Wuthering Heights, Page 29

  CHAPTER XXIX

  The evening after the funeral, my young lady and I were seated in thelibrary; now musing mournfully--one of us despairingly--on our loss, nowventuring conjectures as to the gloomy future.

  We had just agreed the best destiny which could await Catherine would bea permission to continue resident at the Grange; at least during Linton'slife: he being allowed to join her there, and I to remain as housekeeper.That seemed rather too favourable an arrangement to be hoped for; and yetI did hope, and began to cheer up under the prospect of retaining my homeand my employment, and, above all, my beloved young mistress; when aservant--one of the discarded ones, not yet departed--rushed hastily in,and said 'that devil Heathcliff' was coming through the court: should hefasten the door in his face?

  If we had been mad enough to order that proceeding, we had not time. Hemade no ceremony of knocking or announcing his name: he was master, andavailed himself of the master's privilege to walk straight in, withoutsaying a word. The sound of our informant's voice directed him to thelibrary; he entered and motioning him out, shut the door.

  It was the same room into which he had been ushered, as a guest, eighteenyears before: the same moon shone through the window; and the same autumnlandscape lay outside. We had not yet lighted a candle, but all theapartment was visible, even to the portraits on the wall: the splendidhead of Mrs. Linton, and the graceful one of her husband. Heathcliffadvanced to the hearth. Time had little altered his person either. Therewas the same man: his dark face rather sallower and more composed, hisframe a stone or two heavier, perhaps, and no other difference. Catherinehad risen with an impulse to dash out, when she saw him.

  'Stop!' he said, arresting her by the arm. 'No more runnings away! Wherewould you go? I'm come to fetch you home; and I hope you'll be a dutifuldaughter and not encourage my son to further disobedience. I wasembarrassed how to punish him when I discovered his part in the business:he's such a cobweb, a pinch would annihilate him; but you'll see by hislook that he has received his due! I brought him down one evening, theday before yesterday, and just set him in a chair, and never touched himafterwards. I sent Hareton out, and we had the room to ourselves. Intwo hours, I called Joseph to carry him up again; and since then mypresence is as potent on his nerves as a ghost; and I fancy he sees meoften, though I am not near. Hareton says he wakes and shrieks in thenight by the hour together, and calls you to protect him from me; and,whether you like your precious mate, or not, you must come: he's yourconcern now; I yield all my interest in him to you.'

  'Why not let Catherine continue here,' I pleaded, 'and send Master Lintonto her? As you hate them both, you'd not miss them: they can only be adaily plague to your unnatural heart.'

  'I'm seeking a tenant for the Grange,' he answered; 'and I want mychildren about me, to be sure. Besides, that lass owes me her servicesfor her bread. I'm not going to nurture her in luxury and idleness afterLinton is gone. Make haste and get ready, now; and don't oblige me tocompel you.'

  'I shall,' said Catherine. 'Linton is all I have to love in the world,and though you have done what you could to make him hateful to me, and meto him, you cannot make us hate each other. And I defy you to hurt himwhen I am by, and I defy you to frighten me!'

  'You are a boastful champion,' replied Heathcliff; 'but I don't like youwell enough to hurt him: you shall get the full benefit of the torment,as long as it lasts. It is not I who will make him hateful to you--it ishis own sweet spirit. He's as bitter as gall at your desertion and itsconsequences: don't expect thanks for this noble devotion. I heard himdraw a pleasant picture to Zillah of what he would do if he were asstrong as I: the inclination is there, and his very weakness will sharpenhis wits to find a substitute for strength.'

  'I know he has a bad nature,' said Catherine: 'he's your son. But I'mglad I've a better, to forgive it; and I know he loves me, and for thatreason I love him. Mr. Heathcliff _you_ have _nobody_ to love you; and,however miserable you make us, we shall still have the revenge ofthinking that your cruelty arises from your greater misery. You _are_miserable, are you not? Lonely, like the devil, and envious like him?_Nobody_ loves you--_nobody_ will cry for you when you die! I wouldn'tbe you!'

  Catherine spoke with a kind of dreary triumph: she seemed to have made upher mind to enter into the spirit of her future family, and draw pleasurefrom the griefs of her enemies.

  'You shall be sorry to be yourself presently,' said her father-in-law,'if you stand there another minute. Begone, witch, and get your things!'

  She scornfully withdrew. In her absence I began to beg for Zillah'splace at the Heights, offering to resign mine to her; but he would sufferit on no account. He bid me be silent; and then, for the first time,allowed himself a glance round the room and a look at the pictures.Having studied Mrs. Linton's, he said--'I shall have that home. Notbecause I need it, but--' He turned abruptly to the fire, and continued,with what, for lack of a better word, I must call a smile--'I'll tell youwhat I did yesterday! I got the sexton, who was digging Linton's grave,to remove the earth off her coffin lid, and I opened it. I thought,once, I would have stayed there: when I saw her face again--it is hersyet!--he had hard work to stir me; but he said it would change if the airblew on it, and so I struck one side of the coffin loose, and covered itup: not Linton's side, damn him! I wish he'd been soldered in lead. AndI bribed the sexton to pull it away when I'm laid there, and slide mineout too; I'll have it made so: and then by the time Linton gets to ushe'll not know which is which!'

  'You were very wicked, Mr. Heathcliff!' I exclaimed; 'were you notashamed to disturb the dead?'

