The Miracle at St. Bruno's

by Philippa Carr

  “So the castle has become gloomy? I thought you were very proud of such a fine old place.”

  “It is a castle merely—inhabited by the Remus family since the days of the first Edward. It could not be compared with an abbey, could it now?”

  “I should have thought so and to its advantage.”

  “Now, Damask, you are at your old trick. You are teaching me to count my blessings. You were always something of a preacher. What do you think of the new religion? Did you know that many are probing into it? And it is against the law of course, which makes it so exciting. I believe it to be a simpler religion. Imagine the services in English! So easy for people to understand which is good in a way and yet so much of the dignity departs. It is so much more impressive when you are in doubt as to what it is all about.”

  “You still flit from subject to subject in the same inconsequential manner. What has religion to do with architecture?”

  “It seemed to me that everything in this world is connected with everything else. There! You are thoughtful. Have I said something profound? Perhaps I am becoming clever. You and Bruno were the clever ones, were you not? How you used to madden me when you put on that superior manner and tried to carry the subject beyond me. But I could always get the better of you both. I haven’t changed, Damask, and I doubt that you and Bruno have either.”

  “Why should any of us wish to get the better of each other?”

  “Perhaps because some of us have what the other wants. But no matter. Where is Bruno? Manners demand that he should be here to greet me.”

  “You forget your visit was unexpected.”

  “He knew that I was coming to Caseman Court, did he not?”

  “And do you expect him to be waiting here on the chance that you will come?”

  She shook her head. “I would never expect that from Bruno. Come, show me your beautiful dwelling.”

  I led her across the solar into my own little sitting room.

  “It’s charming,” she cried. She gazed up at the ceiling with its carved wooden ribs and gesso ornamentation and the decorations of the frieze. “That was done not very long ago,” she declared. “It is quite modern. I’ll warrant the old Abbot had it refurbished after the first miracle when the Abbey grew rich. So he owes that to Bruno. It is surprising how much so many owe to Bruno.”

  I took her from room to room. She expressed admiration for all she saw but I fancied it was tinged with envy. The gallery enchanted her. It was bare at the moment for tapestries and precious ornaments had been torn from the walls by Rolf Weaver and his men; but they had not harmed the window seats and the one beautiful oriel window which looked out on the cloister and the monks’ frater.

  At the end of the gallery was a small chapel on either side of the door of which were panels each decorated with an effigy of Saint Bruno.

  “They lived well, these monks,” said Kate with a smile. “And how lucky you are that it should have been you whom Bruno brought to this wonderful place.”

  As we made a tour of the Abbey she constantly exclaimed with admiration at so much; I knew that she found the place which had dominated our imaginations when we were children to be entirely fascinating and that she envied me. She climbed the monks’ night stairs; she opened the door of one of the monk’s cells and stood there looking around her. “How quiet it is!” she cried. “How cold. How ghostly.”

  She was thinking, she said, of all the pent-up emotion which had been suffered in this place. “Look at that pallet,” she cried. “Imagine the thoughts of men who have occupied that! They shut themselves off from the world and how often during the night would they have longed for something they had left behind. Is it living, Damask, to shut oneself away from temptation, from life? What a strange place an abbey is.” She looked through one of the slitlike windows in the monks’ dorter. “You will be frightened here at night, Damask. Who knows, you may see the ghosts of long-dead monks flitting through the cloisters? Do you think people who have lived and suffered return to the scene of their tragedies? Think how many tragedies there must have been in this place!”

  She was envious. She wanted the Abbey and I understood her so well—always she had sought to take what she wanted.

  I almost wished that I had not shown her all that was here. There was such potential riches. In time if allowed to develop it I could see that the owner of such a place could be enormously rich and powerful; and was that not what Kate had always wanted to be? I knew in my heart that she had a special feeling for Bruno. He had dominated our childhood. That aloofness, that difference which his origins had created made him stand apart from all others so that he had that indefinable quality, a near divinity; and in our hearts perhaps neither of us was sure whether there had in truth been a miracle in the Christmas crib on that long-ago Christmas morning.

