Below us are pastures, interspersed with small clumps of mixed, broadleaf woodland. Monk’s Piece stands at the summit of land that rises gently up for some four hundred feet from where the little River Nee traces its winding way in a north to south direction across this fertile, and sheltered, part of the country. I took a step or two out from under the shadow of the house so that I could see around me in the moonlight.

But Esmé is merely stung by inclement weather into a spirited defiance, and so the preparations for our Christmas holiday had this year been more than usually extensive and vigorous. My spirits have for many years now been excessively affected by the ways of the weather, and I confess that, had it not been for the air of cheerfulness and bustle that prevailed in the rest of the house, I should have been quite cast down in gloom and lethargy, unable to enjoy the flavor of life as I should like and irritated by my own susceptibility. Inside the house, the lamps were lit throughout the day and the walls of larder, outhouse and cellar oozed damp and smelled sour, the fires sputtered and smoked, burning dismally low. There had been no pleasure in walking, the visibility was too poor for any shooting and the dogs were permanently morose and muddy. It was wretched weather, never seeming to come fully light, and raw, too. From the windows, the view stretched no farther than a yard or two down the garden. All the previous week, we had had rain, chilling rain and a mist that lay low about the house and over the countryside.

Tonight, I smelled at once, and with a lightening heart, that there had been a change in the weather.

I like to look about me at the sky above my head, whether there are moon and stars or utter blackness, and into the darkness ahead of me I like to listen for the cries of nocturnal creatures and the moaning rise and fall of the wind, or the pattering of rain in the orchard trees, I enjoy the rush of air toward me up the hill from the flat pastures of the river valley. I have always liked to take a breath of the evening, to smell the air, whether it is sweetly scented and balmy with the flowers of midsummer, pungent with the bonfires and leaf-mold of autumn, or crackling cold from frost and snow. As I crossed the long entrance hall of Monk’s Piece on my way from the dining room, where we had just enjoyed the first of the happy, festive meals, toward the drawing room and the fire around which my family were now assembled, I paused and then, as I often do in the course of an evening, went to the front door, opened it and stepped outside. Christmas Eve It was nine-thirty on Christmas Eve.

The woman in black by susan hill