by Susan Hill
“According to everything we’ve been told about Mrs. Drablow,” he said carefully, “no, there were no children.”
“Did she have a great deal of money or land? Were her affairs at all complicated?”
“Not on the whole, Arthur, not on the whole. She owned her house, of course, and a few properties in Crythin Gifford—shops, with tenants, that sort of thing, and there’s a poor sort of farm, half under water. She spent money on a few dykes here and there, but not to much purpose. And there are the usual small trusts and investments.”
“Then it all sounds perfectly straightforward.”
“It does, does it not?”
“May I ask why I’m to go there?”
“To represent this firm at our client’s funeral.”
“Oh yes, of course.”
“I wondered whether to go up myself, naturally. But, to tell you the truth, I’ve been troubled again by my foot this past week.” Mr. Bentley suffered from gout, to which he would never refer by name, though his suffering need not have given him any cause for shame, for he was an abstemious man.
“And, then, there’s the chance that Lord Boltrope will need to see me. I ought to be here, do you see?”
“Ah yes, of course.”
“And then again”—a pause—“it’s high time I put a little more onto your shoulders. It’s no more than you’re capable of, is it?”
“I certainly hope not. I’ll be very glad to go up to Mrs. Drablow’s funeral, naturally.”
“There’s a bit more to it than that.”
“The will?”
“There’s a bit of business to attend to, in connection with the estate, yes. I’ll let you have the details to read on your journey. But, principally, you’re going to go through Mrs. Drablow’s documents—her private papers … whatever they may be. Wherever they may be …” Mr. Bentley grunted. “And to bring them back to this office.”
“I see.”
“Mrs. Drablow was—somewhat … disorganized, shall I say? It may well take you a while.”
“A day or two?”
“At least a day or two, Arthur. Of course, things may have changed, I may be quite mistaken … things may be in apple-pie order and you’ll clear it all up in an afternoon. As I told you, it’s very many years since I went there.”
The business was beginning to sound like something from a Victorian novel, with a reclusive old woman having hidden a lot of ancient documents somewhere in the depths of her cluttered house. I was scarcely taking Mr. Bentley seriously.
“Will there be anyone to help me?”
“The bulk of the estate goes to a great-niece and -nephew—they are both in India, where they have lived for upward of forty years. There used to be a housekeeper … but you’ll find out more when you get there.”
“But presumably she had friends … or even neighbors?”
“Eel Marsh House is far from any neighbor.”
“And, being a rum ’un, she never made friends, I suppose?”
Mr. Bentley chuckled. “Come, Arthur, look on the bright side. Treat the whole thing as a jaunt.”
I got up.
“At least it’ll take you out of all this for a day or two,” and he waved his hand toward the window. I nodded. In fact, I was not by any means unattracted to the idea of the expedition, though I saw that Mr. Bentley had not been able to resist making a good story better, and dramatizing the mystery of Mrs. Drablow in her queer-sounding house a good way beyond the facts. I supposed that the place would merely prove cold, uncomfortable and difficult to reach, the funeral melancholy, and the papers I had to search for would be tucked under an attic bed in a dust-covered shoebox, and contain nothing more than old receipted bills and some drafts of cantankerous letters to all and sundry—all of which was usual for such a female client. As I reached the door of his room, Mr. Bentley added, “You’ll reach Crythin Gifford by late this evening, and there’s a small hotel you can put up at for tonight. The funeral is tomorrow morning at eleven.”
“And, afterward, you want me to go to the house?”
“I’ve made arrangements … there’s a local man dealing with it all … he’ll be in touch with you.”
“Yes, but …”
Just then, Tomes materialized with a sniff at my shoulder.
“Your ten-thirty client, Mr. Bentley.”
“Good, good, show him in.”
“Just a moment, Mr. Bentley …”
“What is the matter, Arthur? Don’t dither in the doorway, man, I’ve work to do.”
