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WUTHERING HEIGHTS
by Emily Brontë
CHAPTER XXXI
Yesterday was bright, calm, and frosty. I went to the Heights as I
proposed: my housekeeper entreated me to bear a little note from her to
her young lady, and I did not refuse, for the worthy woman was not
conscious of anything odd in her request. The front door stood open, but
the jealous gate was fastened, as at my last visit; I knocked and invoked
Earnshaw from among the garden-beds; he unchained it, and I entered. The
fellow is as handsome a rustic as need be seen. I took particular notice
of him this time; but then he does his best apparently to make the least
of his advantages.
I asked if Mr. Heathcliff were at home? He answered, No; but he would be
in at dinner-time. It was eleven o'clock, and I announced my intention
of going in and waiting for him; at which he immediately flung down his
tools and accompanied me, in the office of watchdog, not as a substitute
for the host.
We entered together; Catherine was there, making herself useful in
preparing some vegetables for the approaching meal; she looked more
sulky and less spirited than when I had seen her first. She hardly
raised her eyes to notice me, and continued her employment with the same
disregard to common forms of politeness as before; never returning my
bow and good-morning by the slightest acknowledgment.
'She does not seem so amiable,' I thought, 'as Mrs. Dean would persuade
me to believe. She's a beauty, it is true; but not an angel.'
Earnshaw surlily bid her remove her things to the kitchen. 'Remove them
yourself,' she said, pushing them from her as soon as she had done; and
retiring to a stool by the window, where she began to carve figures of
birds and beasts out of the turnip-parings in her lap. I approached her,
pretending to desire a view of the garden; and, as I fancied, adroitly
dropped Mrs. Dean's note on to her knee, unnoticed by Hareton—but she
asked aloud, 'What is that?' And chucked it off.
'A letter from your old acquaintance, the housekeeper at the Grange,' I
answered; annoyed at her exposing my kind deed, and fearful lest it
should be imagined a missive of my own. She would gladly have gathered
it up at this information, but Hareton beat her; he seized and put it in
his waistcoat, saying Mr. Heathcliff should look at it first. Thereat,
Catherine silently turned her face from us, and, very stealthily, drew
out her pocket-handkerchief and applied it to her eyes; and her cousin,
after struggling awhile to keep down his softer feelings, pulled out the
letter and flung it on the floor beside her, as ungraciously as he could.
Catherine caught and perused it eagerly; then she put a few questions to
me concerning the inmates, rational and irrational, of her former home;
and gazing towards the hills, murmured in soliloquy:
'I should like to be riding Minny down there! I should like to be
climbing up there! Oh! I'm tired—I'm _stalled_, Hareton!' And she
leant her pretty head back against the sill, with half a yawn and half a
sigh, and lapsed into an aspect of abstracted sadness: neither caring nor
knowing whether we remarked her.
'Mrs. Heathcliff,' I said, after sitting some time mute, 'you are not
aware that I am an acquaintance of yours? so intimate that I think it
strange you won't come and speak to me. My housekeeper never wearies of
talking about and praising you; and she'll be greatly disappointed if I
return with no news of or from you, except that you received her letter
and said nothing!'
She appeared to wonder at this speech, and asked,—
'Does Ellen like you?'
'Yes, very well,' I replied, hesitatingly.
'You must tell her,' she continued, 'that I would answer her letter, but
I have no materials for writing: not even a book from which I might tear
a leaf.'
'No books!' I exclaimed. 'How do you contrive to live here without them?
if I may take the liberty to inquire. Though provided with a large
library, I'm frequently very dull at the Grange; take my books away, and
I should be desperate!'
'I was always reading, when I had them,' said Catherine; 'and Mr.
Heathcliff never reads; so he took it into his head to destroy my books.
I have not had a glimpse of one for weeks. Only once, I searched through
Joseph's store of theology, to his great irritation; and once, Hareton, I
came upon a secret stock in your room—some Latin and Greek, and some
tales and poetry: all old friends. I brought the last here—and you
gathered them, as a magpie gathers silver spoons, for the mere love of
stealing! They are of no use to you; or else you concealed them in the
bad spirit that, as you cannot enjoy them, nobody else shall. Perhaps
_your_ envy counselled Mr. Heathcliff to rob me of my treasures? But
I've most of them written on my brain and printed in my heart, and you
cannot deprive me of those!'
Earnshaw blushed crimson when his cousin made this revelation of his
private literary accumulations, and stammered an indignant denial of her
accusations.
'Mr. Hareton is desirous of increasing his amount of knowledge,' I said,
coming to his rescue. 'He is not _envious_, but _emulous_ of your
attainments. He'll be a clever scholar in a few years.'
'And he wants me to sink into a dunce, meantime,' answered Catherine.
'Yes, I hear him trying to spell and read to himself, and pretty blunders
he makes! I wish you would repeat Chevy Chase as you did yesterday: it
was extremely funny. I heard you; and I heard you turning over the
dictionary to seek out the hard words, and then cursing because you
couldn't read their explanations!'
The young man evidently thought it too bad that he should be laughed at
for his ignorance, and then laughed at for trying to remove it. I had a
similar notion; and, remembering Mrs. Dean's anecdote of his first
attempt at enlightening the darkness in which he had been reared, I
observed,—'But, Mrs. Heathcliff, we have each had a commencement, and
each stumbled and tottered on the threshold; had our teachers scorned
instead of aiding us, we should stumble and totter yet.'
'Oh!' she replied, 'I don't wish to limit his acquirements: still, he has
no right to appropriate what is mine, and make it ridiculous to me with
his vile mistakes and mispronunciations! Those books, both prose and
verse, are consecrated to me by other associations; and I hate to have
them debased and profaned in his mouth! Besides, of all, he has selected
my favourite pieces that I love the most to repeat, as if out of
deliberate malice.'
Hareton's chest heaved in silence a minute: he laboured under a severe
sense of mortification and wrath, which it was no easy task to suppress.
I rose, and, from a gentlemanly idea of relieving his embarrassment, took
up my station in the doorway, surveying the external prospect as I stood.
He followed my example, and left the room; but presently reappeared,
bearing half a dozen volumes in his hands, which he threw into
Catherine's lap, exclaiming,—'Take them! I never want to hear, or read,
or think of them again!'
'I won't have them now,' she answered. 'I shall connect them with you,
and hate them.'
She opened one that had obviously been often turned over, and read a
portion in the drawling tone of a beginner; then laughed, and threw it
from her. 'And listen,' she continued, provokingly, commencing a verse
of an old ballad in the same fashion.
But his self-love would endure no further torment: I heard, and not
altogether disapprovingly, a manual check given to her saucy tongue. The
little wretch had done her utmost to hurt her cousin's sensitive though
uncultivated feelings, and a physical argument was the only mode he had
of balancing the account, and repaying its effects on the inflictor. He
afterwards gathered the books and hurled them on the fire. I read in his
countenance what anguish it was to offer that sacrifice to spleen. I
fancied that as they consumed, he recalled the pleasure they had already
imparted, and the triumph and ever-increasing pleasure he had anticipated
from them; and I fancied I guessed the incitement to his secret studies
also. He had been content with daily labour and rough animal enjoyments,
till Catherine crossed his path. Shame at her scorn, and hope of her
approval, were his first prompters to higher pursuits; and instead of
guarding him from one and winning him to the other, his endeavours to
raise himself had produced just the contrary result.
'Yes that's all the good that such a brute as you can get from them!'
cried Catherine, sucking her damaged lip, and watching the conflagration
with indignant eyes.
'You'd _better_ hold your tongue, now,' he answered fiercely.
And his agitation precluded further speech; he advanced hastily to the
entrance, where I made way for him to pass. But ere he had crossed the
door-stones, Mr. Heathcliff, coming up the causeway, encountered him, and
laying hold of his shoulder asked,—'What's to do now, my lad?'
'Naught, naught,' he said, and broke away to enjoy his grief and anger in
solitude.
Heathcliff gazed after him, and sighed.
'It will be odd if I thwart myself,' he muttered, unconscious that I was
behind him. 'But when I look for his father in his face, I find _her_
every day more! How the devil is he so like? I can hardly bear to see
him.'
He bent his eyes to the ground, and walked moodily in. There was a
restless, anxious expression in his countenance. I had never remarked
there before; and he looked sparer in person. His daughter-in-law, on
perceiving him through the window, immediately escaped to the kitchen, so
that I remained alone.
