Ghost Story Review: "The Secret Chamber" by Margaret Oliphant

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For as long as anyone can remember, there’s been talk of a secret room in the Gowrie Castle, and, given its irregular shape, its large size and sprawling layout, such a room would be easy to conceal. No one but the earl, his heir and a trusted outsider knows its location. Some rumors say the room is guarded by the skeletons of those a former earl slaughtered at a banquet. Other stories say the bad earl, Earl Robert, is confined there, playing cards with the devil. The castle has a history going back to Saxon times, and probably even before that. The earls and their families have had their fingers—and swords—in every bit of trouble and turmoil in Scotland since then: rebellions, revenges, insurrections, conspiracies, anything in which blood was shed and lands lost, the Randolph has a share. Most were bad, some were good, but never were any insignificant, whatever else they were. At least until lately, relatively speaking. That is, until the first Stuart rising, known in Scotland as “the Fifteen,” for the year it occurred—1715. Now the family, though many of them start off brilliantly, retire early to the life of honest, boring country squires. The present heir, Lord Lindores, is just coming of age. He’s looking forward to traveling—definitely to America—to see what the world has to offer before settling down. He hopes his father lives long so he doesn’t have to bother with usual peerage stuff. After celebrating his birthday with friends, he awakes to find his father in his room. The Earl offers him some wine and tells him he’s going to need all his strength. “You are going to encounter the greatest trial of your life,” he says. And he seems quite sad. He leads Lindores to a lumber room near his own room and opens a door the young man swears was never there before, even though he’d been in the room many times. He gives him a sword and closes the door behind him. All is eventually revealed. Young Lindores’s reaction is conventional and rebellious at the same time, calling on God for aid, something he generally doesn’t do. Will God aid someone who only turns to him in times of trouble? A ghost snickers. What can he rely on? Lindores chooses to fight. The nature of power and modernity is briefly explored. The old Earl is captive to the past and says several times he would spare his son this ordeal if he could. He’s counseled by the spirit of the past, and the advice he receives is unfailingly bad. The son wants to throw open the secrets… The ending is a little vague. As the author notes, there’s more to come: “it will not be for me to write that concluding chapter.” The only place I could find the text is here: I think you’ve had problems downloading from this site before, Scott. ______ Title: “The Secret Chamber” Author: Margaret Oliphant First published: According to Judith van Oosterom-Pooley's The Whirligig of Time: Margaret Oliphant in Her Later Years, this story was first published in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine in 1876. Source: ISFDB