This book was written in 1983, and as such is a good 200 years out of period. The date at which the novel is set is never precisely established, though details such as London's pea soup fogs and steam trains would seem to indicate a date in the 19th C or early 20th C. This deliberate vagueness is quite in keeping with the tendency of the Gothic genre towards archaism; the terrors and horrors of the fiction can be enjoyed at a safe arm's length by being placed in the past. In classic Gothic fiction, however, the action also takes place far away: The Monks set in Spain, Udolpho moves between Italy and France, Dracula is located in various parts of Eastern Europe, as well as London, but is another late piece of Gothic (1897). In Northanger Abbey Henry Tilney chastises Catherine for believing that Gothic excesses could take place in, for them, contemporary England. The action of The Woman in Black does take place in England, but it is a very "remote part of England" (26) which almost seems to be a world apart. Eel Marsh House, cut off from the rest of the area by the salt marshes and only sometimes connected by the Nine Lives Causeway (and how about that for a superstitious place name?) might as well be in Spain, for all its connection with the civilised world of England, located in Arthur Kipps' mind in London, smog notwithstanding.

Chapter 1 - Christmas Eve
The opening paragraph introduces the protagonist of the novel and its narrator. This novel is told as 1st person narrative, which is not traditional to the genre. Both Lewis and Radcliffe used the technique of omniscient narrator which gives the scope to be everywhere at once whilst presenting events through the eyes of a variety of characters. The 1st person technique used here identifies us exclusively with Kipps and his viewpoint. This is valuable later as we are forced to share his intense feelings about the events at Eel Marsh House without any opportunity to escape. (Charlotte Bronte also uses 1st person narrator in Jane Eyre, another out of period Gothic novel. Dracula, by using various characters' journals, takes advantage both of the dramatic impact of 1st person narrative and the ability to switch viewpoint. ) Immediately the narrator is shown to be slightly removed from the society around him - a little alienated, though he is voluntarily excluding himself at this point. He is, of course, telling the story retrospectively, which means he tells it in such a way that the reader is always a step ahead of the narrator, having the hindsight which he lacked at the time.
As the narrative continues and Kipps fills in the background to his present situation we see why he should hold himself aloof in this way. This novel is told in flashback; the main events of the novel happen before the novel begins.
The name of the house in which Kipps is now living is Monk's Piece, which has Gothic overtones which don't seem to go anywhere. Maybe it's just to create ambience. However, Kipps' discovery of the house and his claim to "an absolute conviction that I would come here again, that the house was already mine, bound to me invisibly"(12) are redolent of Gothic superstition and supernatural, though the supernatural events of the novel do not actually happen there. The description of the way the weather has been and of the isolated nature of Monk's Piece suggest a kind of toned down, domesticated Gothic.

In his admiration of nature Kipps is associated with the type of Gothic and Sentimental hero who find the sublime in the contemplation of nature and whose moral worth is gauged by their response to the beauties of the natural world. Later in the chapter, however, care is taken to establish Kipps' Augustan credentials; "I had never been an imaginative or fanciful man and certainly not one given to visions of the future" (13) - though we begin to see that he clings to this Augustanism through fear; earlier he has mentioned "occasional nervous illnesses and conditions, as a result of the experiences I will come to relate" (11) and we now learn that "since those earlier experiences (he) had deliberately avoided all contemplation of any remotely non- material matters, and clung to the prosaic, the visible and tangible." (13)
Certainly he sees the value of a lack of sensibility; whereas his wife wishes her daughter to be "a little less staid, a little more spirited, even frivolous", (16) Kipps is happy with his step- daughter's Augustan qualities, seeing in them a protection for her; "I would not have wished for anything to ruffle the surface of that calm, untroubled sea." (16) Through both of these characters we see Augustanism presented as the safe option. This can be compared with St Aubert's desire to keep Emily safe from sentimental excesses by rooting her in reason. Within the Gothic genre reason is seen as the safe place whilst sentiment and superstition (and sexuality, but we'll get to that later) are seen as dangerous. We have talked about the tendency of Gothic writers to only go so far in their Gothic rebellion before retreating to the safety of the known.
Hints as to some traumatic event in Kipps' past continue to be dropped in this chapter, with reference to "the long shadow cast by the events of the past" (14) We learn that these events happened at Eel Marsh House subsequent to the death of Mrs Drablow and, despite his current happy situation, still have the power to fill him "with mortal dread and terror of spirit" (15) This technique of generating and building suspense is very Gothic and owes much to Radcliffe who used it to great effect in Udolpho with regard to the black veil, the mysterious apparitions and disapparitions from the locked chamber, the inexplicable voices in the walls and other more minor mysteries.
When the family begin to tell ghost stories, all of the Gothic cliches spill out, of - "dripping stone walls in uninhabited castles and of ivy-clad monastery ruins by moonlight, of locked inner rooms and secret dungeons, dank charnel houses and overgrown graveyards, of footsteps creaking upon staircases and fingers tapping at casements, of howlings and shriekings, groanings and scuttlings and the clanking of chains, of hooded monks and headless horsemen, swirling mists and sudden winds, insubstantial spectres and sheeted creatures, vampires and bloodhounds, bats and rats and spiders, of men found at dawn and women turned white haired and raving lunatic, and of vanished corpses and curses upon heirs". (19) Kipps describes these stories as wild and silly, yet the unease they create in him suggests that "the rising flood of memory" (19) is bringing with it something to match or outdo these tales, which makes him feel an "outsider to their circle" (19). His response to being asked to contribute a story is extreme; he loses track of himself for fifteen minutes in "a frenzy of agitation (21). All this is leading up to his confession that "I had a story, a true story, a story of haunting and evil, fear and confusion, horror and tragedy" (21) and that the memory of it is "like an old wound" (22). Kipps determines to commit his story to paper, as a kind of exorcism, thus setting up the context for our possession of the narrative.

