Instalment Seventy Seven

My wife’s chill worsened, becoming an unwaking trance. Doctors fled, claiming no cure. Impotent fury drove me from her bedside. I drunk my study dry, servants fetched more, which dutifully I finished. Enraged, I cussed the room, chairs, walls. The painting above the mantel bore my silique until I slumbered on the hearth

I awoke to a voice.

“Concern yourself not, take solace in my radiance.”

I supposed it were the painting, a woman.

Indeed you are beautiful, I said, believing myself frenzied of mind.

“As you,” I heard.

I blushed. We talked. Days passed.

My wife worsened, her skin like ice and still we talked. 

Servants believed the house haunted, furniture moved, jewellery missing.

Waking I found the painted woman nestled to me.

“Love me,” she said, “Not that cold wife.”

I sprung to the mantel. “We have been familiar but I love my wife,” I cried tearing down Rembrandt's portrait of a mistress, holding it to the fire.

“Burn me and I shall tell other paintings, never will you set eyes on their beauty,” she smouldered.

Gladly for one glimpse of my wife’s splendour, I replied turning the mistress to ashes.

My wife called, “You returned to me.”

Illustration: Alex Douglas