A Wife's Lament

The woes of marriage and going mad.

There was always a way about Henry. He was neither man nor beast, but simply existing. There was nothing about him that I desired, and yet I knew I could never leave him. Not by a lack of choice, but by a lack of will. I no more wanted to leave than I wanted to stay, and this vexed me to my very core. What was to become of me if I remained his bride under the thatched roof? What would I dare to become should I leave? I had exhausted my father’s money long ago, and I had killed mother from the womb. I had lived as a whisper; silent and untouched, until Henry caught my gaze. He was a happy fellow with sharp eyes and a tongue to match, but he took to the drink more often than not. In time I would learn it was the drink to which he owed his renowned character. Sober, the man was a horror, and not in the way one might think. He had never laid a hand on me, and his temper would never flare, but he became such an awful bore. One might say, a dry Henry would be of just as much use dead as alive. He loved me well enough I suppose, but love without intention seems a rather pitiful thing. With no whiskey to be had, the man would simply stare at the wall for hours. If it weren’t for his great fortunes, I would have left long ago, but my lack of education and wealth were determined to keep me at his bidding, and for that I grew to loathe him. One morning I very nearly seasoned his porridge with arsenic, but thought better of it not a moment too soon. I have yet to outlive the shame, but my regret is far greater.

In the years to come, Henry would be driven to insanity, and I would follow suit. As a young woman, I had fancied going a wee mad. The idea of becoming nothing to everyone, and not knowing my left from my right seemed altogether peaceful; a life of abandonment for which no one could place blame. But on the day when the insanity first took hold of Henry I began to retract the wishes of my younger self. I could see the sadness in his eyes when he was unable to recall my name, or the fear he felt when he was certain the demons in the cellar were plotting to kill him. And it was only a matter of time before those demons would hunt me too. On the days when I could muster a coherent thought I wondered to what I owed my withered mind, and pondered if a life without Henry would have had fuller prospects. There are days when I wished I had left him, even to become a mere vagrant on the streets. The life of a w***e seemed more worthwhile than the bag of flesh I had become, and to see Henry deteriorate more and more each day only quickened my mind’s undoing. I know I must have loved him in the beginning. I was a clever woman, not one to be toyed with, and so how else could I have become entwined with such a man? Or perhaps I had simply been mad from birth and Henry was the first of many demons to emerge from the cellar. I no longer set to leave him, I was far too old and worn for that, but I often dreamed of what life could have been had I not coddled the demon to whom I gave my vows.