At the close of the chapter all our expectations are in place, our hero has been characterised as a trustworthy narrator of sound Augustan values and suspense has been generated; we want to know what Kipps' much hinted at experience actually was.

Chapter 2 - A London Particular
The fog described at the beginning of this chapter has, in physical terms, the same effect as is experienced within Gothic fiction when characters become decontextualised - "disguising the familiar world and confusing the people in it" (25). This smog, though rooted entirely in natural causes, creates a traditionally Gothic ambience of darkness and uncertainty. That Kipps should begin his adventure on such a day is entirely in keeping with the Gothic technique of using landscape and weather to indicate forthcoming events and emotional states. The vocabulary chosen conjures up images of Hell - "sulpherous yellow light... flares... red-hot pools of light... a great, boiling cauldron... evil red smoke... red-eyed and demonic" (26-27) and there is specific reference to Dante's Inferno. In retrospect this language can be seen to reflect the personal hell he is shortly to enter, though it equally serves as a graphic description of a foggy November day in London at that unspecified time in history.
In this chapter Kipps is told of his destination - Eel Marsh House, across the Nine Lives Causeway. As is typical of Gothic novels, the exact location of Eel Marsh - "in ____ shire" (29) is not revealed, though a series of credible directions is given. This gives the advantages of an aura of reality together with anonymity, thus preserving maximum terror possibilities. The fact that access to Eel Marsh is determined by the tide increases the potential for isolation and decontextualisation. At this point in the novel Kipps himself is aware that the situation sounds fictional: "The business was beginning to sound like something from a Victorian novel" (31). This adds to his Augustan credentials as a "sturdy, commonsensical fellow" (26) We read "I saw that Mr Bentley had not been able to resist making a good story better, and dramatising the mystery of Mrs Drablow in her queer-sounding house a good way beyond the facts" (31). Plainly he is not expecting anything out of the ordinary to happen; he is no Catherine Morland.
At the end of the chapter we are thrown somewhat to read of his fiancee, Stella, given that we know him to be married to Esme. However, subsequent events push this inconsistency from our minds until events resolve the discrepancy. The ground for future plot events is very subtly and economically laid in this way.

Chapter 3- The Journey North
In this seemingly uneventful chapter we meet Samuel Daily, who will become important later.
It's not so much what he says in this chapter that is relevant, so much as how he says it; when Kipps teases him "you're not going to start telling me strange tales of lonely houses?" we read "He gave me a straight look. "No", he said at last, "I am not." (37) The straight look and the fact that the response was not immediate suggests that all is not being revealed.
We are reminded of he geographical isolation of the area - " I .. was feeling an unpleasnt sensation of being isolated far from any human dwelling ," (38) and informed of some useful Gothic architecure - "a good wild ruin of an abbey with a handsome graveyard" (38). Kipps feels that Daily has been exaggerating "the bleakness and strangeness of the area" (39) but this does not prove to be the case.

