The Miracle at St. Bruno's

I felt a little hurt. It was in a way a proposal, my first, and it had been offered to me as a convenient arrangement for the disposal of my father's lands.

I murmured that I had a Latin exercise to complete and Rupert, flushing a little, rose to his feet and went away.

I thought of marriage with Rupert and children growing up in this house. I would like a large family; I flushed uneasily, because the father I visualized for them was not Rupert.

I went up to my room. I sat on the window seat looking out through the latticed window.

I saw Kate and Bruno walking together. They were talking earnestly. I felt sad because Bruno never talked to me in that earnest manner. In fact he talked to no one like that-but Kate.

When Keziah had heard that Ambrose was hanged at the Abbey's Gate she had gone to the gibbet and stood there gazing at him. It was difficult to get her away. One of her fellow servants had brought her home but she was back again and the first night that he hung there she kept her vigil at the gibbet.

On the second day Jennet, one of our housemaids, brought her back and told me that Keziah seemed to be possessed and was acting in an unusual way. I went to her and found her in a strange state. I put her to bed and told her she was to stay there.

She remained there for a week. The weals on her thighs had become inflamed and as I couldn't think how to heal them I went to Mother Salter in the woods and asked her advice. She was pleased that I was looking after Keziah and gave me some lotions to put on the sore places and a concoction of herbs for Keziah to drink.

I nursed Keziah myself. It was something for me to do during that strange time. I think part of her trouble was that she could not face people.

Ambrose was dead and she stood alone and as the perpetrator of that wicked hoax she was afraid to face the world.

She used to ramble in her talk sometimes as I sat by her bed. There was a great deal about Ambrose and the manner in which she had tempted him; she blamed herself; she was the wicked one.

"Oh, Damask," she said, "don't think too bad of me. It were as natural to me as breathing and there was no holding back. 'Tis like that with some of us... though 'twill not be with you maybe... nor with Mistress Kate. The men should beware of Mistress Kate... all fire on top and ice beneath... and them's the dangerous ones. And you, Mistress Damask, you'll be a good and faithful wife, I promise you, which is the best thing to be.”

Then she talked about the boy. "He never looks at me, Damask... or when he does it's to despise me. He'll never forgive me for being his mother. He's dreamed dreams, that boy. He believed he was sent from Heaven. A Holy Child, he thought, and then he finds he's the result of a win between a wanton servant wench and a monk who broke his vows.”

I begged her to be at peace. The past was over; she must start afresh.

"Mercy me," she said with a return of her old smile. "You talk like your father, Mistress Damask.”

"There's no one I would rather talk like," I assured her.

I was a comfort to her strangely enough; and it was I who dressed her wounds with the ointments her grandmother had given me; I assigned her duties to another of the maids that she might rest in solitude until she could face the world.

She used to sit at her window and watch for a glimpse of Bruno. I believe he knew that she watched for him; but he never glanced up at her window.

Once I said to him: "Keziah watches for you. If you would look at her window and smile it would do her so much good.”

He looked at me coldly. "She is a wicked woman," he said.

"She is your mother," I reminded him.

"I don't believe it.”

His mouth was grim; his eyes cold. I saw then that he forced himself not to believe this. He dared not believe it. He had lived so long with the notion that he was apart from us all that it was more than he could endure to accept it as otherwise.

I said softly: "One must face the truth, Bruno.”

"The truth! Is that what you call the words uttered by a wicked monk and a lecherous serving girl?”

I did not tell him that I had heard Ambrose talking to him a few moments before he had murdered Rolf Weaver.

"It's lies!" said Bruno almost hysterically. "Lies, lies, all lies.”

In a way, I thought, he is like Keziah. She cannot face the world and he cannot face the truth.

How quickly one becomes accustomed to change. It was but a month since the last packhorse laden with Abbey treasure had departed and there we were adjusted to our new way of life.

The trees were in full leaf; the bracken plentiful; the shrubs green and bushy; the roses bloomed that year as never before and my mother was out in the garden through most of the day. Bruno had helped her make an herb garden because Ambrose had passed on his knowledge in this field. My mother was quite animated by this prospect and Bruno worked with her in a silence of which she did not seem to be aware.