by Susan Hill
“Mr. Jerome, can you take my arm … I would be obliged if you would loosen your grip a little … if you can just walk a few steps, back to the church … path … I saw a bench there, a little way inside the gate, you can rest and recover while I go for help … a car …”
“No!” He almost shrieked.
“But, my dear man!”
“No. I apologize …” He began to take deep breaths and a little color returned by degrees to his face. “I am so sorry. It was nothing … a passing faintness … It will be best if you would just walk back with me toward my offices in Penn Street, off the square.”
He seemed agitated now, anxious to get away from the church and its environs.
“If you are sure …”
“Quite sure. Come …” and he began to walk quickly ahead of me, so quickly that I was taken by surprise and had to run a few steps to catch up with him. It took only a few minutes at that pace to arrive back in the square, where the market was in full cry and we were at once plunged into the hubbub of vehicles, the shouting of voices, of auctioneers and stallholders and buyers, and all the bleating and braying, the honking and crowing and cackling and whinnying of dozens of farm animals. At the sight and sound of it all, I noticed that Mr. Jerome was looking better and, when we reached the porch of the Gifford Arms, he seemed almost lively, in a burst of relief.
“I gather you are to take me over to Eel Marsh House later,” I said, after pressing him to lunch with me, and being refused.
His face closed up again. He said, “No. I shall not go there. You can cross any time after one o’clock. Keckwick will come for you. He has always been the go-between to that place. I take it you have a key?”
I nodded.
“I shall make a start on looking out Mrs. Drablow’s papers and getting them in some sort of order, but I suppose I shall be obliged to go across again tomorrow, and even another day after that. Perhaps Mr. Keckwick can take me early in the morning, and leave me there for the whole day? I shall have to find my way about the place.”
“You will be obliged to fit in with the tides. Keckwick will tell you.”
“On the other hand,” I said, “if it all looks as if it may take somewhat longer than I anticipate, perhaps I might simply stay there in the house? Would anyone have any objection? It seems ridiculous to expect this man to come to and fro for me.”
“I think,” said Mr. Jerome carefully, “that you would find it more comfortable to continue staying here.”
“Well, they have certainly made me welcome and the food is first rate. Perhaps you may be right.”
“I think so.”
“So long as it causes no one any inconvenience.”
“You will find Mr. Keckwick perfectly obliging.”
“Good.”
“Though not very communicative.”
I smiled. “Oh, I’m getting very used to that.” And, after shaking hands with Mr. Jerome, I went to have lunch, with four dozen or so farmers.
It was a convivial and noisy occasion, with everyone sitting at three trestle tables, which were covered in long white cloths, and shouting to one another in all directions about market matters, while half a dozen girls passed in and out bearing platters of beef and pork, tureens of soup, basins of vegetables and jugs of gravy, and mugs of ale, a dozen at a time, on wide trays. Although I did not think I knew a soul in the room, and felt somewhat out of place, especially in my funeral garb, among the tweed and corduroy, I nevertheless enjoyed myself greatly, partly, no doubt, because of the contrast between this cheerful situation and the rather unnerving events of earlier in the morning. Much of the talk might have been in a foreign language, for all I understood of the references to weights and prices, yields and breeds, but, as I ate the excellent lunch, I was happy to listen all the same, and when my neighbor to the left passed an enormous Cheshire cheese to me, indicating that I should help myself, I asked him about the auction sale which had taken place in the Inn earlier. He grimaced.
“The auction went according to expectations, sir. Do I take it you had an interest in the land yourself?”
“No, no. It was merely that the landlord mentioned it to me yesterday evening. I gather it was quite an important sale.”
“It disposed of a very large acreage. Half the land on the Homerby side of Crythin and for several miles east as well. There had been four farms.”
“And this land about here is valuable?”
“Some is, sir. This was. In an area where much is useless because it is all marsh and salt-flat and cannot be drained to any purpose good farming land is valuable, every inch of it. There are several disappointed men here this morning.”
