Wuthering Bites (29 page)

I
see Zillah in Gimmerton and she tells me something of what goes on at Wuthering Heights, otherwise I should hardly know who was dead and who living, bitten or still clean. The first time I met up with her, after my dear girl had been taken from me, I asked if she knew her master was not only a vampire slayer, but vampire, too, thinking I might find an advocate for my dear girl. I expected a shocked response, or perhaps one of fear if she had been recruited to guard Mr. Heathcliff's secret, but I did not expect the answer I received.

‘Of course I know. I empty chamber pots at the Heights. There is nothing that goes on there that I do not know.'

‘And…and you do not mind, being under the employment of such a devil, for surely he is worse than a vampire. An even more tortured soul, playing both sides!'

‘Safest employment in Great Britain, I say,' Zillah corrected me. ‘As his employee, my neck is off-limits to all who seek the nourishment of blood, and he never takes from his servants. Why would he, for then he would constantly have to interview for the positions left vacant.'

‘But…how did this happen? How can it be? I knew the boy as a child. My previous master brought him into the house as an orphan found on the streets of Liverpool. He was the child of a gypsy vampire slayer.'

‘His
mother
was a gypsy slayer, but his
father,
' Zillah explained with far more haughtiness than she had a right to bear, ‘his
father
was a vampire. Taken advantage of, his mother was, on a moonless night when she should have kept behind locked doors instead of hunting bloodsuckers. My master was the spawn of that night.'

‘No,' I breathed, my eyes widening. ‘Vampires do not procreate. That is impossible!'

‘Apparently not,' she finished, snub nose high in the air. ‘Now, do you wish to hear of the new missus or not?'

I learned that Zillah thinks Catherine haughty, and does not like her. My young lady asked some aid of her when she first arrived, but Mr. Heathcliff told Zillah to follow her own business and let his daughter-in-law look after herself. Zillah, being a narrow-minded, selfish woman, willingly acquiesced. Catherine repaid her unwillingness to aid her with contempt, and thus enlisted my informant among her enemies, as securely as if she had done her some great wrong.

‘The first thing Mrs. Linton did,' Zillah explained, on her arrival at the Heights, ‘was to run upstairs without even wishing good evening to me and Joseph. She shut herself into Linton's room and remained till morning. Then, while the master and Earnshaw were at breakfast, she entered the house, and asked all in a quiver if the doctor might be sent for. Her cousin was very ill.

‘ “We know that!” answered Heathcliff. “But his life is not worth a farthing, and I won't spend a farthing on him.”

‘ “But I don't know what to do,” she said. “And if nobody will help me, he'll die!”

‘ “Walk out of the room,” cried the master, “and let me never hear a word more about him! None here care what becomes of him. If you do, act the nurse; if you do not, lock him up and leave him.”

‘How they managed together, I can't tell. I fancy he fretted a great deal, and moaned night and day. She had precious little rest, one could guess by her white face and heavy eyes. Once or twice, after we had gone to bed, I've happened to open my door again, and seen her sitting crying, on the stairs' top. But then I've shut myself in, quick, for fear of being moved to interfere. I did pity her then, I'm sure. Still, I didn't want to lose my place, you know!

‘At last, one night she came boldly into my chamber, and frightened me out of my wits by saying—

‘ “Tell Mr. Heathcliff that his son is dying—I'm sure he is, this time. Get up, instantly, and tell him!”

‘Having uttered this speech, she vanished again. I lay a quarter of an hour listening and trembling. Nothing stirred—the house was quiet.

‘
She's mistaken,
I told myself.
He's got over it. I needn't disturb them.
I knew the master didn't like his nights disturbed. He either occupied himself pacing the dead Catherine's bedroom or he roamed the moors, chasing down vampires, or chasing humans, I suppose, depending on his mood. So after Mrs. Heathcliff came to me, I began to doze. But my sleep was marred a second time, by a sharp ringing of the bell—the only bell we have, put up on purpose for Linton. It turned out the master was indoors that night, and he called to me to see what was the matter. Too busy pacing that haunted room to see for himself, I suppose. He said to check on the bell ringer and make it clear he wouldn't have that noise repeated, else he would send one of the beasties from the barn rafters to check in on them.

