddenly laugh to see a butterfly scared at her shadow, or to see the glint of a flower change as her shadow went over it. Then she would go grave again when she saw the grave face of Ramon Alonzo offering her sympathy for all she had suffered; and, puckering her forehead, she would half remember and half understand until she saw a lizard run in the leaves, or a young goat leaping, then all the memory she had of those dark years would go again. So he spoke only of the present and his love, and of the future and how his love would endure, and how it would be with her still in old age to shield her latest years from any sorrow. To this she listened, though when they spoke of old age it seemed to both of them like the ending of a story often told, and even pleasant to hear, but not wholly true. This defeat of invincible youth on a distant day was no more to them than is the thought of defeat to the men of a great army just fresh from their first victory.
Far into the future the radiance of that day shone for them, from where they walked on the hillside hand-in-hand in the morning, till all the years to be seemed to shimmer and glow in the gold of it, as though shafts of that one day’s sunlight could flash across all time. And even backwards its splendour seemed to pierce the mist of the past, casting a glow far off even on years that were gone; but the past, to Anemone, lay in Aragona and not in the dark house. Across a gulf of time that she could not measure, gardens and cottages of Aragona now glowed with a brighter light for her because of the radiance of one wonderful morning. They spoke awhile of those gardens and those cottages, Ramon Alonzo’s swift fancies racing back through the years from far dreams of the future to hear of them; for all ways that were ever trod by Anemone were to him enchanted paths, because they had brought her at last to him. She told of her early days, of her childhood that should have been yesterday, but that magic had separated from her by a bleak waste of years; and now her memories flitted across those years not knowing how many they were, as the swallows come back to us over leagues of sea, straight to their own eaves. And as she told of that old home of her memories, a cottage-garden at twilight in Aragona, the sky all haunted by the hint of some colour too marvellous to tarry till we can name it, but caught and held in her memory, the flowers shining softly with a faint glow of their own, the voices of children playing who must all long since be dead, the air trembling towards starlight; bells and their mellow echoes; faint notes of a lonely far music; as she told he lifted his gaze for a moment away from her lips, and saw, though dazzled a little by the shining gold of her curls, saw Aragona.
This was not the Aragona of her memories, in which every flower welcomed him to come and walk in her garden, and every soft song called him to share old joys of her childhood: it was the Aragona in which night and day men watched with swords at their sides for the man with the bad shadow. And Ramon Alonzo saw that he must look into the future, to pick difficult paths, that would not be lit by any light shining from daydreams. Immediately before him lay Aragona; and what after that? Would his father receive Anemone? He thought of her fair young face, her delicate curls, the rippling light of her eyes, her fairy figure, her merry childish ways rejoicing in girlhood, to which she had returned after such wanderings: daydreams all; his father would not see her as Ramon Alonzo saw. Then he thought of soberer things more reasonably. His father was going to marry Mirandola, with those lightning eyes under that stormy hair, to the neighbour, Señor Gulvarez. If they asked where Anemone came from, she too was a neighbour. If they asked who she was, who was Gulvarez? And if Anemone were unknown, was that not better than to be known as Gulvarez was known, a gross mean man that had excellent pigs, but not himself excellent? So Ramon Alonzo argued, and I give the theme of his argument, considering it worthy thus to be handed down the ages, not for any intrinsic brilliance in the logic, but because it was remarkable that out of that glittering daydream, that was lulling him and Anemone from all the cares of the world, he was able to awake to argue at all.
Then he told Anemone of his father’s house, and how they would marry there and be happy forever after, and of the welcome that his father would give her. And in his vision of their future there, long languid days of summer and beautiful spring-times, and October suns huge, red and mysterious through haze, and gorgeous fires in winter and hunted boars brought home, all blended to build one glory. He told of his mother and Mirandola, and Father Joseph and Peter, and the great dog that he loved, who, as he believed, could have killed a boar alone. A little he told her of hunts that he had had, but told not much of the past, because it seemed to him so bleak when compared with their future. Of the future he told in all its magnificence and so came back to his daydreams. Once she questioned him about his father’s welcome, but his faith in Gulvarez had grown since first he had thought of him, and Gulvarez presided now over all that situation: his father, he said, would surely welcome her. Yet her question brought him back again to the things that are outside daydreams. They had come nearer Aragona now, and its walls shone bright at noon, but with none of the light that shines from happy dreams. Now they must plan. Whither their steps? Aragona first, said Anemone. And then the Tower, said Ramon Alonzo: they could be there that evening. But Anemone besought him for some days at Aragona, now that she had come back to it after all that mist of years, that seemed banked up, impenetrable to her memory, although over them all shone clear the roofs of the old Aragona.
“But in what house?” he asked.
She knew not.
“With whom?”
She cared not.
Aragona, Aragona; the memory of it was in her mind like bells, and she besought some days there.
