Susan Hill
1983
The woman in black
Hamish Hamilton Limited
United Kindom
88 pp
This story takes place on a crisp Christmas eve, the elderly Arthur Kipps rests contentedly in front of a roaring fire, surrounded by his stepchildren and loving wife Esme. All is at peace with Arthur’s world; all is as it should be. But when the young men start to tell ghost stories, Arthur’s idyllic night is ruined. It is only now, after so many years, that Arthur puts his pen to paper and tells the story that haunts him – the story that keeps him up at night shaking with terror, the reason for his distress this Christmas night.
Arthur writes of a time, many years earlier when he was a young man, engaged to a lovely young woman, and only starting to make his way in the world as a solicitor. Assigned the task of sorting out the affairs of recently deceased client, the reclusive widow Alice Drablow, Arthur is sent to the small farming town of Crythin Gifford. From the start of his trip, something seems off – every time he attempts to speak with townspeople about the deceased Mrs. Drablow, he is met with deflection, blank faced fear, or completely ignored. Frustrated but eager to do his job, Arthur dismisses the cryptic warnings of the townspeople as superstitious nonsense and makes his way to the desolate and secluded Eel Marsh House. Situated on the marshes at the edge of the town, a place where sea and land are nigh indistinguishable, Eel Marsh House sits quietly, waiting for Arthur. Travel to the house is treacherous and can only be reached by pony and trap on the Nine Lives Causeway – a road that is completely submerged and impossible to traverse once the tide comes in each night. Despite the desolation of the home, despite the words of caution from the town, Arthur takes to the house and decides to stay there – no use making a cab come back and forth for him every day – until he has concluded his business.
That is before he realizes that there is something more to Eel Marsh House and Alice Drablow’s legacy; before he hears the dying cries from the marsh, night after night; before he spies the wasted woman, dressed in black, with pure malevolence radiating from every fiber of her being.
This book contains twelve interesting chapters, and it can be read by students with an intermediate or upper intermediate level that are interested in ghost stories. This kind of activities improves your spelling and your vocabulary, opens your mind and your imagination and contributes with your cultural level.
Ana Fabiola Sáenz García
Catedrática del ICEA – UAEH
Julio del 2013