  I understood her so well, my worldly Kate; and I loved her none the less for this. I knew her strength and her weakness and both were great. We had been rivals for Bruno. I had known that all the time even when we were children playing on the grass of the forbidden territory.

  What was she feeling now? I know she compared the Abbey with Remus Castle: was she comparing my husband with hers?

  In the scriptorium when they came face to face, Kate was like a flower when the sun comes out after rain. Her eyes shone and her cheeks glowed like my mother’s damask roses so that I felt like a country wench beside a Court beauty.

  “We have been admiring your Abbey,” she told him.

  He too had changed. I saw the gleam in his eyes. Pride in his Abbey—and more than that an immense satisfaction because Kate could be shown what he possessed.

  “And what do you think of it?” he said.

  “Magnificent. So you have become a landowner! And such land. Who would have thought it possible? It is a miracle.”

  “A miracle,” he repeated. “And you are well, Kate?”

  “I am well, Bruno.”

  He had scarcely glanced at me. He had indeed changed toward me since the coming of Honey. Kate, as she always had, dominated the scene. A vivid memory came to me of her turning somersaults on the Abbey grass diverting his attention from me to herself. It was rather like that now. She was trying to hold him with her glowing beauty; it was as though she were saying: Compare me with your plain little Damask.

  “So you are visiting us….”

  “I have come for the christening of the Caseman babies and to see Damask and you….” She lingered on the last word.

  “And you have found many changes?”

  “What changes in the Abbey! They are talking of nothing else throughout the countryside.”

  “So you came to see for yourself. And how do you find it?”

  “Even more wonderful than I had thought to.”

  She was looking at him eagerly, calling attention to herself. I knew her well. She had no scruples.

  How affected was he? What was he remembering?

  “My son is not with me,” she said. “But one day I will bring him to show him to you.”

  “I shall want to see him,” he said.

  I put in: “We will choose a time when Bruno has the time to spare.”

  “Tomorrow I must come again,” said Kate. “My stay here may not be of long duration and there is so much we have to talk about. I want to hear your plans for this wonderful place. Damask has been showing me. I had no idea that there was so much…only having seen it from the gatehouse and as tall gray walls, and of course what I saw when I came through the ivy-covered door.”

  He was watching her intently. I wondered what he was thinking.

  We returned to the Abbot’s Lodging and all the time he talked to her earnestly of the great plans he had for the Abbey.

  “There will not be a larger estate for miles round,” he said with pride. “Once it is in order, once the farms are producing…you will see.”

  “Oh, yes,” said Kate, “I shall see. And deeply shall I envy you from my castle keep.”

  The next
day the twins were christened in the chapel at Caseman Court. I had never seen my mother so happy. Simon Caseman was a proud father too.

  The boys were named Peter and Paul, and Paul bawled lustily throughout the proceedings, a fact which made my mother delight in his show of manhood while at the same time Peter’s docility showed her what a good child he was.

  The following day Kate again visited the Abbey. We went to the solarium and indulged in her favorite occupation of gossiping.

  Remus, it seemed, had taken on a new lease of life since his marriage and the birth of his son. She seemed a little rueful about this which I found shocking. She laughed at me.

  “Rich widows,” she said, “are so attractive.”

  “Is it your next ambition to become one?”

  “Hush. Why, if Remus died in his sleep from an overdose of poppy juice I should be suspected of having administered it.”

  “Don’t talk of such things even in a jest.”

  “Still the same old Damask. Afraid. Always looking over your shoulder for the informer.”

  “There have been informers in my life once. They shattered it.”

