Wuthering Heights
does, and more.”
“You’re a damned liar,” began Earnshaw: “why have I made him angry, by
taking your part, then, a hundred times? and that when you sneered at
and despised me, and—Go on plaguing me, and I’ll step in yonder, and
say you worried me out of the kitchen!”
“I didn’t know you took my part,” she answered, drying her eyes; “and I
was miserable and bitter at everybody; but now I thank you, and beg you
to forgive me: what can I do besides?”
She returned to the hearth, and frankly extended her hand. He blackened
and scowled like a thunder-cloud, and kept his fists resolutely
clenched, and his gaze fixed on the ground. Catherine, by instinct,
must have divined it was obdurate perversity, and not dislike, that
prompted this dogged conduct; for, after remaining an instant
undecided, she stooped and impressed on his cheek a gentle kiss. The
little rogue thought I had not seen her, and, drawing back, she took
her former station by the window, quite demurely. I shook my head
reprovingly, and then she blushed and whispered—“Well! what should I
have done, Ellen? He wouldn’t shake hands, and he wouldn’t look: I must
show him some way that I like him—that I want to be friends.”
Whether the kiss convinced Hareton, I cannot tell: he was very careful,
for some minutes, that his face should not be seen, and when he did
raise it, he was sadly puzzled where to turn his eyes.
Catherine employed herself in wrapping a handsome book neatly in white
paper, and having tied it with a bit of ribbon, and addressed it to
“Mr. Hareton Earnshaw,” she desired me to be her ambassadress, and
convey the present to its destined recipient.
“And tell him, if he’ll take it, I’ll come and teach him to read it
right,” she said; “and, if he refuse it, I’ll go upstairs, and never
tease him again.”
I carried it, and repeated the message; anxiously watched by my
employer. Hareton would not open his fingers, so I laid it on his knee.
He did not strike it off, either. I returned to my work. Catherine
leaned her head and arms on the table, till she heard the slight rustle
of the covering being removed; then she stole away, and quietly seated
herself beside her cousin. He trembled, and his face glowed: all his
rudeness and all his surly harshness had deserted him: he could not
summon courage, at first, to utter a syllable in reply to her
questioning look, and her murmured petition.
“Say you forgive me, Hareton, do. You can make me so happy by speaking
that little word.”
He muttered something inaudible.
“And you’ll be my friend?” added Catherine, interrogatively.
“Nay, you’ll be ashamed of me every day of your life,” he answered;
“and the more ashamed, the more you know me; and I cannot bide it.”
“So you won’t be my friend?” she said, smiling as sweet as honey, and
creeping close up.
I overheard no further distinguishable talk, but, on looking round
again, I perceived two such radiant countenances bent over the page of
the accepted book, that I did not doubt the treaty had been ratified on
both sides; and the enemies were, thenceforth, sworn allies.
The work they studied was full of costly pictures; and those and their
position had charm enough to keep them unmoved till Joseph came home.
He, poor man, was perfectly aghast at the spectacle of Catherine seated
on the same bench with Hareton Earnshaw, leaning her hand on his
shoulder; and confounded at his favourite’s endurance of her proximity:
it affected him too deeply to allow an observation on the subject that
night. His emotion was only revealed by the immense sighs he drew, as
he solemnly spread his large Bible on the table, and overlaid it with
dirty bank-notes from his pocket-book, the produce of the day’s
transactions. At length he summoned Hareton from his seat.
“Tak’ these in to t’ maister, lad,” he said, “and bide there. I’s gang
up to my own rahm. This hoile’s neither mensful nor seemly for us: we
mun side out and seearch another.”
“Come, Catherine,” I said, “we must ‘side out’ too: I’ve done my
ironing. Are you ready to go?”
“It is not eight o’clock!” she answered, rising unwillingly. “Hareton,
I’ll leave this book upon the chimney-piece, and I’ll bring some more
to-morrow.”
“Ony books that yah leave, I shall tak’ into th’ hahse,” said Joseph,
“and it’ll be mitch if yah find ’em agean; soa, yah may plase yerseln!”
Cathy threatened that his library should pay for hers; and, smiling as
she passed Hareton, went singing upstairs: lighter of heart, I venture
to say, than ever she had been under that roof before; except, perhaps,
during her earliest visits to Linton.
The intimacy thus commenced grew rapidly; though it encountered
temporary interruptions. Earnshaw was not to be civilized with a wish,
and my young lady was no philosopher, and no paragon of patience; but
both their minds tending to the same point—one loving and desiring to
esteem, and the other loving and desiring to be esteemed—they contrived
in the end to reach it.
You see, Mr. Lockwood, it was easy enough to win Mrs. Heathcliff’s
heart. But now, I’m glad you did not try. The crown of all my wishes
will be the union of those two. I shall envy no one on their wedding
day: there won’t be a happier woman than myself in England!
CHAPTER XXXIII
On the morrow of that Monday, Earnshaw being still unable to follow his
ordinary employments, and therefore remaining about the house, I
speedily found it would be impracticable to retain my charge beside me,
as heretofore. She got downstairs before me, and out into the garden,
where she had seen her cousin performing some easy work; and when I
went to bid them come to breakfast, I saw she had persuaded him to
clear a large space of ground from currant and gooseberry bushes, and
they were busy planning together an importation of plants from the
Grange.
I was terrified at the devastation which had been accomplished in a
brief half-hour; the black-currant trees were the apple of Joseph’s
eye, and she had just fixed her choice of a flower-bed in the midst of
them.
