I read Susan Hill's The Woman in Black over three years ago (much longer than I had recollected--how quickly time flies), and while I remembered some of the twists and turns as well as the ending, I still found it as satisfying this time around as I did in 2006. Although I don't really believe in ghosts, I love a good ghost story, if that makes any sense at all (the key word being story). I'm willing to suspend belief in some cases, but the best stories are those that might be plausible. I like subtlety in a story. A story that might just be true, where there are a few uncertainties, and the rest is left to the mind to work on and worry over. I know a story has spooked me if I think about it later when I'm home alone and all of a sudden an image will come to mind and give me goosebumps or make the hairs on the back of my neck rise. Of course there's the mind at work again.
I expect Arthur Kipps let his imagination run away with him as well, even at those moments when he tried to be rational, angry even, at those occurrences that were happening and unexplainable. I'm getting ahead of myself though.
What is it about Christmas and ghost stories? The Woman in Black begins with ghost stories told around a blazing fire one Christmas Eve. As Arthur's children take turns coming up with more and more outrageous tales to tell, they urge Arthur to take his turn and share a ghost story as well. Only Arthur has a real ghost story that has dogged him ever since his journey to Crythin Gifford as a young man, but it's not one he can share with his family. Instead he decides to write it down in hopes of finally banishing it from memory.
"I should tell my tale, not aloud, by the fireside, not as a diversion for idle listeners--it was too solemn, and too real, for that. But I should set it down on paper, with every care and in every detail. I would write my own ghost story. Then perhaps I should finally be free of it for whatever life remained for me to enjoy."
A rising solicitor in a small firm, he's asked to travel to Crythin Gifford to attend the funeral of a woman who's long been a client and has no family left to wrap up her affairs. Having no idea what to expect Arhur will sort through her papers and bring anything of importance back to London. A fairly simple assignment, it should take only a few days to accomplish, though he's been warned their client was somewhat disorganized. Crythin Gifford is in the northeast of England along the coast and surrounded by marshlands. The closer he gets the less hospitable it seems. The train he travels on is empty save for one other man returning home. He, like everyone else in Crythin isn't very forthcoming about Alice Drablow and her lonely home out in the marshlands, Eel Marsh House.
The funeral is attended by only the local solicitor and Arthur, though he notices a woman dressed in black standing off to the side watching the proceedings.
"She was dressed in deepest black, in the style of full mourning that had rather gone out of fashion, except, I imagined in court circles of the most formal occasions. Indeed, it had clearly been dug out of some old trunk or wardrobe, for its blackness was a little rusty looking. A bonnet-type hat covered her head and shaded her face, but although I did not stare, even the swift glance I took of the woman showed me enough to recognise that she was suffering from some terrible wasting disease, for not only was she extremely pale, even more than a contrast with the blackness of her garments could account for, but the skin and, it seemed, only the thinnest layer of flesh was tautly stretched and strained across her bones, so that it gleamed with a curious, blue-white sheen, and her eyes seemed sunken in her head. Her hands that rested on the pew before her were in a similar state, as though she had been a victim of starvation."
As if this is not curious enough no one in Crythin will answer Arthur's questions about Alice Drablow or her mysterious mourner. Arthur isn't discouraged. He's later delivered to Eel Marsh House in a pony trap with the promise of a ride back after the tide has gone out. Eel Marsh House is set off from the town by the changing tides. Only at certain times can he travel back and forth. He sets to the task of digging through old papers, but the house and the lands around it he was so taken with upon first glance become something altogether different when the frets, or sea-mists, sweep in over the area. Strange things happen in those mists and Arthur spends a terrifying night there when the pony trap is unable to return for him.
The woman in black is the key to the story. When she appears evil follows. Behind the closed doors of Eel Marsh House, there are hidden secrets, as in all scary stories. Hill takes her time revealing those secrets, but I think she knows how to mount the tension and set the reader up for some chilling moments.
I admit that this time through I did wonder why Arthur didn't simply pack up all the papers into boxes and bring them back to town to sort through, or not spend the night at Eel Marsh House when he might have avoided it (though it probably wasn't in his personality to do so). But those are the best moments, when you see the protagonist opening that door with the strange sounds coming from behind it, or going into the basement when you know he shouldn't. Without those moments, what would the point be. Those are the heart-stopping moments where you don't want to look (or keep reading), but you just know you have to (and can do so from the safety of your own home). So, as ghost stories go, this is one of my favorites. Hill does atmosphere so well, you can almost slice a knife through it. It's one I will definitely revisit again. I've even pulled out her novel, The Mists in the Mirror, though I'm not sure I'll get to it soon (maybe one to hold until for Christmas Eve!). I've heard it's good, though not as good as as The Woman in Black, but I'll happily give it a try.
Check out The Slaves blog for more posts on the story, and if you've read the book, please feel free to join the discussion here.