The Miracle at St. Bruno's

"And no longer a child, since plus my inheritance I am considered marriageable.”

"Lucky Damask! And what have I to recommend me? What but my beauty and charm.”

"Which seem to have their effects. Even gentlemen with a place at Court and an estate in the country seem to be not unimpressed by them.”

"So you think he was impressed?”

"Without doubt. But were you wasting your talents?”

"Indeed not. He could make me his lady tomorrow as he wished it. He has had two wives and buried them.”

"By the faith," I said, "he is almost as much married as the King. But, Kate, he is an old man.”

"And I am a young woman without your inheritance. Your father will give me a dowry, I doubt not, but it will not be anything to compare with what his darling daughter Damask will bring to her husband.”

"I would that there need not be this talk of marriage. It seems to me to be a melancholy subject.”

"Why so?”

I did not answer. I thought of the fox's mask which I had seen on Simon Caseman's face and of Kate's planning to lure Lord Remus into marriage because he had a high-sounding title, an estate in the country and a place at Court.

"Marriage," I said, "should be for the young, those who love not worldly goods and titles but each other.”

"There speaks, my romantic cousin," said Kate. "Who said you had grown up? You are a child still. You are a dreamer. It so often happens that those we love are not the ones we dare marry. So let us be gay. Let us enjoy what we can while we may.”

But she was no longer bantering; and there was a faraway look in her eyes which I did not then fully understand. That came later.

A change had come over Keziah. She had come out of that trancelike state and suddenly began to take on her old duties. Once or twice I heard her singing to herself. She had lost a certain amount of weight and I often noticed her gazing longingly at Bruno with an expression of intense longing which, if he was aware of it, ignored. As far as I knew, he ignored her. I remonstrated with him over this. It seemed very cruel to me. But his eyes would flash angrily and to tell the truth I was so wretched when he was cool to me, that I avoided the subject.

He had changed a little too since the day when he had spoken of the jeweled Madonna.

One of the servants told me that she had asked him to lay his hands on her and this he had done with the result that the violent rheumatics she had suffered in her legs had disappeared. They knew who he was, and the legend that he was indeed divine lived on. Clement in the bakehouse talked a great deal, I imagined. I wondered how he had ever observed rules of silence. The belief was beginning to spread throughout the household that Keziah and the monk had lied under torture and this was what Bruno wished.

My father told me that he was giving him a little time to grow accustomed to the great change in his circumstances before discussing with him the choice of a career.

Bruno was well educated-indeed something of a scholar. Perhaps he would like to go into the church or the law. My father, I knew, would be willing for him to go to one of the universities if Bruno wished it. So far Bruno had discussed his future with no one; and he seemed only to care for the company of Kate and myself.

But I could not completely ignore his treatment of Keziah.

"You could be gentle with her," I protested. "Speak to her kindly.”

"Why should I?" he asked.

"Because she is your mother and longs for a smile from you.”

"She disgusts me, and she is not my mother.”

"You are cruel to her, Bruno.”

"Perhaps," he answered.

"I refuse to believe that she is my mother.”

Poor Bruno. It was hard for him to bear. To have believed, else if to be apart from us all, a miraculous creation, and to find that he was the son of a serving woman.

But there was cruelty in him I saw that now, as clearly as I had seen the fox's mask on Simon Caseman's face.

I tried to talk to him about the future but he would not discuss it with me. I wondered whether he did with Kate for I knew that they were often together.

When Lord Remus paid us another visit Kate declared herself not in the least surprised.

It was what she had expected, she said. He dined with us again and gave us more news of the Court. It seemed almost certain that the Cleves marriage would take place.

The King was in excellent humor. He had walked up and down the nursery with young Prince Edward in his arms looking very pleased with the world. The Prince was a little pukey but his nurse, Mrs. Penn, guarded him like a dragon and wouldn't allow the slightest wind to blow on him. The King had not been in such good spirits since the day he had married Anne Boleyn.

But it was not so much the King and Court which interested Lord Remus. It was Kate.

When he had left she came to my bedroom and lay on the bed giggling.

"Methinks the hook is well into his lordship's mouth," she said. "Soon we shall haul him in.”

She was right. Within a week he was making a formal request to my father to pay court to Mistress Kate.