by Alison Case
‘I suppose that is why you were always so glad to see me.’
‘Oh, you were good company too. We did have fun, didn’t we?’
‘We did.’ We lapsed into silence again.
‘Poor Hindley,’ said Bodkin at last. ‘What a mess he made of his life, in the end.’
‘Yes,’ I said, and then, moved by a sudden impulse, added, ‘so much so that it is hard to believe it could have been any worse, if he had married me after all.’
Bodkin looked startled. ‘Married you!’
‘We wanted to marry. What is so astonishing about that?’ I snapped. ‘We were not so far apart in birth – I was as well brought up as old Mrs Earnshaw, and of the same family, for that matter. I don’t know why you all should talk as if I was some filthy tinker sleeping in a ditch, whom it would be shocking for him even to know, let alone marry!’ But Bodkin’s shock seemed only to deepen at my words.
‘I thought you knew,’ he said.
‘Knew what?’ I was still angry, but the look of dismay on Bodkin’s face disturbed me, and my heart began to pound. ‘What?’ Bodkin reached across the table and took my hand in both of his.
‘That you were Hindley’s sister,’ he said gently. His words seemed to knock the breath out of me. I sat staring, mouth agape, for a long minute.
‘How do you know?’ I breathed at last.
‘My father told me – wrote it out on a scrap of paper not long after he had his stroke, and made me burn it after. He had kept it a secret until then, but he worried that with your mother so far off, there would be no one in the neighbourhood who knew, in case …’
‘In case we tried to marry?’
‘Yes.’
I sat still, his words sinking into my mind like rennet into milk, curdling memories, changing everything at once, though it would take time, later, to strain them and see what remained.
‘Did Hindley ever know?’
‘I really don’t know,’ said Bodkin. ‘I don’t think Father did either. What do you think?’
I thought back. So many things were recurring to my mind in a new light now. Had he known? Was it that, and not my lowly status, that made him rush to put a wife between us, and after her death, gave the edge of disgust to his longing? There is no degradation of mind or body I will not embrace, except you. He must have known. And that night, when he finally turned to me, and said, ‘Nelly,’ in that sweet, calm voice, and I turned away, what had I refused, after all? Had I unwittingly saved us from a terrible sin? Or only forestalled a confession that might have eased us both, and set Hindley on a path to healing at last? I would never know.
‘I think he knew,’ I said finally. ‘It would explain … some things. Not all, but some. But what made you think I knew?’
‘I wrote to your mother, when you told me she was ill, to ask if she wanted the secret to die with her. She sent a note to say that she had told you already, that you knew everything.’
‘She never told me anything! When I got to Brassing, she was past speaking. She only kissed my hands, and wept, before sinking to her final rest. Perhaps she only said she meant to tell me.’
‘She was very clear in saying that you knew already. Perhaps her mind was wandering at the end, and she believed she had told you, when she only wished to do so.’
‘I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘Mrs Thorne told me she had her wits about her all the way through, that she met with people, read and wrote letters, and gave orders, all as if her death were just another household event, to be prepared for thoroughly and carried out efficiently.’
‘Well, that is a puzzle, then. And you mean to say the thought never crossed your mind?’
I let out a bitter chuckle. ‘There is very little that didn’t cross my mind at one time or another,’ I said. ‘I had a very active imagination, and there were enough silences around the subject of my birth to give rein to all sorts of wild ideas. I even recall a time when I tried to believe I was secretly heir to the French throne, hidden in Yorkshire for safety – but I could not make it work. I certainly would have liked to believe that I was not my father’s child, and that I was rightfully part of the family at Wuthering Heights. But it was clear as day that I was my mother’s own child, and she was such a plain, sober, upright woman, I could not imagine her being swept away by passion, nor could I imagine Mr Earnshaw in the character of her ravisher. And she was so devoted to the mistress!’
‘That puzzled me too, but when I asked Father about it, he only shook his head and shrugged. He knew the bare fact, apparently, and nothing more.’
‘I suppose we will never know, then.’
‘No, I suppose not.’
But we were mistaken. We found a letter in my mother’s hand, opened, among Joseph’s papers. Her mind must have been wandering a little at the last, after all, for it was addressed only to ‘Nelly, Wuthering Heights’. I suppose the post-boy was too young to connect that personage with the Mrs Dean who lived at Thrushcross Grange, and so had delivered it here. Joseph would have been unable to resist the temptation to add it to his hoard of secrets. It was dated to about a week before her death. I sat down to read it. Here it is.
My dear Nelly,
There are things you ought to know about your past, and mine. I made a solemn promise not to tell you of them, but I suppose death dissolves all promises, and if it does not, and I do wrong here, I will have answered to my Maker for it, and for all my other sins, before you come to read this.
