The Miracle at St. Bruno's (13 page)

“And wise,” he said. “I confess to be a little overawed in your presence. Your father constantly speaks of your erudition.”

“You should take that as paternal pride. To a father his geese are swans.”

“In this case I find myself in wholehearted agreement with the parent in question.”

“I can only believe that you have lost your sense of judgment then. I fear for your performance in the courts.”

“What a joy it is to talk with you, Mistress Damask.”

“You are easily content, Master Caseman.”

“There is one thing I would like to ask you, with your permission.”

“That permission is given.”

“You are no longer a child. Have you ever thought of giving your hand in marriage?”

“I suppose it is natural in all young women to think of eventual marriage.”

“He to whom you gave your hand would be doubly favored. A beautiful and clever wife. What more could any man ask? He would be fortunate above all men.”

“I have no doubt that any who asked my hand in marriage might well have his thoughts on my inheritance.”

“My dear Mistress Damask, he would be too dazzled by your charms to think of such a matter.”

“Or so dazzled by my inheritance that he might well be mistaken about my beauty and erudition, don’t you think?”

“It would depend on the man. If he were, he deserves to be….”

“Well? Hanged, drawn and quartered?”

“Worse than that. Rejected.”

“I had no idea that you had such a talent for gallant speeches.”

“If I have it is you who have inspired them.”

“I wonder why.”

“Do you? You, who are so clever, must have been aware of my intentions.”

“Toward me?”

“Toward no one else.”

“Master Caseman, is this a proposal?”

“It is. I should be the happiest of men if I might go to your father and tell him that you have consented to be my wife.”

“Then I am afraid I cannot give you that pleasure.”

I had risen. But my heart was pounding for I felt afraid; and I could not tell why this sudden desire to run should have come to me. I was here in my mother’s peaceful rose garden with a man who was a member of our household, a friend of my father and one of whom he thought highly, and yet I experienced this sudden revulsion.

Simon Caseman had risen too. He stood beside me. He was not a big man—only two inches or so taller than I, and his face was very close to mine. His eyes were warm, alert and golden brown; his hair had a reddish tinge too; and the lines on his face made it appear to me, seen so close, like a fox’s mask. I knew in that moment that I was afraid of him.

I turned to go but he caught my arm. His grip was firm as he said: “What have you in mind, Mistress Damask? Is it to marry someone else?”

I wished the color would not flame into my cheeks. I said: “I had not thought of marrying anyone.”

“You do not plan to enter a convent?” His lips curled slightly. “That would be an unwise plan….at this time when so many of our convents have gone the way of our monasteries.”

I withdrew my arm and said coldly: “I do not think I am of an age to consider marriage.”

His hand lightly brushed the front of my gown. “Why, Mistress Damask, you are a woman already. You should not delay your enjoyments of womanhood, I do assure you. Pray do not reject me without consideration. I do verily believe that your father would not object to our union. I know that he wishes to see you under the protection of one whom he trusts. For these are troublous times in which we live.”

“I shall make my own choice,” I said.

And I walked out of the rose garden.

I was very shaken. I was not yet seventeen and I had already had two proposals of marriage whereas beautiful Kate, who was two years older, had not had one.

Or had she? But who could have proposed to Kate?

It was strange that I should have had this thought about Kate because a week or so after that scene in the rose garden Lord Remus called at the house.

We had known that he was coming because my father had settled some matter of law for him and as he was a very rich and powerful nobleman my mother was making a very special occasion of his visit.

All that day Clement had been working in the bakehouse; he had made pies with fancy crusts and there was one in the form of the Remus coat of arms. Clement was delighted with it because in the Abbey kitchen he had not had the opportunity of indulging in such frivolity. My mother was in her element for if there was anything she liked better than working in her garden it was preparing for visitors in the house. She took on a new authority. It was clear that she wished we entertained more.

