Author's Note: This is not my usual style. I prefer to 'let other pens dwell on guilt and misery', however a reviewer wanted more 'meat on the bones' of one of my drabbles so I thought I'd try. I'm not sure I succeeded but here it is. In case you missed it, the spelling of 'gilt' is deliberate.
GILT AND MISERY
To the world outside it had seemed the perfect marriage: handsome wealth matched with adoring beauty. To the world outside he was an ideal husband: an honourable, if not an honest, man. To the world outside she had everything: a mansion, money, gowns, jewels and a social life that sparkled as brightly as her diamonds. But all that glitters is not gold.
It had appeared to start so well on the steps of St. Mary's Pro-Cathedral. The fairytale dress, the illustrious guests – it had been her dream come true. Yet the reality was that while the wedding photographs showed a couple, when she looked at them their glass reflected a singleton, and the groom's carefree smile, that she had found so attractive, had become a frown of moody contemplation. Still, she had maintained her part of the contract. She'd provided the heir and so fulfilled what she had never realised would be her primary – no, her sole – purpose. There was no spare, though the world outside assumed there would be and wondered why it was taking so long. But it takes two to tango and they were no longer dancing; her steps no longer matched his: dissonance in the music not just of the dance but of their lives.
Had her rival been another woman she would have known how to fight back, but how could she fight the family business? She had thought they would be partners. She would have been content with a junior partnership, until she found not even that was possible in a one-man enterprise.
As the realisation gradually dawned of what her contract involved she'd dwindled, diminished; distanced herself from the reality while playing out the charade. To the world outside she was the perfect adoring wife. Hanging on his arm as she hung on his every word, still pretending his soliloquy was a dialogue. Yet she was the better actor, for no-one saw beyond the performance to the truth: not husband, not son, certainly not the world outside.
Even now she was in character. To that world outside she was devastated, driven to the brink by the news. And so, indeed, she was; but it was not the loss that pushed her to the edge. It was the relief.
And the voices she heard whispered insidious congratulations in her ears.
There are two literary references here. Shamrocks if you know their connection with Ireland.