CHAPTER 6
Mr. Hindley came home to the funeral; and to our amazement, brought a wife with him. What she was, and where she was born, he never informed us: probably, she had neither money nor name to recommend her, or he would scarcely have kept the marriage secret from his father.
I thought she was half silly: when the mourners came before the burial, she ran into her room, sat there shivering and clasping her hands, and asked repeatedly, ‘Are they gone yet?’ Then she trembled, and fell a-weeping. When I asked what was the matter, she answered, she didn’t know; but she felt so afraid of dying!
I imagined her as little likely to die as myself. She was rather thin, but young, and pink-cheeked, and her eyes sparkled as bright as diamonds. I did remark, to be sure, that mounting the stairs made her breathe very quick, and that she coughed troublesomely sometimes: but I knew nothing of what these symptoms meant.
Young Earnshaw was altered in the three years of his absence. He spoke and dressed quite differently; and, on the day of his return, he told Joseph and me that we must keep ourselves in the back-kitchen, and leave the main room for him. He would have carpeted a small spare room as a parlour for his wife; but she expressed such pleasure at the white floor and huge glowing fireplace, the pewter dishes and wide space, that he dropped the intention.
She expressed pleasure, too, at finding a sister among her new family, and she prattled to Catherine, and kissed her, and gave her many presents, at the beginning. Her affection tired very soon, however, and when she grew peevish, Hindley became tyrannical. A few words from her, expressing a dislike of Heathcliff, roused Hindley’s old hatred of the boy. He drove Heathcliff from their company to the servants, deprived him of the curate’s lessons, and insisted that he should labour out of doors instead.
Heathcliff bore this pretty well at first, because Cathy taught him what she learnt, and worked or played with him in the fields. They were both growing up as rude as savages; the young master not caring what they did so long as they kept clear of him. He would not even have made them go to church, only Joseph and the curate reprimanded him when they were absent; then he ordered Heathcliff to be flogged, and Catherine to have no dinner.
But it was one of their chief amusements to run away to the moors in the morning and remain there all day, and they laughed at punishments. Joseph might thrash Heathcliff till his arm ached; they forgot everything the minute they were together again: or at least the minute they had thought of some naughty plan of revenge. I saw them growing more reckless daily, but did not dare to speak a word, for fear of losing the small power I still had over them.
One Sunday evening, Cathy and Heathcliff were banished from the sitting-room, for making a noise; and when I went to call them to supper, I could find them nowhere. We searched the house, and the yard and stables; they were invisible. At last, Hindley in fury told us to bolt the doors, and swore nobody should let them in that night.
The household went to bed. I opened my window and put my head out to listen, though it rained, determined to let them in if they returned. In a while, I heard steps coming up the road, and the light of a lantern glimmered through the gate. I threw a shawl over my head and ran to prevent them from waking Mr. Earnshaw by knocking. There was Heathcliff, by himself: it gave me a start to see him alone.
‘Where is Miss Catherine?’ I cried.
‘At Thrushcross Grange,’ he answered; ‘and I would have been there too, but they had not the manners to ask me to stay.’
‘Well, you will catch it!’ I said: “What in the world made you wander to Thrushcross Grange?’
‘Let me get off my wet clothes, and I’ll tell you all about it, Nelly,’ he replied. While he undressed, he continued: ‘Cathy and I escaped for a ramble, and getting a glimpse of the Grange lights, we thought we would just go and see if the Lintons passed their Sunday evenings standing shivering in corners, while their father and mother sat eating and drinking, and singing and laughing. Do you think they do?’
‘Probably not,’ I responded. ‘They are good children, no doubt, and don’t deserve the treatment you get for your bad conduct.’
‘Nonsense, Nelly!’ he said. ‘We ran from the top of the Heights without stopping – Catherine completely beaten in the race, because she was barefoot. You’ll have to seek for her shoes in the bog tomorrow. We crept through a broken hedge, groped our way up the path, and planted ourselves under the drawing-room window. The curtains were only half closed, and we could look in by clinging to the ledge.
‘Ah! it was beautiful – a splendid place carpeted with crimson, and crimson-covered chairs and tables, and a pure white ceiling bordered by gold. Old Mr. and Mrs. Linton were not there; Edgar and his sister had it to themselves. Shouldn’t they have been happy? We should have thought ourselves in heaven!
