CHAPTER 2
Yesterday afternoon set in misty and cold. I had half a mind to spend it by my study fire, instead of wading through heath and mud to Wuthering Heights. After dinner, however – (I dine between twelve and one o’clock, since the housekeeper cannot comprehend my request to be served at five) – I stepped into my study to see a servant-girl on her knees surrounded by brushes and coal-scuttles, and raising an infernal dust. So I took my hat, and, after a four-miles’ walk, arrived at Heathcliff’s garden-gate just in time to escape the first feathery flakes of a snow-shower.
On that bleak hill-top the earth was hard with a black frost, and the air made me shiver through every limb. I jumped over the gate, and, running up the flag-stoned path, knocked vainly for admittance, till my knuckles tingled and the dogs howled.
‘Wretched, unwelcoming inmates!’ I thought; ‘I would not keep my doors barred in the day-time. I will get in!’
I grasped the latch and shook it. Vinegar-faced Joseph put his head out from a round window of the barn.
‘What do ye want?’ he shouted. ‘T’ master’s down in t’ fold. Go round by t’ barn, if ye want to speak to him.’
‘Is there nobody inside to open the door?’ I cried.
‘There’s nobbut t’ missis; and she’ll not open it for ye.’
‘Why? Can’t you tell her who I am, Joseph?’
‘No! I’ll have no hand in it,’ muttered the head, vanishing.
The snow began to drive thickly. I seized the handle to try again; when a young man shouldering a pitchfork appeared in the yard. He called me to follow him, and, after marching through a wash-house, and a paved area containing a coal-shed and pump, we at length arrived in the huge, warm, cheerful room where I was formerly received.
It glowed delightfully in the radiance of an immense fire. Near the table, laid for a plentiful evening meal, I was pleased to observe the ‘missis,’ a person whose existence I had not suspected. I bowed and waited, thinking she would bid me take a seat. She looked at me, leaning back in her chair, and said nothing.
‘Rough weather!’ I remarked. ‘I’m afraid, Mrs. Heathcliff, I had hard work to make your servants hear me.’
She never opened her mouth. I stared – she stared also, in a cool manner, exceedingly embarrassing and disagreeable.
‘Sit down,’ said the young man, gruffly. ‘He’ll be in soon.’
I obeyed; and called the villainous dog, Juno, who deigned, at this second meeting, to move the extreme tip of her tail in acknowledgment.
‘A beautiful animal!’ I said. ‘Do you intend parting with the pups, madam?’
‘They are not mine,’ said the amiable hostess repellingly.
‘Ah, your favourites are these?’ I continued, turning to a cushion full of something like cats.
‘A strange choice of favourites!’ she said scornfully.
Unluckily, it was a heap of dead rabbits. I coughed, and drew closer to the hearth, repeating my comment on the wildness of the evening.
‘You should not have come out,’ she said, rising to take a canister from the chimney-piece.
Now I had a clear view of her face and figure. She was slender, and scarcely past girlhood: with an admirable form, and the most exquisite little face that I have seen; small features, very fair; golden ringlets hanging loose on her delicate neck; and eyes which would have been irresistible if their expression had been more agreeable. Fortunately for my susceptible heart, the only emotions they showed were scorn and a kind of desperation. The canister was almost out of her reach; I rose to aid her, and she turned on me.
‘I don’t want your help,’ she snapped.
‘I beg your pardon!’
‘Were you asked to tea?’ she demanded, tying an apron over her neat black frock, and standing with a spoon poised over the pot.
‘I shall be glad to have a cup,’ I answered.
‘Were you asked?’ she repeated.
‘No,’ I said, half smiling. ‘You are the proper person to ask me.’
She flung the tea back, spoon and all, and sat down again petulantly; her forehead corrugated, and her red under-lip pushed out, like a child’s ready to cry.
Meanwhile, the young man had slung on a shabby coat, and looked at me sidelong as if there were some mortal feud between us. I could not be sure whether he were a servant or not: his dress and speech were both rough, entirely unlike Mr. and Mrs. Heathcliff’s; his thick brown curls were uncombed, his cheeks unshaven, and his hands tanned like a common labourer’s. Still his attitude was almost haughty, and he showed none of a servant’s haste to attend on Mrs Heathcliff. I thought it best to ignore his curious conduct; and, five minutes afterwards, the entrance of Heathcliff relieved me.