Chapter 4 - The Funeral of Mrs Drablow
Once again it is the manner of Mr Daily's delivery rather than what he says that makes an impact; he offers Kipps his card "should you need anyone.." (40) and meets with a "straight" (again) stare Kipps' suggestion that the business will be straightforward. We receive the distinct impression that there is a mystery here, and Daily knows more than he is letting on.
This impression is strengthened by the landlord's reaction on learning that Kipps is not in the area for the auction but in connection with Mrs Drablow: "His face flickered with ... what? Alarm, was it? Suspicion?" (42) Kipps' reaction remains Augustan: " I was tired and dismissed the notion, putting his remarks down to some local tales and silliness" (42) We share his view, however, that "there was some significance in what had been left unsaid" (43) and here we see suspense being generated and left to percolate again. This suspense is added to when we read of the contrast between that night's good sleep "and what was to come after" (43) It is traditional for heroines to be deprived of sleep during times of stress and emotional trauma but in this case Kipps is taking the heroine's role in this and other ways. When Kipps adds that he has never slept as well since because "then I was still all in a state of innocence, but that innocence, once lost, is lost forever" (44) we wonder what crime he has committed or what accident has befallen him to rob him of his innocence.
Things begin to hot up at the funeral; the villagers seem to draw back from Kipps and Jerome, and Jerome's description of the family grave in the churchyard as "unsuitable" (47) suggests that there is more to be learnt. It is at the funeral that we and Kipps first see the woman in black. At this point Kipps has no notion of what she might be and his response to her is compassionate and sensible. He merely sees an ill looking woman in archaic clothing. Even when she vanishes without him noticing he merely assumes that "she must have gone away, just as unobtrusively as she had arrived." (50) He has no ghostly suspicions; we do, of course, because we know what the book is called and that something awful happens to Kipps at this place. In this we are one step ahead of him, whilst also seeing things through his eyes. It is Jerome's panic stricken response to Kipps' innocent questioning that highlights the fact that something is going on here: "Mr Jerome looked frozen, pale, his throat moving as if unable to utter." (51) Jerome's refusal to look in the direction indicated by Kipps when he sees the woman again, or to go back to the churchyard to help her, is accompanied by an extreme physial reaction; Kipps "was certain that he was about to faint, or collapse with some kind of seizure" (52) On escapimg from the churchyard Jerome seems to recover his equanimity until Eel Marsh House is mentioned, which he refers to as "that place" saying "I will not go there"(53) This is sinister and connects the mystery woman with the house.
Other people in the village are unwilling even to talk of the house, short of doubting that "even Samuel Daily would go so far" as to buy it (56). Kipps retains his Augustanism, "infuriated by the now familiar mystery and nonsense". (57)

Chapter 5 - Across the Causeway
Now here we have a time clue; we are obviously in the era of the motor car, but at a point when cars and horse drawn vehicles were both common. Cars were appearing during the 1890s.
The Gothic references and vocabulary intensify in this chapter. We are reminded of the sighting of the mysterious woman at the funeral, but the landscape soon removes her from Kipps' mind, and therefore from ours. Kipps' response to the landscape would be seen in earlier Gothic literature as an experience of the sublime: "My head reeled at the sheer and startling beauty, the wide, bare openness of it. The sense of space, the vastness of the sky above and on either side made my heart race." (59) Once again, the isolation of this place is stressed: "we seemed to be driving towards the very edge of the world." (60) and we see Nine Lives Causeway and learn that, " when the tide came in, it would quickly be quite submerged and untraceable." (60)
Soon the description of the landscape begins to become sinister, with reference to "clumps of reeds, bleached bone pale" (60) The house itself appears as a kind of domesticated Gothic- "as if rising out of the water itself, a tall, gaunt house of grey stone with a slate roof, that now gleamed steelily in the light... the most astonishingly situated house I had ever seen or could ever conceivably have imagined, isolated, uncompromising " (60) Near it there are "what looked like the fragmentary ruins of some old church or chapel." (61) This location and architecture (together with, for the reader, this choice of vocabulary) promotes the typical Gothic response of "excitement mingled with alarm". (61) When Kipps asks himself the question, "of what could I be afraid in this rare and beautiful spot?" (61) he does not expect there to be an answer, but the reader is assured that s/he will find out. It is perhaps telling that Keckwick chooses not to stay on Eel Marsh even for the few hours Kipps intends to be there. Plot wise it speeds up Kipps' experience of the isolation of the place. At first, however, this experience is again one of the sublime, as Radcliffe would have perceived it: "I was aware of a heightening of every one of my senses, and conscious that this extraordinary place was imprinting itself on my mind and deep in my imagination too." (62) Radcliffe defined terror as expanding the senses, contrasting it with the contracting and numbing influence of horror.
The ruined chapel is all that it should be, Gothically speaking, with a suitably "ugly, satanic looking" bird with a "harsh, croaking cry". (63) Within the ruins is a small burial ground, another classic Gothic location. Appropriately the place is ruined; "No names or dates were now decipherable, and the whole place had a decayed and abandoned air" (64) and Kipps becomes "suddenly conscious of the ...extreme bleakness of the spot" (64). Augustan as ever, and aware of the dangers of imagination, Kipps determines to go to the house before he can "begin to be affected by all sorts of morbid fancies" (64). It is at this point and in this location that he sees again the mystery woman from the funeral. This time her appearance and his reaction to her are more extreme. Her face is now described as having "the sheen and pallor not of flesh so much as of bone itself" (65) and he perceives in her "a desperate, yearning malevolence ... purest evil and hatred and loathing" and "passionate emotion". (65) Now remember that Kipps has been presented to us as a rational man. This does not prevent him from losing his rational, Augustan grip on the situation: "at that moment I was far from able to base my reactions upon reason and logic . For the combination of the peculiar, isolated place and the sudden appearance of the woman and the dreadfulness of her expression began to fill me with fear. Indeed, I had never in my life been so possessed by it," (65) Of course, Kipps is reporting this after the event and so has rationalised why he then responded so irrationally. Thus we have the benefit both of his immediate reactions and his subsequent reflections on them. His immediate reactions were extreme physical manifestations of terror, probably to the extent of being sublime: "I had never ...known my knees to tremble and my flesh to creep, and then to turn as cold as stone, never known my heart to give a great lurch, as if it would almost leap into my dry mouth and then begin pounding in my chest like a hammer on an anvil, never known myself gripped and held fast by such dread and horror and apprehension of evil. it was as though I had become paralysed. I could not bear to stay there, for fear, but nor had I ant strength left in my body to turn and run away, and I was as certain as I had ever been of anything that, at any second, I would drop dead on that wretched patch of ground." (65 - 66) It is only once the woman is out of view that Kipps is released from these feelings. It is as if he has been under some sort of a spell. We read "The very second that she had gone, my nerve and the power of speech and movement, my very sense of life itself, came flooding back through me". (66) Now Kipps is in a bind: he has undoubtedly had this experience which he cannot explain; he has experienced this extreme terror YET he does not believe in ghosts. How is this Augustan man to reconcile these things? He describes himself as being "like most rational, sensible young men" (67) in demanding evidence. Now he has seen a woman whom he can only describe as "ghostly" (68). Reasoning to himself he says "Something emanating from her still, silent presence, in each case by a grave, had communicated itself to me so strongly that I had felt incredible revulsion and fear." (68) Yet he did not believe in ghosts. "What other explanation was there?" (68)
It is typical that at this moment of tension a clock should strike "from somewhere in the dark recesses of the house" (68) yet untypical in that it is not striking midnight and that it serves to defuse rather than heighten the tension.
The remainder of the chapter is somewhat of an anticlimax, as Kipps investigates the house. The reference to Great Expectations is interesting: it is as though by making reference to fiction this tale is asserting its own authenticity. This quite unlike the way Jane Austen uses references to other novels in Northanger Abbey , where such references only serve to underline the fictionality of her tale.

