AND THEY LIVED HAPPY EVER AFTER
End of the story--end of the chapter--end of the book!
And what could be more satisfactory than the ending of the old
fairy-tales,--"and so they were married, and lived happy ever after"?
Not for them the strenuous adjustment of temper and temperament, of
extravagance and poverty, with the divorce court at the end of the
second year. In the blessed tales of one's childhood, they married and
lived happily.
Ay, and for ever after!
It is a long time,--but I look forward to it without fear, yea, even
with gladness. Not that I would so dare, did it depend upon _my_
temper, _my_ moods, _my_ days of ailing and depression, but ah, I
depend upon my husband's. He has his days of ailing and depression,
but I never know of them until they are past. He has his illnesses,
but he conceals them from me. If things go wrong, his face only grows
brighter for my eyes to rest upon, nor is he ever too busy or too
preoccupied to stop his work and soothe my nervous fears. Disagreeable
people are not allowed to annoy me. Disagreeable letters are held over
until their sting has grown less. Disagreeable remarks are robbed of
their venom by his kindly interpretation. He stands as a bulwark
between me and the world.
"And so they were married, and lived happily ever after."
To live happily means for one or the other to ignore self. Aubrey is
the epitome of selflessness. So that I claim no credit for the
noiseless wheels of our domestic machinery, for over trifles I am
inclined to go up in a puff of vapour and blue smoke, and I love my own
way.
But somehow, after a year or two of seeing Aubrey give his way up to
mine, without a frown or a word of remonstrance, and with such a look
of unfathomable love in his wonderful eyes, I rather lost the taste for
demanding my own way. Even when I got it some of its flavour had
disappeared. Was I contrary? I do not know. I only knew that I began
to pretend--I had to pretend, or Aubrey would not have allowed it--to
want the things that he wanted, and to want them done in the way he
liked. And with such a rich reward! Do all sacrifices made for love
carry with them such immediate and rich rewards, I wonder? Can I ever
forget the Angel's face when it dawned upon him that I was giving up my
way for his? He realized it first as he was standing in front of me,
filling his pipe. I saw it come first into his eyes, then tremble upon
his sensitive lips, then he threw aside his precious pipe and knelt
down beside my chair, and gathered me all up in his arms, and hid his
face in my shoulder. What he said I shall never tell to any one, but I
shall remember it in my grave, and it will be surging in my ears in the
other world. Is sacrifice hard for one you love?
"And so they were married, and lived happily ever after."
That, in the old-fashioned story, was the end of everything. Married
love evidently took no hold upon the youthful imagination, or upon that
of our little selves. We wanted all the anguish to come to the unwed,
and the happiness and dulness of unchanging bliss to descend upon the
bridal pair.
Then somebody discovered that marriage was not the end; it was only the
beginning, and somebody acted on this wonderful discovery and began to
tell the varying fortunes of those stupid, cut and dried, buried and
laid away persons, the bride and groom, whom we had hitherto parted
with at the church door. It was as if the carriage door slammed upon
their happiness, and ended their career. Their ultimate fate was for
ever settled. They died to the world with the hurling of the rice, and
vanished from the sight of readers with the casting of the old shoe.
Then we learned that life began with marriage. Has our taste changed,
or have we only awakened to the truth?
Ask any woman who is happily married, and see if she says she can ever
remember anything before she became a wife. I remember that certain
things did happen before I met Aubrey, but I recall them as I sometimes
try to tell him a dream which is indistinct and somewhat unreal.
But that is because I have found, out of all the world, my mate.
How does any one dare to marry? As I look around me, at the mistakes
other women have made, I wonder that I had the courage to marry even
the Angel. For supposing he hadn't been the right man! I'd have been
dead by this time, so there's that comfort anyway.
But he was!
To those who know the Angel, I need say no more. And even to those who
never have seen him, and never will know him except in this chronicle,
the wonder of it can never cease, for so few women, out of all the men
in the universe, find their mates, as I have found mine.
Men propose and women marry, but the misfits are palpable all through
life to others, and frequently to themselves. They look back and
wonder, when it is too late, how they ever imagined that they could
live together without wanting to murder each other daily. Yet they
console themselves with the thought that theirs is only an ordinary
marriage, containing no more jarring notes than most. Yet if they ever
stopped to think what might have been--if they dared look into the
inner chamber where hope lies dead, they would wonder that their misery
was not so stamped upon their faces that people would turn to look at
them in the street and stare at the hopelessness of their broken lives.
Do the unhappily married ever dare pause to think of the real mate of
each, lost somewhere in the wide world, perhaps going about, ever
seeking, seeking, perhaps greatly mismated and equally unhappy?
"Two shall be born the whole wide world apart
And each in different tongues and have no thought
Each of the other's being and no heed;
And these, o'er unknown seas to unknown lands
Shall cross, escaping wreck, defying death
And all unconsciously shape every act
And send each wandering step to this one end
That, one day, out of darkness they shall meet
And read life's meaning in each other's eyes.
"And two shall walk some narrow way of life
So nearly side by side, that should one turn
Ever so little space to left or right
They needs must stand acknowledged face to face.
And yet, with wistful eyes that never meet,
With groping hands that never clasp, and lips
Calling in vain to ears that never hear
They seek each other all their weary days
And die unsatisfied--and this is Fate!"
When I realize the beautiful and terrible truth of these two verses, I
grow dumb with terror, and turn filled to overflowing with gratitude
that, no matter what others may have done or will do; in spite of sad
books and mournful plays; in spite of winter winds and illness and
sorrow and the bitter disappointment of hope deferred; in spite of
bodily ills and heart sickness and the times when even the strongest
soul faints by the roadside, no matter what betide, I can always turn
my face homeward, and there will be Aubrey.