Eustace Marchmont: A friend of the people

by Evelyn Everett-Green

“That is good, very good, Lady Bride,” he said; “I can see what is the medicine our patient wants. You have done more for him in a minute than I have been able to do all these hours. We want him to get a grip on life again—just to help him to hold on to it till Nature can make up for the terrible exhaustion of those hours in the water. Now look here, it’s most important he should take the hot soup and the cordial nurse has over there. We can’t get more than a few drops down at a time, but perhaps you will be more successful. We are keeping up the animal heat by outward applications, but we must keep the furnace inside going still. Try what you can do for him, my dear. I think you have made him understand as we have not succeeded in doing yet.”

The nurse came to the bedside with cup and spoon, and Bride took them from her hand. With a gentle tenderness almost like that of a mother she bent over Eustace, raised his head as she had been wont to do for her mother in her long last illness, and gave him what the doctor bade her.

He swallowed it without a murmur, perfectly understanding her voice and touch. Three or four spoonsful were taken in this way, the doctor looking on and slightly rubbing his hands.

“If you can stay with him two hours, and feed him like that every ten minutes, Lady Bride,” he said, “I think we shall see a change for the better by that time. Everything depends on keeping up the vital power. It was down to the very lowest ebb when he was brought in. If he had not the most magnificent constitution, he could never have survived all that exposure. It will be everything if he can be kept up. Will you be his nurse for to-day, and keep guard over him? You can do more than all the rest of us put together. Are you willing?”

Bride desired nothing better. She had hardly dared to let herself hope to see Eustace for many days, and here she was established beside him as head-nurse, and the person most needful to his recovery. Her heart bounded within her as the doctor and Mr. Tremodart stole away together to visit the other patient, and she found herself left in charge of her lover.

Yes, she called him so now without hesitation or fear. She had long known that love was stealing more and more into her heart, and latterly she had not been afraid to face the thought and to follow it to its conclusion.

She loved Eustace, and he loved her. She had heard that from his own lips before she had had any love to give to him. But since she had begun to pray for him, to intercede for him, to bring his name into the presence of God day by day and night by night, not in despondency, but in perfect faith, faith that her prayers for him would be heard and answered, and that the Father would turn his heart homewards, and go forth to meet him when once his steps were homeward set—since she had begun to think of him and pray for him thus, love had gradually stolen into her heart; whilst since the strange events of the past night, when their spirits had met in the darkness and the storm, and God had used her as an instrument for the saving of her lover’s life, she had not feared to recognise that love, and to call Eustace her own.

His eyes were turned now upon her with a restful look of infinite content. He did not try to speak; he had not strength to return the soft pressure of her hand from time to time, but he lay and looked at her; and when she bent over him, and spoke his name in words that sounded like a caress, and touched his brow with her lips, or smoothed away the dank tumbled hair, he smiled a slight smile of restful peace, and he never resisted her pleading voice when she put food to his lips, and bade him make the effort to swallow it “for her sake.”

Two hours had gone by thus, and Bride began to see a slight, indefinite change in her patient. The grey shadow was lighter than it had been. There was more brightness in the eyes; once or twice she had heard a whispered “thank you” spoken, and when the sound of the opening door fell upon their ears, he as well as she looked to see who was coming—a plain proof of a distinct advance in his condition.

It was the Duke. He looked weary and worn and pale. He had not escaped without some exhaustion and suffering from the effects of the night’s adventure, and was feeling old and shaken, as indeed he looked. But sleep had restored him to some extent, and now his anxiety had brought him to Eustace’s side. His face lighted with pleasure as he saw the look of recognition on the white face, and noted that Bride had taken up her station beside the bed.