Wuthering Bites (14 page)

‘She degenerates into a mere slut!' accused Heathcliff. ‘She is tired of trying to please me, already. However, she'll suit this house better for not being overnice, and I'll take care she does not disgrace me by rambling abroad.'

‘Well, sir,' returned I, ‘I hope you'll consider that Mrs. Heathcliff is accustomed to be looked after and waited on. You must let her have a maid to keep things tidy about her, and you must treat her kindly.'

‘She abandoned that life of her own free will, under a delusion, I will admit,' he answered, ‘picturing in me a hero of romance, and expecting unlimited indulgences from my chivalrous devotion. But, at last, I think she begins to know me. I don't perceive the silly smiles and grimaces that provoked me at first. She knows full well now that I did not love her. She can go if she so wishes.'

‘Mr. Heathcliff,' said I, ‘this is the talk of a madman, and your wife, most likely, is convinced you are mad. For that reason, she has indulged you, but now that you say she may go, she'll doubtless avail herself of the permission. You are not so bewitched, ma'am, are you, as to remain with him of your own accord?'

‘Take care, Nelly!' answered Isabella, her eyes sparkling irefully. ‘Don't put faith in a single word he speaks. He's a lying fiend! A monster, and not a human being! I've been told I might leave him before, and I've made the attempt, but I dare not repeat it! Only, Nelly, promise you'll not mention a syllable of this infamous conversation to my brother or Catherine. Whatever my husband may pretend, he wishes to provoke Edgar to desperation. He says he has married me on purpose to obtain power over Edgar, but he shan't obtain it—I'll die first! I just hope, I pray, that he may forget his diabolical prudence, and kill me! The single pleasure I can imagine, is to die, or to see him dead!'

‘There—that will do for the present!' said Heathcliff. ‘If you are called upon in a court of law, you'll remember her language, Nelly! You're not fit to be your own guardian, Isabella, and I, being your legal protector, must retain you in my custody for your own good. Go upstairs. I have something to say to Nelly in private.'

He thrust her from the room, and returned muttering, ‘I have no pity! I have no pity! The more the worms writhe, the more I yearn to crush out their entrails!'

‘Do you understand what the word
pity
means?' I said, hastening to take up my bonnet. ‘Did you ever feel a touch of it in your life?'

‘You are not going yet. Come here now, Nelly. I must either persuade or compel you to aid me in fulfilling my determination to see Catherine without delay. I swear that I intend no harm. I only wish to hear from herself how she is, and to ask if anything I could do would be of use to her. The thought that she could have been bitten pains me beyond words. Last night, I was in the Grange garden six hours, and I'll return there tonight and every night I'll haunt the place—'

‘Haunt? That is an interesting choice of words, sir,' I challenged.

He scowled and continued. ‘I will go every day, till I find an opportunity of entering. If Edgar Linton meets me, I shall not hesitate to knock him down. If his servants oppose me, I shall threaten them off with pistols. But wouldn't it be better to prevent my coming in contact with them, or their master? And you could do it so easily.'

‘The commonest occurrence startles her painfully,' I said. ‘She's all nerves, and she couldn't bear the surprise. If you pursue this, I shall be obliged to inform my master of your designs, and he'll take measures to secure his house!'

‘In that case, I'll keep you here, woman!' exclaimed Heathcliff. ‘You shall not leave Wuthering Heights till tomorrow morning. It is a foolish story to assert that Catherine could not bear to see me. As to surprising her, I don't desire it. You must prepare her—ask her if I may come. You say she never mentions my name, and that I am never mentioned to her. To whom should she mention me if I am a forbidden topic in the house? She thinks you are all spies for her husband. Oh, I've no doubt she's in hell among you! I guess by her silence, as much as anything, what she feels. You say she is often restless and anxious looking. Is that a proof of tranquility? You talk of her mind being unsettled. How the devil could it be otherwise in her frightful isolation? And that insipid, paltry creature attending her from
duty
and
humanity!
From
pity
and
charity!
He might as well plant an oak in a flowerpot, and expect it to thrive, as imagine he can restore her to vigor in the soil of his shallow cares! Let us settle it at once. Will you stay here, and am I to fight my way to Catherine over Linton and his footmen? Or will you be my friend, as you have been hitherto, and do what I request? Decide! Because there is no reason for my lingering another minute, if you persist in your stubborn ill-nature!'

Well, Mr. Lockwood, I argued and complained, and flatly refused him fifty times, but in the long run he forced me to an agreement. To be honest, I feared sleeping there that night; I feared sleeping under the same roof as he.

I engaged to carry a letter from him to my mistress, and should she consent, I promised to let him have knowledge of Linton's next absence from home, when he might come.

