Revelations of a Wife.
by Adele Garrison.
INTRODUCTION
Probably it is true that no two persons entertain precisely the same view of marriage. If any two did, and one happened to be a man and the other a woman, there would be many advantages in their exemplifying the harmony by marrying each other--unless they had already married some one else.
Sour-minded critics of life have said that the only persons who are likely to understand what marriage ought to be are those who have found it to be something else. Of course most of the foolish criticisms of marriage are made by those who would find the same fault with life itself. One man who was asked whether life was worth living, answered that it depended on the liver. Thus, it has been pointed out that marriage can be only as good as the persons who marry. This is simply to say that a partnership is only as good as the partners.
"Revelations of a Wife" is a woman"s confession. Marriage is so vital a matter to a woman that when she writes about it she is always likely to be in earnest. In this instance, the likelihood is borne out. Adele Garrison has listened to the whisperings of her own heart. She has done more. She has caught the wireless from a man"s heart. And she has poured the record into this story.
The woman of this story is only one kind of a woman, and the man is only one kind of a man. But their experiences will touch the consciousness--I was going to say the conscience--of every man or woman who has either married or measured marriage, and we"ve all done one or the other.
PIERRE RAVILLE.
Revelations of a Wife
I
"I WILL BE HAPPY! I WILL! I WILL!"
Today we were married.
I have said these words over and over to myself, and now I have written them, and the written characters seem as strange to me as the uttered words did. I cannot believe that I, Margaret Spencer, 27 years old, I who laughed and sneered at marriage, justifying myself by the tragedies and unhappiness of scores of my friends, I who have made for myself a place in the world"s work with an a.s.sured comfortable income, have suddenly thrown all my theories to the winds and given myself in marriage in as impetuous, unreasoning fashion as any foolish schoolgirl.
I shall have to change a word in that last paragraph. I forgot that I am no longer Margaret Spencer, but Margaret Graham, Mrs. Richard Graham, or, more probably, Mrs. "d.i.c.ky" Graham. I don"t believe anybody in the world ever called Richard anything but "d.i.c.ky."
On the other hand, n.o.body but Richard ever called me anything shorter than my own dignified name. I have been "Madge" to him almost ever since I knew him.
Dear, dear d.i.c.ky! If I talked a hundred years I could not express the difference between us in any better fashion. He is "d.i.c.ky" and I am "Margaret."
He is downstairs now in the smoking room, impatiently humoring this lifelong habit of mine to have one hour of the day all to myself.
My mother taught me this when I was a tiny girl. My "thinking hour,"
she called it, a time when I solved my small problems or pondered my baby sins. All my life I have kept up the practice. And now I am going to devote it to another request of the little mother who went away from me forever last year.
"Margaret, darling," she said to me on the last day we ever talked together, "some time you are going to marry--you do not think so now, but you will--and how I wish I had time to warn you of all the hidden rocks in your course! If I only had kept a record of those days of my own unhappiness, you might learn to avoid the wretchedness that was mine. Promise me that if you marry you will write down the problems that confront you and your solution of them, so than when your own baby girl comes to you and grows into womanhood she may be helped by your experience."
Poor little mother! Her marriage with my father had been one of those wretched tragedies, the knowledge of which frightens so many people away from the altar. I have no memory of my father. I do not know today whether he be living or dead. When I was 4 years old he ran away with the woman who had been my mother"s most intimate friend. All my life has been warped by the knowledge. Even now, worshipping d.i.c.ky as I do, I am wondering as I sit here, obeying my mother"s last request, whether or not an experience like hers will come to me.
A fine augury for our happiness when such thoughts as this can come to me on my wedding day!
d.i.c.ky is an artist, with all the faults and all the lovable virtues of his kind. A week ago I was a teacher, holding one of the most desirable positions in the city schools. We met just six months ago, two of the most unsuited people who could be thrown together. And now we are married! Next week we begin housekeeping in a dear little apartment near d.i.c.ky"s studio.
d.i.c.ky has insisted that I give up my work, and against all my convictions I have yielded to his wishes. But on my part I have stipulated that I must be permitted to do the housework of our nest, with the occasional help of a laundress. I will be no parasite wife who neither helps her husband in or out of the home. But the little devils must be busy laughing just now. I, who have hardly hung up my own nightgown for years, and whose knowledge of housekeeping is mightily near zero, am to try to make home happy and comfortable for an artist! Poor d.i.c.ky!
