Philippa Carr - The Miracle at St. Bruno’s

Many of the manuscripts, the work of Brother Valerian, were piled up before the Abbey and burned. The lead on the roofs was of great value and the man who had taken over Rolf Weaver’s duties gave instructions for it to be removed.

The monks were turned adrift to find some means of making a livelihood in a world for which they were ill-fitted. Brother John and Brother James came to see my father and were immediately offered a home which they declined. “Were we to accept your offer,” they explained, “we could place you in jeopardy and as lay brothers we are not so ill-equipped as some. We have been out in the world and have done business for the Abbey and know a wool merchant in London who might give us work.”

Seeing that they were adamant my father insisted that they take a well-filled purse and they went on their way.

Later that day I was in my father’s study and we were talking of the terrible thing which had befallen St. Bruno’s, when Simon Caseman joined us. My father was saying that he greatly wished that the Brothers had stayed when we saw two monks coming across the lawn. My father hurried down to meet them, followed by Simon Caseman and myself.

The monks told my father that they were Brother Clement and Brother Eugene and they had worked respectively in the Abbey’s bake and brew houses. Now they were bewildered and did not know where to go. There was an unworldliness about the pair which moved me deeply; to turn them into the world would be like sending two lambs among wolves.

My father immediately offered them work in our kitchens and brewhouse. When they wore fustian doublets and trunk hose they would look exactly like other servants, he said, and it would be wise not to mention whence they had come.

Simon Caseman was alarmed. He assured my father that taking in dispossessed monks might be construed as an act of treachery to the King. My father was aware of this but he demanded to know how he could turn such men away. I believe that he would have taken in all the monks as he had tried to take in John and James, if they had not all scattered before he was able to do so.

It was later the same day that Bruno appeared. I was walking with my father in the garden and we were talking of the terrible debacle and what it would mean to those men who had passed the greater part of their lives in the Abbey suddenly to be thrust out into the world.

“There may well be more of them to join Clement and Eugene,” he was saying when we saw Bruno.

“Bruno!” I cried. “Oh, I am so relieved to see you. I have been thinking of you all the time.”

My father looked surprised and with a little shock I realized that he did not know Bruno.

I said: “Father, this is he who was found in the Christmas crib.”

“My poor boy,” cried my father. “And where will you go now?”

Bruno replied: “I must find a roof to shelter me until a time when I no longer need it.”

I thought it a strange reply but nothing Bruno did had ever been ordinary.

My father said: “You have your roof. You will stay here.”

“Thank you,” replied Bruno. “I shall make sure that you do not regret this day.”

I was happier than I had been for a long time as we took Bruno into the house. He was given a room. We could not expect him to sleep in the servants’ quarters, I told my father, and when we were alone I explained my acquaintance with Bruno and told him about the ivy-covered door.

“You did wrong,” said my father, “but perhaps there was a purpose in it. Damask, that boy still believes that there is a divinity within him.”

He was right. No one could treat Bruno as a servant. My father told the household that he came to us from people who were his friends. He was to share lessons with us.

He accepted this; he had lost none of that arrogance which overawed both Kate and me and exasperated her so much.

He insisted that Keziah had lied under torture and so had Ambrose. Everything that had happened, he said he had foreseen. It was all part of a divine plan and we should see it unfold in time; and although when I was alone I believed that he reasoned thus because he could not endure to do otherwise, when I was with him I half-believed him.

The King’s men left and because they had taken the lead from the church roof owls and bats began to nest there. The rotting corpses were removed from the gibbets by my father’s orders and given decent burial. We trembled for several weeks after that for fear it should be construed as an act of treason while we waited for someone to come and claim the Abbey and its lands. But no one came.

The Abbey remained, like the skeleton of some great monster, to remind us of a way of life that had now passed and gone forever.

THERE WAS CHANGE EVERYWHERE. It was unsafe to go out after dark because the lanes and woods abounded with robbers who would not hesitate to maim or even kill for the sake of a little money. Beggars and vagabonds had in the past been sure of a meal and often shelter under the monastic roofs; these benefits no longer existed. Added to the beggars were those monks who had been deprived of the only life they understood. They must either beg or starve. It was true that some could work but few wished to take monks into their household as my father had done, for Simon Caseman was right when he said this could be construed as an act of treason.