Then he told her how men waited there for the man with the bad shadow, because of what had happened there on the hill at evening. And he drew his sword as they went towards the village. She laid her hand on the arm that held the sword and made him put it up.
“Not now,” she said. “We will go in the evening late, when shadows are long. And they shall see that your shadow can grow and is as good a shadow as any Christian man’s. Aye, and better; and better. Look at it now on the flowers. Who has a shadow to equal it? And at evening it shall be beautiful, dark and long; and who’ll dare speak of it except in envy?”
And this seemed wise to him, for he could not believe that any prejudice against a man on account of a short shadow could remain when he had a long shadow for everyone to see. So he praised Anemone’s plan and said they would wait. But prejudices die slowly, as they were to find out that evening.
And on the bright hillside they waited, spending the shining hours in happy talk. They had neither food nor water; they had fled too swiftly to have brought provisions away from the house in the wood. But it was the time of year when pomegranates ripen, and a grove of these was near them; and the pomegranates were food and drink to them. Sitting amongst the flowers their talk went on all through the afternoon. There is no memory of what they said. The sound just came to them, from the limits of hearing, of bees in a tall lime; swift insects flashed across the yellow sunlight with sudden streaks of silver; butterflies rested near them, all motionless, showing their splendours; a wind sighed up out of Africa to turn the leaves of a tree; children a long way off called across bright fields to their comrades; the flowers sparkled, and drank the sunlight in; their talk was part of the joy with which Earth greeted the sun.
But when rays slanted and shadows crept afield, and more and more appeared where there had been only sunlight, till multitudes of them were gathered upon the hill, and they seemed to possess the landscape more than the rocks on trees, and Earth seemed populated chiefly with shadows, and even destined for them; then Ramon Alonzo and Anemone, hand in hand, their two dark shadows stretching long behind them, walked confidently into Aragona.
And those who watched espied them. Then bells were rung and men ran out of houses, and there were shouts and musterings; and the murmur arose of a crowd in its agitation, and above the murmur one phrase loud and often: “For the Faith. For the Faith.”
Ramon Alonzo drew near them with Anemone, thinking to satisfy them with the sight of his long shadow, but when they saw it they only cried, “Magic. Magic.” For, having come out from their houses to look for a false shadow, they would not recognize a true one though it lay there for all to see.
Again Ramon Alonzo drew his sword. Without a ring it came from the scabbard and was all leaden to look on and tarnished, not like the bright swords flashing here and there in the crowd, for it had been dulled and disenchanted when it had crossed the lightning-stroke in the hand of the Master. Then Anemone stepped forward before Ramon Alonzo and raised her voice above the sound of the bells and the cry of the crowd for the Faith, till they all stood silent and listened, halted by her bright vehemence.
“No magic,” she said, “no magic; but a young man’s shadow. Watch, and you shall see it grow, as it hath grown ever since noon. See it now fair and shapely. Can magic do this? Who hath a longer shadow? Who hath a shapelier? See how the daisies rest in it. I know what magic can do, but this never.”
And one lifted his voice from the silence that lulled them all, as with one arm high she spoke her speech in their faces; he lifted his voice and said: “What is this stranger?”
Then all who had listened to her looked at her strangely and noted that many times she had used the word magic. What was she? Magic too, maybe. And a fear fell on them all.
“Aye,” said another, with more in his voice than the first, “what stranger is she?”
They thought that voice, those questions, and all their looks, had quelled her. But she flashed a look at them and spoke again with irresistible voice.
“Stranger?” she said, “stranger? I am of Aragona, I!”
And an elder peered at her awhile and slowly said: “You know not Aragona.”
“Aye,” she said, “every lane of it.”
“Maybe the roadway,” the elder said, “and our notable belfry, but the small lanes never.”
“Aye, every lane,” said Anemone.
“Easily said,” cried another.
And one said: “Let her tell us tales of it. Let her tell us of this Aragona that she has known.”
And Ramon Alonzo, behind her with his sword yet in his hand, would have stopped them, for he feared that the Aragona she knew would be all faded away, and that, telling of olden things that to her were dearest, she would bring upon her their derision. So he tried to turn them but they did not hear him, and all were crying out: “Tell us what you found when you travelled to Aragona.” And they made pretence that Aragona was some far town that they knew not.
Then she raised her hand and hushed them and spoke low, and told of Aragona. She told not of things that change when old men die, or when children grow and leave gardens, but she told of things that abide or alter slowly, even now when time has a harsher way with villages. She told of yew-trees, she told of the older graves, she told of the wandering lanes that had no purpose, with never a reason for one of their curves and no reason for altering them, she told the place of the haystack in many fields, she told old legends concerning the shape of the hills and the lore that guided the sower. She crooned it to them with her love of those fields vibrating through every phrase, fields that had shone for her across the bleakness of unremembered years. She told them their pedigrees; quaint names to them in faded ink on old scrolls in their houses; but she knew with whom their grandfathers went a-maying. She told and perforce they listened, held by her love of those fields. And when she ceased crooning the last word to them, that told of some old stone there was on a hill, when the last sound died away like a song that fades softly, a low hum rose in the crowd from wondering voices. She stood there silent while the hum roamed up and down and back again.
