WUTHERING HEIGHTS
PART 2
CHAPTER III
While
leading the way upstairs, she recommended that I should hide the candle, and
not make a noise; for her master had an odd notion about the chamber she would
put me in, and never let anybody lodge there willingly. I asked the
reason. She did not know, she answered: she had only lived there a year
or two; and they had so many queer goings on, she could not begin to be
curious.
Too
stupefied to be curious myself, I fastened my door and glanced round for the
bed. The whole furniture consisted of a chair, a clothes-press, and a
large oak case, with squares cut out near the top resembling coach
windows. Having approached this structure, I looked inside, and perceived
it to be a singular sort of old-fashioned couch, very conveniently designed to
obviate the necessity for every member of the family having a room to
himself. In fact, it formed a little closet, and the ledge of a window,
which it enclosed, served as a table. I slid back the panelled sides, got
in with my light, pulled them together again, and felt secure against the
vigilance of Heathcliff, and every one else.
The ledge,
where I placed my candle, had a few mildewed books piled up in one corner; and
it was covered with writing scratched on the paint. This writing,
however, was nothing but a name repeated in all kinds of characters, large and
small—Catherine Earnshaw, here
and there varied to Catherine
Heathcliff, and then again to Catherine
Linton.
In vapid
listlessness I leant my head against the window, and continued spelling over
Catherine Earnshaw—Heathcliff—Linton, till my eyes closed; but they had not
rested five minutes when a glare of white letters started from the dark, as
vivid as spectres—the air swarmed with Catherines; and rousing myself to dispel
the obtrusive name, I discovered my candle-wick reclining on one of the antique
volumes, and perfuming the place with an odour of roasted calf-skin. I
snuffed it off, and, very ill at ease under the influence of cold and lingering
nausea, sat up and spread open the injured tome on my knee. It was a
Testament, in lean type, and smelling dreadfully musty: a fly-leaf bore the
inscription—‘Catherine Earnshaw, her book,’ and a date some quarter of a
century back. I shut it, and took up another and another, till I had
examined all. Catherine’s library was select, and its state of
dilapidation proved it to have been well used, though not altogether for a
legitimate purpose: scarcely one chapter had escaped, a pen-and-ink
commentary—at least the appearance of one—covering every morsel of blank that
the printer had left. Some were detached sentences; other parts took the
form of a regular diary, scrawled in an unformed, childish hand. At the
top of an extra page (quite a treasure, probably, when first lighted on) I was
greatly amused to behold an excellent caricature of my friend Joseph,—rudely,
yet powerfully sketched. An immediate interest kindled within me for the
unknown Catherine, and I began forthwith to decipher her faded hieroglyphics.
‘An awful
Sunday,’ commenced the paragraph beneath. ‘I wish my father were back
again. Hindley is a detestable substitute—his conduct to Heathcliff is
atrocious—H. and I are going to rebel—we took our initiatory step this evening.
‘All day
had been flooding with rain; we could not go to church, so Joseph must needs
get up a congregation in the garret; and, while Hindley and his wife basked
downstairs before a comfortable fire—doing anything but reading their Bibles,
I’ll answer for it—Heathcliff, myself, and the unhappy ploughboy were commanded
to take our prayer-books, and mount: we were ranged in a row, on a sack of
corn, groaning and shivering, and hoping that Joseph would shiver too, so that
he might give us a short homily for his own sake. A vain idea! The
service lasted precisely three hours; and yet my brother had the face to
exclaim, when he saw us descending, “What, done already?” On Sunday
evenings we used to be permitted to play, if we did not make much noise; now a
mere titter is sufficient to send us into corners.
‘“You
forget you have a master here,” says the tyrant. “I’ll demolish the first
who puts me out of temper! I insist on perfect sobriety and
silence. Oh, boy! was that you? Frances darling, pull his hair as
you go by: I heard him snap his fingers.” Frances pulled his hair
heartily, and then went and seated herself on her husband’s knee, and there
they were, like two babies, kissing and talking nonsense by the hour—foolish
palaver that we should be ashamed of. We made ourselves as snug as our
means allowed in the arch of the dresser. I had just fastened our
pinafores together, and hung them up for a curtain, when in comes Joseph, on an
errand from the stables. He tears down my handiwork, boxes my ears, and
croaks:
‘“T’
maister nobbut just buried, and Sabbath not o’ered, und t’ sound o’ t’ gospel
still i’ yer lugs, and ye darr be laiking! Shame on ye! sit ye down, ill
childer! there’s good books eneugh if ye’ll read ’em: sit ye down, and think o’
yer sowls!”
