Porphyria

A short story based on Porphyria's Lover by Robert Browning

Gather 'round travelling tavern-goers and let me tell you a tale, a tale of love defying societal class, a tale of but one regrettable action, that being one of murder, changing my life forever.

Porphyria, she was the daughter of a well to do family, rumour had it she was to be formally engaged to a duke, maybe a prince or king. She had protested this vehemently, of course she loved me, but her mother forbade our contact so Porphyria would come to me at in the secrecy and dark cover of the night to make plans to leave but fate and God himself would not allow it, it seemed we were to be like Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet in some ways. Tonight's tale however, takes place so many years ago.

It was so long ago but it seems like yesterday…

The weather was horrible when she came by horse to my humble little woodcutter's cottage in the small clearing in the woods that night. With Porphyria around, everything was bright, warm and even happy. I remember that her rich emerald gown was spotted from the rain, and cold from the air that smelt like a fresh cleansing rain shower determined to take the taint from the world.

After tying up her horse in the shelter I had built a few months before, she came hurrying in from the storm, and proceeded to strip off her wet green velvet gloves to make a fire in the hearth. She removed her emerald green hat and her matching, shiny hairpins, shaking her cold, damp waist-length light, bright angel-like golden hair loose and raced across the room to embrace me, holding on to me tightly. She pulled me across the room to sit on an armchair in front of the fire, and settling in front of me all the while explaining that we had precious little time together because she had snuck away from her mother's ever watchful gaze to see me.

She then immediately launched into a speech of how her family and society expected her to marry a duke, a prince or maybe even a king; even though she loved me; she would never be able to marry me, because her parents would never allow it, for I was only a poor farmer-not that she cared about my class status - she had rather hastily added, as I started toying with her hair, as though I were enchanted and by feeling how silky soft it was, I was memorising her hair, her beauty in short; everything about her; and using the skills my mother and sisters taught me, twisting it into a messy plait, making it a rope, knowing that what I had to do I would regret; but I wanted the moment to last forever.

"I love you" her soft voice intruded my now darkly murderous thoughts…..

Maybe if she had known what my intent was to become, she wouldn't have come to see me….

With her sitting there eagerly waiting for that sweet loving kiss we would have customarily shared before she left. Speaking for the first time that night, I told Porphyria I would always love her and slowly made her hair a rope around her throat, wrapping it three times around her milk white neck and then gathering my courage, pulled. She didn't struggle, she was too stunned maybe by the thought of the betrayal of me killing her, I think, by my action. But as her body went limp, she sighed and closed her eyes.

She was free, free of all her family's and society's expectations, free to love whomever she chose. But it had cost Porphyria her life. What kind of freedom would cost someone her life? I wondered, unknowing as to the answer. I sighed, and started to sob, as I sat there next to her body begging her forgiveness. A few hours passed, so I stood up and sighed as I picked up her weightless, lifeless body and sat out near the window opening her eyes, so she could see the sunrise, when it came up, unbound her golden hair from the messy rope of a plait, and so we were undisturbed as we sat there all night…

After the sun rose, I picked up her gloves and folded them, placing them inside her hat with the hairpins and untying the sash from her lovely rich emerald gown to the use of tying her corpse to the white horse and sent it running to the manor on the edge of the woods, from which direction I shortly heard a scream of horror, as Porphyria was discovered. I left that day, never to look back, or return.

So there you have it. If you love someone, don't make them die for that freedom. Don't make my mistake, and kill off a chance at love.