A story about a woman so weird that her husband commits suicide when he finds out the truth about her

Question

This story is not a novel, nor a short story. Probably novella-size, or longish novelette. I read it at least 30 years ago, maybe more. And I don't remember if I read it in English or in French, but anyway it might have been a translation.

Also it might be told by the POV character, or be read from a journal he wrote, I am not sure. At the beginning, the POV character went to stay in a castle. Whether he went to woo its Lady, or whether they were already engaged, or already married, I am not sure. I am almost sure they were married before the end of the story, but I am not positive.

A detail I do remember: all the servants, in the castle, were Finns and spoke only Finnish, which the POV character did not speak.

The Lady of the castle always wore very heavy dresses or skirts. She was very elegant, though sometimes it seemed that her dress or skirt did not fall properly.

Little by little the POV character realises something is amiss. To make a long story short, towards the end of the story

she is balancing from beam to beam under the roof of the great room of the castle, using her long, muscular tail.

The POV character commits suicide, I believe after killing her, but again I am not 100% positive.

IIRC, a physician, friend of the POV character, happens to come at that point and discovers the situation. Just possibly, he is the one to kill her, in the case where the POV character had not killed her before.

He then removes the tail of the corpse, leaving a body with a very strange incision at the bottom of the back, but not recognisable as the removing of the tail,

which he burns beyond recognition.

Answer 1

That sounds like it might be "Told for the Truth" by Cyril Hume, the unaccepted answer to Monkey Wife story

The narrator meets a doctor from Philadelphia in Florence and the two become reasonable acquaintances. However, the narrator informs the reader that the man is a liar. He then relates the story that the man told him.

The doctor discusses a childhood friend by the name of Hunter who obsessed over animals. He continued to study them for years from childhood onward and would collect a wide range of them, eventually including a lemur named Cheeki. The two friends go off to college and eventually, the doctor finds out that Hunter is engaged. He goes to reunite with Hunter and meet his wife. Before meeting her, there are already rumors about her family (from Georgia) and the curious things that occur on her estate. When he does meet her, he is strangely hypnotized by her presence both intrigued and confused by the nature of her. Slowly, he becomes obsessed with her and continues to visit the two well after they are married. His obsession is not witnessed by Hunter who is too possessed by his passion, animals. However, the wife begins to drift away and this raises concern for Hunter who asks the doctor to keep an eye on her. Upon visiting the couple one day, he comes to the house but no one responds to his ringing. He enters the house and goes upstairs to find Hunter has drank acid. He continues to look for the wife and finds her in the attic, hanging. From this, he realizes that the wife killed Hunter for lack of attention and care and followed up with killing herself. So obsessed with the wife is he, that the doctor cuts her down and bashes in her skull with a club and makes it look like Hunter killed her and then took his own life. Just as it becomes clear that this is what he did, he abruptly leaves. It's at this point the narrator declares him a liar.

Indeed, the estate in Georgia is staffed with Finns.

It seemed the niggers refused to stay there, and for generations all the servants in the great house had been Finns. A race of warlocks, the Finns. Silent people. . . .

Indeed, the skirt didn't quite lie right.

When she sat down or rose to her feet she arranged her skirt about herself almost with anxiety. It struck me at the time that in spite of her care its grace was marred now and then by an awkward gathering or a heavy fold.

Indeed, he finds her hanging from the roof beams by her tail.

Then Chee-ki chattered and I heard the answer. Looking upward I saw that shadow swinging from the roof-beams. And I understood. ... I shall not tell you, because you could not believe how she was swinging there, making the beam creak rhythmically under her weight. But I shall tell you that she hung head-downward, and that she chattered as the lemur chattered.

And yes, she is killed by a blow to the head by the doctor and the tail removed.

The coroner who investigated the case decided that Hunter had taken his wife to the attic and beaten in her skull with the heavy golf club which was discovered near the body .... One of the officers had investigated this suspicious circumstance by dumping and extinguishing the fire, and had discovered among the embers what appeared to be the oxidized and scattered back-bone of some unidentified vertebrate. Third (and to the coroner's mind this had been the most baffling circumstance) when he had examined Mrs. Hunter's body he had discovered a great skilfully made incision at the base of the spine.

It's a very strange sort of story where the narrator is recounting a story told to him by the doctor whose friend married the humanoid lemur, which might itself have been a lie.