The Vow

Reader, I implore your forgiveness for the crime I must detail. What I have done was not of my own choice, for had it been so I would have bled dry my throat before even the slightest urge to commit such an act overcame me. Circumstances, such as they were, forced my hand, and should God at the gates to which Death leads us all ask me the reason for my trespass I shall provide this account verbatim.

Still, I fear that I shall descend to Hell before this opportunity is presented to me, and have long done so. Throughout my life I have endured many spiritual and religious encounters—the voice of my mother in my ear upon the morning of her death, a white dove at my window on what would have been the seventh birthday of a sister born dead, and numerous séances which I have carried out with much success. For this reason I have long been convinced of my damnation, and all for the crime of satisfying a debtor whose threats I dared not ignore.

Initially I had made my vow to repay that person in the belief that I should never be in the position to see it through. We were, after all, some twenty years apart in age, and I was convinced that I should die before my promise was due, leaving a weighty sum on which she would survive handsomely in my absence. I had made my fortune as a young man, and had entered into my later years satisfied that these funds should go to a worthy use.

My wife, to whom I had first been introduced by a family friend, was dearer to me at that time than I have language to describe. She had hair like night in a bluebell valley, a black that was akin to blue, as were her eyes, which, though small, were balanced by the delicacy of her countenance. Her nose was narrow, cleft and upturned at the tip, and her mouth was full and pleasing. She was slim and little, and of light and freckled skin, her form even in the most modest garb so shapely that I would dream of it through long days into night.

Being that I was certainly no match in physical appearance it would never have occurred to me that she might regard me as a potential marriage prospect. Indeed, following our first meeting I became convinced that Violet hated me, an impression that only deepened throughout each of our subsequent encounters.

She would look slyly at me from her long eyes, then stand with her face angled away from me as though displeased by the prospect of our stares meeting again. In conversation she would speak sharply, cutting across my stuttering attempts at pleasantries or enquiry about her adventures across the globe, which I had been told she was in frequent habit of embarking on. She would refuse even the merest physical contact with me, and I once saw her wipe her gloved hand upon her skirts after I had taken it in greeting.

If amidst a group of acquaintances Violet would make remarks that were, without question, intended to outline some social blunder I had previously made or to criticise my appearance, resulting in a wave of tittering laughter. On such occasions I would excuse myself, red-faced, vowing nevermore to suffer the misfortune of her vicious company.

Again and again I was rebuffed and humiliated, and likewise made repeat attempts to extract myself from Violet’s presence, yet at the insistence of family and friends I was made to suffer her on what seemed almost a weekly occasion. I could not fathom what, besides outward appearance, they deemed of quality in this young woman, nor why they were so intent on forging a match between us. Violet held the attentions of many men younger and livelier than I, none of whom were treated half so cruelly nor with such open disregard.

I believed that they were all involved in some great joke, or else were blind to the behaviours I assumed were obvious to even the most innocent observing eye. In irritation I withdrew from social events in the hope that Violet would depart for one of her famous trips by the time I had developed the courage to return.

It was this self induced seclusion, however, that compelled the woman to pay a visit to my abode, which I accepted reluctantly, and with much suspicion. Rather stiffly I suggested that I might walk with her across the grounds, and for the first time she accepted my arm without complaint, her usual mockery having much abated. She had arrived, in fact, in a mode of abashment and concern, which I did not for a moment believe in.

Her pretence at such emotions fascinated me. Violet reminded me of a little black fox with her sharp, clever features. Her ebony curls of hair were pinned beneath an emerald hat, and there was some cosmetic about her dark eyes that enhanced their blue. Yet what a blue, itself almost black, only the light that touched them revealing otherwise.

The woman repulsed me, and captivated me entirely.

As we walked together Violet proclaimed to have much missed me at meetings between our shared acquaintances, and had at length extracted the news that I disliked her and refused to remain in her society. Violet declared that she had been troubled to hear this news, and had come to enquire how that should be so.

I told her outright that she had treated me most poorly, and that it should be of little wonder to her that I should remove myself from such scenes.

In response to this Violet laughed and claimed that her comport was merely how she expressed her affections.

