The Happy-Unhappy Bridegroom

By Benjamin Parsons

A tumbledown Victorian house, a neglected, overgrown garden, a deep, stagnant pool full of choking weeds - a strange first home for a newly-wed young couple. But their morbid relationship is more gothic still. Addicted to suppressing and being suppressed, neither can be happy unless the other is miserable - but when death overshadows them, will they finally find release from their tyrannous love, or is that love-cruelty strong enough to endure beyond the grave? Part of the collection The Sleight of Heart and Other Stories.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Benjamin Parsons
• Release date: Nov 5, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465889461

Benjamin Parsons

I am a writer and artist from the Westcountry of England now living in London. I write and illustrate stories about love, hate, ambition, revenge, beauty, and the supernatural.

Book preview

The Happy-Unhappy Bridegroom

by Benjamin Parsons

Copyright 2023 Benjamin Parsons. First published in 2010.

Smashwords edition, license notes

Thank you for downloading this free ebook. You are welcome to share it with your friends. This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form. If you enjoyed this book, please return to Smashwords.com to discover other works by this author. Thank you for your support.

* * *

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