The Prettiest Way to Die Is Not So Pretty After All

 Oh, how my heart once yearned to possess the skin of alabaster…

I ofttimes would heed Maude, Marchioness of Londonderry after a simple tidying up the parlour each morningtide. She would sit amongst her elixirs—the bottles awaited the Lady’s daily rite. She would reach for her bottle of ammonia and wash it over her face, mindful to restore the delicate glass stopper. Next, she plunged her forefinger into the ointments and powders of her toilet table. Ofttimes, she gravitated to the dazzling snowy paste, which she delicately painted over her countenance. It’s foremost that one evades twinkling —because the ointment will set, and any sentiment will make it crevice unbeautifully.

She would promenade the Marquess across the estate with her parasol mocking me as I toiled daily in her gardens. She tittered time after time whilst hiding her fair face and rosy cheeks in a bouquet of yellow honeysuckle. My pale skin had bronzed from the merciless sun erstwhile— for many days spite swelled deep within me.

But then it happened.

The cough, her skin grew paler diurnally. Nevertheless, for languid and listless ladies donning pale complexions was fashionable—because vulgarity laid in health, activity and destitution.

These nincompoops believed looking tubercular was somehow becoming. Minute waists, visible clavicles, alabaster skin, and rosy cheeks spoke to the ladies as if they breathed beauty into their suffering.

A lingering pallor and a lack of appetite afflicted the Lady. It then degraded to an ungodly fever and croaking which brought about red blotches to her cheeks. I ask of you, how did this malignance become winsome?

Oh, how my heart once yearned to possess the skin of alabaster…

The consumption extinguished her life post haste and the whiteness she so chased brought her to the crepuscule. Droll, perchance my sun-kissed skin will be my saviour, after all.