‘You see, sir, I have come, as I promised!’ I exclaimed with pretended cheerfulness. ‘I fear I shall be weather-bound for half an hour, if you can give me shelter for that time.’
‘Half an hour?’ he said, shaking the white flakes from his clothes; ‘I wonder you should choose a snow-storm to ramble about in. You risk being lost in the marshes. Even people familiar with these moors often miss their road on such evenings; and there is no chance of a change at present.’
‘Perhaps one of your lads can guide me – could you spare one?’
‘No, I could not.’
‘Oh, indeed! Well, then, I must trust to my own judgement.’
‘Umph!’
‘Are you going to make the tea?’ demanded he of the shabby coat, shifting his ferocious gaze from me to the young lady.
‘Is he to have any?’ she asked, appealing to Heathcliff.
‘Get it ready, will you?’ he answered, so savagely that I was startled. I no longer felt inclined to call Heathcliff a capital fellow.
‘Now, sir, bring forward your chair,’ he said. We all drew round the table and began our meal in silence.
I thought, if I had caused the cloud, it was my duty to dispel it. They could not every day sit so grim and taciturn and scowling.
‘It is strange,’ I began, ‘how custom can mould our tastes: many could not imagine any happiness in a life of such complete exile from the world as this, Mr. Heathcliff; yet, I’ll venture to say, that, surrounded by your family, and with your amiable lady presiding over your home and heart—”
‘My amiable lady!’ he interrupted, with an almost diabolical sneer on his face. ‘Where is she?’
‘Mrs. Heathcliff, your wife, I mean.’
‘Oh, you mean that her spirit guards Wuthering Heights, even though she is dead. Is that it?’
Perceiving my blunder, I tried to correct it. I might have seen there was too great a difference in their ages to make it likely that they were man and wife. He was about forty: she did not look seventeen.
Then it flashed upon me – ‘The clown at my elbow, who is drinking his tea out of a basin, may be her husband: Heathcliff junior, of course. Here is the consequence of being buried alive: she has thrown herself away upon that boor from sheer ignorance that better people existed! A sad pity—I must beware how I cause her to regret her choice.’ The last reflection may seem conceited; it was not. My neighbour struck me as repulsive; I knew that I was tolerably attractive.
‘Mrs. Heathcliff is my daughter-in-law,’ said Heathcliff, corroborating my guess. As he spoke, he gave her a most peculiar look of hatred.
‘Ah, I see now: you are the favoured possessor of the good fairy,’ I remarked, turning to my neighbour.
This was worse than before: the youth grew crimson, and clenched his fist as if to strike me, before smothering the storm in a brutal curse.
‘An unhappy guess, sir,’ said my host; ‘we neither of us own your good fairy; her mate is dead. I said she was my daughter-in-law: therefore, she must have married my son.’
‘And this young man is–’
‘Not my son, assuredly.’ Heathcliff smiled again.
‘My name is Hareton Earnshaw,’ growled the other; ‘and I’d counsel you to respect it!’
‘I’ve shown no disr
espect,’ I replied, laughing internally at his dignity.
He fixed his eye on me until I feared I might be tempted either to box his ears or to laugh aloud. I began to feel out of place in that pleasant family circle. The dismal atmosphere overcame the glowing comfort of the fire; and I resolved to be cautious about visiting a third time.
The meal eaten, without a word of conversation, I approached a window to examine the weather. A sorrowful sight I saw: dark night coming down, and sky and hills mingled in one bitter whirl of wind and suffocating snow.
‘I don’t think it’s possible for me to get home now without a guide,’ I exclaimed. ‘The roads will be buried.’
‘Hareton, drive those sheep into the barn porch. They’ll be covered if left in the fold all night,’ said Heathcliff.
‘What must I do?’ I continued, with irritation.
There was no reply; and on looking round I saw only Joseph bringing in a pail of porridge for the dogs, and Mrs. Heathcliff leaning over the fire, diverting herself with burning matches. Joseph, in cracked tones, grated out, ‘I wonder how yah can stand there i’ idleness, when all them’s gone out! But yah’re a nowt, and it’s no use talking – yah’ll never mend yer ill ways, but go right to t’ devil, like yer mother afore ye!’
I imagined, for a moment, that this speech was addressed to me; and, enraged, stepped towards the aged rascal intending to kick him out of the door. Mrs. Heathcliff, however, answered.