  She laid her hand over mine. “My poor poor Damask. How well I know! Your good faithful heart was broken for a time. How glad I am that it has healed! And now you are so lucky….I am sorry I recalled that sad time. And I did not mean to suggest that I would be rid of Remus. He is a good husband and it is sometimes better to have an aging one than a young one. He is so grateful, poor Remus; and I verily believe that if I were to take it into my head to adventure a little—he would not take it amiss.”

  “I hope you do not…adventure…as you call it.”

  “That is a matter on which I propose to keep you in doubt. And I do not see why if Remus were ready to turn a blind eye you should show a censorious one. But talking of wayward wives, I must tell you the latest Court scandal. It concerns the Queen. Are you listening?”

  “I am all ears.”

  “I fear our dear little Queen may well be in trouble. Cruel men and women are closing in on her and she, poor soul, is in no position to oppose them.”

  “This marriage surely is a happy one.”

  “It was. How amusing to see the King’s Majesty in the role of uxorious husband. She is such a charming little creature. By no means beautiful. Though the cousin of Anne Boleyn, she is completely without elegance. Poor little Katharine Howard. She reminds me of Keziah in a way. She is the sort who could never say no to a man and it seems that she has said yes very frequently.”

  “Tell me what has happened. I have heard nothing.”

  “You soon will for I believe all that her enemies would wish has been proved against the Queen.”

  “The poor child,” I murmured. “For she is little more.”

  “She is a little older than you and a little younger than I, which I am ready to agree is young to leave this life.”

  “It has not come to that.”

  “If all that is rumored is proved against her she may well be walking out to Tower Hill as her fascinating cousin did some six years ago.”

  “Can the King have had so many wives in such a short time?”

  “Indeed he can. Was there not sly Jane to follow Anne who followed Spanish Katharine? Of course his marriage to her lasted twenty years and for all that time he remained married to one wife; and then Anne of Cleves who was not at all to his liking. She was the fortunate one. She now enjoys life mightily at Richmond, I believe; and now pretty little Katharine Howard.”

  “With whom he is so happy.”

  “With whom he was happy. Poor Katharine, rumor has it that she learned a loose way of life in the dormitory she shared with the other girls of her grandmother’s household—some lowborn and little more than servants—and that as young as thirteen she had taken a lover. These unscrupulous women found the corrupting of this nobly born young girl’s morals an amusing occupation. It is said that young Katharine had soon formed an immoral association with a musician and that was but a beginning. Afterward she went through a form of marriage with a young man named Francis Dereham. Thus she was no virgin when she married the King although I’ll swear she professed to be.”

  “Her grandmother is surely the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk?”

  “Of a surety she is, and little care she took of her fascinating granddaughter. Poor Katharine! Daughter of a younger son, she was of little account until the King singled her out for notice. Then my Lord Norfolk begins to appreciate his niece, just as he did with that other niece, Anne Boleyn. But you remember how he deserted her when she needed support. I’ll swear the fellow is now preparing to desert Katharine.”

  “Is Katharine in danger?”

  “Unlike Anne, she is really a little fool, Damask. Oh, how differently I should have managed my affairs had I been in her place!”

  “Queen Anne could not have managed her affairs with any great skill for they led her to Tower Hill and the executioner’s sword.”

  “True enough,” admitted Kate. “But this is different. Anne could not get a boy and the King was obsessed with the need for a boy.”

  I thought of Bruno then. I believed he was obsessed by the desire for a boy. At least, I thought ironically, he could not cut off my head if I failed to provide one.

  “He was also enamored of Jane Seymour,” went on Kate. “This is why Anne lost her head—through circumstances outside her control. It is not quite the same with Queen Katharine Howard. She was loose in her morals, they say; she had several lovers and allowed this to be known by the unscrupulous people of her grandmother’s household. I am told that several of them acquired places in her Court because they asked for them with veiled threats and she was perforce obliged to give them to them.”

  “And all this has been brought to the King’s ears? I was of the opinion that he loved her dearly and if this is so surely he will forgive what she did before he married her.”

