The Miracle at St. Bruno's

by Филиппа Карр

  "I heard she was most reluctant. But she is no giddy girl. She nursed two husbands so doubtless is ready to nurse a third.”

  I thought about the Queen a great deal. I mentioned her in my prayers. I trusted that she would meet a better fate than the other wives of the King. I had no desire to go to Court as Kate had. I said to her that I would rather not have known the poor ladies who had suffered.

  By August I discovered I was pregnant again.

  Bruno was delighted. I had failed to give him a boy in my first attempt but I had shown that I was fruitful and would do so now.

  The thought of having another child delighted me, and that state of euphoria overcame me again. I was scarcely aware of anything else. I discussed children with my mother once more. I brought out the small garments which Catherine had worn when a baby.

  I thought of little but my child.

  It was almost Christmas again. I had already told the little girls that they would in due course have a brother or sister to join them in their nursery. I thought that Honey looked a little sullen at the time.

  Then she said: "I don't want it.”

  "Oh, come, Honey," I said. "You will love it. A dear little baby-imagine.”

  "I don't want it," she declared. "I don't want Cat here. I want only Honey... like it was.”

  Jealousy was something I had always feared and had sought to avoid. I tried to make much of her, to show that it made no difference.

  She asked whom I loved best; herself, Catherine or the new one which was coming.

  I replied that I loved them all the same.

  "You don't!" she cried. "You don't.”

  I was quite disturbed about her. It was true, of course. I was fond of her. But how could I help loving my own child more dearly?

  The day after that conversation Honey was missing. I was full of remorse, accusing myself of betraying the fact in some way that she was less important to me than she had been. I must find her quickly. This was not easy. I searched the house, then I called in Clement. She had always been his special favorite and I thought he might know of some secret hiding place of hers.

  He was concerned. His first thoughts were for the fishponds. He took off the great white apron he wore and his hands still floury he ran as fast as he could to the ponds.

  Fortunately two of the fishers were there. They said they had been there all the morning and they would surely have seen the child if she had come that way.

  We were greatly relieved. By this time Eugene had joined us; there were also the children's nurses and Clement thought it would be better if we split up and made two or three search parties. So this we did. I went with one of the young nursemaids, a girl of fourteen named Luce.

  I suddenly thought of the tunnels. I had never explored the tunnels. Many of them were blocked and Bruno had expressed a wish that no one should attempt to penetrate them as he feared they might be dangerous. When he was a boy there had been a collapse of earth in some of them; and one monk had been buried alive there.

  I thought of this as I ran toward the tunnels and imagined little Honey hurt because she thought she had been displaced by my own little girl and for this reason running away or going to some forbidden place.

  I had told her that she was not to go near the tunnels or the fishponds, but when children wish to call attention to themselves or are unhappy because of some imagined slight I was well aware that the first thing they do is disobey.

  I called: "Honey! Honey!”

  There was no answer.

  "She would surely not enter the tunnels," said the nurse. "She would be afraid.”

  I was not sure.

  To reach the tunnel it was necessary to descend a stone stairway; and this I proceeded to do. The young nursemaid stood at the top of the stairs, too frightened to descend, but I was too anxious about Honey to be afraid.

  I called her name as I went. Having come in from the bright sunshine I could see nothing for a while. And then suddenly from below a dark figure loomed up out of the gloom. I felt a cold shiver run down my spine. I took a step forward, the step was not there and I fell down two or three steps and landed on the dank soil.

  The dark figure bent over me. I screamed.

  A voice said: "Damask!”

  It was Bruno who stood over me and I could sense his anger.

  "What are you doing here?”

  "I... I fell.”

  "I know that. You came here in the dark! For what purpose?”

  "Honey is lost," I said. He helped me to my feet. I was shaking.

  He said: "Are you all right?" There was anxiety in his voice and I thought resentfully: It is not for me, it is for the child.

  I replied shakily: "Yes, I am all right. Have you seen Honey? She is lost.”

  He was impatient.

  "I have asked you not to enter these tunnels.”

  "I never have before. It was because the child might have wandered down.”

  "She is not here. I should have seen her if she had been.”

  He took me by the arm and together we mounted the stairway. When we reached the top he studied me intently. Then he said: "Never go down there again. It is unsafe.”

  I said: "What of you, Bruno?”

  "I know those tunnels. I knew them as a boy. I should know what to avoid and how to take care.”

  I was too concerned about Honey to question this at the time, but it would come back to me later.

  He left us abruptly and the nursemaid and I went back to the house. Honey was still not found.

  I was getting frantic when a young boy from one of the shepherds' dwellings came with a message.

  Honey was at Mother Salter's cottage. Would I go to bring her home as soon as I could?

  I lost no time but went immediately to the cottage in the woods.

