Читать книгу Nelly Dean - Alison Case - Страница 7

But this will not do: I am meandering about like a puppy on the moors, following after one scent and then another in every direction at once. I must make a proper start, and tell you my story in a more collected fashion.

Heathcliff’s arrival was the end of my childhood.

I had lived at the Heights as long as I could remember. My mother had been nurse to Hindley when we were both babes-in-arms, so we had been nearly always together. After we were weaned, my mother returned home to the cottage she shared with my father, coming to the Heights only one or two days a week to help with the churning and other tasks too heavy for the mistress and too skilled to be left to maids. But she chose, for reasons of her own, that I should stay on with the Earnshaws, to live in the nursery and, in time, have lessons with Hindley and Cathy.

I knew that I was not really one of the family. I knew that my own parents were poor, and that when I grew older I should have to work for my bread, as they did. I knew that I was only permitted to live and be educated at the Heights because of Mrs Earnshaw’s old friendship with my mother, and her gratitude for my mother’s services to the family, and that it was expected of me that I would be a pleasing companion to the children and a help to Mrs Earnshaw – and to my mother too, when she came over. I knew all this, I say, because I had been told it, but it was not a truth I had before me in my day-to-day life. Mrs Earnshaw was an indulgent mistress – if anything, kinder to me than to her own children, though perhaps that was only because I tried her patience less. Mr Earnshaw was a good deal sterner than his wife, but again, not more so to me than to his own, and with him too, I felt myself to be something of a favourite. It is true that I was often called from my lessons to do chores in the kitchen, but Hindley was almost equally called upon out-of-doors, his father thinking it best to give him an early introduction to the labours required by the estate he was to inherit. For the rest, I ate, slept, studied and played with Hindley and Cathy, shared in their treats and their punishments, and participated as an equal in their games. I knew, if I thought about it, that my future prospects were widely different from theirs, but what child can think about that, when the sun is shining and the bees are humming over the blooming heather, and she and her nursery-mates have just been granted an unexpected holiday from lessons in honour of the first sunny day in a week? And looking back on it now, my childhood seems composed only of such holidays. But all that changed when Heathcliff came.

We were little prepared for such a change that evening. We had all been eagerly anticipating the master’s return from his trip to Liverpool, and our minds were dwelling much on the good things that were to arrive with him. You must not think, though, that we were greedy children, always looking after gifts and treats, or that we were much attached to toys and other possessions. This was an exceptional occasion, for the master had never been gone so far or so long from the house before. In those days, Gimmerton was the outermost limit of our known world, and Liverpool seemed scarcely less distant and magical than Paris or Constantinople. Then, too, the gifts Mr Earnshaw had engaged to bring back for us held a significance far beyond their price. For Hindley, who had asked for a fiddle, his father’s cheerful promise to bring him one had come like a peace offering, for he endured much criticism for preferring all forms of play and merrymaking – which his father termed indolence – to schoolwork or farm business. Cathy, too, had been often scolded for being too wild and too much out-of-doors, when she ought to be sitting in the house with her sampler, or helping her mother. Emboldened by Hindley’s success, she had asked for a whip – and took her father’s smiling acquiescence in the request as tacit permission for many a future gallop across the moors on her little pony. I myself, when asked, had not ventured to request anything more extravagant than ‘an apple’, whereupon he called me a good girl and promised me a whole pocketful.

As the hour of his expected return approached, our excitement reached a pitch that made any pretence of rational employment impossible. Hindley, in anticipation of his fiddle, was holding an invisible one stiffly to his shoulder with his head bent sideways, and sawing the air over it with the grimmest possible expression on his face, while his feet danced merrily under him as if disconnected from the top, in perfect imitation of our best local fiddler – a performance that had even the mistress in fits of laughter. Cathy, not to be outdone, was cantering around the outside of the room as if she were pony and rider both, and, by judicious application of her imaginary whip (signalled by shouting ‘Thwack!’ as she moved her arm), leaping every obstacle in her path with ease. I, with nothing more exciting to expect than apples, was trying to prove my superior virtue by sitting quietly with some plain sewing, but Hindley’s glee was infectious, and I soon jumped up to improvise a dance to his imaginary tune – earning me a gallant bow from the pretending fiddler – while Mrs Earnshaw clapped the time, and Cathy galloped about to the same rhythm.