“Do I take it that you are one of them?”
“Me? No. I am content with what I have and if I were not it would make no odds, for I haven’t the money to take on more. Besides, I would have more sense than to pit myself against such as him.”
“You mean the successful buyer?”
“I do.”
I followed his glance across to the other table. “Ah! Mr. Daily.” For there at the far end, I recognized my traveling companion of the previous night, holding up a tankard and surveying the room with a satisfied expression.
“You know him?”
“No. I met him, just briefly. Is he a large landowner here?”
“He is.”
“And disliked because of it?”
My neighbor shrugged his broad shoulders, but did not reply.
“Well,” I said, “if he’s buying up half the county, I suppose I may be doing business with him myself before the year is out. I am a solicitor looking after the affairs of the late Mrs. Alice Drablow of Eel Marsh House. It is quite possible that her estate will come up for sale in due course.”
For a moment, my companion still said nothing, only buttered a thick slice of bread and laid his chunks of cheese along it carefully. I saw by the clock on the opposite wall that it was half past one, and I wanted to change my clothes before the arrival of Mr. Keckwick, so that I was about to make my excuses and go, when my neighbor spoke. “I doubt,” he said, in a measured tone, “whether even Samuel Daily would go so far.”
“I don’t think I fully understand you. I haven’t seen the full extent of Mrs. Drablow’s land yet … I gather there is a farm a few miles out of the town …”
“Hoggetts!” he said in a dismissive tone. “Fifty acres and half of it under flood for the best part of the year. Hoggetts is nothing, and it’s under tenancy for his lifetime.”
“There is also Eel Marsh House and all the land surrounding it—would that be practicable for farming?”
“No, sir.”
“Well, might not Mr. Daily simply want to add a little more to his empire, for the sake of being able to say that he had got it? You imply he is that type of man.”
“Maybe he is.” He wiped his mouth on his napkin. “But let me tell you that you won’t find anybody, not even Mr. Sam Daily, having to do with any of it.”
“And may I ask why?”
I spoke rather sharply, for I was growing impatient of the half-hints and dark mutterings made by grown men at the mention of Mrs. Drablow and her property. I had been right, this was just the sort of place where superstition and tittle-tattle were rife, and even allowed to hold sway over commonsense. Now, I expected the otherwise stalwart countryman on my left to whisper that maybe he would and, then again, maybe he would not, and how he might tell a tale, if he chose … But, instead of replying to my question at all, he turned right away from me and engaged his neighbor on the other side in a complicated discussion of crops and, infuriated by the now-familiar mystery and nonsense, I rose abruptly and left the room. Ten minutes later, changed out of my funeral suit into less formal and more comfortable clothes, I was standing on the pavement awaiting the arrival of the car, driven by a man called Keckwick.
Across the Causeway
No car appeared. Instead, there drew up outside the Gifford Arms a rather worn and shabby pony and trap. It
was not at all out of place in the market square—I had noticed a number of such vehicles that morning and, assuming that this one belonged to some farmer or stockman, I took no notice, but continued to look around me, for a motor. Then I heard my name called.
The pony was a small, shaggy-looking creature, wearing blinkers, and the driver with a large cap pulled down low over his brow, and a long, hairy brown coat, looked not unlike it, and blended with the whole equipage. I was delighted at the sight, eager for the ride, and climbed up with alacrity. Keckwick had scarcely given me a glance, and now, merely assuming that I was seated, clucked at the pony and set off, picking his way out of the crowded market square and up the lane that led to the church. As we passed it, I tried to catch a glimpse of the grave of Mrs. Drablow, but it was hidden from view behind some bushes. I remembered the ill-looking, solitary young woman, too, and Mr. Jerome’s reaction to my mention of her. But, within a few moments, I was too caught up in the present and my surroundings to speculate any further upon the funeral and its aftermath, for we had come out into open country, and Crythin Gifford lay quite behind us, small and self-contained as it was. Now, all around and above and way beyond there seemed to be sky, sky and only a thin strip of land. I saw this part of the world as those great landscape painters had seen Holland, or the country around Norwich. Today there were no clouds at all, but I could well imagine how magnificently the huge, brooding area of sky would look with gray, scudding rain and storm clouds lowering over the estuary, how it would be here in the floods of February time when the marshes turned to iron-gray and the sky seeped down into them, and in the high winds of March, when the light rippled, shadow chasing shadow across the ploughed fields.
