The Woman in Black by Susan Hill

Though there is something to be said for the untraditional ghostly tale, for Halloween all I want is an old-fashioned ghost story and for classic ghost tales, you can’t beat those of Susan Hill. I personally love any type of ghost story or haunted house tale and The Woman in Black fits the bill to a T. It’s an Edwardian-themed tale, set in the same vein as The Turn of the Screw (another favorite of mine) and tells the tale of a ghost, a revenge haunting, and a terrifyingly inhabited house in an understated, almost calm way that underlies the sheer terror of the writing.

The Woman in Black is one of those deceptively simple ghostly yarns, in which an innocent bystander gets inadvertently caught up in a web of revenge, deceit, family secrets, death, and hauntings; yet if you scratch the elegant surface of this story, it’s about class, social inequality, gender politics and economic double standards. Arthur Kipps is a young solicitor in London who tells the story from the remove of his older years, after his stepsons challenge him about having ever experienced anything truly frightening. Kipps proceeds to tell the tale of when he was sent to the small market town called Crythin Gifford to attend the funeral and address the last wishes of a client, Alice Drablow. She had no heirs and lived alone at the eerily named – pardon the pun! – Eel Marsh House. The house is connected to the town and mainland by a causeway called Nine Lives and can only be approached when the tide is low. It’s already creepy thinking about a house cut off from any other land or humans by a body of water and bog marshes, right? Arthur gets to know the local villagers and notices how they refuse to discuss either the house or Mrs. Drablow. Arthur has doubts about the whole affair, particularly when he notices a woman dressed head to toe in black with a ravaged, wasted face who watches him continually until he has no choice but to presume she is a ghost.

Ignoring his own fears and the oddness of the townfolk, the young lawyer takes up residence at the house on Eel Marsh, but is unable to complete his work as the haunting grows stronger and scarier. Apart from the woman in black, there is a ghostly horse and trap (not seen but only heard) which keeps on plunging into the marsh, accompanied by a child’s wail: also, a nursery within the house eerily suspended in time where a rocking chair rocks by itself… as the terrors mount, Arthur discovers the tragedy which is the root cause – and terrifying consequences of sighting the woman in black. He escapes-but the horror follows him back to London and affects his life in dreadful ways, proving that just because you’re not involved with a family and had nothing to do with the curse or revenge doesn’t mean you get away scot-free. Let that be a warning to any wanna-be ghost hunters out there.

There is also a deliciously significant amount of food and drink in this story, which I of course ate up. See what I did there? 🙂 But seriously, eating is a normal and expected response and reaction to any stress in life, and what could be more upsetting to your equilibrium than running into a terrifying, deathly-pale specter of a woman dressed head to toe in black who comes upon you in cemeteries, dark creepy houses enmeshed in mysterious fog, and worst of all, in nightmares come to life? I think probably the only thing I found strange when reading this book was the cognitive dissonance inherent in some of the passages. The story itself is written in a somewhat old-fashioned way and evokes a very Victorian/Edwardian sense of time, yet references to telephones and other more modern devices are mentioned casually and break the spell of the writing. But then I’d happen across a food passage and all would be forgiven.

Arthur Kipps spends an inordinate amount of time eating and drinking, though to be fair, if I had to be stuck in a tiny town with not much to do and had to spend a lot of time in a haunted house, I’d be drinking myself into a permanently lush state and stuffing myself with tons of food to forget the terrors around me. In one memorable scene, he spends an afternoon bicycling throughout the little town in an attempt to forget the terrors of Eel Marsh House and seeks out a tasty and substantial luncheon.

I intended to cycle to the next village, where I hoped to find another country inn and enjoy some bread and cheese and beer for lunch, but as I reached the last of the houses, I could not resist the urge that was so extraordinarily strong within me to stop and look…….

The combination of beer, cheese and bread is pretty much unbeatable, with the yeast of the beer taking the place of the regular yeast one puts into bread dough, so that’s what I made. Ghosts in black are optional.

INGREDIENTS
3 cups all-purpose unbleached flour
1 heaping tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon coarse sea salt
1 12-oz beer
3 cups grated sharp cheddar cheese
1 tablespoon each of finely minced fresh rosemary and fresh thyme

METHOD
Heat the oven to 375F and in a large bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and sea salt.

Pour in the beer and stir to mix.

Add in the shredded cheese and the fresh herbs and mix together until you have a somewhat sticky bread dough.

Knead for about 10 minutes, then press into an oiled bread loaf pan and top with melted butter. Bake for about an hour. The top of the loaf will rise and the edges will form delicious, cheesy crusts and you’ll smell the yeast and the cheese and probably start drooling. So you should drink another beer to help.

Remove the bread from the oven, allow to cool, then serve warm and slathered with good-quality butter and get those breadcrumbs and butter all over yourself. No matter. The woman in black isn’t likely to come and haunt you for your lack of table manners……will she? Bwahahahahahahahahaha!