The Shrine of Death by Lady Dilke

It’s always a pleasure to discover new, early, female, horror authors and today I’m bringing you a mystery cult initiation by Lady Dilke. Lady Dilke married a couple of times so her surname changes a bit, but essentially she was an early feminist and horror author. She died just after the turn of the 20th Century. I any of you are Middlemarch fans, she was the model for Casaubon.
Anyway over to Ben Tucker who we seem to be depending on awfully hard this year.

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Life has many secrets! These were the first words that fell on the ears of a little girl baby, whose mother had just been brought to bed. As she grew up she pondered their meaning, and, before all things, she desired to know the secrets of life. Thus, longing and brooding, she grew apart from other children , and her dreams were ever of how the secrets of life should be revealed
to her.

Now, when she was about fifteen years of age, a famous witch passed through the town in which she dwelt, and the child heard much talk of her, and people said that her knowledge of all things was great, and that even as the past lay open before her, so there was nothing in the future that could be hidden from her. Then the child thought to herself, “ This woman ,
if by any means I get speech of her, can , if she will, tell me all the secrets of life. ”

Nor was it long after, that walking late in the evening with other and lesser children, along the ramparts on the east side of the town, she came to a corner of the wall which lay in deep shadow , and out of the shadow there sprang a large black dog, baying loudly, and the children were terrified, and fled , crying out, “It is the witch’s dog !” and one, the least of all, fell in its
terror, so the elder one tarried , and lifted it from the ground, and, as she comforted it for it was shaken by its fall, and the dog continued baying — the witch herself came out of the shadow , and said , “ Off with you, you little fools, and break my peace no more with your folly. ”

And the little one ran for fear, but the elder girl stood still, and laying hold of the witch’s mantle, she said, “ Before I go, tell me, what are the secrets of life ? ”

And the witch answered, “ Marry Death, fair child, and you will know.” At the first, the saying of the witch fell like a stone in the girl’s heart, but ere long her words, and the words which she had heard in the hour of her birth , filled all her thoughts,’ and when other girls jested or spoke of feasts and merriment, of happy love and all the joys of life, such talk seemed to her mere wind of idle tales, and the gossips who would have made a match for her schemed in vain , for she had but one desire, the desire to woo Death , and learn the secrets of life. Often now she
would seek the ramparts in late evening, hoping that in the shadows she might once more find the witch, and learn from her the way to her desire ; but she found her not.

Returning in the darkness, it so happened, after one of these fruitless journeys, that she passed under the walls of an ancient church, and looking up at the windows, she saw the flickering of a low, unsteady light upon the coloured panes, and she drew near to the door, and, seeing it ajar,
she pushed it open and entered, and passing between the mighty columns of the nave, she stepped aside to the spot whence the light proceeded. Having done so , she found herself standing in front of a great tomb, in one side of which were brazen gates, and beyond the gates a long flight of marble steps leading down to a vast hall or chapel below ; and above the gates, in a silver lamp, was a light burning, and as the chains by which the lamp was suspended
moved slightly in the draught from the open door of the church, the light which burnt in it flickered, and all the shadows around shifted so that nothing seemed still, and this constant recurrence of change was like the dance of phantoms in the air. And the girl, seeing the blackness, thought of the corner on the ramparts where she had met the witch , and almost she expected to see her, and to hear her dog baying in the shadows.

When she drew nearer, she found that the walls were loaded with sculpture, and the niches along the sides were filled with statues of the wise men of all time ; but at the corners were four women whose heads were bowed, and whose hands were bound in chains. Then, looking at them as they sat thus, discrowned but majestic, the soul of the girl was filled with sorrow , and she fell weeping, and, clasping her hands in her grief, she cast her eyes to heaven. As she
did so , the lamp swayed a little forwards, and its rays touched with light a figure seated on the top of the monument. When the girl caught sight of this figure she ceased weeping, and when she had withdrawn a step or two backwards, so as to get a fuller view, she fell upon her knees, and a gleam of wondrous expectation shone out of her face ; for, on the top of the tomb, robed and crowned , sat the image of Death, and a great gladness and awe filled her soul, for
she thought, “If I may but be found worthy to enter his portals, all the secrets of life will be mine.”

And laying her hands on the gates, she sought to open them , but they were locked, so after a little while she went sadly away. Each day , from this time forth , when twilight fell, the girl returned to the church, and would there remain kneeling for many hours before the shrine of Death, nor could she by any means be drawn away from her purpose. Her mind was fixed on her desire, so that she became insensible to all else ; and the whole town mocked her, and
her own people held her for mad.