Today, all was bright and clear, and there was a thin sun overall, though the light was pale now, the sky having lost the bright blue of the morning, to become almost silver. As we drove briskly across the absolutely flat countryside, I saw scarcely a tree, but the hedgerows were dark and twiggy and low, and the earth that had been ploughed was at first a rich mole-brown, in straight furrows. But, gradually, soil gave way to rough grass and I began to see dykes and ditches filled with water, and then we were approaching the marshes themselves. They lay silent, still and shining under the November sky, and they seemed to stretch in every direction, as far as I could see, and to merge without a break into the waters of the estuary, and the line of the horizon.
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. I would have traveled a thousand miles to see this. I had never imagined such a place.
The only sounds I could hear above the trotting of the pony’s hooves, the rumble of the wheels and the creak of the cart, were sudden, harsh, weird cries from birds near and far. We had traveled perhaps three miles, and passed no farm or cottage, no kind of dwelling house at all, all was emptiness. Then, the hedgerows petered out, and we seemed to be driving toward the very edge of the world. Ahead, the water gleamed like metal and I began to make out a track, rather like the line left by the wake of a boat, that ran across it. As we drew nearer, I saw that the water was lying only shallowly over the rippling sand on either side of us, and that the line was in fact a narrow track leading directly ahead, as if into the estuary itself. As we slipped onto it, I realized that this must be the Nine Lives Causeway—this and nothing more—and saw how, when the tide came in, it would quickly be quite submerged and untraceable.
At first the pony and then the trap met the sandy path, the smart noise we had been making ceased, and we went on almost in silence save for a hissing, silky sort of sound. Here and there were clumps of reeds, bleached bone-pale, and now and again the faintest of winds caused them to rattle dryly. The sun at our backs reflected in the water all around so that everything shone and glistened like the surface of a mirror, and the sky had taken on a faint pinkish tinge at the edges, and this in turn became reflected in the marsh and the water. Then, as it was so bright that it hurt my eyes to go on staring at it, I looked up ahead and saw, as if rising out of the water itself, a tall, gaunt house of gray stone with a slate roof, that now gleamed steelily in the light. It stood like some lighthouse or beacon or martello tower, facing the whole, wide expanse of marsh and estuary, the most astonishingly situated house I had ever seen or could ever conceivably have imagined, isolated, uncompromising but also, I thought, handsome. As we neared it, I saw the land on which it stood was raised up a little, surrounding it on every side for perhaps three or four hundred yards, of plain, salt-bleached grass, and then gravel. This little island extended in a southerly direction across an area of scrub and field toward what looked like the fragmentary ruins of some old church or chapel.
There was a rough scraping, as the cart came onto the stones, and then pulled up. We had arrived at Eel Marsh House.
For a moment or two, I simply sat looking about me in amazement, hearing nothing save the faint keening of the winter wind that came across the marsh, and the sudden rawk-rawk of a hidden bird. I felt a strange sensation, an excitement mingled with alarm … I could not altogether tell what. Certainly, I felt loneliness, for in spite of the speechless Keckwick and the shaggy brown pony I felt quite alone, outside that gaunt, empty house. But I was not afraid—of what could I be afraid in this rare and beautiful spot? The wind? The marsh birds crying? Reeds and still water?
I got down from the trap and walked around to the man.
“How long will the causeway remain passable?”
“Till five.”
