The Miracle at St. Bruno's

Philippa Carr The Miracle at St. Bruno's

Prologue

EARLY on Christmas Day of the year 1522 the Abbot of St. Bruno's Abbey drew aside the curtains which shut off the Lady Chapel from the rest of the Abbey Church and there, in the Christmas crib, which Brother Thomas had so skillfully carved, lay, not the wooden figure of the Christ which had been put there the night before, but a living child.

The Abbot, an old man, immediately thought that the candles flickering on the altar had played some trick on his failing eyesight. He looked from the crib to the inanimate figures of Joseph, Mary and the three wise men; and from them to the statue of the Virgin set high above the altar. His eyes went back to the child expecting it to have been replaced by the wooden image. But it was still there.

He hurried from the chapel. He must have witnesses.

In the cloister he came face to face with Brother Valerian.

"My son," said the Abbot, his voice trembling with emotion. "I have seen a vision.”

He led Brother Valerian to the chapel and together they gazed down on the child in the crib.

"It is a miracle," said Brother Valerian.

About the crib stood a circle of black-robed figures-Brother Thomas from the woodhouse, Brother Clement from the bakehouse, Brothers Arnold and Eugene from the brewhouse, Brother Valerian whose delight was the scriptorium where he worked on his manuscripts, and Brother Ambrose, whose task was to till the soil.

The Abbot watched them closely. All were silent with awe and wonder, except Brother Ambrose, who exclaimed, his voice tense with excitement, "Unto us a child is given." His eyes were gleaming with an emotion he could not suppress. He was a young monk-twenty-two years of age-and of all his sons Ambrose gave the Abbot most concern. Often he had wondered whether Ambrose should remain in the community; yet at times this monk seemed to embrace monasticism more fervently than his fellows. The Abbot had recently come to the conclusion that Brother Ambrose could either be a saint or a sinner and whosoever it was who claimed him-God or the Devil-Brother Ambrose would be a most devoted disciple.

"We must care for this child," said brother Ambrose earnestly.

"Is he sent to stay with us then?" asked Brother Clement, the gentle, simple one.

"How did he come here?" asked Brother Eugene, the worldly one.

"It is a miracle," retorted Brother Ambrose. "Does one question a miracle?”

So this was the miracle of St. Bruno's Abbey. Soon the news spread through the countryside and people traveled far to visit the blessed spot. They brought gifts for the Child like the wise men of old and in the years that followed rich men and women remembered St. Bruno's in their wills; so that in due time the Abbey, which had been in dire decline-a fact which caused its Abbot grave concern-became one of the most prosperous in the south of England.

Part I

THE JEWELED MADONNA

I WAS BORN in the September of 1523, nine months after the monks had discovered the Child in the crib on that Christmas morning. My birth was, my father used to say, another miracle. He was not young at the time, being forty years of age; he had recently married my mother who was more than twenty years his junior. His first wife had died giving birth to a stillborn son after having made several attempts to bear children all of which had failed; and because my father at last had a child, he called that a miracle.

It is not difficult to imagine the rejoicing in the household. Keziah, who was my nurse and mentor in those early days, was constantly telling me about it.

"Mercy me!" she said. "The feasting. It was like a wedding. You could smell the venison and sucking pig all over the house. And there was tansy cake and saffron cake with mead to wash it down for all who cared to call for it. The beggars came from miles around. What a time of plenty! Poor souls! Up to St. Bruno's for a night's shelter, a bite to eat and a blessing and then to the Big House for tansy and saffron. And all on account of you.”

"And the Child," I reminded her, for I had very quickly become aware of the miracle of St. Bruno's.

"And the Child," she agreed; and whenever she spoke of the Child, a certain smile illumined her face and made her beautiful.

My mother, whose great pleasure was tending her gardens, called me Damask, after the rose which Dr. Linacre, the King's physician, had brought into England that year.

I began to grow up with a sense of my own importance, for my mother's attempts to bear more children were frustrated. There were three miscarriages in the five years that followed. I was cosseted, watched over, cherished.