by Alison Case
‘By her own fault,’ he responded quickly, and told again what she had already had from me, much dwelling on the bad heart shown in my cruelty to an unfriended orphan, so that I was like to begin sobbing all over again, but that my fear of discovery was more powerful than my grief.
‘She did wrong there, to be sure. But she had seen the child bring sorrow and strife into the house – the mistress distraught and angry, and her nursery-mates dismayed, and it was that more than cruelty that made her act as she did. Whatever possessed you to bring the child home in the first place?’
‘I found him starving in the street in Liverpool, and no one to claim him or care for him.’
‘Aye, and could have found two or three more on every corner there, if what I hear is true. Not to mention the poor of our own parish, whom it would better become you to aid than a stranger from far away – particularly as some of them are your own tenants.’
‘It is not for you to dictate to me how or to whom I extend charity, Mrs Dean. That is between me and my conscience.’
‘Very well then. What was the business that brought you to Liverpool?’
‘That too is between me and my conscience.’
‘Ah. It’s as I thought then – the “business” and the boy are one and the same.’
‘I don’t know quite what you mean to imply. I can assure you that the boy was unknown to me before I went, nor do I know any more of his parentage or circumstances than I have told already.’ There was a short pause. ‘But I will not deny to you that I had some such purpose in making this journey. And I trust that knowing this will make plainer to you the importance of treating this poor child with consideration.’
‘I would more willingly grant that if you had not made him the occasion for thrusting my own child from your hearth.’
‘Your child has a home, to which it is perhaps time she returned. She should come under her own father’s discipline.’
‘Her father’s discipline was like to have killed her! For pity’s sake, Mr Earnshaw, do you not remember the condition she was in when I brought her here? Her arm broken, her eye blacked, and all over bruises? If he could treat her so as a child of four, what will he do now?’
‘Nelly is old enough now to avoid giving offence.’
‘Do you think he will wait for her to give offence? Her very existence gives offence to him! I have seen him with her, sir, as you have not. She has but to walk into the room for him to be lit up with rage. He will take offence at the way she stands, or walks, or sits in a chair. I had hoped it would be better when our son was born, but though he doted on the lad, it did little to soften him towards Nell. And since he died,’ she paused to regain her voice, ‘it is as if all his grief were changed into anger at her. You would have thought she had had a hand in his death, to hear him. And this, even though I had made sure she was away from home during the whole of the poor child’s illness – though it was a bitter sorrow to her that she was unable to say farewell.’
‘You ought not to complain of your husband to me,’ said the master, but his voice had softened.
‘I don’t wish to. I have made my bed, and I will lie in it. But you must forgive a mother’s concern for the welfare of her child. Mr Earnshaw, please think of what this means for her. Do you think I am happy to have her so far from me, or to let her believe, as I know she does, that I bear her too little love to care much for her company? Do you think I like to see her loving your wife with the love she might have given me? For pity’s sake, sir, give her back the refuge here that you promised me for her ten years ago in this very room. Far be it from me to hinder your fulfilment of any vow you may have made with regard to this strange child, but bethink you, sir: can an act of penance be acceptable to the Lord if its burden falls heavier on others than on the penitent? That were like offering as sacrifice a ram taken from another man’s flock.’
A long silence followed this speech. When the master finally spoke, it was in a voice so low I could scarcely follow it.
‘There is something in what you say, Mrs Dean. I have perhaps been overly hasty in sending your daughter away. But neither can I simply remit her punishment. It must be clear, not only to her but to the whole household, that this child must be treated with all the consideration due to my own son.’
‘And is my—’ but whatever my mother had been about to say, she thought better of it. I heard her draw a deep breath, such as I had sometimes seen her do to calm herself when angry, and when she spoke her voice was steady. ‘Banish her for a day or two if you must,’ she said. ‘I can keep her so long at least without too much difficulty. And when she returns, let her return on the footing of a servant – the change will seem to her and your children to mark your displeasure clearly enough. And I do think it best, with this new child in the house, for her to understand her own place more clearly. She has been playmate to your children and a sharer in their lessons longer already than a girl of her … her birth and prospects can expect. In addition,’ she added more hesitantly, ‘her father expects her to be earning, but I don’t want her going into the mills: that work is bad for girls – both for their bodily health and their character.’
