Wuthering Heights
fall against one arm. He was immediately seized by a suffocating cough
that soon ended his triumph. It lasted so long that it frightened even
me. As to his cousin, she wept with all her might, aghast at the
mischief she had done: though she said nothing. I held him till the fit
exhausted itself. Then he thrust me away, and leant his head down
silently. Catherine quelled her lamentations also, took a seat
opposite, and looked solemnly into the fire.
“How do you feel now, Master Heathcliff?” I inquired, after waiting ten
minutes.
“I wish _she_ felt as I do,” he replied: “spiteful, cruel thing!
Hareton never touches me: he never struck me in his life. And I was
better to-day: and there—” his voice died in a whimper.
“_I_ didn’t strike you!” muttered Cathy, chewing her lip to prevent
another burst of emotion.
He sighed and moaned like one under great suffering, and kept it up for
a quarter of an hour; on purpose to distress his cousin apparently, for
whenever he caught a stifled sob from her he put renewed pain and
pathos into the inflexions of his voice.
“I’m sorry I hurt you, Linton,” she said at length, racked beyond
endurance. “But _I_ couldn’t have been hurt by that little push, and I
had no idea that you could, either: you’re not much, are you, Linton?
Don’t let me go home thinking I’ve done you harm. Answer! speak to me.”
“I can’t speak to you,” he murmured; “you’ve hurt me so that I shall
lie awake all night choking with this cough. If you had it you’d know
what it was; but _you’ll_ be comfortably asleep while I’m in agony, and
nobody near me. I wonder how you would like to pass those fearful
nights!” And he began to wail aloud, for very pity of himself.
“Since you are in the habit of passing dreadful nights,” I said, “it
won’t be Miss who spoils your ease: you’d be the same had she never
come. However, she shall not disturb you again; and perhaps you’ll get
quieter when we leave you.”
“Must I go?” asked Catherine dolefully, bending over him. “Do you want
me to go, Linton?”
“You can’t alter what you’ve done,” he replied pettishly, shrinking
from her, “unless you alter it for the worse by teasing me into a
fever.”
“Well, then, I must go?” she repeated.
“Let me alone, at least,” said he; “I can’t bear your talking.”
She lingered, and resisted my persuasions to departure a tiresome
while; but as he neither looked up nor spoke, she finally made a
movement to the door, and I followed. We were recalled by a scream.
Linton had slid from his seat on to the hearthstone, and lay writhing
in the mere perverseness of an indulged plague of a child, determined
to be as grievous and harassing as it can. I thoroughly gauged his
disposition from his behaviour, and saw at once it would be folly to
attempt humouring him. Not so my companion: she ran back in terror,
knelt down, and cried, and soothed, and entreated, till he grew quiet
from lack of breath: by no means from compunction at distressing her.
“I shall lift him on to the settle,” I said, “and he may roll about as
he pleases: we can’t stop to watch him. I hope you are satisfied, Miss
Cathy, that _you_ are not the person to benefit him; and that his
condition of health is not occasioned by attachment to you. Now, then,
there he is! Come away: as soon as he knows there is nobody by to care
for his nonsense, he’ll be glad to lie still.”
She placed a cushion under his head, and offered him some water; he
rejected the latter, and tossed uneasily on the former, as if it were a
stone or a block of wood. She tried to put it more comfortably.
“I can’t do with that,” he said; “it’s not high enough.”
Catherine brought another to lay above it.
“That’s _too_ high,” murmured the provoking thing.
“How must I arrange it, then?” she asked despairingly.
He twined himself up to her, as she half knelt by the settle, and
converted her shoulder into a support.
“No, that won’t do,” I said. “You’ll be content with the cushion,
Master Heathcliff. Miss has wasted too much time on you already: we
cannot remain five minutes longer.”
“Yes, yes, we can!” replied Cathy. “He’s good and patient now. He’s
beginning to think I shall have far greater misery than he will
to-night, if I believe he is the worse for my visit: and then I dare
not come again. Tell the truth about it, Linton; for I mustn’t come, if
I have hurt you.”
“You must come, to cure me,” he answered. “You ought to come, because
you have hurt me: you know you have extremely! I was not as ill when
you entered as I am at present—was I?”
“But you’ve made yourself ill by crying and being in a passion.—I
didn’t do it all,” said his cousin. “However, we’ll be friends now. And
you want me: you would wish to see me sometimes, really?”
“I told you I did,” he replied impatiently. “Sit on the settle and let
me lean on your knee. That’s as mamma used to do, whole afternoons
together. Sit quite still and don’t talk: but you may sing a song, if
you can sing; or you may say a nice long interesting ballad—one of
those you promised to teach me; or a story. I’d rather have a ballad,
though: begin.”
Catherine repeated the longest she could remember. The employment
pleased both mightily. Linton would have another, and after that
another, notwithstanding my strenuous objections; and so they went on
until the clock struck twelve, and we heard Hareton in the court,
returning for his dinner.
“And to-morrow, Catherine, will you be here to-morrow?” asked young
Heathcliff, holding her frock as she rose reluctantly.
“No,” I answered, “nor next day neither.” She, however, gave a
different response evidently, for his forehead cleared as she stooped
and whispered in his ear.
“You won’t go to-morrow, recollect, Miss!” I commenced, when we were
out of the house. “You are not dreaming of it, are you?”
