The Miracle at St. Bruno's (23 page)

I stared at him. “My
mother
to marry Simon Caseman?”

“In a reasonable time…not immediately. It seems a good arrangement.”

I could not believe it. It seemed incredible to me. My mother to marry this man who but a short time ago had been pleading with me to marry him.

It was like a nightmare; and then the light began to dawn on me. I saw his face in my mind—the fox’s mask exaggerated and I heard my father’s voice: “Someone in the house has betrayed me.”

Kate came bursting into my room.

“I wondered where you were. I couldn’t imagine why you didn’t come down. What’s the matter?”

I said, “I have just heard that our house now belongs to Simon Caseman and that he is going to marry my mother.”

“Remus told me,” she said.

“Oh, Kate, do you realize what this means? He planned it. The King wished to reward him. For what? Mayhap for informing against my father and Amos Carmen?”

Kate stared at me in disbelief.

“You can’t mean that.”

“Something within me tells me that it could be true.”

“Then he would be your father’s murderer.”

“If I could be sure of that I would kill him.”

“No, Damask, it can’t be.”

“It fits, Kate. He asked me to marry him. He has asked me several times. Does he love me? No, he wanted my inheritance.”

“That may be so, but a man is not a murderer for wishing to make a good marriage.”

“I refused, and he took this opportunity of betraying my father.”

“How can you know that?”

“Because someone in the house betrayed him and who but Simon Caseman?”

“You jump to conclusions.”

“You forget he will have my father’s estates. That is what he always wanted. That was why he asked me to marry him. Oh, I knew it was the fox’s mask I saw there on his face.”

“Fox’s mask. What nonsense is this?”

“I saw it on his face. When his face is in shadow it is there. His eyes are tawny like a fox’s. He is a sly fox who came in to rob the hen roost.”

“Do you feel all right, Damask? This has all been too much for you.”

“And I have lost my senses!” I cried. “That’s what you think. But did you know that my mother is going to marry him?”

“Remus has just told me it is so.”

Kate stared at me incredulously.

“I must go home at once,” I said.

When I arrived at the house it seemed very quiet. I was not expected so there was no one to greet me. The house seemed different. Of course it was different. It was a house in mourning. It had a new master now.

I went up to my mother’s stillroom. She was there and when she saw me she flushed as red as the reddest of her roses. She knew that I was aware of what she was preparing to do and I was glad to see that she could show some shame.

“I have heard, Madam,” I said.

She nodded and sat down on a chair. She waved her hand in front of her face like a fan. She was now quite pale and was implying that she was about to faint. I thought how like her it was to faint in a crisis. It had been her way out of a difficult situation more than once. I forgot that she was my mother. I despised her in that moment because Simon Caseman was so hateful to me and now that I was home the enormity of my father’s loss was brought back afresh.

I said: “So you are going out of mourning for your murdered husband and putting on wedding garments ready for your next.”

“Damask,” she said, “you must try to understand.”

“I understand too well,” I said.

Her hands fluttered helplessly. “We should have been homeless. It seemed the only thing to do.”

“You think he chose
you
for his wife?”

“You see, Damask, he has the estates now and it is the best thing for us all, that was why he chose me….”

“You mistake me. I know very well why that man chose you. I am surprised that my noble father should ever have married a woman who could forget and forgive his murder when his body is scarcely cold, and be ready to dance at her wedding.”

“It will not be a grand affair, Damask. A quiet wedding, we thought.”

I laughed scornfully. She would never understand anything but her garden and her herbs and how to make her pastry light. I felt a sudden pity for her—poor helpless woman, who had never really made a decision for herself.

“Simon Caseman,” I said. “You can consider him…after you have been Father’s wife!”

“Your father is dead.”

I turned away to hide my emotion.

“Oh, Damask,” she went on. “I know how close you two were. He cared more for you than for me. It was always Damask….”

“He was the best of husbands as well as fathers,” I said fiercely.

“He was a good man, I know.”