So then, at last, they took her before a priest, and the priest, when he had talked with her
awhile, said , “ Let her have her way. Let her pass a night within the shrine ; on the morrow it may be that her wits will have returned to her.”

So a day was set, and they robed her in white as a bride, and in great state , with youths bearing torches, and many maidens, whose hands were full of flowers, she was brought through the city at night fall to the church ; and the gates of the shrine were opened , and as she passed within , the youths put out their torches and the maidens threw their roses on the steps beneath her feet.

When the gates closed upon her, she stood still awhile upon the upper steps, and so she waited until the last footfall had ceased to echo in the church, and she knew herself to be alone in the long desired presence. Then, full of reverent longing and awe, she drew her veil about
her, and as she did so , she found a red rose that had caught in it, and, striving to dislodge it, she brought it close to her face, and its perfume was very strong, and she saw , as in a vision, the rose garden of her mother’s house , and the face of one who had wooed her there in the sun ; but, even as she stood irresolute, the baying of a hound in the distant street fell on her ears, and she remembered the words of the witch, “ Marry Death, fair child, if you would
know the secrets of life , ” and casting the rose from her, she began to descend the steps.

As she went down, she heard, as it were, the light pattering of feet behind her ; but
turning, when she came to the foot, to look, she found that this sound was only the
echoing fall from step to step of the flowers which her long robes had drawn after her, and she heeded them not, for she was now within the shrine, and looking to the right hand and to the left, she saw long rows of tombs, each one hewn in marble and covered with sculpture of wondrous beauty.

All this, though, she saw dimly ; the plainest thing to view was the long black shadow of her own form , cast before her by the light from the lamp above, and as she looked beyond the uttermost rim of shadow , she became aware of an awful shape seated at a marble table whereon lay an open book . Looking on this dread shape, she trembled , for she knew
that she was in the presence of Death Then, seeing the book, her heart was up lifted within her, and stepping boldly for wards, she seated herself before it, and as she did so , it seemed to her that she heard a shiver from within the tombs.

Now, when she came near , Death had raised his finger, and he pointed to the writing on the open page, but, as she put her hands upon the book , the blood rushed back to her heart, for it was ice-cold, and again it seemed to her that something moved within the tombs. It was but for
a minute, then her courage returned , and she fixed her eyes eagerly upon the lines before her and began to read, but the very letters were at first strange to her, and even when she knew them she could by no means frame them into words, or make any sentence out of them, so that, at the last, she looked up in her wonderment to seek aid .

But he, the terrible one, before whom she sat, again lifted his finger, and as he pointed to the page, a weight as of lead forced down her eyes upon the book ; and now the letters shifted strangely, and when she thought to have seized a word or a phrase it would suddenly be gone, for, if the text shone out plain for an instant, the strange shadows, moving with the movements of the silver lamp, would blot it again as quickly from sight.

At this, distraction filled her mind, and she heard her own breathing like sobs in the darkness, and fear choked her ; for ever, when she would have appealed for help, her eyes saw the same deadly menace, the same uplifted and threatening finger. Then, glancing to left and right, a new horror took possession of her, for the lids of the tombs were yawning wide, and whenever
her thoughts turned to flight, their awful tenants peered at her from above the edges, and they made as though they would have stayed her.

Thus she sat till it was long past midnight, and her heart was sick within her, when again the distant baying of a hound reached her ears ; but this sound, instead of giving her fresh courage, seemed to her but a bitter mockery, for she thought, “ What shall the secrets of life profit me, if I must make my bed with Death ? ”

And she became mad with anger, and she cursed the counsels of the witch , and in her desperation, like a creature caught in the toils, she sprang from her seat and made towards the steps by which she had come. Ere she could reach them , all the dreadful dwellers in the tombs
were before her , and she, seeing the way to life was barred for ever, fell to the ground at their feet and gave up her spirit in a great agony.

Then each terrible one re turned to his place, and the book which lay open before Death closed with a noise as of thunder, and the light which burnt before his shrine went out, so that all was darkness. In the morning, when that company which had brought her came back to the
church, they wondered much to see the lamp extinguished , and, fetching a taper, some went down fearfully into the vault. There all was as it had ever been , only the girl lay face downwards amongst the withered roses, and when they lifted her up they saw that she was dead ; but her eyes were wide with horror. And so another tomb was hewn in marble, and she was laid with the rest, and when men tell the tale of her strange bridal they say, “ She had but
the reward of her folly. God rest her soul ! ”