CHAPTER 23
It was a misty morning – half frost, half drizzle – and temporary brooks crossed our path, until my feet were thoroughly wetted, and I was cross and low. We entered Wuthering Heights by the kitchen, to check whether Mr. Heathcliff were really absent.
Joseph seemed sitting in a sort of paradise alone, beside a roaring fire, with a quart of ale and a toasted oat-cake, and his pipe in his mouth. I asked if the master was in.
‘Nay!’ he snarled. ‘Yah must go back where yah come fro.’
‘Joseph!’ cried a peevish voice from the inner room. ‘How often am I to call you? There are only a few red ashes now. Joseph! come this moment.’
A resolute stare into the grate showed that Joseph had no ear for this appeal. The housekeeper and Hareton were invisible. We knew Linton’s voice, and entered.
‘Oh, I hope you’ll die in a garret, starving!’ said the boy, mistaking our approach for Joseph’s. He stopped on seeing us: his cousin flew to him.
‘Is that you, Miss Linton?’ he said, raising his head from the arm of the great chair. ‘No – don’t kiss me: it takes my breath. Dear me! Papa said you would call. Will you shut the door, please? you left it open; and those detestable creatures won’t bring coals to the fire. It’s so cold!’
I fetched some coal myself. The invalid had a tiresome cough, and looked feverish and ill.
‘Well, Linton,’ murmured Catherine, ‘are you glad to see me? Can I do you any good?’
‘Why didn’t you come before?’ he asked. ‘You should have come, instead of writing. It tired me dreadfully writing those long letters. I’d far rather have talked to you. Now I cannot bear to talk. Is Zillah in the kitchen?’
I replied, ‘Nobody is there but Joseph.’
‘I want a drink,’ he exclaimed fretfully. ‘Zillah is constantly gadding off to Gimmerton since papa went: it’s miserable!’
‘Is your father attentive to you, Master Heathcliff?’ I asked.
‘Attentive? He makes them a little more attentive at least,’ he cried. ‘The wretches! Do you know, Miss Linton, that brute Hareton laughs at me! I hate him! I hate them all: they are odious.’
Cathy found a pitcher of water, filled a tumbler, and brought it to him. Having swallowed a little, he appeared more tranquil, and said she was very kind.
‘And are you glad to see me?’ asked she, seeing the faint dawn of a smile.
‘Yes, I am. It’s something new to hear a voice like yours!’ he replied. ‘But I have been vexed, because you wouldn’t come. And papa swore it was because I was a pitiful, shuffling, worthless thing; and he said you despised me. But you don’t despise me, do you?’
‘Despise you? No! Next to papa and Ellen, I love you better than anybody living. I don’t love Mr. Heathcliff, though. Will he stay away many days?’
‘Not many,’ answered Linton; ‘but he goes on to the moors frequently, to shoot, and you might spend an hour or two with me then. Do say you will. I should not be peevish with you, and you’d always be ready to help me, wouldn’t you?’
‘Yes,’ said Catherine, stroking his long soft hair: ‘if I could only get papa’s consent, I’d spend half my time with you. Pretty Linton! I wish you were my brother.’
‘Papa says you would love me better than your father, if you were my wife; so I’d rather you were that.’
‘No, I should never love anybody better than papa,’ she returned gravely. ‘And people hate their wives, sometimes; but not their sisters and brothers.’
Linton denied that people ever hated their wives; but Cathy affirmed they did, and instanced his own father’s aversion to her aunt. I tried to stop her thoughtless tongue, but Master Heathcliff, much irritated, asserted that her tale was false.
‘Papa told me; and papa does not tell falsehoods,’ she answered pertly.
‘My papa calls yours a sneaking fool!’ cried Linton.
‘Yours is a wicked man,’ retorted Catherine; ‘and you are very naughty to repeat what he says. He must be wicked to have made Aunt Isabella leave him.’
‘She didn’t leave him,’ said the boy.
‘She did,’ cried my young lady.
‘Well, I’ll tell you something!’ said Linton. ‘Your mother hated your father: now then.’
‘Oh!’ exclaimed Catherine, enraged.
‘And she loved mine,’ added he.
‘You little liar! I hate you now!’ she panted, and her face grew red with passion.
‘She did! she did!’ sang Linton.
‘Hush, Master Heathcliff!’ I said; ‘that’s your father’s tale, too, I suppose.’
‘It isn’t: you hold your tongue!’ he answered. ‘She did, she did, Catherine! she did!’