Being unmoved by this profession, I commented that she seemed able to engage my peers in a far more cordial manner. To this Violet protested that she had only friendly feelings for these gentlemen and nothing more, and had she any passionate inclinations towards one or any of them they, too, would have experienced this same breed of communication.

I was a little comforted by this explanation, yet not entirely convinced. At my greater years I had not the looks of my youthful counterparts, nor was my wealth as vast as some others with whom we were both familiar. Upon my expressing this Violet emitted a pretty laugh, and denied that either value held any particular interest for her.

“Well, then,” I said, nonplussed. “How is it that I, above these others, have gained the pleasure of your attentions?”

Violet afforded me another of her rare and lovely smiles, which alone would have bound me to her even had she failed to speak another word. As it transpired, she proceeded to explain that it was my piety and the rumoured skill of clairvoyance which my family line had long possessed that had cemented her desire to be my wife.

This admission, too, astonished me, for Violet seemed to me a modern woman with little interest in religious or spiritual matters. I could not think of a respectful method in which to express this opinion, however, and so we walked for some time in silence, the discomfort of which compelled Violet to elucidate upon her bizarre announcement in greater detail.

It had long been her belief that her very strength of will would persist after death, and that any wishes she had determined prior to that passing would be seen out to their end by her ghostly remnants. Though unable to detail what had inspired this opinion, Violet was adamant in taking a partner that would honour any earthly requests no matter the cost upon his conscience or his soul. Therefore only a person with resolute and immovable belief in God and the afterlife could be considered, qualities Violet had found sorely lacking in her suitors until our introduction.

Hearing this I was moved to laugh, for I found it unlikely that Violet had not come upon men far more closely intertwined with either subject across her lengthy travels. Yet Violet swore that she had compared all those that she considered against her great ideal, and had found all lacking or incompatible in some regard.

“It is you, Irvin,” she said, “that met all the parameters I had set for my betrothed. Being that I am an orphan, my aunt has been my guardian since I was a girl, and she is, as you know, greatly in favour of the match. It is why she and my cousins have made it their foremost duty to bring us together in whatever ridiculous and unlikely meeting they could devise. I should not wish to disappoint them, nor should you, I would think.”

Violet was not incorrect in that assumption, her aunt being a most formidable and persistent woman, and her cousins, though pleasant, sensitive to embarrassment and quick to turn to spite should they, for any reason, suffer it.

This alone should have given me pause to refuse, but Violet stopped me then under a trellis of roses, and the sight of her pale face brightened by hope against this gentle view moved my heart with a brilliant intensity. I felt that to refuse this woman would be a cruelty only the coldest specimen of man could enact, and in that moment I forgave all the shame and uneasiness that I had suffered through her, trusting her words completely.

As petals fell like blood from a wound in the heart of springtime itself I took one of Violet’s fragile hands in mine and asked her to marry me.

Within the month we were wed, much to the delight of our friends and supporters, and the chagrin of those who had doubtless hoped to claim her for themselves.

I had never seen so beautiful a creature as my bride, her slight figure in a gown that shifted and glittered like the sea. She charmed our guests immaculately, eliciting smiles and laughter wherever she went. Much of the day she spent upon my arm, a rare point of pride that I thanked God he should permit.

Upon our wedding night I lay Violet down upon my bed, and we made love with only the most vital garments having been done away with. Yet almost at once her domineering manner reasserted its presence, for I found myself pinned with her atop me, her frame possessing greater strength and aggression than even I, her previous enemy, would have imagined of her.

She rode upon me with a near violence, put her hands about my neck and struck my face from one cheek to the next, seemingly thrilled by my fearful reaction. I did not parry her blows or attempt to mollify her excitement, for I was aware of its rousing affect upon her, quickly resulting in her crisis and mine.

For hours she made such a sport of my flesh, awarding kisses and utterances of comfort to me only when she had taken her fill of the act and lay breathless beside me.

Being startled by her assertion and apparent expertise in the arts of congress I dared ask Violet if she had taken any previous lovers, a question she declined to answer, a smirk at her lips. Never in all our years of marriage did she reveal the truth of her experience, though from private investigation into the matter it was revealed to me that she had taken several partners to her bed, female companions among their number.