‘And now, guess what your good children were doing? Isabella – I believe she is eleven, a year younger than Cathy – lay screaming at the far end of the room, shrieking as if witches were running red-hot needles into her. Edgar stood on the hearth weeping, and in the middle of the table sat a little dog, shaking its paw and yelping; which they had nearly pulled in two between them. The idiots! We laughed outright; we did despise them! When would you find us yelling, and sobbing, and rolling on the ground? I’d not exchange my condition here, for Edgar Linton’s – not if I might paint the house-front with Hindley’s blood!’
‘Hush, hush!’ I interrupted. ‘Still you have not told me, Heathcliff, how Catherine is left behind?’
‘The Lintons heard us laughing, and they howled out, “Oh, mamma, papa! Oh, come here. Oh, papa, oh!” We made frightful noises to terrify them, and then we dropped off the ledge, because somebody was opening the door, and we felt we had better flee. I was urging Cathy on, when she fell.
‘“Run, Heathcliff, run!” she whispered. “The bull-dog holds me!” The devil had seized her ankle, Nelly. She did not yell out – no! But I cursed it, and I got a stone and thrust it between his jaws, and tried with all my might to cram it down his throat. A servant came up with a lantern shouting, “Hold fast, Skulker!” He changed his note, however, when he saw the dog half throttled; his huge, purple tongue hanging out of his mouth, and slavering.
‘The man took Cathy up; she was sick from pain. He carried her in; I followed, grumbling vengeance.
‘“What prey, Robert?” called Linton.
‘“Skulker has caught a little girl, sir,” he replied; “and there’s a lad here who looks a rogue! Very likely robbers were going to put them through the window to open the doors after all were asleep. Hold your tongue, you foul-mouthed thief, you! Mr. Linton, sir, don’t lay aside your gun.”
‘“No, Robert,” said the old fool. “To rob a magistrate in his home, and on the Sabbath, too! Where will their insolence stop? Oh, my dear Mary, look here! Don’t be afraid, it is only a boy – yet the villain scowls; would it not be a kindness to the country to hang him at once?”
‘He pulled me under the chandelier, and Mrs. Linton raised her hands in horror. The cowardly children crept nearer also, Isabella lisping – “Frightful thing! Put him in the cellar, papa. He’s like the son of the fortune-teller that stole my tame pheasant. Isn’t he, Edgar?”
‘Cathy heard her, and laughed. Edgar Linton then recognised her from church.
‘“That’s Miss Earnshaw!” he whispered to his mother, “and look how Skulker has bitten her – how she bleeds!”
‘“Miss Earnshaw? Nonsense!” cried she; “Miss Earnshaw scouring the country with a gipsy! And yet the child is in mourning – surely it is her – and she may be lamed for life!”
‘“What carelessness in her brother!” exclaimed Mr. Linton. “The curate says he lets her grow up in absolute heathenism. But where did she pick up this companion? Oho! He is that strange acquisition my late neighbour made, in his journey to Liverpool—a little Lascar, or a Spanish castaway.”
‘“A wicked boy, at all events,” remarked the old lady, “and quite unfit for a decent house! Did you hear his la
nguage?”
‘I began cursing again – don’t be angry, Nelly – and Robert was ordered to take me off. He dragged me into the garden, and, bidding me march, locked the door. But I spied on them; because, if Catherine wished to leave, I intended shattering their great glass panes to a million fragments, unless they let her out.
‘She sat on the sofa quietly. Mrs. Linton took off her cloak. The woman-servant brought a basin of warm water, and washed her feet; and Mr. Linton mixed wine and lemon for her, and Isabella emptied a plateful of cakes into her lap, and Edgar stood gaping. They dried and combed her beautiful hair, and gave her a pair of enormous slippers, and wheeled her to the fire, where she was as merry as she could be, dividing her food between the little dog and Skulker, and kindling a spark of spirit in the vacant blue eyes of the Lintons – a dim reflection from her own enchanting face. They were full of stupid admiration; she is so superior to them – to everybody on earth, is she not, Nelly?’
‘More will come of this,’ I answered. ‘You are incurable, Heathcliff; and Mr. Hindley will punish you.’ My words came true: the adventure made Earnshaw furious. And then Mr. Linton paid us a visit the next day, and read Hindley a lecture on how he guided his family.
Heathcliff was not flogged, but he was told that the first word he spoke to Miss Catherine should ensure his dismissal. Mrs. Earnshaw tried to keep Catherine restrained when she returned home; using art, not force: with force she would have found it impossible.