Then one spoke clear and said: “She is a witch-woman, for none knows her here; and hath seen our village upon starry nights riding by broom from the Country Towards Moon’s Rising.”
“Aye,” said the others, speaking deep in awe. “She is from that land.”
And they opened their eyes a little wider, looking towards her in horror; for that land lies not only beyond salvation, but the dooms of the Last Judgment cross not its borders either, so that those who have trafficked in magic and known the Black Art walk abroad there boldly, unpunished; a most dreadful sight. Only they must come to it before ever they die; for then it is too late.
“No,” she said, “not from the Country Towards Moon’s Rising.”
“Whence then?” said they.
And again she said: “Aragona.”
And one asked her, “What house?”
She pointed to it where one window had flashed and blazed at the sunset; but now the shadow of the hill went over it and someone lit a candle then and placed it in the window.
“There,” she said. And no more words than this came to her lips.
“It is empty,” they shouted.
“And hath been for years,” said one.
“The candle,” she said.
“An old custom,” one answered. “It is clear that you know not Aragona.”
“No,” she said, “I know not that custom.”
“A girl lived there in the old time,” one told her, “and left it, and came not back.”
“And the candle?” she said.
“The folk that dwelt there put it there all their days, lest she should come back,” he said.
“And after?” asked Anemone.
“They left money by testament, as all men know, for a candle to be lit there always at sunset. The money is long since spent, but we keep the custom.”
Aye, they waited for her yet. Then she looked long and saw how the thatch had sagged, and doors and windows were gone except that one window, and it was indeed as they said: the house was empty and had long been so.
There was a hush to see what she would do; all the crowd waited; Ramon Alonzo stood there with his sword to defend her: none stirred.
They waited for her yet. And how could she claim to be the one that legend expected? A tale for a winter’s night, with none to doubt it of those that warmed at the fire. But in the open air, with the sun still over the skyline, who would believe her? And how tell of the long black years without speaking of magic?
A long long look she took at that tumbled cottage, then turned away and touched Ramon Alonzo’s arm.
“Come,” she said.
They went back to the hill and none followed. But they set guards about the boundaries of Aragona lest he or she should return to corrupt them with magic.
For a while he did not speak, seeing her sorrow. But when voices hummed far behind them, their accusations blurred and harmless with distance, and he saw that none pursued, he turned to Anemone. “Where now?” he said.
And Anemone answered, “I know not.”
“Then to my home,” said he.
And at these words she smiled, for they came to her thoughts like lights to a dark chamber. The past was all gone, but there was still the future. She let him guide her whither he would; and he made a wide circle about Aragona, and then walked towards his home. The sunset faded and a star came out, and peered at them; others stole out and watched them, and still they strode on swiftly through the night.
Anemone spoke little, for she was troubled about the future. What if it should crumble like the past? What if the parents of this splendid young man should refuse to receive one whose natal house was mouldering walls under a sagging roof that was more moss than thatch, upon which oats were growing.
Only once she spoke of this on their walk through the dark. But he, thinking yet of Gulvarez, answered so certainly that his father would receive her that she feared so great assurance to be unreasoning; for she knew nothing of the mean gross man that the Lord of the Tower was to receive as a son-in-law.
The stars that had come out earliest beckoned quietly to others as soon as they saw that pair, and the others came up hastily, and all that peering multitude all night long saw Ramon Alonzo and Anemone walking, till the lustre went out of their watching and they all faded away.
In the paleness of morning the young man saw his home lifting a gable above the dark of the forest. He did not tell Anemone what it was, for there was a certain spot from which he wished her to see it first, because from there he believed that the Tower looked fairest. But he told her that they were very near his home, for he saw that she was weary. Before they came to that spot from which he wished her to see the Tower, they saw a man coming towards them. It was too far to see his face; yet at the first glance Ramon Alonzo thought of Peter, though it was not ever his wont to be up so early and he had no cause to be going by that road. Then he watched awhile to see who it could be. Peter it was. And with a letter for Ramon Alonzo that his father had written overnight.
“I started full early,” said Peter.
Ramon Alonzo took the letter, while Peter’s eyes drank in the sight of his young master; then he looked at Anemone and saw how it was, and said nothing.
“My lady,” said Ramon Alonzo to Peter, looking up from his letter.
And Peter went down on one knee in the road and kissed Anemone’s hand. And this first greeting that she had from the Tower, an omen full of good fortune, heartened Anemone for a fleeting instant. Then she turned to Ramon Alonzo, and saw him reading the letter with great astonishment. At first the news, however strange, seemed good: she could not read the parchment, yet this she read clear in the face of Ramon Alonzo. But then the tenor of the letter changed, and she saw him read the end with troubled anxiety.