The Classic Crusade of Corbin Cobbs

by Michael Ciardi

I resumed my solitary excursion beneath a sky quilted with nebulous clouds. Without the sun or a sliver of moonlight to illuminate the skyline, I proceeded across the terrain as clumsily as a sightless man amidst virgin ground. Although my vision was restricted from perceiving any object on the field before me with clarity, my ears offered an alternate source of inspection. Still, it became an arduous task to navigate a foreign terrain in this fashion. I therefore moved with the speed and agility of a salted slug. A sloshing sound under each of my advancing footsteps indicated that I had progressed onto a stretch of marshy earth. I feared that a single miscalculation would’ve resulted in me plummeting into a cavity of indeterminable depth.

  Adding to the misery of my march, an unrelenting rainfall softened the soil to even a greater extent, causing me to lurch through tarns of mud that would’ve been otherwise laden with perennial grasses and bracken. In every direction from where I surveyed this patch of land, I gathered that nothing heavier than the weight of a man’s footprints stayed above the surface of vegetation for very long. Little or nothing of value could’ve been cultivated from this soil, and I soon determined that those who ventured here prior to me had forsaken any hope of exploiting its peaty boundaries.

  Under conventional circumstances, the rain alone would’ve chilled me into near submission. But I kept heedful of my undetermined quest until the ebony clouds receded and a pallid moonlight permeated the turbulent air. With the deepest shades of darkness at least temporarily highlighted, I noticed the framework of a magnificent mansion shadowing the higher plains. The house’s immense, spire-like formations hinted to the ominous temperament and opulence of its master. The structure’s sharp angles erected like Titans’ spears into the roiling sky.

  Perhaps this was the marker on the moors that I was destined to explore. It certainly seemed reasonable that a less imposing force than this moorland awaited me in the domicile’s interior. Before I redirected my progress toward the house, however, I noticed something animated in the foreground. After I adapted my eyesight to the faint moonbeam’s light, I distinguished this figure as another human being, but I couldn’t imagine what type of individual would’ve voluntarily patrolled this region on such a dismal evening.

  At the risk of relinquishing my stealth, I trudged closer to the forlorn character in question. The man’s dark waistcoat hung on in broad frame like a lingering shadow. His concentration seemed designated to a province far removed from our current arrangement. From a distance of twenty paces, the man’s disposition was somehow daunting, but this observation had no direct relation to his height. Although I gathered that the subject of my scrutiny was at least as tall as I, it didn’t alter my perception of him either way. The most striking or perhaps gloomiest detail about this fellow was his pensive scowl. It was as wicked and untamed as the landscape in which he served vigil over. Unlike me, he wasn’t vaguely intrigued in the gothic mansion’s presence here. He had a remarkably stoic spirit that I presumed made few concessions to those who fell under his authority.

  This man fastened the savagery of night in his deep-set eyes; they gleamed at me dispassionately as I traipsed toward him. Perhaps a tinge of moonlight reflected in his pupils, giving his visage a phantom’s luminous glow. At first, we exchanged no words to one another. Perhaps he was just as mesmerized by my emergence as I was his own. I then stepped within an arm’s reach of the rogue, unafraid of whatever fate awaited me if I dared to reproach our environment. If I had formerly judged him as a do-gooder, the icy pockets of his breath upon my skin quickly reversed any such feelings.

  His Romanian face was a portrait of pain and power, withered by the markings of regret, and stained by morose memories. Yet in spite of this detectable bitterness, I also sensed a vulnerable element to his demeanor that somehow salvaged what remained of his humanity. Outside the range of moonbeams, his skin was as sallow as honey. His hair looked like a clump of moistened tar atop his head. By all accounts, he was a man of flawed beauty who examined the heavens with a feverish anticipation of what might’ve awaited him beyond this world.