Thomas Dean is not your father. When I found I was with child, I saw that I needed a husband to cover my sin, and that I had best find one soon, before my condition began to be evident. Tom was doing some work for Mr Earnshaw at the time, so that he was about every day. I knew that he was unmarried, and believed him to be kind and decent, though not over bright, and he had sent some admiring looks my way. So I met his looks with smiles of my own and, in short, soon gave him reason to believe I was with child by him, and so he married me. I knew that I wronged him so, but I told myself that I would bring him more good than harm, by being a good wife to him and making for him a better and more prosperous home than he would have without me – for Mr Earnshaw had said he would give us the lease of this farm at easy rent, and I knew I could work it all but single-handedly myself. But I presumed too much on Tom’s simplicity, and on his gratitude to me for marrying him. When you were born only seven months after he thought you were conceived, too large and vigorous to pass as a seven-months child, I saw that he suspected that he had been duped. But he liked the comforts I brought him too well to challenge me on it, and he was ashamed to acknowledge it. And he proved to be one of those men who take out their anger on the powerless, and so you bore the brunt of his disappointment, until I had to send you away, in fear for your very life.
I know, Nell, that you have often wondered what about you could make him hate you so, and my heart bled that I could not give you an answer that would make you see that it was through no fault or shortcoming of yours, but so it was.
But I have not told you who your father was. And I find that I cannot write it out, even now. But you know now, do you not? And you see why I had to interfere between you and Hindley, and why I could not let you bear his child? I have wronged so many people: my husband, your father, and her whom I loved more than anyone on earth save you – and I know that I have wronged you too. Now that Death approaches, it is mostly my wrongs that are before me, so that my life seems made of wrongs – but I did not wrong you then.
But how could I do such a thing? I was not young and thoughtless, nor deceived in my innocence as many a servant girl has been, or led astray by the urgency of my affections.
How can I tell you?
I did it for her. She never knew of it; she would have been wounded to the core had she known, yet I did it for her. Or so I believed then.
In the first twenty years of their marriage, the Earnshaws had been given but one child who lived longer than a week. That was Heathcliff, the first, and even he lasted only
a month. There was a stillborn daughter, and another daughter and a son who each lingered only a day or two. And miscarriages, one after another, some early, some later. But the memory of little Heathcliff still gave them hope of a living child to come.
At first the mistress’s pregnancies had come every two or three years, and she was able to regain her strength between them. But then they began to come closer together. Three within three years brought forth living children, but each died within a week of its birth, and the mistress grew weaker and weaker. Finally Dr Kenneth told them flatly that her next confinement would kill her, she was so worn out. But the master never wholly believed that her weakness was more than a failure of will, and he was still desperate for a son. She confided in me about it, frightened for herself, but sharing her husband’s longing for a child.
And so, unbeknownst to her, I did a terrible thing. I convinced the master that I could be to him as Hagar was to Abraham, to bring him a child. I said that we could hide my pregnancy from her, and pass a child off as an orphan abandoned at his door – but in fact, with help from Elspeth, I took care not to conceive. For two years I kept him from her, and as she grew stronger we deceived ourselves that our sin was for the good of another, whom we each loved better than ourselves. But then he began to grow frustrated that there was still no child. And so I saw no alternative but to allow myself to conceive you.
Our plan was to tell her that I must go to America, that my brothers needed me there. But instead of going there, I would hide myself away in another part of the country until the child was born, and then make arrangements for it to be left on the Earnshaws’ doorstep, a foundling. We had no doubt that Mrs Earnshaw would adopt the babe as her own, for her heart was broad, and she longed for a child. Mr Earnshaw intended that I should never return after that – that I would live henceforward in exile from her and from my child, as much as if I had gone to America in truth. But I had plans to find a position somewhere near enough to visit occasionally at least, for I loved Mrs Earnshaw too well to resign myself to never seeing her again.
We never carried out our plan. As soon as I told the mistress that I needed to leave, she became extremely distraught. She could not believe, she said, that I could prefer my brothers, who had ‘abandoned’ my mother and me, over herself, when we had always been ‘more than sisters’ to each other. I stayed firm, for I had made a promise, and knew not what else to do, but then she became quite hysterical. Her children were all dead, she cried out; her husband had forsaken her bed, and now her dearest friend and sister was leaving her too. She had nothing more to live for, she sobbed, and could only pray that death would take her soon. In this manner, she soon made herself really ill.
I could not refuse her. I told the master that I would stay, and then I made arrangements to marry, as I told you. He returned to his wife’s bed, and she conceived not long afterwards. Had you been born a boy and Hindley a girl, or had their child not lived, I think he might have still have adopted you as his heir, without ever acknowledging himself your father. But Hindley was born instead, and that convinced him that he had been right to cast me off. Yet I do think that for him Hindley’s birth was still tainted by our shame – and the more so when I came back to the house to nurse him. He was always but too ready to believe that Hindley would be a disappointment to him, and that had its influence on the poor lad’s character. And then, too, I think Joseph suspected something of what had occurred, for he took to needling the master in small ways, hinting at buried sins, and he could see that his barbs hit home.
When you told me that he had walked to Liverpool, and brought home an orphan to raise as his own, I guessed at once that he was attempting some sort of penance for his past sin, and it made me angry that he should do so without thinking about how it would affect the rest of his family. But that was unjust of me, perhaps. It was I who led him into sin, after all, so who am I to speak against his effort at atonement? Then I saw but through a glass darkly, but now I begin to see clearly. I see my sin: how I longed for the power to set things right by my own act, to be the one who could give her ease, even if she never knew it. And I see other things too, that are harder to name.
