The Miracle at St. Bruno's (41 page)

“Don’t be so foolish, Damask. I would not harm you. Are you not my own stepdaughter?”

“To my deepest shame I am.”

“And one for whom, for all her waywardness and unkindness to me, I have ever felt great warmth of heart.”

“Have you ever felt that for any?”

“For you, you know.”

“Are you suggesting that you wished to marry me for reasons other than that I was my father’s heir?”

“You are not your father’s heir now, Damask. You are in acute danger. Tomorrow you will wait for the arrival of the King’s men. You were not there when they took your father. This time it will be your husband for whom they come unless….”

“Unless what?”

“I would do a great deal for you, Damask.”

“Then go away and hang yourself.”

He laughed. “That is asking a little too much for if I were dead how could I enjoy your company? No, Damask, you will have to be more pleasant to me…if you wish to go on living in comfort on your Spanish gold.”

“I fail to understand you.”

He took a step nearer to me. “I think you understand very well. If you were to come to me in a friendly fashion I might be persuaded to suspend my judgment on what has taken place tonight.”

“I will ask my mother’s advice,” I said caustically.

“Oh, Damask, were you not unwise? Just think if you had not been, your father would be alive today.”

I turned away and started toward the house.

He called after me: “I shall give you twenty-four hours. Think about it. You could have saved your father. Now is the time to save your family.”

Bruno was coming out of the church followed by several of the monks.

Simon Caseman broke into a run and I hurried into the house trembling.

Bruno did not come to our bedchamber that night. I spent most of it in the window seat waiting for his return. I wanted to find out whether indeed he had received money from Spain or Rome. It seemed to me the only explanation. I wondered it had not occurred to me before. Of course it was the answer. He had received money to rebuild the Abbey, and what more plausible than that he should have been chosen to do this.

Simon Caseman’s words kept repeating themselves in my mind. I was responsible for my father’s death. If I had married Simon Caseman he would not have informed on him because through me he would have had the house. But I would not marry him and so my father had to die. And now he had put another proposition to me. If I would go to him—and I knew what he meant by that—I could buy his silence.

I shivered at the prospect confronting us.

At least though we were safe for twenty-four hours.

Why did not Bruno come to me and comfort me? How characteristic of him was this. He allowed me to share nothing and the reason was that he knew I did not believe in him.

In the morning I went into the tower where he had his private quarters. He was working placidly at his books.

“Bruno,” I cried, “I should have thought you would have had something to say to me.”

He looked surprised.

“You can’t have forgotten last night’s scene?”

“Your stepfather is not worth a moment’s thought.”

I replied sharply: “He was responsible for my father’s death. He is now threatening to bring about yours and many of those dependent on you.”

“And you think he will succeed?”

“He succeeded with my father.”

“Your father acted foolishly.”

“Not as foolishly as you. You blatantly break the law. At least he did it in secret.”

He smiled and lifted his head, and he looked so beautiful that I could have wept because all was not well between us.

“I tell you that there is no need to fear.”

“No need to fear? When that man is our enemy and has witnessed what he did last night and moreover threatened to expose you?”

“He will do nothing.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Because I know.”

“He has threatened to expose you.”

“You believe everyone but me. You imply that you do not think me capable of defending everything I have built up.”

“With Spanish gold?” I asked.

“You see, you believe him.”

“But it seems obvious now. Where could you have found so much money?”

His eyes glowed with an inner fire. “He asked if heaven opened its coffers for me. And the answer is yes. It was a miracle. It was for this purpose that I came to the crib on Christmas morning. Men and women have uttered calumnies concerning me. And you, the one whom I chose, believed them rather than me. But this I swear. The money with which I am rebuilding this Abbey did not come from Spain. It came from heaven. And if you say that could only be a miracle, I answer: So be it. I tell you that man cannot harm me. But you do not believe me.”

“If you swear to me that you are not in the pay of the Spaniards….”

“I do not beg you to believe me. I merely tell you that he will not betray us. It may be that in due course you will have a little faith in me.”

With that he left me.

Twenty-four hours grace. I knew Simon Caseman well enough to believe that he would carry out his threat. He was an acquisitive and vengeful man. He could not believe that I would fall in with his monstrous suggestion. He enjoyed tormenting me, making clear to me how much I and my family were in his power. Moreover he lusted not only for me but for the Abbey, and I knew that to gain that was his main purpose.

It was no use remonstrating with Bruno though what he could do to save himself I could not imagine. I had no doubt that not only had Simon Caseman seen with his own eyes what was going on in the Abbey but he would have witnesses.

It occurred to me that I might take the girls and go to Kate. Would that save them? Would it involve Kate?

The tension was so unbearable that it left me numb; I felt as though I could only wait for what would happen next. I tried to act normally and went along to the bakehouse as I often did in the mornings to consult Clement about the food for the day. He had been present in the church last night.

I was surprised for he did not seem unduly perturbed.

“Clement,” I said, “what will become of us all, think you?”

“We shall be safe,” he answered complacently.

“You think those were idle threats?”

Clement raised his eyes to the ceiling. “Bruno will save us from evil.”

“How can that be?”

“His ways are miraculous.”

There was a complacency about the man which astonished me. He did not seem to realize that he could be dragged to a place of execution, hanged, cut down while still alive and barbarously tortured. Had he not heard of the monks of the Charterhouse? What had they done but deny the supremacy of the King as Head of the Church. His actions would be considered as treasonable!

“You heard what that man said last night, Clement. You were there.”

“I was there. But Bruno spoke to us afterward. He said there was no need to fear.”

“What can he do to save us?”

“That is for him and God.”

They believe he is divine, I thought. Oh, what a rude awakening they would have on the morrow!