  Few men by their own volition would’ve elected to brave this night’s tumultuous weather. But I suspected my present company’s mysterious reputation haunted this region long before my arrival. A second glance at the steeples jutting from the mansion’s architecture confirmed my whereabouts. I had traversed upon the moors of Yorkshire. By now, the proprietor of both Thrushcross Grange and Wuthering Heights had advanced into middle age. His furrowed brow looked like ravines coursing through a sun-baked canyon. But there something else embedded in his countenance that I almost resisted to acknowledge, as others have done before me.

  Heathcliff’s voice was just as menacing as his coal-colored eyes. “What brings you to this property?” His question was pitched closer to a demand, and I had no intention of denying him an explanation, albeit a very predictable one.

  “No one other than you, sir,” I replied, “for as long as you are the owner of this estate.”

  Heathcliff’s eyes dwelled deeper into both sockets as he glowered at me. “Who do you presume me to be, stranger?”

  “There’s only one person I’ve ever heard tell of who walks the moorlands after dusk, sir. Therefore, you must be Mr. Heathcliff.”

  “If I am, as you say, the sole person who perambulates these grounds by moonlight, how do you explain your presence here with me now?”

  As had become the usual dilemma in my travels thus far, I had no cogent rationale for my appearance. Up until now, I had used several hasty fabrications, and my next one sounded as equally contrived. “I came out here tonight looking for something or someone,” I announced. “I didn’t know you’d be the man I’d find, but I must say that I’m not disappointed to finally meet you.”

  Heathcliff ambled closer to me, moving with the nimbleness of a man who analyzed the pitfalls of this terrain like a skilled physician studying the intricacies of human physiology. After he failed to ask me for my name, I introduced myself with a level of humility that almost guaranteed a peaceful intent.

  “You’re undoubtedly an intrepid traveler, Mr. Cobbs,” he offered, “or an incredibly misdirected flunky. I’ll grant you with the former observation for the time being. Now, my own curiosity has spurred some trivial thoughts. Why are you interested in me?”

  “Well, you are a man of considerable wealth,” I declared, hoping that my subservient tone would’ve satisfied his inquest. “Maybe my designs are purely superficial, but I’ve always wanted to know what motivated you to strive for such excellence in your financial affairs.”

  Heathcliff sneered at my response as if I had insulted him directly. I’m certain he had no inclination to consult with me on the tactics of his trade or the precise source of his acquired wealth. “Am I to presume that you ventured out in this storm tonight to explore the contents of my investments?”

  “Only the motivations behind them, sir,” I clarified. “It must’ve been an event of great magnitude that encouraged you to secure the deeds of two English manors. We both know this wasn’t always your arrangement.”

  Heathcliff might’ve been baffled or enraged by my unsolicited knowledge of his past, but his features remained as impenetrable as the blackest storm clouds churning over Wuthering Heights. If only momentarily, he appeared older to me in his charcoal-colored suit, staring forlornly into the soggy night. Perhaps, like most aging gentleman, he wished for a chance to reclaim his youth. But I of course knew of some other quandaries in his existence that delivered us both to this place and time.

  “Mr. Cobbs,” he proceeded with the unsteadiness I anticipated, “you seem to know more than what could be reasonably assumed in regard to my position in society. Since I’m certain we haven’t become acquainted before this occasion, how did you come to know my business so intimately?”

  “Your name has been mentioned in towns far beyond Yorkshire,” I proclaimed. “I’d say you’ve become somewhat of a legend.”

  “I beg your pardon. What did you
refer to me as?”

  “A legend, sir. Is that not so?”

  Heathcliff was neither accustomed to flattery nor imprudent enough to accept that anyone who knew of his repute would’ve described him in such exalted terms. “Whatever you’ve been told, Mr. Cobbs,” he indicated, “I will say with certainty that I mustn’t be confused with any legends, living or deceased. Contrarily, I’ve acquired a fair share of infamy because of my merciless temperament, and I have no desire to concoct any apologies to contradict that gossip.”

  “My apologies, Mr. Heathcliff,” I resumed. “But people from my city—women mostly—have debated your status as a sort of hero. I certainly don’t wish to sound condescending to your ear, sir.”