Mr Earnshaw concurred.
‘I have heard that Martha Pickerell will be leaving you soon to be married. Nell can take her place. You need pay her no more than is customary for girls her age who are new to service – a shilling a week to start with, which is a good deal less than Martha earns now – and she’s a quick-witted lass and a hard worker’ – I was pleased to hear a grunt of assent here from the master – ‘so you will not lose anything by it. I have been teaching her the dairying on my days here already, and I’ve no doubt that in time she will be able to manage that too, and more than repay you for all your kindness to her.’
To my astonishment, the master let out a grim chuckle. ‘If she takes after you at all, Mary, I’ve no doubt she will manage us all quite nicely.’
‘Oh yes, I have managed very well for myself, have I not?’ my mother replied bitterly. This produced another awkward silence.
‘Very well then,’ he said at last, ‘Nelly shall come back with us, say after church on Sunday, and on the terms you suggest.’ Relief flooded me (making its exit in a gush of silent tears), not only that I might come back, but that, as it seemed, Mr Earnshaw’s goodwill and good humour were restored – for much as I longed to return to the Heights, I had rather dreaded living henceforth under his displeasure.
I would have expected that my mother, having gained her point, would head homeward forthwith, so I was surprised to hear her broaching a new subject: ‘And this new child, what place will he have?’
‘I shall raise him as one of my own.’
‘Do you think that is wise? Will you be giving him a son’s portion? What will that mean for Hindley?’
‘If Hindley cannot welcome the lad as a brother, so much the worse for him. He must do as he is bid while I am still master in this house.’
‘He is your son.’
‘Aye, and his mother’s.’
‘From whom he gets a loving heart and a merry spirit, if they be not trampled down by harsh treatment.’
‘Mrs Dean, I have listened to you on the subject of your daughter, and I have responded not ungenerously, I think, to your plea on her behalf. But I will not be dictated to by you about the way I raise my own children. I trust that is understood?’
‘Forgive me, sir. I still have something of a mother’s feeling for my old nursling, and I couldn’t wish to see him slighted for a child who has no prior claims on your heart. But I had no wish to give offence. You must do as you think best, of course. And I thank you heartily for what you have done for Nell.’ With this I heard sounds suggestive of my mother wrapping her shawl again in preparation for leaving.
‘Will you not stop in to visit with my wife? She would be grieved to hear that you’d come and gone without seeing her.’
‘Perhaps it would be best not to mention it, then.’
‘N
ot possible, I’m afraid – the children will have brought her word already. Do go in and see her – and while you are there you can tell her of my decision about Nell. She will be glad of it – I know she has been sorely grieved by all this.’ The master spoke with some embarrassment here. I guessed – what I later learned was true – that he had had hard words from the mistress over the new child and my expulsion, and he did not feel it would be conducive to his dignity or authority as master of the house to confess directly to suspending my punishment so soon. ‘You are also best able to explain to her about Nelly’s new duties,’ he added, ‘which of course it will be her task to oversee.’
‘Very well then, I will just stop in briefly to speak to her.’
‘While you are there, please tell her that I will be up in the high pasture this afternoon, so she should not expect me to dinner.’
With that they went their separate ways, my mother heading into the house, and the master taking off with his brisk, long strides towards the heights behind the house – which, fortunately, lay in another direction than my own way. No sooner had they disappeared from view than I began extracting myself from my hiding place. This proved awkward, for my entrance had dislodged much of the wickerwork lining the passageway, and I was hard-pressed to make progress while detaching the snagged prickles that threatened to tear my clothes. My dress made it out unscathed, but my arms and face were not so lucky – a fact that I realized would require some explanation when I saw my mother again, as I was supposed to have been sitting quietly at home all the while. No sooner did I emerge than Hindley pounced on me with a shout.