“And so you have decided to put this adventurer in his place.”

“I don’t think you have realized what is happening, Damask. Your father’s estates are confiscated.”

“And passed to Simon Caseman. Why, do you think? Why?”

“Because
he
was your father’s right-hand man. They have worked together. This is his home too. And he will marry me and we can go on as in the old way.”

“As in the old way! When he is not here. I would to God we could go on in the old way. Do you think it will be the same with your new master? Mother, I know a daughter should not say this, but I will. You are a fool.”

“I think your grief has upset you so much that you do not know what you say.”

“I know this, that Simon Caseman came into this house with the express purpose of making it his. Did you know that he has asked me to marry him…many times. So devoted he was. So chivalrous! He thought to get possession of the place through me. I was not so susceptible to his charm as you are. I said, no, I would never marry you. So he casts about for other ways. Who else is there? There is my mother. But she has a husband. Let us get rid of him and marry the accommodating widow.”

“Damask. Damask, what are you saying?”

“I am saying that I am very suspicious of a man who asks the daughter to marry him and when she refuses and the mother is in a position to give him what he seeks, promptly decides to take her.”

“My child, be careful. Do not say such things. They are wild. They are impossible. But they could mean disaster for you.”

“To speak against the King’s man, yes. I’ll dareswear you are right.”

“All wise men are the King’s men. You should know that.”

“So my father was unwise?” Whenever I mentioned his name words seemed to choke me. My emotion gave my mother the advantage. She came to me and laid a hand on my shoulder.

“Listen to me, Damask,” she said, “this terrible thing has happened to us. Your father hid that priest in the nuttery cottage. In doing so he risked his life, our estates and our future. I know that he was a saintly man, but saints who endanger their lives and those of their family are not acting wisely. What would become of us, Damask, if I do not make this marriage? We should be thrown out onto the roads as beggars or onto the mercy of our relations. I daresay Remus would help us. But when I marry Simon we shall continue to live here. It will be as before….”

“It will never be as before,” I said. “
He
is gone.”

“My child, you have to grow away from this. Some are taken…in that way. How do any of us know where we shall be tomorrow? I thought of the house and everything here. I thought of you and the home…and Simon will be a good husband to me.”

I said: “You are older than he is.”

“It is of no moment.”

“How could I stay here and see that man in my father’s place?”

“You will become accustomed to it. Simon is a good man of business. He has prospered and he will continue to do so. The choice is stay here and live in comfort or go out penniless into the world and starve or live on the bounty of relations. Simon has come to me with his offer of marriage. I have accepted it.”

“You want this marriage,” I said. “When you speak of it there is a gleam of pleasure in your eyes.”

“I was never a woman who wished to stand alone. Simon has promised to look after me. There are women who must have a husband. I am one. Simon and I understand each other. Your father and I had little to say to each other. He was always buried in a book or teaching you. I could never understand him when he quoted in his Greek or was it Latin?”

“You make excuses,” I said. “You are eager for this marriage. I see it. You are ten years or more older than he. And he is marrying you for the estate!”

“The estate is his without me.”

“But he wants it as it was. He wants a woman to look after the household as you do. He does not want it said that he turned the family from the home to beg in the streets. He wants to have power over us. Can’t you see?”

“You imagine this, Damask.”

“And who informed against Father?” I asked.

“There were many who could have done it.”

“The servants, who would lose a good master by it?” I demanded.

“There are others who could have done it.”

“His wife,” I asked, “who fancied a young man in her bed?”

“Damask!”

I was sorry at once. “Oh, Mother,” I said, “I cannot bear it. He has gone forever. I shall never see his dear face again, never hear his voice….”

I covered my face with my hands and she was holding me in her arms. “My child,” she said, “my baby. I understand. You are upset. You and he were as one. I used to feel shut out. You never had much time for me, did you? I understand. Try to accept this, daughter. Try to see that we have to go on and this is a way.”

