When I awoke I was refreshed. I thought of my mother, helpless like her shrubs in the gale, blown this way and that by circumstances which were too much for her. I could not blame her. I knew her character well. She was a good housekeeper; she wanted to live in peace; my father had had little in common with her for she had never been educated beyond learning to read and write; she could never follow his reasoning. He had determined to educate me and he had often said that education was not learning the fruit and flowers of other men in order to repeat them and make a show of erudition; its purpose must be to set the mind in motion that it might produce flowers and fruit of its own.

I must not blame her.

And she was right. I had now to fend for myself. I would have to make some plan, for I did not believe I could continue to live under this roof and see that man in my father’s place. I had been wrong to voice my suspicions of him, for I must admit they were but suspicions. Could he really have been responsible for my father’s betrayal? Perhaps he was merely the jackal who waited for the moment to come in after the kill.

I must be fair. What had he done? He had asked me to marry him and I had refused. My father had been murdered and his estates given to Simon. Why? I must be reasonable. I must be logical. Could it in truth be because he was my father’s betrayer? I could not be sure and because I was not sure I must not accuse him. I would find out though. And meanwhile must I live on his bounty?

I dreaded meeting him but I could not avoid him for long. I came from my room and found him in the hall. He watched me as I walked down the stairs.

“Welcome home, Damask,” he said.

I stared blankly at him.

“It is good to have you back,” he went on.

“I suppose you are expecting me to congratulate you on your forthcoming marriage.”

“No, I was not expecting that. You take it hardly, I know.”

“The murdered husband is scarcely cold in his grave.”

“My dear Damask, you have been infected by those Greek tragedies on which you set such store. Now I am going to ask you to take care. I would not have you in disgrace. Curb your tongue, I beg of you. You could be in dire trouble so easily. I am going to take care of you now. I shall be your stepfather….”

I laughed. “It was not quite the role you at first chose for yourself!”

“I think you understand my feelings for you.”

“Which were conveniently transferred to my mother.”

“Your mother and I are scarcely young romantic people.”

“I believe she is some years older than you.”

“It is not a great deal.”

“So convenient! Although had she been thirty years older I am sure you would have found that no obstacle.”

“My poor sad Damask!”

“I am not your possession yet.”

“I am devoted to you and to your mother,” he said. “These estates have been bestowed on me. I could not take them from you. So this marriage seems to be the best solution.”

“You could always hand them back.”

“I do not think that would be allowed. I am doing what I think is best for us all.”

“And if I had agreed to marry you, what then?”

I saw the flicker of his eyes; the marking of the fox mask was clearer for a moment.

“You know my feelings for you.” He had taken a step toward me.

I held him off.

“Do not forget that you are an affianced bridegroom,” I said sharply. I looked at him steadily. “Tell me, who betrayed my father?” I added.

He clenched his fists together. “I would I knew,” he said.

“Someone betrayed him,” I said. “I shall not allow it to be forgotten. I shall never rest until I discover who it was.”

He held out his hand to me. I stared down at it.

“I want to make a bargain with you,” he said. “We shall both try to find that man who took the happiness from the household and brought about the death of the best man on earth.”

The tears started up in my eyes and he looked at me with tenderness, so that I was sorry momentarily that I had suspected him.

I turned and ran from him back to my room. I could not go down to the hall to eat. My mother sent up a leg of chicken for me and a slice of the crusty cob loaf which I used to love. I could eat nothing; and when finally I slept, for I believe she had laced my wine with one of her potions, I dreamed of Simon Caseman. He had the face of a fox and in my dream I believed him to be an evil man.

I was torn by my doubts. My mother and Simon were kind to me. She gave me potions and ordered that the foods I had once enjoyed should be prepared for me. He was tolerant and never forced his company on me; sometimes I found his eyes on me and as mine met his he would assume a tender expression, as though he was now regarding me as a cherished daughter.

I thought, I cannot endure this.

Their wedding was to be a quiet one, for it was such a short time since my father’s death; but the entire household was now accepting Simon Caseman as the master.

I could not rouse myself. I thought, I cannot continue in this way. Soon I must make a decision. But at this time I was too stunned to do anything but let time wash over me while I lay listless believing that in due course my grief would be subdued and some notion would come to me as to how I could make something of my life.

At times I thought of going to Kate. Yet I did not wish to throw myself on the bounty of Lord Remus. I did know that since my father’s arraignment Kate’s husband was made a little uneasy by my presence. Kate however would imperiously overrule that if I had wished to go. There was another thing. Every evening at dusk I went through the ivy-covered door into the Abbey burial ground and visited my father’s grave. The rosemary I had planted was growing well. I often thought how frightened I once would have been to wend my way at dusk past the Abbey walls—empty and ghostly in the evening shadows—and to go among the graves of long-dead monks. But because his dear head was there, I knew no fear, for a belief had grown up within me that the dead protect those whom they especially loved and I certainly felt that my father was protecting me.

