The Charwoman’s Shadow

ear to what was doing in the wider world beyond the boundaries of Spain, and who watched the times and were quick to note whenever they brought a new thing; and of these Gonsalvo was one; and so he had got that song, no great while after its arrival in Spain (brought over the Pyrenees by a wandering singer, as birds sometimes carry strange seeds), but the song was old among the troubadours. As Gonsalvo sang he thought of the days when it was something to know that song, showing either that the singer had travelled far or was one of those quick minds that caught all things new; the merrier the notes the more he thought of those days. And the more he thought of them the more he regretted that they were all gone over the hills. A melancholy came into Gonsalvo’s voice. Each line of the song seemed to roll him further and further away from that young man that had known so long ago the latest air from Provence. Ah well. Such feelings must come sooner or later to all of us. But Gonsalvo was not a meditative man, and to him they came most rarely, troubling him scarcely ever; now they all welled up in him at the sound of that song, and at the thought that for aught Gonsalvo knew it was no longer the latest air. His melancholy deepened. His memory drew those merry lines from the past, with a tone as sad as the groans of an aged man, who winds up a pail of bright water out of a well, with pain in all his old joints.

Gulvarez no more than Gonsalvo knew the Provençal tongue, yet the lilt of the tune should have told him that it was a merry song. But he watched his host’s face with care and saw there what he heard in his tones; he therefore mopped his eyes with a kerchief, thinking to please Gonsalvo. Then Gonsalvo sought to explain that it was a merry song, and was highly thought of as such in better years if not now; and all amongst his explanations Gulvarez thrust in words, seeking to explain his kerchief. Why was it that during all this time Mirandola seemed to sit there smiling? For her lips never moved. Then the Lady of the Tower, seeing that the silence, that had hung so heavily over them after Mirandola’s remark, had not been bettered, though broken, by Gonsalvo’s merry song, rose from her seat and beckoned to Mirandola; and, closing the explanations of the men with fair words to Gulvarez, went thence with her daughter. So passed the third day of that illness that so strangely afflicted the Duke.

And the fourth day came; and on this day Father Joseph was seen riding away on his mule. When Father Joseph walked over to the Tower, and for a few days left the little village, the folk sinned there gladly; but when he rode away on a mule, they knew not whither, and was not back by evening, a piety came uneasily down on the village, and not only no one sinned but they scarcely sang; for none gave absolution like Father Joseph.

In the Tower it was as yesterday, for an anxious hush still hung over all the house because of the dreadful thing it had done to the Duke. And none dared trouble that hush by suggesting a new thing; and events came slowly. The Duke’s strength still gained gradually, and his magical fury gradually faded, if indeed it faded at all. Mirandola still saw a glitter of wrath in his eyes, whenever she opened his door, which only faded when he saw it was her, bringing him food or drink. And the wrath with which he watched the door seemed to Mirandola magnificent; for it seemed to her that no more than lightnings or splendid dawns would he turn aside to let mean things have their way, or assist gross things to prosper; and she had seen gross men and watched mean ways, and had had a fear that for aught that she could do she would come amongst grossness and meanness in the end; so what was crude and common would teach the mundane way once more to the rare and fine.

They spoke little; for the Duke’s wrath would not easily allow him to speak to any of that house that had so strangely wronged him, although it could not rage at Mirandola.

Downstairs Gulvarez said tender things to her; but, as it was ever his way to say these the loudest, she hushed him with one hand raised and an anxious air, lest the Duke should hear any sound and be moved to yet fiercer humours. And none knew how the Duke fared except Mirandola, and she told all truthfully; yet always with an anxiety in her voice which made all the future uncertain and checked Gulvarez’ boldness, as though he had suddenly come to the verge of a country that was full of a damp white mist. Amongst such uncertainties this day passed like the last.

The fifth day of the Duke’s strange illness came. A troubled piety reigned in the village, and Father Joseph was still far away, being then with Ramon Alonzo in the magician’s wood. In the Tower none knew if the Duke’s illness abated, but now he had grown accustomed to Mirandola’s entry, and knew her step and her hand upon the door, and no longer watched the door with glittering wrath whenever he saw it move. But none knew if he would yet suffer the approach of any other, and none touched his door that day but Mirandola.

Gulvarez enquired of her how the Duke fared.

“I fear,” she said, “he will never forgive our poor house.”

“I will speak to him later,” said Gulvarez.

“I trust he may forgive you for bringing him here,” she said. “If so, he may well forgive us.”

It was thus that Mirandola would speak to Gulvarez.