The sudden vision of kind simple Clement, who had carried my children on his back and had surreptitiously slipped them tidbits from his oven, being tortured was more than I could endure.

“Clement,” I said, “you could get away. There is still time.”

He looked at me in astonishment. “This is my life,” he said. Then he smiled at me almost pityingly. “You have no faith. But fear not. All will be well.”

What faith
they
had in Bruno. During that day I realized what had been happening over the years. Bruno was not only refounding the Abbey, he was building up that image of himself which had been his before the coming of Rolf Weaver.

That day everything was as usual. No one but myself seemed to be aware of the threat which was hanging over us.

My mother called in the afternoon. I wondered whether Simon Caseman had confided in her and she had come to warn me. He could scarcely have told her of his suggestion to me.

She had brought the usual basket of good things—her newest wine, a new form of tansy cake she had made, her own special brand of marchpane.

She kissed me and said that I was not looking well. Her anxious eyes scrutinized me and I knew that she was wondering, as she did every time we met, whether or not I was with child.

I quickly gathered that she knew nothing of her husband’s discovery for she was too frank to have been able to hide it, but she did talk to me about the merits of the Reformed religion.

“And it is true, Damask,” she said, “that our King is of the Reformed faith. Poor lad, he is sick. They say that he never recovered from that bout of the smallpox. Some would say he was lucky to survive that at all.” She became very confidential. “I have heard it said that he cannot live long, poor boy.”

“Mother,” I said, “has it occurred to you that if the King died, which I hope he will not, the Lady Mary could be Queen; and if she were, might there not be a return to Rome?”

“Impossible!” cried my mother, growing pale at the thought.

“Yet it is not an impossibility, Mother. Should we not be cautious about proclaiming our views until we are sure?”

“If you know the true faith, Damask, how can you deny it?”

“But what is the true faith? Why cannot we accept the simple rules of Christ? Why must it be so important that we worship in this way or that?”

“I am not sure, Damask, but I think you may be speaking treason.”

“Treason one day, Mother, is loyalty the next.” I was suddenly afraid for her, because she was so simple. She did not love a faith but a husband; she would have taken whatever he offered her. She proclaimed her beliefs in the Reformed faith because her husband had adopted them. Yet she could die for those beliefs as others had before her.

I embraced her suddenly.

“My dear child, you are affectionate today.”

“How should I know whether I shall be in a position to be so tomorrow?”

“My word, we are gloomy! What ails you, Damask? You are not sickening for something? I will give you a little draft which contains thyme. That will give you pleasant dreams and tomorrow you will wake up in love with all the world.”

Tomorrow? I thought. What will tomorrow bring?

But I must not alarm my mother. She was happy for today. Let her remain so. My father had once said that, living in such times as ours, we should take no thought for the morrow; we should savor each hour and if it contained pleasure, enjoy that to the full.

I could not in any case speak to her of my anxieties. How could I tell her that the man she had married and on whom she doted as though he were some prophet from heaven was threatening to destroy us and had offered me security if I became his mistress?

The day seemed long. I could settle to nothing. I went to the scriptorium as I sometimes did and listened to the girls at their lessons. What will become of them? I asked myself; and I wished, as my father had wished for me, that they were securely married and living somewhere far removed from the stresses caused by men’s clashes of opinion.

At dinner we sat at the family table on the dais and the rest of the household at the large one in the hall, and although when a sound was heard from without I was aware of furtive looks in the direction of the door and I knew some of the company were attacked by acute apprehension and some trembled in their seats, there was no outward indication of alarm and confident looks were cast in Bruno’s direction.

It was just as we were about to leave the table that a messenger did arrive.

I shall never forget the awful consternation which filled that hall. I rose to my feet. I had taken the hand of Catherine who was seated next to me. Her startled gaze was turned toward me. I thought: Oh, God, it has come. What will become of us all?

Bruno had risen too but he showed no apprehension. Calmly he left his place and went forward to greet the messenger.

“Welcome,” he said.

“I bring ill news,” said the messenger. “The King is dead.”

I could sense the breaking of the tension; it was as though everyone present gave a long-drawn-out “Ah.” The King was dead. Who could say what would happen next? The Lady Mary was in line for the throne. The Abbey was saved.

I saw Bruno’s complacent smile. I saw the look of wonder in the faces of those who had been with him in the church last night.

He had promised them a miracle—for only a miracle could save the Abbey from Simon Caseman’s treachery. And this was their miracle. The death of the King; the end of the Protestant rule. The Catholic Princess awaiting to mount the throne.

Momentarily he caught my eye. I saw the triumph there; the enormous pride which I was beginning to think no one ever possessed in such strength as he did.

And immediately I thought: He knew all the time. He knew the King was dead. He knew that if Simon Caseman’s accusation against him was going to succeed he should have brought it months ago. He arranged for the messenger to bring the news at a time when it would create the greatest effect. I was beginning to know well this man whom I had married.

There was no thought in anyone’s mind now but what was going to happen next.

When I heard that Edward had died two days before the fact was made known I was certain that Bruno had known of this and for this reason he had flouted Simon Caseman and decided to impress his followers by his miracle.

I was building up such a cynical view of my husband that I began to wonder whether I hated him.

But he was less complacent when the news came that the Duke of Northumberland had persuaded the King to set aside his two sisters, Mary and Elizabeth, on the grounds of their illegitimacy, and to declare his cousin Lady Jane Grey the true heir to the throne; but Mary had too much support for this to be accepted and immediately a Catholic faction began to form about her and the country was divided. Families were divided. The only aspect which made me rejoice was the fact that we had a respite. The affairs of the country were so much more important than those of a single abbey and no one was going to arrest people who, were Mary to come to the throne, would be considered true and loyal subjects while those who arrested them would be the traitors.