My mother was a frequent visitor, for since I did not go to Caseman Court she must come to me.
“Your stepfather marvels at the magnificence of this new place you are building. Your husband must be a man of boundless wealth, he says.”
“It is not so,” I said quickly. “You know the Abbey was bestowed on him. We have the material we need. We are using bricks from the lay quarters, so it is not so very costly.”
“Your stepfather says that there is a movement in the country to bring back some of the monasteries, and that monks are getting together again and living together as they did before. Your stepfather thinks this is a highly dangerous way of living.”
“So much is dangerous, Mother. It is dangerous to concern oneself with the new ideas.”
“Why cannot people be sensible and live for their families?” she said irritably.
I agreed with her.
She would bring the twins with her and the children would all play together while we watched them fondly and laughed at their antics. I saw what Kate meant. My mother and I were of a kind after all—the eternal mothers, as Kate would say.
In due course Kate’s son was born. She wrote:
“He is a healthy, lusty boy. Remus is as proud as a peacock.”
When I told Bruno I saw the faint color touch the marble of his skin.
“A boy!” he said. “Some women get boys.”
It was a reproach and I cried out: “Was it my fault that my child was born dead? Do you think I rejoiced in that?”
“You are hysterical,” he said coldly.
I felt envious of Kate and my heart was filled with a burning resentment because my boy had died, while Kate, who was never meant to be a mother, had hers.
She wanted me to go to the christening.
“Bring the children,” she wrote. “Carey does nothing but plague me to produce Honey and Catherine. He has thought up all kinds of new ways of teasing them.”
Bruno made no attempt to prevent my going to Remus Castle as in due course I set out with the two little girls.
Kate’s child was christened Nicholas.
“After the saint,” she said.
After a while Kate shortened his name to Colas.
Before I went back to the Abbey news reached us that the King was dead. Oddly enough I was deeply affected. The King had been on the throne for as long as I could remember; my mind kept returning to that day when my father had been seated on the wall with his arm supporting me as I watched the King and Cardinal pass by. Then the King had been a golden young man, not yet a monster; and the Cardinal, long since dead, had traveled down the river with him to Hampton. Since then he had brought about the death of two wives and the wretchedness of at least two others. And now he himself was dead.
I was on my way back to the Abbey when I saw the funeral procession passing from Westminster to Windsor. The hearse with its eighty tapers, each one of them two feet in length, and the banners of the saints beaten in gold on damask and the canopy of silver tissue fringed with black and gold silk, were very impressive. It was the passing of an age. I wondered what augured for the future. I thought of my father’s being taken from his beloved home to a cold prison in the Tower and I could hear the cries of those who by this King had been condemned to the flames or the even worse fate of hanging and quartering. We had lived long under a tyrant. Surely we must hope for a brighter future.
We had a new King—Edward who was but ten years old, too young to govern, but he had a powerful and ambitious pair of uncles.
I reached the Abbey. It seemed to rise over me menacingly and I felt little confidence in the future.
The Quiet Years
THERE WAS CONSTERNATION IN the Abbey. James, one of the fishermen who had gone into the City to sell the surplus of fish which had been salted down, came back with the news that he had seen images taken from churches and being burned in the streets. He had joined a crowd in the Chepe and had listened to ominous conversation.
“This is the end of the Papists. They’ll be hanging them from their churches ere long.”
The new King was leaning toward the Reformed ideas and he was surrounded by those who shared his views—and perhaps had formed them. In his chapel prayers were said in English, and it would no longer be an offense to have a translation of the Bible in one’s possession.
My mother visited us with the first spring flowers from her garden.
“The King is gone, God rest his soul,” she said, “and it would seem to be the beginning of a new and glorious reign.”
I knew that she was repeating what she had heard and I guessed that Simon Caseman was one who was not displeased with the turn of events.
I was uneasy though. Bruno would have to be careful. If the new religion was in favor, those in authority would frown on a community such as Bruno was attempting to build up, and although he might try to give an impression that he was merely the head of a large country estate, he would assuredly be under suspicion.
Because the King was too young to rule, his uncle, the Earl of Hereford, was made protector. He was immediately created Earl of Somerset and became the most powerful man in the country. He was ambitious and eager to carry on the war in which the late King had interested himself and less than six months after the death of Henry VIII he was marching up to Scotland. Remus was with him and actually took part in the famous battle of Pinkie Cleugh, a costly victory for the Protector.
It brought the war home to us too—in the past it had all seemed too far away to concern us much—for at Pinkie Remus was killed.
Kate wrote of her dear brave Remus but it was not in her nature to mourn or to feign grief which she did not feel. She was now rich and free, so I guessed that she would not repine for long.
Our castle was now complete. I called it castle, although it still bore the name of St. Bruno’s Abbey, for with its gray stone walls and Gothic style it had a medieval aspect. The Abbot’s Lodging had been completely swallowed up in this magnificent structure. It had been built in the form of a square closely resembling Remus Castle with circular towers at the four corners. There were two flanking towers at the gateway with oiletts as seen in Norman structures and which were meant for arrows—something of an anachronism in our day, but Bruno had said that since we were building with old stones which had been used two hundred years before when the Abbey was built we must use them in the manner in which they were intended.
Some of the outbuildings should be built in modern style perhaps; but he was not yet concerned with those.
The parapets were embattled so that the vast and impressive building had the aspect of a fortress.
Although the exterior was that of a medieval fortress, the interior possessed all the luxury and elegance which I imagined could be found in places like Hampton Court.
Each tower had four stories and on each floor was a hexagonal chamber. These towers were like little houses in themselves and it would be possible to live in them quite apart from the rest of the household. Bruno took one of these as his own and spent a great deal of time there. The highest room was a bedchamber and since we moved into the new dwelling I saw very little of him.
Some of the old rooms had been left, but so much had been added that it was easy to lose oneself in the place.
There was a great banqueting hall and for this Bruno was seeking fine tapestries. He went to Flanders to find them and they were hung on the walls; at the end of the hall was a dais on which a small dining table was placed which would be for Bruno and his honored guests while the rest of the household would eat from the big table.
When I saw this place I could not understand why Bruno had reconstructed it. Sometimes I thought he wished to live like a great lord; and at others I wondered whether he was trying to establish a monastic order.