The Miracle at St. Bruno's Read online

  A few days later the royal child was born. We heard that the King was bitterly disappointed, for the child, though healthy, was a girl.

  There was rejoicing at her christening and she was named Elizabeth.

  “The next one,” everyone said, “must be a boy.”

  Christmas came with its festivities: mummers, carols, feasting and the decorations with the holly and the ivy. We were growing up and the following spring I heard Elizabeth Barton’s name for the first time because everyone was talking of her; she was known as the Holy Maid of Kent and she had prophesied that if the King put away Queen Katharine and set up Anne Boleyn as his Queen he would soon die; and now that he had done so, many people were certain that he had not long to live.

  Brother John and Brother James came to see my father and the three of them walked about the garden in earnest conversation because they thought the Holy Maid could make the King realize his error. It might well be a sign from heaven, said Brother John. I don’t know what my father felt because he never talked to me about these matters. I realize now that he was afraid that I might, in my innocence, say something that would incriminate not only him but me, for young people could be deemed traitors. I understand now that the King was swept on by his desire for the woman who had fascinated him and his wariness with the Queen who no longer did. His senses were in command but he greatly feared the wrath of God toward sinners. Therefore he must convince himself that he was in the right. He must believe—what he said so constantly—that it was not his senses which dictated his actions but his conscience. He insisted that Queen Katharine’s previous marriage to his brother Arthur meant that she was not legally his wife because the marriage had been consummated, although the Queen swore it had not been. The reason his marriage had failed to be blessed with children—except one girl, the Lady Mary—was due to God’s displeasure, said the King. It was not his desire for Anne Boleyn which had made him demand a divorce from Katharine. It was his duty to provide England with a male heir. The new Queen had now one daughter and had proved herself fertile; the next child would be a son.

  So the King reasoned and there was no logic which could defeat his conscience. This I learned later, but at the time I forgot the brooding sense of insecurity for hours at a stretch.

  My mother did too. She was a gentle, pliable woman, who perhaps because she was so much younger than my father relied on him for everything and had few opinions of her own; but she kept our house in order and our servants were devoted to her; moreover she was becoming known as one of the best gardeners in the south of England. She was always excited when new plants were introduced into England; the musk rose had now arrived; and she grew that side by side with the damask. Corinthian grapes too had been brought from the Isle of Zante and she planned a vinery which gave her a great deal of pleasure.

  She was, I gradually learned, the sort of woman who believes that if she shuts her eyes to unpleasantness it ceases to exist. I was fond of her and she doted on me; but I was never close to her as I was to my father. My greatest pleasure was to be with him, to walk with him down to the river or through the orchards and as I was growing older he could talk seriously to me, which I think gave him great pleasure.

  It was at the time when Elizabeth Barton became prominent that my father did talk to me.

  I remember the day she was executed he put his arm through mine and we walked down to the river. He liked this way better because it was open lawn and we could talk without being overheard as we might be in the orchard or the nuttery.

  He told me the Holy Maid had been a servant to a member of Archbishop Warham’s retinue and how she became ill and subject to fits. This state had turned into trances and she had declared herself to be under deep spiritual influence.

  “It may well be that she was used,” he said, “poor soul. It may be that she spoke half-truths, but as you know, Damask, she has uttered against the King; she had prophesied his death if he should put Queen Katharine from him.”

  “Which he has done, Father.”

  “And taken to him Anne Boleyn.”

  “Why shouldn’t we forget it?” I said. “If the King has sinned it is he who will be called upon to answer for it.”

  My father smiled. “Do you remember, my child, when you and I saw the once-great Cardinal sail by with the King?”

  “I shall never forget it. I think it was the time I first began to notice things.”

  “And I said to you…what did I say to you? Do you remember?”

  “You said: We are not alone. The misfortune of one is that of us all.”

  “What a clever child you are! Oh, Damask, I shall enjoy seeing you a woman…if I live as long.”

  “Please don’t say that. Of course you are going to live to see me a woman. I am almost that now and we shall always be together.”

  “And one day you will marry.”

  “Do you think that will part me from my father? Any husband who wished to separate me from you would not find much favor with me.”

  He laughed. “This house and all I possess will be for you and your children.”

  “But it will remain yours for many many years to come,” I insisted.

  “Damask, don’t lose sight of this: We live in troublous times. The King has tired of one wife and wanted another. That may concern us, Damask. I want you to be prepared.” He pressed my hand. “You are such a little wiseacre that I forget your youth. I talk to you as I might talk to Brother John or Brother James. I forget you are just a child.”

  “Kate constantly reminds me of it.”

  “Ah, Kate. She lacks your wisdom. But one could not expect two such clever people in one household.”

  “You are a fond parent,” I said.

  “I admit it,” he told me. And he went on: “This day they are taking the Maid of Kent to Tyburn. She will be executed there.”

  “Just for a prophecy?”

  “For prophesying what the King does not wish to be prophesied.” He shivered and went on: “Enough of talk of death. Let us go and see how your mother’s musk roses are faring.”

  The Maid of Kent was dead. On the scaffold she had admitted her guilt.

