The Miracle at St. Bruno's

by Philippa Carr

  I said, “Keziah, are you not what is called a wanton?”

  “Well, my love, I’ve always kept it quiet. I’m not one to brazen it round, I’ve always tried to make it so that it was just a little matter between the two of us. My word, my tongue runs away with me and all because of the King and his Queen.”

  I thought a great deal about the Queen lying in her dismal prison. I shuddered when the barge carried us up the river past that grim gray fortress. I averted my eyes when we passed the Mores’ house. It was now deserted and I thought how it used to be when the peacocks strutted on the lawns and there was usually a glimpse of some members of that family walking in earnest conversation, or laughing together as they played some game.

  Then came the day when the Queen walked out of her prison to Tower Hill where her head was cut off by the executioner’s sword which had been brought from France for this purpose; and the guns boomed out and the King rode off to Wolf Hall to be married to Jane Seymour.

  I kept thinking of her lying in her litter, proud and triumphant. That she had come to this was tragic and I remember my father’s comment that the tragedy of one could be the tragedy of us all.

  Meals were more silent than they used to be; guests who called on us and shared our meals no longer talked as freely as they once had.

  We heard the new Queen was expecting a child and then one day the guns boomed; there was great rejoicing for Jane Seymour had given the King what he desired more than anything—a son. In conferring this great blessing she lost her life but the important matter seemed to be that at last the King had his heir. We were all commanded to drink to the new Prince; and we loyally did so.

  Poor motherless Edward, the King’s heir! Doubtless he would join his sisters in their nursery—Mary, the daughter of Queen Katharine, who was now a young woman of twenty-one, and Elizabeth, the daughter of Anne Boleyn, who was but four years old.

  We all guessed it would not be long before the King was seeking a new wife. Poor Queens—Katharine, Anne and Jane! Who would be the next?

  It was not of the King’s next Queen that we heard but of something quite different. Keziah was laughing about it with Tom Skillen.

  “Mercy me. Well, it seems nuns and monks are human after all.”

  “Ain’t what you’d expect ’em to be,” said Tom; and they giggled together.

  Others took the matter more seriously. My father was very grave. It seemed that there had been several complaints concerning the conduct of nuns and monks in various nunneries and monasteries all over the country and this was giving rise to great scandals.

  Kate told me about it. “A monk was found in bed with a woman,” she said. “And he was blackmailed and has been paying for months. One Abbot has two sons and he has been making sure that they both have good positions in churches.”

  “But monks don’t go out into the world. How could they do these things?”

  Kate laughed. “Oh, there are stories. They say that there’s a tunnel connecting a nunnery and a monastery and that the nuns and monks meet for orgies. They say that there is a burial ground where they bury the babies the nuns have, and that sometimes they smuggle them out.”

  “It’s all nonsense,” I said.

  “There may be some truth in it,” insisted Kate.

  “But why should monks and nuns suddenly become depraved?”

  “They’ve been so for a long time and only just been found out.”

  She couldn’t wait to see Bruno. She wanted to taunt him with what she had learned.

  “So it seems you’re not so holy in your abbeys,” she said as she lay in the grass kicking her heels in the air.

  Bruno watched her with a strange expression in his eyes which I had seen before and never been able to understand.

  “This is a plot,” he cried hotly. “It’s a plot to discredit the Faith.”

  “But the Faith should not be in a position to be discredited.”

  “Any lies can be told.”

  “Are they all lies? How could they all be?”

  “Perhaps there are faults.”

  “So you admit it!”

  “I admit that perhaps a few of these stories may be true but why should monasteries be discredited because of one or two evil ones?”

  “People who pretend to be holy rarely are. They all do wicked things. Look at you, Holy One, who took us to see the Madonna.”

  “That’s not fair, Kate,” I said.

  “Little children should speak only when spoken to.”

  “I am not a little child,” I said hotly.

  “You don’t know anything, so be silent.”

  I knew that Bruno was very uneasy and I guessed this was due to the state of tension within the Abbey. My father told me of it. He was very unhappy.

  “Life is full of trials,” he said sadly. “One does not know when to expect the next thunderclap nor from what direction.”

  “It all seems to have changed when the King changed wives,” I said. “Before that it seemed so peaceful.”

  “That may have been so,” admitted my father, “or it may have been that you were too young to be aware of troubles. Some people never are. I verily believe that your mother is unaware of these storm clouds.”

  “She is too concerned whether or not there is blight on her roses.”

