Heathcliff's Tale (13 page)

The old shepherd came in, and the sexton went to commiserate with him. In low voices not audible from where I stood, by the unlit range under the window in the kitchen, funeral and burial arrangements were discussed and finalised. Then, as if the thought of the graveyard returned him again to his recent tragic tasks, John Brown strode over to me and continued as if he had not had occasion to break off.

‘You are in Haworth to seek Ellis Bell', said the sexton, and I suffered, not for the first time, a sense of horror at the memory of the night I had passed at the Parsonage, and of the sleepless, dream-haunted hours in the small study over the sitting-room where old Mr Brontë would sit by the fire and prepare his sermons; and where I had found Heathcliff's tale burning merrily on the coals. ‘I must inform you that Ellis Bell—Miss Emily Brontë as you are aware by now—was not the author of the novel
Wuthering Heights
. It is an error which would otherwise persist down the centuries, Mr Newby; I have permitted your entry to this house—a house of bereavement—solely in order to inform you of this; and to request that you in turn inform the publisher Newby to correct the name appended to the work.'

That John Brown had taken the time and trouble to ascertain my credentials was undeniable; that he in turn suffered from an obsession with the book now began to become uncomfortably clear. ‘You will return to Leeds forthwith', John Brown said—still with the measured tones of a Yorkshireman, but always with the under
current of excitement I had detected as he commenced his peroration. ‘You will inform your uncle Thomas Cautley Newby of the identity of the true author of this great work. All copies printed previous to these instructions shall be burned or pulped without delay.'

I was, I confess, unable for a while to reply to this peremptory demand. A collie scratched at the back door; the old shepherd fiddled at the range with a scuttle of coal and a basket of pine cones. A wintry sun, defying the white fleece settled everywhere on hill and beck, shone incuriously in the sky. Anyone might think—so I concluded miserably as we stood on together in the frosty kitchen—that John Brown and I had met for an amicable talk, to finalise, perhaps, the nature of the headstone required for poor Mrs Cecily Woodhouse. The sexton's threatening manner remained, for the time at least, virtually concealed.

‘I came here to find where I may discover Nelly Dean', I blurted. There was, as I considered later, some cunning in my response: I had not failed to study my father in court; and something told me that an abrupt change of subject may unnerve an antagonistic witness and force him to tell the truth. Besides this, of course, I was more set than before, if this was possible, on talking to the good housekeeper and exacting from her the rest of Heathcliff's story, and Isabella's fate.

‘Mr Newby.' To my surprise, a smile flitted across the sexton's fine features. ‘You jest with me, I am sure. I like it in a man; and I must add that the true author of the pages where you have already found Nelly Dean liked nothing better than a practical joke. Branwell Brontë liked to scatter largesse for the village children, down by the bridge. He laughed at their glee—and their discomfiture at finding the pennies were sticking to their hands when they had grasped them. Branwell loved to enact the role of Alexander Percy, Earl of Northangerland—and to
enter the kingdoms of Angria and Gondal. Especially Gondal', John Brown added with a pensive nod of the head.

I now felt myself to be in the presence of a madman. Coupled with this unpleasant realisation was an atmosphere in the tiny kitchen that was well nigh unbearable: the old shepherd had piled the range with all manner of larchwood and the like, and the smoke from the blaze filled the room. An unpleasant suspicion that the strong presence of rosemary and some other medicinal plant—if these they were—in the fire, were there as fumigation following the death of the shepherd's wife, brought me to a state of faintness. The sun, trying harder than before to dissolve the white mist outside, came in sharp as a needle straight into the eye, to increase my discomfort. The back door, bolted still, was just visible through the smoke. I reached it, pulled back the bolt, and received the collie, frozen by now and shaking with hunger and cold, right into my arms. John Brown pulled me back towards him, in the kitchen, and the door, a stable door which I could have tackled better if I had seen its composition, swung shut again.