  “You live in a backwater, Damask. You do not know what goes on. Do you not realize that this country is split by a great religious conflict? Have you ever heard of a man called Martin Luther?”

  “Of course I have,” I said hotly. “I fancy that my father and I have had more discourse on theology in one week than you ever had in your life. And Bruno and I talk of these matters too.”

  “I know your discourse. You would argue the rights and wrongs. I mean not that. This is politics. There is fast growing in this country two great parties—those who support the Catholic Church and those who would reform it. Did you know that Anne Boleyn was growing very interested in the reformed ideas? This brought her many enemies from the Catholic side. Of course, they had always detested her because of the divorce. How big a part they played in bringing about her downfall we shall not know, but depend upon it they played a part. Now our little Queen Katharine cares not for religion. She merely wishes to be happy and gay and to keep her royal husband so. But she comes from the Norfolk family—the Duke, her uncle, is a leader of the Catholic party. Cannot you see that those of Reformed party are determined to bring her down? She would not dabble in politics. She would not understand what it is all about. So…they will delve into her past; they will discover that she has lain carnally with several men and may have called herself married to one of them. We are going to see fearful happenings at Court. You may depend upon it, Damask.”

  “We must pray for her.”

  “Forget not that the Reformed party prays for her destruction. So many prayers coming from Catholics! So many from those who wish for reforms. And all to the same God. How can they all be answered, Damask?”

  I said: “I shall pray for the Queen, not for any form of religion. She is only about our age, Kate. It is tragic. Is she going to lose her head?”

  “The Reformed party is beside itself with anxiety. It fears she may not, for the King dotes so much upon her.”

  “If this is true the King will never let her go.”

  “I am told that that is what she believes. But she has some po
werful minds against her. Archbishop Cranmer has examined her, they say, and methinks he will not be a very good friend to her.”

  After that conversation I could not get the poor little Queen out of my mind. I pictured her agony as she recalled the fate of her cousin Anne Boleyn, and she would lack the reasoning and mental powers of that Queen. Poor uneducated little Katharine Howard, who had had the misfortune to be attractive enough to catch the King’s fancy!

  Then I ceased to think of her because the miraculous event had come to pass. Before Kate left us to return to Remus Castle I knew that I was with child.

  When I told Bruno he was overcome by joy. The difference which had arisen between us over the arrival of Honey was swept away. This was what he had longed for. A child—a son of his own.

  This paternal pride was indeed a human quality, and it delighted me. And what pleasure we had in talking of the child we would have.

  At this time I was able to bring Honey into our little circle. He rarely spoke to her and his indifference was hurtful, but at least she was allowed to be in our company. She accepted that and if he ignored her she did the same to him; but I was pleased that she no longer seemed afraid of him, and she did not cower close to me when he was present.

  We had added to our household considerably; during the weeks after Kate’s departure several men arrived at the Abbey to offer their services for the great amount of work that would in due course have to be done out of doors. I had engaged new servants. I had a housekeeper now, a Mrs. Crimp, who, I was delighted to say, took a great interest in Honey.

  I had a suspicion that some of the men who presented themselves for work were familiar with the Abbey and had worked there before. Some of them might have been lay brothers. There was danger in this but to be in Bruno’s presence was to share to a certain extent his confidence in himself; and the fact was I was obsessed by the thought of my child and longing for its arrival.

  For Honey I had a deep protective love but I knew that nothing could compare with the emotion which my own child would arouse in me.

  I was shut in a little world of my own. Vaguely I listened to the news from Court. Those men who had been the Queen’s lovers in the past were being questioned in the Tower. Sometimes, when on the river, I would look at the gray fortress and a brief vision of bloodstained torture chambers would flash into my mind. In the past I would perhaps have brooded on that, recalling my father’s sojourn in that dreaded place. But always the exaltation engendered by the presence of the child would overcome all other feelings.