  “I would have her so,” said my father with a tender smile. And I thought what a good man he was and how content he could have been if he could have lived happily with his family, sailing up the river to his business, dealing with his cases and then coming home to hear of our domestic affairs. We could have been a serene family surely. I had my differences with Kate; I saw all too little of Rupert; and Simon Caseman although he was so adaptable and did his utmost to please everyone did not somehow make me fond of him; my mother sometimes exasperated me by her absorption in the gardens, as though nothing were of much importance outside them; and there was my father, the center of my world, of whose moods I was always aware, so that when he was uneasy so was I. I was therefore very disturbed at this time. I was fond of the servants and some of our neighbors. My mother was the lady bountiful of the place and she always saw that her needy neighbors were supplied with bread and meat. No beggars were ever sent away empty-handed. Our house was noted for its liberality. All could have been so happy but for the murmurs which surrounded us and the fact that Sir Thomas More had lost his head and his household was disbanded. These were signs that even my mother found it difficult to ignore. She did mention to me once that she thought Sir Thomas should have considered his family rather than his principles. Then he would have signed the Oath and all would have been well.

  And then St. Bruno’s was threatened.

  My father talked to me about it. I was fast becoming his confidante in these matters. He talked with Rupert and Simon now and then and they discussed affairs but I believe he spoke more freely of his innermost thoughts to me.

  As we walked to the river he said to me: “I fear for the Abbey. Since the miracle it has become very rich. I believe it is one of those on which Thomas Cromwell in the name of the King has cast covetous eyes.”

  “What would happen to it then?”

  “What has happened to others? You know that some of the smaller monasteries and abbeys have already been seized.”

  “It is said that the monks in them have been guilty of unmonkly behavior.”

  “It is said…it is said….” My father passed his hand wearily across his eyes. “How easy it is to say, Damask. It is so easy to find those who will testify against others—particularly when it is made worth their while to do so.”

  “Simon Caseman was saying that only those monasteries whose inmates had been guilty of abominations have been suppressed.”

  “Oh, Damask, these are sad times. Think of all the years the monasteries have flourished. They have done so much good for the country. They have provided a sobering influence. They have tended the sick. They have employed people, brought them up in the ways of God. But
now that the King has become Supreme Head of the Church and a man can lose his head for denying this is so, Cromwell seeks to enrich the King by suppressing the monasteries and transferring their wealth from church to state. And since the miracle St. Bruno’s has become one of the richest in the land. I tremble. Brother John tells me the Abbot has had to take to his bed. He is a very sick man and a fearful one, and Brother John fears he could not survive the loss of St. Bruno’s and I verily believe he could not.”

  “Oh, Father, let us hope the King’s men do not come to our Abbey.”

  “We will pray for it, but it will be a miracle if they do not.”

  “There was a miracle once before,” I said.

  My father bowed his head.

  I tried to comfort him and I believe I did to some extent. But what uneasy days they were!

  My mother had sent me out to take a basket of fish and bread to old Mother Garnet who was bedridden. She lived in a tiny cottage with but one room and relied on our house for sustenance. She had lost her husband and six children through plague and sweat but nothing, it seemed, could remove Mother Garnet. Everyone had forgotten how old she was and so had she, but it was a ripe age. My mother used to send one of the maids down with clean rushes for her floor every now and again and herbs and unguents would be taken too. One of my tasks was to make sure that there was always something in her larder and on this occasion Keziah came with me to carry a basket.

  Keziah was full of the tales she had heard about the goings-on of monks and nuns. In fact it was the main topic with everyone. Each day there seemed to be a new and more shocking tale.

  We had been to the cottage, heard Mother Garnet tell us the story she told us every time of how she had buried all her children, and were on our way back when in the lane we heard the sound of horses’ hooves approaching and there came into sight a party of about four men led by a man on a big black horse.

  He hailed us.

  “Hey!” he cried. “Pray direct us to St. Bruno’s Abbey.”

  His manner was arrogant, insolent almost, but Keziah did not seem to notice.

  “Why, Master,” she cried, bobbing a curtsy, “you’re but a stone’s throw from it.”

  I noticed his eyes on Keziah; his tight mouth slackened a little and his little black eyes seemed to disappear into his head as his lids came down over them.

  He walked his horse forward. Briefly his eyes swept over me; then he was looking at Keziah again.

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  “I’m from the big house and this is my little mistress.”

  The man nodded again; he leaned forward in his saddle and taking Keziah’s ear in his finger pulled her toward him by it. She shrieked in pain and the men in the party laughed.

  “What’s your name?” he said.

  “I’m Keziah, sir, and the young lady is….”

  “I’ll make a bet that you’re a fine wench, Keziah,” he said. “Sometime we’ll put it to the test.” Then he released her and went on: “A stone’s throw, eh? And this is the road.”

  As they rode off I looked at Keziah, whose ear was scarlet where he had nipped it.

  “He was all of a man, did you think, Mistress?” said Keziah with a giggle.

  “All of a beast,” I replied vehemently.

  I was shivering from the encounter for there was something bestial about the man which had horrified me. It had appeared to have the opposite effect on Keziah. He had excited her; I could hear that familiar trill in her voice.

  “He hurt you,” I cried indignantly.

  “Oh, it was a friendly kind of hurt,” said Keziah happily.