I was discrete enough that I did not bring this to her attention, however, concealing my disappointment with an exaggerated devotion, which I lavished upon Violet from the very first. Every demand she put forth to me I hurried to answer, furnishing her rooms in a most luxurious fashion, sourcing exotic pets and rare artefacts to inspire conversation throughout the many social occasions hosted at our abode. My bride never wanted for gowns nor jewellery, never consumed a meal that did not ignite her tastes with passion and delight.

Should she wish to travel I arranged and accompanied her to her destination, although we did not holiday much during the early years of our marriage. Violet soon fell pregnant with our first and only son, a condition she suffered with much complaint, being sore and bilious until the day that he was born. While lying, sour-faced and round-bellied amidst a veritable ocean of cushions Violet declared that she would never bear another infant as long as she lived, and being that I and our harried servants had been much exhausted by the affair I gladly conceded.

It was immediately evident that Violet had no liking for children, and thus the boy was raised mainly by a governess until he was of an age that he could be sent away to school. My bride was somewhat cheered by this arrangement, although her demeanour remained as withering and imperious as I had long known it to be.

In spite of this we were great friends, and so were very rarely apart. I learned to take courage and return some of her cutting jokes with those of my own devising, which she would receive with a sniff or, infrequently, a hard, high laugh which meant that I had surprised her with my wit.

Violet would involve me in her private thoughts about people and the world—most, if not all, were mocked and taunted for their slightest flaw, an unkindness I took part in if only to avoid attracting such insults myself for the cowardice of failing her expectations.

The sensual intimacy between us was steered by my wife and quite as vicious as it had been on our wedding night. I came to develop a taste for it, though I often dreamt that Violet would soften to me, allow me to kiss the ivory velvet of her face and breasts with the very tenderness she withheld from me. Yet I knew by then that such gestures were detested by her, and I had learned that I was to never seek out her touch, only to hope for the infrequent instances of pity in which she would lavish them upon me.

It was this longing that kept me from seeking an end to our union, though to part from her would have brought me mercy and relief. There were also ways that I was able to procure Violet’s favour, namely performing séances and other spiritual forms of spectacle to entertain her and her odious friends. I prayed intently upon the matter, for it seemed to me that I sullied the gift that God had bestowed upon me by reducing it to a shallow parlour trick.

Yet to serve my wife was my most vital earthy duty, and so I continued to perform for her whenever she called upon me to do so. Afterwards I would apologise at length to any ghost I felt I had offended with this theatre and hope that I would not soon be asked to engage in it again.

It was in the fifth summer of our marriage that, following an evening in which we conferred with a particularly disgruntled ghost, Violet was moved to explain the true cause of her spiritual fascination.

We were sitting together on a settee in the conservatory when she told me, watching the sun spill like unset amber through its walls of glass. This sight, as well as the touch of Violet’s hand to mine and her soft voice at my ear had an effect on me of utter mesmerism. She laid her head upon my shoulder, and I knew even within my stupor that she was to ask some favour of me that I would find disagreeable.

“Dearest,” Violet said. “You recall that I have long felt a kinship with the restless spirits you are able to summon for conversation, namely those that remain to see out what business their living relatives have not yet concluded.”

“Yes,” I said. “I could hardly forget. What of it? You are still young; surely it is not yet the night you must proclaim your dying wish.”

Violet’s fingers tightened upon my hand.

“I mean to make it known while I am still in possession of my health and faculties so that you cannot doubt me or the serious nature of the request.”

“Then speak it,” I commanded gently. “You know that I am your closest servant, and will not vex you by failing in a matter of such importance to you.”

“I pray that you may not,” said Violet, “for I can imagine no other that would accept this task.”

A chill crossed my shoulders, then, but still I persuaded her to speak. Later I would curse that I had done so, for it occurred to me that had I showed even a hint of disinclination the entire scenario would have been forgotten. Violet looked slyly at me from beneath her lashes, and as she ran her thumb across my paling knuckles she outlined the dreadful task I was to carry out after her death had come.

And oh, such words she spoke. They were sufficient to transform even the warmest current of blood into a tributary of frost.

