Chapter Twenty Six.
Enter Grizel.
Cassandra lifted her head and stared blankly, then with cold displeasure, into the intruder’s face. There was not the faintest tinge of embarrassment in her mien, nothing but surprise, and anger, and an intolerable impatience. She sat in silence, struggling to collect her thoughts, and the while she stared, Grizel stepped lightly over the threshold, and seated herself on one of the scattered chairs. It was done so quickly that there was no time for protest, if protest had been possible, and Cassandra, biting her lip, turned towards Dane for support. He had risen to his feet, and looked miserable and embarrassed as a man is bound to do when placed in an awkward situation. Cassandra looked for signs of an anger corresponding to her own, failed to find it, and in consequence felt angrier than before. Her voice was steely in its hauteur.
“Did you wish to see me?”
“Please!” said Grizel softly. Her hazel eyes met Peignton’s with a long, straight glance, whose message he could not misunderstand. He flushed, and held out his hand.
“I’ll go... Good-bye—”
“I shall see you again. I am free on Wednesday and on Friday.” Cassandra spoke in a heightened voice, as though scorning an attempt at deceit. “You will meet me here?”
“Yes. Yes. I’ll let you know—”
He dropped her hand, bowed slightly to Grizel, and swung rapidly away, leaving the two women alone.
“Grizel Beverley,” said Cassandra deliberately, “I hate you!”
“Poor darling!” said Grizel, trembling. “Of course you do!” She shook out a minute handkerchief, and wiped the moisture from her face. It dawned on Cassandra’s perceptions that she was deathly pale.
“Why did you come?”
“I don’t know.”
“Was it just chance?”
Grizel’s lip trembled.
“Cassandra, I loathe to preach; but I don’t believe it was!”
“How did you get here?”
“I walked. It’s the longest walk I’ve ever taken. I never came in by the north gate before. I’ve never turned up this path. I just—came!”
“I see. It was a coincidence, which you are trying to turn into a special guidance of Providence on my behalf. I’m sorry that I cannot recognise it in that light. I wish with all my heart that you had stayed away... What good do you suppose you are going to do?”
“The Lord knows,” said Grizel, shrugging. The next moment, with a startled air, she continued. “He does know! I said that without thinking, but it’s true... Won’t you let me help you, darling? I’m not a bit shocked, you see. I knew before, and I’m not a chicken,—I’m twenty-eight. I know that love doesn’t work to order. I was horribly afraid for you before that day on the cliff, and then of course I knew!”
“How many people have you told?”
Grizel was silent. Cassandra moved her shoulders with an impatient shrug.
“I beg your pardon. I didn’t mean that. But—your husband?”
“Not one word.”
“I thought you told him everything?”
“About myself I do. Not about friends.”
“Thank you for that, at least,” Cassandra said ungraciously. The next moment she threw out her hands with a gesture of hopeless appeal. “Oh, Grizel, I’ll have to forgive you, for I need you so much, but it was hard! You needn’t have grudged us that little time... I could have killed you for coming in just then. As you know everything, tell me what we are to do?... I feel as if I were going mad... What are we to do?”
“What does he suggest?”
“He asked me to go away with him to-night. I’ve told you, so now you can go and warn Bernard. Perhaps Providence will throw you up against him on the way home!”
Grizel mopped her eyes with the little handkerchief.
“Why sneer?” she asked softly. “It’s bad enough, goodness knows, without that to make it worse... And are you going, dear?”
The voice was so tranquil that Cassandra started in surprise.
“What would you say, if I said I was?”
“I think—at this moment, I rather expect that you will! I should have said ‘Yes’ myself at this point.”
“Well, I didn’t! I am stronger than you. I refused, because of the boy. But you needn’t praise me. I deserve no praise. I’m going to do my duty, but I’m not doing it from my heart. I want to go, and I told him so. Did you know I was a bad woman? I didn’t. I was rather proud of myself for being so unflirtatious all these years. It was only because I had not been tempted. The moment I am tempted, I go to pieces. If we are judged by our thoughts, I’m a wicked woman. I’d give everything I possess in life, if I were free to go to him to-night!”
