The Charwoman’s Shadow

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 today,” she said as they walked.

“He did?” said Father Joseph.

“But he only stayed a short space and then went away.”

“Oh. That is sad,” said Father Joseph.

“He spoke with all of us and ate a dinner, and then he left at once.”

“I trust he ate well,” said the good man.

“Very well,” answered Mirandola.

“Very well?” repeated Father Joseph.

“Yes. He ate a large dinner.”

“More than usual with him?”

“Yes.”

“Ah,” said the good man, “then he had travelled fast.”

“I suppose so,” said Mirandola.

“For what purpose did he come?” asked Father Joseph.

Mirandola looked at him and smiled gently. “He came to see us,” she said.

But Father Joseph had seen from that smile and from her eyes, before she spoke, that he would not get an answer to that question.

“Very right. Very proper,” he said.

“But he would not stay,” she said.

“Ah. He should have stayed awhile,” said Father Joseph.

“He went away very fast through the forest,” she said.

“By what road did he come?” he asked.

“Through the forest,” she said.

“Ah. Hiding,” said Father Joseph.

Not only was Father Joseph ready at all times with help for those that sought it, but one good turn deserved another, and he joyously used his wits for Mirandola. He argued thus with himself: a man hides either from enemies or from all. A man sometimes hid from the law; but the law came seldom to these parts, and in summer never, for la Garda slept much in the heat. From enemies then or from all. Now in all the confessions he had heard from men that had enemies he had noticed that none went back from their journeys by the same way by which they had come, as Ramon Alonzo had done. Did he then hide from all, except from his family? That would argue some change in him that he wished to conceal, or even in his clothing, for he had known young men as sensitive about their mere clothes as about the very form God had made, or⁠—alas⁠—about even the safety of their souls. But what change then? It would not have escaped the eyes of Mirandola.

“I trust he was well,” he said.

“Yes,” she said.

“He looked as he ever looks?” he asked.

“Oh, yes.”

“Quite the same as ever. Yes, of course. And he was dressed the same?”

“Yes,” she said. “All but his cloak.”

“Ah, his cloak was different,” said Father Joseph.

“It was not there,” she said.

“No,” he said, and thought awhile. And now his thoughts ran deeper and stranger, touching the ways of magic, of which he knew much, but as an enemy.

“My child,” he said, and he took her hand and patted it, lest his words should alarm her, “had he a shadow?”

She gave a little gasp. “Yes, his shadow was safe.”

That was as near as Father Joseph came with his guesses. He thought much more but strayed further away from the truth, and then he decided that more facts were needed, small things observed, short phrases overheard, which he knew so well how to weave; and determined to bide his time.

“That is all now,” he said to soothe her, lest she should fear another question probing such dreadful things. “We shall find why he left.”

They turned back then to the house to take part in the preparations.

There Father Joseph found all the old repose gone. Comfortable chairs that stood in quiet corners had been moved, chairs that his body loved when a little wearied perhaps by spiritual work; and the corners that had seemed so