Each sentence uttered enveloped me in a horror far greater and more wretched than before until I could scarce suffer the touch of my bride or her presence beside me. Thrice I attempted to quit her company, and thrice she drew me back, her eyes incensed with the ferocity of her need to have her will be done.

“After my last breath,” she said to me, “you must lie with my inanimate body before the dawn, or I will remain to torment you and all of your blood until you are driven to death or madness through that haunting. The coupling must be carried to completion, or I will not find my rest.”

“How can you ask such a thing of me?” I cried, aghast. “It is a crime! A sin! It is the most foul and deplorable trespass against nature!”

Violet waved this away with a callous disinterest.

“It is the most natural of unions.”

“Amongst the living, yes!” I cried. “What you ask of me—it cannot be done! Your body lifeless, chill—”

“If you are quick it will be warm,” said Violet casually. “That is why it is imperative for you to lie with me that first night. Before I am made vile by death and decay, and while my soul remains tied to my earthly shell.”

I could scarce believe the serenity of her countenance, unperturbed by the ghastly subject upon which we conversed.

“Good god,” I said. “How can you ask this of me?”

At length Violet explained that never in life could she submit to any man, being unable to bear it without violent objection. Only in death would she be free to accept that dominion, after which she would at last have experienced all the love and vulnerability that had been withheld from her by her own nature. Having achieved this longed-for state she would go peacefully to her rest and trouble me no further.

“No, Violet!” I bellowed. “I will not do it! You cannot mean this!”

“I do!” Violet cried with passion. “And you, my husband, must grant me my desire, or else be cursed to suffer my revenge!”

Gripped by fear and disgust I got up from the chaise lounge, and shaking my wife’s hands from me I fled the conservatory, looking back but once to see her white face at one of its panes, transfixed in thwarted fury.

I avoided Violet for some weeks after this discussion, though she made frequent attempts to arrest me, clutching my arms and pleading with me to relent. She even attempted to wear down my resolve with kisses and uncharacteristically gentle speech in the hope that I should waver. Dread of what she had asked of me was my guard against doing so.

I kept to my own rooms, or else went on outings that took me far from the house whose corridors she skulked like a beautiful wraith.

Yet she was not to be defeated. Through relatives and our shared friends I learned that she had taken to sitting about the house in modes of despair, clutching one of her many dogs and kittens to her bosom as she spoke in hoarse tones of her hurt and melancholy. I was frequently urged by acquaintances to reconcile with my wife, and being unable to explain what precisely had driven us apart I would only mumble some vague and indistinct claim of addressing the conflict at some other date.

It was my Aunt Agnes whom proved most forceful in her opinions regarding our reunion, for being close friends with Violet’s formidable guardian she had known my wife since she was young. At tea one afternoon my aunt took hold of my wrist and shook it fiercely about, embarrassing me with her reproach.

“I tell you, nephew, you simply must make it up with her,” she scolded. “What do you mean by causing the poor child such distress?”

“Distress indeed!” I said, attempting without success to extricate myself from my relative’s sturdy grip. “If you only knew what she would have me do on her behalf!”

“If it is so terrible then you must tell me in confidence,” Agnes insisted. “You may trust in my secrecy. My only wish is to aid you in your happiness.”

I looked at our joined hands and shuddered, recalling that Violet’s had clasped my own with like ferocity.

“I cannot speak of it, I swear it,” I said. “Know only that to carry out this abominable act would condemn my very soul to Hell! You and I share equal terror of the afterlife, having glimpsed enough of it to pray daily, nay hourly for salvation. You must believe that if I fulfil my wife’s dearest wish I would never chance to find it, such is its depravity.”

My aunt sat sharply upright in her seat in some alarm.

“Dear, sweet Violet—surely she would not put you at such a dire risk, nor conjure thoughts so reviled.”

“You know her little,” I said gravely. “She is capable of this and more.”

My aunt appeared to deliberate internally over the matter.

After some time had passed, she said, “Perhaps Violet could be satisfied merely with the promise to enact her will. She may forget what she so dearly craved as years of joy go by, and you will be free of the obligation. When are you expected to commit the act?”