“So would I, so would I,—if it had been Martin,” cried Grizel, sobbing. “Everything that belonged to myself. And it isn’t wrong; it isn’t wicked; it’s the human nature in us that we can’t help. Every consideration for oneself goes down like ninepins before the one big thing. They don’t count... It’s the other people who block the way!”
“One other person in my case. Bernard doesn’t count. I am nothing to him. Why should I ruin my life by staying with a man who doesn’t want me? If it were not for the boy, I’d go to-night. You know what my married life has been,—would you think I was doing wrong if I left the pretence to take the reality? It would be a truer marriage, even if it were not blessed by the Church. Yet people would think we were wicked. Would you think so too?”
Grizel hesitated.
“Sure I may speak straight out?”
“Of course. Of course. I asked you. I’m hurt so much already that you can’t hurt me any more.”
But for several minutes Grizel sat silently, her hands folded on her knee, her eyes steadily gazing ahead. And as she sat, gradually, surely, the expression of her face changed. The sparkle died out of her eyes and left them soft and grave, the curling lips took on a new tenderness. It was as though she were deliberately banishing the things of this world, gathering to herself a strength to help in time of need. The little face grew tense with earnestness; when she spoke her voice had a deepened note.
“Yes, dear, I think it would be wicked. Not so much for your own sake, as for all the people around. You know the inwardness of things, but they don’t. They would see only the bare, ugly fact... ‘Lady Cassandra has eloped with her husband’s friend!’ It would be a bad breath stealing out, infecting wherever it went; searching out weak places, and weakening them still more,—If you three were alone on a desert island, I wouldn’t hesitate a moment in your place. I should go to my mate, and there would be no sin on my soul, but we’re not in the desert, we’re in a crowd, and you, poor darling! are perched high up. You are a big person here in this little place; down to the very school-children, everyone notices, everyone copies, everyone takes you as an example of what should be. And they have to keep the laws themselves, poor souls! whether they like them or not... How do you think it would look to them if you, who have so much, threw over your duties, just to please yourself?”
Cassandra shook her head with a dreary indifference.
“But I don’t care, you see; I don’t care. Nothing matters to me at this moment but just our two selves! It’s so easy for you to talk, Grizel. You are more than happy; you are content! I’ve never been content in all my life. I’ve been starved of all that really matters in a woman’s life, and now, when I am offered a full meal, I must give it up and be hungrier than before! I am going to do what is right, for there is something in me which is stronger than passion, an inheritance, I suppose, from generations of stiff old Protestant ancestors,—but the doing of it will break my heart. According to the old ideas it should make me happy. Oh, Grizel, Grizel, it isn’t true! How can I be happy if I give up Dane?”
Grizel shook her head.
“You can’t. Not for a long, long time. You’ll be miserable... There’s only one thing, darling!”
“Yes?”
“It would be worse if you didn’t! You may be unhappy as Bernard’s wife, but you would be a hundred times more miserable as—Dane’s mistress!”
Cassandra flushed hotly.
“He would marry me!”
“I’m sure of it. If he could. But—”
“Well, well! why discuss it; it is not going to happen. I’m going to live on at the Court, and set an example to the school-children, and keep Bernard’s accounts... and grow old, and die, and be buried. That is all I have to look forward to, and you have this to remember, Grizel Beverley, that it was you interrupted the one hour of perfect happiness that I have ever known!”