John Brown guided me to a narrow, rickety chair at the side of the table and stood over me as he delivered his instructions. ‘You are selected—and though this can be repeated only on pain of death, I confide it to you as a mark of my expectations of you, Mr Newby—you are chosen, as was your subject, to enter the Lodge of the Three Graces. The ceremony will take place immediately, with old Joseph and two others who are awaited here, in attendance. When you are accepted into the Order, you will be free to commence your researches into the life of Branwell Brontë. Without full knowledge of Freemasonry, the work could not be complete.'

‘Freemasonry?' I echoed the sexton, whose looming person—for the fumes from the stove, in response to some new combustible, had now turned black—resembled that of a medieval devil, rising from the flames of Hell. ‘My subject—?' I was aware of sounding pitiful, and no doubt doubly feeble, imprisoned as I was; but no escape seemed possible from this farmhouse at the foot of the hills outside Haworth.

‘You are Branwell's biographer', the sexton said impatiently. ‘The firm of Thomas Cautley Newby will publish the Life of the author of
Wuthering Heights
, in conjunction with the new edition of that great work'.

I lowered my head onto the table, like nothing so much, it occurred to me, as a real prisoner, tired after hours of cruel interrogation by the authorities. My eyes smarted and stung; tears from the vile smoke ran down my cheeks; and now a bout of coughing wracked my chest and throat. I prayed—and never had I prayed more earnestly—for release from my terrible situation.

Release came—in the shape of old Joseph himself, who fetched a glass of water, pulled open the stable door, and led me to the open air to drink. John Brown, who busied himself with a roll of richly embossed fabric—this intended, it can only be supposed, for my initiation—had his back to us as he pulled at a bag containing the regalia and proceeded to roll it out along the floor.

I saw my chance, and seized it. The bare hill, lit now by a sun that made glistening furrows in the deep snow, was reached, and a cleft in the hills afforded me a hiding-place, all within less than two minutes of running. My heart pounded, and I could barely hear the shouts of the sexton as I darted along the side of a ravine and teetered further on the edge of what appeared to be the resting-place of an avalanche.

I was free; and I had the satisfaction of knowing my efforts would not all be in vain. For, as I took my first steps into Haworth Moor, I demanded in a whisper of the shepherd where I might find Wuthering Heights—it was my last hope, I knew, of discovering the woman the shepherd's wife at the farmhouse had referred to as Nelly Dean.

Old Joseph pointed straight ahead, to Top Withens as he said. And I ran, on and upwards, still hidden by the curve of the moor from the eyes of John Brown, the sexton.

Mania, as we are advised by a close friend in the medical profession, can be triggered both by anxiety and by alcohol or drugs.

We have reason to suppose that Henry Newby's hallucinations and the ‘fever' to which he refers (not to mention the extreme improbability of a packet from Ellen Dean having actually been received by him) were caused by the ingestion of a substance more perilous to the health even than the reading of sensational novels. This is laudanum—which, as we know, soothed the pains and fuelled the imaginations of nineteenth-century England.

We spent some time deliberating on whether to present to the coming symposium on ‘Emily and Heathcliff: an Exploration the tragic evidence of the young lawyer's habit. In the interests of truth and honesty, we decided to go ahead.

Letter from Henry Newby to Thomas Cautley Newby.

February 12th 1849

Dear Uncle,

I write to offer my heartfelt apologies for the delay in replying to your many enquiries as to the whereabouts of further chapters of the novel by Ellis Bell, the retrieval of which was the reason for my being despatched to Haworth six weeks ago.

It is difficult for me to answer, Uncle, in full at least, without incurring your further wrath on the subject. You must believe, even if this means relying on the most credulous side of your nature, that the mission proved almost impossible, despite my most vigorous efforts to save Mr Bell's manuscript from destruction at the hands of (supposed) members of the family, and servants intent on obliterating the novel from existence.

