Delphi Complete Works of the Brontes Charlotte, Emily, Anne Brontë (Illustrated) (291 page)

CHAPTER VII

Cathy stayed at Thrushcross Grange five weeks: till Christmas.  By that time her ankle was thoroughly cured, and her manners much improved.  The mistress visited her often in the interval, and commenced her plan of reform by trying to raise her self-respect with fine clothes and flattery, which she took readily; so that, instead of a wild, hatless little savage jumping into the house, and rushing to squeeze us all breathless, there ‘lighted from a handsome black pony a very dignified person, with brown ringlets falling from the cover of a feathered beaver, and a long cloth habit, which she was obliged to hold up with both hands that she might sail in.  Hindley lifted her from her horse, exclaiming delightedly, ‘Why, Cathy, you are quite a beauty!  I should scarcely have known you: you look like a lady now.  Isabella Linton is not to be compared with her, is she, Frances?’  ‘Isabella has not her natural advantages,’ replied his wife: ‘but she must mind and not grow wild again here.  Ellen, help Miss Catherine off with her things — Stay, dear, you will disarrange your curls — let me untie your hat.’

I removed the habit, and there shone forth beneath a grand plaid silk frock, white trousers, and burnished shoes; and, while her eyes sparkled joyfully when the dogs came bounding up to welcome her, she dared hardly touch them lest they should fawn upon her splendid garments.  She kissed me gently: I was all flour making the Christmas cake, and it would not have done to give me a hug; and then she looked round for Heathcliff.  Mr. and Mrs. Earnshaw watched anxiously their meeting; thinking it would enable them to judge, in some measure, what grounds they had for hoping to succeed in separating the two friends.

Heathcliff was hard to discover, at first.  If he were careless, and uncared for, before Catherine’s absence, he had been ten times more so since.  Nobody but I even did him the kindness to call him a dirty boy, and bid him wash himself, once a week; and children of his age seldom have a natural pleasure in soap and water.  Therefore, not to mention his clothes, which had seen three months’ service in mire and dust, and his thick uncombed hair, the surface of his face and hands was dismally beclouded.  He might well skulk behind the settle, on beholding such a bright, graceful damsel enter the house, instead of a rough-headed counterpart of himself, as he expected.  ‘Is Heathcliff not here?’ she demanded, pulling off her gloves, and displaying fingers wonderfully whitened with doing nothing and staying indoors.

‘Heathcliff, you may come forward,’ cried Mr. Hindley, enjoying his discomfiture, and gratified to see what a forbidding young blackguard he would be compelled to present himself.  ‘You may come and wish Miss Catherine welcome, like the other servants.’

Cathy, catching a glimpse of her friend in his concealment, flew to embrace him; she bestowed seven or eight kisses on his cheek within the second, and then stopped, and drawing back, burst into a laugh, exclaiming, ‘Why, how very black and cross you look! and how — how funny and grim!  But that’s because I’m used to Edgar and Isabella Linton.  Well, Heathcliff, have you forgotten me?’

She had some reason to put the question, for shame and pride threw double gloom over his countenance, and kept him immovable.

‘Shake hands, Heathcliff,’ said Mr. Earnshaw, condescendingly; ‘once in a way that is permitted.’

‘I shall not,’ replied the boy, finding his tongue at last; ‘I shall not stand to be laughed at.  I shall not bear it!’  And he would have broken from the circle, but Miss Cathy seized him again.

‘I did not mean to laugh at you,’ she said; ‘I could not hinder myself: Heathcliff, shake hands at least!  What are you sulky for?  It was only that you looked odd.  If you wash your face and brush your hair, it will be all right: but you are so dirty!’

She gazed concernedly at the dusky fingers she held in her own, and also at her dress; which she feared had gained no embellishment from its contact with his.

‘You needn’t have touched me!’ he answered, following her eye and snatching away his hand.  ‘I shall be as dirty as I please: and I like to be dirty, and I will be dirty.’

With that he dashed headforemost out of the room, amid the merriment of the master and mistress, and to the serious disturbance of Catherine; who could not comprehend how her remarks should have produced such an exhibition of bad temper.

