The Miracle at St. Bruno's

by Philippa Carr

  “I shall not believe this confession exists until I see it.”

  I was not going to fall into that temptation.

  I turned away but he was beside me.

  “If you have this confession, give it to me.”

  “You will see it in due course.”

  “What do you mean by that? When?”

  “When you have given me your word that you will cast aside this make-believe, when you promise to face the truth, when you accept the fact that you are a real man.”

  “You are mad, Damask.”

  “I don’t think so. It is you who are mad with pride. I ask you now, Bruno, to give up this mystery with which you console yourself. Accept the truth. You are clever. You are more than that. You have brought the Abbey to what it is. Why should you pretend to be possessed of supernatural powers when you have so many that are natural? Bruno, I want you to let it be known that this confession has been found. I want you to let everyone know that you are a man…not some mystic figure different from the rest of us. Therein lies madness.”

  “Where is this confession?”

  “It is locked away in a safe place.”

  “Give it to me.”

  “That you may destroy it?”

  “It is a forgery.”

  “Nay, it is no forgery. I want you to begin with those monks you have brought here. Tell them the truth. Tell them that Ambrose left his confession and that you are in fact his son and that of my nurse.”

  “Yes, indeed, your brain has been affected by madness.”

  “It is what I ask. Very soon it will be known that Ambrose’s confession has been found. I would rather you told them before I did so.”

  “You have become a teacher to instruct us.”

  “Here is your chance, Bruno. Face the truth. You have a wife; you have a daughter. It might well be that they could learn to love you. You have men who serve you well. They will respect you for the truth. You have wealth. You could use it wisely, which I’ll swear some would say you do now. But give up this alliance with a foreign power. Good God, don’t you know how near you came to death in the last reign? And what now think you? Next year we could have a new sovereign. Have you ever thought what that would mean? This moment will not last forever. You have to choose.”

  He held his head high; it looked amazingly handsome; he looked in fact divine. He could have been carved out of marble, so pale was his face, so exquisite those proud features. I felt a sudden twinge of love for him. I almost wished that he would say: “Yes, I will cast out my pride. I will no longer hide from the truth as though it were the plague. I will tell the world who I am. I will make it known that Ambrose has written the story of the miracles of St. Bruno’s Abbey.”

  I spoke gently to him. “Give all this up. I have Caseman Court and its rich lands. If you must give up the Abbey, do so. We will build a new life together founded on truth…. We have a daughter to be nursed through her tragedy. Perhaps we could forget all that has gone before and come to some happiness.”

  He looked at me scornfully. “The shock of learning that Carey is my son has turned your brain,” he said. “If there is this confession of which you talk…and I doubt it, for I thought you were. very strange when I discovered you prowling about the dorter…you should bring it to me at once. It is some hoax of course but such documents are dangerous. Go and get it that I may see it, and bring it to me here.”

  I shook my head. “You shall not have it. I beg of you, Bruno, consider what I have said.”

  I went out and left him.

  What a strange brooding house it was. Kate had written to Carey and sent a messenger off with the letter. Catherine shut herself in her room and would eat nothing. In the old days I should have gone to Kate to pour out my sorrow to her. Now I kept aloof.

  It was evening of that long day. I was sitting alone in my bedchamber when Bruno came in.

  He said: “I must talk to you. We must come to an understanding.

  “That would please me, but I must make you understand that I cannot go on sharing in this lie.”

  “I want you to give me Ambrose’s confession.”

  “So that you can destroy it?”

  “So that I can read it.”

  “A lie has been lived so long. There was no miracle at St. Bruno’s. Since Keziah’s confession I could never pretend that there was. Had you tried to be a man instead of a god everything would have been different.”

  “What would have been different?”

  “Perhaps you would have told me that Kate had rejected you.”

  “What difference would it have made? You would have taken me!”

  “Were you as certain of me as that?”

  “I was certain.”

  “And when she rejected you for wealthy Remus your pride was deeply wounded. I understand, Bruno. You, the superhuman being, the god, the mystery, the miracle child had suddenly been reduced to an ordinary being, rejected lover, bastard of a servant and a monk. It was more than you could endure.”

  “Kate came to regret her decision.” I saw the gleam of satisfaction in his eyes.

  “Your pride was deeply wounded. You had to apply the soothing balm which was my consent to go with you wherever you wished…to live in a cottage if need be. That was what you wanted of me.”

  There was a knock on the door and Eugene came in with a tray on which was a flagon of wine and two glasses.

  “So you wish us to taste your new brew, Eugene,” said Bruno.

  He took the tray from Eugene and set it down.

  “It’s my best elder flower,” Eugene told me.

  “The one you were telling me of,” said Bruno.

  “And you particularly wish the Mistress to try it.”

  Eugene said this was the one. He went out smiling complacently and Bruno poured the wine into the glasses and brought one to me.

  I was in no mood for drinking. I set down the glass and said: “It is no use, Bruno. I see this clearly. We cannot go on living this life. It is false. There is only one chance of our being able to make a life for ourselves and our daughter. We will let it be known that we have found the monk’s confession. The miracle of St. Bruno’s will be finished forever. It will be forgotten in time.”

