The Miracle at St. Bruno's

I was on the edge of the burial ground and the Abbey was in sight when I saw the figure of a monk gliding across the grass. Was this the ghost of some departed monk who could not rest and had risen from the grave to haunt the scene of his tragedy?

I stood very still. Strangely enough I was not really frightened. Years ago Kate would invent gruesome tales of ghosts who rose from the tomb to come back to haunt those who had wronged them; and I would lie in my bed trembling with fear. Sometimes I had begged of her not to talk of ghosts when it grew dark which of course always provoked her to do so. But now I was surprised by the calm within me. I was not so much frightened as curious.

The figure had crossed to the Abbey wall. I expected it to disappear through it but it did no such thing. It pushed open a door and passed into the Abbey.

All was silence. Then I heard the owl again. Something prompted me to cross the grass to go to the door through which the monk had passed. On this impulse I did so; I pushed the door which opened easily. The cold dankness of the Abbey rushed to greet me. I half stepped inside but for some reason which I could not understand my hair seemed to rise up from my head and I was afraid.

I believed in that moment that the special power which protected me in the burial ground and which came from my father's spirit could not follow me beyond those gray walls.

I had an overwhelming desire to run away. I sped across the grass as fast as I could and let myself out through the ivy-covered door.

The fear left me then. I walked home.

I had corroborated the opinion of the farmer and his wife and those others who said they had seen a figure near the Abbey.

So the Abbey was haunted, my mother was now noticeably larger and happily making preparations for the birth of her child. She decorated the cradle which had been mine and which had been put away for eighteen years. She had polished it and cleaned it and I had seen her rocking it with a faraway look in her eyes as though she was already imagining the baby there.

We heard little news of the Court for we did not have visitors now; Kate did not write. She had never really been a letter writer. It' was only when anything was wrong or she wanted something that it would have occurred to her to take up a pen.

I would have written to her but I did not wish to write of Caseman Court. And in any case there was little to say.

The King, it was said, was happy in his marriage and the Queen accompanied him everywhere.

She was gay and good-natured and it was said that people only had to ask for a favor and she would be ready to grant it. Moreover she was not one to forget her old friends.

She was kindhearted too and did her best to reconcile the King to the little Elizabeth, daughter of Anne Boleyn, who had been the present Queen's cousin.

I had no doubt that Kate would have plenty of scandal to relate about Court affairs, but Kate was far away and because the King was at last happy with a wife we were lulled into a sense of security.

There was a reminder of the terrible things that could overtake us when the Countess of Salisbury was executed. She had had no fair trial but she was suspected of being on the side of the rebels in the Northern uprising-at least this was said to be her crime. Her royal blood was doubtless the true reason. As the granddaughter of George Plantagenet, the Duke of Clarence, himself brother of Edward IV and therefore in closer line to the throne than the Tudors whose claim had never been very firm, she had always been considered to be a menace and this pretext to be rid of her was too good to be missed. The old lady-she was nearly seventy years of age-had suffered greatly from the cold of her prison cell and the young Queen, feeling great pity for her, had smuggled in warm clothing that at least she might know that comfort. But nothing could save her. Her royal blood must flow to keep the throne safe for our tyrant King.

I remember well the day she died. It was Maytime. Why did so many have to leave this earth when it was at its most beautiful? She walked out to the block but refused to lay her head on it for, she declared to the watching crowd, she was no traitor and if the headman would have her head he must win it.

We heard she was dragged by her hair to the block and there so butchered that the ax wounded her arms and shoulders several times before her head was struck off.

How glad I was that I had not seen it.

A few days later I heard that the Abbey had been bestowed.

My mother had got the news from one of the servants who had had it from one of the watermen who had paused at the privy stairs while she was feeding the peacocks to shout the news to her.

My mother announced it while we were at dinner and I shall never forget the look on Simon Caseman's face.

"It's a lie!" he cried, for once robbed of his calm.

"Oh, is it?" said my mother, always ready to agree.

"Where had you this news?" he demanded.

Then she told him.