The Miracle at St. Bruno's

She nodded with pleasure. I had taken her hand and she did not resist. She continued to gaze around the room and because she had not learned to disguise her feelings I could see she was comparing it with her comfortable nursery at the Abbey. She wanted to come home but did not wish me to have too easy a victory. I knew Honey. She was a possessive, jealous little creature.

For some time she had had me to herself and deeply she resented sharing me.

"It is the same with all elder children," I said to Mother Sal- ter.

"Take care of this child," she replied. "Take the utmost care.”

"I have always done so.”

"It would be well for you that you do.”

"There is no need for threats. I love Honey. It was a common enough sort of jealousy.

How did she come here?”

"I watch over this child. She ran away and was lost in the wood. I knew it and sent a boy to find her. He brought her to me.”

Her eyes were veiled; her mouth was smiling but her eyes were cold.

"I should know if she lacked aught," she went on.

"Then you know how well cared for she is.”

"Take the child back. She is tired. She will know to come to me if she is in need.”

"She will never be in need while I am here to care for her.”

As we left the cottage I gripped Honey's hand tightly.

"Never, never run away again," I said.

"I won't if you love me best... better than Cat... better than the new one.”

"I can't love you better, Honey. There is not all that love in the world. I can love you as well.”

"I don't want the new one. I told Granny Salter I didn't want the new one.”

"But there will be three of you. Three is better than two.”

"No," she said firmly. "One's best.”

I took her home and washed the grime from her, gave her milk and a great slice of cob bread freshly baked for her by Clement with a big H on it. This delighted her and she was happy again.

But when she was in bed I was seized by gripping pains and that night I miscarried.

My mother, hearing what happened, had come over at once bringing the midwife with her.

"It would have been a little boy," said the midwife. I did not entirely believe her; she was one of those lugubrious women who liked a tragedy to be of the first magnitude. She knew that we had wanted a boy.

It was great good fortune, she implied, that I had survived at all and it was in fact due to her great skill. I was confined to my bed for a week and during this time I had time to think. I could not forget Bruno's face when he knew what had happened.

The precious child lost! Surely the King himself had not looked more thunderous when he had stood over his sad Queen's bed. I even imagined I saw hatred in his face then.

I thought a good deal about Bruno. I recalled seeing him at night from my window.

He had been coming from the tunnels then. And why should he have been in the tunnels on that day when I had gone to look for Honey? If there was a danger of the earth collapsing it could do so at any time, and it was no safer for him than for anyone else.

By April of the following year I knew that I was again with child. The change in Bruno when he knew this was astonishing. Passionately he wanted children and yet when they arrived he was indifferent to them... at least he was to Catherine. Honey of course he had always resented. If my child was a boy how would he be? Would he try to take him from me?

Sometimes I would grow oddly apprehensive.

What did I know of this strange man who was my husband? What had I ever known? During those years when he had lived in the Abbey-the child who had been sent to them from heaven for some purpose-his character had been formed. Then rudely he had been awakened to the truth; and now it seemed he would spend his life proving that he was indeed apart from other men.

I felt I understood him; and for this reason I could feel tender toward him; but I was beginning to see how happy we might have been. This rebuilding of our little world was a fascinating project. We were giving work to many people and the neighborhood was becoming prosperous again; people were now beginning to look to the Abbey almost as they had in the old days. What happy useful lives we could have led if Bruno had not been possessed by a need to prove himself superhuman.

I saw less of him during my pregnancy. He worked as though in a frenzy. We had moved from the Abbot's Lodging to the monks' frater while the lodging was being rebuilt. Bruno had designed the house in the old Norman style, like a castle.