  “And what do you wish me to do?”

  “It is simple. We will tell everyone at the Abbey that we have found the confession. This will be the proof we need to show that Keziah’s story was true. You must tell your Spanish masters that you can no longer go on with this falsehood.”

  “I tell you I have no Spanish masters.”

  “Then tell me this, too. How did you find the money to do all that you have done here?”

  “This is where your story breaks down, does it not? So you have to provide me with Spanish masters. I tell you I have none. I have not received money from foreign countries to refound the Abbey.”

  “Then where did you find the money?”

  “It came to me…as I told you, from heaven.”

  “You insist on this story!”

  “I swear to you that the means of rebuilding the Abbey came from heaven. You are dabbling in matters too great for you, Damask. You do not understand. Come, drink up your wine. Eugene will want to hear what you think of his latest brew.”

  I picked up the glass and even as I did so I was aware of Bruno’s gaze fixed on me. There was hatred in it. Oh, yes, he hated me. I knew then that it was because I had the means in my power to expose him.

  What was it? Some warning perhaps. I was never to know. But I just felt that I must not drink that wine.

  I set it down and said: “I am in no mood for drinking.”

  “Can you not take a sip or so to please Eugene?”

  “I am in no mood to judge.”

  “Then I shall not drink alone.”

  “So he will not know your judgment either.”

  “I have already given it. It is of his best.”

  “Perhaps I will try it later,” I said.

  Bruno went
out and left me.

  My heart was beating fast. I picked up the wine and smelled it. I could detect nothing.

  I took both glasses and opening the window threw out the wine.

  Then I laughed at myself. He is proud, I thought; he is arrogant; he sees himself of greater importance than other men. But that does not mean he is a murderer.

  I thought suddenly of Simon Caseman and I had a vision of his writhing in the flames. Bruno had sent him to his death…as Simon had endeavored to send him, as Simon had sent my own father.

  Was not that murder? Simon had proved himself to be Bruno’s enemy—as I had…

  The next day I went to Caseman Court. My mother was delighted to see me.

  “I was saying to the twins only today,” she said, “that you would be coming to see me and bringing Kate too. I understand she is at the Abbey.” She looked at me closely. “Why, Damask, is something wrong?”

  I thought: She must know of course that Catherine and Carey cannot marry and she will have to know why. So I told her.

  “A bad business,” she said. “There was always something wanton about Kate. I often thought she was deceiving Remus. And the boys too…well he was as proud as a peacock at his time of life. It’s a sorry matter. Poor Catherine; I will send something over for her. And you, daughter! Well, husbands are unfaithful…though a man in Bruno’s position…. Well, well, your stepfather never believed in his faith. It was not the true faith, you see.”

  “Mother,” I said, “be careful. Men and women are being burned at Smithfield for saying what you have just said.”

  “ ’Tis so, and that’s a sorry matter too. Poor, poor Catherine. Such a child though. She’ll recover. And Carey too. I would not have thought it of Bruno. He being so well thought of. Almost holy. Why Clement and Eugene used to genuflect when they spoke of him. It wasn’t right. Your stepfather….”

  “It has been a great shock to me,” I said. “But you have comforted me.”

  “Bless you, daughter. That’s what mothers are for. And you will comfort Catherine.”

  “I shall try to do so with all my heart.”

  “Ah, I had a good husband.”

  “Two good husbands, Mother.”

  “Yes, I suppose that is a good tally.”

  “Indeed it is”

  “I am going to give you some of my new cure. It is herb two-pence and I know from Mother Salter that it will cure almost any illness you can name. When I was gathering it I saw Bruno. He was gathering herbs too. I talked to him and I was surprised what he knew of them. He said that when he was a boy he was taught the power of them. He had vervain for he said Thomas, one of his men, suffered from the ague and there is nothing like vervain for that. And he was getting woodruff for someone else’s liver. Then I saw that among the herbs he had gathered was what seemed to be parsley but I knew it for hemlock and I said to him, ‘Look, what have you there? Do you know that is hemlock?’ He said he knew it well, but that Clement had gathered it for parsley and he was taking some back with him to show him the difference.”

  “Hemlock…that’s a deadly poison, is it not?”

  “As all should know. I’m surprised at Clement. Why, I remember one of our maids mistook it for parsley and that was the end of her.”

  I thought of the glasses of untasted wine and I wanted to tell her of my fears. Mothers, as she had said so often, were meant to comfort.

  “There,” she said, “what shall I give you? Something to make you sleep.”

  “No,” I said, “give me an ashen branch, Mother, for you once said that would drive evil away from my pillow.”

  Dusk had fallen. The Abbey was silent.

  I pictured Catherine in her room, face downward on her bed, staring into space at a desolate future which did not contain her lover. And of what did Kate think in her room? Was she reviewing the past? The wrong she had done Remus, the terrible consequences which meant that the sins of the parents must be borne by the children?

  I laid on my pillow the ashen branch my mother had given me, but I could not sleep easily. I dozed a little and dreamed that Bruno crept into the room and stood over me and I saw that he had two heads and one was that of Simon Caseman.