  The fire was burning as I had seen it many times before and above it was the soot-black pot. On one side of the fire sat Mother Salter; she did not seem to have altered since I had first seen her, and on the other fireside seat sat Honey. There were smudges on her face and her gown was dirty. I gave a cry of joy and ran to her. I would have embraced her but she held aloof. I was aware of Mother Salter's watching eyes.

  "Honey!" I cried. "Where have you been? I have been so frightened.”

  "Did you think you had lost me?”

  "Oh, Honey. I was afraid something dreadful had happened to you.”

  "You wouldn't care. You have Catty and the new one corning.”

  I said: "Oh, Honey, do not think that means I can bear to part with you.”

  She was still half sullen. "You can bear it," she said. "You like Catty best.”

  "Honey, I love you both.”

  "The child does not think so." It was Mother Salter speaking in her low croaking voice.

  "She is wrong. I have been frantic with anxiety.”

  "Take her then. It would be well to love her.”

  "Come, Honey," I said, "you want to come home, don't you? You don't want to stay here?”

  She looked around the room and I could see that she was fascinated by what she saw.

  "Wrekin likes me.”

  "Spot and Pudding like you," I said, naming two of our dogs.

  She nodded with pleasure. I had taken her hand and she did not resist. She continued to gaze around the room and because she had not learned to disguise her feelings I could see she was comparing it with her comfortable nursery at the Abbey. She wanted to come home but did not wish me to have too easy a victory. I knew Honey. She was a possessive, jealous little creature.

  For some time she had had me to herself and deeply she resented sharing me.

  "It is the same with all elder children," I said to Mother Sal- ter.

  "Take care of this child," she replied. "Take the utmost care.”

  "I have always done so.”

  "It would be well for you that you do.”

  "There is no need for threats. I love Honey. It was a common enough sort of jealousy.

  How did she
come here?”

  "I watch over this child. She ran away and was lost in the wood. I knew it and sent a boy to find her. He brought her to me.”

  Her eyes were veiled; her mouth was smiling but her eyes were cold.

  "I should know if she lacked aught," she went on.

  "Then you know how well cared for she is.”

  "Take the child back. She is tired. She will know to come to me if she is in need.”

  "She will never be in need while I am here to care for her.”

  As we left the cottage I gripped Honey's hand tightly.

  "Never, never run away again," I said.

  "I won't if you love me best... better than Cat... better than the new one.”

  "I can't love you better, Honey. There is not all that love in the world. I can love you as well.”

  "I don't want the new one. I told Granny Salter I didn't want the new one.”

  "But there will be three of you. Three is better than two.”

  "No," she said firmly. "One's best.”

  I took her home and washed the grime from her, gave her milk and a great slice of cob bread freshly baked for her by Clement with a big H on it. This delighted her and she was happy again.

  But when she was in bed I was seized by gripping pains and that night I miscarried.

  My mother, hearing what happened, had come over at once bringing the midwife with her.

  "It would have been a little boy," said the midwife. I did not entirely believe her; she was one of those lugubrious women who liked a tragedy to be of the first magnitude. She knew that we had wanted a boy.

  It was great good fortune, she implied, that I had survived at all and it was in fact due to her great skill. I was confined to my bed for a week and during this time I had time to think. I could not forget Bruno's face when he knew what had happened.

  The precious child lost! Surely the King himself had not looked more thunderous when he had stood over his sad Queen's bed. I even imagined I saw hatred in his face then.

  I thought a good deal about Bruno. I recalled seeing him at night from my window.

  He had been coming from the tunnels then. And why should he have been in the tunnels on that day when I had gone to look for Honey? If there was a danger of the earth collapsing it could do so at any time, and it was no safer for him than for anyone else.

  By April of the following year I knew that I was again with child. The change in Bruno when he knew this was astonishing. Passionately he wanted children and yet when they arrived he was indifferent to them... at least he was to Catherine. Honey of course he had always resented. If my child was a boy how would he be? Would he try to take him from me?

  Sometimes I would grow oddly apprehensive.

  What did I know of this strange man who was my husband? What had I ever known? During those years when he had lived in the Abbey-the child who had been sent to them from heaven for some purpose-his character had been formed. Then rudely he had been awakened to the truth; and now it seemed he would spend his life proving that he was indeed apart from other men.

  I felt I understood him; and for this reason I could feel tender toward him; but I was beginning to see how happy we might have been. This rebuilding of our little world was a fascinating project. We were giving work to many people and the neighborhood was becoming prosperous again; people were now beginning to look to the Abbey almost as they had in the old days. What happy useful lives we could have led if Bruno had not been possessed by a need to prove himself superhuman.

  I saw less of him during my pregnancy. He worked as though in a frenzy. We had moved from the Abbot's Lodging to the monks' frater while the lodging was being rebuilt. Bruno had designed the house in the old Norman style, like a castle.