'I'm glad to see you out of doors again, Mr. Lockwood,' he said, in reply
to my greeting; 'from selfish motives partly: I don't think I could
readily supply your loss in this desolation. I've wondered more than
once what brought you here.'
'An idle whim, I fear, sir,' was my answer; 'or else an idle whim is
going to spirit me away. I shall set out for London next week; and I
must give you warning that I feel no disposition to retain Thrushcross
Grange beyond the twelve months I agreed to rent it. I believe I shall
not live there any more.'
'Oh, indeed; you're tired of being banished from the world, are you?' he
said. 'But if you be coming to plead off paying for a place you won't
occupy, your journey is useless: I never relent in exacting my due from
any one.'
'I'm coming to plead off nothing about it,' I exclaimed, considerably
irritated. 'Should you wish it, I'll settle with you now,' and I drew my
note-book from my pocket.
'No, no,' he replied, coolly; 'you'll leave sufficient behind to cover
your debts, if you fail to return: I'm not in such a hurry. Sit down and
take your dinner with us; a guest that is safe from repeating his visit
can generally be made welcome. Catherine! bring the things in: where are
you?'
Catherine reappeared, bearing a tray of knives and forks.
'You may get your dinner with Joseph,' muttered Heathcliff, aside, 'and
remain in the kitchen till he is gone.'
She obeyed his directions very punctually: perhaps she had no temptation
to transgress. Living among clowns and misanthropists, she probably
cannot appreciate a better class of people when she meets them.
With Mr. Heathcliff, grim and saturnine, on the one hand, and Hareton,
absolutely dumb, on the other, I made a somewhat cheerless meal, and bade
adieu early. I would have departed by the back way, to get a last
glimpse of Catherine and annoy old Joseph; but Hareton received orders to
lead up my horse, and my host himself escorted me to the door, so I could
not fulfil my wish.
'How dreary life gets over in that house!' I reflected, while riding down
the road. 'What a realisation of something more romantic than a fairy
tale it would have been for Mrs. Linton Heathcliff, had she and I struck
up an attachment, as her good nurse desired, and migrated together into
the stirring atmosphere of the town!'
CHAPTER XXXII
1802.—This September I was invited to devastate the moors of a friend in
the north, and on my journey to his abode, I unexpectedly came within
fifteen miles of Gimmerton. The ostler at a roadside public-house was
holding a pail of water to refresh my horses, when a cart of very green
oats, newly reaped, passed by, and he remarked,—'Yon's frough Gimmerton,
nah! They're allas three wick' after other folk wi' ther harvest.'
'Gimmerton?' I repeated—my residence in that locality had already grown
dim and dreamy. 'Ah! I know. How far is it from this?'
'Happen fourteen mile o'er th' hills; and a rough road,' he answered.
A sudden impulse seized me to visit Thrushcross Grange. It was scarcely
noon, and I conceived that I might as well pass the night under my own
roof as in an inn. Besides, I could spare a day easily to arrange
matters with my landlord, and thus save myself the trouble of invading
the neighbourhood again. Having rested awhile, I directed my servant to
inquire the way to the village; and, with great fatigue to our beasts, we
managed the distance in some three hours.
I left him there, and proceeded down the valley alone. The grey church
looked greyer, and the lonely churchyard lonelier. I distinguished a
moor-sheep cropping the short turf on the graves. It was sweet, warm
weather—too warm for travelling; but the heat did not hinder me from
enjoying the delightful scenery above and below: had I seen it nearer
August, I'm sure it would have tempted me to waste a month among its
solitudes. In winter nothing more dreary, in summer nothing more divine,
than those glens shut in by hills, and those bluff, bold swells of heath.
I reached the Grange before sunset, and knocked for admittance; but the
family had retreated into the back premises, I judged, by one thin, blue
wreath, curling from the kitchen chimney, and they did not hear. I rode
into the court. Under the porch, a girl of nine or ten sat knitting, and
an old woman reclined on the housesteps, smoking a meditative pipe.
'Is Mrs. Dean within?' I demanded of the dame.
'Mistress Dean? Nay!' she answered, 'she doesn't bide here: shoo's up at
th' Heights.'
'Are you the housekeeper, then?' I continued.
'Eea, aw keep th' hause,' she replied.
'Well, I'm Mr. Lockwood, the master. Are there any rooms to lodge me in,
I wonder? I wish to stay all night.'
'T' maister!' she cried in astonishment. 'Whet, whoiver knew yah wur
coming? Yah sud ha' send word. They's nowt norther dry nor mensful
abaht t' place: nowt there isn't!'
She threw down her pipe and bustled in, the girl followed, and I entered
too; soon perceiving that her report was true, and, moreover, that I had
almost upset her wits by my unwelcome apparition, I bade her be composed.
I would go out for a walk; and, meantime she must try to prepare a corner
of a sitting-room for me to sup in, and a bedroom to sleep in. No
sweeping and dusting, only good fire and dry sheets were necessary. She
seemed willing to do her best; though she thrust the hearth-brush into
the grates in mistake for the poker, and malappropriated several other
articles of her craft: but I retired, confiding in her energy for a
resting-place against my return. Wuthering Heights was the goal of my
proposed excursion. An afterthought brought me back, when I had quitted
the court.
'All well at the Heights?' I inquired of the woman.
'Eea, f'r owt ee knaw!' she answered, skurrying away with a pan of hot
cinders.
I would have asked why Mrs. Dean had deserted the Grange, but it was
impossible to delay her at such a crisis, so I turned away and made my
exit, rambling leisurely along, with the glow of a sinking sun behind,
and the mild glory of a rising moon in front—one fading, and the other
brightening—as I quitted the park, and climbed the stony by-road
branching off to Mr. Heathcliff's dwelling. Before I arrived in sight of
it, all that remained of day was a beamless amber light along the west:
but I could see every pebble on the path, and every blade of grass, by
that splendid moon. I had neither to climb the gate nor to knock—it
yielded to my hand. That is an improvement, I thought. And I noticed
another, by the aid of my nostrils; a fragrance of stocks and wallflowers
wafted on the air from amongst the homely fruit-trees.
Both doors and lattices were open; and yet, as is usually the case in a
coal-district, a fine red fire illumined the chimney: the comfort which
the eye derives from it renders the extra heat endurable. But the house
of Wuthering Heights is so large that the inmates have plenty of space
for withdrawing out of its influence; and accordingly what inmates there
were had stationed themselves not far from one of the windows. I could
both see them and hear them talk before I entered, and looked and
listened in consequence; being moved thereto by a mingled sense of
curiosity and envy, that grew as I lingered.
'Con-_trary_!' said a voice as sweet as a silver bell. 'That for the
third time, you dunce! I'm not going to tell you again. Recollect, or
I'll pull your hair!'
'Contrary, then,' answered another, in deep but softened tones. 'And now,
kiss me, for minding so well.'
'No, read it over first correctly, without a single mistake.'
The male speaker began to read: he was a young man, respectably dressed
and seated at a table, having a book before him. His handsome features
glowed with pleasure, and his eyes kept impatiently wandering from the
page to a small white hand over his shoulder, which recalled him by a
smart slap on the cheek, whenever its owner detected such signs of
inattention. Its owner stood behind; her light, shining ringlets
blending, at intervals, with his brown looks, as she bent to superintend
his studies; and her face—it was lucky he could not see her face, or he
would never have been so steady. I could; and I bit my lip in spite, at
having thrown away the chance I might have had of doing something besides
staring at its smiting beauty.
The task was done, not free from further blunders; but the pupil claimed
a reward, and received at least five kisses; which, however, he
generously returned. Then they came to the door, and from their
conversation I judged they were about to issue out and have a walk on the
moors. I supposed I should be condemned in Hareton Earnshaw's heart, if
not by his mouth, to the lowest pit in the infernal regions if I showed
my unfortunate person in his neighbourhood then; and feeling very mean
and malignant, I skulked round to seek refuge in the kitchen. There was
unobstructed admittance on that side also; and at the door sat my old
friend Nelly Dean, sewing and singing a song; which was often interrupted
from within by harsh words of scorn and intolerance, uttered in far from
musical accents.
'I'd rayther, by th' haulf, hev' 'em swearing i' my lugs fro'h morn to
neeght, nor hearken ye hahsiver!' said the tenant of the kitchen, in
answer to an unheard speech of Nelly's. 'It's a blazing shame, that I
cannot oppen t' blessed Book, but yah set up them glories to sattan, and
all t' flaysome wickednesses that iver were born into th' warld! Oh!
ye're a raight nowt; and shoo's another; and that poor lad 'll be lost
atween ye. Poor lad!' he added, with a groan; 'he's witched: I'm sartin
on't. Oh, Lord, judge 'em, for there's norther law nor justice among wer
rullers!'
