by Alison Case
That was the real beginning of my work at Thrushcross Grange. In some respects, it was like beginning service all over again, for the household was run on very different principles from Wuthering Heights, so that I had a great deal to learn – and to unlearn. There were a great many rules, not only about when we rose and went to bed, and what work we did and when, and how, but about what to wear while we did each task, and how to speak and behave in the presence of the family or of each other, and what we might or might not do with our time off. There was, furthermore, a strict order of status among the servants themselves, to which I was obliged to attend. At Wuthering Heights I had learned how to do a great many different things. Now I learned that some of these things were ‘beneath’ me and would damage my standing if I did them, while others infringed on the rightful territory of some other servant. Servants defined their status as much by what they could not be asked to do as by what they actually did, and woe betide the servant who dared to ask something of another that she had not the authority to command!
Much of this seemed to me merely silly. Why should I wear a different apron for starting the fire in the mistress’s room than I wore for polishing silver? Why must some tasks be done only before noon, and others only after? And if something clearly needed doing, what did it matter which of us did it? There was little satisfaction in learning it all, for it seemed only to restrain, rather than expand, my capacities. It was like learning the rules of some vastly complex card game, which would never be played for pleasure. Still, I am blessed with a quick mind, so I picked it up rapidly enough, along with some of the real skills of being a proper lady’s maid, in which in truth I was somewhat deficient.
As the mistress’s own maid, answerable only to the housekeeper and the butler, my status among the servants was officially high, but that did not mean I was immediately accorded respect. I had got off to a strange start, for my first few days I had gone about like a sleepwalker, barely able to answer when spoken to, let alone make friendly conversation, and then, of course, I had been stricken with a mysterious illness. ‘Standoffish, sickly, and probably simple-minded, that’s what we thought of you then,’ Wilson confided in me later. Fortunately, I did not know that then, but certainly I knew that I had some work to do to make a better impression than I had at first.
Some were inclined to sneer, for they thought their master had married beneath him, and that Wuthering Heights itself was little better than a poor farmhouse on the moors. I remember when I first saw the great hearth in the kitchen, fitted with an elaborate machinery for turning meat by clockwork, with a different spit for each sort of roast, I exclaimed at it in some wonderment, and then heard sniggers and slighting remarks behind me. I rounded on them sharply.
‘The Earnshaws have been held in honour in this neighbourhood since 1500,’ I snapped. ‘They never had need of ironmongers’ fancywork to prove their dignity. It was only Mr Linton’s grandfather who bought this place, wasn’t it?’ I meant only to defend the Earnshaws, but found I had ruffled feathers in my turn, for of course the servants all held the family honour dear. ‘Still,’ I added, ‘I can see that it would be a wonderful convenience when there are large numbers of guests to feed. We did not entertain much at Wuthering Heights, you know, being so far from town. It is to old Mr Linton’s credit that he equipped his kitchens so handsomely,’ here I turned to the cook, ‘and I am sure you put them to very good use.’
‘Oh, we do, we do,’ she replied happily. ‘It’s a pleasure to work in such a place, I can tell you. We have all the best equipment here, and if any new thing comes out, that will make our work easier, the master is always happy to buy it.’
‘I shall look forward to seeing more of it, and perhaps making use of some, to help you out when you are busy here.’
In suchlike manner, by being always a friendly and willing worker, but at the same time showing that I would not tolerate slights to my mistress or myself, I came in time to earn the respect of most of my fellow servants, and the friendship of one or two. Mrs Phillips remained a gruff, grumbling body, but I remembered Leveret, and gave her credit for a kinder heart than she generally showed me. She in her turn seemed relieved to find that I really could do a great many different things competently, and would do them without complaint, and grudgingly allowed that I was ‘pretty handy, all told’.
At this time I learned what Mr Linton had meant when he told his lady that it was best to keep a strict separation between servants and family, an idea I had thought merely ridiculous when I first heard of it. The truth was that at Thrushcross Grange, as at most great houses, the servants formed a little society among themselves, sleeping, eating, and spending their leisure hours in rooms that their employers almost never entered, and interacting with the latter, for the most part, only in very formal ways. This will come as no surprise to you, Mr Lockwood, for you are accustomed to living that way, but it was a new experience for me. And while I remained a little scornful of the formality and strict notions of rank that informed it, I came to see that it allowed both masters and servants a greater degree of privacy than anyone had ever had at Wuthering Heights.
One afternoon not long after this, I went out to feed Leveret in her pen and found Abel there, examining her.
‘Ye’ve done a fine job,’ he said to me with a smile. ‘She’s near enough ready to go and join the flock now. Have ye given her a name?’
‘Yes, I call her Leveret.’
‘Well, now ain’t that a coincidence, for I’ve a baby rabbit named Lambkin.’
‘Do you really?’
‘And a cat named Pup, and a dog named Calf – no, miss, I’m only teasing ye. It just seems funny to name the young of one beast after the young of another.’
‘It has some meaning to me,’ I said.
‘Well, ye may call her whatever ye like, I’m sure.’
‘You say it’s time for her to join the flock? Will you take her up there tomorrow?’