After playing lady’s-maid to the new-comer, and putting my cakes in the oven, and making the house and kitchen cheerful with great fires, befitting Christmas-eve, I prepared to sit down and amuse myself by singing carols, all alone; regardless of Joseph’s affirmations that he considered the merry tunes I chose as next door to songs.  He had retired to private prayer in his chamber, and Mr. and Mrs. Earnshaw were engaging Missy’s attention by sundry gay trifles bought for her to present to the little Lintons, as an acknowledgment of their kindness.  They had invited them to spend the morrow at Wuthering Heights, and the invitation had been accepted, on one condition: Mrs. Linton begged that her darlings might be kept carefully apart from that ‘naughty swearing boy.’

Under these circumstances I remained solitary.  I smelt the rich scent of the heating spices; and admired the shining kitchen utensils, the polished clock, decked in holly, the silver mugs ranged on a tray ready to be filled with mulled ale for supper; and above all, the speckless purity of my particular care — the scoured and well-swept floor.  I gave due inward applause to every object, and then I remembered how old Earnshaw used to come in when all was tidied, and call me a cant lass, and slip a shilling into my hand as a Christmas-box; and from that I went on to think of his fondness for Heathcliff, and his dread lest he should suffer neglect after death had removed him: and that naturally led me to consider the poor lad’s situation now, and from singing I changed my mind to crying.  It struck me soon, however, there would be more sense in endeavouring to repair some of his wrongs than shedding tears over them: I got up and walked into the court to seek him.  He was not far; I found him smoothing the glossy coat of the new pony in the stable, and feeding the other beasts, according to custom.

‘Make haste, Heathcliff!’ I said, ‘the kitchen is so comfortable; and Joseph is up-stairs: make haste, and let me dress you smart before Miss Cathy comes out, and then you can sit together, with the whole hearth to yourselves, and have a long chatter till bedtime.’

He proceeded with his task, and never turned his head towards me.

‘Come — are you coming?’ I continued.  ‘There’s a little cake for each of you, nearly enough; and you’ll need half-an-hour’s donning.’

I waited five minutes, but getting no answer left him.  Catherine supped with her brother and sister-in-law: Joseph and I joined at an unsociable meal, seasoned with reproofs on one side and sauciness on the other.  His cake and cheese remained on the table all night for the fairies.  He managed to continue work till nine o’clock, and then marched dumb and dour to his chamber.  Cathy sat up late, having a world of things to order for the reception of her new friends: she came into the kitchen once to speak to her old one; but he was gone, and she only stayed to ask what was the matter with him, and then went back.  In the morning he rose early; and, as it was a holiday, carried his ill-humour on to the moors; not re-appearing till the family were departed for church.  Fasting and reflection seemed to have brought him to a better spirit.  He hung about me for a while, and having screwed up his courage, exclaimed abruptly — ‘Nelly, make me decent, I’m going to be good.’

‘High time, Heathcliff,’ I said; ‘you
have
grieved Catherine: she’s sorry she ever came home, I daresay!  It looks as if you envied her, because she is more thought of than you.’

The notion of
envying
Catherine was incomprehensible to him, but the notion of grieving her he understood clearly enough.

‘Did she say she was grieved?’ he inquired, looking very serious.

‘She cried when I told her you were off again this morning.’

‘Well,
I
cried last night,’ he returned, ‘and I had more reason to cry than she.’

‘Yes: you had the reason of going to bed with a proud heart and an empty stomach,’ said I.  ‘Proud people breed sad sorrows for themselves.  But, if you be ashamed of your touchiness, you must ask pardon, mind, when she comes in.  You must go up and offer to kiss her, and say — you know best what to say; only do it heartily, and not as if you thought her converted into a stranger by her grand dress.  And now, though I have dinner to get ready, I’ll steal time to arrange you so that Edgar Linton shall look quite a doll beside you: and that he does.  You are younger, and yet, I’ll be bound, you are taller and twice as broad across the shoulders; you could knock him down in a twinkling; don’t you feel that you could?’

Heathcliff’s face brightened a moment; then it was overcast afresh, and he sighed.