  “I am a poor wench without learning,” she had said. “I have been puffed up by the praises of learned men. They made me pretend to revelations which would be useful to them.”

  The learned men who had supported her were such as Sir Thomas More and Bishop Fisher.

  Because I was so young I was only vaguely and intermittently aware of the tension all about me. I could not at that time accept the fact that the world outside our household was of any great importance to us. My father aged considerably in the months that followed the new Queen’s coronation. He used to row up the river to Chelsea and visited Sir Thomas More who was a very well-known gentleman. He had been Lord Chancellor before his resignation, having taken the post vacated by the great Cardinal. My father had a great deal in common with Sir Thomas, for their lives had not been dissimilar; they were both lawyers; they had both toyed with the idea of becoming monks and had chosen the family life instead. Sir Thomas had a house not unlike ours but his family was grown up and they were a large household because his children were married and their families formed part of that household. It used to be such a merry household; Sir Thomas, although so learned and a man of great integrity, loved a joke; but everything was changed now. It seemed as though they were all waiting for something terrible to happen, and because of this a certain foreboding had crept into our house.

  Kate and I could escape from it, although I doubt whether Kate was even aware of it. She could go into such a storm with Keziah over the manner in which a dress had been washed, or if a favorite ribbon had been lost, and these matters seemed so much more important to her than anything else. She was so forceful and I was so used to following her that I began to feel as she did. I had discovered too that there was an inclination in my nature to ignore that which was unpleasant (no doubt inherited from my mother), so I tried not to be aware
of the growing tension and to assure myself that it did not exist.

  Simon Caseman had now joined us. Father said he was an extremely clever young man and he thought he would be very successful. He had shown a shrewd ability in my father’s business and seemed determined to ingratiate himself with our household. He was always very deferential toward Father and at meals he would say very humbly: “Do you think, sir—” and then go on to discuss some law matter which was incomprehensible to the rest of us. He would put forward a view and if Father didn’t agree would immediately apologize and say he was only a kind of apprentice after all. Father used to chide him a little and say that he was not necessarily wrong because they did not agree; every man should have his own opinion and so on; I could see that Father was very pleased with Simon. “He’s the cleverest of any young man I’ve trained,” he used to say.

  Then Simon made himself useful to Mother. He very quickly learned the names of flowers and how best they should be tended. Mother was delighted with him and he was often to be seen carrying her basket for her while she went about the garden, snipping blooms here and there.

  Often I would find him watching me speculatively and he even tried to interest himself in what I liked. He would attempt to discuss the Greek philosophers with me—for I had a reputation for being something of a scholar, largely because I was so much better at my lessons than Kate or Rupert, which did not mean I had reached such a really high standard; he would also discuss horses with me because I loved to ride.

  With Rupert he could talk fairly knowledgeably on farming and the raising of animals; and he always treated Kate with that mixture of deference and boldness which she provoked and expected from most men.

  In fact he took considerable pains to cause no inconvenience in the household—indeed to make himself an agreeable part of it. During the long summer evenings of that year the time passed pleasantly. We went Maying, riding, and on Midsummer Eve we stayed up to see the sun rise; we picnicked; we made the hay, always something of a ritual, and we cut the corn and when the harvest was in we hung our sheaves on the walls of the kitchen to be left there until next year; then we gathered in the fruits of the orchards and the nuttery and stored them away. When the evenings drew in we played games at the fireside. We had treasure hunts around the house, and sometimes guessing games at which I usually excelled, much to Kate’s chagrin.

  It was that summer that I saw the jeweled Madonna. We had no right to see it and I am sure Bruno would never have taken us into the chapel had Kate not lured him into it.

  We had gone through the secret door to find Bruno waiting for us. I believe he looked forward to these meetings as much as we did. I suppose it was because had it been known that we were trespassing on the Abbey grounds and that Bruno was meeting us, there would have been such an outcry, that we all found the meetings so exciting. Bruno fascinated us both because we could never forget the mystery of his birth. For this reason I was in awe of him; so was Kate. I believed she would have refused to admit this and to deceive herself constantly attempted to lead him into some kind of mischief. She told me once that she could well understand how the Devil felt when he tempted Christ to cast himself down and prove his divinity because she was always wanting to make Bruno do something like that. “There must be quite a bit of the Devil in me,” she said; and I assured her that she was no doubt right about that.

  We were lying on the grass and Kate was talking as she often did about the Queen’s coronation and how she had lain in her litter of cloth of gold.

  “She sparkled with jewels such as you’ve never seen,” she told Bruno.

  “Oh, yes, I have,” he replied. “I’ve seen better jewels than hers.”

  “There aren’t any better. These were royal jewels.”

  “I’ve seen holy jewels,” said Bruno.

  “Holy jewels! There aren’t such things. Jewels are a symbol of worldly pomp. So how could they be holy, pray?”

  “If they’re the Madonna’s jewels they’re holy,” said Bruno.

  “Madonnas don’t have jewels.”