‘Could do. Unless you’d like to do it yourself. Thursday’s your day, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, and next Thursday I have the whole day.’
‘Ah, that would be grand. Ye could take her up there early in the morning, and bide with her a wee bit – that’s if ye don’t mind.’
‘I should be glad to,’ I said. I had not been up on the moors since I left Wuthering Heights. It would do me good, I thought, and my weekly visit to the Kenneths could be made in the evening.
Accordingly, the following Thursday I rose early and dressed myself in my old, comfortable work clothes. At my request, the cook had set aside for me a slice of cold pork pie and some bread and butter. These I wrapped in a large napkin and put in a small canvas rucksack, together with a jug of the thin beer the servants drank at table. Before I could leave, the cook tried to urge on me a large square of oilcloth to sit on.
‘So ye don’t mucky your clothes,’ she said. ‘It’s right dirty up there. And bring an extra shawl – ye’ve no idea how cold and windy it is up there, e’en when it’s warm here.’
I laughed. ‘You forget I grew up on those moors,’ I said. ‘I can assure you the heather is quite clean and dry. And as for the wind, it sets my blood running, to keep me warm, besides which this shawl is quite thick. I have all I need, truly.’
She fingered the shawl, and pronounced it adequate, but would not let me leave without the oilcloth. ‘Ye forget ye’ve recently been ill,’ she said. ‘Take it, dear, else I’ll be worrying about ye all the day.’ I gave in then, and took it, with thanks. I would not need it, I knew, but it was pleasant, for a change, to have someone show such concern for me. Then I added a bottle of milk for Leveret, and swung the whole onto my back.
Thus laden, I met Abel at Leveret’s pen. We let her out, and set off on our way. The lamb followed close behind us, baaing for her breakfast all the way. When she grew weary, we stopped and I fed her a bit, then we continued on. We soon came within sight of the flock, spread out over a large stretch of moorland. Abel took leave of me then
, and strode off on business of his own. I threw down my rucksack and shawl, retaining only the bottle, and took off in the other direction. I suddenly felt an urgent need to be alone.
I had thought I would be glad to get back to the moors – and certainly my heart had lifted when I saw them before me. But as the green pastures gave way to heather and ling, and the unobstructed wind swept into my face and whipped my skirts about my legs, bearing with it all the familiar smells and sounds, what I felt was something much stranger and stronger than mere pleasure. How can I explain it? It was as if, in leaving Wuthering Heights, I had left behind, not only that house and its inhabitants, but the moorlands too – and more than that, the Nelly Dean who had lived and worked there. Or not left behind, it now appeared, but only sealed off unchanged, like the locked room of a dead loved one. And now the moorland wind had blown open the door, and it all rushed back around me, a whirlwind of feeling.
I lay myself down on the heather and held up the bottle to bring Leveret to me. As she eagerly nursed, I clutched her to my chest and sobbed as I had not done since my illness. I don’t know how long I might have kept it up, for my sobs seemed not to release but to deepen my sorrow, but Leveret, her hunger satisfied, scenting the entrancing odours of the moors and spotting other creatures very like herself for the first time in her life, was struggling with all her might to squirm out of my grasp. I let her go, of course, whereupon she began running about with the other lambs and kicking up her heels with a most lamb-like glee. My breath was still quivering and my cheeks were wet with tears, but I could not help laughing to see her, for she was unaccustomed to the uneven ground, and tumbled over with every second leap, only to scramble up looking greatly puzzled, and then start again. After a particularly bad tumble, which sent her head over heels down a small slope, she came running back to me and began nuzzling me insistently for the bottle, just as any startled lamb would do with its natural mother. I let her finish the bottle I’d brought, then smiled as she ran off to practise cropping the grass with her new playmates, imagining much the same smile hidden in the stolid faces of the nursing ewes. Then I lay on my back with my head on my arms and gazed up at the sky.
Directly above me was a brilliant blue sky strewn with billowy white clouds that moved gradually across it, not advancing in fixed formation, but slowly turned and broken and swirled into ever-varying shapes, which I gave shape to in my imagination, tracing the forms of animals and landscapes, and most often faces. Every now and then the likeness of some beloved or fearful face would emerge, so striking that it would make me gasp and sit up, only to find it already shifted out of recognition. I think I must have dozed then, for a time, for when I next noticed it, the sun was past its zenith, and I was very hungry. I made my way back to my things and ate my lunch, then lay back on the heather again and resumed gazing at the sky.
Advancing from the left was a cluster of low, dark, heavy clouds, bringing in their wake an unbroken mat of dark grey, like a shade being drawn slowly over a window, or a lid closing over an eye. As I looked upwards into the clear sky that remained, I saw that the white clouds in the middle distance were drifting in the opposite direction from the dark clouds below, as if moving to shelter behind them, while far above both was a layer of white wispy streaks, faintly brushed onto the distant blue, that appeared as fixed in position as I was myself. It was the steadiness of those high white wisps, I realized, against the movement of the middle clouds, which made my pictures form and deform so quickly, while providing the subtler shadings that now and then brought a likeness to startling life. In an hour or two, I knew, the dark would cover the whole of the sky – would be the sky, so far as we below were concerned. But above it all, the white clouds would continue in a different direction altogether, taking paths and forming patterns unseen by me. I tried to imagine our positions reversed – that the distant blue was really the ground, and the sky these purple-and-brown billows about me, and that I was gazing down from these impossible heights, trying to make out the movements of white beings on a blue earth below. And then all at once I succeeded, and felt such a rush of dizzying vertigo that I clutched at the heather, and feared my delirium had come upon me again, till I sat up and brought myself to my senses.
