CHAPTER 8
On the morning of a fine June day my first bonny little nursling, and the last of the ancient Earnshaw stock, was born. We were busy with the hay, when a girl came running across the meadow, calling me as she ran.
‘Oh, such a grand baby!’ she panted out. ‘The finest lad that ever breathed! But the doctor says missis has been in a consumption these many months. I heard him tell Mr. Hindley: and now she has nothing to keep her, and she’ll be dead before winter. You must come home directly. You’re to nurse it, Nelly: to feed it with sugar and milk. I wish I were you, because it will be all yours when there is no missis!’
‘But is she very ill?’ I asked, flinging down my rake and tying my bonnet.
‘I guess she is,’ replied the girl, ‘yet she talks as if she thought of living to see it grow a man. She’s out of her head for joy, it’s such a beauty! If I were her I should get better at the bare sight of it, in spite of Doctor Kenneth. I was fairly mad at him. Master’s face just began to light up at the sight of the babe, when he says– “Earnshaw, it’s a blessing your wife has been spared to leave you this son. The winter will probably finish her. You should have known better than to choose such a slip of a lass!”’
I hurried eagerly home to admire the child; though I was very sad for Hindley’s sake. He doted on his wife, and I couldn’t conceive how he would bear the loss.
When I reached Wuthering Heights, I asked him, ‘How is the baby?’
‘Nearly ready to run about, Nell!’ he replied, putting on a cheerful smile.
‘And the mistress?’ I inquired; ‘the doctor says–’
‘Damn the doctor!’ he interrupted, reddening. ‘Frances will be perfectly well by next week. But she must be quiet.’
Going to his wife, I delivered this message. Mrs. Earnshaw replied merrily, ‘I hardly spoke a word, Ellen, and he has gone out twice, crying. Well, I won’t speak: but I will laugh!’
Poor soul! That gay heart never failed her; and her husband persisted doggedly in affirming her health improved every day. When Dr. Kenneth warned him that he could do no more for her, he retorted, ‘She does not want any more attendance from you! She never was in a consumption. It was a fever; and it is gone.’
He told his wife the same story, and she seemed to believe him; but one night, while leaning on his shoulder, a fit of coughing took her. He raised her in his arms; she put her hands about his neck, her face changed, and she was dead.
With that, the child Hareton fell wholly into my hands, for Mr Earnshaw grew desperate. He neither wept nor prayed, but cursed God and man, and gave himself up to reckless dissipation.
The servants could not bear his evil conduct long: Joseph and I were the only two that would stay. I had not the heart to leave Hareton; and besides, you know, I had been Hindley’s foster-sister, and excused his behaviour more readily than a stranger would.
The master’s bad ways formed a pretty example for Catherine and Heathcliff. His treatment of the latter was enough to make a fiend of a saint. And, truly, the lad seemed possessed of something diabolical at that time. He delighted to see Hindley degrading himself; and became daily more sullen and savage.
I could not tell what an infernal house we had. The curate stopped calling, and nobody decent came near us, apart from Edgar Linton’s visits to Miss Cathy. At fifteen she was the queen of the country-side; and a haughty, headstrong creature! I did not like her then; and I vexed her by trying to bring down her arrogance: she never hated me, though. She had a wondrous constancy to old attachments: even Heathcliff kept his hold on her affections; and young Linton, with all his superiority, found it difficult to make an equally deep impression. Edgar Linton was my late master: that is his portrait over the fireplace.
Mrs. Dean raised the candle, and I saw a soft-featured face, resembling the young lady at the Heights, but more pensive and amiable in expression. The long light hair curled slightly on the temples; the eyes were large and serious; the figure graceful.
‘He looked better when he was animated,’ said Mrs. Dean. ‘He lacked spirit in general.’
Catherine had kept up her acquaintance with the Lintons (she continued); and as she had no wish to show her rough side in their company, she was polite to the old lady and gentleman, and gained the admiration of Isabella, and the heart and soul of her brother. She adopted a double character without exactly intending to deceive any one. At the Lintons’ she took care not to act like Heathcliff; but at home she did not bother to restrain her unruly nature.
Mr. Edgar seldom mustered courage to visit Wuthering Heights. He had a terror of Earnshaw; and yet he was always received with civility. Hindley avoided offending him, knowing why he came, and kept out of the way. I rather think Edgar’s visits were distasteful to Catherine; she never played the coquette, and objected to her two friends meeting; for when Heathcliff expressed contempt of Linton in his presence, she could not agree; and when Linton showed disgust at Heathcliff, she dared not seem indifferent. I’ve had many a laugh at her perplexities. That sounds ill-natured: but she was so proud it was impossible to pity her. She did bring herself, finally, to confide in me.
Mr. Hindley had gone out home one afternoon, and Heathcliff gave himself a holiday. He had reached the age of sixteen then, I think, and without being either ugly or stupid, he managed to give an impression of inward and outward repulsiveness that there is no trace of today.
He had lost the benefit of his early education: continual hard work had extinguished any curiosity he once possessed about books or learning. He struggled long to keep up with Catherine in her studies, and yielded with regret: but he yielded completely; he would not take a step upward. He acquired a slouching gait, and his natural reserve became moroseness; he took a grim pleasure in making people fear and dislike him.
Catherine and he were constant companions still, when he was not working; but he had ceased to speak of his fondness for her, and recoiled with angry suspicion from her girlish caresses. On the occasion I just mentioned, he came into the house while I was assisting Miss Cathy with her dress. She had imagined she would have the place to herself, and had informed Mr. Edgar of her brother’s absence; she was preparing to receive him.