I felt limp and exhausted by my emotion. I allowed her to take me to my room and tuck me in. She brought me a potion. She had just devised it, she said. There was pimpernel to make me feel happy and thyme to give me pleasant dreams and there was an ashen branch to lay on my pillow for it was said to drive away evil spirits—those who put cruel thoughts into the mind.

I let her soothe me and, worn out with emotion, I slept.

When I awoke I was refreshed. I thought of my mother, helpless like her shrubs in the gale, blown this way and that by circumstances which were too much for her. I could not blame her. I knew her character well. She was a good housekeeper; she wanted to live in peace; my father had had little in common with her for she had never been educated beyond learning to read and write; she could never follow his reasoning. He had determined to educate me and he had often said that education was not learning the fruit and flowers of other men in order to repeat them and make a show of erudition; its purpose must be to set the mind in motion that it might produce flowers and fruit of its own.

I must not blame her.

And she was right. I had now to fend for myself. I would have to make some plan, for I did not believe I could continue to live under this roof and see that man in my father’s place. I had been wrong to voice my suspicions of him, for I must admit they were but suspicions. Could he really have been responsible for my father’s betrayal? Perhaps he was merely the jackal who waited for the moment to come in after the kill.

I must be fair. What had he done? He had asked me to marry him and I had refused. My father had been murdered and his estates given to Simon. Why? I must be reasonable. I must be logical. Could it in truth be because he was my father’s betrayer? I could not be sure and because I was not sure I must not accuse him. I would find out though. And meanwhile must I live on his bounty?

I dreaded meeting him but I could not avoid him for long. I came from my room and found him in the hall. He watched me as I walked down the stairs.

“Welcome home, Damask,” he said.

I stared blankly at him.

“It is good to have you back,” he went on.

“I suppose you are expecting me to congratulate you on your forthcoming marriage.”

“No, I was not expecting that. You take it hardly, I know.”

“The murdered husband is scarcely cold in his grave.”

“My dear Damask, you have been infected by those Greek tragedies on which you set such store. Now I am going to ask you to take care. I would not have you in disgrace. Curb your tongue, I beg of you. You could be in dire trouble so easily. I am going to take care of you now. I shall be your stepfather….”

I laughed. “It was not quite the role you at first chose for yourself!”

“I think you understand my feelings for you.”

“Which were conveniently transferred to my mother.”

“Your mother and I are scarcely young romantic people.”

“I believe she is some years older than you.”

“It is not a great deal.”

“So convenient! Although had she been thirty years older I am sure you would have found that no obstacle.”

“My poor sad Damask!”

“I am not your possession yet.”

“I am devoted to you and to your mother,” he said. “These estates have been bestowed on me. I could not take them from you. So this marriage seems to be the best solution.”

“You could always hand them back.”

“I do not think that would be allowed. I am doing what I think is best for us all.”

“And if I had agreed to marry you, what then?”

I saw the flicker of his eyes; the marking of the fox mask was clearer for a moment.

“You know my feelings for you.” He had taken a step toward me.

I held him off.

“Do not forget that you are an affianced bridegroom,” I said sharply. I looked at him steadily. “Tell me, who betrayed my father?” I added.

He clenched his fists together. “I would I knew,” he said.

“
Someone
betrayed him,” I said. “I shall not allow it to be forgotten. I shall never rest until I discover who it was.”

He held out his hand to me. I stared down at it.

“I want to make a bargain with you,” he said. “We shall both try to find that man who took the happiness from the household and brought about the death of the best man on earth.”

The tears started up in my eyes and he looked at me with tenderness, so that I was sorry momentarily that I had suspected him.

I turned and ran from him back to my room. I could not go down to the hall to eat. My mother sent up a leg of chicken for me and a slice of the crusty cob loaf which I used to love. I could eat nothing; and when finally I slept, for I believe she had laced my wine with one of her potions, I dreamed of Simon Caseman. He had the face of a fox and in my dream I believed him to be an evil man.