Wuthering Bites (22 page)

She also got a trick of coming down early in the morning and lingering about the kitchen, as if she were expecting the arrival of something. She had a small drawer in a cabinet in the library, which she would trifle over for hours, and whose key she took special care to remove when she left it.

One day, as she inspected this drawer, I observed that the playthings and trinkets, which recently formed its contents, were transmuted into bits of folded paper.

My suspicions were aroused. I determined to take a peep at their mysterious treasure, so, at night, as soon as she and my master were safe upstairs, I searched and readily found among my house keys one that would fit the lock. Opening it, I emptied the whole contents into my apron, and took them with me to examine at leisure in my own chamber.

Though I'd had my supicions, I was still surprised to discover that they were a mass of correspondence—daily, almost—from Linton Heathcliff. The earlier dated were embarrassed and short; gradually, however, they expanded into copious love letters, foolish as the age of the writer rendered natural, yet with touches, here and there, which I thought were borrowed from a more experienced source.

Some of them struck me as singularly odd compounds of ardor and flatness, commencing in strong feeling, and concluding in the affected, wordy way that a schoolboy might use to a fancied, incorporeal sweetheart.

Whether they satisfied Cathy, I don't know, but they appeared very worthless trash to me. After turning over as many as I thought proper, I tied them in a handkerchief and set them aside, relocking the vacant drawer.

Following her habit, my young lady descended early and visited the kitchen. I watched her go to the door, on the arrival of a certain little boy, and, while the dairy maid filled his can, she tucked something into his jacket pocket and plucked something out.

I went round by the garden and lay wait for the messenger, who fought valorously to defend his trust, and we spilt the milk between us. But I succeeded in abstracting the epistle and, threatening to sell him to the next carriage of vampires traveling through Gimmerton if he did not go home at once, I remained under the wall and perused Miss Cathy's affectionate composition.

It was more simple and more eloquent than her cousin's, very pretty and very silly. She spoke not only of sugarly love, but her desire—no, her passion—to have him join her on a quest one day to seek out vampires and obliterate them from all corners of the earth. What was even more amusing than the thought of my female charge sparring with vampires was the image of the sickly Linton doing so. I shook my head, and went meditating into the house.

The day being wet, Cathy could not divert herself with rambling about the property, so, at the conclusion of her morning studies, she resorted to the solace of the drawer. Her father sat reading at the table and I, on purpose, had sought a bit of work in some fringes of the window curtain, keeping my eye steadily fixed on her proceedings.

Never did any bird flying back to a plundered nest, which it had left brimful of chirping young ones, express more complete despair in its anguished cries and fluttering than she by her single ‘Oh!'

Mr. Linton looked up. ‘What is the matter, love? Have you hurt yourself?' His tone and look assured her he had not been the discoverer of the hoard.

‘No, Papa—' she gasped. ‘Nelly! Come upstairs—I'm sick!'

I obeyed her summons, and accompanied her out.

‘Oh, Nelly!' she commenced immediately, dropping on her knees, when we were alone. ‘Oh, give them to me, and I'll never, never do so again! Don't tell Papa. You have not told Papa, Nelly, say you have not! I've been exceedingly naughty, but I won't do it anymore!'

With a grave severity in my manner, I bid her stand up.

‘So,' I exclaimed. ‘A fine bundle of trash you study in your leisure hours, to be sure. Why, it's good enough to be printed! And what do you suppose the master will think, when I display it before him? I haven't shown him yet, but you needn't imagine I shall keep your ridiculous secrets. For shame! And you must have led the way in writing such absurdities. Fighting vampires, indeed! Linton would never have proposed such an exploit, I'm certain.'

‘I didn't!' sobbed Cathy, fit to break her heart. ‘I didn't once think of loving him till—'

‘Loving him!'
cried I, as scornfully as I could utter the word. ‘
Loving him!
Did anybody ever hear the like! I might just as well talk of loving the miller who comes once a year to buy our corn. Pretty loving, indeed! You have seen Linton hardly four hours in your life! I'm going with these to the library, and we'll see what your father says to such
loving
.'

She sprang at her precious epistles, but I held them above my head, and then she poured out further frantic entreaties that I would burn them—do anything rather than show them. And being really fully as inclined to laugh as scold—for I esteemed it all girlish vanity—I at length relented in a measure, and asked—

‘If I consent to burn them, will you promise faithfully neither to send nor receive a letter again, nor locks of hair, nor rings, nor playthings?'

