The Miracle at St. Bruno's

"It seemed to me that everything in this world is connected with everything else.

There! You are thoughtful. Have I said something profound? Perhaps I am becoming clever. You and Bruno were the clever ones, were you not? How you used to madden me when you put on that superior manner and tried to carry the subject beyond me. But I could always get the better of you both. I haven't changed, Damask, and I doubt that you and Bruno have either.”

"Why should any of us wish to get the better of each other?”

"Perhaps because some of us have what the other wants. But no matter. Where is Bruno?

Manners demand that he should be here to greet me.”

"You forget your visit was unexpected.”

"He knew that I was coming to Caseman Court, did he not?”

"And do you expect him to be waiting here on the chance that you will come?”

She shook her head. "I would never expect that from Bruno. Come, show me your beautiful dwelling.”

I led her across the solar into my own little sitting room.

"It's charming," she cried. She gazed up at the ceiling with its carved wooden ribs and gesso ornamentation and the decorations of the frieze. "That was done not very long ago," she declared. "It is quite modern. I'll warrant the old Abbot had it refurbished after the first miracle when the Abbey grew rich. So he owes that to Bruno. It is surprising how much so many owe to Bruno.”

I took her from room to room. She expressed admiration for all she saw but I fancied it was tinged with envy. The gallery enchanted her. It was bare at the moment for tapestries and precious ornaments had been torn from the walls by Rolf Weaver and his men; but they had not harmed the window seats and the one beautiful oriel window which looked out on the cloister and the monks' frater.

At the end of the gallery was a small chapel on either side of the door of which were panels each decorated with an effigy of Saint Bruno.

"They lived well, these monks," said Kate with a smile. "And how lucky you are that it should have been you whom Bruno brought to this wonderful place.”

As we made a tour of the Abbey she constantly exclaimed with admiration at so much; I knew that she found the place which had dominated our imaginations when we were children to be entirely fascinating and that she envied me. She climbed the monks’ night stairs; she opened the door of one of the monk's cells and stood there looking around her. "How quiet it is!" she cried. "How cold. How ghostly.”

She was thinking, she said, of all the pent-up emotion which had been suffered in this place. "Look at that pallet," she cried. "Imagine the thoughts of men who have occupied that! They shut themselves off from the world and how often during the night would they have longed for something they had left behind. Is it living, Damask, to shut oneself away from temptation, from life? What a strange place an abbey is.”

She looked through one of the slit like windows in the monks' dorter. "You will be frightened here at night, Damask. Who knows, you may see the ghosts of long-dead monks flitting through the cloisters? Do you think people who have lived and suffered return to the scene of their tragedies? Think how many tragedies there must have been in this place!”

She was envious. She wanted the Abbey and I understood her so well-always she had sought to take what she wanted.

I almost wished that I had not shown her all that was here. There was such potential riches. In time if allowed to develop it I could see that the owner of such a place could be enormously rich and powerful; and was that not what Kate had always wanted to be? I knew in my heart that she had a special feeling for Bruno. He had dominated our childhood. That aloofness, that difference which his origins had created made him stand apart from all others so that he had that indefinable quality, a near divinity; and in our hearts perhaps neither of us was sure whether there had in truth been a miracle in the Christmas crib on that long-ago Christmas morning.

I understood her so well, my worldly Kate; and I loved her none the less for this.

I knew her strength and her weakness and both were great. We had been rivals for Bruno. I had known that all the time even when we were children playing on the grass of the forbidden territory.

What was she feeling now? I know she compared the Abbey with Remus Castle: was she comparing my husband with hers?

In the scriptorium when they came face to face, Kate was like a flower when the sun comes out after rain. Her eyes shone and her cheeks glowed like my mother's damask roses so that I felt like a country wench beside a Court beauty.

"We have been admiring your Abbey," she told him.

He too had changed. I saw the gleam in his eyes. Pride in his Abbey-and more than that an immense satisfaction because Kate could be shown what he possessed.

"And what do you think of it?" he said.

"Magnificent. So you have become a landowner! And such land. Who would have thought it possible? It is a miracle.”

"A miracle," he repeated. "And you are well, Kate?”