  There was something eerie about the monks' quarters. There was no room large enough for us to share and we occupied separate bedchambers. Honey and Catherine had one of the cells for theirs; they could have had separate ones-there were enough cells, heaven knew-but I feared they might be frightened. I myself used to fancy I could hear slow stealthy footsteps in the night and often coming up the winding staircase I would think I saw a ghostly shape. It was imagination of course; but I used to lie awake and think of the monks who had lived in this place for two hundred years and wondered what they had thought as they lay in their cells at night. I grew fanciful as women will when pregnant and I asked myself whether when people died they left something behind them for those who came after. I thought more often than before during that period of the terrible day when Rolf Weaver had come; and I could imagine the terror of the monks when they knew that he and his men were in the Abbey.

  Sometimes I would get up in the night and look through the grille in the door at the children, just to make sure that they were safe. I should be glad when we could move back to our completed house. But when I was with child what happened outside my little world was of a minor importance. I was the kind of woman who was first a mother; even my feelings for Bruno were maternal. Perhaps if this had not been so I might have been more aware of what was happening about me.

  There was a change in Caseman Court.

  I did not visit the house often because I did not wish to see Simon Caseman, but there was little that was subtle about my mother and she dropped scraps of information.

  She told me that some of the ornaments that used to be in the chapel had been sold; and she let out once that there was a copy of Tyndale's translation of the Bible in a secret place in the chapel.

  If Simon Caseman was embracing the doctrines of the Reformed Church, he was in as great a danger as I feared Bruno might be in bringing back monks to the Abbey. I used to argue with myself as I might have done with my father. Of what importance was it in what manner one worshiped God as long as one obeyed the tenets of Christianity, which I believed were summed up in the simple injunction to love one's neighbor?

  It was a strange summer; through the long days the sound of workmen laying bricks could be heard. I saw less and less of Bruno, and I often thought that while the men built up the walls of our grandiose castle he was fast building a wall between us which was becoming so high that it threatened to shut him off from me altogether.

  Occasionally I heard news from outside. The King had been declared by Parliament King of England, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith and Supreme Head of the Churches of England and Ireland. That he had become war-minded and carried the war into France meant little to me. There was rejoicing when we heard on one September day that he had taken Boulogne and had actually marched into the town at the head of his troops in spite of the sickness of his body. Prayers were said in churches throughout the country and Archbishop Cranmer, who leaned toward the Reformed religion, pointed out to the King that if people could pray in English they would understand for what they prayed and their prayers would be more fervent. Simple people wishing well to the King would not understand for what they prayed in Latin. The King saw the point of this and allowed the Archbishop to compose a few prayers in English and these were said in all churches.

  I could imagine the jubilation at Caseman Court. It was the reverse in our household.

  Even Clement was slightly downcast.

  Had I not been so absorbed in my children I might have been more aware of the growing conflict in a country when it could be so definitely felt between two houses.

  Then we heard that the Dauphin of France had brought an army against the King, and recaptured Boulogne, and the King and his men were forced to retire to that old English possession of Calais so that there had been little point in the venture.

  "It might have been a different story," I had heard Clement say. "If Master Cranmer had not tried to bring in his Reformed notions. God was clearly displeased.”

  In the old days my father would have discussed the changes with me. We would have considered the virtues of the old and new Church. Doubtless we would have defied the law and had a copy of Tyndale's Bible in the house. I knew that there was one in Caseman Court.
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  I trusted it would not be discovered because I knew what this could mean to my mother and the twins. For Simon Caseman I could feel no concern.

  As my time grew near I began to feel wretchedly ill.

  November was a dark and dreary month and I was not looking forward to spending Christmas in the monks' quarters. I watched the transformation of the Abbot's Lodging and it seemed to me that each day it grew more and more like Remus Castle-but grander in every way.

  Then one day two months before my time my child was born - a stillborn boy.

  I did not know of this until a week later. I myself had come near to death.

  Bruno wrote to Kate asking her to nurse me. Lord Remus was now in Calais with the forces there who were protecting the town for the King. Kate came without delay.

  She was shocked to see me. "Why, you've changed, Damask," she said. "You've grown thinner and sharper of face. You have grown up. You look as though you have passed through experiences which have changed the Damask I used to know.”

  "I have lost two children," I said.

  "Many women lose children," she said.

  "Perhaps it changes them all.”

  "If they are as you. You are the eternal mother. Damask, has it struck you how different we all are, and how each of us has distinct characteristics?”

  "You mean all people?”

  "I mean us... the four of us... those of us on that branch I told you of before.

  There were four of us... you, myself, Rupert and Bruno... all children together.”

  "Bruno was not one of us.”

  "Oh, yes, he was. Not under our roof but he was part of our quartet. You are the eternal mother; I the wanton; Rupert the good steady influence."

  She paused. "And Bruno?”

  "Bruno is the mystery. What do you know of Bruno? I should love to discover.”

  "I seem to know him less and less.”

  "That is how it is with mysteries. The deeper one penetrates the maze the more lost one becomes. You should not have become involved in this particular mystery. You feel too keenly. You should have married Rupert. Did I not always tell you so?”