Some of the old rooms had been left, but so much had been added that it was easy to lose oneself in the place.
There was a great banqueting hall and for this Bruno was seeking fine tapestries. He went to Flanders to find them and they were hung on the walls; at the end of the hall was a dais on which a small dining table was placed which would be for Bruno and his honored guests while the rest of the household would eat from the big table.
When I saw this place I could not understand why Bruno had reconstructed it. Sometimes I thought he wished to live like a great lord; and at others I wondered whether he was trying to establish a monastic order.
He gave a great reception when we went to live in the castle and many of our neighbors were invited; Simon Caseman came with my mother; Kate came too.
The great hall was decorated with leaves and flowers from our gardens, and it was indeed a grand occasion.
I stood with Bruno and received our guests and I had rarely seen him as excited as he was on that occasion.
I sat at the dais on his right hand, Kate was on his left and Simon Caseman and my mother were there. Bruno told me to invite some of the rich men whom my father had known and I had done this. They had all come eager to see if the rumors they had heard of the rebuilding of the Abbey were true.
There was feasting for Clement had excelled himself. I had never seen such an array of pies and tarts and great joints of mutton and beef. There was sucking pigs and boars’ heads and fish of all kinds. My mother was in a state of wonder, tasting this and that and trying to guess what had given certain flavors.
There was dancing afterward. Bruno and I opened the ball and later I found myself partnered by Simon Caseman.
“I had no notion,” he said, “that you had married such a rich man. Why I am but a pauper in comparison.”
“If it galls you it is better not to make comparisons.”
Bruno danced with Kate and I wondered what they talked of.
A strange thing happened during the ball, because suddenly a black-clad figure was noticed in our midst—an old woman in a long cloak, her head concealed by a hood.
The guests fell back and stared at her for they were sure, as I was, that she was some harbinger of evil.
Bruno strode over to her.
“I had no invitation to the ball,” she said with a hoarse chuckle.
“I know you not,” replied Bruno.
“Then you should, my son,” was her answer.
I recognized her then as Mother Salter, so I went to her and said: “You are welcome. May I offer you refreshment?”
I saw her yellow fangs as she smiled at me.
And I thought: She has every right to be here; she is the grandmother of Bruno and Honey.
“I come in two minds to bless or curse this house.”
“You could not curse it,” I said.
She laughed again.
Then she lifted her hands and muttered something.
“Blessing or curse,” she said. “You will discover which.”
Then I called for wine for I was filled with a terrible premonition of evil, and I remembered in that moment that after Honey had been lost in the woods I had lost my baby.
She drank the wine; and then walked around the hall, the guests falling back as she passed. When she came to the door she said again: “Blessing or curse. That you will discover.” And with that went out.
There was a hushed silence; and then everyone began to talk at once.
It was some sort of entertainment, they said. It was a mummer dressed up as a witch.
But there were some who recognized Mother Salter, the witch of the woods.
Some months after our grand ball Honey caught a chill. It was nothing much but I was always uneasy when either of the children were not well. I had made a nursery for them next to the room which had been mine and Bruno’s bedchamber and was now more often mine alone, for he had lived more often in his tower. Honey had a persistent cough which was apt to wake her. I kept a bottle of cough mixture by her bed which my mother had made and which was always effective and as soon as she started to cough I would be in her room with it.
On this cold January night she started to cough. I was out of bed and into the children’s room. Catherine was sleeping peacefully in her cot. Honey, now big enough for a pallet, gave me that intensely loving look when I appeared.
I said: “Now, my pet, we will soon stop that nasty old cough.”
I gave her the draft, propped up pillows and put my arm around her as she lay sleepily and happily against me.
I think she was almost pleased to have a cough so that she could have my special attention.
“Cat’s fast asleep,” she whispered delightedly.
“We mustn’t wake her,” I whispered.
“No, don’t let’s wake her. This is nice.”
“Yes. Are you cozy?”
She nestled against me. I looked down at her; the thick lashes making an enchanting semicircle against the pallor of her skin, her thick dark hair falling about her shoulders. She was going to be our beauty. Catherine was vivacious, careless, lighthearted; Honey was intense and passionate. If she were displeased and it was usually through her jealousy of Catherine that she was, she would be sullen for days, whereas Catherine would fly into a storm of rage and a few moments later she would have forgotten her grievance. They were completely unalike. Catherine was pretty—her lashes were light brown tipped with gold; her hair was brown with light streaks in it; her skin delicately tinted. Catherine was enchanting, more lovable, less demanding, but Honey was the beauty. She disturbed me even now because of her continual watchfulness lest I should show I cared more for Catherine than I did for her. I was the center of her world. If she were proud of some achievement, I was to be told first; for me she gathered flowers—often those from my own garden. She watched me continually and she wanted me to remember always that she was my girl and that she had come to me before Catherine.
