The Woman In Black Read Free Page B

and began to walk about again. Tomorrow was Christmas Day. Could I not be free of it at least for that blessed time, was there no way of keeping the memory, andthe effects it had upon me, at bay, as an analgesic or a balm will stave off the pain of a wound, at least temporarily? And then, standing among the trunks of the fruit trees, silver-grey in the moonlight, I recalled that the way to banish an old ghost that continues its hauntings is to exorcise it. Well then, mine should be exorcised. I should tell my tale, not aloud, by the fireside, not as adiversion 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.
    I decided at once that it should be, at least during my lifetime, a story for my eyes only. I was the one who had been hauntedand who had suffered – notthe only one, no, but surely, I thought, the only one left alive, I was the one who, to judge by my agitation of this evening, was still affected by it deeply, it was from me alone that the ghost must be driven.
    I glanced up at the moon, and at the bright, bright Pole star. Christmas Eve. And then I prayed, a heartfelt, simple prayer for peace of mind, and for strengthand steadfastness to endure while I completed what would be the most agonizing task, and I prayed for a blessing upon my family, and for quiet rest to us all that night. For, although I was in control of my emotions now, I dreaded the hours of darkness that lay ahead.
    For answer to my prayer, I received immediately the memory of some lines of poetry, lines I had once known but long forgotten.Later, I spoke them aloud to Esmé, and she identified the source for me at once.
    ‘Some say that ever ’gainst that season comes
    Wherein our Saviour’s birth is celebrated,
    This bird of dawning singeth all night long.
    And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad,
    The nights are wholesome, then no planets strike,
    No Fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
    So hallowed and so gracious isthat time.’
    As I recited them aloud, a great peace came upon me, I was wholly myself again yet stiffened by myresolution. After this holiday when the family had all departed, and Esmé and I were alone, I would begin to write my story.
    When I returned to the house, Isobel and Aubrey had gone upstairs to share the delight of creeping about with bulging stockings for their young sons, Edmund wasreading, Oliver and Will were in the old playroom at the far end of the house, where there was a battered billiard table, and Esmé was tidying the drawing room, preparatory to going to bed. About that evening’s incident, nothing whatsoever was said, though she wore an anxious expression, and I had to invent a bad bout of acute indigestion to account for my abrupt behaviour. I saw to the fire, dampingdown the flames, and knocked out my pipe on the side of the hearth, feeling quiet and serene again, and no longer agitated about what lonely terrors I might have to endure, whether asleep or awake, during the small hours of the coming night.
    Tomorrow was Christmas Day, and I looked forward to it eagerly and with gladness, it would be a time of family joy and merrymaking, love and friendship,fun and laughter.
    When it was over, I would have work to do.

A L ONDON P ARTICULAR
    I T WAS a Monday afternoon in November and already growing dark, not because of the lateness of the hour – it was barely three o’clock – but because of the fog, the thickest of London peasoupers, which had hemmed us in on all sides since dawn – if, indeed, there had been a dawn, for the fog had scarcely allowed any daylight to penetrate the foul gloom of the atmosphere.
    Fogwas outdoors, hanging over the river, creeping in and out of alleyways and passages, swirling thickly between the bare trees of all the parks and gardens of the city, and