'No! or we should be sitting in flaming ***, I suppose,' retorted the
singer. 'But wisht, old man, and read your Bible like a Christian, and
never mind me. This is "Fairy Annie's Wedding"—a bonny tune—it goes to
a dance.'
Mrs. Dean was about to recommence, when I advanced; and recognising me
directly, she jumped to her feet, crying—'Why, bless you, Mr. Lockwood!
How could you think of returning in this way? All's shut up at
Thrushcross Grange. You should have given us notice!'
'I've arranged to be accommodated there, for as long as I shall stay,' I
answered. 'I depart again to-morrow. And how are you transplanted here,
Mrs. Dean? tell me that.'
'Zillah left, and Mr. Heathcliff wished me to come, soon after you went
to London, and stay till you returned. But, step in, pray! Have you
walked from Gimmerton this evening?'
'From the Grange,' I replied; 'and while they make me lodging room there,
I want to finish my business with your master; because I don't think of
having another opportunity in a hurry.'
'What business, sir?' said Nelly, conducting me into the house. 'He's
gone out at present, and won't return soon.'
'About the rent,' I answered.
'Oh! then it is with Mrs. Heathcliff you must settle,' she observed; 'or
rather with me. She has not learnt to manage her affairs yet, and I act
for her: there's nobody else.'
I looked surprised.
'Ah! you have not heard of Heathcliff's death, I see,' she continued.
'Heathcliff dead!' I exclaimed, astonished. 'How long ago?'
'Three months since: but sit down, and let me take your hat, and I'll
tell you all about it. Stop, you have had nothing to eat, have you?'
'I want nothing: I have ordered supper at home. You sit down too. I
never dreamt of his dying! Let me hear how it came to pass. You say you
don't expect them back for some time—the young people?'
'No—I have to scold them every evening for their late rambles: but they
don't care for me. At least, have a drink of our old ale; it will do you
good: you seem weary.'
She hastened to fetch it before I could refuse, and I heard Joseph asking
whether 'it warn't a crying scandal that she should have followers at her
time of life? And then, to get them jocks out o' t' maister's cellar! He
fair shaamed to 'bide still and see it.'
She did not stay to retaliate, but re-entered in a minute, bearing a
reaming silver pint, whose contents I lauded with becoming earnestness.
And afterwards she furnished me with the sequel of Heathcliff's history.
He had a '***' end, as she expressed it.
I was summoned to Wuthering Heights, within a fortnight of your leaving
us, she said; and I obeyed joyfully, for Catherine's sake. My first
interview with her grieved and shocked me: she had altered so much since
our separation. Mr. Heathcliff did not explain his reasons for taking a
new mind about my coming here; he only told me he wanted me, and he was
tired of seeing Catherine: I must make the little parlour my
sitting-room, and keep her with me. It was enough if he were obliged to
see her once or twice a day. She seemed pleased at this arrangement; and,
by degrees, I smuggled over a great number of books, and other articles,
that had formed her amusement at the Grange; and flattered myself we
should get on in tolerable comfort. The delusion did not last long.
Catherine, contented at first, in a brief space grew irritable and
restless. For one thing, she was forbidden to move out of the garden, and
it fretted her sadly to be confined to its narrow bounds as spring drew
on; for another, in following the house, I was forced to quit her
frequently, and she complained of loneliness: she preferred quarrelling
with Joseph in the kitchen to sitting at peace in her solitude. I did
not mind their skirmishes: but Hareton was often obliged to seek the
kitchen also, when the master wanted to have the house to himself! and
though in the beginning she either left it at his approach, or quietly
joined in my occupations, and shunned remarking or addressing him—and
though he was always as sullen and silent as possible—after a while, she
changed her behaviour, and became incapable of letting him alone: talking
at him; commenting on his stupidity and idleness; expressing her wonder
how he could endure the life he lived—how he could sit a whole evening
staring into the fire, and dozing.
'He's just like a dog, is he not, Ellen?' she once observed, 'or a
cart-horse? He does his work, eats his food, and sleeps eternally! What
a blank, dreary mind he must have! Do you ever dream, Hareton? And, if
you do, what is it about? But you can't speak to me!'
Then she looked at him; but he would neither open his mouth nor look
again.
'He's, perhaps, dreaming now,' she continued. 'He twitched his shoulder
as Juno twitches hers. Ask him, Ellen.'
'Mr. Hareton will ask the master to send you up-stairs, if you don't
behave!' I said. He had not only twitched his shoulder but clenched his
fist, as if tempted to use it.
'I know why Hareton never speaks, when I am in the kitchen,' she
exclaimed, on another occasion. 'He is afraid I shall laugh at him.
Ellen, what do you think? He began to teach himself to read once; and,
because I laughed, he burned his books, and dropped it: was he not a
fool?'
'Were not you naughty?' I said; 'answer me that.'
'Perhaps I was,' she went on; 'but I did not expect him to be so silly.
Hareton, if I gave you a book, would you take it now? I'll try!'
She placed one she had been perusing on his hand; he flung it off, and
muttered, if she did not give over, he would break her neck.
'Well, I shall put it here,' she said, 'in the table-drawer; and I'm
going to bed.'
Then she whispered me to watch whether he touched it, and departed. But
he would not come near it; and so I informed her in the morning, to her
great disappointment. I saw she was sorry for his persevering sulkiness
and indolence: her conscience reproved her for frightening him off
improving himself: she had done it effectually. But her ingenuity was at
work to remedy the injury: while I ironed, or pursued other such
stationary employments as I could not well do in the parlour, she would
bring some pleasant volume and read it aloud to me. When Hareton was
there, she generally paused in an interesting part, and left the book
lying about: that she did repeatedly; but he was as obstinate as a mule,
and, instead of snatching at her bait, in wet weather he took to smoking
with Joseph; and they sat like automatons, one on each side of the fire,
the elder happily too deaf to understand her wicked nonsense, as he would
have called it, the younger doing his best to seem to disregard it. On
fine evenings the latter followed his shooting expeditions, and Catherine
yawned and sighed, and teased me to talk to her, and ran off into the
court or garden the moment I began; and, as a last resource, cried, and
said she was tired of living: her life was useless.
Mr. Heathcliff, who grew more and more disinclined to society, had almost
banished Earnshaw from his apartment. Owing to an accident at the
commencement of March, he became for some days a fixture in the kitchen.
His gun burst while out on the hills by himself; a splinter cut his arm,
and he lost a good deal of blood before he could reach home. The
consequence was that, perforce, he was condemned to the fireside and
tranquillity, till he made it up again. It suited Catherine to have him
there: at any rate, it made her hate her room up-stairs more than ever:
and she would compel me to find out business below, that she might
accompany me.
On Easter Monday, Joseph went to Gimmerton fair with some cattle; and, in
the afternoon, I was busy getting up linen in the kitchen. Earnshaw sat,
morose as usual, at the chimney corner, and my little mistress was
beguiling an idle hour with drawing pictures on the window-panes, varying
her amusement by smothered bursts of songs, and whispered ejaculations,
and quick glances of annoyance and impatience in the direction of her
cousin, who steadfastly smoked, and looked into the grate. At a notice
that I could do with her no longer intercepting my light, she removed to
the hearthstone. I bestowed little attention on her proceedings, but,
presently, I heard her begin—'I've found out, Hareton, that I want—that
I'm glad—that I should like you to be my cousin now, if you had not
grown so cross to me, and so rough.'
Hareton returned no answer.
'Hareton, Hareton, Hareton! do you hear?' she continued.
'Get off wi' ye!' he growled, with uncompromising gruffness.
'Let me take that pipe,' she said, cautiously advancing her hand and
abstracting it from his mouth.
Before he could attempt to recover it, it was broken, and behind the
fire. He swore at her and seized another.
'Stop,' she cried, 'you must listen to me first; and I can't speak while
those clouds are floating in my face.'
'Will you go to the devil!' he exclaimed, ferociously, 'and let me be!'
'No,' she persisted, 'I won't: I can't tell what to do to make you talk
to me; and you are determined not to understand. When I call you stupid,
I don't mean anything: I don't mean that I despise you. Come, you shall
take notice of me, Hareton: you are my cousin, and you shall own me.'