I assured myself that she would grow out of this. At the moment she was but a child. Yet she was seven years old—an age they say when character is developed. I had given them lessons from the time Honey was four, remembering my father’s maxim that a child cannot be taught too young. They must read as soon as it is possible for them to do so, my father had said, for thus a world is open to them which would otherwise be shut. I was in agreement with this and I was determined that my girls should be scholars if they had a tendency to be so, and if not at least educated ladies. Later I should arrange for Valerian to teach them. I had already spoken to him of this and he was delighted with the idea. He was a very good teacher. All this I thought as Honey and I exchanged whispers and finally she was quiet so I knew that she slept. Gently I removed my arm and crept back to my own room.
It was a moonlit night and still thinking of the children I went to a window and looked out. The sight of the Abbey buildings never failed to excite me and I could never become accustomed to living in such a place. I fell to thinking of the strangeness of my life and how different I had imagined it would be in the days when my father was alive. I thought of the strangeness of my husband and when I tried to dissect my feelings for him I could not do so. I had begun to suspect that I did not wish to because I was afraid of what I should find. He was a stranger to me in so many ways. Our closeness had always been a physical closeness. We could be lovers still. Was it because we were both young and felt the need of such contact? From his thoughts I often felt completely shut out; and I wondered whether he did from me—or whether he considered such a matter at all. I had disappointed him because I had not produced a son. We were always hoping that I should do so.
Then suddenly I began to think of Rupert and the tenderness he showed to me whenever we met, and I admitted that was something I missed in Bruno. Had he ever been tender?
I had felt tender toward him on those occasions when I believed that he needed me; and he did need me. In what ways? He needed to prove something.
I switched my thou
ghts away because I was fearful that I might make some discovery.
And then I saw a figure emerge into the moonlight. Bruno—again coming from the tunnels. I watched him make his way to the tower. I saw him enter. I watched and then I saw the light of lantern at his window.
It was the second time I had seen him coming from the tunnels in the night. I wondered why. It could only be because he did not wish anyone to know that he was there.
I returned to my bed. I wondered whether he would join me.
He did not. And in the morning he told me that it was necessary for him to take another trip on the Continent. This time he wanted to buy more tapestry for the walls of some of our rooms.
It occurred to me later that when I had seen him during the night on that other occasion he had almost immediately gone abroad afterward.
I wondered whether there was any significance in this. It was typical of our relationship that I did not feel it was possible to ask him.
My mother came visiting over to the Abbey, her basket full of lotions and unguents.
“My dear daughter,” she cried, “watch over the children. One of our men has come in from the city with a tale that he saw a man dying in the Chepe. He saw another on one of the barges at the Westminster stairs. The sweat is with us.”
I was alarmed for the children. I dosed them with my mother’s remedies and forbade them to leave the house, but how could I be sure that someone had not brought the dreaded sweat into the Abbey?
Honey, sensing my fear, showed a terrified delight; she clung to me as though she were afraid that I was going to be snatched from her. Catherine was scornful and tried to slip away when she could. I chided her and she was penitent but I knew she would forget the warning the very next minute.
Kate came to the rescue.
“I hear the sweat is raging in London. You are too near for my comfort. You must bring the children to Remus. Here you will be safe from the evil.”
I was delighted and prepared to set out for Remus Castle.
Widowhood suited Kate. She was rich and although so far no one had sought her hand—the death of her husband being too recent—there were one or two who were biding their time though they would not wait long, for the late King’s speedy marriage to Jane Seymour before Anne Boleyn was cold in her grave had set a fashion.
Lord Remus had never been an exacting husband and had always been ready to indulge his wife, but now Kate was the mistress and master of the house and determined to enjoy her new position.
She had gowns of velvets and silks and I had never seen such puffing and ruching of sleeves before.
“You know nothing of Court fashions,” she told me contemptuously.
Carey was now Lord Remus; he was a very important young gentleman. Someone had told him that he must take care of his mother—ironically, I thought, for no woman could care for herself as well as Kate; but Carey took it seriously. He could ride well, and was learning to shoot in the archery courtyard; he had a falcon which he was learning to use. Every time I saw him he seemed a little more grown up. He was some months younger than Honey, and a year or so older than Catherine; but he was cock of the walk in his own farmyard, I noticed.
Catherine quarreled with him incessantly; but he and Honey were good friends. I began to think that Honey showed a preference for him because he and Catherine were such enemies.
Kate was already making plans for the future. The Court, she said, had become nonexistent since the death of King Henry. How could a boy of eleven years or so hold a Court! The Protector Somerset was of course the real King and his brother Lord High Admiral Thomas Seymour was perhaps a little envious of him.
“Tom Seymour has hopes of the Lady Elizabeth,” Kate told me. “You can see where that is leading.”
“She could never be Queen of England,” I said. “There is Mary before her, and would the old King not have both considered to be illegitimate to suit his own purposes?”
