Sir Richard had no thought of going to bed: he was sitting at an oak table, on which a candlestick with two candles burned dimly, writing a letter. The creak of a sharpened quill being pressed with force against the yellow parchment could be heard.
– Are you still awake? – Brigid smiled affectionately, standing in the doorway, hesitating to approach her father.
– As you can see," he said briefly, not even looking at his daughter. – What do you want?
– Father, I… I heard that William Tury has asked for a girl's hand in marriage today…" Brigid's breath came in short gasps of excitement, and the words she had so carefully chosen on her way to her father stuck in her throat.
– Asked," was her answer.
– When will we be married? – The girl's soul was filled with a divine light: it had happened! Soon she would marry the man she loved, and he would take her to his father's castle!
– Yours? – Sir Richard asked with a sneer in his voice.
The quill in his fingers froze.
– He has asked for my hand! – Brigid reminded him in a trembling and solemn tone.
– He asked for one girl`s hand. But not yours.
– Not mine? But… Whose?
– William had not spoken to me, but to Sir Norton. He asked for his daughter's hand.
– Alienor?! – The girl gasped, and a pain shot through her chest as if she had been pierced by the sharp sword that William Tury sometimes wore on his belt, in its gold-embellished scabbard. – And what… What did her father reply?
– He was pleased. The wedding is to be.
– My daughter, what have you been thinking? – Sir Richard frowned. – What nonsense lives in your empty head? Why would William Tury want you for a wife? I am poor! All the fault of that witch Anne Boleyn!
– But how? It cannot be, Father, you are mistaken! – burst from the poor girl's breast. Her lips trembled, and tears of disappointment and deceived hope came to her eyes.
How cruelly she had been mistaken!
– I have had enough of your foolishness! Go to your chambers! – Sir Richard threw irritably.
– 'Father, he could not ask for Alienor's hand…'
– I said out!
– Please…I love him! I love him with all my heart! – Brigid cried out in despair. – I think he was drunk… He got drunk and mistook Alienor for me!
– He asked her father for her hand in marriage," Sir Richard said, and resumed writing. – I am the unlucky one with a daughter. You are beautiful, but you are as good as this table, though the table is useful, and you are a waste. You're in your best shape, and still no one wants to marry you.