Jerome Jerome - They and I

"But fame and fortune are not won so quickly as boys dream, nor is life as easy to live bravely as it looks in visions. It was nearly twenty years before they met again. Neither had married. Her people were dead and she was living alone; and to him the world at last had opened her doors. She was still beautiful. A gracious, gentle lady, she had grown; clothed with that soft sweet dignity that Time bestows upon rare women, rendering them fairer with the years.

"To the man it seemed a miracle. The dream of those early days came back to him. Surely there was nothing now to separate them. Nothing had changed but the years, bringing to them both wider sympathies, calmer, more enduring emotions. She welcomed him again with the old kind smile, a warmer pressure of the hand; and, allowing a little time to pass for courtesy's sake, he told her what was the truth: that he had never ceased to love her, never ceased to keep the vision of her fair pure face before him, his ideal of all that man could find of help in womanhood. And her answer, until years later he read the explanation, remained a mystery to him. She told him that she loved him, that she had never loved any other man and never should; that his love, for so long as he chose to give it to her, she should always prize as the greatest gift of her life. But with that she prayed him to remain content.

"He thought perhaps it was a touch of woman's pride, of hurt dignity that he had kept silent so long, not trusting her; that perhaps as time went by she would change her mind. But she never did; and after awhile, finding that his persistence only pained her, he accepted the situation. She was not the type of woman about whom people talk scandal, nor would it have troubled her much had they done so. Able now to work where he would, he took a house in a neighbouring village, where for the best part of the year he lived, near to her. And to the end they remained lovers."

"I think I understand," said Robina. "I will tell you afterwards if I am wrong."

"I told the story to a woman many years ago," I said, "and she also thought she understood. But she was only half right."

"We will see," said Robina. "Go on."

"She left a letter, to be given to him after her death, in case he survived her; if not, to be burned unopened. In it she told him her reason, or rather her reasons, for having refused him. It was an odd letter. The 'reasons' sounded so pitiably insufficient. Until one took the pains to examine them in the cold light of experience. And then her letter struck one, not as foolish, but as one of the grimmest commentaries upon marriage that perhaps had ever been penned.

"It was because she had wished always to remain his ideal; to keep their love for one another to the end, untarnished; to be his true helpmeet in all things, that she had refused to marry him.

"Had he spoken that morning she had waited for him in the lane―she had half hoped, half feared it―she might have given her promise: 'For Youth,' so she wrote, 'always dreams it can find a new way.' She thanked God that he had not.

"'Sooner or later,' so ran the letter, 'you would have learned, Dear, that I was neither saint nor angel; but just a woman―such a tiresome, inconsistent creature; she would have exasperated you―full of a thousand follies and irritabilities that would have marred for you all that was good in her. I wanted you to have of me only what was worthy, and this seemed the only way. Counting the hours to your coming, hating the pain of your going, I could always give to you my best. The ugly words, the whims and frets that poison speech―they could wait; it was my lover's hour.

"'And you, Dear, were always so tender, so gay. You brought me joy with both your hands. Would it have been the same, had you been my husband? How could it? There were times, even as it was, when you vexed me. Forgive me, Dear, I mean it was my fault―ways of thought and action that did not fit in with my ways, that I was not large-minded enough to pass over. As my lover, they were but as spots upon the sun. It was easy to control the momentary irritation that they caused me. Time was too precious for even a moment of estrangement. As my husband, the jarring note would have been continuous, would have widened into discord. You see, Dear, I was not great enough to love ALL of you. I remember, as a child, how indignant I always felt with God when my nurse told me He would not love me because I was naughty, that He only loved good children. It seemed such a poor sort of love, that. Yet that is precisely how we men and women do love; taking only what gives us pleasure, repaying the rest with anger. There would have arisen the unkind words that can never be recalled; the ugly silences; the gradual withdrawing from one another. I dared not face it.

"'It was not all selfishness. Truthfully I can say I thought more of you than of myself. I wanted to keep the shadows of life away from you. We men and women are like the flowers. It is in sunshine that we come to our best. You were my hero. I wanted you to be great. I wanted you to be surrounded by lovely dreams. I wanted your love to be a thing holy, helpful to you.'

"It was a long letter. I have given you the gist of it."

Again there was a silence between us.

"You think she did right?" asked Robina.

"I cannot say," I answered; "there are no rules for Life, only for the individual."

"I have read it somewhere," said Robina―"where was it?―'Love suffers all things, and rejoices.'"

"Maybe in old Thomas Kempis. I am not sure," I said.

"It seems to me," said Robina, "that the explanation lies in that one sentence of hers: 'I was not great enough to love ALL of you.'"

"It seems to me," I said, "that the whole art of marriage is the art of getting on with the other fellow. It means patience, self-control, forbearance. It means the laying aside of our self-conceit and admitting to ourselves that, judged by eyes less partial than our own, there may be much in us that is objectionable, that calls for alteration. It means toleration for views and opinions diametrically opposed to our most cherished convictions. It means, of necessity, the abandonment of many habits and indulgences that however trivial have grown to be important to us. It means the shaping of our own desires to the needs of others; the acceptance often of surroundings and conditions personally distasteful to us. It means affection deep and strong enough to bear away the ugly things of life―its quarrels, wrongs, misunderstandings―swiftly and silently into the sea of forgetfulness. It means courage, good humour, commonsense."

"That is what I am saying," explained Robina. "It means loving him even when he's naughty."

Dick came across the fields. Robina rose and slipped into the house.

"You are looking mighty solemn, Dad," said Dick.

"Thinking of Life, Dick," I confessed. "Of the meaning and the explanation of it."

"Yes, it's a problem, Life," admitted Dick.

"A bit of a teaser," I agreed.

We smoked in silence for awhile.

"Loving a good woman must be a tremendous help to a man," said Dick.

He looked very handsome, very gallant, his boyish face flashing challenge to the Fates.

"Tremendous, Dick," I agreed.

Robina called to him that his supper was ready. He knocked the ashes from his pipe, and followed her into the house. Their laughing voices came to me broken through the half-closed doors. From the night around me rose a strange low murmur. It seemed to me as though above the silence I heard the far-off music of the Mills of God.

I fancy Veronica is going to be an authoress. Her mother thinks this may account for many things about her that have been troubling us. The story never got far. It was laid aside for the more alluring work of play-writing, and apparently forgotten. I came across the copy-book containing her "Rough Notes" the other day. There is decided flavour about them. I transcribe selections; the spelling, as before, being my own.