‘Nell, I’m so glad you’re back. It would be too much to have that filthy little horror foisted upon us and lose you too all at one blow. But what in Heaven have you been doing? You look like the cat’s been at you.’
‘Hush, Hindley – keep your voice low and come around the corner behind this wall – I’m not supposed to be here now. I had to scurry roundabout to get here without Mother spotting me, and I took a tumble into some brambles on the way.’ I didn’t think it wise to mention my eavesdropping, as Hindley would insist on hearing everything that had been said, and I knew from long experience that his discretion was not to be relied on.
‘Is your mother here now?’
‘She’s stepped in to see the mistress, I believe to see about my coming back.’
‘Well, let’s hear them, then. Come over here beneath the window, and I’ll lift you up.’
‘Better I should lift you – you’re smaller than I am.’
‘Nonsense! I’m older, and anyway you’re only a girl.’ In fact, I was the elder, though only by a few months, but from the time he could talk Hindley had always insisted it was he, and if anyone asked his age would always proudly claim his full years while subtracting one from mine, as in ‘I am four, and Nelly is three.’ At the time, this had been terribly galling to my childish dignity, but my mother would not let me contradict him. As she said, it only made folk think me forward for my age, which was no harm to me. By this time, I had grown so used to Hindley’s claim to be my elder that I all but forgot that it wasn’t so. So I let him grasp me about the knees and heave me up, but he staggered about so that I begged him to put me down.
‘Hindley, please let’s switch places,’ I said. ‘If your face is spotted at the window you’ll get only a scolding from your mother, but I shall be in a peck of trouble with my mother and the master both if I’m caught. And anyway,’ I added cannily, ‘you are better at gripping the sill than I am, which takes off a good deal of the weight.’ So Hindley allowed me to lift him up, and overheard just enough to announce to me with great importance the news I had already gleaned from my nest in the gooseberry bush.
‘You’re to come back after church next Sunday,’ he said, ‘but you’re to be a servant now, Nell, and you’ll get a shilling a week! I wish I was a servant – no lessons to do, and more pocket money than I shall ever see. But you’ll share with me, won’t you, Nell?’
‘All my wages will go to my father,’ I said, ‘and if I get no lessons, there’ll be no play either: I shall have to work all day, so you needn’t be jealous. But hush now – I want to hear what else is said.’ I lowered him to the ground, for in truth the conversation was perfectly audible from there, and easier to follow without Hindley relaying his own versions from above.
‘I am so glad we are to have Nelly back with us, Mary,’ the mistress was saying. ‘I was sorely grieved that she should be sent away on so slight a fault. But I do verily think my husband has gone mad! How could he bring this creature here all the way from Liverpool, and then turn on our own children so? And it’s worse than that – he’s named the child Heathcliff, after our firstborn! It is cruel of him, don’t you think? Positively cruel to bring that name before me every day!’ She began sobbing bitterly. Hindley’s eyes filled with tears too.
‘The little beast!’ he hissed. ‘I shall make him pay for this – just watch me.’ Poor Hindley never could bear to see his mother cry (though it was a common enough occurrence), and generally contrived to get angry at someone else, to cover his own grief for her. In this case, I saw that the new child would bear the brunt of the anger Hindley dared not show towards his father. To be honest, I was not inclined to take the new child’s part either, for I still felt aggrieved myself that he had pushed me, as I saw it, from my place with the children at the Heights.
