|
Grace sat at the dressing table gazing at her reflection. It always seemed funny to her...looking at oneself, sometimes it was like looking at a stranger.
She looked tired tonight, a little lined around the eyes. The only thing that remained constant was her hair. The shiny thick crown that haloed her head...her crowning glory, her father had always called it.
Usually Grace liked music in the background. Tonight though, she found solace in the loud silence.
Everyone was elsewhere in the busy house, and she relished these rare moments of peace.
Tonight Grace Edwards wanted to remember...
Peter Start was the fiancé of her closest friend Clare, and most thought them to be a well matched couple.
Only Grace knew that Clare was simply using him; his family had wealth, Clare was weak, and in her
vocabulary money talked! All she wanted was a large house with lots of nice things in it. Obviously in order to gain all of this, one needed a wealthy
husband. Peter fitted this description well.
Clare had been a friend of Grace's since they were at school together. She was a nice enough girl, but her family were poor, and since a very early age, Clare had wanted money and nice clothes.
That someone could be this materialistic worried Grace, but she liked Clare and actually felt a little sorry for her.
It was at a dinner party hosted by Peter's parents that Grace really got to know Peter.
She guessed that she had been invited to make up numbers, but she didn't really mind. Although she was a naturally quiet sort, she enjoyed a good conversation and was pleasantly surprised to find herself seated between Peter and his father James.
James Start was a nice enough man and very eloquent...Peter was, though, something
else. For one who had so much, he was very unassuming and so openly friendly. As the evening progressed...and the claret, Peter told Grace that he knew well what Clare really wanted.
He was well aware that she loved his fortune but rather tolerated him and really didn't love him. As he spoke, he looked Grace in the eyes and saw the truth for himself.
Quite how it happened, Grace couldn't really say. It began in a sweet and rather child-like way, but steadily progressed to something more.
Within a few weeks, Grace knew that she was head over heels in love with her best friend's fiancé...he felt the same.
They both felt a little guilty, although as Peter said, why he should really feel bad about it, Clare would easily find someone else with a similar bank balance.
One day they were sitting in a little spot in a nearby park that had become their place.
They had decided that tonight was the night that Peter would tell all to his fiancée...although whether she cared was the actual point in fact.
He kissed Grace softly and promised he would contact her the next day...
The next day Grace was awoken by her mother. Evidently Clare was downstairs waiting to see her.
Reluctantly, Grace pulled on her dressing gown and went to find Clare. She was standing in the hall way with her head slightly bowed.
Grace began to say how sorry she was, and Clare looked puzzled as she asked her friend how she had found out so quickly.
Peter had been involved in a road accident at seven pm the previous evening;
he had left Grace an hour before that. On the way to confess all to Clare he had met with his
fate; Peter was dead.
The hardest thing was to pretend that Peter was just her friend's fiancé...not her lover. To be at the funeral where she wanted to weep and
wail uncontrollably was a terrible endurance. Clare looked the part all dressed up in her mourning suit and dabbing at her nose with a lace handkerchief.
Part of Grace hated Clare with a vengeance; she hadn't deserved that dear sweet man... now he was gone, and Grace was bereft.
Clare married exactly a year after Peter's death...to an extremely wealthy man who kept her in the lap of
luxury. Grace never married.
She got up from the dressing table chair and listened to the familiar sounds of her surroundings.
She was lucky really; she had many good friends, and life had been quite good to her. She looked lovingly at the faded photograph of the handsome young man with the smiling eyes and tenderly kissed it.
The happenings of seventy years ago were still so fresh in her mind...the mind of a gentle old lady of ninety years, who would no doubt live out the rest of her life in this rather pleasant nursing home...she had her memories to treasure!
©2002 StoriesByEmail.com
|
