Wuthering Heights
your own power to be Edgar’s brother! No, no, Isabella, you sha’n’t run
off,” she continued, arresting, with feigned playfulness, the
confounded girl, who had risen indignantly. “We were quarrelling like
cats about you, Heathcliff; and I was fairly beaten in protestations of
devotion and admiration: and, moreover, I was informed that if I would
but have the manners to stand aside, my rival, as she will have herself
to be, would shoot a shaft into your soul that would fix you for ever,
and send my image into eternal oblivion!”
“Catherine!” said Isabella, calling up her dignity, and disdaining to
struggle from the tight grasp that held her, “I’d thank you to adhere
to the truth and not slander me, even in joke! Mr. Heathcliff, be kind
enough to bid this friend of yours release me: she forgets that you and
I are not intimate acquaintances; and what amuses her is painful to me
beyond expression.”
As the guest answered nothing, but took his seat, and looked thoroughly
indifferent what sentiments she cherished concerning him, she turned
and whispered an earnest appeal for liberty to her tormentor.
“By no means!” cried Mrs. Linton in answer. “I won’t be named a dog in
the manger again. You _shall_ stay: now then! Heathcliff, why don’t you
evince satisfaction at my pleasant news? Isabella swears that the love
Edgar has for me is nothing to that she entertains for you. I’m sure
she made some speech of the kind; did she not, Ellen? And she has
fasted ever since the day before yesterday’s walk, from sorrow and rage
that I despatched her out of your society under the idea of its being
unacceptable.”
“I think you belie her,” said Heathcliff, twisting his chair to face
them. “She wishes to be out of my society now, at any rate!”
And he stared hard at the object of discourse, as one might do at a
strange repulsive animal: a centipede from the Indies, for instance,
which curiosity leads one to examine in spite of the aversion it
raises. The poor thing couldn’t bear that; she grew white and red in
rapid succession, and, while tears beaded her lashes, bent the strength
of her small fingers to loosen the firm clutch of Catherine; and
perceiving that as fast as she raised one finger off her arm another
closed down, and she could not remove the whole together, she began to
make use of her nails; and their sharpness presently ornamented the
detainer’s with crescents of red.
“There’s a tigress!” exclaimed Mrs. Linton, setting her free, and
shaking her hand with pain. “Begone, for God’s sake, and hide your
vixen face! How foolish to reveal those talons to _him_. Can’t you
fancy the conclusions he’ll draw? Look, Heathcliff! they are
instruments that will do execution—you must beware of your eyes.”
“I’d wrench them off her fingers, if they ever menaced me,” he
answered, brutally, when the door had closed after her. “But what did
you mean by teasing the creature in that manner, Cathy? You were not
speaking the truth, were you?”
“I assure you I was,” she returned. “She has been dying for your sake
several weeks, and raving about you this morning, and pouring forth a
deluge of abuse, because I represented your failings in a plain light,
for the purpose of mitigating her adoration. But don’t notice it
further: I wished to punish her sauciness, that’s all. I like her too
well, my dear Heathcliff, to let you absolutely seize and devour her
up.”
“And I like her too ill to attempt it,” said he, “except in a very
ghoulish fashion. You’d hear of odd things if I lived alone with that
mawkish, waxen face: the most ordinary would be painting on its white
the colours of the rainbow, and turning the blue eyes black, every day
or two: they detestably resemble Linton’s.”
“Delectably!” observed Catherine. “They are dove’s eyes—angel’s!”
“She’s her brother’s heir, is she not?” he asked, after a brief
silence.
“I should be sorry to think so,” returned his companion. “Half a dozen
nephews shall erase her title, please heaven! Abstract your mind from
the subject at present: you are too prone to covet your neighbour’s
goods; remember _this_ neighbour’s goods are mine.”
“If they were _mine_, they would be none the less that,” said
Heathcliff; “but though Isabella Linton may be silly, she is scarcely
mad; and, in short, we’ll dismiss the matter, as you advise.”
From their tongues they did dismiss it; and Catherine, probably, from
her thoughts. The other, I felt certain, recalled it often in the
course of the evening. I saw him smile to himself—grin rather—and lapse
into ominous musing whenever Mrs. Linton had occasion to be absent from
the apartment.
I determined to watch his movements. My heart invariably cleaved to the
master’s, in preference to Catherine’s side: with reason I imagined,
for he was kind, and trustful, and honourable; and she—she could not be
called the _opposite_, yet she seemed to allow herself such wide
latitude, that I had little faith in her principles, and still less
sympathy for her feelings. I wanted something to happen which might
have the effect of freeing both Wuthering Heights and the Grange of Mr.
Heathcliff, quietly; leaving us as we had been prior to his advent. His
visits were a continual nightmare to me; and, I suspected, to my master
also. His abode at the Heights was an oppression past explaining. I
felt that God had forsaken the stray sheep there to its own wicked
wanderings, and an evil beast prowled between it and the fold, waiting
his time to spring and destroy.
CHAPTER XI
Sometimes, while meditating on these things in solitude, I’ve got up in
a sudden terror, and put on my bonnet to go see how all was at the
farm. I’ve persuaded my conscience that it was a duty to warn him how
people talked regarding his ways; and then I’ve recollected his
confirmed bad habits, and, hopeless of benefiting him, have flinched
from re-entering the dismal house, doubting if I could bear to be taken
at my word.