I set out for the Grange, wrapping my shawl about my head as I went, for the first light drops were already falling. The shepherd had advised me to leave at a brisk pace at first, without looking back, and let Leveret stay or follow me as she chose. ‘Shoo’s old enough t’ be weaned, and shoo’ll manage well enow wi’ t’ flock on ’er own, but there’s no ’arm in letting ’er follow ye back hoom, and I’ll bring ’er back out with me tomorrow – that’s if ye don’t mind the trouble, miss,’ he added politely, which I assured him I did not. I tried to follow his directions, but like Orpheus, I found the urge to look back irresistible. My first glance showed her still with the other lambs, but on my next she caught sight of me, and alarmed at the distance I had already covered, came running up to butt me reproachfully for my attempted abandonment.
‘So, Leveret,’ I said to her, ‘you wish to play Mary’s little lamb another day, and follow me everywhere I go. Well, so you may.’
I left Leveret at the Grange, and continued on into Gimmerton to see the Kenneths. When I got there, Bodkin had more substantial news to give me.
‘Hindley has engaged the curate to teach Hareton,’ he announced.
‘Really! Does he pay him?’
‘Well, I doubt Mr Withers would go there for nothing,’ said Bodkin, but a quick sideways glance at his wife told me there was more to tell. Shortly afterwards Mrs Kenneth was called out of the room to attend to something in the kitchen, and Bodkin leaned in confidentially.
‘It is shamefully easy to beat Hindley at cards,’ he said in a low voice. ‘I thought to just hold back in my play, but his other companions have no such compunction, so now I play to win.’
‘And you win enough to pay Mr Withers?’
‘Not always. But it turns out that Withers is a dreadful hypochondriac, so I make up the difference by supplying him with harmless syrups and pills for his imaginary ills, for which I might otherwise be ashamed to charge.’
‘And Hindley doesn’t mind you paying?’
‘Hindley doesn’t know, though I’m sure he could guess if he put his mind to it. I told Withers to name him a low fee, and not to dun him for payment if it wasn’t forthcoming. Hindley passes him the odd shilling now and again, and imagines he is stringing him along.’
‘How long do you think that can last?’
‘I’ve no idea. But Hindley has grown accustomed not to being held to account for what he owes others – as you know to your cost – and Withers has grown fond of the lad. It might last for years. At any rate, we must take things as they come.’
‘Do you think I might talk to Mr Withers about how his lessons are going? He might like to know what I did with him before, and what I have learned about how best to teach him.’
‘I think that is unwise. I don’t know that he is very discreet, and I am sure that he is not very brave. Keeping one secret from Hindley is probably the most we should expect. But I get reports from him.’
‘And how is Hareton getting on?’
‘Slowly. Not from incapacity, Withers says, but because he only studies when the curate is there to oversee him. He likes his studies, though, and as he gets older he will probably do better at making time to study on his own.’
Mrs Kenneth returned to the room then, so we both turned to more general subjects. Then I thanked them both sincerely, and took my leave. My heart was lighter than it had been since I left. Hareton now had two people who saw him regularly and cared what became of him, and his education was once again underway. It was strange to think that, while I had been watching the clouds up on the moors, this news had been waiting for me, like the white clouds tumbling on their own way above the grey. And somehow that image became attached to the thought of Hareton for me, and gave me comfort. It was not exactly that I c
eased to miss him, or worry about him, or to grieve for the real discomforts of his condition, but – how shall I say it? – I relinquished the deep and urgent terror I had felt on his behalf. I saw that he had his own path that he would have to follow without me, but I knew now that he would not walk it wholly unwarded. And while I was not yet healed, I saw that I would heal.
TWENTY-SIX
I have told you already how Heathcliff’s return that September, after three years away, disrupted all the peace we had grown accustomed to at Thrushcross Grange, and caused great strife between Cathy and Edgar, and between both of them and poor deluded Isabella. I myself was perhaps not blameless in all that, and I have played many a weary round of ‘what if?’ about my actions at that time. Yet I acted without malice, and usually in hope of doing some good. In the tornadoes that afflict the central plains of America, I have read, one must open up windows, else they will explode outwards, yet in the hurricanes that batter the coast, they must be closed and battened, or they will shatter inwards. I knew not what kind of storm Heathcliff was, and so I opened some windows, and fastened others, and generally, as it appeared later, the wrong ones. But there is no sense in returning to that now.
As soon as I learned that Heathcliff was staying at Wuthering Heights, I took the first opportunity of being alone with him, to accost him on Hareton’s behalf.
‘He’s a hardy little brat,’ he told me, ‘and he likes his father scarcely better than I do, which shows he has some grains of sense in him, anyway.’