‘Saying
this, he compelled us so to square our positions that we might receive from the
far-off fire a dull ray to show us the text of the lumber he thrust upon
us. I could not bear the employment. I took my dingy volume by the
scroop, and hurled it into the dog-kennel, vowing I hated a good book.
Heathcliff kicked his to the same place. Then there was a hubbub!
‘“Maister
Hindley!” shouted our chaplain. “Maister, coom hither! Miss Cathy’s
riven th’ back off ‘Th’ Helmet o’ Salvation,’ un’ Heathcliff’s pawsed his fit
into t’ first part o’ ‘T’ Brooad Way to Destruction!’ It’s fair flaysome
that ye let ’em go on this gait. Ech! th’ owd man wad ha’ laced ’em
properly—but he’s goan!”
‘Hindley
hurried up from his paradise on the hearth, and seizing one of us by the
collar, and the other by the arm, hurled both into the back-kitchen; where,
Joseph asseverated, “owd Nick” would fetch us as sure as we were living: and,
so comforted, we each sought a separate nook to await his advent. I reached
this book, and a pot of ink from a shelf, and pushed the house-door ajar to
give me light, and I have got the time on with writing for twenty minutes; but
my companion is impatient, and proposes that we should appropriate the
dairywoman’s cloak, and have a scamper on the moors, under its shelter. A
pleasant suggestion—and then, if the surly old man come in, he may believe his
prophecy verified—we cannot be damper, or colder, in the rain than we are
here.’
* * * * *
*
I suppose
Catherine fulfilled her project, for the next sentence took up another subject:
she waxed lachrymose.
‘How
little did I dream that Hindley would ever make me cry so!’ she wrote.
‘My head aches, till I cannot keep it on the pillow; and still I can’t give
over. Poor Heathcliff! Hindley calls him a vagabond, and won’t let
him sit with us, nor eat with us any more; and, he says, he and I must not play
together, and threatens to turn him out of the house if we break his
orders. He has been blaming our father (how dared he?) for treating H.
too liberally; and swears he will reduce him to his right place—’
* * * * *
*
I began to
nod drowsily over the dim page: my eye wandered from manuscript to print.
I saw a red ornamented title—‘Seventy Times Seven, and the First of the
Seventy-First. A Pious Discourse delivered by the Reverend Jabez Branderham, in
the Chapel of Gimmerden Sough.’ And while I was, half-consciously,
worrying my brain to guess what Jabez Branderham would make of his subject, I
sank back in bed, and fell asleep. Alas, for the effects of bad tea and
bad temper! What else could it be that made me pass such a terrible
night? I don’t remember another that I can at all compare with it since I
was capable of suffering.
I began to
dream, almost before I ceased to be sensible of my locality. I thought it
was morning; and I had set out on my way home, with Joseph for a guide.
The snow lay yards deep in our road; and, as we floundered on, my companion
wearied me with constant reproaches that I had not brought a pilgrim’s staff:
telling me that I could never get into the house without one, and boastfully
flourishing a heavy-headed cudgel, which I understood to be so
denominated. For a moment I considered it absurd that I should need such
a weapon to gain admittance into my own residence. Then a new idea
flashed across me. I was not going there: we were journeying to hear the
famous Jabez Branderham preach, from the text—‘Seventy Times Seven;’ and either
Joseph, the preacher, or I had committed the ‘First of the Seventy-First,’ and
were to be publicly exposed and excommunicated.