“There! That will be all shown to the master,” I exclaimed, “the minute
it is discovered. And what excuse have you to offer for taking such
liberties with the garden? We shall have a fine explosion on the head
of it: see if we don’t! Mr. Hareton, I wonder you should have no more
wit than to go and make that mess at her bidding!”
“I’d forgotten they were Joseph’s,” answered Earnshaw, rather puzzled;
“but I’ll tell him I did it.”
We always ate our meals with Mr. Heathcliff. I held the mistress’s post
in making tea and carving; so I was indispensable at table. Catherine
usually sat by me, but to-day she stole nearer to Hareton; and I
presently saw she would have no more discretion in her friendship than
she had in her hostility.
“Now, mind you don’t talk with and notice your cousin too much,” were
my whispered instructions as we entered the room. “It will certainly
annoy Mr. Heathcliff, and he’ll be mad at you both.”
“I’m not going to,” she answered.
The minute after, she had sidled to him, and was sticking primroses in
his plate of porridge.
He dared not speak to her there: he dared hardly look; and yet she went
on teasing, till he was twice on the point of being provoked to laugh.
I frowned, and then she glanced towards the master: whose mind was
occupied on other subjects than his company, as his countenance
evinced; and she grew serious for an instant, scrutinizing him with
deep gravity. Afterwards she turned, and recommenced her nonsense; at
last, Hareton uttered a smothered laugh. Mr. Heathcliff started; his
eye rapidly surveyed our faces. Catherine met it with her accustomed
look of nervousness and yet defiance, which he abhorred.
“It is well you are out of my reach,” he exclaimed. “What fiend
possesses you to stare back at me, continually, with those infernal
eyes? Down with them! and don’t remind me of your existence again. I
thought I had cured you of laughing.”
“It was me,” muttered Hareton.
“What do you say?” demanded the master.
Hareton looked at his plate, and did not repeat the confession. Mr.
Heathcliff looked at him a bit, and then silently resumed his breakfast
and his interrupted musing. We had nearly finished, and the two young
people prudently shifted wider asunder, so I anticipated no further
disturbance during that sitting: when Joseph appeared at the door,
revealing by his quivering lip and furious eyes that the outrage
committed on his precious shrubs was detected. He must have seen Cathy
and her cousin about the spot before he examined it, for while his jaws
worked like those of a cow chewing its cud, and rendered his speech
difficult to understand, he began:—
“I mun hev’ my wage, and I mun goa! I _hed_ aimed to dee wheare I’d
sarved fur sixty year; and I thowt I’d lug my books up into t’ garret,
and all my bits o’ stuff, and they sud hev’ t’ kitchen to theirseln;
for t’ sake o’ quietness. It wur hard to gie up my awn hearthstun, but
I thowt I _could_ do that! But nah, shoo’s taan my garden fro’ me, and
by th’ heart, maister, I cannot stand it! Yah may bend to th’ yoak an
ye will—I noan used to ’t, and an old man doesn’t sooin get used to new
barthens. I’d rayther arn my bite an’ my sup wi’ a hammer in th’ road!”
“Now, now, idiot!” interrupted Heathcliff, “cut it short! What’s your
grievance? I’ll interfere in no quarrels between you and Nelly. She may
thrust you into the coal-hole for anything I care.”
“It’s noan Nelly!” answered Joseph. “I sudn’t shift for Nelly—nasty ill
nowt as shoo is. Thank God! _shoo_ cannot stale t’ sowl o’ nob’dy! Shoo
wer niver soa handsome, but what a body mud look at her ’bout winking.
It’s yon flaysome, graceless quean, that’s witched our lad, wi’ her
bold een and her forrard ways—till—Nay! it fair brusts my heart! He’s
forgotten all I’ve done for him, and made on him, and goan and riven up
a whole row o’ t’ grandest currant-trees i’ t’ garden!” and here he
lamented outright; unmanned by a sense of his bitter injuries, and
Earnshaw’s ingratitude and dangerous condition.
“Is the fool drunk?” asked Mr. Heathcliff. “Hareton, is it you he’s
finding fault with?”
“I’ve pulled up two or three bushes,” replied the young man; “but I’m
going to set ’em again.”
“And why have you pulled them up?” said the master.
Catherine wisely put in her tongue.
“We wanted to plant some flowers there,” she cried. “I’m the only
person to blame, for I wished him to do it.”
“And who the devil gave _you_ leave to touch a stick about the place?”
demanded her father-in-law, much surprised. “And who ordered _you_ to
obey her?” he added, turning to Hareton.
The latter was speechless; his cousin replied—“You shouldn’t grudge a
few yards of earth for me to ornament, when you have taken all my
land!”
“Your land, insolent slut! You never had any,” said Heathcliff.
“And my money,” she continued; returning his angry glare, and meantime
biting a piece of crust, the remnant of her breakfast.
“Silence!” he exclaimed. “Get done, and begone!”
“And Hareton’s land, and his money,” pursued the reckless thing.
“Hareton and I are friends now; and I shall tell him all about you!”
The master seemed confounded a moment: he grew pale, and rose up,
eyeing her all the while, with an expression of mortal hate.
“If you strike me, Hareton will strike you,” she said; “so you may as
well sit down.”
“If Hareton does not turn you out of the room, I’ll strike him to
hell,” thundered Heathcliff. “Damnable witch! dare you pretend to rouse
him against me? Off with her! Do you hear? Fling her into the kitchen!
I’ll kill her, Ellen Dean, if you let her come into my sight again!”
Hareton tried, under his breath, to persuade her to go.
“Drag her away!” he cried, savagely. “Are you staying to talk?” And he