Chapter 6 - The Sound of a Pony and Trap
Interesting chapter title - only the sound of the pony and trap. Seems like the woman herself may not be the only ghostly manifestation.
Kipps is regaining control of himself and rationalising the disappearance of the woman: "I had almost persuaded myself now that there must have been some slope or dip in the ground upon the other side of that graveyard and beyond it, perhaps a lonely dwelling, tucked out of sight, for changes of light in such a place can play all manner of tricks and, after all, I had not actually gone out there to search for her hiding place, I had only glanced around and seen nothing." (72) The length of the sentence, however, indicates residual anxiety. He doth protest too much, methinks. The reference to Mr Jerome's "extreme reaction" (72) to the mention of the woman serves to remind us of this and to undermine Kipps' rationalisation.
This is soon undermined further by subsequent events. Kipps walks out onto the causeway only to find the mist falls, blinding him to his way back The mist is personified as a malevolent force, "made up of millions of live fingers that crept over me, hung on me and then shifted away again" (73) We find a similar kind of description in Edgar Allen Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher , in which the house and its environs seem to be infected by the family's malignant history. Kipps describes himself as "disorientated" (73) by this, which is a step towards decontextualisation. He finds he is "farther away than I had imagined" from the house and "baffled by the moving, shifting mist". (74) The sound of Keckwick's pony and trap comes as a huge relief to Kipps. He describes it as "the sound that lifted my heart" (74).
Against this backdrop of fear and relief, what follows is all the more chilling; Kipps hears the sounds of a pony and trap, complete with driver and a young child, being sucked into the marsh and drowned. Kipps does not perceive these as ghostly sounds; he is convinced of the actuality of this event: "I knew that I was hearing, beyond any doubt, appalling last noises of a pony and trap, carrying a child in it, as well as what ever adult - presumably Keckwick - was driving and was even now struggling desperately." (75). He now sees his feelings regarding the woman as "fears and nervous imaginings" (75) and tries to respond rationally to what has just happened, pouring himself enough brandy "as seemed sensible to be consumed by a man in great shock, some hours away from his last meal" (76) and considering his next actions "as calmly as I could" (76). These actions include exploring the house and finding a mysterious locked door with no keyhole or bolt on the outside, a classic Gothic accoutrement.
Now, all of this is bad enough, with Kipps thinking he has heard the death of Keckwick, so imagine how he must feel when, in the middle of the night, Keckwick arrives, in one piece, with his pony and trap, saying "I wouldn't have left you over the night ... wouldn't have done that to you." (80) It is clear to the reader that Keckwick knows that something happens here. This becomes equally clear to Kipps, as does the fact that, whatever it is, Keckwick won't talk about it: "his manner also told me unmistakably that he did not wish to hear what it was, to ask or answer questions, to discuss the business at all." (81) This reluctance mirrors Mr Jerome's response in the graveyard and the general demeanour of the villagers with regard to Eel Marsh House. It seems that everyone but Kipps knows what is going on but that no one will talk about it. Maybe to talk about it invites trouble.
This has been a life altering experience for Kipps: "things in the heavens seemed still to be aright and unchanged. But nothing else was, within me or all around. I knew now that I had entered some hitherto unimagined - indeed unbelieved - in - realm of consciousness, that coming to this place had already changed me and that there was no going back." (81) Furthermore, he connects the ghostly drowning with the mysterious woman and seems to blame her, referring to her "dark presence" (83).
The impact of this is all the more intense because Kipps' credentials as sensible and rational even to the point of dullness have been so thoroughly established.