We came to
the chapel. I have passed it really in my walks, twice or thrice; it lies
in a hollow, between two hills: an elevated hollow, near a swamp, whose peaty
moisture is said to answer all the purposes of embalming on the few corpses
deposited there. The roof has been kept whole hitherto; but as the
clergyman’s stipend is only twenty pounds per annum, and a house with two
rooms, threatening speedily to determine into one, no clergyman will undertake
the duties of pastor: especially as it is currently reported that his flock
would rather let him starve than increase the living by one penny from their
own pockets. However, in my dream, Jabez had a full and attentive
congregation; and he preached—good God! what a sermon; divided into four hundred and ninety parts, each
fully equal to an ordinary address from the pulpit, and each discussing a
separate sin! Where he searched for them, I cannot tell. He had his
private manner of interpreting the phrase, and it seemed necessary the brother
should sin different sins on every occasion. They were of the most
curious character: odd transgressions that I never imagined previously.
Oh, how
weary I grew. How I writhed, and yawned, and nodded, and revived! How
I pinched and pricked myself, and rubbed my eyes, and stood up, and sat down
again, and nudged Joseph to inform me if he would ever have done. I was condemned to hear all out: finally,
he reached the ‘First of the
Seventy-First.’ At that crisis, a sudden inspiration descended on
me; I was moved to rise and denounce Jabez Branderham as the sinner of the sin
that no Christian need pardon.
‘Sir,’ I
exclaimed, ‘sitting here within these four walls, at one stretch, I have
endured and forgiven the four hundred and ninety heads of your discourse.
Seventy times seven times have I plucked up my hat and been about to
depart—Seventy times seven times have you preposterously forced me to resume my
seat. The four hundred and ninety-first is too much. Fellow-martyrs,
have at him! Drag him down, and crush him to atoms, that the place which
knows him may know him no more!’
‘Thou art the Man!’ cried Jabez, after
a solemn pause, leaning over his cushion. ‘Seventy times seven times
didst thou gapingly contort thy visage—seventy times seven did I take counsel
with my soul—Lo, this is human weakness: this also may be absolved! The
First of the Seventy-First is come. Brethren, execute upon him the
judgment written. Such honour have all His saints!’
With that
concluding word, the whole assembly, exalting their pilgrim’s staves, rushed
round me in a body; and I, having no weapon to raise in self-defence, commenced
grappling with Joseph, my nearest and most ferocious assailant, for his.
In the confluence of the multitude, several clubs crossed; blows, aimed at me,
fell on other sconces. Presently the whole chapel resounded with rappings
and counter rappings: every man’s hand was against his neighbour; and
Branderham, unwilling to remain idle, poured forth his zeal in a shower of loud
taps on the boards of the pulpit, which responded so smartly that, at last, to
my unspeakable relief, they woke me. And what was it that had suggested
the tremendous tumult? What had played Jabez’s part in the row?
Merely the branch of a fir-tree that touched my lattice as the blast wailed by,
and rattled its dry cones against the panes! I listened doubtingly an
instant; detected the disturber, then turned and dozed, and dreamt again: if
possible, still more disagreeably than before.
This time,
I remembered I was lying in the oak closet, and I heard distinctly the gusty
wind, and the driving of the snow; I heard, also, the fir bough repeat its
teasing sound, and ascribed it to the right cause: but it annoyed me so much,
that I resolved to silence it, if possible; and, I thought, I rose and
endeavoured to unhasp the casement. The hook was soldered into the
staple: a circumstance observed by me when awake, but forgotten. ‘I must
stop it, nevertheless!’ I muttered, knocking my knuckles through the glass, and
stretching an arm out to seize the importunate branch; instead of which, my
fingers closed on the fingers of a little, ice-cold hand! The intense
horror of nightmare came over me: I tried to draw back my arm, but the hand
clung to it, and a most melancholy voice sobbed, ‘Let me in—let me in!’
‘Who are you?’ I asked, struggling, meanwhile, to disengage myself.
