Louie's married life — Context and Discussion

XVI. A FEVERISH DREAM

XVIII. HEART TO HEART

"Sweetheart, sweetheart," I hear the two clear notes, And see the sunlight shining through the shower; "Sweetheart," how faintly from the meadow floats The early fragrance of the cuckoo-flower! The wind is keen, and April skies are grey; But love can wait till rain-clouds break apart; And still the bird sings through the longest day; "Sweetheart, sweetheart."

When lives are true, the springtide never dies, When souls are one, the love-notes never cease; Our bird sings on beneath the cloudy skies, Our little world is full of light and peace; Fresh as the breath of violets new-born Comes the sweet thought to hearts that cannot part, "After the night of weeping breaks the morn, "Sweetheart, sweetheart."

SURELY no one would ever believe that this song was written by a Londoner, and yet I, who wrote it, am a Londoner in heart and soul. But I was born far away in the country, and all the familiar sights and sounds of old days lend themselves to my rhymes, so that I oftener sing of fields, and birds, and flowers, than of those things which are always before my eyes. Moreover, as all authors know, it is sometimes easier to write of the unseen than of the seen, and these home fields of mine have borrowed much of their beauty from the glamour of distance.

It is because this tale is called "Louie's Married Life," that I shall give you my songs. They were all written for Ronald to sing to the accompaniment of his guitar; and if it had not been for Ronald, I hardly think that they would ever have been written at all. For if I had married somebody else (as I nearly did, once upon a time), this little flame of song which is in me would have been extinguished altogether, and I should have become the dullest woman in the world. These songs are a part of my life as a wife.

I daresay, however, that many people have wasted a great deal of pity on the wife of Ronald Hepburne; and if they do not openly point at the lines on my forehead and the crow's feet at the corners of my eyes, they convey by looks and tones their deep distress on seeing my altered appearance. I admit that they have every possible right to indulge in polite lamentations. Never having been a buxom woman, I had not much flesh to lose; and nursing through long days, and watching through longer nights, have left upon me certain traces which are not likely to be effaced, even in this present time of peace.

When I wrote the foregoing little song, it was early in an April morning; the only sunbeams that I could see were shining on brick walls, blackened with smoke; and the only sky that I could see was a patch of pale blue above the chimney-tops. But, as I lifted my head from my pillow, a feeling of unutterable gratitude thrilled me through and through: it was the last night that we should ever spend in that dreary London room, and Ronald had been sleeping soundly and long. Weeping may endure for a night (and with me it had endured for many nights), but joy cometh in the morning.

I thought of all the other watchers in the crowded houses around me, of mothers counting the hours by the beds of sick children, of wives who had agonised as I had done and prayed as I had prayed; and then, as I looked at Ronald's face, in the dim dawn, I began to recall the note of an early bird in my old country home—and so the song was made.

We had only been married six months when Ronald was stricken with fever. First a slight cold, a few days of languor and depression, and then, before I had had time to realise the danger, he was face to face with death. So the battle for life was fought and won in the dark chamber of a London lodging, and on that April morning I was tasting the first sweets of the great deliverance.