‘You scandalous old hypocrite!’ she replied. ‘Don’t provoke me, or I’ll ask the devil to carry you away! Look here, Joseph,’ she continued, taking a long, dark book from a shelf; ‘I’ll show you how far I’ve progressed in the Black Art. The red cow didn’t die by chance; and your rheumatism isn’t caused by bad luck either!’
‘Oh, wicked, wicked!’ gasped the old man; ‘may the Lord deliver us from evil!’
‘Be off, scoundrel, or I’ll have you modelled in wax! and I shall – I’ll not say what – but, you’ll see! Go, I’m looking at you!’
The little witch put a mock malignity into her beautiful eyes, and Joseph, trembling with horror, hurried out, praying, and crying ‘wicked’ as he went. I thought she must be prompted by a sort of dreary fun; and, now that we were alone, I tried to interest her in my distress.
‘Mrs. Heathcliff,’ I said earnestly, ‘with that face, I’m sure you cannot help being good-hearted. Do point out some landmarks by which I may know my way home!’
‘Take the road you came,’ she answered, sitting in a chair, with a candle, and the book open before her. ‘That’s the best advice I can give.’
‘Then, if you hear of me being found dead in a pit full of snow, you won’t feel that it is your fault?’
‘How so? I cannot escort you. They wouldn’t let me go to the end of the garden.’
‘I want you to tell me my way, not to show it,’ I cried; ‘or else to persuade Mr. Heathcliff to give me a guide.’
‘Who? There is him, Earnshaw, Zillah, Joseph and I. Which would you have?’
‘Are there no boys at the farm?’
‘No.’
‘Then I am compelled to stay.’
‘That you may settle with your host,’ she said. ‘I have nothing to do with it.’
‘I hope it will be a lesson to you to make no more rash journeys on these hills,’ cried Heathcliff’s stern voice from the entrance. ‘As to staying here, I don’t keep rooms for visitors: you must share a bed with Hareton or Joseph.’
‘I can sleep on a chair in this room,’ I replied.
‘No, no! I will not permit any one the run of the place while I am asleep!’ said the unmannerly wretch.
With this insult, my patience was at an end. In disgust, I pushed past him into the yard, running into Earnshaw in my haste. It was so dark that I could not see the gate.
At first the young man appeared about to befriend me. ‘I’ll go with him to the park,’ he said.
‘You’ll go with him to hell!’ exclaimed Heathcliff. ‘And who is to look after the horses, eh?’
‘A man’s life matters more than one evening’s neglect of the horses: somebody must go,’ murmured Mrs. Heathcliff, more kindly than I expected.
‘Not at your command!’ retorted Hareton. ‘You’d better be quiet.’
‘Then I hope his ghost will haunt you; and I hope Mr. Heathcliff will never get another tenant till the Grange is a ruin,’ she answered sharply.
‘Hearken, hearken, she’s cursing ’em!’ muttered Joseph. He sat within earshot, milking the cows by the light of a lantern, which I seized. Calling out that I would send it back on the morrow, I rushed to the gate.
‘Master, master, he’s stealing t’ lanthern!’ shouted Joseph. ‘Hey, Gnasher! Hey Wolf, hold him, hold him!’
Two hairy monsters flew at my throat, bearing me down, and extinguishing the light; while a mingled guffaw from Heathcliff and Hareton put the lid on my rage and humiliation. Fortunately, the beasts seemed more bent on yawning than devouring me alive; but they would not let me up, and I was forced to lie till their masters freed me. Then, hatless and trembling with anger, I ordered the rascals to let me out – on their peril to keep me one minute longer – with incoherent threats.
My agitation brought on a copious nosebleed, and still Heathcliff laughed, and still I scolded. I don’t know how it would have ended, had not Zillah, the housekeeper, come out to see what was happening. She thought that they had been laying violent hands on me; and not daring to attack her master, she turned on the younger scoundrel.
‘Well, Mr. Earnshaw,’ she cried, ‘Are we going to murder folk on our very door-stones? Look at t’ poor lad, he’s fair choking! Hush; don’t go on so. Come in, and I’ll cure that: now hold still.’
With these words she splashed a pint of icy water down my neck, and pulled me into the kitchen. Mr. Heathcliff followed, lapsing into his habitual moroseness.
I was sick and faint; and was thus compelled to accept lodgings under his roof. He told Zillah to give me a glass of brandy, and then passed on to the inner room; while she ushered me to bed.