  As Heathcliff puzzled over his Byronic linkage, I watched the rain’s velocity quickening throughout the boggy landscape. A shrill wind almost toppled me on the moors, but Heathcliff stood his ground as if rooted to the earth like an old hickory stump. His hair whipped about his face like a bushel of black vipers. He then peered up at the sky, as if searching for a harbinger of hope through the torrents of rainfall. When his gaze finally returned to find my own, I sensed something livid stirring his pupils like a poisoned mist. He uttered his next words aloud, although not diametrically intended for my consideration.

  “Even now, through the cold pockets of wind, I hear her sweet voice summoning me,” he murmured. Through the benefit of my accumulated knowledge, I already knew that this dour man referenced none other than the late Catherine Earnshaw. For him, she was the be all and end all of womankind. He loved her for his entire lifetime, and even beyond her own. Out here, amidst the moor’s seclusion, this tormented master bequeathed his imagination to the haunting semblance of his beloved Catherine, but it was this same obsession that ultimately compelled him to sabotage her life.

  When I focused on Heathcliff’s eyes again, they appeared as dreary and fathomless as the most frigid oceans of this Earth. “If what you say in regard to my reputation is true, Mr. Cobbs,” he continued, “then too much prestige has already been attributed to my name. But we shall proceed with other matters presently. Your appointment here must have an alternate function. I demand that you be forthright with me. If you decline my entreaty, I will be forced to carry on in a less than civilized manner.”

  “I suppose your eyes have the density to penetrate anything you wish,” I responded. “But, that being said, I hope you don’t look upon me as your foe. After all, it is my contention, sir, that we’re connected at this moment for a reason near to both our hearts.”

  “Be direct with me. Let’s not permit our discourse to become as muddled in cloudy secrets as this marshland is with water. What do you want?”

  Heathcliff’s voice crept into my conscience with a riveting force that I seldom experienced. But the reason for my visitation wasn’t entirely evident to me now. At this point, I merely attempted to distract him until discovering the precise instance to invade his most fortified contemplations.

  “At the risk of insulting your sensibilities, sir, I’ve come to Wuthering Heights to investigate your thoughts about love.”

  Heathcliff’s chin jutted toward the sky, angling toward the teeming rainfall like the bough of a ship piercing a tempest. The syllables of Catherine’s name ejaculated from his lips with a guttural sigh. “What do you wish to learn about my Catherine?”

  “I know you miss her,” I said. “I also know what it’s like to have the woman I love taken away from me.”

  “Then the lady in your life is dead, too?”

  “Figuratively speaking, I’m deader to her than she is to me. Yet it puts us in the same quandary either way.”

  “In the manner of speaking plainly, Mr. Cobbs, your lover is still alive, is she not?”

  “She is,” I replied, but the answer wasn’t so easily supplied by me. “It may be more accurate to say that a part of her is as decayed as any corpse in the ground.”

  “I see,” Heathcliff mused. “I empathize with your plight now, and I should’ve presumed as much. Only a man bent to a melancholic end would choose to traverse this moorland after nightfall. As for me, I’ve come in search of spirits. This burden is all that remains for me. My only chance to see Catherine again is in a realm apart from my existence here. Yet you still have a chance to set the course in another direction, Mr. Cobbs. It serves no method for you to lament what you haven’t yet fully lost to a man such as me.”

  “But you are a man of opposite extremes,” I told him. “For as ardently as you’ve loved, an impulse for vengefulness has haunted you more doggedly than any ghost.”

  The gipsy scoundrel processed my assertion mutely, but his expression remained as hard as if chiseled from a slab of granite. When he turned toward me again, I sensed a demented edge to his voice. “I’m not prepared to deny your accusations,” he murmured. “But I am naturally curious to know why you’ve drawn such rash conclusions in regard to my character.”

  “Isn’t the truth etched in your glum face, sir?”

