The Miracle at St. Bruno's (46 page)

Cakes had been baked and topped with ginger; in one of these cakes was a tiny figure in the shape of a king. These were distributed among the men; and the one to find the king in his cake was elected King of the Revels for the night or Lord of Misrule.

There was a great deal of amusement when Carey found the king’s figure; it was clear that he was hoping that a very pretty girl, Mary Ennis, daughter of Lord Calperton, who was a guest with her father and her brother Edward, would win the queen’s figure. He was well mannered enough to hide his dismay when Catherine won it.

Catherine laughed with delight and I could not help smiling, recalling how solemn she had been when wondering whether she ought to leave the Abbey and join in our frivolity.

She and Carey must needs now put their heads together and plan games and antics for our amusement; and this they did. There were charades and guessing games and we became very merry.

Carey and Catherine must lead us in the dance and they did so with some decorum though I overheard Catherine whisper to Carey fiercely: “And I’m almost as old as you in any case and everybody knows that girls grow up more quickly than boys.”

I found myself dancing with Rupert.

“It is pleasant to be here,” he said.

“I have not felt so content for a long time,” I told him.

“This is how life should always be,” he said. “Not just a little oasis of pleasure. But families gathering together like this.”

“And yet, Rupert,” I said, “even on such an occasion we must guard our tongues lest we betray something which could bring harm to us. It is only with our nearest and our trusted friends that we can be frank.”

“Damask,” he said, “how frank are you prepared to be?”

“In what way?”

“I wonder about you so much. I think of you constantly. Sometimes I brood on what it might have been if everything had turned out differently. Then I think of you at the Abbey there.”

“Yes, Rupert.”

“A strange life,” he said. “How is it there, Damask? Are you happy?”

“I have the girls,” I said.

“And they suffice?”

“They mean a great deal to me, but they will marry and have lives of their own. You should have married, Rupert. Then you would have had children.”

“Who would marry and have lives of their own. But I should like children.”

“You are young yet. Who knows, perhaps at this very gathering you will meet someone. You are in your thirties…some say it is the prime.”

“Let us sit down,” he said. “This conversation interests me so much that I prefer not to fit it to the dance.”

So we sat and I watched my girls. Honey, breathtakingly lovely as all must think her, dancing with Edward Ennis, and Catherine with Carey, scowling at him now and then when he trod on her toe and yet her eyes aflame with excitement, for she loved to dance. And how well it suited her, far better than brooding on whether she should go into a convent, if, now that we were under a rigorous Catholic rule, one could be found for her.

“You know I shall not,” said Rupert.

“What was that? I was thinking of Catherine.”

“Marry and settle. And you know why.”

I looked at him and seeing the expression in his eyes I was amazed that he had remained faithful all those years. I could not help my pleasure, which was wrong for it was no life for him to hope for a woman who was married to someone else.

“And Bruno?” he said.

“What of him?”

“He is all that you hoped he would be?”

“We generally ask too much of people, do we not?”

“And you asked too much?”

I hesitated and then I said: “Sometimes I wonder about our life at the Abbey. Sometimes it takes on the quality of a dream. It is so…unreal. We are living in an Abbey…. Many of those who live there were once monks. They had services in the church and those services are openly now the same as those which were conducted there long ago. As you know the Abbot’s Lodging was made into a castle not unlike this. But there are the monks’ dorter and refectory which still stand. I believe many of them behave just as they used to. We are an abbey which is not an abbey. Bruno is an abbot with a wife and family. Since King Edward died it has become more openly so. Sometimes I wonder what would happen if the Queen were to die. Simon Caseman was about to betray us at the time of the King’s death. Poor man, it was he who met his death. It is a strange life.”

“If you were happy you would think it worthwhile. You are not happy, Damask.”

“What is happiness? Just a day or so here and there…a moment perhaps…. How often can anyone say, ‘Now I am completely happy’?”

“That should not be so. A life of contentment should be within our reach.”

