Nelly Dean

by Alison Case

‘Perhaps he will make an exception for you. He loves the taste of children.’

  ‘And how do you know that?’

  ‘Nelly feeds him children,’ said Heathcliff. ‘She is meeting him tonight at Pennistone Crag to feed him Hareton. That is why she wants us to go elsewhere.’ I flushed in spite of myself.

  ‘I should much rather feed him you two, though,’ I said, playing along. ‘Then I can keep my little nurseling here to myself, and get you two out from under my feet, both at once.’

  ‘I have my clasp-knife, and will fight him off if he comes,’ said Heathcliff. Then we will bring home his skin, for a trophy. How should you like a Gytrash-skin coat, Cathy?’

  ‘I would rather not meet him at all,’ said Cathy, who was getting more anxious as the conversation progressed.

  ‘Well, you will do as you like,’ I said, ‘but I would not go near Pennistone Crag on the very night of the new moon if I had any choice in the matter. It is the second most magical night of the month, you know, after the full – and much the darker of the two, besides. There is no telling what may come out to get you, if you stay near the Crag.’ I was not wholly teasing here, for I was a good deal frightened myself, and so my voice carried the ring of truth.

  ‘I hadn’t thought of that,’ said Cathy, turning to Heathcliff. ‘Perhaps we shouldn’t go there after all.’

  ‘I am not afraid of any demons,’ said Heathcliff, twisting his face into a good imitation of one. ‘But if you would rather go elsewhere, there is the hill up beyond Moor End – the top of that has a good view as well, and it is the other way from Pennistone Crag.’

  ‘And it’s not so far from other houses but that we can get help if anything goes awry,’ said Cathy. ‘Now that I think of it, that would be the best spot.’

  ‘I am glad of it,’ I said feelingly.

  ‘Why, Nelly, I do believe you really were frightened for us!’ exclaimed Cathy.

  ‘It’s a dangerous place on a dark night, Gytrash or not, with those steep cliffs and gullies,’ I said. ‘I shall rest easier knowing you are on safer ground, and nearer to human habitation. Now, if you like, I’ll help you put together a supper to carry with you.’

  I assembled a good repast for them – a good deal better than the one I had put away for myself – and wrapped it up neatly in paper and string. Then I helped them roll it into a couple of old blankets, and stuffed the whole thing into a large basket fitted with straps to go over the shoulders. I helped Heathcliff hoist the basket onto his back, and waved them off at the door, breathing a sigh of relief as I watched them disappear over the rise.

  I went into the dairy to find Maggie struggling with the butter. But when I offered to help, she begged me to let her finish on her own, and so I did, only staying a little while to watch and offer suggestions as needed, and keeping one ear cocked for Hareton in the kitchen next door. Maggie was a willing worker, eager to please and proud of her accomplishments – just such a one as I had been at her age. At length I heard Hareton waking, so I left her to her labours.

  ‘Leave aside half a pound or so for the house before you pack it into the moulds,’ I told her, ‘and bring that in to me when you’re done, so we can have it fresh on the oatcakes for tea.’

  Then I went inside to feed Hareton, for the last time before we left. He was just finishing the bottle of sugar-water when Maggie came in with the butter. She was eager to chatter over tea, but I discouraged her – I was in no mood for talking.

  ‘You are worried, aren’t you?’ she said suddenly.

  ‘Worried, why should I be worried?’

  ‘Well, Hareton’s not taking his food properly, is he? Isn’t that why you sneak off each day, to take him to a wet nurse? Why must it be a secret? Does the master mind?’

  I was struck dumb for a moment, internally cursing her quickness. When I finally spoke, I did so slowly and solemnly. ‘Maggie, dear child, please understand: if I do not tell you something, it is because there is good reason not to. For example, if Mr Earnshaw were to ask you something, I should not wish you to have to lie to him. And there may be other reasons also, which I cannot explain to you. You are a quick girl, and so you may have made certain guesses. But that is not the same as saying that you know those things, is it?’

  ‘No, it is not,’ said Maggie, her eyes wide.

  ‘Then if you are asked questions, you will answer only with what you know, and not what you guess, is that right?’

  She nodded solemnly.