‘Catherine Linton,’ it replied, shiveringly (why did I think of Linton? I had read Earnshaw twenty times for
Linton)—‘I’m come home: I’d lost my way on the moor!’ As it spoke, I
discerned, obscurely, a child’s face looking through the window. Terror
made me cruel; and, finding it useless to attempt shaking the creature off, I
pulled its wrist on to the broken pane, and rubbed it to and fro till the blood
ran down and soaked the bedclothes: still it wailed, ‘Let me in!’ and
maintained its tenacious grip, almost maddening me with fear. ‘How can
I!’ I said at length. ‘Let me
go, if you want me to let you in!’ The fingers relaxed, I snatched mine
through the hole, hurriedly piled the books up in a pyramid against it, and
stopped my ears to exclude the lamentable prayer. I seemed to keep them
closed above a quarter of an hour; yet, the instant I listened again, there was
the doleful cry moaning on! ‘Begone!’ I shouted. ‘I’ll never let
you in, not if you beg for twenty years.’ ‘It is twenty years,’ mourned
the voice: ‘twenty years. I’ve been a waif for twenty years!’
Thereat began a feeble scratching outside, and the pile of books moved as if
thrust forward. I tried to jump up; but could not stir a limb; and so
yelled aloud, in a frenzy of fright. To my confusion, I discovered the
yell was not ideal: hasty footsteps approached my chamber door; somebody pushed
it open, with a vigorous hand, and a light glimmered through the squares at the
top of the bed. I sat shuddering yet, and wiping the perspiration from my
forehead: the intruder appeared to hesitate, and muttered to himself. At
last, he said, in a half-whisper, plainly not expecting an answer, ‘Is any one
here?’ I considered it best to confess my presence; for I knew
Heathcliff’s accents, and feared he might search further, if I kept
quiet. With this intention, I turned and opened the panels. I shall
not soon forget the effect my action produced.
Heathcliff
stood near the entrance, in his shirt and trousers; with a candle dripping over
his fingers, and his face as white as the wall behind him. The first
creak of the oak startled him like an electric shock: the light leaped from his
hold to a distance of some feet, and his agitation was so extreme, that he
could hardly pick it up.
‘It is
only your guest, sir,’ I called out, desirous to spare him the humiliation of
exposing his cowardice further. ‘I had the misfortune to scream in my
sleep, owing to a frightful nightmare. I’m sorry I disturbed you.’
‘Oh, God
confound you, Mr. Lockwood! I wish you were at the—’ commenced my host,
setting the candle on a chair, because he found it impossible to hold it
steady. ‘And who showed you up into this room?’ he continued, crushing
his nails into his palms, and grinding his teeth to subdue the maxillary
convulsions. ‘Who was it? I’ve a good mind to turn them out of the
house this moment?’
‘It was
your servant Zillah,’ I replied, flinging myself on to the floor, and rapidly
resuming my garments. ‘I should not care if you did, Mr. Heathcliff; she
richly deserves it. I suppose that she wanted to get another proof that
the place was haunted, at my expense. Well, it is—swarming with ghosts
and goblins! You have reason in shutting it up, I assure you. No
one will thank you for a doze in such a den!’
‘What do
you mean?’ asked Heathcliff, ‘and what are you doing? Lie down and finish
out the night, since you are
here; but, for heaven’s sake! don’t repeat that horrid noise: nothing could
excuse it, unless you were having your throat cut!’
‘If the
little fiend had got in at the window, she probably would have strangled me!’ I
returned. ‘I’m not going to endure the persecutions of your hospitable
ancestors again. Was not the Reverend Jabez Branderham akin to you on the
mother’s side? And that minx, Catherine Linton, or Earnshaw, or however
she was called—she must have been a changeling—wicked little soul! She
told me she had been walking the earth these twenty years: a just punishment
for her mortal transgressions, I’ve no doubt!’
Scarcely
were these words uttered when I recollected the association of Heathcliff’s
with Catherine’s name in the book, which had completely slipped from my memory,
till thus awakened. I blushed at my inconsideration: but, without showing
further consciousness of the offence, I hastened to add—‘The truth is, sir, I
passed the first part of the night in—’ Here I stopped afresh—I was about
to say ‘perusing those old volumes,’ then it would have revealed my knowledge
of their written, as well as their printed, contents; so, correcting myself, I
went on—‘in spelling over the name scratched on that window-ledge. A monotonous
occupation, calculated to set me asleep, like counting, or—’
‘What can you mean by talking in this way
to me!’ thundered Heathcliff
with savage vehemence. ‘How—how dare
you, under my roof?—God! he’s mad to speak so!’ And he struck his
forehead with rage.
