Story 3

The suicide bride

Speechless, Virginie looked at the young woman standing on the pavement in front of the door. In one chilling sentence, all her dreams were taken away.

After six months of blind infatuation, Virginie had been asked to marry the extremely handsome Roger after he first asked her hand to her father Albert Blickx. A month and a half before, they had officially got engaged. Within two weeks, Pastor Peeraer of the Church of Our Lady in Boutersem would bless their marriage. Of the 10 children in their family, she was the eldest girl, which made her wedding all the more important. She would set the tone for her younger sisters.

It was to be a memorable wedding celebration with all the trimmings as is customary in higher circles. The entire choir, including her siblings, would sing at the ceremony; the dean would give the homily; the mayor and the notables of the village would be present. At the Blickx residence, the finest dishes would be served, topped with the “piece montée” from patissier Holemans in Leuven.

That her lover Roger was often away on business was something she had to put up with. Roger, scion of a family of wealthy gentleman farmers, did not want to follow in his parents’ footsteps. He saw a future for himself as a foreign exchange agent and set up a foreign exchange agency with his cousins Marcel and Fernand. Consequently, he often had to go to the stock exchange in Brussels. Virginie was proud of her ambitious, handsome fiancé. Maybe later they were going to live in the capital, which seemed more exciting to her than the countryside where she grew up. Her wedding dress, an ivory silk charleston model to just below the knee, already exuded all the modern vibes of the city. The satin mules completed the look. The dress hung from the chandelier in the beautiful drawing room where guests were normally received and where the whole family dined on Sundays.

And then the doorbell rang. The young woman on the doorstep looked at Virginie penetratingly and said “You cannot marry him, because I am carrying his child”. She was Roger’s former secretary and mistress. She was five months pregnant. Virginie could hardly grasp it, the ground was sinking under her feet. In all her despair, she wrote a farewell letter to her parents and hanged herself from the chandelier. Rather die than be consumed by shame and disgrace. Her mother found her sweet, petite girl next to her wedding dress a few hours later.