In all the riot we half forgot the object of our anticipation, so that the master’s weary ‘Halloo’ from outside, announcing his arrival at the gate, came like a magical signal ending the revels all in a flash, as we scurried to our seats, still flushed and laughing, to compose ourselves for a more seemly welcome. In addition to the promised gifts, we had formed hopes of getting some marvellous sweets, for Mr Earnshaw never went to town without bringing us back a few small indulgences of that kind, and, with childish logic, we thought that this much longer trip, to a much larger town, would yield treats proportionately more magnificent.

But even our more reasonable expectations were disappointed, when the master appeared with nothing more to offer than that queer, filthy little child who would be named Heathcliff. Hindley could not forbear weeping when his father drew forth the shards of the broken kit, and Cathy wailed outright when her father’s assiduous searching and patting of pockets yielded only the news that her whip was lost.

All this was but a poor recommendation of young Heathcliff to our affections, as you may imagine, and it was not helped by the master’s too-evident disgust that his children should weigh the loss of mere ‘trifling toys’, as he put it, above the salvation of a human being. But the mistress’s dismay at the new arrival was hardly less than their own, and as might have been expected, they all fed off each other’s: the children taking umbrage on their mother’s behalf, and the mistress on the children’s – and all of them directing their anger first and foremost at the child, as being a safer object for it than their lord and master.

As for me, of course I never tasted my apples – yet I was thrust out of the garden all the same. I have told you how I left the child out on the landing, that night, after being told to put him to bed, and how, upon the master discovering it, I was sent away in disgrace. I made light of it to you, but to my childish mind at the time it really seemed hardly less of a catastrophe than the expulsion of our first parents – and no less permanent. He had thundered at me in the manner of an Old Testament prophet, concluding with the terrible words, ‘Leave this house, Ellen Dean, and never return.’

Well, I stumbled out of there, I don’t know how, and set out towards home. For the first half-mile I could scarcely walk for grief, so finally I set myself down in a small hollow and gave over entirely to sobbing. I had rarely seen Mr Earnshaw so angry, and never so with me, and it seemed a terrible thing to have lost his good opinion, as I thought, for ever. But when I had exhausted the first burst of grief, the chill wind sent me on my way again. Then walking warmed and woke me, and my mind began to dwell more on what lay before me than on what was behind.

My reflections were not comfortable ones. I knew that it was at my mother’s wish that I remained at the Heights, and I couldn’t think that she would be pleased to see me cast out of there by my own fault. As for my father, on the rare occasions that I saw him he could scarcely look at me without raising his hand to strike me. Terrified of him as I was, I didn’t like to think of what he might do if he thought I’d given him good cause for displeasure. However, the more I dawdled on the way, the less chance I had of making it home before he returned from work, and I preferred to encounter my mother’s anger alone first, reasoning that it would be the less dangerous of the two, and further, that once she had got over the worst of it herself she would be likelier to take my part in defence against my father, should that prove necessary.

So I mended my pace, and began thinking how I might present myself in the best light to my mother. ‘After all,’ I said to myself, ‘what have I done but what the whole family (the master excepted) wished me to do? Am I not bound to do as I’m bid by them, and did not Hindley and Cathy refuse to have the child in the nursery with them? The master, weary from his journey, was in bed already, and the mistress was going on at a great pace herself about how she “couldn’t think what Mr Earnshaw thought he was about, bringing such a creature into the family, when who knows what nasty habits the child will have picked up in the street – most likely he’d steal all the valuables in the house, or maybe murder us all in our beds!” (“I’ll murder him first!” was Hindley’s reply) – so what was I to do?’

With such reflections, I had worked myself, by the time I came within sight of my parents’ cottage, into feeling rather aggrieved at my expulsion than otherwise, and I almost looked forward to telling my wrongs to my mother – until the sight of her in the flesh, standing in the doorway and looking more worried than pleased to see me, drove all my fine words from my head.

‘Nelly! Whatever brings you here at this time? Has something happened at the Heights? Are they all well?’