‘Why have you that silk frock on?’ said Heathcliff. ‘Nobody coming here, I hope?’
‘Not that I know of,’ stammered Miss: ‘but you should be in the field now, Heathcliff. It is an hour past dinnertime: I thought you were gone.’
‘Hindley does not often free us from his accursed presence,’ he said. ‘I’ll not work any more to-day: I’ll stay with you.’
‘Oh, but Joseph will tell. You’d better go!’
‘Joseph is on the far side of Penistone Crags; he’ll never know.’ So, saying, he lounged to the fire, and sat down.
Catherine reflected, with knitted brows. ‘Isabella and Edgar Linton talked of calling this afternoon,’ she said, after a minute’s silence. ‘If they do come, you run the risk of being scolded.’
‘Order Ellen to say you are engaged, Cathy,’ he persisted; ‘don’t turn me out for those pitiful, silly friends of yours! I’m on the point, sometimes, of complaining that they—’
‘That they what?’ cried Catherine, looking troubled. ‘Oh, Nelly!’ she added petulantly, ‘you’ve combed my hair out of curl! Let me alone. What are you complaining about, Heathcliff?’
‘Nothing – only look at the almanack on that wall. The crosses are for the evenings you have spent with the Lintons, the dots for those spent with me. I’ve marked every day.’
‘Yes – very foolish: as if I took notice!’ replied Catherine peevishly. ‘Where is the sense of that?’
‘To show that I do take notice,’ said Heathcliff.
‘And should I always be sitting with you?’ she demanded, growing irritated. ‘What good do I get? You might be dumb, or a baby, for anything you say or do to amuse me!’
‘You never told me before that I talked too little, or that you disliked my company, Cathy!’ he exclaimed in agitation.
> ‘It’s no company at all, when people know nothing and say nothing,’ she muttered.
Her companion rose; but just then a horse’s feet were heard on the flagstones, and young Linton entered, his face brilliant with delight at the unexpected summons. Doubtless Catherine marked the difference between her friends, as one came in and the other went out. It was like exchanging a bleak, hilly, coal country for a beautiful fertile valley; and Edgar’s voice was as opposite as his appearance. He had a sweet, low manner of speaking, softer than we talk here.
‘I’m not come too soon, am I?’ he said, looking at me. I began to tidy the dresser.
‘No,’ answered Catherine. ‘What are you doing there, Nelly?’
‘My work, Miss,’ I replied. Mr. Hindley had told me to stay during any private visits Linton paid.
She stepped behind me and whispered crossly, ‘Take yourself off! When company are in the house, servants don’t start cleaning!’
I went on with my occupation. Thinking Edgar could not see her, she snatched my cloth, and pinched me spitefully on the arm. I’ve said I did not love her, and besides, she hurt me extremely; so I started up, and screamed out, ‘Oh, Miss, that’s a nasty trick! You have no right to nip me.’
‘I didn’t touch you, you lying creature!’ cried she, her fingers tingling to repeat the act, and her ears red with rage. She never could conceal her passion; it always set her whole complexion in a blaze.
‘What’s that, then?’ I retorted, showing a purple mark.
She stamped her foot, and then slapped me on the cheek: a stinging blow that filled my eyes with water.
‘Catherine, love!’ interposed Linton, greatly shocked.
Little Hareton was sitting near me on the floor. At seeing my tears he began crying himself, and sobbed ‘wicked aunt Cathy,’ which drew her fury on to his unlucky head: she seized his shoulders, and shook him till the poor child went white. Edgar thoughtlessly tried to free him. In an instant the astonished young man felt her hand applied to his own ear in a way that could not be mistaken for jest.
He drew back in consternation. I lifted Hareton, and walked off to the kitchen with him, leaving the door open, for I was curious to see how they would settle their disagreement. The visitor moved to take up his hat, pale and with a quivering lip.
‘That’s right!’ I said to myself. ‘Take warning and begone! Now you see her genuine disposition.’
‘Where are you going?’ demanded Catherine, blocking the door. ‘You must not go! You shall not leave me in that temper. I should be miserable all night, and I won’t be miserable for you!’
‘Can I stay after you have struck me?’ asked Linton. ‘You’ve made me afraid and ashamed of you. I’ll not come here again!’
Her eyes began to glisten.
‘And you told a deliberate untruth!’ he said.
‘I didn’t!’ she cried; ‘I did nothing deliberately. Well, go, if you please! And now I’ll cry myself sick!’
She dropped on her knees, and set to weeping. Edgar went out as far as the courtyard; there he lingered. I resolved to encourage him.
‘Miss is dreadfully wayward, sir,’ I called out. ‘As bad as any spoilt child: you’d better ride home, or else she will be sick just to grieve us.’
The soft thing looked through the window: he had no power to depart. Ah, I thought, he’s doomed, and flies to his fate! And so it was: he turned, entered the house again, and shut the door behind him. When I went in a while after to inform them that Earnshaw had come home rabid drunk, ready to pull the whole place about our ears, I saw the quarrel had merely brought them closer together. It had broken through their youthful timidity, and enabled them to confess themselves lovers.
The news of Mr. Hindley’s arrival drove Linton speedily to his horse, and Catherine to her room. I went to hide little Hareton, and to take the shot out of the master’s shotgun, which he was fond of playing with in his insane excitement.
Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights: Abridged Page 9