‘We don't send playthings!' cried Catherine, her pride overcoming her shame.

‘Nor anything at all, then, my lady!' I said. ‘Unless you will vow, here I go. And no more talk of being a lady vampire slayer. There is no such thing!'

‘I promise, Nelly!' she cried, catching my dress. ‘Oh, put them in the fire!'

I unknotted the handkerchief and commenced dropping them in from an angle, and the flame curled up the chimney. When it was done, I stirred up the ashes and interred them under a shovelful of coals, and she mutely, with a sense of intense injury, retired to her private apartment. I descended to tell my master that the young lady's qualm of sickness was almost gone, but I judged it best for her to lie down awhile.

She wouldn't dine, but she reappeared at tea, pale, and red about the eyes, and marvelously subdued in outward aspect.

Next morning, I answered his latest letter by a slip of paper, inscribed, ‘Master Heathcliff is requested to send no more notes to Miss Linton, as she will not receive them.' And, thenceforth, the little boy came with vacant pockets.

“S
ummer drew to an end, and early autumn. It was past Michaelmas, but the harvest was late that year and a few of our fields were still uncleared. That was the first year we suspected the vampires were returning to the moors in large numbers, this time under the disguise of ordinary, though pale, citizens. Some came as peddlers bearing creams that would cure baldness and gout and wrinkles, while others sold rare stones from the sands of Araby that added to a pot of turnip peels and wild onion would transform the scraps into a hearty beef soup of the richest taste and strength that might please the pickiest of trenchermen. These stones, the bearers swore, might be used over and over again without losing their power. They also peddled love potions and a cure for unfaithfulness in lovers, but that concoction smelled like skunk cabbage and one would be hard-pressed to slip it into a mug of cider.”

Mrs. Dean leaned closer.

“There was also powdered horn from a giant creature that lived only along the Nile in the land of the Pharaohs. That was sold to aging men to give them the vigor of younger, and as to whether or not that was real or a dupe, I cannot say. All I know is that a great deal was sold at a high price.”

“So these vampires came as honest peddlers?” I asked.

“Some did, others as ‘sin eaters,' those who are paid to attend funerals and eat funeral meats off the coffin and thereby assume the sins of the newly deceased.”

“Sin eaters?” I said dubiously.

“Aye, but a poor sort they were, for no one ever saw them actually eat any of the food. Others of the bloodsucking kind came claiming to be agents of the crown, tax collectors, or census takers. And reapers, of course, those who come in gangs to harvest the crops in autumn.”

“I see,” I observed, sitting back to hear the next segment of Mrs. Dean's story.

Mr. Linton and his daughter would frequently walk out among the reapers; at the carrying of the last sheaves, they stayed till dusk, and the evening happening to be chill and damp, my master caught a bad cold that settled obstinately on his lungs, confining him indoors through the whole of the winter, nearly without intermission.

Poor Cathy, frightened from her little romance, had been considerably sadder and duller since its abandonment, and her father insisted on her reading less and taking more exercise. She had his companionship no longer and I was an inefficient substitute, for I could only spare two or three hours from my numerous household duties to follow her footsteps, and then my society was obviously less desirable than his.

On an afternoon in October, or the beginning of November—a fresh, watery afternoon, when the turf and paths were rustling with moist, withered leaves, and the cold, blue sky was half hidden by clouds—dark gray streamers, rapidly mounting from the west, and boding abundant rain—I requested my young lady to forgo her ramble because I was certain of showers. She refused, and I unwillingly donned a cloak and took my umbrella to accompany her on a stroll to the bottom of the park.

She went sadly on; there was no running or bounding now, though the chill wind might well have tempted her to a race. And often, from the side of my eye, I could detect her raising a hand and brushing something off her cheek.

I gazed round for a means of diverting her thoughts. On one side of the road rose a high, rough bank, where hazels and stunted oaks, with their roots half exposed, held uncertain tenure. The soil was too loose for the latter; and strong winds had blown some nearly horizontal. In summer, Miss Catherine delighted to climb along these trunks, and sit in the branches, swinging twenty feet above the ground. From dinner to tea she would lie in her breeze-rocked cradle, doing nothing except singing old songs—my nursery lore—to herself, or watching the birds, joint tenants, feed and entice their young one to fly. Or she would nestle with closed lids, half thinking, half dreaming, happier than words can express.