I managed to stumble out a reassurance on this point, before sobs overtook me. ‘I have been sent away,’ I wailed, ‘never to return, because I did wrong by the orphan boy, and would have brought God’s curse down on the house by turning him from the door.’

My reception was not at all what I expected. Instead of being angry at me, or sympathizing with my sorrow, she began cross-questioning me about matters that had little to do with what was uppermost in my mind, which was the fault I’d committed and the punishment I was to bear for it.

‘What orphan boy was this?’

‘The one the master brought home from Liverpool yesterday.’

‘Liverpool! When did he go there? I saw him in church only last Sunday.’

‘Aye, he left just after dinner Sunday.’

‘Travelling of a Sunday! That’s unlike him. And he must have half-killed his horse, to go there and back in this time. Or did he take the coach from Gimmerton?’

‘Neither one. He walked all the way, and it’s his feet that were half killed, as I saw myself when I brought him a basin and towel to wash them. All swollen they were, and rubbed raw and bleeding in many places. It is not wrong to walk on a Sunday, is it?’ I added, a bit concerned about this point. ‘How could it be, when we all walk to church and back?’

‘To be sure not – though if he’d waited until Monday he could still have got there quicker by coach. Very strange that he should walk all that way. And why should he go at all?’

‘He said he had business there.’

‘What business could he possibly have in Liverpool?’

‘Probably something about the wool, I should think.’

‘No, he deals with a wool stapler in Gimmerton, and any business he had further afield than that would be handled by his solicitor.’

‘Well I’m sure I don’t know,’ I said, beginning, perversely enough, to feel rather slighted by her focus on Mr Earnshaw’s doings. ‘He doesn’t tell me his business. But I don’t know why he’d make such a journey if he didn’t need to.’

‘No … And you say he picked up the child there? How did he come by it?’

‘He said he found it in the street, half-starved, and no one to take charge of it.’

‘And so he brought it all that way home? And on foot too? Strange.’

‘Well, he couldn’t leave him there to die, could he?’ I said, now feeling rather defensive on Mr Earnshaw’s part. ‘Are we not bid to care for orphans and widows?’

‘We are. But we needn’t walk sixty miles to Liverpool to find them, when there’s misery enough within a day’s walk to keep the charity of ten Earnshaws occupied.’

‘But he was there anyway, on business,’ I reminded her, ‘and he found the child there, and no one would own it, and he couldn’t leave it to starve, and so …’

‘Aye. So you said. What does the child look like?’

‘Dark all over. Partly from dirt, I guess – I don’t think he had ever been bathed before. But his skin was dark even after bathing.’

‘How old?’

‘Two or three years by size, but he seems older by his manner.’

‘Can he not speak for himself?’

‘Only some queer gibberish. Nothing we can understand.’

‘Stranger and stranger! How does he act towards Mr Earnshaw? Does he seem to know him?’

‘He looks to him all the time, and seems less frightened of him than of the rest of us,’ I said – choosing not to mention that this was no doubt because Hindley and Cathy pinched him whenever they could, and I made faces at him, while even Mrs Earnshaw made no secret of her dislike. ‘But he doesn’t seem to understand him any better than the rest of us.’

‘Hmm.’ She sank into a chair, looking puzzled.

Like most children, I was accustomed to take what my elders told me as simple truth, never thinking to question it except insofar as it directly concerned myself. Little as I liked the strange new creature, and sorry as I was for the trouble he had brought on my head, it had never occurred to me that there was anything unaccountable in Mr Earnshaw’s having brought him home. That he was a good, wise, and just man I firmly believed. If he thought it his duty to claim a stray child in a far-off city as his responsibility, no doubt it was so. But this did not appear to be my mother’s view of the case.

‘How does he act towards the child? Is he very fond of it?’

‘He seems so. He fires up if anyone seems to be slighting him in any way. He was very angry when he found I’d—’ I stopped, unable to speak further.

‘What did you do, Nelly?’

