CHAPTER X
We at once went to my home to break the news of our marriage in person to my parents. Father and mother were somewhat appalled at the serious turn things had taken. Mother wept, and father, I think, used his whole vocabulary of swear words. But neither had any blame for us personally. They showed their good judgment in taking the thing philosophically and kindly. Perhaps they remembered the day when they married, bride and bridegroom one year younger than Muriel and I; and they treated us as if we were human, foolish, and headstrong. They gave us, moreover, many things of immediate need wherewith to start our housekeeping; and so sent us away to the mill happy.
I have made many grave mistakes in my life which have had far-reaching consequences. My marriage has sometimes appeared to be the gravest of all, but as far as I can yet discover, the outcome on the whole, has been good. The consequences, of course, will reach on for ever; but I cannot see how I could have made more out of my life if I had avoided this rash act. Muriel must think the same thing, for our lives have become so identified with each other that they are as one life. It is nearly impossible for me to look back to the early days of my marriage and see them as they were. Looking back to childhood is much easier. Many things are plain now that were dark then. ThatMuriel, a comparative child, was willing and ready to give up her home luxuries and her social opportunities, to forego a brilliant wedding, with all the show and splendour that women worship, and to face the great unknown future with me, seemed a miracle worked for my special benefit—although the same kind of thing happens almost daily. It never occurred to her to think or care that she had lost some hundreds of wedding presents, which she would have received had she married in the usual way. And I, all self-complacence, took this sacrifice, and all it meant, as a matter of course.
Indeed at this time I felt no lack of confidence in either Muriel or myself. I could see no breakers ahead, and did not realise that we were taking chances which few are able to take and survive.
From my father’s house we went immediately to the mill, or rather to the village, which was a few miles from the mill. We spent a short honeymoon at the one-horse country hotel, while I made hurried arrangements to have a house of our own, by arranging with our sawyer to divide his house in two, that he might rent one half of it to us. Everything was novel to Muriel, everything new and worthy of notice; for her inexperience was comical. She did not know a chicken from a turkey.
These first days were a huge joke to everybody. The villagers laughed and we laughed. We gave parties and made merry, and enjoyed being alive. The whole village and countryside—yes, farmers for miles around, enjoyed us very much; and we enjoyed everybody and everything. It was a great world, we thought.
Considering the sudden and informal character ofour wedding, our relatives and friends were very thoughtful. They sent us letters of congratulation, and wedding-presents in the shape of cheques and other useful or useless and ornamental things. We were regarded by all our connections as a very rash and foolish couple. Doctor Joseph, who could not act against the prompting of his kind heart for very long, sent us some handsome silver tea things, which served for years as a luxurious possession, very much out of place in our simple household.
Soon after our marriage, I may as well recall here, my enemy Lizette married an American, went to live in the United States, and so passed out of our lives and out of the pages of this book.
It seems that a certain degree of blind ignorance is necessary to the enjoyment of some kinds of happiness. Undoubtedly our happiness was the greater because we were unable to appreciate our position or the immensity of the task we had undertaken. Before we were married a week we began to settle down.
Presently the chairs, tables, bureaus, washstands and sundries began to arrive, which had been given me by my mother. In a few days our house was ready; it was carpeted throughout with the rag carpet of the French-Canadian farmer. Twenty cents per yard we paid for this carpet in those days and with plenty of newspapers underneath, it made a very good carpet. We made our first move now from the village hotel to our house at the mill, six miles away. Our furniture was in the house when we arrived there; for it had gone direct through the village by rail to the mill siding, and the thoughtful hands of Mason had put it in, and done many things we had forgotten to do for ourselves. We had a maid, too, a small husky thing,some fourteen years of age, for whose valuable services we paid one dollar a week. She suited us very well, although she spent many days with her finger in her mouth, and her eyes wide open watching us.
Our mill was surrounded with vast dumps of sawdust rising into huge hills and dunes. Our house was built on one of these dunes and commanded a view of a little creek, a stretch of railroad track through woods, and apparently endless piles of lumber, hundreds of thousands of saw logs and a long vista of sawdust. I can smell the odour of the lumber as I write, and even to this day, when Muriel and I come across lumber piles we put our noses in the air like dogs searching a scent, inhale big sniffs of the sweet, clean smell, turn and look at each other and smile foolishly.