‘Look, miss!' I exclaimed, pointing to a nook under the roots of one twisted tree. ‘Winter is not here yet. There's a little flower, up yonder, the last bud from the multitude of bluebells that clouded those turf steps in July with a lilac mist. Will you clamber up, and pluck it to show to your papa?'

Cathy stared a long time at the lonely blossom trembling in its earthy shelter, and replied, ‘No, I'll not touch it. It looks melancholy, does it not, Nelly?”

‘Yes,' I observed. ‘About as starved and sackless as you. Your cheeks are bloodless.' My own words made my heart patter; surely she had not been bitten! But I knew it wasn't possible. She was with me night and day. ‘Let us take hold of hands and run. You're so low, I dare say I shall keep up with you.'

‘No,' she repeated, and continued sauntering on, pausing at intervals to muse over a bit of moss, or a tuft of blanched grass and, ever and anon, her hand was lifted to her averted face.

‘Catherine, why are you crying, love?' I asked, approaching and putting my arms over her shoulder. ‘You mustn't cry because Papa has a cold; be thankful it is nothing worse.'

She now put no further restraint on her tears; her breath was stifled by sobs. ‘Oh, it
will
be something worse,' she said. ‘And what shall I do when Papa and you leave me, and I am by myself? I can't forget your words, Nelly. They are always in my ear. How life will be changed, how dreary the world will be, when Papa and you are dead.'

‘None can tell whether you won't die before us,' I replied. ‘It's wrong to anticipate evil. We'll hope there are years and years to come before any of us go. My master is young, and I am strong, and hardly forty-five. My mother lived till eighty, surviving more than a dozen vampire attacks and, in the end, taking one with her. She was a canty dame to the last. And suppose Mr. Linton were spared till he saw sixty—that would be more years than you have counted, miss. And would it not be foolish to mourn a calamity above twenty years beforehand?'

‘But Aunt Isabella was younger than papa,' she remarked, gazing up with timid hope to seek further consolation. ‘Linton said she died of a single vampire attack.'

‘Aunt Isabella had not you and me to nurse her,' I replied, refusing to consider that I had not been able to save my dear Catherine. ‘She wasn't as happy as master; she hadn't as much to live for. All you need do is to wait well on your father, and cheer him by letting him see you cheerful, and avoid giving him anxiety on any subject.'

‘I fret about nothing on earth except Papa's illness,' answered my companion. ‘I care for nothing in comparison with Papa. And I'll never—never—oh, never, while I have my senses, do an act or say a word to vex him. I love him better than myself, Nelly. I pray every night that I may live after him because I would rather be miserable than that he should be. That proves I love him better than myself.'

‘Good words,' I replied. ‘But deeds must prove it also, and after he is well, remember you don't forget resolutions formed in the hour of fear.'

As we talked, we neared a door that opened on the road, and my young lady, lightening into sunshine again, climbed up and seated herself on the top of the wall. She reached over to gather some hips that bloomed scarlet on the summit branches of the wild rose trees, shadowing the highway side; the lower fruit had disappeared, but only birds could touch the upper, except from Cathy's present station.

In stretching to pull them, her hat fell off, and as the door was locked, she proposed scrambling down to recover it. I bid her be cautious lest she got a fall, and she nimbly disappeared.

But the return was no such easy matter. The stones were smooth and neatly cemented, and the rosebushes and blackberry stragglers could yield no assistance in re-ascending. I, like a fool, didn't recollect that, till I heard her laughing and exclaiming, ‘Nelly, you'll have to fetch the key, or else I must run round to the porter's lodge. I can't scale the ramparts on this side!'

‘Stay where you are,' I answered. I was about to hurry home as fast as I could, when I heard Cathy's dance stop as she gave a gasp.

‘Oh, dear,' she muttered.

‘What is it?'

‘A visitor.' Her tone was clipped. She sounded like a frightened child, trying to be brave.

‘Who, pray tell?' I demanded.

‘Good afternoon, ma'am,' I heard her say next.

‘Miss Cathy, who is it?' I cried frantically.

‘It…it is the lady we met that day on the moors on our way to Wuthering Heights. Do you speak English?' she said next, and I knew it was not me she addressed.

‘I do.' The feminine voice was so silky smooth that it might be interpreted by some as enchanting.

‘Well, I am Catherine Linton.'

‘I know who you are,' replied the female.

I did not know what to do. It would have been impossible for me to climb up and over as Cathy had, but I feared if I ran for help, by the time I returned, there would be nothing left of my charge but a flattened skin and fine bonnet. So there I was, left with nothing to do but quake in my sturdy shoes and pray that either Cathy could save herself or the bloodsucker had just fed.