Kate and I watched the arrival of the visitors from the window of her room. We were disappointed in Lord Remus who was fat and walked with a stick, wheezing as he made his way up the slope of the lawn from the privy steps. But he was very richly clad and quite clearly a man of great consequence.

Father led him into the hall where we were all waiting to greet the visitors. Mother first and Lord Remus was very gracious to her, then myself as the daughter of the house and the others, Rupert, Kate, Simon and Bruno. (I was delighted to see he was included.) My family, Father called us.

Kate swept a beautiful curtsy which she had been practicing all day; her long hair was caught up in a gold net and she looked beautiful.

That Lord Remus thought so was obvious for his eyes lingered on her, a fact of which no one was more aware than Kate.

It was a banquet that was put before our distinguished guest. There was fish—dace, barbel and chub all served in herbs of my mother’s growing. Lord Remus congratulated her on her cook and she was delighted. Then there was sucking pig and beef and mutton followed by my mother’s own brand of syllabub. There was ale and wine in plenty and I saw my mother’s eyes gleam with satisfaction and I thought how easy it was for her to be happy in the moment; and how strange it was that such a short time ago we were living in terror of what would happen next and I could not get out of my mind the image of Brother Ambrose hanging from his gibbet at the Abbey’s Gate.

Kate, who was seated opposite Lord Remus, asked him when he was last at Court and he replied that he was there but a week before. He talked of the Court and the King’s dissatisfaction with his state and how his temper was such that it was apt to flare up if one were careless enough to rouse it.

“I’ll warrant you, my lord, are the soul of tact,” said Kate.

“My dear young lady, I have a desire to keep my head on my shoulders, for that I consider is where it belongs.”

Kate laughed a great deal and I saw my mother glance at her and I thought afterward she will be reprimanded for her forwardness; but for the time that could pass, for Lord Remus did not seem to object to it.

Lord Remus had drunk a great deal of the elderberry concoction which my mother admitted was particularly fine this year and he was inclined to be talkative.

“The King needs a wife,” he said. “He cannot be happy without a wife, even when he is looking for a new wife. He must have a wife.”

Kate laughed a great deal and the rest of us smiled; I guessed my parents were thinking uneasily of the servants.

“This time,” said Lord Remus, “he is looking for a Princess from the Continent, but some of the ladies are just a little reluctant.” He glanced at Kate. “Like me, young lady, they are anxious to keep their heads and in view of what happened to the unfortunate Anne Boleyn and even to Queen Katharine, the reluctance is understandable.”

“It is like the Arabian nights,” said Kate. “Perhaps if the King could find a Queen who could continue to amuse him she could continue to live.”

“That is what the new Princess will have to aim for,” said Lord Remus. “I hear that the sister of the Duke of Cleves has the King’s attention. Master Holbein has painted a beautiful portrait of her and the King declares himself to be enamored of the lady already.”

“So the new Queen is chosen.”

“That is what is being said at Court. Master Cromwell is eager for the marriage. I never liked the man—a low fellow—but the King finds him clever. It would be a good marriage for politics’ sake, so they say. I’ll dareswear that very soon you will be seeing another coronation.”

“She will be the King’s fourth wife,” said Kate. “I should love to see her. I daresay she is very beautiful.”

“Princesses are rarely as beautiful as they are made out to be,” said Lord Remus. “I’ll warrant those who lack royalty can often make up for it in beauty.” He was smiling at Kate in somewhat bleary-eyed concentration. Our elderberries were very potent that year. They must have been or I am sure he would not have spoken so freely.

I think my father was rather relieved when the meal was over; then my mother led Lord Remus into the music room and she sang a very pleasant ditty to him which he applauded with delight and then Kate took her lute and sang.

She sang a love song and every now and then she would raise her eyes and smile in the direction of Lord Remus. Her long hair escaped from the gold net and fell about her shoulders; she pretended to throw it impatiently back but I knew her well enough to realize she was calling attention to it.

When Lord Remus left we all conducted him to the privy stairs and watched his barge sail up the river.