“Poor Edward is a sickly child. It’s to be doubted whether he will ever beget children.”
“I daresay they will marry him off as soon as possible.”
“He is devoted to his cousin, Jane Grey. I think he would be delighted to take her.”
“Which would be a satisfactory match since she herself has some pretensions to the throne.”
“Have you thought that it could be a Protestant match, Damask, and what that could mean to the country? I would rather see someone gay on the throne. Jane is a prim little thing, so I have heard. Rather like you were, I imagine. So good with her Latin and Greek. Quite the little scholar.”
Days had always passed cozily at Remus and now it had become a kind of oasis for me. There were no problems and I realized how relieved I was to leave the Abbey for a while.
Kate, restless because she was confined to the house in supposed mourning for her husband, planning the entertainments she would give at the Castle when that period was over, parading in her velvet gowns with only me and the occasional visitor to admire her, found the best method of passing the time in talking to me.
She enjoyed going over the past and she remembered more incidents from our childhood than I had believed she would. I remembered, yes, but then I was more introspective than she. So it was surprising to discover that these little incidents which had appeared too insignificant to mean much to her had somehow remained stored in her mind.
She frankly admitted that she had always intended to get what she could from life.
“And you must concede, Damask, that I have got a great deal. Life has been kinder to me than to you, yet you have been a better woman than I. You loved your father and you suffered deeply when you lost him. You thought I did not know how deeply but I did, Damask, and while I was sad for you I thought how foolish it was to love one person so much that to lose him can be such a tragedy. I would never love like that…except myself of course.”
“There is great joy in loving, too, Kate,” I said. “I remember so many happy times with my father. I would not have missed those for anything in the world.”
“The more happiness you had the greater was your grief. People like you pay for the happiness they get.”
“But not you?”
“I am too clever for that,” retorted Kate. “I am sufficient for myself. I make myself dependent on no one.”
“Have you never loved?”
“In my fashion. I am fond of you. I am fond of Carey and young Colas. You are my family and I am happy to have you round me. But this complete and utter devotion—it is not for me.”
We talked of Bruno and what he had done at the Abbey, and what he proposed doing.
“Bruno is a fanatic,” she said. “He is the sort of man who will end up at the stake.”
“Don’t say that, Kate,” I said quickly.
“Why? You know it to be true. He is the strangest man I have ever known. Sometimes he almost made me believe that he was indeed sent from heaven for some purpose. Did you feel that, Damask?”
“I am not sure. I may have felt it.”
“But no longer do?”
I was silent.
“Ah,” she accused. “I see you do not. But he believes it, Damask. He must believe it.”
“Why must he? If it were proved….”
“He must. He dare not do otherwise. I know your husband well, Damask.”
“So you have told me before.”
“I understand him as you cannot. We are of a kind in a way. You are too normal, Damask. I know you well.”
“You always did believe you knew everything.”
“Not everything but a great deal. How he must have suffered when Keziah and the monk betrayed their secret. I pitied him then because I understood him so well.”
“We never speak of it,” I said.
“No. You dare not. Don’t speak of it. You see what he is trying to do, Damask. To prove himself. I think I might be the same. But I do not have to prove myself. I am beautiful, desirable. You see how I took Remus. I would take any
man I wanted. I know I can; they know it; there is no need to prove it. But Bruno has to prove to himself that he is superhuman. That is what he is doing. But how is he doing it? How is it possible for one who had nothing…who was turned from his secluded life into the world, to become so wealthy that he can do all that Bruno is doing now? I doubt Remus could have afforded such a vast expenditure.”
“It worries me at times.”
“I doubt it not.”
“Somehow it has all become fantastic…like a dream. Before I married Bruno there was a reason for everything. Now I often feel as though I am groping in the dark.”
“I have a feeling, Damask, that you will grope for a long time and that perhaps it is better so. The darkness is a protection. Who knows what you might see in the blinding light of truth.”
“I would always wish for the truth.”
“Mayhap not if you knew it.”
There were many such conversations with Kate, and I often came from them with the notion that she knew something and was holding it back. These talks stimulated me as they did her. I too liked to watch the children at their games. I devised entertainments for them; and I gave a party for them and some children of the neighborhood. We danced country dances and played guessing games and it was the best of good fun.
Kate never joined in but she sometimes liked to watch.
She called me the eternal mother.
“I’m never going to be able to placate Carey,” she said, “when you and the girls depart.”
My mother wrote that the twins were well and the sweat was abating; but I still stayed on.
Kate invited guests to Remus and those were exciting days when we watched from the keep while they rode under the portcullis and into the courtyard.
There would be interesting conversation at dinner and we learned that the Queen Dowager, Katharine Parr, had married Thomas Seymour, with whom she had long been in love.
The Miracle at St. Bruno's Page 30