I refer to the late author of those fragments I did succeed in rescuing as Mr Ellis Bell, for the good reason that I am now the possessor of important information as to the true identity of the writer of
Wuthering Heights
(and thus, surely, its successor). The pseudonym Ellis Bell did not mask the name of the youngest of the sisters of Haworth Parsonage, Miss Emily Brontë, but that of her brother,
Branwell. The source of this information must be kept for the time, secret: but I do assure you, dear Uncle, that I hope soon to be in a position to acquaint you with the whole story surrounding these works and their authorship. The unfortunate circumstance of my illness following New Year in Haworth must explain my otherwise unpardonable delay in replying to you. I can hope and trust, only, that my nearness to death over the past six weeks, with a fever contracted on Haworth Moor and an inflammation of the lung that succeeded it, will occasion an avuncular concern for your nephew. If I add that doctors called in by my good father feared that I might also be on the point of losing my sanity, I again can only hope that this will not lead you to lose all sympathy for me. Perhaps—though I concede that my father and brothers do not consider my confiding in you in this manner either wise or commendable—you will understand me better if I outline to you that fateful last day at Haworth, when a violent snowstorm had me walking foolishly up in search of a farmhouse, Top Withens (thought to be the origin of Wuthering Heights: you may appreciate that my efforts were all for you, and for the future prosperity of Thomas Cautley Newby, publisher), and discovering myself lost, alas, in more ways than one.

I will not conceal the fact that those chapters I had read on the subject of the villain Heathcliff, his passion for Catherine Earnshaw Linton and his abominable treatment of the young Miss Linton, had me eager to find out more. A chance encounter at a shepherd's house by the moor led me to decide on a stiff climb to Top Withens—that you may remark on my evident lack of sanity in attempting this on a day of almost unprecedentedly ferocious weather
has not failed to occur to me. Solely the knowledge that a dedicated publisher will recognise the undeniable thirst of a reader—and in this case a kinsman, employed by your distinguished firm—encourages me to hope I will not be observed by you as having entirely lost my wits. For, despite the pronouncements of doctors when once I had been taken home—and of those who found me on that dreadful moor, snow-soaked and directionless outside the ruined walls of Wuthering Heights—I was mad only in my desire to follow the characters whose trajectory you had demanded I should discover at Haworth Parsonage. Without your introduction to the barely credible world of violence, brutality and death depicted by Mr Ellis Bell, I should not have suffered the collapse both mental and physical which I have just outlined to you.

At first, on that morning just succeeding New Year—but which day it was I cannot say—I climbed easily enough up onto the moor, skirting the deep bogs and perilous precipices formed by snow and ice together. I will make no bones about the fact, Uncle, of my burning need to learn more of these unsavoury characters—and, if possible, to rescue Isabella Linton—Mrs Heathcliff, although I do not like to say the name—from any further embarrassment at the hands of her husband or any others connected to Wuthering Heights. My most pressing need was the finding of Ellen Dean—who, as you may remember from the pages published by none other than the firm of Thomas Cautley Newby, had been nurse and housekeeper at Wuthering Heights on the occasion of Heathcliff being brought from Liverpool as a boy. She had continued to serve both Lintons and Earnshaws at Thrushcross Grange, also; and, aware that Miss Isabella wished to understand
the nature of the devil she had married, through untangling the mystery of his origins, I found myself honour bound to assist her in every way I could. She had settled in the South, I knew; I had every intention of writing to her in her new abode, once I had learned the truth from Nelly Dean.

Alas, all my most fervent hopes were to be dashed. I walked, or rather climbed, through the snow on the moor until the fading light and my own weakening strength almost made welcoming the idea of laying down in a bed of whiteness, without even digging down to find the heather which must lie below. A collie dog (I neglected to say the animal had followed me all the way up from the shepherd's house) urged me on, however: it clearly knew the way to Top Withens, for it began to bark long before the walls of the farmhouse appeared in the northern twilight; and while I was just capable of walking, or staggering the last hundred yards, it ran alongside me, whimpering its encouragement.

How I wish I had turned then, even if it had been a fatal enterprise, to attempt to retrace my path in the fast-encroaching darkness. How much shelter, in any case, did the ruin where I now found myself afford? I would have been better, so I was to conclude when penetrating further into a roofless building, the hall containing nothing more than a fallen mantel from the fire, the masonry strewn about over an oak floor, the flagstones cracked and filthy—I would have been better in a sheep pen with my companion the collie for company.