The Happy-Unhappy Bridegroom: a ghost story Read online

The Happy-Unhappy Bridegroom: a ghost story

  by Benjamin Parsons

  Copyright 2011 Benjamin Parsons

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  I believe that when Brandon Stewart fell in love, it was with the express intention of getting married. He had a conventional disposition that sought and valued success only in the most established and respectable avenues— which was doubtless prudent of him, because those are probably the easiest fields succeed in, after all. So he endeavoured to make an immensity of money out of actuary (or somesuch profession) through sheer perseverance, and when his efforts began to earn their allotted rewards, it was natural for him to require a comfortable home life too, and that is as much as to say, a wife.

  Since the most straightforward efforts had always proved to him the most successful, he made no scruple about falling in love directly with the first girl he liked (namely, one Lucille Harlowe), and you should know that his hopes were happily repaid, because she concluded she liked him likewise —which made for a love-match.

  Brandon did not doubt that his beloved was ideal for him in every respect. She was always sweet and pleasant, and had a gentle, easy character all the while they were dating. He discerned in her many of those comfortable, conventional traits that he recognised in himself, and these consoled him so much that he ventured to fall very deeply in love with her. And as I say, she was very fond in return, so soon enough they were married.

  On their wedding day he turned out to be a very handsome bridegroom, large and well-made, bright-eyed, florid and pleasant— indeed, conjuring all the masculine charms to meet in himself; and you may well believe that on her part, Mrs. Stewart looked a quite suitable match, for she was a strikingly handsome girl. Their union portended a lasting, warm, even assured, contentment.

  When they returned from their honeymoon, this Lucille began to work on him, that is, drive him on to still greater successes in actuary, by which she meant to procure herself a fine house and fine things; and these, of course, were what he also desired himself. But her methods of motivation were not entirely the gestures of encouraging support he had anticipated. Rather, she contrived to keep him in a continual state of anxiety, so that he toiled all the harder in order to please her —yet never quite succeeded in doing it.

  It seems that Lucille had always been in earnest need of a loving relationship such as she now possessed, so that she could exercise her utter contempt upon a man with perfect liberty. Certainly, it is difficult to be cruel or scornful to an acquaintance, a friend, or even an enemy, since they will simply return the same in kind; but in love it seems we have a passport to be as vicious as we please with impunity. Spouses and lovers subject each other to more surprising and cutting acts of hatred from day to day than the most vehement enemies would attempt— but it all passes off, since both have entered into this agreement, love, which almost waives all offence.

  Lucille endeavoured to be as sincerely bright and adorable as possible while securing her husband, but once she knew she had him for her own, it was not long before the very fact of his merely loving her could no longer suffice or satisfy. No, he must do more to impress and please her: he must give her better things, and therefore earn more money; he must behave thus, and treat her so; wear this, and never do that or that, and always adhere to an array of hints, indications and unmentioned rules, on pain of her severe displeasure.

  This is how the cruelty of love works in these cases: standards are surreptitiously laid down, and then subtly multiplied; and unless they are obeyed, warmth and kindness are withdrawn. The poor victim does his best to please, in order to restore the generosity of his beloved, but the trick is, that the conditions and trials he must undergo in order to acquire approval are always increasing in difficulty. The wretched Brandon was entirely drawn in, and vied to impress his wife without ever quite realising why, since the last time he received any affection, it seemed, was on his wedding day, and that was soon a vague memory.

  In short, he was a henpecked husband, and amongst his business associates (that is to say, down the pub) he would openly gripe and complain about the ‘ball and chain’. Nevertheless, he was so effectively henpecked that, in spite of these rebellious murmurs, he would blithely run home to hang his head for wearing his shoes in the hall, getting back ten minutes late, having drink on his breath, never considering her feelings, and for being generally contemptible. Really, it was as though the harsher she treated him, the more he endeavoured to love her, and was made happy by being kept continually miserable.

  Well, it may be that he exercised his own cruelties on her too, and I suppose that while she contrived that he could never do well enough for her, she herself could never be content or happy. But all the same it was apt that Brandon Stewart, so excelling in conventionality, should procure such a conventional marriage; and by the end of eighteen months of it she already had him so much in her power that his devotion played automatically. Her control was as absolute as his love.

  Lucille conjured him to buy just the sort of large suburban London property she had always wanted, and I visited her there. Crystal Palace is almost entirely unchanged since its first popularity in the nineteenth century— I have seen photographs of it from 1900 showing fairly all the same buildings as stand there today— and along the Church Road are a procession of great Victorian villas. Most have been converted into flats and apartments, but some are still single mansions, and it was one of these opulent places that Lucille chose, so I imagine it cost them a healthy fortune to obtain it. Perhaps its size and state of disrepair made it unpopular with other buyers; but this damage Lucille was at pains to rectify with her usual resolution.

  I found the house because it has a twin. On the opposite side of the road is a mirror-image house, and the properties were designed as a pair; but since I knew that my destination was on the right-hand as I approached from the direction of the station, I soon identified the correct mansion, and this duplication was my guide.

  Lucille had invited me to look at the garden, since it was, she confessed, a complete wilderness, and hoped I might be able to suggest some new design for it. She also hoped, besides, that I might start on the repair myself. Well, I was happy to oblige, because you know I rather wanted to see how the bride and groom had progressed into husband and wife. However, I was disappointed in this, because it was the lady alone who opened the door to me, and the lady alone at home, too: Mister Stewart was in the Middle East on business, and had unfortunately been unable to avoid the excursion for my sake.

  ‘Oh, of course,’ I said, ‘his work must come first.’

  She smiled somewhat, and replied: ‘Yes, I see you know Brandon well enough.’

  Lucille and I were friends, so I did not mind Brandon’s absence; indeed, it was always easier to encounter either of them on their own, since together they were usually far too occupied in suppressing and being suppressed. I could not resist the opportunity to pry a little into her opinion of her husband, and asked if she missed him when he went away.

  ‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘I hate him to leave me alone as he does. I must be especially cruel to him when he comes home, by way of revenge.’

  She smiled wryly. Looking at her clear, grey eyes and straight, pale hair I was prepared to believed she was in earnest: she was altogether a chilly beauty, as they say.

  ‘But how are you cruel to him?’ I enquired blithely.

  ‘I pout a little, sigh now and again, and say that I don’t mind with tears standing in my eyes, until he’s eaten up with guilt.’

  ‘Ah, he must love you well then,’ I said, ‘or he wouldn’t feel guilty at all.’

  ‘Yes, but it doesn’t s
top him going away,’ she returned, ‘so I have to make him as miserable as he makes me, or it wouldn’t be fair.’

  ‘You may be too cruel one day, Lucille, and he won’t come back.’

  She laughed at that. ‘I think I could be the devil and he’d still come back.’

  We went out to look at the garden, which was my commission. It was worse than described— a very long, narrowish plot, stretching downhill, broken up with various ill-placed trees looking forlorn, mildewed shrubs full of dead wood and irregular heaps of ground with nettles and long grasses over them. Items of strange paraphernalia lurked among the weeds, and even some ruined masonry (I suppose a shelter or coal-house). There were climbers straggling in the shade, wasted espaliers, groves of dead roses —and all of it right up to the back door, with no prospect, except here and there some patches of scrubby lawn.

  I laughed