Treachery in the Heart
In the quiet market town of Wellingford, where life moved at a leisurely pace and gossip travelled faster than the post, I, Prudence, fancied myself the perfect wife. I adored my husband, Edmund, trusted him implicitly, never searched his coat for stray hairs, nor pried into his letters. Not until that fateful day which turned my world upside down.
That morning, I’d gone to the bank to collect a new chequebook. I took my queue slip and settled onto a worn bench in the waiting hall. Nearby, two women, nearing forty, chattered animatedly. Their voices, ripe with scandal, carried across the room, and I couldn’t help but overhear. One trembled as she recounted catching her husband in an affair. The other feigned sympathy, but there was a cruel satisfaction in her tone, as if she thought, “Serves you right!”
The tale was wretched. The cheating husband had come home dishevelled—eyes wild, his waistcoat missing a button, as though torn off in passion. While he bathed, his wife, gnawed by suspicion, snatched up his telephone. There, she found letters and calls from his mistress. He admitted it outright: “Aye, I love another. I’ve only stayed out of pity.” “Ten years of my life wasted!” the woman wailed, her voice cracking with grief.
When my number flashed on the board, I hurried to the counter, but the women’s words clung to me like burrs. I’d just turned forty myself, and in a month, Edmund and I were to celebrate our eleventh anniversary. All day, their conversation echoed in my mind, and by evening, a gnawing dread took root. I steeled myself for battle.
Edmund returned late, his face drawn, his eyes dull. “Tired,” he muttered, heading straight for the bath. I froze, staring at his telephone on the side table. Never before had I dared such a thing, but the bank woman’s story haunted me. My hands shook, my pulse raced—shame warred with curiosity, but I succumbed. I snatched up the device and scoured his messages.
There it was—the blow to the heart. Dozens of letters from someone called “Her Majesty.” The brazen hussy wrote to Edmund more often than the butcher sent his bills. I couldn’t bring myself to read them—fear of the truth crushing me. I checked the calls: back and forth, back and forth. The world seemed to crumble. My vision darkened, my chest tightened as though my heart had been ripped out and dashed to the floor. I nearly retched from the pain. “Ten years… How could he?” I thought wildly. A stiff drink might steady me.
Carefully, as if handling a viper, I set the telephone down. Edmund appeared in the doorway—towel about his waist, hair damp, oblivious to the storm raging within me. He took one look at my face and knew—eleven years together hadn’t passed in vain. Silent, he raised a brow as if to ask, “What’s the matter?”
I blurted out, barely holding back tears:
“Who is ‘Her Majesty,’ and why is she in your telephone?”
Edmund stilled, staring at me as though I’d sprouted horns. The silence thickened, heavy as the air before thunder. At last, he exhaled:
“Is that all?”
“I expected better of you,” I choked out, my voice trembling with hurt. “Ten years… I thought we were happy!”
My temples throbbed; my heart fractured. Without a word, Edmund walked to the dresser, picked up the telephone, and dialled. I clenched my eyes shut, certain he was ringing her to say, “We’re found out.” But then—my own telephone rang. I opened my eyes. Edmund held his device up to me, and there on the screen: “Her Majesty.” Yet our surname was Whitcombe!
He gazed at me with a patient smile, like a schoolmaster awaiting a slow pupil’s realisation. And then—it struck me. I remembered how, in our early years, Edmund had called me his “Queen Prudence.” My name, of course, was Prudence, and he’d teased me with regal titles. How could I have forgotten?
Shame burned my cheeks. Still smiling, Edmund murmured:
“Prue, you’re my only queen. Always have been, always will be.”
I collapsed into his arms, laughing and weeping at once. The pain melted away, leaving only the warmth of his embrace and sweet relief. Yet deep down, I knew—this day would stay with me forever.