‘I delivered Catherine's message. He cursed to himself, and in a few minutes came out with a lighted candle and proceeded to their room. I followed. Mrs. Heathcliff was seated by the bedside, with her hands folded on her knees, the devil dog curled at her feet. Her father-in-law went up, held the light to Linton's face, looked at him, and touched him. Afterward he turned to her.

‘ “Now—Catherine,” he said. “How do you feel?”

‘She was silent.

‘ “How do you feel, Catherine?” he repeated.

‘ “He's safe, and I'm free,” she answered, stroking that terrier's head. “I should feel well—but,” she continued with a bitterness she couldn't conceal, “you have left me so long to struggle against death, alone with no companions but the bloodsuckers that peek in the windows, that I feel and see only death! I feel like death!”

‘And she looked like it, too! I gave her a little wine. Hareton and Joseph, who had been wakened by the ringing and the sound of feet, and heard our talk from outside, now entered. Joseph was pleased, I believe, of the lad's removal. Hareton seemed a little bothered, though he was more taken up with staring at Catherine than thinking of Linton. But the master bid him get off to bed again; we didn't want his help. He made Joseph remove the body and we all went back to bed.

‘In the morning, he sent me to tell Mrs. Heathcliff that she must come down to breakfast. She had undressed and appeared to be going to sleep. She said she was ill. I informed Mr. Heathcliff, and he replied—

‘ “Well, let her be till after the funeral. Go up now and then to get her what she needs and as soon as she seems better, tell me.” '

Cathy stayed upstairs a fortnight, according to Zillah, who visited her twice a day, and would have been rather more friendly, but her attempts at increasing kindness were proudly and promptly repelled.

Heathcliff went up at once, to show her Linton's will. He had bequeathed the whole of his, and what had been her moveable property, to his father. The poor creature was threatened, or coaxed, into that act during her week's absence, when his uncle died. The lands, being a minor, he could not meddle with. However, Mr. Heathcliff has claimed and kept them in his wife's right. I suppose legally, at any rate, Catherine, destitute of cash and friends, cannot disturb his possession.

‘Nobody ever approached her door and nobody asked anything about her. The first occasion of her coming down into the house was on a Sunday afternoon.

‘She had cried out, when I carried up her dinner, that she couldn't bear any longer being in the cold. I told her the master was going to Thrushcross Grange, and Earnshaw and I needn't hinder her from descending. As soon as she heard Mr. Heathcliff's horse trot off, she made her appearance, donned in black, and her yellow curls combed back behind her ears, as plain as a Quaker.

‘Joseph had gone, but I thought it proper to bide at home. Young folks are always the better for an elder's over-looking. I let Hareton know that his cousin would very likely sit with us, so he should leave his guns and swords alone while she stayed.

‘He colored up at the news, and cast his eyes over his hands and clothes. The saber he was sharpening was shoved out of sight in a minute. I saw he meant to keep her company and I guessed he wanted to be presentable. Trying not to laugh at the idea of him ever being presentable, I offered to help him and joked at his confusion. He grew sullen, and began to swear.

‘Now, Mrs. Dean,' she went on, seeing me not pleased by her manner. ‘You might think your young lady too fine for Mr. Hareton and you might be right, but I'd like to see her pride a peg lower. And what will all her learning and her daintiness do for her now? She's as poor as you or I. Poorer.'

Hareton allowed Zillah to give him her aid and she flattered him into a good humor, so when Catherine came he tried to make himself agreeable, by the housekeeper's account.

‘Missus walked in,' she said, ‘as chill as an icicle, and as high as a princess. I got up and offered her my seat in the armchair. She turned up her nose at my civility. Earnshaw rose, too, and bid her come to the settle, and sit close by the fire. He was sure she was starved.

‘ “I've been starved a month and more,” she answered, resting on the word, as scornful as she could.

‘And she got a chair for herself, and placed it at a distance from both of us.

‘Having sat till she was warm, she began to look around and discovered a number of books in the dresser, many pertaining to the current vampire infestation. She was instantly upon her feet again, stretching to reach them, but they were too high up. Her cousin, after watching her endeavors awhile, at last summoned courage to help her. She held her frock, and he filled it with the first that came to hand.