“After she is dead.”

“Well, then. Commit a minor sin to save yourself from the greater. Such sacrifice is necessary for the health of any marriage.”

I attempted to object, but soon I saw that this was the only option available to me, and that if I did not care to carry out the loathsome deed then I must take my aunt’s advice.

That night I attended dinner with my wife for the first time since our schism had begun. She was stiff and remote, scarcely eating the food set before her, though from her frail and hollow-cheeked appearance the meal would have done her good. Evidently Violet had readied herself for a further, more apologetic rejection; upon my acceptance of her terms she seemed surprised and more than a little distrustful of my change of heart.

“If it is what I must do to keep you at my side then you have my word,” I told her, attempting to take one of her stiff hands into mine. “You may thank my aunt for her counsel on the matter. I believe that she would rather me fall down dead than see us parted.”

This, at least, was truthful enough; the family would have been appalled had I initiated a separation or divorce, a mark against all their names.

Something of this must have leant a note of honesty to my speech, for Violet warmed to me then, and thanked me for having changed my mind with raptures of embrace.

Our life together returned to its previous incarnation, and this comparative joy kept me from thinking of the vow again for many years, at least at any length. Whenever my memory of it arose I pushed it firmly back, engaging myself in my small hobbies, in the love of my son, and in the church.

Violet I still adored, for though she remained quite as complex as ever she had been I became comfortable with her manner, learning how to appease her most cantankerous moods and to encourage the sweeter to present within her.

Two decades transpired in this fashion, and all thoughts of breaking our union or else abandoning my wife had long been discarded. Physically Violet had aged very little, her beauty untouched by time but for the merest lines about her mouth and eyes. Her health, however, began to suffer in her fortieth year to the extent that the doctor was our most frequent and devoted visitor.

What ailed my wife he could not say, having examined her for many a disease. Her symptoms were common to many of these illnesses, being that she was frequently in pain or vastly fatigued, but when attempted all treatments failed or else provoked a new, puzzling symptom until it was surmised that she had developed some other sickness entirely.

Most days Violet lay abed, surrounded by the flowers and gifts her many friends and admirers had provided, coughing weakly as Dr Ryland took the temperature of her sweating brow or poured medical concoctions for her to sup on.

It seemed likely that he was in love with my wife, but I confess that I took little notice of it, preoccupied rather by the returning dread of the task which I had promised to commit. Though Violet insisted that she would recover, I felt Death’s presence as though it was another visitor in the room and shuddered at its proximity.

As the months went on I saw that Violet, too, had begun to consider her mortality and its implications. Her interest in religion and spirituality became intense in focus, and if there was not a priest calling at the house I would find her turning the pages of the Bible with sickly fingers or muttering a prayer. Yet her fervour was far from pious or pure; what she sought from God was her continued life after death in ethereal form.

That Violet still held to this wish vexed and disturbed me, which to the best of my abilities I concealed. Even in this weakened state my wife was capable of a cold and nasty rage, battering with words rather than a raised hand. Should I upset her in any way she would whisper to her allies, and they would all be against me, shunning me in society until Violet’s mood abated.

It wearied me, this power she had over my person, and had I not loved her as dearly as I had grown to I would have resented her for it. Yet even as closely as I held her to my breast I felt disgust at the prospect of her body, stiff and lifeless in my grasp, the red lips paling to the grey of an austere sea. It maddened me that she would place her selfish lust for experience over the agony I would endure.

There was no doubt in my mind then that Violet was aware of my displeasure, for as her strength dwindled she would grasp hold of me as I bent down to kiss her at night, her hot, stale breath washing across my face in a poison vapour.

“You will still keep your promise to me, won’t you?” she whispered. “You have not lied to me?”

“No,” I would say through a smile that pained me to create. “I remain true, always.”

It seemed cruel to trouble her with distress when it was clear by then that she was dying. Enoch, who was frequently away with friends, had returned from one of his colourful adventures to keep his mother company, unaware that his presence only irritated and provoked her. She still loathed him for having plagued her body both through the carrying and birth of him; only to maintain her reputation did she tolerate him and withhold her disdain.

