My dear Olivia,
Thank you very much for your kind letter. I am only just beginning to
be able to write letters, as you may well imagine after all that we
have gone through, and I am still in half-mourning, although _they_ say
this is ridiculous. As a matter of fact, nobody has a better right to
be in mourning for Romeo than I, considering that he would certainly
have married me had it not been for a series of quite extraordinary
accidents. Mamma says that I was to blame, but I will tell you exactly
what happened, and you can judge for yourself.
I made Romeo’s acquaintance two years ago. We at once got on well
together, and I never minded his childishness, which used to get on
some people’s nerves. He was the kind of person whom it was really
impossible to dislike, because he was so impetuous, so full of high
spirits and good humour. Some people thought he was good looking; I
never did. It was never his looks that attracted me, but I liked him
for _himself_. Wherever I went he used to be there, and whenever we met
he always talked to me the whole time and never looked at any one else,
so that we were _practically_ engaged although nothing was announced.
After this had gone on for some time Mamma became annoyed; she said we
must do one thing or the other; we must either be engaged and announce
our engagement or else that I must give up seeing Romeo altogether.
This of course I refused to do. At last we made a compromise: in our
own house I was allowed to see Romeo as much as I liked, but if I went
out to banquets or masques I was to talk to other people and not to
Romeo. Papa and Mamma had nothing against my marrying Romeo, because
Mamma never liked the Capulets, although they are Papa’s relations.
The result of this compromise, which was only arranged quite lately,
was quite disastrous. Romeo could not understand it at all. He thought
it was my fault, and that I was growing tired of him. It was then
that he begged me to let our engagement be publicly announced. I did
not want the announcement to be made public until the winter, because
one never really has such fun once an engagement is known. However, I
would no doubt have given in in the end. As it was, Romeo was annoyed,
and just before the Capulets’ banquet we had a scene. I told him
quite plainly that he had no business to treat me as if I belonged to
him. I had given him to understand, however, that I should be at the
Capulets’ banquet, and I fully expected him to come and to beg for a
reconciliation.
He came to the banquet, and it so happened that Lady Capulet’s
daughter, who was far too young for that kind of thing, was allowed
to come down that night. A child of that age is of course allowed to
do anything, as it is supposed not to matter what they do. And as she
had been told that the one thing she was not to do was to speak to a
Montague, out of sheer naughtiness and perverseness she went to Romeo
and made the most outrageous advances to him. Romeo, out of _pique_
and simply to annoy me, kept up the farce, and they say that he even
climbed over a wall that night, right into the house of the Capulets,
and spoke to Juliet! All this time Juliet was betrothed to her cousin,
the County Paris, and it was arranged that their marriage was to take
place shortly.
What exactly happened we none of us know, but it is quite certain that
Lady Capulet had found out what was going on, and having heard that
Romeo had been climbing her garden wall and serenading Juliet under
her very nose, she thought it would be an excellent opportunity to
settle the old family quarrel and reconcile the two families by an
alliance. So she forced Romeo to _promise_ her he would marry Juliet,
and some people say that the marriage ceremony was actually performed
in secret, but this is _not true_, as I will tell you later. Of course,
Lady Capulet did not dare tell her husband; on the contrary, every
arrangement was made for Juliet’s marriage with Paris; but the day
before it was to come off a put-up quarrel was brought about between
Romeo and one of the Capulets, which ended in Romeo’s being banished to
Mantua. He wrote to me every day, saying how miserable he was that all
this tiresome business had happened, and how he was longing to see me
again, and how it was not his fault.
Lady Capulet then gave Juliet a strong sleeping draught, which was to
have the effect of making her like a corpse for forty-two hours. Every
one was to think she was dead. She was to be taken to the vault of the
Capulets and Romeo was to fetch her after the forty-two hours were
over, when she should come to from her sleep. This was Lady Capulet’s
plan, and Romeo of course could do nothing but accept it, much as he
must have hated this kind of thing. Romeo had many faults, but I must
say he was never deceitful. I did not know anything about it at the
time. All we knew was that, owing to a street brawl which had ended
unfortunately, Romeo had been banished to Mantua. He wrote from there
every day. He said over and over again in his letters that he was in
great difficulties, but that he hoped to be back soon and see me
again. I did not answer his letters because I was annoyed by the way in
which he had spoken to Juliet at the ball. I had not then heard about
the incident of the orchard, otherwise I should have been angrier still.
While things were in this state the whole matter took a tragic turn
by the stupidity of Lady Capulet’s nurse, who gave Juliet the wrong
sleeping draught. Instead of giving her a potion which made her sleep
for forty-two hours, they gave her some very strong rat poison which
happened to be lying about. She drank it, poor thing, and never woke
again.
Romeo came back from Mantua to meet Juliet at the vault, where he no
doubt intended to have a final explanation with her and her family, to
explain the whole thing: his engagement to me, and the impossibility of
his contracting any alliance with the Capulet family, especially as he
had very strong principles on this point. But when he got to the tomb
he found the County Paris, who was nominally engaged to Juliet, and of
course extremely angry to find a Montague in such a place. They fought,
and Paris killed Romeo, thus putting an end to all Lady Capulet’s
intrigues. But she was not to be defeated thus. She had already bribed
an old Franciscan monk, called Friar Laurence, to say that he had
secretly _married_ Juliet and Romeo, and her nurse (a horrible old
woman) corroborated the friar’s evidence. And so, with very much
solemnity and fuss, a reconciliation was brought about between the two
families, and they say that Benvolio, Montague’s nephew, is to marry
Katherine, Lady Capulet’s niece by marriage, and thus the quarrel
between the families has finally been settled and Lady Capulet has got
her way.
I don’t mind the two families being reconciled in the least; in fact we
are all very glad of it, as life in Verona was made quite intolerable
by their constant brawling and quarrelling. But what I do think is
unfair, and what is particularly irritating to _me_, is that everybody,
even Papa and Mamma, take it for granted that Romeo was really in love
with Juliet, and had given up all thoughts of me. Nobody knows the
truth except me, and I cannot tell it without making myself appear
conceited and ridiculous. You can imagine how irritating this is. Of
course, when all this happened I was so overcome by the shock that I
was very ill and did not care what was said, one way or the other. Papa
and Mamma had to take me to Venice for a few days, as I was in such
a state of nerves. Now, the change of air has done me good, and I am
slowly getting better again. I am told that everybody believes that
Romeo and Juliet were married by Friar Laurence. Of course, once such
a legend gets about nothing will ever make people think the contrary.
But even if they _were_ married it would not really affect me, for
it was a sheer case of coercion. If Romeo did marry Juliet he did it
because he could not help himself, after having been discovered in her
garden by that old cat Lady Capulet, who is a very, very wicked woman,
and capable of anything. In fact I am not at all sure that she did not
poison her daughter on purpose, and, so bring about the reconciliation
between the two families without having all the trouble of facing and
defeating her husband’s opposition to the match.
When you next come to see me I will show you Romeo’s letters.
Fortunately I have kept them all. They are very beautiful, and some of
them are in rime; and you will see for yourself whether he loved me or
not. I cannot read them without crying. You have no idea what lovely
things he says in them. For instance, one day he sent me a pair of
silk gloves, and with them, written on a small scroll:
Oh that I were a glove upon thy hand,
That I might touch thy cheek.
His letters were full of lovely things like that, and I cannot think of
them without crying.
Your loving
ROSALINE.