'I shall have naught to do wi' you and your mucky pride, and your damned
mocking tricks!' he answered. 'I'll go to hell, body and soul, before I
look sideways after you again. Side out o' t' gate, now, this minute!'
Catherine frowned, and retreated to the window-seat chewing her lip, and
endeavouring, by humming an eccentric tune, to conceal a growing tendency
to sob.
'You should be friends with your cousin, Mr. Hareton,' I interrupted,
'since she repents of her sauciness. It would do you a great deal of
good: it would make you another man to have her for a companion.'
'A companion!' he cried; 'when she hates me, and does not think me fit to
wipe her shoon! Nay, if it made me a king, I'd not be scorned for
seeking her good-will any more.'
'It is not I who hate you, it is you who hate me!' wept Cathy, no longer
disguising her trouble. 'You hate me as much as Mr. Heathcliff does, and
more.'
'You're a damned liar,' began Earnshaw: 'why have I made him angry, by
taking your part, then, a hundred times? and that when you sneered at and
despised me, and—Go on plaguing me, and I'll step in yonder, and say you
worried me out of the kitchen!'
'I didn't know you took my part,' she answered, drying her eyes; 'and I
was miserable and bitter at everybody; but now I thank you, and beg you
to forgive me: what can I do besides?'
She returned to the hearth, and frankly extended her hand. He blackened
and scowled like a thunder-cloud, and kept his fists resolutely clenched,
and his gaze fixed on the ground. Catherine, by instinct, must have
divined it was obdurate perversity, and not dislike, that prompted this
dogged conduct; for, after remaining an instant undecided, she stooped
and impressed on his cheek a gentle kiss. The little rogue thought I had
not seen her, and, drawing back, she took her former station by the
window, quite demurely. I shook my head reprovingly, and then she
blushed and whispered—'Well! what should I have done, Ellen? He
wouldn't shake hands, and he wouldn't look: I must show him some way that
I like him—that I want to be friends.'
Whether the kiss convinced Hareton, I cannot tell: he was very careful,
for some minutes, that his face should not be seen, and when he did raise
it, he was sadly puzzled where to turn his eyes.
Catherine employed herself in wrapping a handsome book neatly in white
paper, and having tied it with a bit of ribbon, and addressed it to 'Mr.
Hareton Earnshaw,' she desired me to be her ambassadress, and convey the
present to its destined recipient.
'And tell him, if he'll take it, I'll come and teach him to read it
right,' she said; 'and, if he refuse it, I'll go upstairs, and never
tease him again.'
I carried it, and repeated the message; anxiously watched by my employer.
Hareton would not open his fingers, so I laid it on his knee. He did not
strike it off, either. I returned to my work. Catherine leaned her head
and arms on the table, till she heard the slight rustle of the covering
being removed; then she stole away, and quietly seated herself beside her
cousin. He trembled, and his face glowed: all his rudeness and all his
surly harshness had deserted him: he could not summon courage, at first,
to utter a syllable in reply to her questioning look, and her murmured
petition.
'Say you forgive me, Hareton, do. You can make me so happy by speaking
that little word.'
He muttered something inaudible.
'And you'll be my friend?' added Catherine, interrogatively.
'Nay, you'll be ashamed of me every day of your life,' he answered; 'and
the more ashamed, the more you know me; and I cannot bide it.'
'So you won't be my friend?' she said, smiling as sweet as honey, and
creeping close up.
I overheard no further distinguishable talk, but, on looking round again,
I perceived two such radiant countenances bent over the page of the
accepted book, that I did not doubt the treaty had been ratified on both
sides; and the enemies were, thenceforth, sworn allies.
The work they studied was full of costly pictures; and those and their
position had charm enough to keep them unmoved till Joseph came home. He,
poor man, was perfectly aghast at the spectacle of Catherine seated on
the same bench with Hareton Earnshaw, leaning her hand on his shoulder;
and confounded at his favourite's endurance of her proximity: it affected
him too deeply to allow an observation on the subject that night. His
emotion was only revealed by the immense sighs he drew, as he solemnly
spread his large Bible on the table, and overlaid it with dirty
bank-notes from his pocket-book, the produce of the day's transactions.
At length he summoned Hareton from his seat.
'Tak' these in to t' maister, lad,' he said, 'and bide there. I's gang
up to my own rahm. This hoile's neither mensful nor seemly for us: we
mun side out and seearch another.'
'Come, Catherine,' I said, 'we must "side out" too: I've done my ironing.
Are you ready to go?'
'It is not eight o'clock!' she answered, rising unwillingly.
'Hareton, I'll leave this book upon the chimney-piece, and I'll bring
some more to-morrow.'
'Ony books that yah leave, I shall tak' into th' hahse,' said Joseph,
'and it'll be mitch if yah find 'em agean; soa, yah may plase yerseln!'
Cathy threatened that his library should pay for hers; and, smiling as
she passed Hareton, went singing up-stairs: lighter of heart, I venture
to say, than ever she had been under that roof before; except, perhaps,
during her earliest visits to Linton.
The intimacy thus commenced grew rapidly; though it encountered temporary
interruptions. Earnshaw was not to be civilized with a wish, and my
young lady was no philosopher, and no paragon of patience; but both their
minds tending to the same point—one loving and desiring to esteem, and
the other loving and desiring to be esteemed—they contrived in the end
to reach it.
You see, Mr. Lockwood, it was easy enough to win Mrs. Heathcliff's heart.
But now, I'm glad you did not try. The crown of all my wishes will be
the union of those two. I shall envy no one on their wedding day: there
won't be a happier woman than myself in England!
CHAPTER XXXIII
On the morrow of that Monday, Earnshaw being still unable to follow his
ordinary employments, and therefore remaining about the house, I speedily
found it would be impracticable to retain my charge beside me, as
heretofore. She got downstairs before me, and out into the garden, where
she had seen her cousin performing some easy work; and when I went to bid
them come to breakfast, I saw she had persuaded him to clear a large
space of ground from currant and gooseberry bushes, and they were busy
planning together an importation of plants from the Grange.
I was terrified at the devastation which had been accomplished in a brief
half-hour; the black-currant trees were the apple of Joseph's eye, and
she had just fixed her choice of a flower-bed in the midst of them.
'There! That will be all shown to the master,' I exclaimed, 'the minute
it is discovered. And what excuse have you to offer for taking such
liberties with the garden? We shall have a fine explosion on the head of
it: see if we don't! Mr. Hareton, I wonder you should have no more wit
than to go and make that mess at her bidding!'
'I'd forgotten they were Joseph's,' answered Earnshaw, rather puzzled;
'but I'll tell him I did it.'
We always ate our meals with Mr. Heathcliff. I held the mistress's post
in making tea and carving; so I was indispensable at table. Catherine
usually sat by me, but to-day she stole nearer to Hareton; and I
presently saw she would have no more discretion in her friendship than
she had in her hostility.
'Now, mind you don't talk with and notice your cousin too much,' were my
whispered instructions as we entered the room. 'It will certainly annoy
Mr. Heathcliff, and he'll be mad at you both.'
'I'm not going to,' she answered.
The minute after, she had sidled to him, and was sticking primroses in
his plate of porridge.
He dared not speak to her there: he dared hardly look; and yet she went
on teasing, till he was twice on the point of being provoked to laugh. I
frowned, and then she glanced towards the master: whose mind was occupied
on other subjects than his company, as his countenance evinced; and she
grew serious for an instant, scrutinizing him with deep gravity.
Afterwards she turned, and recommenced her nonsense; at last, Hareton
uttered a smothered laugh. Mr. Heathcliff started; his eye rapidly
surveyed our faces, Catherine met it with her accustomed look of
nervousness and yet defiance, which he abhorred.
'It is well you are out of my reach,' he exclaimed. 'What fiend
possesses you to stare back at me, continually, with those infernal eyes?
Down with them! and don't remind me of your existence again. I thought I
had cured you of laughing.'
'It was me,' muttered Hareton.
'What do you say?' demanded the master.
Hareton looked at his plate, and did not repeat the confession. Mr.