“My dear son,” I said to him on a night Violet appeared particularly unwell. “You should return to the lodgings of your friend—Hollingsbury, was it? Your mother is far stronger than she appears, and I believe that peace and quietude will do her the most good.”

I saw a strange expression come over Enoch’s friendly visage that I perceived with some confusion to be mistrust.

“I do not wish for her to be alone,” Enoch said firmly. “She has never been so. I cannot bear to think of it.”

“Then you must not,” I replied. “She will have her visitors, the servants, and I will be beside her always. If death seems close I will send for you.”

Reluctantly Enoch went away, although he lingered for some time at the front of the house, his face still twisted with that same dark look that had previously altered it. I was insulted that he did not seem consoled by my presence, but in spite of Violet’s neglect he had always been his mother’s most strident acolyte, having taken her side in every feud and dispute between us.

My son’s egress relieved my spirits somewhat, and I returned to Violet’s side to observe her as she slumbered.

The following week all seemed uncertain, however.

Even the weather appeared to reflect this, the damp August heat giving way to an unseasonable chill. The skies offered not a quarter that was not drawn over by a quilt of cloud. Wind blew the trees at a near horizontal position across the land, and there was a putrid stench in the air that could not be accounted for.

Though Violet perceived little of this from her room it seemed to have some agitating effect on her, nevertheless.

“Send the servants away for the day, for Heaven’s sake,” she muttered. “I can hear them wittering and moving about through the walls like damned mice.”

She was sitting up in bed that day, and had even walked about the room a little, which she had been incapable of for some time. I did not regard this change with optimism, however, aware that it was common for the dying to rally before the end.

I knew that was why Violet wished to be alone in the house: she had always hated to be vulnerable, and there could not be a more fragile state than the point of passing from one world into the next. Conscious of this, I was gentle with her, tolerating her every sharp word and complaint with such warmth that my responses seemed to embarrass her into better behaviour.

She touched my arm lightly, her trembling hand still as pretty and delicate as a girl’s.

“I would like to go down to the conservatory,” she said. “Will you take me there? I have always found such peace in that place. The flowers there must be in full bloom, by now.”

“They are indeed glorious,” I answered. “Let us go down at once.”

Violet allowed me to lift her slim body into my arms and carry her downstairs and out across the grass, shivering in her thin nightdress as the wind tore at its hem. I got the conservatory door open and set my wife down on the chaise lounge, pulling a blanket over her to soothe the sickly tremor that had stolen through her. It was pleasant to care for her, to see her weak and grateful for my attentions; I sat running a hand through her black hair, listening to the groaning of the quasi storm at work beyond our shelter.

Violet drifted in and out of sleep, her face made innocent by repose. Half an hour transpired before her eyes fully opened again, settling not on the flowers or the small pool we kept in the conservatory but upon my face, suddenly and wildly aware of what was to become of her.

I withdrew from her, recalling at once her expectations, which I knew then had not abated in the slightest. My wife clung fast to me, her clawing hands like manacles of iron. Her eyes, by contrast, raged with a fever of wicked determination. I watched with dread as her lips parted, but what words she meant to speak did not come. The breath evacuated from her skeletal frame, and she fell back upon the chaise lounge, all colour and animation departing from her.

I knew her to be dead even before I touched her wrist in search of any lasting pulse, of which I found not a single persisting beat. Her eyes lay open, extinguished of all their passion, yet still fixed upon my visage as though they continued to see.

Her skin, already cool in those last days of illness, was chill against the hand that I extended to close the veined lids upon her staring pupils. I confess that the first emotion that came upon me was relief, for though I had loved Violet I had also hated and resented her for her tireless inventions of torment, and would suffer them no more. In spite of this I was rapidly taken up with grief, and I wept over her for some minutes, conscious of the great vacuity her absence would forge within my life.

Then, as I sat and beheld her peaceful corpse the apprehension that had long robbed me of the slightest reprieve made its savage ingress, pressing my heart with such severity that it would have come as no surprise to me if I, too, had passed.