Chapter 7 - Mr Jerome is Afraid
When considering the events of the previous night Kipps seems to define the difference between Radcliffe's Gothic technique and that of Matthew Lewis - the difference between terror and horror, indicating that terror is the more powerful: "what continued to frighten me - was not what I had seen - there had been nothing intrinsically repellent or horrifying about the woman with the wasted face. It was true that the ghastly sounds I had heard through the fog had greatly upset me but far worse was what emanated from and surrounded these things and arose to unsteady me, an atmosphere, a force - I do not exactly know what to call it - of evil and uncleanness, of terror and suffering, of malevolence and bitter anger." (85)
The villagers continue to be sympathetic and supportive but without being forthcoming; the landlord, upon being thanked for getting up at an unearthly hour to let Kipps in replies "I had rather that than let you spend an... an uncomfortable night anywhere else." (85)
"Uncomfortable" is clearly an understatement, but the landlord will not talk about the truth of the matter. Mr Jerome's response is far more extreme; he is not pleased to see Kipps, fidgets in his presence and panics when Kipps asks for help to sort through Mrs Drablow's papers. When Kipps confronts Jerome on this, suggesting that fear is what keeps people away from Eel Marsh House, Jerome does not deny it. Kipps' suggestion that, apart from Keckwick, Mrs Drablow didn't see "another living soul" (89) implies that she saw dead ones, and Jerome doesn't deny that, although "most of" (89) the tales surrounding the place can be dismissed, not all can. Jerome's response to Kipps' determination not to be scared off - "So I said... once" (90) and his farewell wish that Kipps should not see any more ghosts - "I pray that you do not, " Mr Jerome said, and he held onto my hand with a sudden fierce grip as he shook it. "I pray that you do not" (91)- seems to imply that there is even more going on than we have already seen. He would not even look at the woman at the funeral; is seeing her some kind of a curse? These are the questions suggested by the novel at this point.
Kipps' relationship with Eel Marsh House is shown to be ambiguous; he has been frightened more than he has ever been in that place yet he is drawn to it : "the haunting, strange beauty of it aroused a response deep within me ... I had fallen under some sort of spell" (92). His emotional response suggests the sublime: "My emotions had now become so volatile and so extreme, my nervous responses so near the surface, so rapid and keen, that I was living in another dimension, my heart seemed to beat faster, my step to be quicker, everything I saw was brighter, its outlines more sharply, precisely defined ...I felt like a man who was being put to trial, half fearful, half wondering, excited, completely in thrall" (92) Even so, he tries to reassert his Augustanism: "managing to suspend this acute emotional state and in order to help myself retain my normal equilibrium" (92 - 93)
The explanation of the ruins as an old monastery add to the Gothic credentials of the location and the description of the burial ground as having had "some later use" (89) makes me suspect that the victims of the drowning that Kipps heard being re-enacted are buried there.
Chapter 8 - Spider
The chapter begins with Kipps feeling that he is back in control of his emotions, having "banished every nervous fear and morbid fancy"(94) by an energetic bicycle ride. He is no longer giving credence to what he previously felt and talks down his fears to Mr Daily who instantly recognises that this is merely bravado: "you are whistling in the dark." (95). Kipps accepts that "there had been a grain of truth in Mr Daily's accusation" (95) but is nevertheless determined to press on. His discussion over dinner with Daily of his experiences At Eel Marsh House demonstrate that he is not a man to be easily deterred; he is trying hard to be Augustan and believes he can succeed. This makes subsequent events more credible and more terrifying.
The introduction of the dog Spider, both facilitates later plot developments re. the marsh and brings in a kind of ghost thermometer; animals are reputed to be especially sensitive to ghosts, and this comes into play in later chapters.

