One Last Story - Ep. 5: The Cold Embrace

There’s a poem I recall reading ages ago. It goes something like:

Tumpty-tumpty-tumpty-west,
Tumpty-tumpty cannot rest
Because every mother's son
Travails with a skeleton.

And truer words were never spoken! It’s a fearful bore, having always to be wrestling our immortal bits hither and thither, knowing that they’re bound to get the best of us in the end. As if that weren’t bad enough, the poor fellow in this story – ‘The Cold Embrace - finds himself loaded down below the Plimsoll mark with more than the usual cargo of mementi mori.

I’m not sure if he’s to be pitied, exactly. He’s hardly the most sympathetic protagonist. Pity me instead: I’ve got precisely the opposite problem. We’ve all got a past of one sort or another, and I find myself irresistibly drawn to the long-shut door of a closet which I’ve no doubt is full-to-bursting with skeletons. A wiser Adrian might leave well enough alone. The thing is, I’ve been such a hermit for so long – so utterly removed from my old life – that the contents of my personal ossuary may all have crumbled to dust by now. In that case, I’d quite like to get inside and do a bit of spring cleaning.

Ah, well. Another problem for another day.


Oh, and you can read the story for yourself here: The Cold Embrace, by Mary E. Braddon.