  ‘Good girl. You are a great help to me, Maggie, and it is comforting to know I can rely on you.’

  ‘I’m sure I hope you always will,’ said Maggie earnestly.

  I smiled at her. ‘Here now, let’s wrap up the rest of this butter for you to take home and show your mother. She’ll be right proud to hear of what you’ve done today.’

  ‘But it’s early yet for me to be leaving, isn’t it?’

  ‘You’ve worked so hard today, you deserve a bit of time off while there’s still plenty of daylight to enjoy it. And also, I’ve a favour to ask of you: could you come extra early tomorrow morning? As soon after dawn as you can get here? I must leave before dawn for an errand of my own, so I’ll need you here to make up the fire in the morning and prepare breakfast for the household. Do you think you can do that?’

  ‘Yes, of course I can!’

  ‘Good. And if anybody asks where I am, you’ll tell them just what I told you?’ She nodded. ‘And one more thing,’ I added. ‘If I am not back by noon, you must go and tell Old Elspeth. No one else, just Elspeth. She will know what to do.’ Maggie’s eyes widened still further. I did not like leaving her with such a mysterious secret, which could only be a temptation to gossip or investigation, but since my conversation with Cathy and Heathcliff it had occurred to me that it was unwise of me, too, to go off to a dangerous place overnight with no one knowing where I had gone but Elspeth, who was unlikely to be consulted if I did not return.

  When Maggie had left, I sat down at the kitchen table to gather my thoughts. Everyone was gone, except for Hareton and me, and soon we would be leaving too. Hindley had said he would be back for supper, but if experience was any guide, he was more likely to go straight to the inn for his night’s drinking instead. Whenever he came home, be it early or late, he would find the house empty, but if it were late, and he were drunk, there was a good chance that he wouldn’t notice, or if he did, would forget it by morning. That was what I counted on, though it felt strange to be hoping, for once, that tonight would not be the night he decided to mend his ways. If instead he returned early, and relatively sober, the whole scheme would blow up in my face, with Heaven knows what consequences. I felt as if I were staking Hareton’s life on a roll of the dice, but I saw no good alternative. I knew not even how to pray for the success of my enterprise, for, so far as I knew, it violated the laws of both God and man.

  ‘God save thee, little one,’ I said at last, ‘and protect thee from the foolishness and ill-doing of thy elders – myself included.’ Then I loaded myself up as if I were a donkey, tied Hareton into a shawl in front of me, and drew another one over my head to cover my face, and set on my way to Pennistone Crag.

  To one accustomed to dancing along a path with all the energy of youth and health and spirits, it was a weary walk. The weight I was carrying hunched me over for balance, and obliged me to take small steps, especially where the path went uphill, as it mostly did. Then, too, I was so draped about with bundles, I could not feel the cooling breeze, so I quickly grew overheated, and had to take frequent stops to catch my breath. It was a little as if I had suddenly been transformed into an old woman, bent and hobbling, obliged by the weakness of her frame to creep slowly where once she ran. I had allowed extra time for my journey, but now I feared it might not be enough.

  Normally as I walked I would sing songs, aloud or in my head as circumstances allowed, or let my imagination wander into self-made tales of wonder and adventure, but heat, weariness, and worry seemed to have driven that capaci
ty from my head. I could think only about putting one foot in front of the other, and anxiously calculating my progress against the too-quick decline of the sun. Then the path levelled off for a time, and I decided I was past the place I might encounter other walkers, so I took off the shawl from my head and tied it about my waist. This allowed me to mend my pace a little, and I began to feel more hopeful. By the time I had reached the most difficult portion of the path, where it wound down into a narrow gully, over stepping stones across a rushing stream, and up the other side towards the Crag, it was clear that I would have at least a half-hour of daylight at the end of my journey – less than I had planned for, to be sure, but perhaps enough for my purposes.