Chapter 9 - In the Nursery
Kipps' second visit begins uneventfully, indeed it is characterised at first by tea and tedium. The vocabulary used to describe the place and Kipps' feelings is positive: "unshadowed ... quietly beautiful... sunlight... calm and cheerful... crisp and fresh ... happily ... clean air ... unafraid and tranquil" (104 - 105) and he contrasts this with his previous experience: "eerie, sinister, evil" (105). It may be significant that as he returns from his walk to the burial ground "the air was turning much colder, the sky losing its light as the sun declined." (105) We are used to the Gothic convention of using weather and landscape as an indicator of future events or emotional states, and suspect that this might be what is happening here. Kipps himself is quite unspooked by this, telling us "I was in a calm and quite unexcitable state of mind. And that the odd events which had so frightened and unnerved me were all but forgotten" (106). This is merely the calm before the storm , however, adding intensity to the terror that is to come. Strangely, though, nothing characteristically Gothic happens; we are specifically told that "there were no footsteps, no creaking floorboards, the air was absolutely still, the wind did not moan through the casement" (108) In fact it is the very absence of these cliched elements in the face of the abject terror of Spider that is convincing. One cliche is used however, that of the mystery in the locked room; the sound which is frightening Spider is emanating from the locked room discovered in chapter 6. Kipps leaves the area and on returning there is no sound coming from the room and no fear response from Spider, thought the door is still locked. In all of this there is no horror; Susan Hill is playing on our faculty for terror, using our imaginations rather than feeding us pre-prepared gore and grossness. She is very much in the tradition of Radcliffe rather than Lewis.
The next morning the weather has changed for the worse - "I felt that the air had a dampness in it and that it was rather colder." (111) We are beginning to associate the state of the weather with imminent supernatural activity, so this is ominous. We see the ongoing conflict within Kipps, who is trying to reconcile his daytime and night time experiences of Eel Marsh House. He, of course, does not have the benefit of hindsight to recognise the significance of the weather changes and we, therefore, are a step ahead of him in our understanding. That night he opens and reads the packet of letters which give an insight into the tragedy which lies behind all of this ghostly activity. It is while he is doing this that Spider becomes spooked once again and the noise from behind the locked door starts up. What is more, there is a second replay of the deaths by drowning. I ask myself whether Kipps triggers this activity by his intrusive reading of the letters or whether it would have happened anyway. Certainly what we are getting here is a story of recurring hauntings, as if these ghosts are trapped in a cycle. Matthew Lewis uses this idea in The Monk with the nun who cannot be freed from her haunting till her bones have been laid to rest by one of her descendants.

Even after the drowning haunting is finished there is no let up; Spider continues to react badly to the noises from the locked room and her fear causes Kipps' Augustan discipline to re-emerge: "In a curious way, it was her fearfulness that persuaded me that I must retain control of myself" (117). His terror is intense, however: " my fear reached a new height, until for a minute I thought I would die of it, was dying " (117) This intensified terror is in response to the fact that, inexplicably, the locked door is now unlocked. At this point Kipps becomes utterly decontextualised; "I lost all sense of time and ordinary reality" (118) He is brought back to reality by the realisation that the sound which has seemed so familiar is made by a rocking chair, "the sound that meant comfort and safety, peace and reassurance" (118). He finds courage in this, as the memories the sound triggers "overcame and quite drove out all that was sinister and alarming, evil and disturbed." (119) As he investigates the room and finds a child's nursery, equipped with toys, books and clothes, he feels no threat; "for the moment at least there was nothing here to frighten or harm me, there was only emptiness, an open door, a neatly made bed, and a curious air of sadness, of something lost, missing" (119) The dog by now is quiet.

This is a long and involved chapter. There seems to be three kinds of ghostly activity:
The malevolent woman in black
The replayed drowning
The rocking chair ghost, not associated with fear and dread

We now ask ourselves how these three are connected, remembering that a child drowned in the pony and trap accident and that the chair is rocking in a nursery. Was it the same child? Is the woman in black to blame? Is she the Jennet who wrote in the letter read by Kipps "I shall kill us both before I let him go". (113)

