She would toddle around after me so that it was not easy for me not to be with her; I sensed that she was always a little uneasy if I were not present because her eyes would light up with a relieved pleasure when she saw me, which was very endearing.
Naturally the coming of a child had changed the household. It had been a very unusual one before but now it became more normal. Bruno consulted me about the building which had started and behaved as though there had never been the disagreement between us, but I realized that as the time passed he would have to see a great deal of Honey and it was no use trying to hide her from him.
He seemed to realize this and to accept the inevitability of the child’s presence. I was glad of this although the antagonism between them was apparent. In Bruno it showed in a feigned indifference but the child was too young to hide her feelings; she ran from him and when he was near kept close to my side.
So it remained an uneasy situation; but each day I loved the child more. I loved Bruno too, but differently. I found a strange sort of pity creeping into my emotions.
My mother announced that the christening of her twins was to take place and Kate wrote that she would be present, leaving Carey with his nurses and Remus to his business affairs. She would stay at Caseman Court of course, but her first call would be at the Abbey to see the bride.
Within a few days she had arrived and true to her word came at once to the Abbey. She looked as elegant as ever in her fine velvet gown and beautiful too, flushed with the October wind which had caught little tendrils of hair escaping from under her headdress.
She came into the hall of the Abbot’s Lodging and looked about her. I was on the landing at the top of the first flight of stairs and saw her a few seconds before she was aware of me.
“Kate,” I cried. “You are more beautiful than ever!”
She grimaced. “I was fit to die of boredom. Even the Court has become deadly dull. I have much to tell you, Damask. But first there is so much I wish to know.”
She looked at the great hall with its beautiful open timber roof, its molded arches and its carved pendants and corbels.
“So this was the old Abbot’s Lodging. Very fine. I’ll swear it compares favorably with Remus Castle. But what does it all mean?” She caught my hand and looked at the ring on my finger. “You, Damask. You.”
“Why should you seem so surprised?”
“That he should marry at all. It had to be one of us, of course. And I was already married to Remus, so there was only you. But this mansion…how did he acquire it? He who was so poor. How did the Abbey fall into his hands?”
“It was a miracle,” I said.
Her eyes were wide; she looked at me searchingly. “Another miracle?” she asked. “Impossible! We were deluded about the first, weren’t we? Do you know, Damask, I don’t think I believe in miracles.”
“You were always irreverent.”
She gazed up at the carvings in the spandrels. “But it’s beautiful. And this is your home now! Why did you not write and tell me what was happening? Why did you keep it to yourself? You should have warned me.”
“There was no time.”
“Well, I wish to hear everything now. This your home, Damask. Our old Abbey your home. Do you know they are saying, Damask, that the Abbey is becoming what it once was?”
“I know there are rumors.”
“Never mind rumors. Let us be together and talk. There is so much to tell.”
I took her up the great staircase with its beautifully carved balustrade to the solar where I had been sitting doing a piece of needlework—in fact making a dress for Honey—when she arrived. Although it was October the afternoon sun streamed into the long room and I led her to the window where I had been seated.
“Do you need refreshment, Kate?” I asked.
“Your mother’s stillroom provided all I needed. How proud she is of her twins. Where is your husband?”
“He is very occupied during the day. There is so much to be done here. We did not know the Abbey in the old days, Kate. I was astonished when I realized its spaciousness. There is going to be a great deal of work if we are to make it flourish as it did in the days of….”
She was watching me closely. “But it must not flourish as an abbey, must it?”
“Indeed it is no abbey in the sense that St. Bruno’s was. But there is the farm and the mill and the land has to be prepared for next year’s harvests.” I was talking because I was afraid of what questions she would ask me if I stopped. I said, “There will be the hay to be cut and baled; the corn; the animals….”
“Pray do not render me accounts of the laborers’ duties for I have not come to hear that.”
“But you must understand that there is much work to be done…we shall need many men if we are to make this place prosper.”
“And Bruno? Where is he?”
“I believe him to be somewhere in the Abbey. Perhaps he is talking about the farmlands, or the mill, or like as not he is in the scriptorium with Valerian.”
“What did he say when he knew I was coming?”
“Very little.”
“Don’t be maddening, Damask. What effect did it have on him?”
“What conceit! Do you think it is such an important event because you at last deign to visit us?”
“I should have thought it worthy of some comment.”
“He does not easily betray himself.”
This she conceded.
I asked how Carey was. Had he grown?
“It is a natural function for children to grow. Carey is normal in every way.”
“I long to see him.”
“You shall. I will bring him to the Abbey.” She was looking at me searchingly. “What banal questions we ask each other! And you have this child here—Keziah’s child!” She looked at me searchingly. “Is that wise?”
“I had pledged myself.”
“And Damask would always keep her word. And Bruno? What does he feel? His marriage not more than a few weeks old—and already a child!”
“He accepts the fact that I must keep my word. And I love the child.”
“You would. The eternal mother! That is you, Damask. And are you happy?”
“I am happy.”
“You always adored Bruno…blatantly. But then you were always so honest. You could never hide your feelings, could you?”
I avoided her eyes. “I don’t think you were indifferent to him.”
“But you carried off the prize. Clever Damask.”
“I was not clever. It just happened.”
“You mean that he returned and asked you to marry him?”
“I do mean that.”
“And he said I will lay the rich Abbey at your feet. I will give you riches and jewels….”
I laughed. “You were always obsessed by riches, Kate. I remember when we were young you always said you would marry a Duke. I’m surprised that you settled for a mere Baron.”
“In the battle of life one takes an opportunity when it comes if it is reasonably good. To let it pass might mean to miss it altogether. There were not many noble visitors at your father’s house, were there? Remus seemed a very worthy object of my attention.”
“Is he as doting as ever?”
“He dotes,” said Kate. “And of course he is eternally grateful for the boy. But it is of you that I wish to talk…you, Damask. So much has happened here—more than has been happening in my little circle. Your mother producing twins and your strange marriage. That is what interests me.”