One time I passed the old gate, going out of my way, on a journey to
Gimmerton. It was about the period that my narrative has reached: a
bright frosty afternoon; the ground bare, and the road hard and dry. I
came to a stone where the highway branches off on to the moor at your
left hand; a rough sand-pillar, with the letters W. H. cut on its north
side, on the east, G., and on the south-west, T. G. It serves as a
guide-post to the Grange, the Heights, and village. The sun shone
yellow on its grey head, reminding me of summer; and I cannot say why,
but all at once a gush of child’s sensations flowed into my heart.
Hindley and I held it a favourite spot twenty years before. I gazed
long at the weather-worn block; and, stooping down, perceived a hole
near the bottom still full of snail-shells and pebbles, which we were
fond of storing there with more perishable things; and, as fresh as
reality, it appeared that I beheld my early playmate seated on the
withered turf: his dark, square head bent forward, and his little hand
scooping out the earth with a piece of slate. “Poor Hindley!” I
exclaimed, involuntarily. I started: my bodily eye was cheated into a
momentary belief that the child lifted its face and stared straight
into mine! It vanished in a twinkling; but immediately I felt an
irresistible yearning to be at the Heights. Superstition urged me to
comply with this impulse: supposing he should be dead! I thought—or
should die soon!—supposing it were a sign of death! The nearer I got to
the house the more agitated I grew; and on catching sight of it I
trembled in every limb. The apparition had outstripped me: it stood
looking through the gate. That was my first idea on observing an
elf-locked, brown-eyed boy setting his ruddy countenance against the
bars. Further reflection suggested this must be Hareton, _my_ Hareton,
not altered greatly since I left him, ten months since.
“God bless thee, darling!” I cried, forgetting instantaneously my
foolish fears. “Hareton, it’s Nelly! Nelly, thy nurse.”
He retreated out of arm’s length, and picked up a large flint.
“I am come to see thy father, Hareton,” I added, guessing from the
action that Nelly, if she lived in his memory at all, was not
recognised as one with me.
He raised his missile to hurl it; I commenced a soothing speech, but
could not stay his hand: the stone struck my bonnet; and then ensued,
from the stammering lips of the little fellow, a string of curses,
which, whether he comprehended them or not, were delivered with
practised emphasis, and distorted his baby features into a shocking
expression of malignity. You may be certain this grieved more than
angered me. Fit to cry, I took an orange from my pocket, and offered it
to propitiate him. He hesitated, and then snatched it from my hold; as
if he fancied I only intended to tempt and disappoint him. I showed
another, keeping it out of his reach.
“Who has taught you those fine words, my bairn?” I inquired. “The
curate?”
“Damn the curate, and thee! Gie me that,” he replied.
“Tell us where you got your lessons, and you shall have it,” said I.
“Who’s your master?”
“Devil daddy,” was his answer.
“And what do you learn from daddy?” I continued.
He jumped at the fruit; I raised it higher. “What does he teach you?” I
asked.
“Naught,” said he, “but to keep out of his gait. Daddy cannot bide me,
because I swear at him.”
“Ah! and the devil teaches you to swear at daddy?” I observed.
“Ay—nay,” he drawled.
“Who, then?”
“Heathcliff.”
I asked if he liked Mr. Heathcliff.
“Ay!” he answered again.
Desiring to have his reasons for liking him, I could only gather the
sentences—“I known’t: he pays dad back what he gies to me—he curses
daddy for cursing me. He says I mun do as I will.”
“And the curate does not teach you to read and write, then?” I pursued.
“No, I was told the curate should have his —— teeth dashed down his ——
throat, if he stepped over the threshold—Heathcliff had promised that!”
I put the orange in his hand, and bade him tell his father that a woman
called Nelly Dean was waiting to speak with him, by the garden gate. He
went up the walk, and entered the house; but, instead of Hindley,
Heathcliff appeared on the door-stones; and I turned directly and ran
down the road as hard as ever I could race, making no halt till I
gained the guide-post, and feeling as scared as if I had raised a
goblin. This is not much connected with Miss Isabella’s affair: except
that it urged me to resolve further on mounting vigilant guard, and
doing my utmost to check the spread of such bad influence at the
Grange: even though I should wake a domestic storm, by thwarting Mrs.
Linton’s pleasure.
The next time Heathcliff came my young lady chanced to be feeding some
pigeons in the court. She had never spoken a word to her sister-in-law
for three days; but she had likewise dropped her fretful complaining,
and we found it a great comfort. Heathcliff had not the habit of
bestowing a single unnecessary civility on Miss Linton, I knew. Now, as
soon as he beheld her, his first precaution was to take a sweeping
survey of the house-front. I was standing by the kitchen-window, but I
drew out of sight. He then stepped across the pavement to her, and said
something: she seemed embarrassed, and desirous of getting away; to
prevent it, he laid his hand on her arm. She averted her face: he
apparently put some question which she had no mind to answer. There was
another rapid glance at the house, and supposing himself unseen, the
scoundrel had the impudence to embrace her.
“Judas! Traitor!” I ejaculated. “You are a hypocrite, too, are you? A
deliberate deceiver.”
“Who is, Nelly?” said Catherine’s voice at my elbow: I had been
over-intent on watching the pair outside to mark her entrance.
“Your worthless friend!” I answered, warmly: “the sneaking rascal