“The Lover’s Ordeal” by Robert Murray Gilchrist

Mary Padley stood near the leaden statue of Diana on the terrace at Calton Dovecote, gazing towards the stone-arched gate that barred the avenues of limes—sweet scented, with their newly opened bloom—from the dusty high-road. 

She wore white—a mantua of thin silk, a stiff petticoat spread over a great hoop, and a quaint stomacher, lilac in colour, and embroidered with silver beads. 

Her hair was cushioned and powdered, Madam Padley, her grandmother and guardian, insisting that, since she would probably soon change her estate, she must cease playing the hoyden, and devote herself to a careful study of such fashions as leaked from town to the Peak Country. 

It may be stated, however, that the dame, in calling her a hoyden, spoke tenderly enough, since she knew that her sole living descendent had sterling and admirable qualities, combined with a physical loveliness that promised to make her a reigning toast after her union with Mr Endymion Eyre, heir presumptive to my Lord Newburgh. 

Madam, herself being high-spirited, doted upon—though she outwardly condemned—the maid’s too fervent love of the romantic and uncommon.

But, at the present moment, Madam Padley had very kindly fallen asleep beside her embroidery-frame, and Mary had stolen from the house to watch for Mr Eyre’s coming. 

She held in her right hand a folded sheet. A ray of the westering sun touched the words:‘The Spectator, No. 557.Wednesday, June 23, 1714.’ 

The minutes dragged. She opened the first page, and began to peruse, for the twentieth time, a letter which her lover, who was gifted with some literary power, had addressed to Addison, partly for the sake of eliciting one of that master’s wise disquisitions. 

‘Mr Spectator,’ she read softly—‘Since the decline of chivalry, a man has no opportunity of proving his devotion to the lady of his choice. Why not permit her to name some ordeal through which he must pass, and by whose performance he might win her from the fullest trust and faith, without which a true marriage is impossible—‘ 

She read no more, for she heard the sound of his mare’s hoofs in the distance.A bright smile lighted her face; her colour rose faintly. ‘Here comes my author,’ she said, ‘speeding to hear my yea or nay. Heigho! I wish my heart would not beat so wildly! For all the world ‘tis as if I’d stolen a fledgling and prisoned it in my bosom!’ 

He dismounted at the foot of a mossy staircase.A groom came forward to take the bridle. Mary curtsied her prettiest, then gave him her hand to lift to his lips. 

‘This evening,’ he said laughingly, ‘this evening you promised to tell me whether you’d marry me or no. Of course, the asking’s but a formality, for I’m fully resolved to make you.’ 

‘Alack,’ she cried, ‘you’ve a pretty fashion of showing me that I’ve met my master! Well, good Mr Eyre, you have courted me for a full year, and I’ve known you all my life, and, as you are aware, I’ve no aversion for your person. Yes—yes, I’ll marry you—on one condition.’ 

‘And that—’ he began. 

‘You’ve set my heart upon making you pass through an ordeal. Don’t suspect for a moment that I’m ignorant as to who wrote this.’ She held her Spectator aloft. ‘You’ve asked to be tested—‘ 

‘The deuce upon my scribblings!’ he exclaimed. ‘Well, mistress, whatever you wish I’ll do with the utmost expedition, on one condition— that being that it does not take me long from you. Tell me the ordeal, sweet. I’m eager to pass through it—to have you swear that I’m a worthy man.’ 

Their eyes met fondly. 

‘I ne’er doubted that,’ she said; ‘but all girls have their whimsies. Come down into the park. ‘Tis a night made for lovers.’ 

Then she gave him her hand again; and they went together through the narrow walk of the rosary, where the beautiful flowers were all wet with dew, to a knoll about half a mile from Dovecote, whence one could see almost forty miles of rough moorland and wood passing upwards towards the North Country. 

A crescent moon hung overhead.There was no sound save the sighing of the wind and the churring of the moth-hawks. 

Mary paused when they reached the summit, and pointed to another hill about three miles away—a strange conical place covered with great trees, from whose tops rose several stacks of twisted chimneys. 

‘You wish, then, to pass through the ordeal?’ she said. ‘You are no coward, and that which I set you to do needs a brave spirit. ‘Tis—‘tis to spend a night at Calton Hall, where no living creature has been after dark since my folk left it eighty years ago. The place is haunted—or so ‘tis said —and ‘twill require all your courage to pass the midnight hours in those deserted suites.’

He interrupted her by taking her into his arms, quite in an informal fashion, and silencing her lips by the pressure of his own. 

‘May it be done tonight?’ he asked. ‘Let me perform this valorous deed at once, and so become a hero in your eyes.’ 

‘Ay,’ responded Mary. ‘I have the key of the door—I took it unseen from my grandmother’s basket. If I had asked for it, be sure she’d not have consented. There’s none has a keener belief than she in the mystery that haunts the place o’ nights. So, since you sup with us, I’d have you say naught concerning the ordeal, or she’d at once forbid it.’ 