  By the time I got to Pennistone Crag, little Hareton was awake and crying for a meal. But Elspeth had told me on no account to feed him until certain rituals had been completed. So I made him as comfortable as I could in a little heathery dip near the cave, apologizing to him for leaving him to his cries for the time being. I spread an oilcloth on the floor of the cave, and spread the bedding out over it as best I could. Then I patted the little bundle that was still nestled in my bosom, to make sure it was secure. Elspeth had told me I must carry it around the stone three times widdershins, before burying it in the shadow cast by the sun. If you have been to the Crag, you will know that this was not as simple as it sounded, for the stone jutted out from the edge of a steep cliff, so my circuits involved much careful scrambling. Through it all, Hareton’s increasingly frantic cries tore at my heart. At any other time, such cries would have made me drop whatever I was doing and rush to gather him up and soothe him, but I dared not. By the time I had finished my third circuit, my eyes were half-blinded with tears, and the sun was approaching the horizon. I positioned myself in its shadow and looked about me for a stone to dig with – Elspeth had said I must not bring a trowel, but only use what was nearby. I found a sharp-edged rock and began working frantically at the sod with it. The action brought back that earlier burial vividly, so that Hareton’s cries seemed merged with my grief for that earlier child who had never drawn breath, and I wept outright.

  My efforts quickly dislodged a loose piece of sod, which I set aside according to instructions. The soil underneath it was much less tightly packed than I had expected, and I soon found out why. Mine was not the first ‘payment’ to be buried there. I came upon several small items: a baby tooth, a paste brooch, a scattering of tiny bones that looked as if they came from a small bird, and a half-rotten leather pouch, the contents of which I did not examine. These also I set aside until my hole was ready, only stopping with each one to throw a pinch of soil over my left shoulder and mumble an apology through my tears, as Elspeth had told me to do. When my hole was deep enough to hide my little package, the sun was just touching the horizon. I put the dislodged objects at the bottom of it, and went to gather up Hareton, whose outraged cries had softened into a piteous grizzling monotony that wrenched my heart even more than before. I settled him on my lap beside the hole, and then pulled from my bosom the small parcel containing what I had unearthed that morning. Wrapped in snowy white cotton, and tied with a gaudy ribbon like a precious gift, it seemed a fit object to lie among these other mysterious items, earlier offerings in return for who knows what desperate requests. I kissed it, my eyes streaming, and laid it in the hole, piling the soil over it again and replacing the piece of sod. Then I pulled from my pocket the paper containing the threads Elspeth had woven for us both. I wrapped one twice around Hareton’s thin wrist and knotted it loosely. Then, working awkwardly with one hand in the fading light, I tied the other around my own wrist, touching Hareton’s finger to the crossed strings before I finished the knot, as Elspeth had instructed.

  By now there was only a small arc of sun above the horizon. The moment it disappeared was to be when I spoke my request. I had thought that this part would be the most awkward for me: this addressing of myself to an outcropping of stone as if it were a sentient being, and asking it ‘with all my heart’ to complete some mysterious ‘binding’ between Hareton and me. I had even prepared a stiff little form of words for this purpose, and practised saying them to myself. But now that the moment was come, my spirit was so raw from the merging of old griefs with new fears, my heart yearned so towards the tiny being crying in my lap, who needed desperately what I could not give him, that words poured out of me unbidden.

  ‘Whoever or whatever you be,’ I sobbed out, ‘help me to save this child, Hareton Earnshaw, and make him in truth what he is already in my heart, mine own child. Do this for me, and I will cast out all repining for the dead child of my body that I give you here in payment, my firstborn, and devote myself henceforward to the care of this little one.’

  I sat for a moment after, exhausted by emotion, feeling the stillness of dusk descend on me – even Hareton’s cries were momentarily hushed. Then he began wailing louder than ever. I bound him tightly to my chest with the shawl, only making sure that he could breathe, so that he would stay in place without my hands to support him. Then, for the second time in my life, I crawled through the Stonegate. I had some difficulty getting out onto the ground after, without landing on the baby, but I managed it by rolling slightly to one side, with my arms locked stiffly around Hareton to keep him safe. In the process, my old dress tore in the back, exposing my bare skin to a patch of nettles that chanced to be there. By the time I had got us both upright, my back was burning, and the pain merged with the stinging tingle in my breasts from several days of the ointment and Hareton’s nursing, and the soreness of my back and shoulders from my laden walk hither, and the sharp ache of grief that Hareton’s cries caused to twist my heart and tighten my throat, and it seemed altogether more than I could bear.