“Isn’t there any more you ought to tell me, I …”
He waved me away impatiently, and at that point Tomes returned, closely followed by Mr. Bentley’s ten-thirty client. I retreated.
I had to clear my desk, go back to my rooms and pack a bag, inform my landlady that I would be away for a couple of nights, and to scribble a note to my fiancée, Stella. I rather hoped that her disappointment at my sudden absence from her would be tempered by pride that Mr. Bentley was entrusting me with the firm’s business in such a manner—a good omen for my future prospects upon which our marriage, planned for the following year, depended.
After that, I was to catch the afternoon train to a remote corner of England, of which until a few minutes ago I had barely heard. On my way out of the building, the lugubrious Tomes knocked on the glass of his cubby-hole, and handed me a thick brown envelope marked DRABLOW. Clutching it under my arm, I plunged out, into the choking London fog.
The Journey North
As Mr. Bentley had said, however far the distance and gloomy the reason for my journey, it did represent an escape from the London particular and nothing was more calculated to raise my spirits in anticipation of a treat to come than the sight of that great cavern of a railway station, glowing like the interior of a blacksmith’s forge. Here, all was clangor and the cheerfulness of preparations for departure, and I purchased papers and journals at the bookstall and walked down the platform beside the smoking, puffing train, with a light step. The engine, I remember, was the Sir Bedivere.
I found a corner seat in an empty compartment, put my coat, hat and baggage on the rack and settled down in great contentment. When we pulled out of London, the fog, although still lingering about the suburbs, began to be patchier and paler, and I all but cheered. By then, a couple of other passengers had joined me in my compartment, but, after nodding briefly, were as intent on applying themselves to newspapers and other documents as myself, and so we traveled a good many uneventful miles toward the heart of England. Beyond the windows, it was quickly dark and, when the carriage blinds were pulled down, all was as cozy and enclosed as some lamplit study.
At Crewe I changed with ease and continued on my way, noting that the track began to veer toward the east, as well as heading north, and I ate a pleasant dinner. It was only when I came to change again, onto the branch line at the small station of Homerby, that I began to be less comfortable, for here the air was a great deal colder and blowing in gusts from the east with an unpleasant rain upon its breath, and the train in which I was to travel for the last hour of my journey was one of those with ancient, comfortless carriages upholstered in the stiffest of leathercloth over unyielding horsehair, and with slatted wooden racks above. It smelled of cold, stale smuts and the windows were grimed, the floor unswept.
Until the very last second, it seemed that I was to be alone not merely in my compartment but in the entire train, but, just at the blowing of the guard’s whistle, a man came through the barrier, glanced quickly along the cheerless row of empty carriages and, catching sight of me at last, and clearly preferring to have a companion, climbed in, swinging the door shut as the train began to move away. The cloud of cold, damp air that he let in with him added to the chill of the compartment, and I remarked that it was a poor night, as the stranger began to unbutton his greatcoat. He looked me up and down inquisitively, though not in any unfriendly way, and then up at my things upon the rack, before nodding agreement.
“It seems I have
exchanged one kind of poor weather for another. I left London in the grip of an appalling fog, and up here it seems to be cold enough for snow.”
“It’s not snow,” he said. “The wind’ll blow itself out and take the rain off with it by morning.”
“I’m very glad to hear it.”
“But, if you think you’ve escaped the fogs by coming up here, you’re mistaken. We get bad frets in this part of the world.”
“Frets?”
“Aye, frets. Sea-frets, sea-mists. They roll up in a minute from the sea to land across the marshes. It’s the nature of the place. One minute it’s as clear as a June day, the next …” he gestured to indicate the dramatic suddenness of his frets. “Terrible. But if you’re staying in Crythin you won’t see the worst of it.”
“I stay there tonight, at the Gifford Arms. And tomorrow morning. I expect to go out to see something of the marshes later.”
