THE CENTURY'S BEST HORROR FICTION #5: A review of "The Lover's Ordeal" by R. Murray Gilchrist

You don’t get more old fashioned than this tale. We have a young man coming to court a young woman. We have a task he has to achieve before she surrenders her hand in marriage. To say nothing of the grooms, the horses, the harpsichord playing, and, of course, the stately old house on the property where the family no longer sets foot.



Mary Padley is head over heels in love with Endymion Eyre, but she doesn’t want to make things easy for her young lover. No, you see, she wants him to stay the night in the family’s old house, where no one has been for eighty years. “The place is haunted—or so ‘tis said—and ‘twill require all your courage to pass the midnight hours in those deserted suites.”


Being a proper gentleman, Endymion leaps at the chance. Before long, he’s riding a horse down to the old house, which is described in the perfect gothic fashion from Gilchrist. In fact, it’s safe to say that this is the epitome of haunted house descriptions, at least until Shirley Jackson and Richard Matheson come along.


Unfortunately, Mary’s grandmother has neglected to tell her about the true nature of the haunting of the old house. Well, who can fault her? Still, when Mary learns about the truth of the matter, she rushes to her fiancé’s rescue, hoping that she’s not too late.


It truly is a beautiful old tale, certainly one that couldn’t be told today. A relic of a bygone era, it belongs in the heart of all lovers of dark fiction. And there’s more . . . .


SPOILER ALERT: Ladies and gentlemen, we have our first vampire story of the anthology. In what is a breathtaking scene, Gilchrist introduces Diana, the beautiful creature who lives at the old house and feeds on the blood of humans. (The word “vampire” never comes up.) Endymion is so taken by her he completely forgets about Mary to the point where “[p]ast and future were blotted from his mind. He lived solely in the present.” And the part where she actually drinks of his blood is so elegantly done, almost to the point of politeness.


The only drawback is the ending itself. Mary saves her lover and burns the old house down. It’s pretty typical and also a let down. Happy endings in horror don’t usually mean much to a reader. The reason is, horror fiction is supposed to get down to the ugliest, basest parts of human nature. That’s not a fun road to travel. Very few good things come out of this, which is why happy endings always feel forced. This one certainly does, and the moment when Mary’s grandmother reveals the truth about the old house is so flat it reminds someone of a kid being forced to read aloud in class. END OF SPOILERS.

Despite the flaws just mentioned in the ending, the journey is completely worth it. Where Machen couldn’t control himself to get the right amount of beauty into “The White People,” Gilchrist succeeds at nailing in “The Lover’s Ordeal.”

[This story first appeared in the June 1905 issue of THE LONDON MAGAZINE, but sadly, not even the Gutenberg Project has the full text up online.]