The Charwoman's Shadow by Lord Dunsany

Author:Lord Dunsany
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Epic, Fantasy, Fiction, General
ISBN: 9780345431929
Publisher: Ballantine Publishing Group
Published: 1973-01-31T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter XVI

The Work of Father Joseph

Mirándola came back from the edge of the forest wondering, over wild heath to the garden. It had been her wont to know what her brother did, and even what he thought. But now he had some thought that she did not know, and it was at this that she wondered. She considered all the events that she thought might touch her brother—love first of all; and awhile she thought this was his motive, and then she thought it was something else. But she had not spoken with him long enough to guess that he went away so soon and so fast through the forest, with a packet of meat in his satchel, because he had lost what all material things have in attendance upon them whenever they face the light, and that he durst not show while other shadows were shorter his miserable strip of five feet of gloom. She had indeed heard tales of men who had sold their shadows, and knew that her brother had daily dealings with magic, but she had not guessed the fee that the Master took. She had told him not to bring gold. For what purpose then was his haste? Wondering, she returned to the garden.

Who could tell her? Only one. One only, amongst the few Mirandola knew, was able to work out such puzzles, and that was the good Father Joseph. And just as she thought of him she saw his plump shape coming smiling across the garden. It was by a path through the garden he was wont to come from his house whenever he came to see the Lord of the Tower; and he came now to help make ready for that event, now near at hand, of which all the neighbourhood talked, the visit of the serene and glorious hidalgo, the Duke of Shadow Valley.

And before he entered the house to take part in the preparations upon which the Lord of the Tower had long been occupied, except for the brief interruption of Ramon Alonzo’s visit, Mirandola greeted him and turned him aside to another part of the garden, hoping to find from him the clue of her brother’s sudden departure. That he would discern it she had no doubt, that he might tell her she hoped; for these two were good friends, almost one might say comrades in spiritual things. Mirandola’s confessions were the most complete of any that dwelt at the Tower, perhaps the most complete the good father heard, and indeed they were a joy to him. Often from these confessions he gathered such knowledge as it was right that he should have of the little earthly events that befell in that neighbourhood, which might not otherwise have come his way. He came much to rely on them; and so it was that he and Mirandola had a certain comradeship in the wars that the just wage ever against sin.

“My brother came to-day,” she said as they walked.

“He did?” said Father Joseph.

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