I did not
know whether to resent this language or pursue my explanation; but he seemed so
powerfully affected that I took pity and proceeded with my dreams; affirming I
had never heard the appellation of ‘Catherine Linton’ before, but reading it
often over produced an impression which personified itself when I had no longer
my imagination under control. Heathcliff gradually fell back into the
shelter of the bed, as I spoke; finally sitting down almost concealed behind
it. I guessed, however, by his irregular and intercepted breathing, that
he struggled to vanquish an excess of violent emotion. Not liking to show
him that I had heard the conflict, I continued my toilette rather noisily,
looked at my watch, and soliloquised on the length of the night: ‘Not three
o’clock yet! I could have taken oath it had been six. Time
stagnates here: we must surely have retired to rest at eight!’
‘Always at
nine in winter, and rise at four,’ said my host, suppressing a groan: and, as I
fancied, by the motion of his arm’s shadow, dashing a tear from his eyes.
‘Mr. Lockwood,’ he added, ‘you may go into my room: you’ll only be in the way,
coming down-stairs so early: and your childish outcry has sent sleep to the
devil for me.’
‘And for
me, too,’ I replied. ‘I’ll walk in the yard till daylight, and then I’ll
be off; and you need not dread a repetition of my intrusion. I’m now
quite cured of seeking pleasure in society, be it country or town. A
sensible man ought to find sufficient company in himself.’
‘Delightful
company!’ muttered Heathcliff. ‘Take the candle, and go where you
please. I shall join you directly. Keep out of the yard, though,
the dogs are unchained; and the house—Juno mounts sentinel there, and—nay, you
can only ramble about the steps and passages. But, away with you!
I’ll come in two minutes!’
I obeyed,
so far as to quit the chamber; when, ignorant where the narrow lobbies led, I
stood still, and was witness, involuntarily, to a piece of superstition on the
part of my landlord which belied, oddly, his apparent sense. He got on to
the bed, and wrenched open the lattice, bursting, as he pulled at it, into an
uncontrollable passion of tears. ‘Come in! come in!’ he sobbed.
‘Cathy, do come. Oh, do—once
more! Oh! my heart’s darling! hear me this time, Catherine, at last!’ The spectre showed a
spectre’s ordinary caprice: it gave no sign of being; but the snow and wind
whirled wildly through, even reaching my station, and blowing out the light.
There was
such anguish in the gush of grief that accompanied this raving, that my
compassion made me overlook its folly, and I drew off, half angry to have
listened at all, and vexed at having related my ridiculous nightmare, since it
produced that agony; though why
was beyond my comprehension. I descended cautiously to the lower regions,
and landed in the back-kitchen, where a gleam of fire, raked compactly
together, enabled me to rekindle my candle. Nothing was stirring except a
brindled, grey cat, which crept from the ashes, and saluted me with a querulous
mew.
Two
benches, shaped in sections of a circle, nearly enclosed the hearth; on one of
these I stretched myself, and Grimalkin mounted the other. We were both
of us nodding ere any one invaded our retreat, and then it was Joseph,
shuffling down a wooden ladder that vanished in the roof, through a trap: the
ascent to his garret, I suppose. He cast a sinister look at the little
flame which I had enticed to play between the ribs, swept the cat from its
elevation, and bestowing himself in the vacancy, commenced the operation of
stuffing a three-inch pipe with tobacco. My presence in his sanctum was
evidently esteemed a piece of impudence too shameful for remark: he silently
applied the tube to his lips, folded his arms, and puffed away. I let him
enjoy the luxury unannoyed; and after sucking out his last wreath, and heaving
a profound sigh, he got up, and departed as solemnly as he came.
A more
elastic footstep entered next; and now I opened my mouth for a ‘good-morning,’
but closed it again, the salutation unachieved; for Hareton Earnshaw was
performing his orison sotto voce,
in a series of curses directed against every object he touched, while he
rummaged a corner for a spade or shovel to dig through the drifts. He
glanced over the back of the bench, dilating his nostrils, and thought as
little of exchanging civilities with me as with my companion the cat. I
guessed, by his preparations, that egress was allowed, and, leaving my hard
couch, made a movement to follow him. He noticed this, and thrust at an
inner door with the end of his spade, intimating by an inarticulate sound that
there was the place where I must go, if I changed my locality.