Was it right or wrong? I fear it was wrong, though expedient. I thought I prevented another explosion by my compliance, and I thought, too, it might create a favorable crisis in Catherine's mental illness.

Nelly grew pensive. “Another strange thing, Mr. Lockwood. He followed me out of the house into the yard with the biggest rat I've ever seen clutched in his sharp teeth. Still squealing and squeaking it was, most horrible, dripping blood on the paving stones. He ran after me and dropped the awful thing at my feet. Like a gift!”

I sat up in alarm. “Mr. Heathcliff? A rat in his teeth?”

She clapped a hand over her mouth and giggled girlishly. “Oh, no, sir, not Mr. Heathcliff, not he. 'Twere that devilish wee terrier of his. Mean it is, and dangerous, far worse than the other dogs for all its size. No, 'twas the dog what brought me the rat as if it were a fine prize. I suppose the glare I gave it in the house let it know who won't be trifled with, for I'll have no half-pint of a beast gnawing on my best stockings.” She peered at me. “Don't you think it odd, him bringing me his catch, as if I would eat the rat?”

I nodded. “I think it's all odd, Nelly, this whole business of the lady Isabella and Mr. Heathcliff, and above all your Miss Catherine. All most odd.”

“Aye, so I think, but then they are my betters and can be expected to have their strange ways and strange pets, and servants must learn to deal and let deal, as we understairs do say.

“Notwithstanding, my journey homeward was sadder than my journey thither, though I did not encounter any vampires in top hats on my way.

“But here is Kenneth, the doctor; I'll go down and tell him how much better you are, Mr. Lockwood. My history is
dree,
as we say, and will serve to while away another morning.”

Dree and dreary!
I reflected as the good woman descended to receive the doctor, and not exactly of a kind which I should have chosen to amuse me. I had more questions than before concerning Mr. Heathcliff, and I must confess, a few spine-tingling fears.

A
nother week over—and I am healthier and spring is nearer! I have now heard all my neighbor's history from the housekeeper, Nelly. I'll continue it in her own words, only a little condensed. Nelly is, on the whole, a very fair narrator, and I don't think I could improve her style.

That night, after my visit to the Heights, I knew, as well as if I saw him, that Mr. Heathcliff was on Grange property, and I was afraid to go outside. Not so much afraid of him—though a little—but afraid of his companions. The same vampires that plagued poor Hindley's card table were now devoted followers of Heathcliff, and I could feel them all around the house. I could almost smell them. A bad omen of what was to come, I know now.

Still carrying Heathcliff's letter in my pocket, I made up my mind not to give it to Catherine until my master went somewhere. As a result of that decision, it was another three days before I was able to deliver the missive. I brought it into her room late in the afternoon when my master went into town to visit a sick friend of the family, a Mr. Jarrel, who had been attacked by a female vampire while helpless in his bath. He had rung for the kitchen lad to bring another bucket of hot water, and who should appear but a cloaked and fanged bloodsucker! Poor Mr. Jarrel was trapped in the tub of cold soapy water. If he tried to flee, he would have had to expose his unclad body to a strange woman, and Mr. Jarrel is known for being a modest man.

A bachelor of some sixty-odd years, he's never been seen in the company of maid, matron, or crone, other than his own dear mother and sisters. He keeps but three servants and those are all male, two of them older than he, and the third, the kitchen lad, a rather slow boy of the albino nature with extremely generous ears and a nose you could hang a hat on. Mr. Jarrel's butler was alerted to the danger by screaming and crashing from the master's bedchamber, and the dripping of water through the dining-room ceiling and onto the mahogany sideboard.

Naturally, the good man assumed that something was wrong. Perhaps robbers had come down the chimney or found a way into the house using a secret passageway. Gypsies may have tunneled into the cellar and sneaked up the back staircase, or mad dogs might have entered the house in a wine barrel. In any case, the quick-thinking butler sent the footman to summon the bailiff, who suspected vampires, as there had been several attacks earlier that day on a neighboring estate. He sent a boy for the sheriff, who came as soon as he finished his breakfast. He came in time to see the shrieking female wearing nothing but a cloak and knee-high boots spring off Mr. Jarrel and leap through an open window to the boxwood hedge below. Naturally, the creature escaped capture.

Poor Mr. Jarrel was barely breathing and there was very little water left in his copper tub. He could not speak, and rumor has it that he has not spoken to this day, but he has an odd smile fixed on his whey-colored face and insists on sleeping with all his bedchamber windows open. Our Mr. Linton had gone to sit with the poor fellow to see if he could coax a few words out of him to clarify the attack. That left us alone here at the house.

We generally made a practice of locking the doors before sunset, especially when the master was not at home. On that occasion, however, the weather was so warm and pleasant that when Catherine asked me to leave the doors and windows wide a little longer, I followed her bidding.