  “Do you wish for me to contradict you? In truth, many unfavorable opinions of my behavior subsist, but a liar will never be counted as one of them. I am, as you’ve already declared, a man of tolerable means. And it was through my own diligence and wit that I’ve reversed my status as a ploughboy on this property. Now, you might’ve unthinkingly assumed that such an enhancement in my social status has instigated a jovial temperament from me, but I’ve learned to live in the moonlight, Mr. Cobbs. I tempt myself with emotions better arranged for the blackest and bleakest hours.”

  As I already knew, this was a man who primarily existed without remorse. For all the wrong that he had committed, there was nothing in his expression to suggest that he wanted to be pardoned from his actions. Yet, as it had been my obligation since embarking on this quest, I didn’t intend to judge him overtly.

  “I only wish to understand the condition of your mind,” I told him. “How does a man burn with such fury for as long as you have?”

  “Do you wish to deal in the art of cruelty?” he countered. “Revenge isn’t a trade I’d advise any man to invest in thoroughly, but to deny the intrinsic satisfaction it’s afforded me would be disingenuous. Through painstaking efforts, I’ve constructed my life in such a way to torment those who once shunned me. In essence, the captive has become the captor.”

  “And even now, as you walk these shadowed moors, you have no regrets?”

  Heathcliff stalled with his response; this time he licked his plump lips as if the rain pelting his face had a flavor worth savoring. Although I at first didn’t accept that any pair of eyes could’ve darkened more than what I already observed in his face, this man proved that the layers of blackness within the human skull were as infinite as space.

  “I’m not a repentant man,” he whispered. “Therefore, I cannot say that I’d undo a single deed from my past. Besides, one might argue that there are really few innocents in this world. Perhaps I relished in the mistreatment of Isabella more than what I should have, but she could’ve shown better judgment in her choice to love me.”

  If I had any previous misconceptions about Heathcliff’s disposition, he handily dismissed them without pretense. I espied nothing in his persona that resembled remorse. His coldness seemed more apparent to me than the icy dollops of rain upon my flesh. Most unsettling, however, was his ability to manipulate others with his methods, and yet somehow remain unscathed in the process. In my worst moments I never imagined myself to have a capacity to act as maliciously as Heathcliff, but I also couldn’t detest him for his demonic tendencies. Perhaps this night’s spell worked its nefarious ways into my heart as well.

  In spite of this maddening hostility, I still detected something pervious leaching from Heathcliff’s eyes, though I wasn’t quite certain how to define it. Was it teardrops forming on both his lashes? Or was it nothing more substantial than the rainwater splashing against his cheeks?

  “Even as you walk these moors tonight, sir,” I resumed, “there’s
a sense of strife in your gaze that your rugged exterior can’t disguise.”

  “Quite true,” muttered Heathcliff. “Let this be known to you, Mr. Cobbs, so that you may one day impart it to others: even wicked men have the capacity to cherish something other than themselves. But I daresay that the vigorous way in which I approached my Catherine has left me in a desolate position. Frankly, I’m bored of the notion of being looked upon as an intolerable sod with no choice in the manner in which I conducted myself. The truth about human nature is far less romantic. We, being products of either poverty or prosperity, always possess the facility to exterminate those who have dismantled our souls.”

  Heathcliff had spoken all that he wanted to deliver to me, and he verified his disengagement by turning toward the open land to continue his walk in isolation. Then, like the conundrum that he was and shall always be, the man vanished into the moorland’s soggy blackness. In these solitary seconds, I stood motionless, examining the gray façade of Wuthering Heights, while marveling at the sliver of moon balanced against the ominous clouds like a reaper’s scythe.

  I then thought about how little I knew of not only Heathcliff, but also of myself. I now viewed the disconsolate figure lurking across Yorkshire’s moors as an extension of my own misery. After all, his motivations were only partly understood in this wild, wanton world. Couldn’t the same be said of my own? We may all tread on tentative pathways, guarding our beleaguered spirits so bravely and blindly until our minds numbed to the sorrows that feed upon us like crows on carrion.

  Chapter 29

  9:47 A.M.