Heathcliff looked at him a bit, and then silently resumed his breakfast
and his interrupted musing. We had nearly finished, and the two young
people prudently shifted wider asunder, so I anticipated no further
disturbance during that sitting: when Joseph appeared at the door,
revealing by his quivering lip and furious eyes that the outrage
committed on his precious shrubs was detected. He must have seen Cathy
and her cousin about the spot before he examined it, for while his jaws
worked like those of a cow chewing its cud, and rendered his speech
difficult to understand, he began:—
'I mun hev' my wage, and I mun goa! I _hed_ aimed to dee wheare I'd
sarved fur sixty year; and I thowt I'd lug my books up into t' garret,
and all my bits o' stuff, and they sud hev' t' kitchen to theirseln; for
t' sake o' quietness. It wur hard to gie up my awn hearthstun, but I
thowt I _could_ do that! But nah, shoo's taan my garden fro' me, and by
th' heart, maister, I cannot stand it! Yah may bend to th' yoak an ye
will—I noan used to 't, and an old man doesn't sooin get used to new
barthens. I'd rayther arn my bite an' my sup wi' a hammer in th' road!'
'Now, now, idiot!' interrupted Heathcliff, 'cut it short! What's your
grievance? I'll interfere in no quarrels between you and Nelly. She may
thrust you into the coal-hole for anything I care.'
'It's noan Nelly!' answered Joseph. 'I sudn't shift for Nelly—nasty ill
nowt as shoo is. Thank God! _shoo_ cannot stale t' sowl o' ***'dy! Shoo
wer niver soa handsome, but what a body mud look at her 'bout winking.
It's yon flaysome, graceless quean, that's witched our lad, wi' her bold
een and her forrard ways—till—Nay! it fair brusts my heart! He's
forgotten all I've done for him, and made on him, and goan and riven up a
whole row o' t' grandest currant-trees i' t' garden!' and here he
lamented outright; unmanned by a sense of his bitter injuries, and
Earnshaw's ingratitude and dangerous condition.
'Is the fool drunk?' asked Mr. Heathcliff. 'Hareton, is it you he's
finding fault with?'
'I've pulled up two or three bushes,' replied the young man; 'but I'm
going to set 'em again.'
'And why have you pulled them up?' said the master.
Catherine wisely put in her tongue.
'We wanted to plant some flowers there,' she cried. 'I'm the only person
to blame, for I wished him to do it.'
'And who the devil gave _you_ leave to touch a stick about the place?'
demanded her father-in-law, much surprised. 'And who ordered _you_ to
obey her?' he added, turning to Hareton.
The latter was speechless; his cousin replied—'You shouldn't grudge a
few yards of earth for me to ornament, when you have taken all my land!'
'Your land, insolent ***! You never had any,' said Heathcliff.
'And my money,' she continued; returning his angry glare, and meantime
biting a piece of crust, the remnant of her breakfast.
'Silence!' he exclaimed. 'Get done, and begone!'
'And Hareton's land, and his money,' pursued the reckless thing. 'Hareton
and I are friends now; and I shall tell him all about you!'
The master seemed confounded a moment: he grew pale, and rose up, eyeing
her all the while, with an expression of mortal hate.
'If you strike me, Hareton will strike you,' she said; 'so you may as
well sit down.'
'If Hareton does not turn you out of the room, I'll strike him to hell,'
thundered Heathcliff. 'Damnable witch! dare you pretend to rouse him
against me? Off with her! Do you hear? Fling her into the kitchen!
I'll kill her, Ellen Dean, if you let her come into my sight again!'
Hareton tried, under his breath, to persuade her to go.
'Drag her away!' he cried, savagely. 'Are you staying to talk?' And he
approached to execute his own command.
'He'll not obey you, wicked man, any more,' said Catherine; 'and he'll
soon detest you as much as I do.'
'Wisht! wisht!' muttered the young man, reproachfully; 'I will not hear
you speak so to him. Have done.'
'But you won't let him strike me?' she cried.
'Come, then,' he whispered earnestly.
It was too late: Heathcliff had caught hold of her.
'Now, _you_ go!' he said to Earnshaw. 'Accursed witch! this time she has
provoked me when I could not bear it; and I'll make her repent it for
ever!'
He had his hand in her hair; Hareton attempted to release her locks,
entreating him not to hurt her that once. Heathcliff's black eyes
flashed; he seemed ready to tear Catherine in pieces, and I was just
worked up to risk coming to the rescue, when of a sudden his fingers
relaxed; he shifted his grasp from her head to her arm, and gazed
intently in her face. Then he drew his hand over his eyes, stood a
moment to collect himself apparently, and turning anew to Catherine,
said, with assumed calmness—'You must learn to avoid putting me in a
passion, or I shall really *** you some time! Go with Mrs. Dean, and
keep with her; and confine your insolence to her ears. As to Hareton
Earnshaw, if I see him listen to you, I'll send him seeking his bread
where he can get it! Your love will make him an outcast and a beggar.
Nelly, take her; and leave me, all of you! Leave me!'
I led my young lady out: she was too glad of her escape to resist; the
other followed, and Mr. Heathcliff had the room to himself till dinner. I
had counselled Catherine to dine up-stairs; but, as soon as he perceived
her vacant seat, he sent me to call her. He spoke to none of us, ate
very little, and went out directly afterwards, intimating that he should
not return before evening.
The two new friends established themselves in the house during his
absence; where I heard Hareton sternly check his cousin, on her offering
a revelation of her father-in-law's conduct to his father. He said he
wouldn't suffer a word to be uttered in his disparagement: if he were the
devil, it didn't signify; he would stand by him; and he'd rather she
would abuse himself, as she used to, than begin on Mr. Heathcliff.
Catherine was waxing cross at this; but he found means to make her hold
her tongue, by asking how she would like _him_ to speak ill of her
father? Then she comprehended that Earnshaw took the master's reputation
home to himself; and was attached by ties stronger than reason could
break—chains, forged by habit, which it would be cruel to attempt to
loosen. She showed a good heart, thenceforth, in avoiding both
complaints and expressions of antipathy concerning Heathcliff; and
confessed to me her sorrow that she had endeavoured to raise a bad spirit
between him and Hareton: indeed, I don't believe she has ever breathed a
syllable, in the latter's hearing, against her oppressor since.
When this slight disagreement was over, they were friends again, and as
busy as possible in their several occupations of pupil and teacher. I
came in to sit with them, after I had done my work; and I felt so soothed
and comforted to watch them, that I did not notice how time got on. You
know, they both appeared in a measure my children: I had long been proud
of one; and now, I was sure, the other would be a source of equal
satisfaction. His honest, warm, and intelligent nature shook off rapidly
the clouds of ignorance and degradation in which it had been bred; and
Catherine's sincere commendations acted as a spur to his industry. His
brightening mind brightened his features, and added spirit and nobility
to their aspect: I could hardly fancy it the same individual I had beheld
on the day I discovered my little lady at Wuthering Heights, after her
expedition to the Crags. While I admired and they laboured, dusk drew
on, and with it returned the master. He came upon us quite unexpectedly,
entering by the front way, and had a full view of the whole three, ere we
could raise our heads to glance at him. Well, I reflected, there was
never a pleasanter, or more harmless sight; and it will be a burning
shame to scold them. The red fire-light glowed on their two bonny heads,
and revealed their faces animated with the eager interest of children;
for, though he was twenty-three and she eighteen, each had so much of
novelty to feel and learn, that neither experienced nor evinced the
sentiments of sober disenchanted maturity.
They lifted their eyes together, to encounter Mr. Heathcliff: perhaps you
have never remarked that their eyes are precisely similar, and they are
those of Catherine Earnshaw. The present Catherine has no other likeness
to her, except a breadth of forehead, and a certain arch of the nostril
that makes her appear rather haughty, whether she will or not. With
Hareton the resemblance is carried farther: it is singular at all times,
_then_ it was particularly striking; because his senses were alert, and
his mental faculties wakened to unwonted activity. I suppose this
resemblance disarmed Mr. Heathcliff: he walked to the hearth in evident
agitation; but it quickly subsided as he looked at the young man: or, I
should say, altered its character; for it was there yet. He took the
book from his hand, and glanced at the open page, then returned it
without any observation; merely signing Catherine away: her companion
lingered very little behind her, and I was about to depart also, but he
bid me sit still.
'It is a poor conclusion, is it not?' he observed, having brooded awhile
on the scene he had just witnessed: 'an absurd termination to my violent
exertions? I get levers and mattocks to demolish the two houses, and
train myself to be capable of working like Hercules, and when everything
is ready and in my power, I find the will to lift a slate off either roof
has vanished! My old enemies have not beaten me; now would be the
precise time to revenge myself on their representatives: I could do it;
and none could hinder me. But where is the use? I don't care for
striking: I can't take the trouble to raise my hand! That sounds as if I
had been labouring the whole time only to exhibit a fine trait of
magnanimity. It is far from being the case: I have lost the faculty of
enjoying their destruction, and I am too idle to destroy for nothing.