When the master was gone, I went upstairs where I found Mrs. Linton sitting in a loose, white dress, with a light shawl over her shoulders, in the recess of the open window. Her thick, long hair had been partly removed at the beginning of her illness, and now she wore it simply combed in its natural tresses over her temples and neck. Her appearance was altered, as I had told Heathcliff, but when she was calm, there seemed an unearthly beauty in the change.

A book lay on the sill before her, and the scarcely perceptible wind fluttered its pages. I believe Linton had laid it there because she never read anymore, or diverted herself with occupation of any kind. She just sat there, thinking of the past, and of Heathcliff, I suspect. Sometimes she would smile and look up as if gazing into his eyes. At other times, she would turn petulantly away, and hide her face in her hands.

‘There's a letter for you, Mrs. Linton,' I said, gently inserting it in one hand that rested on her knee. ‘You must read it immediately, because it awaits an answer. Shall I break the seal?'

‘Yes,' she answered without altering the direction of her eyes.

I opened it—it was very short.

‘Now,' I continued, ‘read it.'

She drew away her hand, and let it fall. I replaced it in her lap and stood waiting till it should please her to glance down.

‘Must I read it, ma'am? It is from Mr. Heathcliff.'

There was a start and a troubled gleam of recollection, and a struggle to arrange her ideas. She lifted the letter and seemed to peruse it, and when she came to the signature she sighed. Yet still I found she did not understand its content.

‘He wishes to see you,' I said, guessing her need of an interpreter. ‘He's in the garden by this time, and impatient to know what answer I shall bring.'

‘I must go to him,' she said, rising to her feet.

‘No, no.' I eased her back into the chair. Light as a feather from a summer bonnet she was. ‘I'll fetch him.'

Those were words I will regret until my dying day.

I went downstairs, into the garden, expecting to find him waiting, but he wasn't there. I wandered deeper into the garden, calling his name softly. It was getting dark and I knew I shouldn't be outside, unprotected, but I didn't know how long Mr. Linton would be, and soon the other servants would return from their Sunday family outings and I would not be able to keep Heathcliff's visit a secret.

I walked to the far gate and back to the house. When I entered the kitchen, I was grateful to be alive, but sorely vexed as to what I should do next. Three days he waited in the garden, and now he was not there? I set a pot of beans to boil, with onions and several heads of garlic. Stalling, I suppose. Then I returned to Mrs. Linton's bedchamber to tell her the sorry news.

Only, she wasn't there. She was gone, Mr. Lockwood. Gone. The chamber was empty, so empty that I had the awful sensation of a goose walking over my grave.

I ran down the front stairs, calling her name. In the garden, I called for her and then for Heathcliff and then for Mrs. Linton again until I was hoarse. How could she have gone anywhere? She could barely walk. I checked every building on the property, an hour I looked, until the sun was full set. She was nowhere to be found. I wondered if Heathcliff had come for her, taken her from her room, never to be seen again, but I feared that was too kind an ending to this tale.

Tears running down my cheeks, I returned to the house, thinking I would check my beans and then take a horse to town and seek out Mr. Linton to tell him his little bird had flown the coop.

I was just closing one of the windows in the front parlor when I heard steps traverse the hall. I knew the footsteps.

‘Where is she, Nelly?' Heathcliff said at first sight of me.

‘Not with you?' I asked, that being my last hope.

He shook his head. ‘Trouble in the moors. A small uprising. I came as quickly as I could.'

‘I thought she might be with you. She's gone, sir.'

‘Gone where?' he begged.

‘Not gone. Here,' came a tiny, strangled voice from the open door to the garden.

What I saw, when I turned, Mr. Lockwood, haunts me still today. Our beautiful Catherine, dressed all in flowing white, was covered from head to toe in blood. Her face and her hands were bathed in it.

Heathcliff let out a strangled cry, and in one stride was at her side, his arms around her.

He neither spoke nor loosed his hold for some five minutes, during which period he bestowed more kisses than ever he gave in his life before, I dare say. The blood covering her face, then his, seemed not to matter. But then my mistress had kissed him first, and I plainly saw that he could hardly bear, for downright agony, to look into her eyes.

Something terrible had happened to her in the garden while she was looking for him, and now she was going to die. How I missed her going when I was coming, I do not know to this day. I'd heard not a sound, no cries of pain, no wail of distress, but the blood could only be the result of one terrible thing. Bitten. My lady was bitten, and not once, but dozens of times. Fed upon, she was. Feasted upon, more like it. Did they fly up to the open window and take her? Did she, out of her head as she was, walk into their arms? Will we ever know?

As Heathcliff looked down at Catherine, the same conviction struck him as me, that there was no prospect of ultimate recovery there—she was fated, sure to die.