I should have gone to town for the doctor, then, had the death confirmed and my bride prepared for the funeral; if had I done so I would have been surrounded by those responsible for that work, rendering it impossible for me to fulfil my vow. It would have been prudent—nigh, correct—of me to collect my son from his friend’s address to kiss his mother goodbye before she was interred to the grave.
Yet I committed neither act. My clothes became saturated by a wave of perspiration, my body trembling even as I sat immobile with indecision.

Beyond the conservatory the wind dropped as though a door had been closed in the Heavens, and though there had been little noise before but for the calls of passing birds and the rustling trees it seemed then more silent still. Being that afternoon was already spilling into night I became conscious that I had rather less time to contemplate Violet’s wish than I had hoped for.

Though she had not moved and there were yet no signs of any spiritual presence I felt the threat of it about me. Unable to bear the sensation and unnerved by the proximity of my bride’s corpse I stood up and walked the grounds in circles for some hours, deliberating hopelessly over what I must do. As time passed and blackness opened like wings across the borders of the sky I felt the unnatural wind of that afternoon rise again, made impatient by my indecision.

A black sheet torn from some widow’s washing line absconded across the grass, and as it passed me I saw, unmistakably, the shape of a woman pressed within it by the breeze. At this I started back with an awful cry, for I had seen the dead manifest in such forms before, and recognised it as a sign from Violet to make haste. Should I refuse much longer these visitations would increase in number and in strength, this I knew without a doubt.

Indeed, the longer I tarried the more signs of my wife’s continued existence I glimpsed about me: her eyes piercing through the amber clouds, her white figure sliding through the nearby trees. I heard a cry like her voice on the wind.

I turned in all directions, muttering and making the sign of the cross upon my chest, but with each hour I let run from me the more oppressive my misgivings became. I was quite convinced by then that, should I not obey Violet’s command, all I loved dearly should be driven to the madhouse by these apparitions, or else to the grave. The guilt of it I weighed against that to which I would succumb should I lie with my wife again, and saw that it was nobler that I alone should bear that burden.

Yet the mere thought of it churned my innards and punctured the muscle of my lungs to the extreme. I had spent long nights victim to the physical symptoms of this mental and spiritual rigor, and now the day had come that I was to experience the very act I did not know how I could survive it. As though already a criminal I skulked back into the conservatory, flinching at the sight of Violet as I had left her, motionless beneath the blanket that I had drawn up to her breast.

Her eyes had opened again, and had grown sunken, the iris bearing the appearance of fogged glass. I lit a lamp so as to better examine her and found her face as beautiful as it had been in life, if not more so for the absence of vicious humour that had then possessed it. The light I shone across her brought something of colour back into her pallor, and I could imagine for a moment that she still lived, only slept.

The effect convinced me that if I could maintain a pretence of this then perhaps the horror that I had been tasked with would be less vexing to the soul.

With care I drew the blanket from Violet’s brittle form, which I saw clearly now through the slight fabric of her nightdress, the bones of her hips and ribs forming ridges and valleys in the fall of it. I beheld, also, that the closeness of the material fell upon her breasts and between her legs; I held my breath, waiting to see whether horror or some sensual impulse would grasp me first.

Both struck me at once, and I rolled on my feet from the force of it, grasping the arm of the chaise lounge so as not to fall.

Even in death I desired my wife. I could not fathom what madness clawed at my soul nor crept into the brain. Perhaps Violet had sent some devil or spirit of ill-intent to poison me with their influence, or else to force me to alter from my ordinarily moral and pious ways into something entirely evil

A convulsion of illness grasped me, and again I fled the conservatory, my back pressed to one cool wall until the sensation abated. I stood there for some time, thinking, grappling with my terror of damnation, my revulsion of defiling the dead, and what rapidly seemed the most horrific possibility of all: the constant and increasingly monstrous persecution led by the ghost of my wife.

Again I hardened in resolution, and I re-entered the chamber that I had quitted in such haste. I stood at the threshold in shock and disbelief, for all the flowers in the conservatory had petrified into a liquid slop that dripped like blood down the stems.

Violet lay as she had before, unmoved, but her displeasure with my inaction seemed clear to me, as did the validity of her strength in this other, unperceivable form.