  Later I discovered that the man was a Rolf Weaver, the leader of a band of men who had come to assess the treasures of the Abbey.

  My father was deeply distressed. “Cromwell’s men are at the Abbey,” he said. “This will kill the Abbot.”

  What it did mean was that this was the beginning of the end of St. Bruno’s as we had known it. Its sanctity was immediately destroyed. Weaver’s men made the cloisters noisy; they raided the Abbey cellars and were often drunk; they took girls in and forced them to lie with them on the monks’ pallets and took a profane delight in defiling the cells. The girls’ stories were that they went because they daren’t disobey Cromwell’s men; and I knew it would not be long before Keziah was there; and when I pictured her with Rolf Weaver I felt sick.

  Brother John came alone to see my father; he told him that the Abbot had been so grievously stricken that he had had a seizure and was unable to move from his bed.

  “I fear his end is near,” said my father. “This will kill him.”

  When the following day neither Brother John nor Brother James came to the house my father went to the Abbey in an attempt to see them. His way was barred and one of Rolf Weaver’s men demanded to know his business and when my father told him that he had come to see two lay brothers he was told that no one was allowed into the Abbey and no one out.

  “How is the Abbot?” asked my father. “I heard he was very ill.”

  “Ill with fright” was the answer. “He’s frightened because he’s been found out. That’s all it is. Fear.”

  “The Abbot has lived a saintly life,” said my father indignantly.

  “That’s what you think” was the answer. “Wait till we tell you all we’ve found out.”

  “I know that any accusation which is brought against him will be false.”

  “Then you’d better be careful. The King’s men don’t like those that are too friendly with monks.”

  My father could only walk away; and I had not seen him so depressed since the execution of Sir Thomas More.

  That very night Kate and I saw Keziah come in staggering a little. She had been to the Abbey, I gathered.

  Kate sniffed her breath.

  “You’ve been drinking, Keziah,” she accused.

  “Oh, Kezzie,” I said reproachfully, “you’ve been with that man.”

  Keziah kept nodding. I had never seen her drunk before although she liked her ale, and drank it freely. She must have had something strong to make her as she was.

  Kate’s eyes gleamed with excitement. She shook Keziah and said: “Tell us what happened. You’ve been at your tricks again.”

  Keziah started to giggle. “What a one,” she murmured. “What a one! Never in all my life….”

  “It was Rolf Weaver, was it?”

  Keziah kept nodding. “He sent for me. ‘Bring Keziah,’ he said. So I had to go.”

  “And most willingly you went,” said Kate. “Go on.”

  “And there he was and he….” She started to giggle again.

  “It was no new experience to you,” said Kate, “so why are you in this state?”

  But apparently it had been a new experience. She could only keep nodding and giggling. So Kate and I put her to bed. We noticed there were bruises on her big soft white body. I shivered but Kate was very excited.

  A gibbet had been erected outside the gates of the Abbey. On it swung the body of a monk. He looked grotesque, like a great black crow, with his robes flapping about him. His crime was that he had tried to take some of the Abbey’s treasures to a goldsmith in London. No doubt he planned to make his escape on the proceeds, but Weaver’s men had caught him. This was a lesson to any who tried to flout their authority and divert Abbey treasure from the King who now laid claim to it.

  It was horrible. None of us would pass the Abbey gates. We stayed indoors, afraid to go out.

  Of everything that had happened this was the most terrible. It seemed as though our entire world was collapsing about us. No matter what else had happened the Abbey had always stood there, powerful and solid; now it was shaken to its foundations.

  I often thought of Bruno and wondered what was happening to him. He would see those crude men sprawling at the refectory table where once the monks had sat observing their rules of silence. He would see them invading the cells, taking shrieking girls in there and just for the joy of abominati
ng sacred places. I remembered that day when on Kate’s insistence he had taken us into the sacred chapel and shown us the jeweled Madonna. I caught my breath. Those men would find her; they would tear off those glittering gems. The silent chapel would be desecrated.

  I prayed for Bruno while my father prayed that no ill should come to the Abbot and the Abbey be saved—although that was a forlorn hope since Cromwell’s men had come to make their inventories. Bruno was in my thoughts constantly. Perhaps he always had been, ever since we had found him that day when we went through the door for the first time. He was proud—apart from us all. The Holy Child. Sometimes I wondered what I should have been like if instead of being born in a normal way I had been found in a crib in a holy place.

  Kate and I talked about Bruno while other people talked about the Abbey.

  “We ought to try and see him,” she said. “We could go through the door.”

  I thought of all those rough men wandering about the Abbey. “We dare not now,” I said.

  Kate saw my point for once. Perhaps she had visions of being seized by one of them and forced into one of the cells for many of the girls had talked of having been forced. That offended Kate’s fastidious nature. Kate wanted to receive admiration rather than give physical satisfaction. She was the sort of woman, I was to discover later, who wishes to be perpetually wooed and rarely won.