So I should scarcely be able to do more than look around, get my bearings in the house, and make a start on the search for the papers, before it would be time for him to return to fetch me back again. I did not want to leave here so soon. I was fascinated by it, I wanted Keckwick to be gone, so that I could wander about freely and slowly, take it all in through every one of my senses, and by myself. “Listen,” I said, making a sudden decision, “it will be quite ridiculous for you to be driving to and fro twice a day. The best thing will be for me to bring my bags and some food and drink and stay a couple of nights here. That way I shall finish the business a good deal more efficiently and you will not be troubled. I’ll return with you later this afternoon and then tomorrow, perhaps you could bring me back as early as is possible, according to the tides?”
I waited. I wondered if he was going to deter me, or argue, to try and put me off the enterprise, with those old dark hints. He thought for some time. But he must have recognized the firmness of my resolve at last, for he just nodded.
“Or perhaps you’d prefer to wait here for me now? Though I shall be a couple of hours. You know what suits you best.”
For answer, he simply pulled on the pony’s rein, and began to turn the trap about. Minutes later, they were receding across the causeway, smaller and smaller figures in the immensity and wideness of marsh and sky, and I had turned away and walked around to the front of Eel Marsh House, my left hand touching the shaft of the key that was in my pocket.
But I did not go inside. I did not want to, yet awhile. I wanted to drink in all the silence and the mysterious, shimmering beauty, to smell the strange, salt smell that was borne faintly on the wind, to listen for the slightest murmur. 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.
I thought it most likely that, if I were to stay here for any length of time, I should become quite addicted to the solitude and the quietness, and that I should turn birdwatcher, too, for there must be many rare birds, waders and divers, wild ducks and geese, especially in spring and autumn, and with the aid of books and good binoculars I should soon come to identify them by their flight and call. Indeed, as I wandered around the outside of the house, I began to speculate about living here, and to romanticize a little about how it would be for Stella and me, alone in this wild and remote spot—though the question of what I might ac
tually do to earn our keep, and how we might occupy ourselves from day to day, I conveniently set aside.
Then, thinking thus fancifully, I walked away from the house in the direction of the field, and across it, toward the ruin. Away to the west, on my right hand, the sun was already beginning to slip down in a great, wintry, golden-red ball which shot arrows of fire and blood-red streaks across the water. To the east, sea and sky had darkened slightly to a uniform, leaden gray. The wind that came suddenly snaking off the estuary was cold.
As I neared the ruins, I could see clearly that they were indeed of some ancient chapel, perhaps monastic in origin, and all broken-down and crumbling, with some of the stones and rubble fallen, probably in recent gales, and lying about in the grass. The ground sloped a little down to the estuary shore and, as I passed under one of the old arches, I startled a bird, which rose up and away over my head with loudly beating wings and a harsh croaking cry that echoed all around the old walls and was taken up by another, some distance away. It was an ugly, satanic-looking thing, like some species of sea-vulture—if such a thing existed—and I could not suppress a shudder as its shadow passed over me, and I watched its ungainly flight away toward the sea with relief. Then I saw that the ground at my feet and the fallen stones between were a foul mess of droppings, and guessed that these birds must nest and roost in the walls above.
Otherwise, I rather liked this lonely spot, and thought how it would be on a warm evening at midsummer, when the breezes blew balmily from off the sea, across the tall grasses, and wild flowers of white and yellow and pink climbed and bloomed among the broken stones, the shadows lengthened gently, and June birds poured out their finest songs, with the faint lap and wash of water in the distance.
So musing, I emerged into a small burial ground. It was enclosed by the remains of a wall, and I stopped in astonishment at the sight. There were perhaps fifty old gravestones, most of them leaning over or completely fallen, covered in patches of greenish-yellow lichen and moss, scoured pale by the salt wind, and stained by years of driven rain. The mounds were grassy, and weed-covered, or else they had disappeared altogether, sunken and slipped down. No names or dates were now decipherable, and the whole place had a decayed and abandoned air.