Chapter 10 - Whistle and I'll Come to You
Look at what happens to the weather at the beginning of this chapter; as it intensisfies, expect the ghostly action to hot up. This Gothic weather at first produces alarm in Kipps, but he responds rationally, thinking about how long the house has already stood and how unlikely it is to blow away now.
Once again the haunnting starts - the cry of the drowning child, followed by a ghostly presence apparently brushing past Kipps before all the lights go out. He tries to explain this logically: "My brain span all manner of wild, incoherent fantasies as I tried desperately to provide a rational explanation for the presence I had been so aware of" (125) but is unable to do so and has to accept the truth of the supernatural, this pushing him away from everything he has formerly believed, utterly decontextualising him: "But what was real? At that moment I began to doubt my own reality." (125) In his desperation for light Kipps drops and breaks the torch, leaving him in the classic candle-blows-out-in-the-dark Gothic scenario. At this point the tight plotting which Gothic writing helped develop comes into play; on his previous visit to the nursery Kipps had noticed a candle, which he now returns for. It is unlikely that he could otherwise have been persuaded to revisit "the room which I realised was somehow both the focus and the source of all the strange happenings in the house." (126) He finds himself able to do this because he finds himself becoming acclimatised to the level of fear which he has reached and able to control himself in the face of it. This is Augustanism in action.
Kipps tells us of his arrival at the nursery that "I did not know then to what I could possibly attribute the feelings that swept over me from the moment I entered the room. I felt not fear, not horror, but an overwhelming grief and sadness, a sense of loss and bereavement, a distress mingled with utter despair." (127) The word "then" indicates to the reader that by the time Kipps is telling the story he does know what is behind his response. At the time of the experience, however, it is as if he is possessed; "It was as though I had, for the time that I was in the room, become another person, or at least experienced the emotions that belong to another." (128) He finds this, despite the absence of fear and horror, "as alarming and strange an occurrence as any of those more outward, visible and audible that had taken place over these past few days." (128) Once again we see Susan Hill writing in the Radcliffian mould, not resorting to the crude props of horror to evoke the sublime response. The rest of the night passes uneventfully, and we expect to be in a place of safety after dawn has broken, as we associate the night with supernatural activities. Hill goes against our expectation, then, when Spider seems to be maliciously lured away by a whistle of which Kipps says "I would have sworn it had not come from any human lips" (129) The description of his struggles to rescue Spider and his eventual success reminds us of the fact that at some time in the past people died in the marsh and no help came. At the end of the chapter we see the woman in black once more, this time standing looking out of the window of the sometimes locked nursery: " At one of the upper windows, the only window with bars across it, the window of the nursery, I caught a glimpse of someone standing. A woman. That woman. She was looking directly towards me." (131) When immediately after he sees this woman the sound of the ghostly pony and trap is heard once again, certain questions begin to present themselves: I have previously suggested that the rocking chair ghost and the woman in black may not be the same. This was because one seemed to exude hatred and malice whilst the other was concerned solely with loss and sorrow. I now wonder if these ghosts are of the same woman but represent different aspects of her life and feelings. Does the woman in black stand at the window and watch the accident? Does her sense of loss turn into anger and bitterness? Did she deliberately try to kill Spider and Kipps in a malevolent attempt to share and spread her own suffering? These were my thoughts as a first time reader.