I lived for my visits to his grave; and when I went to the Abbey I would remember those days when Kate and I had crept through the secret door to be with Bruno. He was never far from my thoughts and I longed to see him again.

I pondered on my feeling for Bruno. It took my mind off my present uneasy situation. I compared the emotion he could rouse in me with my love for my father. I had known my father as well, I think, as it is possible for one person to know another. I was aware of his beliefs, for he had talked to me so openly; I knew before he told me what his opinions would be on almost any problem. Losing him was like losing a part of myself. But Bruno? What did I know of Bruno? Very little. I had never understood him. Bruno seemed to have built a wall about himself. One could never be sure of what he was thinking. I suppose that having for years believed himself to be a superhuman being who had been sent into the world for some special purpose, to have been certain that he was holy, must surely have had an effect on him. Then the confession of Keziah and Ambrose and all the violence which attended it, the dissolution of St. Bruno’s Abbey…what would that have done to him? He had given little indication except that he rejected the confession of those who claimed to be his parents. There was the same aloofness about him. He would never betray himself completely to anyone. Sometimes he had seemed as though he did not belong to this world, yet his arrogance, his frustrated anger were essentially worldly. I remembered Brother John’s explaining how the Child had been caught stealing cakes from the kitchen and lying when accused.

How lost and bewildered I was during those weeks!

Rupert was bewildered too. He did not know what the future held for him. He had loved the land. I had seen him come in from my father’s fields as animated as he had ever been, because they had succeeded in gathering in the harvest before the storms came. The workers were fond of him. He was a good master to them; and he understood everything that he asked them to do. He would pick up a flail and thresh corn in the barn with the most humble of his workmen; I had seen him winnowing, shaking the flat fan-shaped basket in the wind; most of all I remembered his going out in the snow at lambing time to rescue young lambs and how he himself would nurse them and feed them. Sowing and reaping, growing the foods which supplied the household and selling the surplus, this had been Rupert’s occupation and he could imagine no other.

Once when I was coming back from visiting the Abbey burial grounds I heard a voice call me. It was Rupert’s.

“Damask,” he cried, catching up with me, “you should not be out at this hour.”

“I will go out when I will,” I replied impatiently.

“It is unsafe, Damask. There are robbers about.”

“I have no fear of them.”

“But it is dangerous.”

I turned impatiently away and he said: “Damask, don’t go yet. I would like to talk to you.”

“Then talk,” I said.

“I think often of the future. What will become of us all?”

“For that we must needs wait and see.”

“There will be changes. We have a new master of the household now.”

“He has made little changes so far, but doubtless that will come, after the marriage.”

“Then what, Damask? I have worked for your father for many years. He had promised me that part of the lands which I cultivated should one day be mine. He hoped of course that you and I would marry.” He was a little wistful.

I said quickly: “He realized that marriages can only be made by two people—the two who are to become husband and wife. He would have been the first to say that they must both agree wholeheartedly.”

“And you do not feel that you could marry me?”

“I could not think of marriage. It is far from my mind.”

“I will tell you something. Lord Remus owns several estates and Kate swears that she will insist on his giving me a place of my own.”

“Then you have no need to be anxious about your future.”

“If you shared it, we could go from here together.” I shook my head. He sighed and insisted: “Your father wished it.”

“He only wished for my happiness,” I said.

“I would make you as happy as it is possible for you to be now that you have lost him. I would live solely for you. I would care for you, cherish you.”

“I know it,” I said.

“Marry me, Damask. Let us go from here. You would be safer than you are now, because those who are related to a man who has been accused of treason are in constant danger. One careless word…even a look could incriminate you. As my wife, you could lose your identity as your father’s daughter.”

I turned on him angrily. “Do you think I want that? I am more proud of it than anything that has ever happened to me.”

I turned and ran from him up to my room. I shut myself in and I wept. My tears were mingled sorrow and anger. Would I never get over my loss? And how dared Rupert suggest that I would ever wish to hide the fact that I was my father’s daughter. I considered Rupert then. He was good; he was kind; he had meant no harm. I went to my window and looked out toward the Abbey. I could just make out the gray tower. I thought of the burial ground—how ghostly it would look now with the faint moonlight shining on the tombstones above the graves of long-dead monks.

There was talk now that the Abbey was haunted. One of the farm workers and his wife returning home at dusk declared they had seen a monk emerge from the Abbey wall. The monk had appeared to pass through the stones; he had stood for a while, and they had been so frightened that they had run.

It was natural, was the verdict. How many of the monks had died because of what had happened? Think of those two who had hung in chains at the Abbey’s Gate. There was he who had sought to escape to London with some of the Abbey treasures and had been caught and hanged; there was Brother Ambrose who had murdered Rolf Weaver. There was the Abbot who had died of a broken heart. Wasn’t it natural that such men should be unable to rest in their graves and come back to haunt the place where they had lived and suffered?

People were afraid to go near the Abbey after dark. Even in daylight they liked to have a companion.

Strangely enough this had no effect on me. I could not feel afraid and I continued to visit my father’s grave.