The Miracle at St. Bruno's Read Online Free PDF Page A

notoriously clever. I needed the reassurance of being able to rise above Kate’s ascendancy in some ways. She pooh-poohed Latin and Greek. “Are they going to make you a Duchess? All your little quips and tags! What are they? Just repeating what someone has said before!”
    She was wonderful in the saddle and to see her there in her green riding habit and the hat with the green feather lifted the spirits like the sudden sight of bluebells misty under trees or the first call of the cuckoo. I suppose others felt the same; they always turned to look at her; and she would ignore the stares but I knew by the way she held her head and smiled secretly that she was aware of the effect she had and enjoyed it.
    She loved to dance and she did so with a natural grace which delighted our dancing teacher; and she could play the lute in a strange untutored way which was somehow more effective than my pieces which were in tune and time. She dominated the scene whether it was at Christmas when we gathered holly and ivy and decorated the great hall or at May Day when we watched the villagers dancing around the Maypole. When the Morris Dancers came to the house she danced with them and my parents, I think, were about to reprove her but she enchanted them as she did all others and soon they were applauding with the rest. She loved to dress up as Robin Hood and I would have to be Maid Marian. I must always take the lesser part.
    The servants were always laughing and shaking their heads over Mistress Kate, and Keziah used to say with her throaty chuckle, “You wait…you just wait till Mistress Kate’s a woman.”
    I had more freedom than I had before she came. My parents seemed to realize that they could not coddle me forever; and sometimes when Kate was charming everyone, I would catch my father’s eye on me and he would smile and that smile told me that I was still and always would be the darling of his heart and no one however beautiful and exciting could ever oust me from my place there.
    Kate knew that the Cardinal was dead and she gave me her version of the affair.
    “It is all due to the King’s passion for Anne Boleyn. He is determined to have her and she says, ‘No, your mistress I will not be; your wife I cannot be.’ Which shows how clever she is.” Kate threw up her hands as though warding off a persistent lover. She was Anne Boleyn. I could see in that moment that she was wondering whether a Duke was good enough to be her future husband. Why not a King?
    “What of the Queen?” I asked.
    Kate’s lips curled. “She is old and no longer beautiful. And she can’t give the King a son.”
    “Why not?”
    “Why not what, idiot? Why is she not beautiful? Because she is old and it’s horrid to be old. And why can’t she give him a son? I can’t explain that to you. You are too young to understand.” Kate’s favorite explanation when she did not know herself was that I was too young. I had pointed this out to her and it had the effect of making her use it more than ever.
    She went on: “The Cardinal tried to stop the King. Silly man! So…he died.”
    “The King killed him?”
    “In a manner of speaking. Old Brother John told your father he died of a broken heart.”
    “How terrible!”
    I thought of that day when I had seen them in the barge together, standing close, laughing.
    “He should not have annoyed the King. He was silly so his heart broke. The King is going to divorce the Queen and then he can marry Anne Boleyn and they will have a son who will be King in his turn. It’s all very simple.”
    I said it didn’t seem simple to me.
    “That’s because you’re too young to understand.”
    What I did understand and what she failed to was the difference in our household since the death of the Cardinal. A gloom seemed to have fallen over it. My father often looked sad and when I talked to him he would smile and draw me to him as in the old days, but I fancied that his gaiety was forced. He seemed to be