The Miracle at St. Bruno's (31 page)

“Pray do not render me accounts of the laborers’ duties for I have not come to hear that.”

“But you must understand that there is much work to be done…we shall need many men if we are to make this place prosper.”

“And Bruno? Where is he?”

“I believe him to be somewhere in the Abbey. Perhaps he is talking about the farmlands, or the mill, or like as not he is in the scriptorium with Valerian.”

“What did he say when he knew I was coming?”

“Very little.”

“Don’t be maddening, Damask. What effect did it have on him?”

“What conceit! Do you think it is such an important event because you at last deign to visit us?”

“I should have thought it worthy of some comment.”

“He does not easily betray himself.”

This she conceded.

I asked how Carey was. Had he grown?

“It is a natural function for children to grow. Carey is normal in every way.”

“I long to see him.”

“You shall. I will bring him to the Abbey.” She was looking at me searchingly. “What banal questions we ask each other! And you have this child here—Keziah’s child!” She looked at me searchingly. “Is that wise?”

“I had pledged myself.”

“And Damask would always keep her word. And Bruno? What does he feel? His marriage not more than a few weeks old—and already a child!”

“He accepts the fact that I must keep my word. And I love the child.”

“You would. The eternal mother! That is you, Damask. And are you happy?”

“I am happy.”

“You always adored Bruno…blatantly. But then you were always so honest. You could never hide your feelings, could you?”

I avoided her eyes. “I don’t think you were indifferent to him.”

“But you carried off the prize. Clever Damask.”

“I was not clever. It just happened.”

“You mean that he returned and asked you to marry him?”

“I do mean that.”

“And he said I will lay the rich Abbey at your feet. I will give you riches and jewels….”

I laughed. “You were always obsessed by riches, Kate. I remember when we were young you always said you would marry a Duke. I’m surprised that you settled for a mere Baron.”

“In the battle of life one takes an opportunity when it comes if it is reasonably good. To let it pass might mean to miss it altogether. There were not many noble visitors at your father’s house, were there? Remus seemed a very worthy object of my attention.”

“Is he as doting as ever?”

“He dotes,” said Kate. “And of course he is eternally grateful for the boy. But it is of you that I wish to talk…
you
, Damask. So much has happened here—more than has been happening in my little circle. Your mother producing twins and your strange marriage. That is what interests me.”

“I think you know what happened. Bruno came back and asked me to marry him. There had been a great deal of talk about the new owner of the Abbey. No one knew who it was. I agreed to marry Bruno—then he revealed to me who he was and that by a miracle he had acquired the Abbey.”

“It’s a fantastic story and I never wholly believe fantastic stories.”

“Are you suggesting that I am lying to you, Kate?”

“Not you, Damask. But you must admit it is so very strange. So he asked you to marry him and only after did he reveal that the Abbey would be your home. What a secretive bridegroom! I’ll dareswear you promised to share a life of poverty with him.”

“I had thought that was what it would be.”

She nodded slowly.

“Bruno is a proud man.”

“He has much of which to be proud.”

“Is not Pride a sin—one of the seven deadlies I had always been led to believe?”

“Oh, come,
you
are being censorious now, Kate. Bruno has a natural dignity.”

“That was not quite what I meant.” Her face darkened momentarily and then she shrugged her shoulders. “Show me the Abbey, Damask,” she said. “I should enjoy seeing it. First this house. This solar is beautiful. I shall imagine you here when I am back at my gloomy old castle.”

“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.”