  ‘Please, please, please,’ I murmured through hiccuping sobs, not even knowing whom I was addressing, or for what, as I fumbled in the dwindling light for the pot of jelly to feed Hareton. At last I was ready, and put him to suck. He fell to with the fierceness of hunger, his little fist clasping and unclasping in rhythm. It was such a relief to still his cries, it was as if he were drawing all the pain from my body. While he suckled, I prepared the bottle of sugar-water that was to fill his belly after – an awkward proceeding in the growing dark, and holding Hareton in one arm all the while. Before I had left home, I had filled a jug with sugar-water as hot as I could make it, corked it tightly, and then rolled it into the centre of the blankets, hoping it would still be warm enough by the time I needed it, for I would have no means of heating it. I was relieved to find that the jug was still hot to the touch; perhaps the liquid would even need some cooling off before I gave it to the baby. I took the bottle and teat out from the clean linen in which I had wrapped them, then poured in the liquid and tied on the teat – by far the most difficult part of the proceeding, under the circumstances. When I was done, I found the contents still a little too hot, so I commenced shaking it to cool it, stopping now and then to test the temperature again.

  All this took a good deal of time and concentration, hampered as I was. So it was not until I had finished that I noticed that Hareton had remained nursing contentedly at my breast far longer than usual – long after the bit of jelly would have been gone. I froze, and all but stopped breathing, as if this thing I had hardly dared hope for were a hare, paused within arms’ reach, that would start at the least sound or movement. In the still darkness I heard, faintly but unmistakably, the sound of Hareton swallowing as he sucked. At the same time, I became aware that my other breast ached with a feeling that, though new to me, told its meaning with all the simple eloquence of the senses, as surely as the pangs of hunger or cold, or a call of the bowels – the same feeling that hurried the cows home every evening, lowing anxiously to be milked. I was still taking this in, when Hareton let out a little gasp – not a cry – and let go of my breast. I shifted him over to the other side, omitting the jelly this time, and he nestled in to nurse as steadily as I had ever seen him do with Emma Dodd.

  And so I got my mirac
le. Whether it came from God, or Nature, or a pact with the Devil himself, I could not have told you. In time that question would cause me a great deal of concern, but that night I felt none. I sat and nursed my little Hare, whom I had snatched before he could flee this earth, my falcon who had struggled so to get free, and now lay calm in my arms. I watched as the stars winked into view above, and a hairline sliver of new moon rose in the east, and I listened to the faint chirrupings and rustlings of the night. Then he dropped off, satisfied, so I wrapped a warm blanket around us both, wriggled backwards into the fairy cave with him clasped in my arms, and slept.

  TWENTY-ONE

  I awoke in the night to Hareton’s cries, and an answering ache in my breasts. I put him to suck, and drifted back to semi-sleep, marvelling at the ease of it. He woke once more to nurse before dawn, and by the time he was done it was light enough to see. I crawled with him out of our earthen nest, and looked about me. The sun had not yet peeped over the horizon, but I could see that the sky was clear, and presaged a fair, warm day. I changed Hareton into clean clothes, and rolled up the soiled ones inside the oilcloth. To my eyes, he seemed healthier already. He was awake, but quiet and alert, in a way I had not seen him in weeks.

  ‘Well, little man,’ I said to him cheerfully, ‘it seems I am your mama now. What do you think of that?’

  ‘Eh!’ he said, waving the arm that held the string.

  ‘Yes, I have one too, see? Here it is. And now you must sit quiet, and look about you, while I eat some breakfast, for I forgot to eat my supper last night. And from now on, little Hare, if I don’t eat, why, neither will you!’ Of course, he understood nothing I said, but his eyes followed me so intently it seemed as if he did. I was ravenously hungry, and rather regretted now that I had provisioned myself in so Spartan a fashion. A little of the cold fowl and seed cake I had packed up for Cathy and Heathcliff would have been a welcome addition to the bread, cheese, and water I had brought for myself. Still, hunger is the best relish, so I ate every crumb, and then, on a whim, drank the remains of Hareton’s sugar-water also. I then tidied my hair and clothes as best I could, and began packing up our things for the walk home. Once laden again, I tied Hareton into a shawl in front and draped another loosely over my head, and set off home.