“I’ll stay away on Wednesday,” Grizel said meekly, and they laughed together in feeble, halfhearted fashion. “But I’ll come up later, and say everything all over again,” she continued presently, “and I’ll go on saying it, as often as you need it, and do my penance that way... Take long views, Cassandra, darling, take long views! One isn’t always young and ardent; it’s only for a little spell, after all, and all the long, long time stretches ahead, when one has to be middle-aged, and elderly, and old... Think how thankful you’ll be at forty, when the boy comes of age. Think how thankful you’ll be at fifty, when the grandchildren begin to appear. Think what a far-off tale it will seem at sixty, when you don’t want romance any more, but just to be quiet, and comfortable, and respected. And when you are seventy—”
Cassandra stopped her with a hasty hand.
“I’m not a bit interested in what I shall feel at seventy. I want to be happy now. I could say all these things to you, Grizel, if you were in my place, but they wouldn’t help. I want to be loved!”
Grizel sighed. She knew better than to advance the reality of her own affection at that moment, for the truest friendship on earth can never feel the gap left by love. There was only one person on earth who in any fashion could console Cassandra for Peignton’s loss, and he was the one for whom she was making her sacrifice. The glimpse she had had of Bernard junior during an exeat spent at home, was not inspiring, but Grizel’s indomitable optimism surmounted all difficulties.
“The boy will love you, darling,” she said softly. “That will come! He is getting to the age when he will appreciate your beauty, and that means so much. He will begin by being proud of you, and the rest will follow. And he will mean more to you after this. When you have sacrificed so much for a person, he becomes more precious... You’ll grow together. I know it, I feel it! In a few years’ time he will be your devoted companion. I’m going to have a son like that myself some day, but I shan’t have the right to him that you have. I shan’t have paid such a big price!”
The tears welled slowly into Cassandra’s eyes. She turned her head aside, and sat gazing into the mist of green which formed the outer world. A son’s love would be sweet, but it was at present merely a possibility, while Dane’s love was real, and near, and strong. And other women had both! Blessed women on whom husbands and sons waited with rival devotion. The bitter problem of inequality, old as the earth itself, tore at Cassandra’s heart, demanding why she should starve, while others sat at a feast; why the narrow path should sometimes be strewn with flowers, and again with jagged stones. She fought it out in her mind while Grizel sat waiting, but to-day she had no power to find comfort for herself. Body and mind alike were spent and weary. She was thankful to feel the presence of a friend...
“Are you one of the people, Grizel, who preach that all lots in life are equally good?”
“I should hope not. I have some common sense.”
“Oh, it’s not a question of common sense; it’s a question of faith. Mrs Evans would say they were. She says every heart knows its own bitterness, that people may appear very fortunate, but one can never tell that there is not a skeleton locked away. And if other people are terribly poor, or chronic invalids, or anything desperate like that, she says that they have a temperament that makes up, or that we can only see the present, and not life as a whole...”
“I’ve known,—by sight and hearsay,—many whole lives, and they’ve been a martyrdom, nearly all the way through. I’ve known others, in the same way, which were nearly all sunshine. Rainstorms, of course, and an occasional squall, but never, never the whirlwind or the lightning. Life is not evened out; it’s folly to pretend it. It’s fifty times harder for some than for others.”
“But why? Why? It doesn’t seem fair. It’s not always their own fault?”
“Of course not. That’s absurd. Some of the best people have the most trials. We’re bound to have our training, Cassandra, dear, and to go on being trained till we’ve mastered our lessons. In that way we all fare alike, but some of us get most of it in this life, and so have the less to learn over there. Whatever happens to us after we die, we are not going to be metamorphosed in a moment into perfected saints; we shall have to go on working our way up, and oh, Cassandra, wouldn’t it be a discouraging feeling to be done with earth, and still drag about the same old sins? How thankful we’ll be when we awake, for every struggle which had thrown off a bit of the load! That’s my explanation of life’s inequalities, and it has helped me more than anything. When the troubles came along,—there were plenty of them, my dear, in the old days—just as a detail I was in love with Martin for eight years before we were engaged!—I used to say to myself: ‘No use shirking; if you don’t fight it out to-day, you’ll have to do it to-morrow.’ It will wait for you, my dear!... Set your teeth, and get it over.”