Frightened, I stepped forth and with hands palsied with disgust removed my wife’s garments from her. Her muscles had hardened in death, complicating the process in the most disagreeable fashion, yet it was at last done. I cast the nightdress aside and stood uneasily over the white corpse.

The breast was still, untroubled by breath, a length of hair across the left of it like some funeral sash. With tentative fingers I brushed it over Violet’s shoulder, moaning at the sleek, cool sense of it across my hand, then at the horrid stiffness of her body as I attempted to raise her hand to meet my kiss.

Her skin, no longer soft, seemed to resist my caress, it being now like some coarse, unbroken frost. Her mouth, as I peered between the open lips, had dried of moisture, and when I touched to it my own another cramp of bilious terror had me trip back almost to my collapse upon the floor.

“Why did you ask this of me?” I cried, as though the ears now deaf with lifelessness could hear me; her ghost, perhaps, well could. “What hatred of me compelled you to create such a monstrous plan? What can I have done to inspire it?”

No answer came, nor had I expected one. Bereft, I approached the body again and knelt beside it, beginning with kisses again from the frigid mouth to the veined neck, then at last to my wife’s bosom, hating all I did, and still persisting in it.

My flesh crawled and my saliva became like crystals of sand. Still my mouth traversed the rigid belly to the place between her unmet thighs. This mouth, too, I would find parched, I reasoned, and so by tasting it I thought to replenish some of its moisture.

I will not describe the severity of disgust this choice instilled in me, nor the act itself, only that I continued in it until I was certain that the final and most vital process would be possible. Then, with sobs of aversion, I slid up the length of her and placed my hands upon the hips that had once crushed mine in dominating congress, sinking my fingertips into her flesh.

I kissed her mouth again, then guided the length of my reluctant curiosity into the place I had prepared for it, cursing myself as I did it.

How I bore this I cannot say.

The wind beat at the conservatory like the fists of many gods in uproar, the sweet stench of death—both of flesh and of flowers—stifled my lungs so that I knew not how I drew breath. I moved, and it seemed all the world changed its course with me, the chamber tilting and twisting about me until the contents of my stomach threatened to give themselves up as offerings to the occasion.

The corpse beneath me flinched with the action upon it, in particular the face, which like a serpent’s head appeared to weave and taunt even as I gave its owner what she had so dearly craved. Her dead eyes seemed to take on a horrible force of life, and I believed without question that Violet had possessed her corpse in this moment so that she might experience what I did, accepting the submission that she had never allowed herself upon this earthly plane.

Only it was not submission at all, I realised, only another insidious breed of domination.

“Damn you,” I said, and I closed my hands about Violet’s throat as though she might be killed again.

I myself reached a kind of death, then, of the flesh and of the soul. Horror with myself consumed me as I cast myself from her to the ground, sighting as I did so a figure at the conservatory door. Its face reflected mine exactly, both in features and feeling: it was my son, Enoch, come to tend to his mother, too late.

All this I write from an asylum, to which I was delivered in the wake of my foul trespass. My explanations for the deed were taken as the ravings as one insane through grief, and similarly the act itself. I do not know when to anticipate my release, if ever to expect it in any way but death. Should I leave these halls I know that I will never find myself forgiven, whether by friends or by any stranger aware of my indiscretion.

I have not seen my son since the day of my great crime, nor shall I again.

I have received but two visitors throughout my years consigned to this house of madmen, the first being my aunt, whom through much prayer and commune with the spirits concluded that I had spoken true in our long ago conversation, and thus offered to me her sympathies, as much as she could extend. Agnes would encourage me to renew my piety, which in having sinned so repulsively I had left behind me.

She brought me some consolation, but not enough to dispel the miseries my second visitor perpetuated with evident glee.

Violet I would see each night upon my bed, a smile at her lips, her dead eyes wide with delight. She had broken her promise to leave me after I had fulfilled her wish, and having conferred with my aunt I knew the reason for it.

My wife had tasked me so cruelly not for the sake of experience, but through her own unnatural desire for torture, which she would continue beyond the physical plane. From the start it had been her life’s mission to doom me to this institution, and later bar me from the house of God.

Well, may the Devil embrace me. He has had me these years past.