Chapter 12 – ‘The Woman in Black’
For the final chapter of the story Hill has moved the narrative away from the past
and in to the present. Kipps wants to get away from Crythin Gifford as quickly as
possible, without seeing anybody. He needs only the assurance that a child has not
died since his sighting of the woman in black, as had happened on all the previous
occasions that she had been sighted:
“You told me that night – I took a deep breath to try and calm myself. A child – a
child in Crythin Gifford has always died.
Yes.
I could not go on but my expression was enough, I knew, my desperate anxiety to be
told the truth was evident.
Nothing, Daily said quickly. Nothing has happened…
I was sure he was going to add ‘Yet’ but he stopped and so I added it for him. But
he only shook his head silently.
Oh pray God it may not – 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.”
Daily’s reaction here is interesting as it follows what he has always done throughout
the story – he holds back information. The reader feels as if he knows that it is not
over but wants to protect Kipps and reassure him that it is.
At this point, however, all of the supernatural elements of the story have taken
place in Crythin Gifford and the haunting of Kipps by the woman in black seems to
have been motivated by his presence in her territory and his interference in her
affairs – he has had to learn he story as part of the tying up of Alice Drablow’s
affairs. As the affairs of Alice Drablow have been settled there is no reason for
the reader to assume that the part of the woman in black is not over. Hill again lulls
the reader into a false sense of security. Kipps feels a sense of sympathy towards
Jennet Humfrye now that he is beginning to distance him from the haunting that
she has visited upon him – he feels that he is at a safe distance and can begin to
look at what has happened with a sense of objectivity.
“She had been a poor, crazed, troubled woman, dead of grief and distress, filled
with hatred and a desire for revenge. Her bitterness was understandable, the
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wickedness that led her to take away other women’s children because she had lost
her own, understandable too but not forgivable.”
It seems that Kipps has been able to put the events that took place at Eel Marsh
House into some kind of perspective. He certainly seems to have returned to some
kind of mental equilibrium. He seems to have gone some way to understanding what
had motivated Jennet Humfrye but crucially is not able to offer forgiveness for
what she has done. The language used in his description of her suggests even a
note of sympathy towards her for what has happened to her. He uses three
adjectives to describe different aspects of the woman – ‘poor’ suggesting he feels
pity for her; ‘crazed’ to sum up her precariously balanced state of mind and
troubled which hints at the problems she had faced in her life. These adjectives
help the reader to understand the complexity of the woman and also Kipps’
reaction to her at this point in the story.
When he finally leaves Crythin Gifford it is with an almost palpable sense of relief:
“With a sigh – indeed almost a sob – of relief, I was driven away from Crythin
Gifford.”
The structure of the chapter is that it is split into two sections – the first one the
leaving of Crythin Gifford, the second on the events that that take place back in
London. At the beginning of the second section it seems likely that it will just be a
brief record of what happened to Kipps when he returned and that the story of
the woman in black has already been concluded. Hill defers the actual end of the
story until the final page, providing a gripping and shocking ending to the story (the
final denouement). The actual ending of the story comes in the final four lines. It is
an abrupt ending to the story and is brutally plain in terms of language use. There is
no superfluous description or detail – just a plain statement of the facts of the
event. It is worth remembering that it is Kipps writing these words – the lack of
detail conveys his emotions at the time – there simply are no words to describe the
pain and anguish he would have felt.
It is worth giving some consideration to the tone of these final lines of the story,
and think about how the reader gets a feeling for how Kipps felt at the time. He
begins to give the reader hope that his son had survived the accident:
“Our baby son had been thrown clear, clear against another tree. He lay crumpled
on the grass below it, dead.”
The brutality of the description matches the swiftness and brutality of the child’s
death. This sparseness of the description continues into his sentence-long
description of Stella’s death, ten months after the accident.
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The final sentences are abrupt and blunt:
“I had seen the ghost of Jennet Humfrye and she had had her revenge.”
This matter-of-fact description goes against all his hopes. He is resigned to the
power of the ghost and realises that any efforts to thwart her would have been
futile. When he became involved in the affairs of Alice Drablow he had set a chain
of events into motion that he was powerless to stop.
The final sentences are dramatic in their short and brutal nature:
“They had asked for my story. I have told it. Enough.”
It brings the reader full circle to the whole point of the telling of the story. He
needed to write down the events that had haunted him throughout his life. The
final word is significant – he has had enough of the story, the people in it and being
asked to retell it.
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