  I called out in my sleep and when I awoke the word “Murderers” was on my lips.

  I started up. I was too disturbed to sleep. I kept thinking of Bruno gathering hemlock and bringing in the wine.

  He hated me as much as that! He would have hated anyone who crossed him. His love for himself was so great that anyone who did not feed it was his enemy. He would not accept the fact that he was an ordinary mortal, and therein lay his madness.

  If he had tried with the wine would he not try again? I thought of leaving him, taking Catherine with me to Caseman Court.

  I rose from my bed and sat in the window seat brooding on my situation. Could I speak to Kate? No, for I no longer trusted Kate. All those years when I had confided in her she had been his mistress; for Colas must have been conceived on one of her visits to the Abbey. I imagined her sharing confidences with me and then going off to share Bruno’s bed.

  Whom could one trust?

  It seemed only my mother.

  I must have sat there brooding for more than an hour when I saw Bruno. He was making his way to the tunnels.

  I watched him. I had seen him go that way before. I remembered a long-ago occasion when I thought Honey had wandered down to the tunnels. I had gone to look for her. Bruno had been there then and very angry to find me.

  I had never been to the tunnels. It was one of the few parts of the Abbey I had not explored because Bruno had said it was unsafe there. There had been a fall of earth when he was a boy and he warned everyone against venturing down into that underground passage which led to them.

  Yet he did not hesitate to go.

  I thought afterward that it was foolish of me, but it was too late then. I was already out of bed, my feet in slippers, my cloak around me.

  It was a warm night but I was shivering—with fear, I suppose, and apprehension, but something more than curiosity drove me. I had the feeling that it was of the utmost importance for me to follow Bruno that night. Mother Salter had told my mother that at moments in our lives when death is close we have an overwhelming desire to reach it. It is as though we are beckoned on by an angel whom we cannot resist and this angel is the Angel of Death.

  So I felt on that night. Even by day the tunnels had repelled me; and now here I was at the entrance to them and I must descend that dark stairway although I knew that there was a man down there who, I believed, had had it in his mind to murder me.

  There was a little light at the entrance to the tunnels—enough to show me the stairs down which I had fallen when I went to look for Honey.

  I reached the top step and sliding my feet along the ground cautiously descended.

  My eyes had grown a little accustomed to the darkness and I realized that ahead of me lay three openings. I hesitated and then I was aware of a faint light at the end of one of them. It moved. It could be someone carrying a lantern. It must be Bruno.

  I touched the cold wall. It was slimy. My common sense said: Turn back. First count the tunnels and tomorrow come down, bring a lantern. Perhaps bring Catherine with you and explore. But that urge which I thought of as the Angel of Death was urging me on and I had to follow.

  Carefully I picked my way, quietly sliding my feet over the stones in the passage. On and on went the light; it disappeared and appeared again. It was like a will-o’-the-wisp and a thought came to me. Perhaps it is not Bruno but some spirit of a long-dead monk who will punish me for prying into what might well be a holy place.

  The light went out suddenly. The darkness seemed intense. But I still went on. I felt my way carefully with my hands, sliding my feet so as not to trip.

  Then I came to the opening and there was the light again. I was in a chamber and the lantern was on the ground. A man was standing there. I knew it was Bruno.

  “You dared…,” he
cried.

  “Yes, I dared.”

  He came toward me and as he did so a figure loomed up behind him—a great white glittering figure.

  I cried: “There is someone here.”

  “Yes,” he answered. “There is someone here.”

  I stared at the figure. It had seemed to move because the light from the lantern had caught the glittering jewels with which it was covered. I saw the crown with the great stone which was dazzling in the dimness.

  I had seen it before.

  “I should have killed you before this,” said Bruno savagely.

  He came toward me menacingly and I shrank away, thinking: I am going to die here…now…and Bruno is going to kill me. Everything that has happened from the moment I went through the door in the Abbey wall has led me to this moment. And Bruno is going to kill me.

  I had played into his hands. I had come of my own accord into the secret tunnels. He would kill me and leave me here and no one would know what had become of me. I should disappear here…beneath the Abbey.

  “Bruno,” I cried. “Wait. Don’t act rashly. Think….”

  He did not answer. Time appeared to have slowed down. The silence seemed to go on and on.

  “Bruno….” I was not sure whether he had heard for although my lips formed the words I seemed to have lost the power to speak.

  It was surprising that my thoughts could stray from this terrible danger; but I was saying to myself: It was here that he found his wealth. It was not from Spain. I am beginning to understand and that is why I am going to die.

  There was no escape. I was trapped. Nothing could save me.

  He was close to me now. His hands would be on my throat, pressing out life forever. I was lost.

  But I was wrong.

  The great figure looming behind him had moved. He, with his back to it, could not see this. It was my fancy. But, no. It swayed. It seemed to totter and then suddenly it fell.

  It came crashing down toward us. Instinctively I leaped back, but Bruno had not seen it.

  There was a deafening sound. I closed my eyes, waiting for death. I stood cowering against the cold stone wall. I waited…for what I was not sure. For death, I supposed.

  Then I opened my eyes and saw that Bruno lay beneath that great image.