‘Nothing!’ I cried, all my sense of grievance returning. ‘Hindley and Cathy wouldn’t have him in the nursery, and Mrs Earnshaw was in hysterics that he was in the house at all, and it was left to me to find him a place to sleep, so where was I to put him? What else was I to do? Take him into my own bed? I just left him on the landing, and hoped he’d be gone by morning.’

‘Hush, Nelly. Calm yourself and stop shouting. Did you tell Mr Earnshaw this?’

‘No. I don’t like to carry tales, and—’

‘And what?’

‘I didn’t want Hindley to be beaten, as I knew he would be.’

‘Is Hindley beaten often?’

‘I don’t know. Not so very often. It’s just that—’

‘What?’

‘Just … I don’t like to see it. Mr Earnshaw is so angry when he does it. His face gets purple. And Hindley, he … I …’ I took a deep breath, and looked at the ground. ‘I feel as if it’s happening to me.’

‘Does Mr Earnshaw ever beat you?’

‘No. If Hindley and I get into mischief, it is always Hindley who gets the blame – he takes the blame. And I never do wrong on my own. At least not until now. So how could I bring him into it?’

‘What did Mr Earnshaw do when he found out what you’d done with the child?’

‘He was so angry it frightened me. He said … he said I must leave and never come again. But I would rather he had beaten me, if only I could stay. What will Hindley do without me? He’ll have no friend at all. And what will become of me?’

You may think it strange, Mr Lockwood, that a child of fourteen could ask such a question of her mother, and under her father’s roof. But I was mortally afraid of my father, and my mother’s care in keeping me from the sight of him, by making him unfamiliar to me, only increased my terror. No doubt it was wrong of me, but I verily believed he might kill me if he had to see me every day.

My mother sat me down in the kitchen, and shortly produced a mug of tea and some bread and butter. All the while, she was speaking to me in her gentlest tones.

‘Hindley is a difficult lad,’ she said, ‘and has been so from a babe. Mr Earnshaw doesn’t wish to spare the rod and spoil him, and doubtless he is right in that, although … well, it may be difficult for you to see it. Mr Earnshaw may be a hard man, Nelly, but he is a just man. If his anger has not fallen on you before today, it is because he has cause to believe Hindley is at the root of any mischief you two get into together. And that is so, is it not? Did you not say you never do wrong except with him – until now, anyway?’

I nodded silently, looking steadily into my mug of tea.

‘It is generous in Hindley to take all the blame to himself,’ she went on. ‘It shows a good heart. But it means you have all the more duty to head him away from wrongdoing when you are with him, Nelly. That is the best way to shield him from punishment.’

‘But how am I to do that if I am never to return?’ I wailed.

‘Leave that to me,’ she said, and began removing her apron and wrapping her shawl, preparatory to going out. I rose and was beginning to do the same, but she stopped me.

‘You stay here, Nelly. I am going to the Heights, and I will see what I can do to allow you to return there, but I must go alone.’ I glanced towards the door, not liking to say what was in my mind.

‘In all likelihood I will be back before your father returns. But if I’m not—’ She began looking about the cottage – perhaps for a likely hiding place, I thought, though the rooms were too small and sparsely furnished to afford one. At last, with an air of decision, she reached down the crock of sugar, and, feeling her way to the bottom of it, pulled out a small purse, from which she drew two shillings, and put them on the table.

‘Tell him you’ve brought him your wages,’ she said. My eyes widened at this. The teaching at Wuthering Heights was strong on the Commandments, and lying to my father, I thought, would be breaking two at one blow. She must have guessed my thought, for she flushed and added, ‘You needn’t say an untruth – indeed I wouldn’t wish you to. Leave the coins on the table, and only say “I’m getting wages now” – that should be true enough by the time you’ve said it, if my errand goes well.’ She thought a bit more, then added, ‘If he asks if that’s all your wages, just say “I’ve given you all I got” – that’s true too. The money will soften your welcome, and with any luck he’ll go off with it to town straight away, and won’t return until you’re abed – but most likely I’ll be back before he comes in anyway, as I said.’

No doubt this was a good plan, and ‘with luck’ might have worked well enough, but I had no intention of staying to find that out. As soon as my mother was out of sight behind a rise I got up myself and followed her, keeping well back and behind such cover as I could find. When we got nearer the Heights, this was easy enough, for Hindley and I had learned every dip and hollow all around, and prided ourselves on being able to disappear from view at a moment’s notice – particularly when chores or lessons were in the offing.