'Nelly, there is a strange change approaching; I'm in its shadow at
present. I take so little interest in my daily life that I hardly
remember to eat and drink. Those two who have left the room are the only
objects which retain a distinct material appearance to me; and that
appearance causes me pain, amounting to agony. About _her_ I won't
speak; and I don't desire to think; but I earnestly wish she were
invisible: her presence invokes only maddening sensations. _He_ moves me
differently: and yet if I could do it without seeming insane, I'd never
see him again! You'll perhaps think me rather inclined to become so,' he
added, making an effort to smile, 'if I try to describe the thousand
forms of past associations and ideas he awakens or embodies. But you'll
not talk of what I tell you; and my mind is so eternally secluded in
itself, it is tempting at last to turn it out to another.
'Five minutes ago Hareton seemed a personification of my youth, not a
human being; I felt to him in such a variety of ways, that it would have
been impossible to have accosted him rationally. In the first place, his
startling likeness to Catherine connected him fearfully with her. That,
however, which you may suppose the most potent to arrest my imagination,
is actually the least: for what is not connected with her to me? and what
does not recall her? I cannot look down to this floor, but her features
are shaped in the flags! In every cloud, in every tree—filling the air
at night, and caught by glimpses in every object by day—I am surrounded
with her image! The most ordinary faces of men and women—my own
features—mock me with a resemblance. The entire world is a dreadful
collection of memoranda that she did exist, and that I have lost her!
Well, Hareton's aspect was the ghost of my immortal love; of my wild
endeavours to hold my right; my degradation, my pride, my happiness, and
my anguish—
'But it is frenzy to repeat these thoughts to you: only it will let you
know why, with a reluctance to be always alone, his society is no
benefit; rather an aggravation of the constant torment I suffer: and it
partly contributes to render me regardless how he and his cousin go on
together. I can give them no attention any more.'
'But what do you mean by a _change_, Mr. Heathcliff?' I said, alarmed at
his manner: though he was neither in danger of losing his senses, nor
dying, according to my judgment: he was quite strong and healthy; and, as
to his reason, from childhood he had a delight in dwelling on dark
things, and entertaining odd fancies. He might have had a monomania on
the subject of his departed idol; but on every other point his wits were
as sound as mine.
'I shall not know that till it comes,' he said; 'I'm only half conscious
of it now.'
'You have no feeling of illness, have you?' I asked.
'No, Nelly, I have not,' he answered.
'Then you are not afraid of death?' I pursued.
'Afraid? No!' he replied. 'I have neither a fear, nor a presentiment,
nor a hope of death. Why should I? With my hard constitution and
temperate mode of living, and unperilous occupations, I ought to, and
probably _shall_, remain above ground till there is scarcely a black hair
on my head. And yet I cannot continue in this condition! I have to
remind myself to breathe—almost to remind my heart to beat! And it is
like bending back a stiff spring: it is by compulsion that I do the
slightest act not prompted by one thought; and by compulsion that I
notice anything alive or dead, which is not associated with one universal
idea. I have a single wish, and my whole being and faculties are
yearning to attain it. They have yearned towards it so long, and so
unwaveringly, that I'm convinced it will be reached—and soon—because it
has devoured my existence: I am swallowed up in the anticipation of its
fulfilment. My confessions have not relieved me; but they may account
for some otherwise unaccountable phases of humour which I show. O God!
It is a long fight; I wish it were over!'
He began to pace the room, muttering terrible things to himself, till I
was inclined to believe, as he said Joseph did, that conscience had
turned his heart to an earthly hell. I wondered greatly how it would
end. Though he seldom before had revealed this state of mind, even by
looks, it was his habitual mood, I had no doubt: he asserted it himself;
but not a soul, from his general bearing, would have conjectured the
fact. You did not when you saw him, Mr. Lockwood: and at the period of
which I speak, he was just the same as then; only fonder of continued
solitude, and perhaps still more laconic in company.
CHAPTER XXXIV
For some days after that evening Mr. Heathcliff shunned meeting us at
meals; yet he would not consent formally to exclude Hareton and Cathy. He
had an aversion to yielding so completely to his feelings, choosing
rather to absent himself; and eating once in twenty-four hours seemed
sufficient sustenance for him.
One night, after the family were in bed, I heard him go downstairs, and
out at the front door. I did not hear him re-enter, and in the morning I
found he was still away. We were in April then: the weather was sweet
and warm, the grass as green as showers and sun could make it, and the
two dwarf apple-trees near the southern wall in full bloom. After
breakfast, Catherine insisted on my bringing a chair and sitting with my
work under the fir-trees at the end of the house; and she beguiled
Hareton, who had perfectly recovered from his accident, to dig and
arrange her little garden, which was shifted to that corner by the
influence of Joseph's complaints. I was comfortably revelling in the
spring fragrance around, and the beautiful soft blue overhead, when my
young lady, who had run down near the gate to procure some primrose roots
for a border, returned only half laden, and informed us that Mr.
Heathcliff was coming in. 'And he spoke to me,' she added, with a
perplexed countenance.
'What did he say?' asked Hareton.
'He told me to begone as fast as I could,' she answered. 'But he looked
so different from his usual look that I stopped a moment to stare at
him.'
'How?' he inquired.
'Why, almost bright and cheerful. No, _almost_ nothing—_very much_
excited, and wild, and glad!' she replied.
'Night-walking amuses him, then,' I remarked, affecting a careless
manner: in reality as surprised as she was, and anxious to ascertain the
truth of her statement; for to see the master looking glad would not be
an every-day spectacle. I framed an excuse to go in. Heathcliff stood
at the open door; he was pale, and he trembled: yet, certainly, he had a
strange joyful glitter in his eyes, that altered the aspect of his whole
face.
'Will you have some breakfast?' I said. 'You must be hungry, rambling
about all night!' I wanted to discover where he had been, but I did not
like to ask directly.
'No, I'm not hungry,' he answered, averting his head, and speaking rather
contemptuously, as if he guessed I was trying to divine the occasion of
his good humour.
I felt perplexed: I didn't know whether it were not a proper opportunity
to offer a bit of admonition.
'I don't think it right to wander out of doors,' I observed, 'instead of
being in bed: it is not wise, at any rate this moist season. I daresay
you'll catch a bad cold or a fever: you have something the matter with
you now!'
'Nothing but what I can bear,' he replied; 'and with the greatest
pleasure, provided you'll leave me alone: get in, and don't annoy me.'
I obeyed: and, in passing, I noticed he breathed as fast as a cat.
'Yes!' I reflected to myself, 'we shall have a fit of illness. I cannot
conceive what he has been doing.'
That noon he sat down to dinner with us, and received a heaped-up plate
from my hands, as if he intended to make amends for previous fasting.
'I've neither cold nor fever, Nelly,' he remarked, in allusion to my
morning's speech; 'and I'm ready to do justice to the food you give me.'
He took his knife and fork, and was going to commence eating, when the
inclination appeared to become suddenly extinct. He laid them on the
table, looked eagerly towards the window, then rose and went out. We saw
him walking to and fro in the garden while we concluded our meal, and
Earnshaw said he'd go and ask why he would not dine: he thought we had
grieved him some way.
'Well, is he coming?' cried Catherine, when her cousin returned.
'Nay,' he answered; 'but he's not angry: he seemed rarely pleased indeed;
only I made him impatient by speaking to him twice; and then he bid me be
off to you: he wondered how I could want the company of anybody else.'
I set his plate to keep warm on the fender; and after an hour or two he
re-entered, when the room was clear, in no degree calmer: the same
unnatural—it was unnatural—appearance of joy under his black brows; the
same bloodless hue, and his teeth visible, now and then, in a kind of
smile; his frame shivering, not as one shivers with chill or weakness,
but as a tight-stretched cord vibrates—a strong thrilling, rather than
trembling.
I will ask what is the matter, I thought; or who should? And I
exclaimed—'Have you heard any good news, Mr. Heathcliff? You look
uncommonly animated.'
'Where should good news come from to me?' he said. 'I'm animated with
hunger; and, seemingly, I must not eat.'
'Your dinner is here,' I returned; 'why won't you get it?'
