At Long Last Sooth, N. Barry Carver [e ink epub reader .txt] 📗

Being quite ancient now, I can reveal the truth and, to some I hope it will be a satisfying one.

It was just horrible, and my poor kinsman should never have died, but how else could we ever have been together? Shouldn’t love conquer all? We always thought so.

Let me think now, I’d hate to get the facts wrong–as I’m the only one left who knows them.

It was late in spring. The olives had feathery white blossoms and were everywhere out in the country. The larks had shaken off the cold and sang brightly to persuade the dawn to come each morning. I loved their sound until the one morning they stole my lover from my arms.

I was a young maid and knew nothing of the usual ways of the world. My father had quite a business going and we were, perhaps, the best loved family in town. One of two certainly. So I was kept from a great many things, had servants to wait on me and others to look after my care. Everything was arranged for me in tidy little events and ceremonies... and it would have all gone that way, but I could not control my heart. I’m not complaining, just stating a fact.

Of course my love, and the hero of my every story, had to be the son of the other great house in town. His manners may have been a bit crude, but he had been well-raised and was beautifully made. The moment he first kissed my hand... I was his. I think many of you maids now weeping have wished yourself in my place in that part of our story.

We were teenagers and in those lithe bodies love is an all-consuming fire.

To say that our families opposed our romance, or that they just plain opposed one another is like saying that winter on the far end of the earth is prone to be a bit cool. Just the mention of the family name, in the presence of the other family, was enough to get steel drawn and fists thrown.

On this late spring day, the town’s holy man, a Friar Laurence by name, was engaged to finish the deed my lover and I had begun the night before–to join us forever. You may think, having known my betrothed such a short time, it was foolish to have done this. I promise you there was nothing else that could be done. You see, having had all things arranged for me up to that time it was only natural that my parents would have planned and provided for a wedding and a husband. Now that my heart had made another choice... how could I dishonor myself by submitting to their plan? So, since love was sure and the other arrangement had to be made impossible, we needed to marry as soon as we could and, for my new husband’s safety, we could not do so publicly.

Knowing that our every movement was watched, both by our families and now by our good friar, we, in the short space we had together, made a plan to cut ourselves a life from the fabric of our families. Many egos were to be bruised and much grief spread but, as I have said, we were young, passions were strong and it was all based on, what time has proven to be, a true and life-long love.

We schemed to make it appear that, betrayed by our families desire to keep us apart, we had taken our lives. It was settled that we should be discovered seemingly dead in my family’s tomb, he by poison and I, in honor of tradition and symbol, should take his dagger to my heart.

Since we knew that our families, and others I am sure, saw this all unfolding as a play, we never offered each other even so much as a wink or sly remark, but played our parts soulfully with many a sigh and an ocean of tears. But his poison was no more than vile-flavored tonic and the dagger he wore, for me to take, hid a spring beneath its dulled blade.

Once all was set, he went off into the country, to Mantua, to prepare a house for us. It is the very house we have lived in for the last nearly three-score years. Our son and daughters were born into it and, far from the palace of my former life in Verona, it was nonetheless a completely joyous home. He took our plan in his head, my love in his heart, bought the potion from an apothecary and the stage dagger from the theatre we have supported in our later lives.

When all was set and my parents believed I was readying to marry my cousin Paris, Friar Laurence interjected his plan. This was where the worst of trouble had its genesis. I could not tell the friar that I’d already made a similar, if better, plan and risk his bumbling to expose it all. So I took on the suggestions that he made trusting only that my new husband would see through any of it and pull the best result from the confusion. I was only disappointed in the one thing I have mentioned already.

I did not know how much my cousin Paris was infatuated with me.

When I was laid to rest–resting only in a taste of the potion the friar had brought–Paris chose to visit my grave. If there is one thing I could undo, it would be that. When my true love arrived, he and Paris had words while I slept. Both overcome with the other passions of youth they fought and, again, true love steadies the steel of those who fight for it... and poor Paris was slain.

Life is never all joy. I don’t think it can be. It must have its tragedy and remorse or the joys and triumph have no counterbalance by which they can be judged. Our joys have had this one bitter price and though the debt was made in youth, I make the payments still, even at this hour and on this solemn occasion.

I must further confess that I have long understood this price and, for the love and life it bought me, may heaven forgive me, I would pay this price again.

After we were discovered in the tomb, as we had planned, and with bloodied Paris there to convince all that what they saw was real, we came away here to Mantua and lived our quiet lives. We have become great in this community under secret names and a forged past, all of which I today lay aside.

I stand before you now as one who has loved deeply, paid greatly and now mourn beyond all measure. I leave my house today, and the life we have made in it, and return with my beloved husband to Verona... to return him to his family and the tomb of his forbearers.

There I shall wait with him for my hour to come and then I shall lie as was intended by his side, forever. He gave me love. He made my long, full life into something I controlled, and he defied death to do it. Only now that he is gone, and I am soon to follow, can I do what women do and bind this old wound to make our families whole again.

I am Juliet Montague. I renounce all other names. And on the bier is my husband, my one love and my hero: Romeo.

Text: © 2012 Barry Carver
Publication Date: 05-23-2012

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