They returned to the house now. Madam Padley, who had awakened some minutes before, met them in the hall. 

She was a stately old woman, still comely despite her seventy years. In youth she had been a lady-in-waiting to the Duchess of York; and her manner still suggested the atmosphere of a Court. As she possessed both fine wit and intuition, she read aright the radiance of the lovers’ faces. 

‘I offer my profound congratulations,’ she said. ‘Mr Eyre, I’m vastly proud that you’re to enter our family. In short, there’s no gentleman I’ve e’er met whom I’d liefer receive as grandson. But, putting the blind god aside, supper is already served; and I am amazingly hungry. Your arm, Endymion. Young miss shall walk behind.’ 

Throughout the elaborate meal she talked incessantly, preaching a dainty homily on the duties of married folk. 

Afterwards Mary and Endymion confessed to each other that they remembered nothing of what she had said, their own thoughts being engaged in rosy pictures of the future. 

When the meal was over, they passed to the withdrawing-room, where Mary sat to the new harpsichord and played sweet songs from Purcell’s operas. 

At ten o’clock Madam Padley rose from her chair and signified courteously that ‘twas time for the gentleman to retire, but cordially invited him to spend the following evening in the same fashion. 

Mary accompanied him to the courtyard, where a groom waited with his mare. Now that he was starting for the ordeal, the girl’s heart failed of a sudden; and she begged him to forget her words. He laughed merrily, and shook his head. 

‘Too late,’ he said. ‘I go now to Calton. Not for the world would I renounce the adventure. When I see you again, I shall have wonderful stories of ghosts for your ear alone. If they be harmless things, why, you and I’ll go together afterwards to pay ‘em a visit of ceremony! Now, adieu, mistress. Sleep well, and dream pretty dreams.’ 

He turned thrice in his saddle, and waved his hand. She stood watching until he was out of sight. Then she went back very sadly to the house, and, finding that her grandmother had already retired, sought her own chamber, where, instead of undressing, she sat in a deep window-recess, peering through an open casement at the moonlit chimneys of the distant house. 

Meanwhile, Eyre rode on leisurely over moor and through copse until he reached the neglected pleasance, where the undergrowth had matted together until there was scarce space to reach the stairs leading to the colonnade. 

He left the mare in a small courtyard, where dock and nettles had covered the stones with a thick carpet; then, making his way to the front, opened the door and entered the musty hall.

There he took out his tinder-box, and struck a light, finding, much to his relief, a tall wax candle standing in a sconce near the mantel. This he lighted, and, holding it high above his head, made his way up the oaken stairs, and through a long gallery, at whose further end stood an open doorway that led to the suite of state-rooms. These were hung with moth eaten tapestry. In places the decayed canvases of ancient portraits trailed from their frames to the floor. The movement of the light brought around him clouds of evil-smelling bats; two owls on the sill of a broken oriel hooted loudly, then fluttered out into the night. 

On and on, through countless chambers whose antique magnificence was veiled with dust and cobwebs, until he came to another and greater door, which stood slightly ajar. And as he pressed the panel with his palm he saw that the place beyond was lighted with a curious radiance—greenish, cold— not unlike the moonlight on a frosty evening.

The door fell back easily. He found himself in a great chamber, the walls adorned with coloured bas-reliefs; the ceiling, still bright and vivid, covered with a gorgeous fresco wherein one saw the gods at play. On the two hearths fires burned—inaudible fires with greedy, lambent flames whose tongues licked the mantel stone. 

‘By the Lord!’ he exclaimed, ‘there are folk living here! This is no place for ghosts! As handsome a—’ 

His voice died, for something had moved at the further end—something hidden in the shadow of a canopy of velvet embroidered with gold thread. 

The muscles of his heart tightened. He moved forward, almost unsteadily, holding the candle at arm’s length, until he came to the lowest step of a low platform, whereon, in a lacquered chair, rested a form shrouded in a veil of black gauze. And, as he paused there, this veil stirred again, disclosing the figure of a young woman, whose long, white hands moved slowly from her face. 

Her eyes opened. They were large and luminous, gleaming as if a steady fire burned behind the pupils. She was wondrously beautiful; her loveliness was greater than that of any woman he had ever dreamed of—greater even than that of the maiden to whom he had given his heart. She was strangely pale, the only colour—a vivid scarlet—being in the plump, curved lips. 

‘I bid you welcome, signor,’ she said. ‘The long, long sleep has not been wasted since you are the awakener.Your hand! Weariness is still in my body. I’d fain rise and walk.’ 

Her voice was exquisitely soft, exquisitely glad. ‘Twas not the voice of an Englishwoman. There was a quaint accent, as if she had come from a Southern country. And the hand Endymion took was cold and damp at first —as cold and damp as the hand of one prepared for burial; but, as it lay lightly in his own, it became warm, and the fingers closed tenderly upon his own. 

‘Your name, signor of whom I have dreamed?’ she said. 

The blood began to run quickly through his veins. 