She smiled.
“Oh, I’ll take good care,” I continued: “I’ll have that lock mended,
and you can escape by no way else.”
“I can get over the wall,” she said laughing. “The Grange is not a
prison, Ellen, and you are not my gaoler. And besides, I’m almost
seventeen: I’m a woman. And I’m certain Linton would recover quickly if
he had me to look after him. I’m older than he is, you know, and wiser:
less childish, am I not? And he’ll soon do as I direct him, with some
slight coaxing. He’s a pretty little darling when he’s good. I’d make
such a pet of him, if he were mine. We should never quarrel, should we,
after we were used to each other? Don’t you like him, Ellen?”
“Like him!” I exclaimed. “The worst-tempered bit of a sickly slip that
ever struggled into its teens. Happily, as Mr. Heathcliff conjectured,
he’ll not win twenty. I doubt whether he’ll see spring, indeed. And
small loss to his family whenever he drops off. And lucky it is for us
that his father took him: the kinder he was treated, the more tedious
and selfish he’d be. I’m glad you have no chance of having him for a
husband, Miss Catherine.”
My companion waxed serious at hearing this speech. To speak of his
death so regardlessly wounded her feelings.
“He’s younger than I,” she answered, after a protracted pause of
meditation, “and he ought to live the longest: he will—he must live as
long as I do. He’s as strong now as when he first came into the north;
I’m positive of that. It’s only a cold that ails him, the same as papa
has. You say papa will get better, and why shouldn’t he?”
“Well, well,” I cried, “after all, we needn’t trouble ourselves; for
listen, Miss,—and mind, I’ll keep my word,—if you attempt going to
Wuthering Heights again, with or without me, I shall inform Mr. Linton,
and, unless he allow it, the intimacy with your cousin must not be
revived.”
“It has been revived,” muttered Cathy, sulkily.
“Must not be continued, then,” I said.
“We’ll see,” was her reply, and she set off at a gallop, leaving me to
toil in the rear.
We both reached home before our dinner-time; my master supposed we had
been wandering through the park, and therefore he demanded no
explanation of our absence. As soon as I entered I hastened to change
my soaked shoes and stockings; but sitting such a while at the Heights
had done the mischief. On the succeeding morning I was laid up, and
during three weeks I remained incapacitated for attending to my duties:
a calamity never experienced prior to that period, and never, I am
thankful to say, since.
My little mistress behaved like an angel in coming to wait on me, and
cheer my solitude; the confinement brought me exceedingly low. It is
wearisome, to a stirring active body: but few have slighter reasons for
complaint than I had. The moment Catherine left Mr. Linton’s room she
appeared at my bedside. Her day was divided between us; no amusement
usurped a minute: she neglected her meals, her studies, and her play;
and she was the fondest nurse that ever watched. She must have had a
warm heart, when she loved her father so, to give so much to me. I said
her days were divided between us; but the master retired early, and I
generally needed nothing after six o’clock, thus the evening was her
own. Poor thing! I never considered what she did with herself after
tea. And though frequently, when she looked in to bid me good-night, I
remarked a fresh colour in her cheeks and a pinkness over her slender
fingers, instead of fancying the hue borrowed from a cold ride across
the moors, I laid it to the charge of a hot fire in the library.
CHAPTER XXIV
At the close of three weeks I was able to quit my chamber and move
about the house. And on the first occasion of my sitting up in the
evening I asked Catherine to read to me, because my eyes were weak. We
were in the library, the master having gone to bed: she consented,
rather unwillingly, I fancied; and imagining my sort of books did not
suit her, I bid her please herself in the choice of what she perused.
She selected one of her own favourites, and got forward steadily about
an hour; then came frequent questions.
“Ellen, are not you tired? Hadn’t you better lie down now? You’ll be
sick, keeping up so long, Ellen.”
“No, no, dear, I’m not tired,” I returned, continually.
Perceiving me immovable, she essayed another method of showing her
disrelish for her occupation. It changed to yawning, and stretching,
and—
“Ellen, I’m tired.”
“Give over then and talk,” I answered.
That was worse: she fretted and sighed, and looked at her watch till
eight, and finally went to her room, completely overdone with sleep;
judging by her peevish, heavy look, and the constant rubbing she
inflicted on her eyes. The following night she seemed more impatient
still; and on the third from recovering my company she complained of a
headache, and left me. I thought her conduct odd; and having remained
alone a long while, I resolved on going and inquiring whether she were
better, and asking her to come and lie on the sofa, instead of upstairs
in the dark. No Catherine could I discover upstairs, and none below.
The servants affirmed they had not seen her. I listened at Mr. Edgar’s
door; all was silence. I returned to her apartment, extinguished my
candle, and seated myself in the window.
The moon shone bright; a sprinkling of snow covered the ground, and I
reflected that she might, possibly, have taken it into her head to walk
about the garden, for refreshment. I did detect a figure creeping along
the inner fence of the park; but it was not my young mistress: on its
emerging into the light, I recognised one of the grooms. He stood a
considerable period, viewing the carriage-road through the grounds;
then started off at a brisk pace, as if he had detected something, and
reappeared presently, leading Miss’s pony; and there she was, just
dismounted, and walking by its side. The man took his charge stealthily