From the window came the familiar sounds of my mother soothing and cheering her old friend, as the mistress’s sobs gradually subsided into sighs. ‘You mustn’t take it so, Helen,’ my mother was saying. ‘It was a good deed, surely, to rescue the poor child from starvation or worse on the streets, and now that he is here it will be your duty to bring him up to be a credit to the family. Probably Mr Earnshaw thought that giving the boy the name of your firstborn would help you to feel a mother’s affection for him. I am sure he meant you no harm by it. You know you have been sad not to be able to have more children about you, and now here is another little one come to you as if by magic, like the return of your lost child. And that Nelly is coming back as a servant need not grieve you either – it only means she’ll be spending her days helping you instead of scampering over the moors with Hindley. Really, she’ll be more like a daughter to you than ever. And I shall have to come over here more often myself, at first, to help her learn her new duties.’
‘I wish you could be here always, Mary,’ said the mistress with a sigh. ‘Those were the happiest years, when you were here, and I have never managed so well since you left. Why did you have to get married and go away?’
‘It was you who married first, Helen, long before me,’ said my mother gently. ‘And if I had not married and had Nell, what would have become of Hindley? He would have died like all the rest, would he not? Those times seem happy to you now because you remember what you had then and have not now, but you forget that you didn’t have your bairns then, and thought you never would, and that grieved you sorely. We never get all we want in this world. We must bear the trials God sends to us, and do our duty with a cheerful heart.’ Then, with special firmness, she added, ‘And your duty now is to this child, to Heathcliff.’
‘Heathcliff,’ the mistress sighed. ‘I suppose I must accustom myself to using it.’
‘It won’t take long – you’ll see,’ my mother replied, ‘but I cannot stay longer, Helen. I’ve left Nelly at home by herself, waiting to hear what is to become of her, and I should prefer to be back before Tom gets home, too.’
‘Send Nelly my love, then, and tell her how glad I shall be to have her back again, and she must not mind too much about the work, for I will be an easy mistress to her.’
‘I’ll send your love to be sure,’ said my mother, ‘but as to her work, I’ll tell her nothing of the sort, and really, Helen, you will do her no favours by encouraging idleness, unless you have a fortune hidden somewhere you are planning to endow her with. Nelly will always have to earn her bread, like the rest of us, and the s
ooner she resigns herself to that, the happier she will be.’
I did not stay to hear more, for now I had to contrive to get home before my mother, and make it look as if I’d never left. ‘Hindley,’ I said, ‘do you think you can manage to delay my mother a few minutes, so I can get well away before she sets out?’
‘Leave it to me,’ he said with a grin, delighted as always to have a hand in mischief of any kind. ‘You know your mother can never resist an appeal from her old nursling.’ He took off for the door, while I took one of our more circuitous and well-hidden routes back towards my parents’ cottage.
I soon saw that it would be hard to keep out of sight and ahead of my mother all the way (though stout, she was a brisk walker), and still arrive in time to compose myself and my story for her arrival, but I thought of something that would save me a good portion of my trip, and serve as excuse for my injuries as well. I brought myself around nigh and to one side of her, climbed up on a hummock, and waved, calling ‘Mother, Mother!’ from a direction that was neither before nor behind her path.
‘Nelly! What brings you here? I told you to stay at home. And what in Heaven have you done to yourself?’ she added, noticing the scratches on my arms and face.
‘I’m very sorry, Mother, but I just couldn’t stay. I was … I had …’ There was no need to pretend my embarrassment. ‘I didn’t know what I should say if Father came in, and I grew anxious, so I ran out onto the moors and came to meet you, and then there were brambles in my way, and I got tangled in them.’ This was all true enough as far as it went, but I then bethought me that I ought to show some suspense about the result of her errand, and begged her to tell me if I would be permitted to return.
‘Yes, Nelly, you are to go home with them after church on Sunday. But you shall be earning wages now, and must not go running off to the moors with the other children.’
‘And what am I to do until then? Will I stay here with you and Father?’
‘You will, for tonight anyway – but don’t fear, Nell, all will be well with him, you’ll see. Come with me now, and I’ll tell you all about it.’ She told me, of course, a good deal less than all I had heard for myself, but I listened with as much interest as if it were all new to me. The events of that day had set me thinking about a number of things I had not given much thought to until then, and had made my mother an object of interest and curiosity to me in a way she had never been before.