‘That was a great advance for the lad. She didn't thank him, but he felt gratified that she had accepted his assistance, and ventured to stand behind as she examined them. He even pointed out what struck his fancy in certain pictures which they contained; sketches of vampire anatomy and such. Then he went from looking at the book to looking at her instead of the book.

‘She continued reading. His attention became, by degrees, quite centered in the study of her thick, silky curls. And, perhaps not quite aware of what he did, but attracted like a child to a candle, he proceeded from staring to touching. He put out his hand and stroked one curl as gently as if it were a bird. He might have taken a bite from her neck, she pulled away so quickly.

‘ “Get away, this moment! How dare you touch me!” she cried, in a tone of disgust. “I can't endure you! I'll go upstairs again, if you come near me.”

‘Mr. Hareton recoiled, looking as foolish as he could do, and sat down on the settle. He remained very quiet, and she continued turning over her volumes, another half-hour. Finally, Earnshaw crossed over and whispered to me.

‘ “Will you ask her to read to us, Zillah? I would like to hear what is said of the bloodsuckers that I don't already know, but I can't read myself. Dunnot say I wanted it, but ask of yourself.”

‘ “Mr. Hareton wishes you would read to us, ma'am,” I said immediately. “He'd take it very kind—he'd be much obliged.”

‘She frowned and, looking up, answered, “Mr. Hareton, and the whole set of you, will be good enough to understand that I reject any pretense at kindness you have the hypocrisy to offer! I despise you, and will have nothing to say to any of you! When I would have given my life for one kind word, even to see one of your faces, you all kept off. But I won't complain to you! I'm driven down here by the cold, not either to amuse you or enjoy your society.”

‘ “What could I have done?” began Earnshaw. “I am much a prisoner as you. How was I to blame?”

‘ “Be silent! I'll go out of doors, or anywhere, rather than have your disagreeable voice in my ear!” said my lady.

‘Hareton muttered, she might go to hell, for him! And unsheathing a sword, he began to sharpen it right in front of her. She seemed unexpectedly interested in the weapon, but when he offered to show it, she saw fit to retreat to her solitude.'

At first, on hearing this account from Zillah, I determined to leave my situation, take a cottage, and get Catherine to come and live with me. But Mr. Heathcliff would as soon permit that as he would set up Hareton in an independent house, and I can see no remedy, at present. All I could do was wait and see what would unfold next.

 

Thus ended Mrs. Dean's story. As strange as it may seem, I believed what she'd told me, or at least I believed that
she
believed what she'd related. For that reason, I made plans for my future. Notwithstanding the doctor's prophecy, I am rapidly recovering strength, and, though it be only the second week in January, I propose getting out on horseback in a day or two, and riding over to Wuthering Heights, with an armed escort, of course. There, I will inform my landlord that I will be taking my leave of the moors and that he may look for another tenant to take the place. At the beginning of Nelly's tale, I did think myself on an adventure, but upon hearing that Mr. Heathcliff is, indeed, a vampire, one that digs up graves, well, I have no intention of renting from any such gentleman, for he is surely no gentleman at all!

Y
esterday was bright, calm, and frosty. After hiring some strapping men with swords in Gimmerton, I went to the Heights as I proposed. Mrs. Dean entreated me to bear a note from her to her young lady, and I did not refuse.

The front door stood open, but the gate was fastened, as at my last visit. I knocked, and invoked Earnshaw from among the garden beds; he unchained it, glancing at the mounted men carrying various implements used in vampire destruction.

“Won't need them,” Earnshaw mumbled. “'Tis safe enough in here.”

Glancing back over my shoulder, I nodded, indicating they should stay put, and I then followed Earnshaw inside.

The fellow is as handsome a rustic as need be seen. I took particular notice of him this time, knowing far more about it, and concluded that he did his best to make the least of his advantages.