And then, not particularly wishing to discuss the nature of my business with him, I picked up my newspaper again and unfolded it with a certain ostentation, and so, for some little while, we rumbled on in the nasty train, in silence—save for the huffing of the engine, and the clanking of iron wheels upon iron rails, and the occasional whistle, and the bursts of rain, like sprays of light artillery fire, upon the windows.
I began to be weary, of journeying and of the cold and of sitting still while being jarred and jolted about, and to look forward to my supper, a fire and a warm bed. But in truth, and although I was hiding behind its pages, I had read my newspaper fully, and I began to speculate about my companion. He was a big man, with a beefy face and huge, raw-looking hands, well enough spoken but with an odd accent that I took to be the local one. I put him down as a farmer, or else the proprietor of some small business. He was nearer to sixty than fifty, and his clothes were of good quality, but somewhat brashly cut, and he wore a heavy, prominent seal-ring on his left hand, and that, too, had a newness and a touch of vulgarity about it. I decided that he was a man who had made, or come into, money late and unexpectedly, and was happy for the world to know it.
Having, in my youthful and priggish way, summed up and all but dismissed him, I let my mind wander back to London and to Stella, and for the rest, was only conscious of the extreme chill and the ache in my joints, when my companion startled me, by saying, “Mrs. Drablow.” I lowered my paper, and became aware that his voice echoed so loudly through the compartment because of the fact that the train had stopped, and the only sound to be heard was the moan of the wind, and a faint hiss of steam, far ahead of us.
“Drablow,” he pointed to my brown envelope, containing the Drablow papers, which I had left lying on the seat beside me.
I nodded stiffly.
“You don’t tell me you’re a relative?”
“I am her solicitor.” I was rather pleased with the way it sounded.
“Ah! Bound for the funeral?”
“I am.”
“You’ll be about the only one that is.” In spite of myself, I wanted to find out more about the business, and clearly my companion knew it.
“I gather she had no friends—or immediate family—that she was something of a recluse? Well, that is sometimes the way with old ladies. They turn inward—grow eccentric. I suppose it comes from living alone.”
“I daresay that it does, Mr.…?”
“Kipps. Arthur Kipps.”
“Samuel Daily.”
We nodded.
“And, when you live alone in such as place as that, it comes a good deal easier.”
“Come,” I said smiling, “you’re not going to start telling me strange tales of lonely houses?”
He gave me a straight look. “No,” he said, at last, “I am not.”
For some reason then, I shuddered, all the more because of the openness of his gaze and the directness of his manner.
“Well,” I replied in the end, “all I can say is that it’s a sad thing when someone lives for eighty-seven years and can’t count upon a few friendly faces to gather together at their funeral!”
And I rubbed my hand on the window, trying to see out into the darkness. We appeared to have stopped in the middle of open country, and to be taking the full force of the wind that came howling across it. “How far have we to go?” I tried not to sound concerned, but was feeling an unpleasant sensation of being isolated far from any human dwelling, and trapped in this cold tomb of a railway carriage, with its pitted mirror and stained, dark-wood paneling. Mr. Daily took out his watch.
“Twelve miles, we’re held up for the down train at Gapemouth tunnel. The hill it runs through is the last bit of high ground for miles. You’ve come to the flatlands, Mr. Kipps.”
“I’ve come to the land of curious place-names, certainly. This morning, I heard of the Nine Lives Causeway, and Eel Marsh, tonight of Gapemouth tunnel.”
“It’s a far-flung part of the world. We don’t get many visitors.”
“I suppose because there is nothing much to see.”
“It all depends what you mean by ‘nothing.’ There’s the drowned churches and the swallowed-up village,” he chuckled. “Those are particularly fine examples of ‘nothing to see.’ And we’ve a good wild ruin of an abbey with a handsome graveyard—you can get to it at low tide. It’s all according to what takes your fancy!”
“You are almost making me anxious to get back to that London particular!”
There was a shriek from the train whistle.
“Here she comes.” And the train coming away from Crythin Gifford to Homerby emerged from Gapemouth tunnel and trundled past us, a line of empty yellow-lit carriages that disappeared into the darkness, and then immediately we were under way again.