Cassandra looked at her with thoughtful eyes.
“Eight years!” she repeated softly, “eight years!” and stared again, wistful and perplexed. “You are a continual joy to me, Grizel, and a continual surprise.—I didn’t know that you were a religious woman!”
“But I am,” Grizel said nodding. “Very! In my own way. The worst of it is, it isn’t other people’s way, and they are always getting shocked at me, which is hard lines, for I’m never shocked at them. I’ve needed lots of help all those years, and I’ve always found it, and I wish I could hand over my secrets to you ready made, but it would be no use. We’ve got to worry them out for ourselves, and it takes time before the comfort begins to soak in...”
“I don’t want to learn lessons. I want to be happy,” Cassandra repeated piteously. All the long lean years of her marriage added force to the yearning to take advantage of the long-deferred joy now that it was within her reach. “And I want him to be happy too, but not—with her! Grizel, did you know that she wishes to keep him to his engagement?”
“Yes. I know. She told me.”
“Told you!” Cassandra’s voice took the old haughty ring. “Then she discussed me with you also, and her altruistic efforts on my behalf! Dane is to remain engaged to her as a safeguard against myself. That’s the idea, isn’t it?—Life is a curious business. I never imagined that the time would come when Teresa Mallison would dictate to me!”
Grizel smiled mischievously.
“And doesn’t it rouse the devil in you when she does! Never mind! I’m pleased to see it. It’s a healthy sign under the circumstances. You’ll need a good supply of that pride to see you through the next month, and I guess there’s no fear of its running out.” Then her face sobered, and her voice took a serious tone. “Cassandra! you must try to be fair to Teresa. She’s young and crude, and opinionated, but this has been a great big test, and she’s been rather—fine. I never admired anything more than her composure that day on the cliff. It wasn’t because she didn’t feel. The slight must have been all the worse, just because she is so complacent and sure of herself. She went through torture with her lips shut. She’s even more to be pitied than you, Cassandra, for she was happy, and she believed so firmly that she was going to be happy ever after, and now—at the best—it can never be the same—”
Cassandra interposed with a sharp-cut question.
“What do you mean by ‘the best’?”
“From her point of view,—that he should eventually marry her, and make the best of what remains. It’s pretty hard on a girl of twenty-four to know that her lover has to nerve himself up to take her like a disagreeable tonic which may eventually do him good. I could not have stood it; I’m quite sure you couldn’t, but Teresa can. The bull-dog quality in her won’t let go; she can sit tight and wait, and it’s the waiters who win. She will go through a bad time, but in the end—” Grizel met Cassandra’s flashing eyes, and said gently, “Dear! if you had the choice, wouldn’t you rather think of him in the future with a home and children, happy again, if not just in the same way, rather than as a lonely man, eating his heart out for what he couldn’t have?”
“No!” cried Cassandra defiantly. “No! I want him to remember. I want him to think. I’d rather anything happened than that he should forget...”
Then Grizel laughed, a soft, tender little laugh, and looking back on that scene in the days which followed, Cassandra knew that more than for any words of comfort, she was grateful for that laugh. There was in it the tenderness which a nurse bestows upon the railings of pain-racked sufferers, and with it a beautiful incredulity which refused to believe mere words, and set her faith on the force within, content to wait until it should resume the mastery.
The task of a comforter is only less difficult than that of the sufferer himself. He has need of infinite tenderness, infinite tolerance, above all, of infinite patience. Not in one hour, or one week, or one month will his solace work its effect; again and again must he open his heart, and pour forth all that is his of wisdom, and strength and inspiration, only to find himself thrown back to the very position from which he started.
“Oh, Grizel!” cried Cassandra sharply. “Why did you come? Why did you interrupt us? And oh, what are we to do? What shall we do?”