‘Oh, Cathy! Oh, my life! How can I bear it?' were the first strangled words he uttered, in a tone that did not seek to disguise his despair. And now he stared at her so earnestly that I thought the very intensity of his gaze would bring tears into his eyes.

‘What now?' said Catherine, leaning back and returning his look with a sudden clouded brow. Blood puddled at her tiny feet. ‘You and Edgar have broken my heart, Heathcliff! I wish I could hold you,' she continued, bitterly, till we were both dead! I shouldn't care what you suffered. I care nothing for your sufferings. Why shouldn't you suffer? I do! Will you forget me? Will you be happy when I am in the earth? Will you say twenty years hence, “That's the grave of Catherine Earnshaw. I loved her long ago, and was wretched to lose her; but it is past.” Will you say so, Heathcliff?'

‘Don't torture me till I'm as mad as yourself,' he cried. He cradled her in his arms. I could do nothing but stand there, frozen in the inner doorway, watching the event unfold. ‘Are you possessed with a devil,' he pursued, savagely, ‘to talk in that manner to me when you are dying? Do you reflect that all those words will be branded in my memory, and eating deeper eternally after you have left me? Catherine, you know that I could as soon forget you as my existence! Is it not sufficient for your infernal selfishness that while you are at peace I shall writhe in the torments of hell?'

‘Peace! I shall not be at peace,' moaned Catherine. ‘I shall never be at peace. Look at me! Look at what the beasties have done.' She clawed at the shredded flesh of her neck. ‘They tormented me too long, but did not kill me, those fine companions of yours. Those same kind gentlemen you told me, whilst on our long walks, had souls worth saving.'

‘No,' he moaned. ‘It cannot be true. They would not betray me so.'

‘I'm not wishing you greater torment than I have, Heathcliff. This is not your doing. You couldn't control them, not ever, not really. I only wish us never to be parted, and should a word of mine distress you hereafter, think I feel the same distress underground, and for my own sake, forgive me!'

‘Here, bring her here,' I managed, spreading a cloth on the settee so that her blood would not stain it. ‘Lie her here, Heathcliff.'

Heathcliff carried her in his arms to the settee, laid her down gently and leaned over her, but not so far as to let her see his face, which was livid with emotion. She bent round to look at him, but he would not permit it and he stood abruptly and walked to the fireplace, where he stood, silent, with his back toward us.

Mrs. Linton's glance followed him suspiciously. After a pause, and a prolonged gaze, she resumed addressing me in accents of indignant disappointment—‘Oh, you see, Nelly, he would not relent a moment to keep me out of the grave.
That
is how I am loved! Well, never mind. Heathcliff, dear! You should not be sullen now. Surely there is still some way we can be together for eternity, a better chance now that I have been feasted on. Do come to me, Heathcliff!' She raised up, her hand out to him.

At that earnest appeal he turned to her, looking absolutely desperate. His eyes wide, and wet at last, flashed fiercely on her, his breast heaved convulsively. An instant they held asunder, and then they were locked in an embrace from which I thought my mistress would never be released alive.

He fell to his knees, and on my approaching hurriedly to ascertain if she had fainted, he gnashed at me, and foamed like a mad dog, and gathered her to him with greedy jealousy.

A movement of Catherine's relieved me a little. She put up her hand to clasp his neck, and bring her cheek to his as he held her, while he, in return, covering her with frantic caresses, said wildly—

‘You teach me now how cruel you've been—cruel and false.
Why
did you despise me?
Why
did you betray your own heart, Cathy? I would not have one word of comfort. You deserve this. The vampires have not killed you; you have killed yourself. Yes, you may kiss me, and cry, and wring out my kisses and tears, but they'll blight you—they'll damn you. You knew what I was. You loved me—then what
right
had you to leave me? What right—answer me—for the poor fancy you felt for Linton? Because misery, and degradation, and death, and nothing that God or Satan could inflict would have parted us,
you,
of your own will, did it. I have not broken your heart—
you
have broken it, and in breaking it, you have broken mine. So much the worse for me, that I am strong. Do I want to live? What kind of living will it be when you—oh God! Would
you
like to live with your soul half in the grave, half out?'

‘Let me alone. Let me alone,' sobbed Catherine. ‘If I've done wrong, I'm dying for it. It is enough! I forgive you. Forgive me!'

‘It is hard to forgive, and to look at those eyes, and feel those wasted hands,' he answered. ‘Kiss me again, and don't let me see your eyes! I forgive what you have done to me. I love
my
murderer—but
yours!
How can I?'

They were silent—their faces hid against each other, and washed by each other's tears. At least, I suppose the weeping was on both sides, as it seemed Heathcliff
could
weep on a great occasion like this.