Our secret stained your young life, Nelly, and caused you much pain, without your knowing whence it came. But you are strong, my daughter. You have a clever head and a skilful hand, good practical sense, and the will to work steadily. You got those from me, I like to think, but your heart is broader than mine, and your need to order and manage is less, and so I think you will find, if not perfect happiness, at least contentment in your life. Keep well, my daughter. Return good for evil; forgive those who sin against you, and most of all forgive
Your loving mother,
Mary Swithin Dean
I finished the letter in silence, hesitated for a moment, then pushed it across the table for Bodkin to read.
‘Are you sure?’ he asked.
‘Go on,’ I said. ‘You might as well know the rest.’ I watched Bodkin read, and saw him nodding as he read. He finished, and handed the letter back to me.
‘A woman of powerful character, your mother,’ he said.
‘She was that.’ I waited, but he made no further comment on what he had read. ‘So now you know my secret as well,’ I said at last. ‘Or did your father tell you that one, too?’
‘He didn’t. But I had guessed something of the sort. I could not see how else you could have come to nurse Hareton as you did.’
I froze. ‘You knew that? How?’
‘Again, I guessed. We had little Ricky around then, you may recall, and Anna was nursing him, so I noticed things on your rare visits to us I might not have otherwise. How your figure had altered, for example. How you never fed Hareton in my presence, and how he nuzzled into your bosom when you held him. How you would make some excuse to disappear with him for a few minutes, and then come back with your tucker tied a little differently. Small things in themselves, but they added up. Especially since you had never told me how you had solved the problem of his feeding, as you evidently had. And that was unlike you.’
‘Well, what a day of revelations this is. Why did you never tell me you knew?’
‘It was evident that you did not want me to know. I thought I was respecting your wishes. Do you wish I had?’
‘I do. It would have been a comfort to confide in you. But then, it is easy to say that now. At the time … perhaps not. There were so many other secrets contained in that one, including Elspeth’s part in bringing it about. There were’ – I blushed at the memory – ‘spells, rituals, that sort of thing. I was afraid I had done wrong.’
Bodkin smiled. ‘There would be. Elspeth was no fool.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Something my father told me when I started practice. “The less you are sure of the efficacy of your treatment,” he said, “the more precise you must be in prescribing it. Do not say to take about so much, about so often – tell them to measure it to the grain, and take it on the minute of the clock. Tell them what to take with it, and whether to sit, stand, or lie down after they do. Insist that your instructions be followed to the letter. The more precise they are, the more your patient will believe in them, and that belief will often heal them, where the medicine alone would be sure to fail.” There, and now I have told you my great secret. You must never tell anyone of it, or I shall be completely done in as a doctor.’
I shook my head and managed a smile, but in truth my mind was spinning so, I felt dizzy. Everything I remembered, everything I thought I knew, was shifting and changing at once. I thought of what I had learned from Mrs Phillips, about the lamb.
‘At Thrushcross Grange, when I fell ill,’ I said, ‘did you know—’
‘That you had still been nursing Hareton, and were suffering from leaving off too suddenly? Yes.’
‘And that was why you told Mrs Phillips to find me a lamb.’
‘Ah, another of my secrets betrayed. When did she tell you?’
‘Not until she le
ft service, years later – she kept her word to you.’
‘I’m glad of that.’
‘Are there any secrets of mine that you don’t know?’ I said at last.
‘A great many,’ he said with a smile. ‘I don’t know most of what you were thinking, or feeling, during all that time. I don’t know how you endured all that you had to, and still found it in yourself to give such loyal service as you did, to those that hurt you.’
‘Not so loyal, always.’
‘I don’t know that either.’
‘And have you any more great secrets to tell me?’
Bodkin reached across the table, and gathered both my hands in his, his voice suddenly serious. ‘Only one,’ he said.
I looked at his face. I had known it since childhood, watched it grow and change over thirty years and more. In youth, sir, we show the world the face God gave us, for good or ill. But in later life, we must wear the face we have made for ourselves through a lifetime of habitual expressions. Joseph’s upstairs was so deeply seamed with ill-temper that, had his heart undergone a miraculous transformation in his late years to universal benevolence and love, I do not think his face could have made shift to show it. The creases in Bodkin’s tanned and weather-roughened skin told a different story: one of much laughter, and some sorrow, of great kindness, and little anger. All my life, he had been a steady and true friend to me, steadier and truer even than I had known.
‘Tell me,’ I said, though I already knew the answer.
And writing now, I find I have another answer too. I know who will read this.
In reply to yours of the 18th of June
Dear Mr Lockwood,
What a surprise it was to hear from you again, and with such news as you had to share, too! First, let me congratulate you on your engagement to the Honourable Miss De Lacy. Of course I could never agree with you that any woman is beyond your deserving, but if your betrothed be but half as noble and gentle in character as she certainly is in her lineage, you will be a very happy man, I am sure.