  'I disturbed nobody, Nelly,' he replied; 'and I gave some ease to myself.I shall be a great deal more comfortable now; and you'll have a betterchance of keeping me underground, when I get there. Disturbed her? No!she has disturbed me, night and day, through eighteenyears--incessantly--remorselessly--till yesternight; and yesternight Iwas tranquil. I dreamt I was sleeping the last sleep by that sleeper,with my heart stopped and my cheek frozen against hers.'

  'And if she had been dissolved into earth, or worse, what would you havedreamt of then?' I said.

  'Of dissolving with her, and being more happy still!' he answered. 'Doyou suppose I dread any change of that sort? I expected such atransformation on raising the lid--but I'm better pleased that it shouldnot commence till I share it. Besides, unless I had received a distinctimpression of her passionless features, that strange feeling would hardlyhave been removed. It began oddly. You know I was wild after she died;and eternally, from dawn to dawn, praying her to return to me her spirit!I have a strong faith in ghosts: I have a conviction that they can, anddo, exist among us! The day she was buried, there came a fall of snow.In the evening I went to the churchyard. It blew bleak as winter--allround was solitary. I didn't fear that her fool of a husband wouldwander up the glen so late; and no one else had business to bring themthere. Being alone, and conscious two yards of loose earth was the solebarrier between us, I said to myself--"I'll have her in my arms again! Ifshe be cold, I'll think it is this north wind that chills _me_; and ifshe be motionless, it is sleep." I got a spade from the tool-house, andbegan to delve with all my might--it scraped the coffin; I fell to workwith my hands; the wood commenced cracking about the screws; I was on thepoint of attaining my object, when it seemed that I heard a sigh fromsome one above, close at the edge of the grave, and bending down. "If Ican only get this off," I muttered, "I wish they may shovel in the earthover us both!" and I wrenched at it more desperately still. There wasanother sigh, close at my ear. I appeared to feel the warm breath of itdisplacing the sleet-laden wind. I knew no living thing in flesh andblood was by; but, as certainly as you perceive the approach to somesubstantial body in the dark, though it cannot be discerned, so certainlyI felt that Cathy was there: not under me, but on the earth. A suddensense of relief flowed from my heart through every limb. I relinquishedmy labour of agony, and turned consoled at once: unspeakably consoled.Her presenc
e was with me: it remained while I re-filled the grave, andled me home. You may laugh, if you will; but I was sure I should see herthere. I was sure she was with me, and I could not help talking to her.Having reached the Heights, I rushed eagerly to the door. It wasfastened; and, I remember, that accursed Earnshaw and my wife opposed myentrance. I remember stopping to kick the breath out of him, and thenhurrying up-stairs, to my room and hers. I looked round impatiently--Ifelt her by me--I could _almost_ see her, and yet I _could not_! I oughtto have sweat blood then, from the anguish of my yearning--from thefervour of my supplications to have but one glimpse! I had not one. Sheshowed herself, as she often was in life, a devil to me! And, sincethen, sometimes more and sometimes less, I've been the sport of thatintolerable torture! Infernal! keeping my nerves at such a stretch that,if they had not resembled catgut, they would long ago have relaxed to thefeebleness of Linton's. When I sat in the house with Hareton, it seemedthat on going out I should meet her; when I walked on the moors I shouldmeet her coming in. When I went from home I hastened to return; she_must_ be somewhere at the Heights, I was certain! And when I slept inher chamber--I was beaten out of that. I couldn't lie there; for themoment I closed my eyes, she was either outside the window, or slidingback the panels, or entering the room, or even resting her darling headon the same pillow as she did when a child; and I must open my lids tosee. And so I opened and closed them a hundred times a night--to bealways disappointed! It racked me! I've often groaned aloud, till thatold rascal Joseph no doubt believed that my conscience was playing thefiend inside of me. Now, since I've seen her, I'm pacified--a little. Itwas a strange way of killing: not by inches, but by fractions ofhairbreadths, to beguile me with the spectre of a hope through eighteenyears!'

  Mr. Heathcliff paused and wiped his forehead; his hair clung to it, wetwith perspiration; his eyes were fixed on the red embers of the fire, thebrows not contracted, but raised next the temples; diminishing the grimaspect of his countenance, but imparting a peculiar look of trouble, anda painful appearance of mental tension towards one absorbing subject. Heonly half addressed me, and I maintained silence. I didn't like to hearhim talk! After a short period he resumed his meditation on the picture,took it down and leant it against the sofa to contemplate it at betteradvantage; and while so occupied Catherine entered, announcing that shewas ready, when her pony should be saddled.

  'Send that over to-morrow,' said Heathcliff to me; then turning to her,he added: 'You may do without your pony: it is a fine evening, and you'llneed no ponies at Wuthering Heights; for what journeys you take, your ownfeet will serve you. Come along.'

  'Good-bye, Ellen!' whispered my dear little mistress.

  As she kissed me, her lips felt like ice. 'Come and see me, Ellen; don'tforget.'

  'Take care you do no such thing, Mrs. Dean!' said her new father. 'WhenI wish to speak to you I'll come here. I want none of your prying at myhouse!'

  He signed her to precede him; and casting back a look that cut my heart,she obeyed. I watched them, from the window, walk down the garden.Heathcliff fixed Catherine's arm under his: though she disputed the actat first evidently; and with rapid strides he hurried her into the alley,whose trees concealed them.