I asked if Mr. Heathcliff were at home. He answered, no, but he would be in at dinner-time. It was eleven o'clock. I considered simply leaving a note; after all, did a man like me owe a
bloodsucker,
no matter how much land he owned, an explanation for vacating his premises? Then I reminded myself of the same argument I had repeated to myself over the last twenty-four hours since Mrs. Dean had finished her tale. What if it was just that? A
tale?
Some of the things she had said had certainly been farfetched.

Giving my silver dagger inside my coat a satisfying pat, I made my decision and announced to Earnshaw my intention of waiting for him, at which he immediately flung down his tools and accompanied me as a watchdog, not as a substitute for the host.

We entered together. I did not see Joseph, which was just as well. After what Mrs. Dean had said about him allowing the bloodsuckers to feed off him, I did not care to make his acquaintance again.

Catherine was there, making herself useful in preparing some vegetables for the approaching meal. She looked sulkier and less spirited than when I had seen her first. She hardly raised her eyes to notice me, and continued her employment with the same disregard to common forms of politeness. She never returned my bow or gave my “good morning” the slightest acknowledgment.

She does not seem so amiable,
I thought,
as Mrs. Dean would persuade me to believe. She's a beauty, it is true, but not an angel.

With a surly grunt, Earnshaw bid her remove her things to the kitchen.

“Remove them yourself,” she said, retiring to a stool by the window where she began to carve figures of birds and beasts out of the turnip parings in her lap.

I approached her, pretending to desire a view of the garden, and, as I did, dropped Mrs. Dean's note onto her knee, unnoticed by Hareton—but she asked aloud, “What is that?” and chucked it off.

“A letter from your old acquaintance, the housekeeper at the Grange,” I answered, annoyed at her exposing my kind deed. It was true, my guards were only a shout away, but I did not appreciate her risking my blood, not with me having just come from the sickbed.

Hareton beat her to the letter on the floor and put it in his waistcoat, saying Mr. Heathcliff should look at it first.

Catherine silently turned her face from his, drew out her pocket-handkerchief, and applied it to her eyes. Her cousin, after struggling awhile to keep down his softer feelings, pulled out the letter and flung it on the floor beside her, as ungraciously as he could.

Catherine took up and perused the letter eagerly. She then questioned me about the inmates, rational and irrational, of her former home, and gazing toward the hills, murmured in soliloquy—

“I should like to be riding Minny down there! I should like to be climbing up there—Oh! Can you imagine how well I could train in the open air were I permitted, Hareton?”

I surmised that the
training
she referred to was in reference to the silly notion Mrs. Dean had conveyed to me that the girl thought women should be schooled in vampire slaying. Not wanting to push their already poor excuse for hospitality, I did not ask. In truth, I was beginning to wonder if Mrs. Heathcliff was as mad as all the rest. It would not be beyond belief that imprisonment in this cursed house would drive a sane mind insane. But, then, she had always been an odd child, if all that Mrs. Dean had said was true.

She leaned her pretty head against the sill, with half a yawn and half a sigh, and lapsed into an aspect of abstracted sadness.

“Mrs. Heathcliff,” I said, after sitting some time mute, “are you not aware that I am an acquaintance of yours? So intimate, that I think it strange you won't come and speak to me. My housekeeper never wearies of talking about and praising you, and she'll be greatly disappointed if I return with no news of or from you.”

“You must tell her,” she continued, “that I would answer her letter, but I have no materials for writing, not even a book from which I might tear a leaf.”

“No books!” I exclaimed. “How do you contrive to live here without them? Though provided with a large library, I'm frequently very bored at the Grange; take my books away, and I should be desperate!”

“I was always reading, when I had them,” said Catherine. “But Mr. Heathcliff never reads, so he took it into his head to destroy my books. His own, as well. He once had a great library on the subject of vampires. But I haven't seen any of my books in weeks. Hareton, I came up on a secret stock in your room, some of the best in Mr. Heathcliff's collection. Apparently, you gathered them, as a magpie gathers silver spoons, for the mere love of stealing!”

Hareton blushed crimson when his cousin made this revelation of his private literary accumulations, and stammered an indignant denial of her accusations.

“I should imagine Mr. Hareton is desirous of increasing his knowledge. The more we understand of the bloodsuckers, the better we can defend ourselves,” I said, coming to his rescue. “He'll be a clever scholar in a few years!”