‘Do you have a name?' Cathy asked, surprising me and, apparently, the lady vampire.

‘Do you know, no human has ever asked me that before.'

‘Well, if you didn't drink our blood, perhaps we'd be friendlier,' the naïve young woman offered.

I would have laughed, had the situation not been so grave.

‘I am called Mirela.'

‘Is that a vampire name?' Cathy inquired.

‘Romanian.'

‘It's pretty.'

‘Thank you.'

‘Miss Cathy,' I spoke up from the other side of the wall. ‘We should return home before anyone wonders where we are and sends out the boys with silver-tipped—' An approaching sound arrested me. It was the trot of a horse, and in a minute the horse stopped also.

‘Who is
that,
now?' I whispered.

‘Ho, Miss Linton!' cried a deep voice. It was Heathcliff. ‘I'm glad to meet you. Don't be in haste to enter, for I have an explanation to ask and obtain.' I heard the shift of leather in the saddle. ‘Mirela,' he said more sharply. ‘You try my patience. I have warned you this girl and her nurse are off-limits. Be gone.'

I did not hear her footsteps on the stones as she left the premises, but I was not entirely sure vampires' footsteps made any sound.

‘I shan't speak to you, Mr. Heathcliff,' Catherine said. ‘Though I thank you for coming along the way you did. Mirela was pleasant enough, but she was eyeing my neck. I can't say I could have trusted her to not take a bite of me.'

‘You're a smart girl, then.'

‘Thank you, but I still shan't speak with you. Papa says you are a wicked man, and you hate both him and me. Nelly says the same.'

‘That is nothing to the purpose,' said Heathcliff. ‘I don't hate my son, and it is concerning him that I demand your attention. Yes! You have cause to blush. Two or three months since, were you not in the habit of writing to Linton? Making love in play, eh? You deserved, both of you, flogging for that! You especially, the elder, and less sensitive, as it turns out. I've got your letters, and if you give me any pertness I'll send them to your father. I presume you grew weary of the amusement and dropped it, didn't you? Well, you dropped Linton with it, into a Slough of Despond. He was in earnest in love. As true as I live, he's dying for you. His heart is breaking at your fickleness, not figuratively, but actually. Though Hareton has made him a standing jest for six weeks, and I have used more serious measures and attempted to frighten him out of his idiocy, he gets worse daily. He'll be under the sod before summer, unless you restore him!'

‘How can you lie so glaringly to the poor child!' I called from the inside. ‘Pray ride on! How can you deliberately get up such paltry falsehoods? Miss Cathy, I'll knock the lock off with a stone. You can't listen to his vile nonsense. It is impossible that a person should die for the love of a stranger.' I then began to work on the gate lock in earnest with a fist-sized stone.

‘I was not aware there were eavesdroppers,' muttered the detected villain. ‘Worthy Mrs. Dean, I like you, but I don't like your double dealing,' he added, aloud. ‘How could you lie so glaringly as to affirm I hated the “poor child,” and invent bugbear stories to terrify her from my door-stones? Catherine Linton, my bonny lass, I shall be away from home all this week.'

‘Are you going on a vampire-killing journey, because if you are I should love to—'

‘That is not your business,' he snapped. But his voice softened at once. ‘Go and see if I have not spoken truth. Just imagine your father in my place, and Linton in yours, then think how you would value your careless lover if he refused to stir a step to comfort you, when your father, himself, entreated him. I swear, on my salvation, he's going to his grave, and none but you can save him!'

The lock gave way, and I issued out, hustling toward them.

‘I swear Linton is dying,' repeated Heathcliff, looking hard at me. ‘And grief and disappointment are hastening his death. Nelly, if you won't let her go, you can walk over yourself. But I shall not return till this time next week, and I think your master himself would scarcely object to her visiting her cousin while I was safely away!'

‘Come in,' said I, taking Cathy by the arm and half forcing her to re-enter, for she lingered, viewing with troubled eyes the features of the speaker, too stern to express his inward deceit.

He pushed his horse close and, bending down, observed, ‘Miss Catherine, I must tell you that I have little patience with Linton, and Hareton and Joseph have less. I'll own that he's with a harsh set. He pines for kindness, as well as love, and a kind word from you would be his best medicine. Don't mind Mrs. Dean's cruel cautions; but be generous, and contrive to see him. He dreams of you day and night, and cannot be persuaded that you don't hate him, since you neither write nor call.'