CHAPTER XXIII
BRIDE’S PROPOSAL
“PAPA,” said Bride softly, coming into the Duke’s study and standing behind his chair with her arms loosely clasped about his neck, “will you let me marry Eustace now?”
The Duke gave a very slight start, and then sat perfectly still. He could not see Bride’s face, and he was glad for a moment that his own could not be seen.
“My dear child,” he said, after an appreciable pause, “do you mean that you do not know?”
“I think I know everything,” answered Bride softly. “I know that Eustace will be as he is now for two or three years—perhaps all his life; but I do not think it will be that—I mean not all his life. I had a long talk before he went with the doctor from London, and he said he was almost confident that power would return, only the patient must have good nursing, care, and freedom from worry of mind, or anxious fears for himself, which might react unfavourably upon him. It is only for a few years he will be helpless; and I want to be his wife during those years, to help him through with them, to keep him from the worry and the care which I believe he will feel if he thinks he may perhaps never be a strong man again, never be able to ask me to marry him. I know that he loves me, papa, and that I can do more for him than anybody else. I know that even now he is beginning to lose heart, not because his work is stopped—he is most wonderfully brave over that—but because he thinks he may lose me. Does it sound vain to say that? But indeed it is true. I can read Eustace through and through, because I love him so. Why should I not be his wife? Then I could nurse him back to health and strength, and he could stay here with us all the time, and we should be so happy together!”
The Duke had been silent at first from sheer amaze. He had never yet entered into all the still depths of Bride’s nature; and though personally conscious of his disappointment that his daughter and heir could not now think of marriage till the health of the latter was reestablished, he had never thought of a different solution of the difficulty with regard to Eustace in his helpless and lonely condition. He had been grieving over the situation in silence many long days, but the thing that Bride suggested so quietly and persuasively had never entered his head.
Yet even as she spoke there came upon him a conviction of the truth of her words. None knew better than he the comfort and support that a man can receive from a loving and tender wife. He was beginning to recognise in his daughter those very traits of character which had been so strongly developed in her mother. Well could he understand what it would be to Eustace to be nursed and tended, consoled and strengthened, by such a wife. Doubtless it would be an enormously powerful factor in his recovery, and the father had long wished with a great desire to see the future of his child settled before many more months should pass. It had been a sad blow to him to hear that Eustace’s recovery must be so slow, for he felt very sure he should not live to see him on his feet again; and what would become of Bride, left so utterly alone in the world?
Now he drew her gently towards him, and she knelt beside him at his feet, looking up into his face with a soft and lovely colour in her cheeks.
“Has Eustace spoken of this to you, my dear?” he said.