The life at the mill was to Muriel like a most wonderful, gorgeously illustrated new book of fairy tales to a child. She had known, as every one knows more or less, that the kind of people amongst whom our lot was cast, existed. The mere fact of their existence was the beginning and end of her knowledge. She knew them as she knew a cow. She had driven through villages of one street such as ours, with a general store, an hotel, and a railroad station as a business centre; but hitherto she had looked at them with unseeing eyes. A small fundamental settlement like that at the mill, so insignificant that it was not to be found on any map, was an entirely new experience to her. The mill was an unknown place except to a few conductors and brakesmen on freight trains who called it Chagnon’s Siding for convenience. She learned now that these people of another unconsidered world, so different from her own, were worth knowing and knowing intimately. They could teach her, as itproved, many things about life of which she was entirely ignorant.
At first, the frankness of French-Canadian conversation about the intimate things of domestic life shocked her dreadfully; but she had all the adaptability of youth, and soon such plain talk made her laugh the while she learned. These crude country people were primitive to her, and in many ways she was primitive to them. There was not a lady or gentleman within miles of us, taking the words “lady” and “gentleman” as they are understood technically, or let us say Socially with a capital S. But Muriel learned from the kindness, willing helpfulness, thoughtfulness and even delicacy of these simple people, what was meant by “nature’s gentlefolk.” Uncultured and ignorant people may be low in a sense, but they are hardly ever vulgar. Pretension and the conceit of a few dollars are the only true vulgarity. Low people may be worth while; vulgar, never.
It seems to be characteristic of the French-Canadian to love to bow and do homage to persons and things which he thinks are superior to him. We were from a world nearly unknown except by hearsay to our little village, so we were marked people, and wherever we went, women courtesied and men touched their hats, except the keeper of the hotel, who was an Irishman. When we came to the post office for our mail, bowing even was not considered sufficient; I have seen half a dozen men come out of the little place and await our entry. I was what was known as “un vrai monsieur.” Such true politeness and deference we have never known since.
It must not be supposed that Muriel alone gained anything from our mill life; I also learnt many things.
Our house being in order, we set about the business of life. The settling of that house was an important matter. Muriel, like most women, had the nest-building instinct highly developed, and enjoyed placing and shifting furniture and trying positions for things many times till they were set exactly right to her mind. A six-inch move of a picture, or the angle at which a sofa was placed across a corner, were matters of serious importance to her.
The period of adjustment to our environment, to the world in general, and to each other in particular, had commenced.
The process of harmonising two unformed characters in the state of marriage is one full of doubts, irritations, and dangers. Usually this period is passed through by young married couples in dense ignorance of what is taking place. If the process is successful the result is due more to good luck than to good management. In a new home, the man and the woman usually have separate notions of what that home should be. These notions are seldom formulated, or very definite; but they are there. The man, for example, has an idea that the new home should be exactly like his father’s, with a few minor differences. The woman has her idea, which is entirely different. Generally these views do not coincide in any one detail, although they may agree at large. When one character is much stronger than the other adjustment takes place more easily perhaps; but at a cost. The weaker character never gets an opportunity to develop. When two characters of nearly equal strength come together friction is nearly inevitable. The two act and react on each other for years until the final adjustment comes or utterly fails to come—the failure, of course, bringing misery. Theknowledge that this period has to be passed through would make it comparatively easy, but most people enter into the marriage state in complete ignorance of what lies before them.
Patience and adaptability, with much love to aid the deliverance, may in the end work wonders, and the coming of babies works miracles. But if boys and girls only learned from fathers and mothers the essential things it is necessary to know about marriage, wonders and miracles would not be so necessary, and many a heartache would be saved.
The foregoing suggests, perhaps, that Muriel and I were not at first as happy as we expected to be, nor were we. We were more or less a disappointment to each other. Traits of character we had hidden unconsciously, or designedly, during courtship, were now discovered and we became frank with each other—much too frank. But we loved, and through love believed in each other, we persevered in working out our destiny. Such as I am, my wife made me, and in making me she made herself. Such as she is I made her, and in making her I made myself. Forming a character in another is much like teaching music. You cannot teach without learning much yourself, and many things are brought home to you while looking at the instrument in the learner’s hands that you could not have discovered by having the instrument in your own.