“With the uncertainty which surrounds us! When we know not from one day to the next when some misguided word or act could lead us to the death!”

“All the more reason to take happiness when we can.”

I sighed. “I saw my father taken. My mother has lost two husbands. By a quirk of fate I am not a widow now. Oh, it is a violent world we live in. Will it always be so?”

“It will change. Change is inevitable.”

Suddenly I touched his arm. “Rupert, take care. Do not lean one way or the other for how do we know from one week to the next which is the safe way?”

“I am not a fanatical man, Damask. I keep a steady road…quiet, unexciting, I suppose.”

I said: “I think we should dance.”

And as we joined the dancers I knew that he was telling me that he loved me now as he had in the beginning and whatever happened he would not change.

As his hands touched mine in the dance, he said: “Always remember, whatever happens…I should be at hand.”

It was a comforting thought.

Lord Calperton and his family were guests at the Castle for several days and I began to notice that young Edward was always at Honey’s side. She blossomed; a radiance was added to her beauty.

I was afraid for her. The Ennis family was a noble one, and my Honey, of doubtful parentage, would not seem a very good match, I was sure. I did not want the child to be hurt and she could be more easily than Catherine, who had the security of being my own and Bruno’s daughter.

All the same I was sorry when it was time for us to go back to the Abbey; and it was not long after our return when I received an invitation to visit Grebblesworth, the Ennises’ place in Hertfordshire and to take the two girls with me. Kate was also invited. She wrote to me jubilantly.

“Mistress Honey made quite an impression on Master Edward. I’m not surprised. That girl is a real beauty. She is fascinating. There is a kind of smoldering passion behind those glorious eyes of hers. But I must say I’m surprised. After all Edward is the Calperton heir. Well, we shall see.

“Of course we all know that Bruno is very rich and his situation is very fitting to our present way of life. I am truly eager to see the outcome of this.”

Honey was enchanted. I realized that for the first time in her life she was at the very heart of everything. It was because of her that we had received this invitation. Catherine had been invited too, but simply because she belonged to the family.

I spent the next weeks with the seamstresses and we made gowns for Honey. She looked delightful in her riding habits with the little feathered caps we had had made for her.

I said to her as we tried on a lovely brocade gown, “Are you happy, Honey?”

She threw her arms about my neck and I had to protest that she was suffocating me.

She said: “Everything I have had and shall have comes from you.”

I was deeply moved and I replied: “Whatever happens you and I will love each other.”

The night before we left for Grebblesworth she was not in her room when I went to consult her about a ribbon for her hair.

I felt a twinge of alarm and went to Catherine’s room to see if she had seen her. Catherine was sitting disconsolately in a chair studying a book of prayers in Latin. She looked very pleased to put it aside.

“Where is Honey?” I asked.

“I saw her go out half an hour ago.”

“Did she say where?”

“No, but she goes often in that direction.”

“What direction?”

“To the woods, I think.”

“I don’t like her being out alone. There are robbers about.”

“They wouldn’t dare harm anyone from the Abbey, Mother. They would be afraid of what my father would do.” When she spoke his name a beautiful smile touched her lips. “It is wonderful to have a saint for a father.”

I turned aside impatiently. I was asking myself often whether I was jealous of Catherine’s devotion to her father.

I left Catherine and went back to Honey’s room. I waited there anxiously until she came back.

“Honey,” I cried. “Where
have
you been?”

“To see my grandmother.”

“Mother Salter?”

“I call her Grandmother. She is my grandmother, you know.”

I recalled the time when Honey had run away from me because she thought I cared more for Catherine than for her.

“I always go to her when something important happens. She wishes me to.”

“And something important has happened?”

“Is it not important that we should be asked to Grebblesworth?”

“It could be, Honey.”

“It is. I know it is.”

“Honey, my dear child, does it make you happy…that they have asked you?”

“As happy as I never hoped to be,” she answered.