Brother Clement settled in easily and one would not have guessed that he had lived the greater part of his life in the Abbey. Sometimes he would burst into song in a rich baritone voice as he worked; and we had never tasted such cob loaves or manchets as came from his oven. Brother Eugene was equally content in the brewhouse; he made slow gin and dandelion and elder flower wine; and was constantly experimenting with berries to improve his brew. When they discovered that Bruno was in the house they could not hide their delight; and I knew his identity could not be kept a secret.

When Clement and Eugene were together they would whisper about the old days; and whenever Ambrose’s name was mentioned they would hastily cross themselves. I don’t know what shocked them more—the knowledge of his sin in first begetting a child and the placing it in the crib to make a miracle, or the violent manner of his death.

As for the inhabitants of the house, we all seemed to be cowering under a blow that had momentarily stunned us. My father wore an air of resignation, almost of waiting. I knew he spent long hours on his knees in prayer. He would go into our little chapel in the west wing of the house and stay there for hours. It was as though he were preparing himself for an ordeal. My mother worked feverishly on her gardens and there was often a puzzled look on her usually placid face. She seemed to be relying more and more on Simon who, whenever he had the leisure, would carry her baskets for her and help her plant out her seedlings. Even Kate was subdued. She had craved excitement but not of the kind we had lately suffered. Rupert seemed least affected. Calmly and quietly he went about his work of tending the land as though nothing had happened.

Bruno concerned me most. His eyes would blaze with anger if Kate or I suggested that it was Brother Ambrose who had placed him in the crib. He told us fiercely that many lies had been told and one day he would prove it.

Kate recovered more quickly from the shock of events than I did, and as Bruno had come to the house she constantly sought him out. Sometimes the three of us were together as we had been in the Abbey grounds in the old days and then it was almost as it had been long ago when there had been an Abbey and we had trespassed there.

Kate teased him. “If he was divine why did he not call down the fury of the heavens on Cromwell’s men?” she wanted to know.

His eyes would blaze with fury but because she was Kate she could inspire some feeling in him which I was sure he had for no one else.

The servingwoman and the monk lied, he insisted.

And as I said, I believed him when I was with him. Rupert was twenty years old now. He should have been managing his own lands but it turned out that he had none to manage. When his parents had died their possessions had been sold to pay their debts and there was very little left. This my father had set aside for Rupert when he was of age, but he had never told Kate or Rupert the true state of affairs as he had not wished them to think they were living on charity.

Rupert told me this himself when he came on me one day in the nuttery. I was seated in my favorite spot under a filbert tree reading and he came and sprawled beside me. He picked up a nut and idly threw it from him and then he started to talk to me and I realized that I was receiving a proposal of marriage.

“My uncle is the best man alive,” he began; and he had certainly chosen the best opening to please me. I agreed fervently.

“Sometimes,” I said, “I fear that he is too good.”

Could anyone be too good? Rupert wondered; and I answered, yes, because then they endangered themselves for the sake of others. My father had taken in the monks and that might be considered an unwise thing to do. There was Sir Thomas. Had he forgotten him? He was a man who was too good and what had happened to him? He had lost his head and his once happy household was no more.

“Life is cruel sometimes, Damask,” said Rupert. “And then it is good to have someone to stand beside you.”

I agreed.

“I had thought,” he went on, “that one day I should leave here to manage my own estate and I have learned that I have no estate. Your father did not wish us to know that we were paupers so he let us believe that our lands had not been seized by our parents’ creditors when they died. So, I have nothing, Damask.”

“But you have us. This is your home.”

“As I hope it will always be.”

“My father says that the land has never been tended as you tend it. The men work for you as they work for no one else.”

“I have a feeling for the land, Damask, this land. I know your father hopes I will stay here forever.”

“And will you?”

“It depends.”

“On what?” I asked.

“On you perhaps. This will be yours one day…yours and your husband’s. When that day comes you would not want me here.”

“Nonsense, Rupert. I’d always want you here…you and Kate. You are as my brother and sister.”

“Kate will marry, doubtless.”

“You too, Rupert. And you will bring your wife here. Why, the house is big enough and we can always make it bigger. We have so much land. You are looking sad.”

“This has become as my home,” he said. “I love the land. I love the animals. Your father is as my own.”

“And I am as much a sister to you as Kate is. Oh, I couldn’t bear for all this to be broken up…as the Abbey has been.”

He picked up another nut and threw it. He said: “I believe your father hopes that you and I will marry.”

I said sharply: “That is not something that can be done because it would be comfortable and convenient to do it.”

“Oh, no, no,” said Rupert quickly.

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.