Chapter 11 - A Packet of Letters
This is when I realise that I as reader have identified too much with Kipps and have therefore shared his misapprehensions; it wasn't a ghost pony and trap, it was Mr Daily. This shows how successful the first person narrator narrative device is; I'm a seasoned Gothic reader and it fooled me! Kipps has once again behaved in a manner normally reserved for heroines in that he has fainted, which is what our Gothic females usually to at moments of stress. It has to be acknowledged, however, that Kipps has had cause.
Daily and Kipps converse about what has happened almost as if at cross purposes: Daily's remarks could be seen as relating solely to the physical dangers presented by the marsh. We sense, however, that both men know that more than this is at issue, but that Daily will not talk about it. The pattern of the village people seems to be a willingness to help protect Kipps in practical ways from the supernatural dangers of Eel Marsh House but without admitting in so many words that those dangers exist. This is very strange and seems to suggest some kind of a curse whose attention it is best not to draw towards oneself by idle chatter.
It is arranged that Kipps will return with Daily, at least for the time being. Kipps is happy to do this but is increasingly determined to discover the truth behind the hauntings, even at the cost of living through his experiences again. He tells himself "If I could uncover the truth, perhaps I might in some way put an end to it all forever." (135) This behaviour is both brave and Augustan yet in a way seems almost stupid, as does his attempt, in the face of all the evidence, to believe that the wrecking of the nursery described on page 138 could be the act of vandals. The language used by Hill do describe this wreckage is violent and disturbing - "mad, senseless destruction....like entrails from a wounded body...smashed as by a hammer blow...like a great brooding bird..." (138), the language of hatred and cruelty rather than of mindless vandalism. It feels malevolent. It feels like the woman in black. Kipps' supernatural experiences at Eel Marsh House have brought him to the point of physical illness - though nearly being sucked under can't have helped any. His inability to sleep fits the Gothic heroine profile, but is also a credible and realistic response. We are seeing literary conventions gaining psychological realism and credibility.
As Kipps reads the letters and other documents in the package, the story of Eel Marsh House becomes clear: "A pony trap, carrying a boy of six called Nathaniel, the adopted son of Mr and Mrs Drablow, and also his nursemaid, had somehow taken a wrong path in the sea mist and veered off the safety of the causeway and onto the marshes where it had been sucked into the quicksands and swallowed up by the mud and rising waters of the estuary... the boy's mother, Jennet Humfrye, had died of a wasting disease twelve years after her son ... they were both buried in the now disused and tumbledown graveyard beyond Eel Marsh House." (143-144)
Kipps' credentials as a "healthy young man of sound education, reasonable intelligence and matter-of-fact inclinations" (143) are stressed again, to reinforce the seriousness of events on the marsh.
It would seem, with Kipps safely off the marsh and vowing not to go back alone, that all is now safe, but we continue to receive indications that this is not the case; Kipps feels that the woman in black is still filled with "pent-up hatred and desire for revenge" (144) yet wonders who is left for this revenge to be exacted upon "For presumably Mrs Drablow had been the very last of them." (144) Furthermore, when Kipps tells Daily that he is "in the calm after the storm now, and there's an end of it" he notices that Daily's face is "troubled" (145) and that Daily will not answer when Kipps asserts that "all is well." (146) Given the reluctance of the villagers to talk about Eel Marsh House and what goes on there, we wonder if the woman in black has some kind of influence even away from the marsh, which the villagers know about, fear and try to guard against. Kipps shares this feeling and is "growing more and more sensible that he was holding something back" (146) and demands a full explanation. He insists "It can't hurt me now" only to be met with the obscure reply "No, not you maybe" and the information that something "will surely follow. Sometime or other" (147). The sense of a curse grows.
Daily does finally tell Kipps the full story and the reason for the silence of the villagers becomes clear; all have suffered and "Those who have suffered worst say least" (147) The story is terrible and tragic in itself, but made worse by the legacy of Jennet's hatred, that "whenever she has been seen...In some violent or dreadful circumstance a child has died." (149). Kipps' memory at this point of the children he saw watching the funeral, when he also saw the woman in black, serves to create an expectation within the reader that the doomed child will be one of them.
His response to his knowledge of the full story is to retreat once more into sickness and nightmares, and this despite the fact that his rational credentials have so often been stressed. Maybe this sickness can be seen as her punishment of him for his determined interference in her domain. It seems that he might see it this way when, as he recovers, he says "There was nothing else the woman could do to me, surely, I had endured and survived." (152) By now my ear and eye are tuned, so that this statement, especially containing the word "surely ", seems to me a tempting of Fate; I now expect some final, dreadful retribution, and I can't help thinking it's going to involve Stella. This is partly because of the juxtapositioning of his speculations and her arrival, and partly because I know that by the time he writes this narrative he is married to Esme. I'm now waiting for something to happen to Stella, and the suspense which had surrounded events at Eel Marsh House has transferred itself to this expectation.

Chapter 12 - The Woman in Black
By the time Kipps leaves Crythin Gifford no child has yet died and Kipps is trying to believe that the curse is broken: "Oh, pray God... that the chain is broken- that her power is at an end - that she has gone - and I was the last ever to see her." (155) Somehow I can't believe this to be true, perhaps because this chapter heading suggests she's going to appear again, perhaps because the Stella confusion has not been resolved. And, of course, Kipps tells us that "There is only the last thing left to tell. And that I can scarcely bring myself to write about." (156)
Six weeks after Kipps' return to London he and Stella get married and a little over a year later they have a son. As soon as I hear of this son I am sure it is doomed to become a victim of the woman in black, so that although Kipps says "I could not have been less prepared for what was to come" (157), I feel prepared for it in general terms. The particular horror of the deaths of the baby and Stella in the pony and trap, as a result of the deliberate spooking of the pony by the ghost of Jennet Humfrye is very powerful. As soon as I read the words "pony and trap" (158) I am struck by a feeling of powerlessness and inevitability. The ending of the novel is brutal and abrupt, and the original feeling of safe distance is removed like a rug being pulled from under the feet. This is not a happy ending, like in Udolpho : it is not even a moral (ish) ending, as some have tried to claim for The Monk .
The first person narrative makes it immediate and the harshness of the past's memories has intruded into what had been a happy present. In this respect this is a most untypically Gothic ending, as there is no security or retreat. This is Gothic fiction with no safety belt, the ideas of Gothic treated with an honesty which was lacking in its heyday and is maybe only possible because Hill is writing out of period to a readership able to deal with the issues.

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