'I don't want it now,' he muttered, hastily: 'I'll wait till supper. And,
Nelly, once for all, let me beg you to warn Hareton and the other away
from me. I wish to be troubled by nobody: I wish to have this place to
myself.'
'Is there some new reason for this banishment?' I inquired. 'Tell me why
you are so ***, Mr. Heathcliff? Where were you last night? I'm not
putting the question through idle curiosity, but—'
'You are putting the question through very idle curiosity,' he
interrupted, with a laugh. 'Yet I'll answer it. Last night I was on the
threshold of hell. To-day, I am within sight of my heaven. I have my
eyes on it: hardly three feet to sever me! And now you'd better go!
You'll neither see nor hear anything to frighten you, if you refrain from
prying.'
Having swept the hearth and wiped the table, I departed; more perplexed
than ever.
He did not quit the house again that afternoon, and no one intruded on
his solitude; till, at eight o'clock, I deemed it proper, though
unsummoned, to carry a candle and his supper to him. He was leaning
against the ledge of an open lattice, but not looking out: his face was
turned to the interior gloom. The fire had smouldered to ashes; the room
was filled with the damp, mild air of the cloudy evening; and so still,
that not only the murmur of the beck down Gimmerton was distinguishable,
but its ripples and its gurgling over the pebbles, or through the large
stones which it could not cover. I uttered an *** of discontent
at seeing the dismal grate, and commenced shutting the casements, one
after another, till I came to his.
'Must I close this?' I asked, in order to rouse him; for he would not
stir.
The light flashed on his features as I spoke. Oh, Mr. Lockwood, I cannot
express what a terrible start I got by the momentary view! Those deep
black eyes! That smile, and ghastly paleness! It appeared to me, not
Mr. Heathcliff, but a goblin; and, in my terror, I let the candle bend
towards the wall, and it left me in darkness.
'Yes, close it,' he replied, in his familiar voice. 'There, that is pure
awkwardness! Why did you hold the candle horizontally? Be quick, and
bring another.'
I hurried out in a foolish state of dread, and said to Joseph—'The
master wishes you to take him a light and rekindle the fire.' For I
dared not go in myself again just then.
Joseph rattled some fire into the shovel, and went: but he brought it
back immediately, with the supper-tray in his other hand, explaining that
Mr. Heathcliff was going to bed, and he wanted nothing to eat till
morning. We heard him mount the stairs directly; he did not proceed to
his ordinary chamber, but turned into that with the panelled bed: its
window, as I mentioned before, is wide enough for anybody to get through;
and it struck me that he plotted another midnight excursion, of which he
had rather we had no suspicion.
'Is he a ghoul or a vampire?' I mused. I had read of such hideous
incarnate demons. And then I set myself to reflect how I had tended him
in infancy, and watched him grow to youth, and followed him almost
through his whole course; and what absurd nonsense it was to yield to
that sense of horror. 'But where did he come from, the little dark
thing, harboured by a good man to his bane?' muttered Superstition, as I
dozed into unconsciousness. And I began, half dreaming, to weary myself
with imagining some fit parentage for him; and, repeating my waking
meditations, I tracked his existence over again, with grim variations; at
last, picturing his death and funeral: of which, all I can remember is,
being exceedingly vexed at having the task of dictating an inscription
for his monument, and consulting the sexton about it; and, as he had no
surname, and we could not tell his age, we were obliged to content
ourselves with the single word, 'Heathcliff.' That came true: we were.
If you enter the kirkyard, you'll read, on his headstone, only that, and
the date of his death.
Dawn restored me to common sense. I rose, and went into the garden, as
soon as I could see, to ascertain if there were any footmarks under his
window. There were none. 'He has stayed at home,' I thought, 'and he'll
be all right to-day.' I prepared breakfast for the household, as was my
usual custom, but told Hareton and Catherine to get theirs ere the master
came down, for he lay late. They preferred taking it out of doors, under
the trees, and I set a little table to accommodate them.
On my re-entrance, I found Mr. Heathcliff below. He and Joseph were
conversing about some farming business; he gave clear, minute directions
concerning the matter discussed, but he spoke rapidly, and turned his
head continually aside, and had the same excited expression, even more
exaggerated. When Joseph quitted the room he took his seat in the place
he generally chose, and I put a basin of coffee before him. He drew it
nearer, and then rested his arms on the table, and looked at the opposite
wall, as I supposed, surveying one particular portion, up and down, with
glittering, restless eyes, and with such eager interest that he stopped
breathing during half a minute together.
'Come now,' I exclaimed, pushing some bread against his hand, 'eat and
drink that, while it is hot: it has been waiting near an hour.'
He didn't notice me, and yet he smiled. I'd rather have seen him gnash
his teeth than smile so.
'Mr. Heathcliff! master!' I cried, 'don't, for God's sake, stare as if
you saw an unearthly vision.'
'Don't, for God's sake, shout so loud,' he replied. 'Turn round, and
tell me, are we by ourselves?'
'Of course,' was my answer; 'of course we are.'
Still, I involuntarily obeyed him, as if I was not quite sure. With a
sweep of his hand he cleared a vacant space in front among the breakfast
things, and leant forward to gaze more at his ease.
Now, I perceived he was not looking at the wall; for when I regarded him
alone, it seemed exactly that he gazed at something within two yards'
distance. And whatever it was, it communicated, apparently, both
pleasure and pain in exquisite extremes: at least the anguished, yet
raptured, expression of his countenance suggested that idea. The fancied
object was not fixed, either: his eyes pursued it with unwearied
diligence, and, even in speaking to me, were never weaned away. I vainly
reminded him of his protracted abstinence from food: if he stirred to
touch anything in compliance with my entreaties, if he stretched his hand
out to get a piece of bread, his fingers clenched before they reached it,
and remained on the table, forgetful of their aim.
I sat, a model of patience, trying to attract his absorbed attention from
its engrossing speculation; till he grew irritable, and got up, asking
why I would not allow him to have his own time in taking his meals? and
saying that on the next occasion I needn't wait: I might set the things
down and go. Having uttered these words he left the house, slowly
sauntered down the garden path, and disappeared through the gate.
The hours crept anxiously by: another evening came. I did not retire to
rest till late, and when I did, I could not sleep. He returned after
midnight, and, instead of going to bed, shut himself into the room
beneath. I listened, and tossed about, and, finally, dressed and
descended. It was too irksome to lie there, harassing my brain with a
hundred idle misgivings.
I distinguished Mr. Heathcliff's step, restlessly measuring the floor,
and he frequently broke the silence by a deep inspiration, resembling a
groan. He muttered detached words also; the only one I could catch was
the name of Catherine, coupled with some wild term of endearment or
suffering; and spoken as one would speak to a person present; low and
earnest, and wrung from the depth of his soul. I had not courage to walk
straight into the apartment; but I desired to divert him from his
reverie, and therefore fell foul of the kitchen fire, stirred it, and
began to scrape the cinders. It drew him forth sooner than I expected.
He opened the door immediately, and said—'Nelly, come here—is it
morning? Come in with your light.'
'It is striking four,' I answered. 'You want a candle to take up-stairs:
you might have lit one at this fire.'
'No, I don't wish to go up-stairs,' he said. 'Come in, and kindle _me_ a
fire, and do anything there is to do about the room.'
'I must blow the coals red first, before I can carry any,' I replied,
getting a chair and the bellows.
He roamed to and fro, meantime, in a state approaching distraction; his
heavy sighs succeeding each other so thick as to leave no space for
common breathing between.
'When day breaks I'll send for Green,' he said; 'I wish to make some
legal inquiries of him while I can bestow a thought on those matters, and
while I can act calmly. I have not written my will yet; and how to leave
my property I cannot determine. I wish I could annihilate it from the
face of the earth.'
'I would not talk so, Mr. Heathcliff,' I interposed. 'Let your will be a
while: you'll be spared to repent of your many injustices yet! I never
expected that your nerves would be disordered: they are, at present,
marvellously so, however; and almost entirely through your own fault.
The way you've passed these three last days might knock up a Titan. Do
take some food, and some repose. You need only look at yourself in a
glass to see how you require both. Your cheeks are hollow, and your eyes
blood-shot, like a person starving with hunger and going blind with loss
of sleep.'
'It is not my fault that I cannot eat or rest,' he replied. 'I assure
you it is through no settled designs. I'll do both, as soon as I
possibly can. But you might as well bid a man struggling in the water
rest within arms' length of the shore! I must reach it first, and then
I'll rest. Well, never mind Mr. Green: as to repenting of my injustices,
I've done no injustice, and I repent of nothing. I'm too happy; and yet
I'm not happy enough. My soul's bliss kills my body, but does not
satisfy itself.'