‘But, Nelly, if I knocked him down twenty times, that wouldn’t make him less handsome or me more so.  I wish I had light hair and a fair skin, and was dressed and behaved as well, and had a chance of being as rich as he will be!’

‘And cried for mamma at every turn,’ I added, ‘and trembled if a country lad heaved his fist against you, and sat at home all day for a shower of rain.  Oh, Heathcliff, you are showing a poor spirit!  Come to the glass, and I’ll let you see what you should wish.  Do you mark those two lines between your eyes; and those thick brows, that, instead of rising arched, sink in the middle; and that couple of black fiends, so deeply buried, who never open their windows boldly, but lurk glinting under them, like devil’s spies?  Wish and learn to smooth away the surly wrinkles, to raise your lids frankly, and change the fiends to confident, innocent angels, suspecting and doubting nothing, and always seeing friends where they are not sure of foes.  Don’t get the expression of a vicious cur that appears to know the kicks it gets are its desert, and yet hates all the world, as well as the kicker, for what it suffers.’

‘In other words, I must wish for Edgar Linton’s great blue eyes and even forehead,’ he replied.  ‘I do — and that won’t help me to them.’

‘A good heart will help you to a bonny face, my lad,’ I continued, ‘if you were a regular black; and a bad one will turn the bonniest into something worse than ugly.  And now that we’ve done washing, and combing, and sulking — tell me whether you don’t think yourself rather handsome?  I’ll tell you, I do.  You’re fit for a prince in disguise.  Who knows but your father was Emperor of China, and your mother an Indian queen, each of them able to buy up, with one week’s income, Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange together?  And you were kidnapped by wicked sailors and brought to England.  Were I in your place, I would frame high notions of my birth; and the thoughts of what I was should give me courage and dignity to support the oppressions of a little farmer!’

So I chattered on; and Heathcliff gradually lost his frown and began to look quite pleasant, when all at once our conversation was interrupted by a rumbling sound moving up the road and entering the court.  He ran to the window and I to the door, just in time to behold the two Lintons descend from the family carriage, smothered in cloaks and furs, and the Earnshaws dismount from their horses: they often rode to church in winter.  Catherine took a hand of each of the children, and brought them into the house and set them before the fire, which quickly put colour into their white faces.

I urged my companion to hasten now and show his amiable humour, and he willingly obeyed; but ill luck would have it that, as he opened the door leading from the kitchen on one side, Hindley opened it on the other.  They met, and the master, irritated at seeing him clean and cheerful, or, perhaps, eager to keep his promise to Mrs. Linton, shoved him back with a sudden thrust, and angrily bade Joseph ‘keep the fellow out of the room — send him into the garret till dinner is over.  He’ll be cramming his fingers in the tarts and stealing the fruit, if left alone with them a minute.’

‘Nay, sir,’ I could not avoid answering, ‘he’ll touch nothing, not he: and I suppose he must have his share of the dainties as well as we.’

‘He shall have his share of my hand, if I catch him downstairs till dark,’ cried Hindley.  ‘Begone, you vagabond!  What! you are attempting the coxcomb, are you?  Wait till I get hold of those elegant locks — see if I won’t pull them a bit longer!’

‘They are long enough already,’ observed Master Linton, peeping from the doorway; ‘I wonder they don’t make his head ache.  It’s like a colt’s mane over his eyes!’

He ventured this remark without any intention to insult; but Heathcliff’s violent nature was not prepared to endure the appearance of impertinence from one whom he seemed to hate, even then, as a rival.  He seized a tureen of hot apple sauce (the first thing that came under his gripe) and dashed it full against the speaker’s face and neck; who instantly commenced a lament that brought Isabella and Catherine hurrying to the place.  Mr. Earnshaw snatched up the culprit directly and conveyed him to his chamber; where, doubtless, he administered a rough remedy to cool the fit of passion, for he appeared red and breathless.  I got the dishcloth, and rather spitefully scrubbed Edgar’s nose and mouth, affirming it served him right for meddling.  His sister began weeping to go home, and Cathy stood by confounded, blushing for all.