I had expected that my mother would go straight to Mrs Earnshaw, her old friend and staunchest ally in the household, so I was surprised to see her seek out the master instead, and in a manner that told me she had no wish to be spotted by the mistress first. This puzzled me, until I reflected that her wish to get home before my father’s return meant she must dispatch her business quickly, and that it was the master, after all, who had banned me from the house, and must be won over to agree to my return.

Mr Earnshaw had carved out an office for himself from the corner of the nearer barn – little more than a closet, really, but lit with a small window, and furnished with a desk, a couple of chairs, and a brazier for hot coals in winter. Here he kept his account books, and met with his tenants and any others with whom he had business that he did not wish to intrude on the house, where the mistress held sway.

I was not near enough to hear what was said when my mother found Mr Earnshaw in another barn examining a lame horse, but the consequence of it was that they both went into the ‘office’ and closed the door.

Under the office window was a large and fiercely prickly gooseberry bush, placed there, no doubt, so as to discourage eavesdroppers. But years before, Hindley and I had amused ourselves one lazy afternoon by constructing a ‘secret passageway’, low to the ground between the bush and the wall. We had carefully lined it with willow twigs and grasses, to allow us to squeeze through without being snagged on the prickles, into a space carved out of the centre of the bush, scarcely large enough for the two of us to huddle in together, but perfectly situated to render audible anything that was said in the office. We never overheard anything of real interest to us there, but, by christening our little hideaway ‘the robbers’ cave’, and performing the like transformation on whatever we heard there – as, turning shillings into pounds, and pounds into bags of gold, or taking ‘milk’ as code for brandy, ‘sultanas’ for pearls and rubies, and ‘a ewe lamb’ for an Arabian mare of priceless bloodlines, we contrived to imagine ourselves as a pair of hardened bandits with prices on our heads, ruthlessly planning the violent diversion of all this precious cargo.

It had been a few years since Hindley and I had last pushed our way under the gooseberry bush together, having outgrown its accommodation for the two of us, but the passage was still there, only a little dilapidated with time, and when I had squeezed myself along it into the old cave, I found it cramped but adequate for myself alone. I carefully settled down to listen.

‘So you have thrown Nelly out of the house,’ began my mother, with a directness that rather startled me.

‘By her own fault,’ he responded quickly, and told again what she had already had from me, much dwelling on the bad heart shown in my cruelty to an unfriended orphan, so that I was like to begin sobbing all over again, but that my fear of discovery was more powerful than my grief.

‘She did wrong there, to be sure. But she had seen the child bring sorrow and strife into the house – the mistress distraught and angry, and her nursery-mates dismayed, and it was that more than cruelty that made her act as she did. Whatever possessed you to bring the child home in the first place?’

‘I found him starving in the street in Liverpool, and no one to claim him or care for him.’

‘Aye, and could have found two or three more on every corner there, if what I hear is true. Not to mention the poor of our own parish, whom it would better become you to aid than a stranger from far away – particularly as some of them are your own tenants.’

‘It is not for you to dictate to me how or to whom I extend charity, Mrs Dean. That is between me and my conscience.’

‘Very well then. What was the business that brought you to Liverpool?’

‘That too is between me and my conscience.’

‘Ah. It’s as I thought then – the “business” and the boy are one and the same.’

‘I don’t know quite what you mean to imply. I can assure you that the boy was unknown to me before I went, nor do I know any more of his parentage or circumstances than I have told already.’ There was a short pause. ‘But I will not deny to you that I had some such purpose in making this journey. And I trust that knowing this will make plainer to you the importance of treating this poor child with consideration.’

‘I would more willingly grant that if you had not made him the occasion for thrusting my own child from your hearth.’

‘Your child has a home, to which it is perhaps time she returned. She should come under her own father’s discipline.’

‘Her father’s discipline was like to have killed her! For pity’s sake, Mr Earnshaw, do you not remember the condition she was in when I brought her here? Her arm broken, her eye blacked, and all over bruises? If he could treat her so as a child of four, what will he do now?’