Cathy gave his chair a violent push, and caused him to 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, aghast at the mischief she had done. I held him till the fit exhausted itself, and he thrust me away. Catherine quelled her weeping, took a seat, and looked solemnly into the fire.
‘How do you feel now, Master Heathcliff?’ I inquired.
‘I wish she felt as I do,’ he replied: ‘spiteful, cruel thing! Hareton 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 his voice.
‘I’m sorry I hurt you, Linton,’ she said at length. ‘But I had no idea that you could be hurt by that little push. You’re not much hurt, are you, Linton? Speak to me!’
‘I can’t speak to you,’ he murmured; ‘I shall lie awake all night choking with this cough. You’ll be comfortably asleep while I’m in agony. I wonder how you would like those fearful nights!’ And he began to wail aloud in self-pity.
‘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 without her. However, she shall not disturb you again.’
‘Must I go?’ asked Catherine dolefully. ‘Do you want me to go, Linton?’
‘Let me alone, at least,’ said he; ‘I can’t bear your talking.’
She lingered for a while; but as he neither looked up nor spoke, she finally moved towards the door, and I followed. We were recalled by a scream. Linton had slid from his seat on to the hearthstone, and lay writhing like a perverse, indulged child, determined to be as annoying as it can. I saw at once it would be folly to try humouring him. But Cathy ran back in terror, knelt down, and cried, and soothed, and entreated, till he grew quiet.
‘I shall lift him on to the settle,’ I said, ‘and he may roll about as he pleases: we can’t stay to watch him. I hope you are satisfied, Miss Cathy, that you are not the person to benefit him; his health is not dependent on you. Now, come away! as soon as he knows there is nobody nearby to care for his nonsense, he’ll be glad to lie still.’
She placed a cushion under his head, but he tossed uneasily, as if it were a block of wood.
‘I can’t do with that,’ he said; ‘it’s not high enough.’
Catherine brought another.
‘That’s too high,’ murmured the provoking thing.
‘How must I arrange it, then?’ she asked despairingly.
He twined himself up to her, and leaned on her shoulder.
‘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. I shall have far greater misery than he will tonight, if I believe he is the worse for my visit: and then I will not dare come again. Tell the truth, Linton; for I mustn’t come, i
f I have hurt you.’
‘You must come, to cure me,’ he answered. ‘You ought to come, because you have hurt me extremely! I was not as ill when you entered – was I?’
‘But you’ve made yourself ill by crying,’ said his cousin. ‘However, we’ll be friends now. Would you wish to see me sometimes, really?’
‘I told you I did,’ he replied impatiently. ‘Sit down and let me lean on your knee. That’s like mamma used to do. Sit still and don’t talk: but you may 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, despite my objections; and so they went on until we heard Hareton outside, returning for his dinner.
‘And Catherine, will you be here tomorrow?’ asked Linton, holding her frock as she rose reluctantly.
‘No,’ I answered, ‘nor next day neither.’ She, however, gave a different response, for his forehead cleared as she stooped and whispered in his ear.
‘You won’t go tomorrow, Miss!’ I said, when we were out of the house. She smiled.
‘I’ll have that lock mended,’ I continued.
‘I can get over the wall,’ she said, laughing. ‘You are not my jailer, Ellen. Besides, I’m almost seventeen. And I’m certain Linton would recover quickly if he had me to look after him. I’m older than he is, and wiser: I can coax him. 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. 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 guessed, he’ll not reach twenty. I doubt whether he’ll see spring, indeed. And small loss to his family, so tedious and selfish he is. I’m glad you have no chance of having him for a husband, Miss Catherine.’
My companion grew serious at hearing this speech.
‘He’s younger than I,’ she answered, after some thought, ‘and he ought to live as long as I do. He’s as strong now as when he first came, I’m sure. It’s only a cold that ails him, the same as papa. 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, if you attempt going to Wuthering Heights again, with or without me, I shall inform Mr. Linton. Unless he allows 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.
We reached home before dinner-time; I hastened to change my soaked shoes and stockings; but on the next morning I was laid up, and for three weeks I was unable to attend to my duties: a calamity never experienced before or since.
My little mistress behaved like an angel in waiting on me, and cheering my solitude. The moment she left Mr. Linton’s room she appeared at my bedside. Her day was divided between us: she neglected her meals, her studies, and her play; and she was the fondest nurse that ever watched.
But after six o’clock, 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, I laid it to the charge of a hot fire in the library, rather than a cold ride across the moors.