I don"t know what has come to me. I worship d.i.c.ky. He sweeps me off my feet with his love, his vivid personality overpowers my more commonplace self, but through all the bewildering intoxication of my engagement and marriage a little mocking devil, a cool, cynical, little devil, is constantly whispering in my ear: "You fool, you fool, to imagine you can escape unhappiness! There is no such thing as a happy marriage!"
d.i.c.ky has just "phoned up from the smoking room to ask me if my hour isn"t up. How his voice clears away all the miasma of my miserable thoughts! Please G.o.d, d.i.c.ky, I am going to lock up all my old ideas in the most unused closet of my brain, and try my best to be a good wife to you! I will be happy! I will! I WILL!
II
THE FIRST QUARREL
"I"ll give you three guesses, Madge." d.i.c.ky stood just inside the door of the living room, holding an immense parcel carefully wrapped. His hat was on the back of his head, his eyes shining, his whole face aglow with boyish mischief.
"It"s for you, my first housekeeping present, that is needed in every well regulated family," he burlesqued boastfully, "but you are not to see it until we have something to eat, and you have guessed what it is."
"I know it is something lovely, dear," I replied sedately, "but come to your dinner. It is getting cold."
d.i.c.ky looked a trifle hurt as he followed me to the dining room. I knew what he expected--enthusiastic curiosity and a demand for the immediate opening of the parcel, I can imagine the pretty enthusiasm, the caresses with which almost any other woman would have greeted a bridegroom of two weeks with his first present.
But it"s simply impossible for me to gush. I cannot express emotion of any kind with the facility of most women. I worshipped my mother, but I rarely kissed her or expressed my love for her in words. My love for d.i.c.ky terrifies me sometimes, it is so strong, but I cannot go up to him and offer him an unsolicited kiss or caress. Respond to his caresses, yes! but offer them of my own volition, never! There is something inside me that makes it an absolute impossibility.
"What"s the menu, Madge? The beef again?"
d.i.c.ky"s tone was mildly quizzical, his smile mischievous, but I flushed hotly. He had touched a sore spot. The butcher had brought me a huge slab of meat for my first dinner when I had timidly ordered "rib roast," and with the aid of my mother"s cook book and my own smattering of cooking, my sole housewifely accomplishment, I had been trying to disguise it for subsequent meals.
"This is positively its last appearance on any stage," I a.s.sured him, trying to be gay. "Besides, it"s a ca.s.serole, with rice, and I defy you to detect whether the chief ingredient be fish, flesh or fowl."
"Ca.s.serole is usually my pet aversion," d.i.c.ky said solemnly. Look not on the ca.s.serole when it is table d"hote, is one of the pet little proverbs in my immediate set. Too much like Spanish steak and the other good chances for ptomaines. But if you made it I"ll tackle it--if you have to call the ambulance in the next half-hour."
"d.i.c.ky, you surely do not think I would use meat that was doubtful, do you?" I asked, horror-stricken. "Don"t eat it. Wait and I"ll fix up some eggs for you."
d.i.c.ky rose stiffly, walked slowly around to my side of the table, and gravely tapped my head in imitation of a phrenologist.
"Absolute depression where the b.u.mp called "sense of humor" ought to be. Too bad! Pretty creature, too. Cause her lots of trouble, in the days to come," he chanted solemnly.
Then he bent and kissed me. "Don"t be a goose, Madge," he admonished, "and never, never take me seriously. I don"t know the meaning of the word. Come on, let"s eat the thing-um bob. I"ll bet it"s delicious."
He uncovered the ca.s.serole and regarded the steaming contents critically. "Smells scrumptious," he announced. "What"s in the other?
Potatoes au gratin?" as he took off the cover of the other serving dish. "Good! One of my favorites."
He piled a liberal portion on any plate and helped himself as generously. He ate heartily of both dishes, ignoring or not noticing that I scarcely touched either dish.
For I was fast lapsing into one of the moods which my little mother used to call my "morbid streaks" and which she had vainly tried to cure ever since I was a tiny girl.
d.i.c.ky didn"t like my cooking! He was only pretending! d.i.c.ky was disappointed in the way I received the announcement of his present!