Lord Calperton received us warmly. He was a widower of some years’ standing and it was clear to me that this great mansion lacked a mistress. They were a good Catholic family and as Kate said “unworldly” but I for one liked them none the less for that.

I fancied Lord Calperton, like most men, was a little in love with Kate; perhaps that was one of the reasons why he had taken so kindly to the family.

It was not a large house party, which perhaps made it all the more enjoyable. We rode through the countryside; we danced a little; we played games and there were dinner parties when we met the local families. Carey sought out pretty Mary’s company and that left Honey to Edward. Catherine and Thomas, the younger son of the household, played rather rough games together, and it was a very jolly party.

Kate was amused by the rapidly advancing friendship between Edward and Honey.

She whispered to me: “I verily believe that Calperton is so enchanted with us that he would ask a very small dowry for Honey.”

“Do you really think they would consider her?”

Kate laughed at me. “How excited you are! Why, Damask, you are a matchmaking Mamma. I am surprised.”

“I want Honey to be happy. She is very taken with Edward.”

“And he with her.”

“Oh,” I cried, “I believe she would be so happy. She has always felt that she was not of the same importance as Catherine. Heaven knows I have done my best to convince her. But if this in truth became a marriage…. Oh, I can see her mistress of this house.”

“If Calperton does not marry again of course.”

“Kate, you are not thinking—”

“I have refused a Duke and two Earls. Do you think I should succumb to my Lord Calperton?”

“You might possibly love the man more than a great title.”

“There speaks the old sentimental Damask. I do declare you amaze me. A scheming matchmaking mother one moment, gloating over the fine match her daughter will make, and then sentimentally talking of love. Let me tell you this, Damask. I have no intention of taking Calperton. As far as I am concerned Honey shall have the scene all to herself. But I know my Calperton. He wishes Edward to marry. He wants a grandson. Young Edward is completely enamored of Mistress Honey—and I am not surprised. My Lord will reason that he is more likely to get healthy sons with a young woman who so enthralls him. “I’ll wager you that ere long there will be a discreet offer for Honey’s hand.”

I was so delighted, because I knew the state of Honey’s feelings.

And when the offer came, I myself saw Lord Calperton. I told him that Honey was my adopted daughter; I myself would provide her dowry. She was well educated, a lady in every sense. She was the daughter of a woman who had served me but been a friend; and her father had worked for Thomas Cromwell. He was satisfied.

Honey was married on that June day in the year 1557 when war was declared on France.

The marriage was celebrated at the chapel in Caseman Court. I had chosen this because after all it was my home and I made the excuse that it would do my mother good to supervise the celebrations. And it did; bustling about her garden, gathering herbs for this and that, practicing with her new salads and giving orders in the kitchen seemed to bring her alive again.

Bruno attended the wedding but he was aloof. As for Honey she had little to say to him; she had always avoided him.

We had the usual ceremonies with the bridecake and the mummers came in and performed. I was gratified to see my mother laughing merrily at their antics, and happy to pass Honey on to Edward Ennis, for it had given me the utmost pleasure to see her happily settled.

After the wedding we all seemed faintly depressed. My mother, deprived of all the tasks which the wedding had entailed, sank into melancholy once more; what surprised me most was how much Catherine missed Honey, far more than I had believed possible. She became moody—very different from the girl who had danced so gaily and teased Carey as Queen of Misrule.

Kate came to the rescue by suggesting that Catherine should come to Remus Castle for a spell and this was arranged. I was surprised by the alacrity with which she went.

It was soon after her departure that one of the servants brought me a message from Mother Salter. These messages were in a way like commands, and it did not occur to me to disobey them. I suppose deep down in me I was superstitious as most other people although my father’s teaching should have placed me beyond such primitive thinking. Mother Salter was a witch but she was the great-grandmother of Bruno, child of a serving girl and a monk, who had risen to become head of a community, and of Honey who had married into the aristocracy; and when I considered this I realized that it was Mother Salter who had made the fortunes of both her grandchildren.