I noticed that Kate was laughing as though at some secret joke.

She came to my room that night. She had to talk to someone and she had always used me for this purpose.

She stretched out on my bed. She always did that while I was expected to occupy the window seat.

“Well,” she said, “what thought you of my lord?”

“That he eats too much, drinks too much and laughs too much at his own jokes and not enough at other people’s.”

“I know so many to whom those words could apply.”

“Which shows that my lord is so like many others that there is very little new one can say about him.”

“One could say that he is rich; that he has a large estate in the country and a place at Court.”

“All of which could make him very desirable in the eyes of scheming young women.”

“There you speak sense, my child.”

“Pray do not call me your child. I have had a proposal of marriage which is more than you have had.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Master Caseman?”

I nodded.

“He doesn’t want to marry you, Damask, so much as all this…your lands, this house and everything that you will inherit from your father.”

“That is exactly what I implied.”

“You are not so foolish after all.”

“And no longer a child, since plus my inheritance I am considered marriageable.”

“Lucky Damask! And what have I to recommend me? What but my beauty and charm.”

“Which seem to have their effects. Even gentlemen with a place at Court and an estate in the country seem to be not unimpressed by them.”

“So you think he was impressed?”

“Without doubt. But were you wasting your talents?”

“Indeed not. He could make me his lady tomorrow an he wished it. He has had two wives and buried them.”

“By the faith,” I said, “he is almost as much married as the King. But, Kate, he is an old man.”

“And I am a young woman without your inheritance. Your father will give me a dowry, I doubt not, but it will not be anything to compare with what his darling daughter Damask will bring to her husband.”

“I would that there need not be this talk of marriage. It seems to me to be a melancholy subject.”

“Why so?”

I did not answer. I thought of the fox’s mask which I had seen on Simon Caseman’s face and of Kate’s planning to lure Lord Remus into marriage because he had a high-sounding title, an estate in the country and a place at Court.

“Marriage,” I said, “should be for the young, those who love not worldly goods and titles but each other.”

“There speaks my romantic cousin,” said Kate. “Who said you had grown up? You are a child still. You are a dreamer. It so often happens that those we love are not the ones we dare marry. So let us be gay. Let us enjoy what we can while we may.”

But she was no longer bantering; and there was a faraway look in her eyes which I did not then fully understand. That came later.

A change had come over Keziah. She had come out of that trancelike state and suddenly began to take on her old duties. Once or twice I heard her singing to herself. She had lost a certain amount of weight and I often noticed her gazing longingly at Bruno with an expression of intense longing which, if he was aware of it, he ignored. As far as I knew, he ignored her. I remonstrated with him over this. It seemed very cruel to me. But his eyes would flash angrily and to tell the truth I was so wretched when he was cool to me, that I avoided the subject.

He had changed a little too since the day when he had spoken of the jeweled Madonna. One of the servants told me that she had asked him to lay his hands on her and this he had done with the result that the violent rheumatics she had suffered in her legs had disappeared. They knew who he was, and the legend that he was indeed divine lived on. Clement in the bakehouse talked a great deal, I imagined. I wondered how he had ever observed rules of silence. The belief was beginning to spread throughout the household that Keziah and the monk had lied under torture and this was what Bruno wished.

My father told me that he was giving him a little time to grow accustomed to the great change in his circumstances before discussing with him the choice of a career. Bruno was well educated—indeed something of a scholar. Perhaps he would like to go into the church or the law. My father, I knew, would be willing for him to go to one of the universities if Bruno wished it. So far Bruno had discussed his future with no one; and he seemed only to care for the company of Kate and myself.

But I could not completely ignore his treatment of Keziah.

“You could be gentle with her,” I protested. “Speak to her kindly.”

“Why should I?” he asked.

“Because she is your mother and longs for a smile from you.”

“She disgusts me, and she is not my mother.”

“You are cruel to her, Bruno.”

“Perhaps,” he answered.