‘Endymion, madam, at your service,’ he replied.

‘And mine shall be Diana,’ she said. ‘Diana, who kissed Endymion in the night. Prythee, now, your arm. I’ll lean upon you, being but a weak creature. Ah me, but your country’s sad! I’d give all for the warm skies of Tuscany—for the vineyards under the hot sun! I like not the moonlight.’ 

Something impelled him to talk foolishly. 

‘’Tis not the warmth of skies or the sight of vineyards that makes for perfect happiness,’ he said. ‘There’s a rarer warmth—the warmth of love.’ 

She laid her right palm upon his lips. 

‘Hush!’ she said. ‘At this our first meeting why should you talk of love? Doubtless there’s some cold, pretty girl living for you alone in the world— some green creature who dotes upon you—who looks to the day when she may call you spouse, unless ’tis so already.’ 

Then, with a swift movement of the left arm, she drew aside the tapestry from a great window that stretched from floor to pargeting. Beyond, through glass clear as crystal, he could see the moor, white in the moonlight, as if covered with hoar-frost. 

‘Behold the winter!’ said the lady. ‘Behold the cruelty of your country! Alas, I am outdone with the cold! Let’s to yonder fire for warmth.’ 

The curtain fell back again. Together they went across the chamber. 

Not once in all that time did he bestow one thought upon the girl he loved —the girl whose promise he had won that very night. Past and future were blotted from his mind. He lived solely in the present. 

The beauty chose a great chair, covered with crimson silk—a chair with carved arms and legs and padded face-screens ‘I sit here, my cavalier,’ she said; ‘and you rest at my feet. Yonder’s a stool.Your head shall lie upon my knee.’ 

She drew from a tissue bag that hung from her girdle a handful of dried petals, and flung them between the andirons. The fire engulfed them silently. A blood-coloured flame rose high up the chimney. 

A strange commingling of luxury and dread came over Endymion. He sank to her feet.

She drew his face, with both hands, to her lap. The she bowed her head until her soft lips touched his neck. 

Mary found herself unable to sleep—unable even to prepare for bed. 

In less than an hour after Endymion’s departure her disquietude became so painful that she left her chamber and hastened to Madam Padley’s bedside.

The old lady was sleeping placidly. Her white horsehair headdress had been replaced by a decent cap of plaited linen. 

The girl laid a trembling hand upon her shoulder. 

‘Waken, grandmother,’ she said.‘Waken, I am miserable. I have done something that I had no right to do. I am bewildered. Some evil thing is happening!’ 

The dame started, and sat up. 

‘What is’t child?’ she said. ‘Art troubled with a nightmare?’ 

Mary spoke disconnectedly. Madam listened, piecing the broken sentences together; then she flung aside the bedclothes. 

‘My God,’ she cried, ‘you have done wrongly! I had never wished to tell you, but the reason—the reason why yonder house is deserted is that your great-grandfather wooed and wed for second wife a foreign woman, who fed upon human blood! And the place grew foul with strange crimes!’ 

She rang for her Abigail; but before the worthy woman could appear Mary had fled from the chamber and from the house. In another minute the great firebell of the Dovecote was clanging wildly, and the servants leaping from their beds. Madam Padley could not speak for excitement. Her gestures alone bade them follow with all speed in the girl’s tracks. 

Mary reached the hall long before the others, and, entering through the open doorway, ran up the gallery and passed from room to room, calling passionately upon her lover’s name. The moonlight shone now through the latticed windows. Everywhere she saw bats flying into the corners. At last she reached the great chamber, not lighted now with mysterious fires, but dark and dusty, and fetid of odour.

Endymion lay prone upon the floor; beside him crouched a woman’s figure, the head pressed close to his own. And Mary took the thing madly by the shoulders and thrust it aside, and linked her arms around the young man’s waist. 

His eyes opened; she heard the sound of his breathing. 

‘There’s naught for it save that I drag you from the place,’ she whispered. ‘Who knows that she may not bring others stronger than I?’ 

‘I have dreamed terribly,’ he muttered; ‘dreamed of things that I dare not tell.’ 

In the gallery he rose awkwardly to his feet, and, leaning heavily against her, stumbled to the staircase. 

‘Had you not come, dearest one,’ he said, ‘all the blood had left my body.’ 

There the servants mat them, and prepared a rough litter, in which he was carried back to the Dovecote. Mary followed, but not until after she had done something that ere another night had blotted Calton Hall out of existence.As she left the place she set fire to the tapestries, and the woodwork took flame almost instantly. Since ‘twas her own heritage none could complain. When Madam Padley and Endymion heard they said nothing; but it was easy to see that they approved. 

And when, two days afterwards, he was permitted to leave his room and sit with Mary in the sunlit garden, and she took his hand and held it to her bosom, and begged him to forgive her for submitting to such a weird ordeal, he put his disengaged arm around her neck and begged her to be silent. 

‘For, sweet,’ he said, ‘there’s shame in my happiness. That night hath shown me how nobler is your love than mine.’