“But you’ll find everything hospitable enough at Crythin, for all it’s a plain little place. We tuck ourselves in with our backs to the wind, and carry on with our business. If you care to come with me, I can drop you off at the Gifford Arms—my car will be waiting for me, and it’s on my way.”
He seemed keen to reassure me and to make up for his teasing exaggeration of the bleakness and strangeness of the area, and I thanked him and accepted his offer, whereupon we both settled back to our reading, for the last few miles of that tedious journey.
The Funeral of Mrs. Drablow
My first impressions of the little market town—indeed, it seemed scarcely larger than an overgrown village—of Crythin Gifford were distinctly favorable. When we arrived that night, Mr. Samuel Daily’s car, as shining, capacious and plush a vehicle as I had traveled in in my life, took us swiftly the bare mile from the tiny station into the market square, where we drew up outside the Gifford Arms.
As I prepared to alight, he handed me his card.
“Should you need anyone …”
I thanked him, though stressing that it was most unlikely, as I would have whatever practical help I might require to organize the late Mrs. Drablow’s business from the local agent, and did not intend to be in the place more than a day or two. Mr. Daily gave me a straight, steady stare, and said nothing and, so as not to appear discourteous, I tucked the card carefully into my waistcoat pocket. Only then did he give the word to his driver, and move away.
“You’ll find everything hospitable enough at Crythin,” he had said earlier, and so it proved. As I caught sight of the piled-up fire and the capacious armchair beside it, in the parlor of the inn, and found another fire waiting to warm me in the prettily furnished bedroom at the top of the house, my spirits rose, and I began to feel rather more like a man on holiday than one come to attend a funeral, and go through the dreary business attendant upon the death of a client. The wind had either died down or else could not be heard in the shelter of the buildings, around the market square, and the discomfort, and queer trend of the conversation of my journey, faded like a bad dream.
The landlord recommended a glass of mulled wine, which I drank sitting before the fire, listening to the murmur of voices on the other side of a heavy door leading to the public bar, and his
wife made my mouth water in anticipation of the supper she proposed—homemade broth, sirloin of beef, apple and raisin tart with cream, and some Stilton cheese. While I waited, I wrote a brief fond note to Stella, which I would post the next morning, and while I ate heartily, I mused about the type of small house we might afford to live in after our marriage, if Mr. Bentley were to continue to give me so much responsibility in the firm, so that I might feel justified in asking for an increase in salary.
All in all, and with the half-bottle of claret that had accompanied my supper, I prepared to go up to bed in a warm glow of well-being and contentment.
“You’ll be here for the auction, I take it then, sir,” the landlord waited by the door, to bid me goodnight.
“Auction?”
He looked surprised. “Ah—I thought you would have come up for that—there’s a big auction of several farms that lie just south of here, and it’s market day tomorrow as well.”
“Where is the auction?”
“Why here, Mr. Kipps, in the public bar at eleven o’clock. We generally have such auctions as there are at the Gifford Arms, but there hasn’t been one so big as this for a good many years. Then there’s the lunch afterward. We expect to serve upward of forty lunches on market day, but it’ll be a few more than that tomorrow.”
“Then I’m sorry I shall have to miss it—although I hope I shall be able to have a stroll round the market.”
“No intention to pry, sir—only I made sure you’d come for the auction.”
“That’s all right—quite natural that you should. But at eleven o’clock tomorrow morning, I’m afraid that I have a somber engagement. I’m here to attend a funeral—Mrs. Drablow, of Eel Marsh House. Perhaps you knew of her?”
His face flickered with … what? Alarm, was it? Suspicion? I could not tell, but the name had stirred some strong emotion in him, all signs of which he endeavored to suppress at once.
“I knew of her,” he said evenly.
“I am representing her firm of solicitors. I never met her. I take it she kept rather out of the way, for the most part?”