She became withdrawn, her skin affecting a sickly pallor. More than once she was found walking alone in the hills at night, her head tilted up to the sky as though she was searching for some sign or movement in the clouds. Naturally, I became concerned, and after ushering her back to her parents’ home following one of those midnight jaunts, I sat her down and poured out my heart. Racked as I was with worry, I would say, and do, anything in my power to help alleviate whatever concerns gave her cause to act in such a manner. Anything to have the Mamie I loved safe.
I will never forget the way she looked at me then.
Her face wet with tears, black hair raining down upon her brow, she raised her head and said, “A child, Earl. I want a child.”
Later, as she lay deep in sleep, I pondered over what she had asked. Her father, his advanced age bowing his back under his nightshirt, heard my concerns with little response, but allowed me to stay in their parlor for the evening. My thoughts, shared but still weighing heavily upon me, kept me awake. Could it be that a child would bring Mamie stability? I confess, her request made little sense to me, but perhaps having an affectionate and rosy-cheeked child to fill her time would keep Mamie’s apparent mental decline at bay. The depth of my love seemed to have no bearing upon her mood of late, though she oft confessed that her heart was mine alone. The arrival of our child would perhaps increase the recently tenuous bond between us and Mamie, the dear sweet Mamie that I had thought lost, would surface once again.
There was another issue that had to be confronted, though. Our courtship was no secret but a swell in her belly would inevitably raise questions in town. Unbetrothed women bearing children were not only frowned upon in Dunwich, but shown the kind of disgust usually reserved for the diseased and the mad. Through the years I had seen young girls, barely budding into womanhood, removed from their place amongst our population, sometimes by physical force. Confused and tearful, these unwanted mothers were forced to walk shamefacedly past as their neighbors, and sometimes their own flesh and blood, poured scornful epithets upon them. Those who did not leave peacefully were dragged from their homes and pushed out toward the hills in the middle of the night. I know not what befalls those poor creatures — only that I would not give cause for Mamie to be judged in the same manner. So it was that as soon as she rose from her slumber, while the morning mist was still low upon the ground, I knelt before my love and asked for her hand.
The wedding was a small affair. I suspect those who stayed away did so because of the ridiculous rumors swirling around, whispers which suggested Mamie was present at the death of that creature, Whateley. More than once I had heard the mutterings of gossipy old women as I went from shop to shop, purchasing as many items as I could afford, to create a glad air and a joyful space for our nuptials. Those that did attend did their best to keep our spirits high but I was glad when the day was over and we were able to retire. As we lay in what was now our cottage for the first time as man and wife, I remember thinking that this was a new start and with Mamie resting beside me, I dared hope that the troubles unsettling her were behind us.
I have only scant recollection of the weeks that followed. We ate, laughed and made love as though the world outside mattered not; all that we required could be found in each other’s embrace. When our honeymoon ended and the day came for me to resume my duties at the Corey farm, I whistled a cheery tune as I walked. Even the darkness of the waters that flowed through Bishops Brook, whose blackened banks wind between my home and my employer’s, did little to dispel my lightness of mood. The spring is a notoriously unforgiving time for labor upon the farm but I worked with exuberance, turning and sowing the soil, fully aware of the similarities between earth and man; for had I not also planted a seed that would spring to life, a life that would grow as surely as the crops beneath my feet in the coming months?
I have since come to learn that there are no certainties. A crop may fail for no apparent reason no matter how much care is taken. And this is as true for man as it is for the land. Come the autumn, Corey’s farm fielded the poorest yield its previously fecund lands had seen in recent years, and Mamie showed no signs of being with child.
As the nights drew in, melancholy seemed to befall our home. The bright wildflowers that Mamie had earlier that summer picked to decorate our bedroom now lay shriveled in their vases. Dust lay undisturbed upon each surface where I now laid my hand. Mamie too seemed to wither, in sympathy with her surroundings. Her skin, which had gained color following our marriage, once again paled and her eyes, which only months before had enticed me with their bright allure, now lay deep in her sockets. At night she rejected my advances, sighing that the act of love was pointless, since my sweat and labors yielded no reward.
More than once she cursed me for my inadequacies.
In time she gave up sleeping in our marital bed altogether.
Instead, the place of her choosing was the wide bench under our single wide window, her eyes looking to the hills that rose as blackened waves under a gibbous moon, seemingly searching for… what? I can only wonder as to why the child she so desired eluded her. My attempts to reason with her were always met with vehement denials of my logic. She would shout and curse, blaspheming at the Lords name, using words that I care not to repeat and on occasion it seemed as though she was taken by some kind of madness, ushering sounds and words that made little sense to me until at last the apparent fever broke and she would fall, unconscious, upon the floor. It became a habit of mine to allow her this fearful expression until her waking self passed from the world. Her sleeping self could then, and only then, be coaxed back into our bed.
I was at odds as to what course of action to take. I dared not instill the help of doctors for fear that Mamie would be taken from me, but I privately acknowledged that her unstable mood could be a sign of madness. She needed help but I knew not how to provide it.
Fear led me to choose the path of making no choice at all.
I set about my normal duties as best I could, working at the farm during the day, taking care of her in the evening. I did our laundry and attempted to be something of a cook as well, so that when we fetched food and supplies from town on the week’s end, no one would suspect our life together was out of sorts. I lived always in the hope that whatever madness had seized her would soon pass. It was a foolish endeavor though, for having worked later than usual one evening, I returned home to find the house totally empty. Fearing some ill fate had befallen my wife, I quickly searched the surrounding fields but with darkness fast approaching, I was forced to return home in search of a lantern. I ignored the house and went straight to rummage in the woodshed… it was then I happened to look up at the bedroom finding it brightened by the warm yellowness of candlelight. Mamie was lying sound upon the bed when I burst into the room; her hair spread upon the pillow, arms crossed to her stomach and a small but welcome smile playing upon her features. I breathed a sigh of relief, grateful that she was safe. Perhaps I had been mistaken and she hadn’t left the house at all but was merely out of sight; in the basement perhaps, though I knew not why. But then I looked down and saw the dirt at her feet, her toes blackened with mud, the mess of it all staining the sheets upon which she lay.
At breakfast the next morning I asked of her excursion but she seemed without knowledge of it and I quickly found that pursuing the matter only aggravated her. Unsure as to a reason for this new development in her behavior, I put it down to an act of sleepwalking, that absurd condition I had heard the good Dr. Armitage speak of. Thus decided, I tried to dispel the incident from my mind. As I passed Mamie her toast and jam I made a lewd remark about her nightdress being too dirty to wear at the dinner table, and was rewarded as my wife allowed me to remove it from her in a most charming fashion!