"IT'S JUST--LIFE!"
Grizel came slowly down the long, straight path leading from the convent
to the orchard wall, which marked the boundary of the grounds. It was a
high wall rising some eight or ten feet above the path, and serving as a
support for fruit trees, but at the farther end a sloping gangway of
grass led to a terraced walk from which a view could be obtained over
the low-lying country stretching towards the sea. On the terrace stood
Cassandra, her white figure strongly outlined against the blue of the
skies. She turned at her friend's approach, and beheld that in Grizel's
eyes which startled her into attention.
"You have something to tell me?"
"Yes!"
"What is it, Grizel?"
"It is a confession. I have told you a lie... I told it deliberately,
for your own good."
"What did you tell me?"
"I said that the wedding day was to be on the twenty-fifth. That would
be next Wednesday."
"Yes?"
"That was the lie! I told you the wrong date. They were married on the
tenth,--twelve days ago. It is all over. The meeting is over, the
ceremony is over, the honeymoon is nearly over too. They will soon be
thinking of going home."
Cassandra looked at her, and the blood rushed over her face. A tremor
passed over it, of shock, of anguish, of incredulous surprise. Her lips
quivered, and the fingers of her hands interlaced till the muscles
showed white beneath skin. She asked no more questions, and Grizel
stood by her side, watching in silence for the first sight of that which
was to be her reward. She waited many minutes, but it came at last,
shining forth more and more strongly as the shock and the pain lost
their keenness,--a look of relief!
Cassandra's shoulders heaved, she drew a long, fluttering breath, and
her eyes grew moist with tears.
"Oh, thank God. _Over_! I have been dreading, how I have been
dreading... Grizel, Grizel, if you only knew--"
"I _did_ know! Every minute of the day you would have been with them,--
following them, seeing, imagining, _hearing_, torturing yourself,
squandering your strength! My dear, I am a woman too! I did know. So
I lied, and the day passed by in peace, here with the dear nuns, and you
knew nothing--nothing!"
"Thank God!" cried Cassandra again. "It was a blessed lie. I shall be
thankful to you all my life for what it spared me, Grizel. It's a
weight rolled off."
She stood silent, with drawn brows, nerving herself to the new facts.
Dane married. Dane a husband. Dane happy with his girl wife. For he
_would_ be happy. Cassandra realised that fact, and the acknowledgment
brought with it, not joy, but at least a chastened relief. He would
never altogether forget the woman who had been his ideal mate, but as a
sane, honest man he would thrust the thought of her farther and farther
into the background, while the tendrils of affection would twine more
closely round wife and child. Teresa had been brave and patient; now
she would have her reward. The husband of the future would be more her
lover than the bridegroom of to-day.
Cassandra leant her arms on the low walls, and gazed over the country
beneath. All was flat, and bare, and uninteresting, one square meadow
succeeding another, divided by the same dwarfed line of hedgeway; a
monotonous outlook, beautified only where the sun lent the glory of
colour.
"And so," said Cassandra slowly, "it all ends! ... I waited for a big
thing to fill my heart, and it came, and was more wonderful, more
beautiful, than I had ever imagined... And it passed, and I am left to
go on. All my life is before me, but the big thing has passed. Grizel!
it doesn't seem possible that it should all be over..."
"You are thirty-two, Cassandra. The big things of life are not all over
at thirty-two."
Cassandra sighed sharply.
"So you say--so you say... You are thinking of the future, of long
years ahead, but I have to face life to-day; to walk along a flat, dull
road, and leave the sunshine behind." She flung out her arms towards
the country below. "Look at it, Grizel! My lot lies there. And I've
been on the heights!"
"You are thirty-two, Cassandra," Grizel said. "The heights are not all
over at thirty-two."
But again Cassandra refused the comfort.
"Oh, of all the things that might have happened to me, this was the last
that I expected--to have come through so much,--to have loved, and been
loved, to have fought and won, and to be left with--_Nothing_! No
change, no difference. That seems just the hardest ending of all! If
there had been a big upheaval, and outside things had changed to match,
even if it had been for the worse, it would be easier than to go back,--
a woman whose whole nature has been revolutionised,--and fit oneself
into the same narrow groove, knowing that the page is turned for ever,
and that there is no more hope."
"You are thirty-two, Cassandra," Grizel said a third time. "No pages
are turned for ever at thirty-two."
"But, oh, Grizel, Grizel, when you read of these things happening to
people in books, there is always _Something_ tangible to take hold of...
It may be tragedy, or it may be joy, but at least there is _Something_
to mark the difference, and I have nothing, but a memory which I must
try to kill... There's no poetry in it, Grizel, there's no romance. It
isn't even--fair!"
"No," sighed Grizel softly. "It's just--Life!"
The End.