'Happy, master?' I cried. 'Strange happiness! If you would hear me
without being angry, I might offer some advice that would make you
happier.'
'What is that?' he asked. 'Give it.'
'You are aware, Mr. Heathcliff,' I said, 'that from the time you were
thirteen years old you have lived a selfish, unchristian life; and
probably hardly had a Bible in your hands during all that period. You
must have forgotten the contents of the book, and you may not have space
to search it now. Could it be hurtful to send for some one—some
minister of any denomination, it does not matter which—to explain it,
and show you how very far you have erred from its precepts; and how unfit
you will be for its heaven, unless a change takes place before you die?'
'I'm rather obliged than angry, Nelly,' he said, 'for you remind me of
the manner in which I desire to be buried. It is to be carried to the
churchyard in the evening. You and Hareton may, if you please, accompany
me: and mind, particularly, to notice that the sexton obeys my directions
concerning the two coffins! No minister need come; nor need anything be
said over me.—I tell you I have nearly attained _my_ heaven; and that of
others is altogether unvalued and uncoveted by me.'
'And supposing you persevered in your obstinate fast, and died by that
means, and they refused to bury you in the precincts of the kirk?' I
said, shocked at his godless indifference. 'How would you like it?'
'They won't do that,' he replied: 'if they did, you must have me removed
secretly; and if you neglect it you shall prove, practically, that the
dead are not annihilated!'
As soon as he heard the other members of the family stirring he retired
to his den, and I breathed freer. But in the afternoon, while Joseph and
Hareton were at their work, he came into the kitchen again, and, with a
wild look, bid me come and sit in the house: he wanted somebody with him.
I declined; telling him plainly that his strange talk and manner
frightened me, and I had neither the nerve nor the will to be his
companion alone.
'I believe you think me a fiend,' he said, with his dismal laugh:
'something too horrible to live under a decent roof.' Then turning to
Catherine, who was there, and who drew behind me at his approach, he
added, half sneeringly,—'Will _you_ come, chuck? I'll not hurt you. No!
to you I've made myself worse than the devil. Well, there is _one_ who
won't shrink from my company! By God! she's relentless. Oh, damn it!
It's unutterably too much for flesh and blood to bear—even mine.'
He solicited the society of no one more. At dusk he went into his
chamber. Through the whole night, and far into the morning, we heard him
groaning and murmuring to himself. Hareton was anxious to enter; but I
bid him fetch Mr. Kenneth, and he should go in and see him. When he
came, and I requested admittance and tried to open the door, I found it
locked; and Heathcliff bid us be damned. He was better, and would be
left alone; so the doctor went away.
The following evening was very wet: indeed, it poured down till day-dawn;
and, as I took my morning walk round the house, I observed the master's
window swinging open, and the rain driving straight in. He cannot be in
bed, I thought: those showers would drench him through. He must either
be up or out. But I'll make no more ado, I'll go boldly and look.'
Having succeeded in obtaining entrance with another key, I ran to unclose
the panels, for the chamber was vacant; quickly pushing them aside, I
peeped in. Mr. Heathcliff was there—laid on his back. His eyes met
mine so keen and fierce, I started; and then he seemed to smile. I could
not think him dead: but his face and throat were washed with rain; the
bed-clothes dripped, and he was perfectly still. The lattice, flapping
to and fro, had grazed one hand that rested on the sill; no blood
trickled from the broken skin, and when I put my fingers to it, I could
doubt no more: he was dead and stark!
I hasped the window; I combed his black long hair from his forehead; I
tried to close his eyes: to extinguish, if possible, that frightful,
life-like gaze of exultation before any one else beheld it. They would
not shut: they seemed to sneer at my attempts; and his parted lips and
sharp white teeth sneered too! Taken with another fit of cowardice, I
cried out for Joseph. Joseph shuffled up and made a noise, but
resolutely refused to meddle with him.
'Th' divil's harried off his soul,' he cried, 'and he may hev' his
carcass into t' bargin, for aught I care! Ech! what a wicked 'un he
looks, girning at death!' and the old sinner grinned in mockery. I
thought he intended to cut a caper round the bed; but suddenly composing
himself, he fell on his knees, and raised his hands, and returned thanks
that the lawful master and the ancient stock were restored to their
rights.
I felt stunned by the awful event; and my memory unavoidably recurred to
former times with a sort of oppressive sadness. But poor Hareton, the
most wronged, was the only one who really suffered much. He sat by the
corpse all night, weeping in bitter earnest. He pressed its hand, and
kissed the sarcastic, savage face that every one else shrank from
contemplating; and bemoaned him with that strong grief which springs
naturally from a generous heart, though it be tough as tempered steel.
Mr. Kenneth was perplexed to pronounce of what disorder the master died.
I concealed the fact of his having swallowed nothing for four days,
fearing it might lead to trouble, and then, I am persuaded, he did not
abstain on purpose: it was the consequence of his strange illness, not
the cause.
We buried him, to the scandal of the whole neighbourhood, as he wished.
Earnshaw and I, the sexton, and six men to carry the coffin, comprehended
the whole attendance. The six men departed when they had let it down
into the grave: we stayed to see it covered. Hareton, with a streaming
face, dug green sods, and laid them over the brown mould himself: at
present it is as smooth and verdant as its companion mounds—and I hope
its tenant sleeps as soundly. But the country folks, if you ask them,
would swear on the Bible that he _walks_: there are those who speak to
having met him near the church, and on the moor, and even within this
house. Idle tales, you'll say, and so say I. Yet that old man by the
kitchen fire affirms he has seen two on 'em looking out of his chamber
window on every rainy night since his death:—and an odd thing happened
to me about a month ago. I was going to the Grange one evening—a dark
evening, threatening thunder—and, just at the turn of the Heights, I
encountered a little boy with a sheep and two lambs before him; he was
crying terribly; and I supposed the lambs were skittish, and would not be
guided.
'What is the matter, my little man?' I asked.
'There's Heathcliff and a woman yonder, under t' nab,' he blubbered, 'un'
I darnut pass 'em.'
I saw nothing; but neither the sheep nor he would go on so I bid him take
the road lower down. He probably raised the phantoms from thinking, as
he traversed the moors alone, on the nonsense he had heard his parents
and companions repeat. Yet, still, I don't like being out in the dark
now; and I don't like being left by myself in this grim house: I cannot
help it; I shall be glad when they leave it, and shift to the Grange.
'They are going to the Grange, then?' I said.
'Yes,' answered Mrs. Dean, 'as soon as they are married, and that will be
on New Year's Day.'
'And who will live here then?'
'Why, Joseph will take care of the house, and, perhaps, a lad to keep him
company. They will live in the kitchen, and the rest will be shut up.'
'For the use of such ghosts as choose to inhabit it?' I observed.
'No, Mr. Lockwood,' said Nelly, shaking her head. 'I believe the dead
are at peace: but it is not right to speak of them with levity.'
At that moment the garden gate swung to; the ramblers were returning.
'_They_ are afraid of nothing,' I grumbled, watching their approach
through the window. 'Together, they would brave Satan and all his
legions.'
As they stepped on to the door-stones, and halted to take a last look at
the moon—or, more correctly, at each other by her light—I felt
irresistibly impelled to escape them again; and, pressing a remembrance
into the hand of Mrs. Dean, and disregarding her expostulations at my
rudeness, I vanished through the kitchen as they opened the house-door;
and so should have confirmed Joseph in his opinion of his
fellow-servant's gay indiscretions, had he not fortunately recognised me
for a respectable character by the sweet ring of a sovereign at his feet.
My walk home was lengthened by a diversion in the direction of the kirk.
When beneath its walls, I perceived decay had made progress, even in
seven months: many a window showed black gaps deprived of glass; and
slates jutted off here and there, beyond the right line of the roof, to
be gradually worked off in coming autumn storms.
I sought, and soon discovered, the three headstones on the slope next the
moor: the middle one grey, and half buried in the heath; Edgar Linton's
only harmonized by the turf and moss creeping up its foot; Heathcliff's
still bare.
I lingered round them, under that benign sky: watched the moths
fluttering among the heath and harebells, listened to the soft wind
breathing through the grass, and wondered how any one could ever imagine
unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth.
End of Chapter XXXIV And end of WUTHERING HEIGHTS
by Emily Brontë �