“Yes, I hear him trying to spell and read to himself, and pretty blunders he makes!” Catherine responded, turning to her cousin. “I hear you turning over the dictionary, to seek out the hard words, and then cursing, because you couldn't read their explanations!”

“But, Mrs. Heathcliff,” I said, taking pity on the young man, “we have each stumbled and tottered on the threshold. Had our teachers scorned, instead of aiding us, we should stumble and totter yet.”

Hareton's chest heaved in silence a minute. He labored under a severe sense of mortification and wrath, which it was no easy task to suppress.

I rose and, from a gentlemanly idea of relieving his embarrassment, took up my station in the doorway, surveying the external prospect as I stood.

He followed my example, and left the room but presently reappeared, bearing half a dozen volumes in his hands, which he threw into Catherine's lap, exclaiming—“Take them! Some of them are not just his, some were yours that you brought with you. I saved them from the fire. I never want to hear, or read, or think of them again!”

“I won't have them now,” she answered. “I shall connect them with you, and hate them.” She opened one that had obviously been often turned over, and read a portion in the drawling tone of a beginner, then threw it and laughed.

Mr. Hareton's self-love would endure no further torment, and he gathered the books and hurled them on the fire. I read in his countenance what anguish it was to him to destroy the books. I fancied that as they were consumed, he recalled the pleasure they had already imparted, and the triumph and ever-increasing pleasure he had anticipated from them.

“Yes, that's all the good that such a brute as you can get from them!” cried Catherine, watching the conflagration with indignant eyes.

“You'd
better
hold your tongue now!” he answered fiercely.

And his agitation precluding further speech, he advanced hastily to the entrance, where I made way for him to pass. But, before he had crossed the door-stones, Mr. Heathcliff, coming up the causeway, encountered him, and laying hold of his shoulders, asked, “What's to do now, my lad?”

“Naught, naught!” he said, and broke away, to enjoy his grief and anger in solitude.

Heathcliff gazed after him, and sighed. “When I look for his father in his face, I find
her
every day more! How the devil is he so like her? I can hardly bear to see him.”

As I watched, I had difficulty seeing this tormented man as the hideous bloodsucker Mrs. Dean made him to be. He was simply dissimilar to others I'd seen. Had Mrs. Dean embellished her story, wrought in the entertainment of it and her desire to please me?

Mr. Heathcliff bent his eyes to the ground and walked moodily in. There was a restless, anxious expression in is countenance I had never remarked there before. He looked sparer in person.

His daughter-in-law, on perceiving him through the window, immediately escaped to the kitchen, so that I remained alone.

“I'm glad to see you out of doors again, Mr. Lockwood,” he said in reply to my greeting. “I've wondered, more than once, what brought you here from the city.”

“An idle whim, I fear, sir,” was my answer, still watching him closely for the flash of fangs. “I shall set out for London next week, and I must give you warning that I feel no disposition to retain Thrushcross Grange beyond the twelve months I agreed to rent it. I believe I shall not live there anymore.”

“Indeed! You're tired of being banished from the world, are you?” he said. Then to himself, “So am I.” He looked back at me. “But, if you are coming to plead off paying for a place you won't occupy, your journey is useless. I never relent in exacting my due from anyone.”

“I'm coming to plead off nothing about it!” I exclaimed. “Should you wish it, I'll settle with you now.” I drew my notebook from my pocket.

“No, no,” he replied coolly. “I'm not in such a hurry. Sit down and take your dinner with us. A guest that is safe from repeating his visit can generally be made welcome.”

I declined the invitation, however, making a vague excuse, and bid adieu, having no wish to partake of nourishment in that house for fear of what I might be served or to whom I might be served. I would have departed by the back way, to get a last glimpse of Catherine, but Hareton received orders to bring my horse, and my host himself escorted me to the door, so I could not fulfill my wish.

How dreary life is in that house!
I thought to myself as my companions escorted me safely from Wuthering Heights. What a realization of something more romantic than a fairy tale it would have been for Mrs. Linton Heathcliff, had she and I struck up an attachment, as her good nurse desired, and migrated together into the stirring atmosphere of the town!