by Susan Hill
He had not returned after well over an hour and by then it was quite dark. Mrs Barford had raised the alarm and within a few minutes several men from the village had formed a search party.
Hugh was found in the churchyard, lying on the grass among the older gravestones. It was clear that he had suffered a severe stroke. The local doctor — Hugh had appointed him as his successor — said that he was unlikely to live very much longer and might well suffer a second and fatal vascular incident at any time. He was to be kept at home and made comfortable — the hospital was twenty miles away and would be able to do nothing more for him. It would be a cruelty to take him there.
When I arrived, Hugh was semi-conscious, the left side of his face slightly contorted, which gave him a staring, vacant look, and I thought that he had been frightened. I imagine he felt the first symptoms and knew he was alone and might die out there. He could not speak and I sat with him, alternating with Toby, through that night. He drifted in and out of sleep and his expression did not change until just around dawn, when he struggled to sit up. I tried to settle him back comfortably again but now he clawed at my hand and arm and I saw that there was a beseeching look in his eyes. His mouth working and a few inarticulate sounds came out of it, gravelly and hoarse, but he was not able to form any words. I tried asking him to press my hand if he wanted a drink or was in any pain but he only clawed again several times, but more and more weakly, his eyes intent on my face, as if asking, asking. But asking what? It was more than distressing to be unable to understand or to help him and I felt only a great relief when, just after six o`clock in the morning, he gave a sigh, his face changed, flickered with something I can only describe as delight for a second and then his body relaxed and he breathed his last, quiet breath.
We had already decided to sell the house. Toby was very well settled as he was; I did not have occasion to take it over — my life and work will always be in London. We disposed of the everyday contents but we went through all the objects of value, the pictures and books, dividing them between us and sending the remainder to a saleroom. Toby entrusted me with the task of going through Hugh’s papers, most of which related to his lifetime as a doctor, and it was while doing so that I came upon the pages that follow, which I presume he had intended to form the last part of his book. They were written in Hugh’s own hand, legible but wavering —indeed, towards the end the writing became a wild scrawl which confirmed to me that he had suffered from more than one stroke.
I found myself greatly upset and unnerved by what I read and I could not — cannot — take it easily or lightly, as I once could, the original story. I cannot get them out of my mind, I cannot sleep for asking myself endless questions relating to the whole business, from its very beginning in the old lodgings in Printer’s Devil Court. Without knowing about the subsequent events, about Hugh’s last walk to the churchyard at dusk and then his final hours, and the fear I saw on his face during his last moments, I would still have taken it all as a tale he had cooked up himself. But as I read the ending over and over again, I became racked with doubts, troubled in my mind, unable to resolve any of it to my satisfaction. I still cannot.
I am horribly afraid that I never will.
HUGH’S FINAL PAGES
I had long forgotten all about her. But perhaps nothing is ever truly forgotten, it simply lies dormant, waiting to be re-awakened. Certainly I had not thought of her — or any of it — for many years when I took my walk through our churchyard that late evening.
It is a beautiful spot, bordering orchards and meadows, and the gentle hills beyond. This was the soft end to a mellow autumn day. In a couple of weeks it would be Harvest Festival, the service I have always tried to attend. It means a great deal to us in the country. So I was in a calm and unruffled mood when I unlatched the wooden gate. Eleanor is buried here. I do not hang about her grave in a melancholy way, but I like to visit from time to time, to talk to her, to remember. I have never felt the least troubled or afraid in this sacred place. Why would I?
I turned and I saw her. There was no mistaking the young woman and I knew her at once. Everything raced in towards me as an incoming tide. I had thought her to be at rest, I had thought I had done all I could to ensure it. But now here she was and I was not only struck as if by lightning with the shock of seeing her, I was also confused. Why was she here? How did she find me? Seeing me, she stretched out both her arms and I saw the old, distraught and beseeching expression in her eyes, on her face. I felt unsteady but I also felt a sense of dread. I did not want to see her here; I did not want to remember.
“Go. Please go,” I managed to say. “Go back. You do not belong here. You are not welcome. Leave me in peace. Go home.”
But she came quickly across the grass, barely touching the ground, as before, still holding out her hands to me, pleading.
“I can do no more for you,” I said
She stopped a few yards away from me and began to speak — or at least, she opened her mouth, her lips moved, framing a rush of desperate words. But no sound came. No sound at all. She went on and on, gesturing to me, touching her face — her mouth, showing me what I already understood. She was dumb. She had given the old man’s voice back to him but she had never found her own again and she had been searching for it, and for me, all these years.
I began to shake violently and I fled from her, stumbled away, making as quickly as I could for the gate and my own orchard.
I looked back once, hoping not to see her but she was still there, as clear as day and now she seemed to have a faint glow of phosphorescence round her. She was still holding out her hands, pleading, pleading and I could not bear it. I did not know how, but then I knew I must try and help her, as I had helped her before and I stopped and called out, “I will come back. I will come back.”
And I will go, I will go back…
Here, the writing peters out.