  “They do. Our Madonna has. She has finer jewels than the King has.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  Bruno plucked a blade of grass and began to chew it in a very unholy manner. He remained silent and there was nothing like that kind of silence to infuriate Kate.

  “Well?” she demanded. “You’re lying, aren’t you? You’re making up stories about your silly old Madonna.”

  Kate looked over her shoulder as she spoke for she was very superstitious and she wondered whether she had gone too far in referring to the Madonna as silly and old.

  Bruno said: “I’m not. I wish I could show you. You never believe anything that you’re not shown.”

  “Then show us,” cried Kate.

  “How could I? It’s in the sacred chapel.”

  “All things are possible,” said Kate virtuously.

  “The jeweled Madonna is in the sacred chapel and only those monks who are enclosed visit it.”

  “Then how have you seen it?”

  “I was taken there. I blessed her and she blessed me.”

  “Oh,” said Kate, “the Holy Child of course.”

  “Brother Valerian has the key and it hangs on a chain he wears round his waist.”

  “You could steal it when he sleeps. He often sleeps when you are doing your lessons. You told us so.”

  “I could not do that.”

  “You mean you dare not. You call yourself a Holy Child and you are afraid of an old monk! Where are all your miracles? If you’re really a Holy Child you should be able to get the key…just like that.”

  “I never said I could work miracles all the time.”

  “But it’s what we all expect of you. How dare you appear in a Christmas crib if you’re not a holy child? It’s sacrilege. You ought to be turned out of the Abbey. You’re not a holy child, you’re a fraud.”

  I had discovered that there was one thing Bruno could not endure and that was to have his holiness doubted. I was beginning to realize how much it meant to him to see himself apart from others. His face was suffused with fury. I had never seen him so put out before.

  “I am,” he cried. “And don’t dare say otherwise.”

  Kate, who could not learn a few lines of poetry, who could not without great difficulty add a few figures or memorize a Latin verb, was knowledgeable in the ways of people. She was immediately aware of their weaknesses and knew how to exploit them. She was determined to see the jeweled Madonna and set to work to achieve that end.

  It took her a few days; but during that time she so played on Bruno’s fear that perhaps after all he was not so different from other boys that she prevailed upon him to steal the key from Brother Valerian’s girdle.

  I had become caught up in the adventure so that I was as eager to see the Madonna as Kate was. I shall never forget the moment when we entered that cold gray building. I felt that at any moment we should be struck dead for daring to set foot on sacred ground but I was driven on not so much by my great desire to see the Madonna as to share in the triumph of these two—Kate for getting her own way and Bruno for proving that he was capable of acts beyond the power of mortal beings. For who but he would dare to bring outsiders into the sacred precincts of the Abbey.

  He went on ahead of us and when he was sure that the way was clear beckoned for Kate and me to follow. We crept through those dank gray cloisters, into the narrow flagged corridors and up a spiral staircase. It was very eerie and so still that Kate said afterward that it was like being with the dead.

  Bruno was very pale, his lips were firmly set though and I knew that nothing would deter him. Kate too, her eyes dilated it seemed, silent for once, overawed. Before we had entered the Abbey I had visualized our being discovered and the pain and surprise this would cause my father; but now I forgot that. I was as eager as Kate and as careless of flouting authority. It was a strange feeling; a certain knowledge that I was doing something very wrong and ye
t an inability to resist doing it.

  It seemed a long time before we came to the chapel and Bruno fitted the stolen key into the lock; the door creaked as it moved inward so loudly I thought that the monks in their cells would hear.

  Then we were in the chapel.

  We crept across the stone flags, past the pews each guarded by a stone angel with what I presumed to be a flaming sword. There was a hush over the place. The stained-glass windows gave a bluish light to the place; the great stone buttresses were very cold.

  We crept behind Bruno to the altar on which was a magnificent cloth wrought in gold and silver thread. The ornaments on the cloth were of silver and gold encrusted with jewels. We stared at them in wonder.

  Then Bruno drew aside the heavy curtain decorated with gold embroidery. We were in a small holy of holies and facing us was the Madonna.

  Kate caught her breath in wonder for she was beautiful. She was carved out of marble but her cape was of real lace and she was wearing a flowing gown of some thick embroidered material. This gown was aflame with the most glittering jewels imaginable. It was dazzling. Rubies, emeralds, diamonds and pearls had been fixed onto it. I remember thinking how heavy it must be. The Madonna’s hands had been beautifully carved and rings glittered on her fingers. There were diamonds, sapphires and pearls in the bracelets which adorned her arms. But it was her crown which was almost blinding in its brilliance. In the center of this glittered an enormous diamond; and about this was clustered gems of all colors.

  I thought to myself Kate will have to admit that the Madonna is richer and more sparkling than the new Queen on the way to her coronation.

  Kate clasped her hands in ecstasy. She had never seen such jewels. She wanted to touch the jeweled robe but Bruno restrained her.

  “You daren’t. You would be struck dead,” he said.

  And even Kate drew back.

  Having proved his point Bruno was now eager to get us out of the chapel; and I think that we were anxious to go although it was difficult to take one’s eyes from that glittering figure.