Our period of adjustment lasted many years, during which time we often lost patience exactly at the wrong instant, often doubted when we should have trusted each other, and often thought our hasty marriage a dreadful failure. Many flyings apart in fierce warlike heat, followed by shamefaced but peaceful and wisereunions, we went through, all to a good end. We could not help these things, for we knew no better.
We had been married several weeks, and I had become what I considered a serious man of affairs, when a dove of peace came unexpectedly to us. It arrived in the shape of a fat brother of Muriel’s, who, until then, had hardly counted in our selfish scheme of things. We received him with gladness. After he had spent a day taking in our house with its surroundings, he was pleased to declare our position in the economy of things, “bully.” The fat brother, Eugene by name (commonly known as “Gene”), inspected with a keen eye the mill, the house, the pig, the cow, and everything we labelled with that beloved pronoun our; and all was “bully” to him. He stayed three days with us, and then returned to Montreal to tell his people there what he had seen.
These days at the mill were downright solid full days, out of which we sucked much happiness, and much practical sense that was to prove useful to us. I see now what a great thing it was to have been far away from relatives determined to do good, but who do as a rule nothing but harm at such a time. Young men and young women are fond of saying to each other, “You are all the world to me,” or something equally romantic and unmeaning; and in this there is little harm. But when such superlatives are taken for truth, or an attempt is made to make them come true, it is found impossible; for no one person can be all the world to another. When you find the exception which proves the rule, you find a poor one-sided life, without breadth or depth.
As between Muriel and me, I was the first one todiscover this truth. Muriel found it much later. It was long before either of us was willing to allow the other full freedom, to enjoy things and people in his or her own way. The necessary adjustment proceeded in our case with more or less worry; but our love for each other was a real thing, and the days flew by with more than ordinary happiness in them.
It was my nature, when annoyed or disappointed, to fly up to fever heat, explode and come down as quickly as I went up, and then forget the incident which brought about my excitement. But I soon learned to modify this and to hold myself in check. Muriel’s nature was to sulk and balk for days at a time when thwarted. Giving way to our natures and tempers was quite frequent in the first year of our marriage; but we learned the folly of it, and practised more and more control. When Muriel was in a sulky mood, I found it wise to be kept busy at the mill, making good use of my carpenter’s tools, with which I was fast becoming an adept. Muriel was not one of your self-enervating women, and by no means a clinger. She was indolent and luxury-loving, it is true, but she demanded energy and action in me. She did not herself desire to lead, but she wanted to be led vigorously in the direction she thought best.
Learning things gradually became a passion with me, and made of me something of a student. I gave much time to books which were often bought up to the very limit of our scanty purse. I became also a chess-player, a musician, and I must add, a scribbler; but it will be seen, I never became a business-man. My craving for knowledge was so great that I spread myself over too much ground. I wanted to know so many things. Nothing was too abstruse for me toattempt to learn, and I even spent some months over the curious pseudo-science of astrology.
I most sincerely recommend hobbies to young married men as a healthy diversion. A newly-married woman may think she needs her husband every instant of his leisure; but really she does not; and he is a very foolish man who attempts to satisfy any such desire. People are just like foods, if you have too much of them they pall upon you. The gratification of my thirst for knowledge gave Muriel a wholesome relief from my constant presence.
I learned chess from a book, and played on my home-made chess-board for years before I ever met an opponent. I tried to teach Muriel, but she had not the patience for it, and preferred a book, music, or letter writing. She wrote charming letters when she felt in the humour. When we arrived at the stage when we could ask each other “What areyougoing to do this evening?” instead of “What shallwedo?” we were at the beginning of marriage wisdom. I was often hasty with the poor little girl, blaming her for things for which I love her to-day.
There is only one way to love a woman, and that is to love her faults and all; meanwhile you must learn to rid yourself of such faults as are objectionable to her. I was blind in those days, I did not see that fate had given me a great gift ... one who had in her the makings of a broad-minded woman. I did not realise that it was no ordinary girl who had come to me out of the lap of luxury, but a woman who would make a good human comrade. I have a natural reticence which prevents my putting into cold print for unsympathetic eyes, details of the early developments of our married life.
You must understand that I am not out to write a full and complete chronicle, or give a vivid and exhaustive word-picture of those days. I am only jotting down their salient impressions, and the thoughts they provoke, leaving much between the lines for those who can read there.