The Woman In Black Read Online Free PDF

world.’
    ‘Frets?’
    ‘Aye, frets. Sea-frets, sea-mists. They rollup 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 artilleryfire, 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 enoughspoken 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 hadmade, or come into, moneylate 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 awarethat 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 hersolicitor.’ 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 turninwards– 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 somereason 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 havestopped 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