It opened
into the house, where the females were already astir; Zillah urging flakes of
flame up the chimney with a colossal bellows; and Mrs. Heathcliff, kneeling on
the hearth, reading a book by the aid of the blaze. She held her hand
interposed between the furnace-heat and her eyes, and seemed absorbed in her
occupation; desisting from it only to chide the servant for covering her with
sparks, or to push away a dog, now and then, that snoozled its nose
overforwardly into her face. I was surprised to see Heathcliff there
also. He stood by the fire, his back towards me, just finishing a stormy
scene with poor Zillah; who ever and anon interrupted her labour to pluck up
the corner of her apron, and heave an indignant groan.
‘And you,
you worthless—’ he broke out as I entered, turning to his daughter-in-law, and
employing an epithet as harmless as duck, or sheep, but generally represented
by a dash—. ‘There you are, at your idle tricks again! The rest of
them do earn their bread—you live on my charity! Put your trash away, and
find something to do. You shall pay me for the plague of having you eternally
in my sight—do you hear, damnable jade?’
‘I’ll put
my trash away, because you can make me if I refuse,’ answered the young lady,
closing her book, and throwing it on a chair. ‘But I’ll not do anything,
though you should swear your tongue out, except what I please!’
Heathcliff
lifted his hand, and the speaker sprang to a safer distance, obviously
acquainted with its weight. Having no desire to be entertained by a
cat-and-dog combat, I stepped forward briskly, as if eager to partake the
warmth of the hearth, and innocent of any knowledge of the interrupted
dispute. Each had enough decorum to suspend further hostilities:
Heathcliff placed his fists, out of temptation, in his pockets; Mrs. Heathcliff
curled her lip, and walked to a seat far off, where she kept her word by playing
the part of a statue during the remainder of my stay. That was not
long. I declined joining their breakfast, and, at the first gleam of
dawn, took an opportunity of escaping into the free air, now clear, and still,
and cold as impalpable ice.
My landlord
halloed for me to stop ere I reached the bottom of the garden, and offered to
accompany me across the moor. It was well he did, for the whole hill-back
was one billowy, white ocean; the swells and falls not indicating corresponding
rises and depressions in the ground: many pits, at least, were filled to a
level; and entire ranges of mounds, the refuse of the quarries, blotted from
the chart which my yesterday’s walk left pictured in my mind. I had
remarked on one side of the road, at intervals of six or seven yards, a line of
upright stones, continued through the whole length of the barren: these were
erected and daubed with lime on purpose to serve as guides in the dark, and
also when a fall, like the present, confounded the deep swamps on either hand
with the firmer path: but, excepting a dirty dot pointing up here and there,
all traces of their existence had vanished: and my companion found it necessary
to warn me frequently to steer to the right or left, when I imagined I was
following, correctly, the windings of the road.
We
exchanged little conversation, and he halted at the entrance of Thrushcross
Park, saying, I could make no error there. Our adieux were limited to a
hasty bow, and then I pushed forward, trusting to my own resources; for the
porter’s lodge is untenanted as yet. The distance from the gate to the
grange is two miles; I believe I managed to make it four, what with losing
myself among the trees, and sinking up to the neck in snow: a predicament which
only those who have experienced it can appreciate. At any rate, whatever
were my wanderings, the clock chimed twelve as I entered the house; and that
gave exactly an hour for every mile of the usual way from Wuthering Heights.
My human
fixture and her satellites rushed to welcome me; exclaiming, tumultuously, they
had completely given me up: everybody conjectured that I perished last night;
and they were wondering how they must set about the search for my
remains. I bid them be quiet, now that they saw me returned, and, benumbed
to my very heart, I dragged up-stairs; whence, after putting on dry clothes,
and pacing to and fro thirty or forty minutes, to restore the animal heat, I
adjourned to my study, feeble as a kitten: almost too much so to enjoy the
cheerful fire and smoking coffee which the servant had prepared for my
refreshment.
To be continued