‘Nelly is old enough now to avoid giving offence.’

‘Do you think he will wait for her to give offence? Her very existence gives offence to him! I have seen him with her, sir, as you have not. She has but to walk into the room for him to be lit up with rage. He will take offence at the way she stands, or walks, or sits in a chair. I had hoped it would be better when our son was born, but though he doted on the lad, it did little to soften him towards Nell. And since he died,’ she paused to regain her voice, ‘it is as if all his grief were changed into anger at her. You would have thought she had had a hand in his death, to hear him. And this, even though I had made sure she was away from home during the whole of the poor child’s illness – though it was a bitter sorrow to her that she was unable to say farewell.’

‘You ought not to complain of your husband to me,’ said the master, but his voice had softened.

‘I don’t wish to. I have made my bed, and I will lie in it. But you must forgive a mother’s concern for the welfare of her child. Mr Earnshaw, please think of what this means for her. Do you think I am happy to have her so far from me, or to let her believe, as I know she does, that I bear her too little love to care much for her company? Do you think I like to see her loving your wife with the love she might have given me? For pity’s sake, sir, give her back the refuge here that you promised me for her ten years ago in this very room. Far be it from me to hinder your fulfilment of any vow you may have made with regard to this strange child, but bethink you, sir: can an act of penance be acceptable to the Lord if its burden falls heavier on others than on the penitent? That were like offering as sacrifice a ram taken from another man’s flock.’

A long silence followed this speech. When the master finally spoke, it was in a voice so low I could scarcely follow it.

‘There is something in what you say, Mrs Dean. I have perhaps been overly hasty in sending your daughter away. But neither can I simply remit her punishment. It must be clear, not only to her but to the whole household, that this child must be treated with all the consideration due to my own son.’

‘And is my—’ but whatever my mother had been about to say, she thought better of it. I heard her draw a deep breath, such as I had sometimes seen her do to calm herself when angry, and when she spoke her voice was steady. ‘Banish her for a day or two if you must,’ she said. ‘I can keep her so long at least without too much difficulty. And when she returns, let her return on the footing of a servant – the change will seem to her and your children to mark your displeasure clearly enough. And I do think it best, with this new child in the house, for her to understand her own place more clearly. She has been playmate to your children and a sharer in their lessons longer already than a girl of her … her birth and prospects can expect. In addition,’ she added more hesitantly, ‘her father expects her to be earning, but I don’t want her going into the mills: that work is bad for girls – both for their bodily health and their character.’

Mr Earnshaw concurred.

‘I have heard that Martha Pickerell will be leaving you soon to be married. Nell can take her place. You need pay her no more than is customary for girls her age who are new to service – a shilling a week to start with, which is a good deal less than Martha earns now – and she’s a quick-witted lass and a hard worker’ – I was pleased to hear a grunt of assent here from the master – ‘so you will not lose anything by it. I have been teaching her the dairying on my days here already, and I’ve no doubt that in time she will be able to manage that too, and more than repay you for all your kindness to her.’

To my astonishment, the master let out a grim chuckle. ‘If she takes after you at all, Mary, I’ve no doubt she will manage us all quite nicely.’

‘Oh yes, I have managed very well for myself, have I not?’ my mother replied bitterly. This produced another awkward silence.

‘Very well then,’ he said at last, ‘Nelly shall come back with us, say after church on Sunday, and on the terms you suggest.’ Relief flooded me (making its exit in a gush of silent tears), not only that I might come back, but that, as it seemed, Mr Earnshaw’s goodwill and good humour were restored – for much as I longed to return to the Heights, I had rather dreaded living henceforth under his displeasure.

I would have expected that my mother, having gained her point, would head homeward forthwith, so I was surprised to hear her broaching a new subject: ‘And this new child, what place will he have?’

‘I shall raise him as one of my own.’

‘Do you think that is wise? Will you be giving him a son’s portion? What will that mean for Hindley?’

‘If Hindley cannot welcome the lad as a brother, so much the worse for him. He must do as he is bid while I am still master in this house.’

‘He is your son.’

‘Aye, and his mother’s.’

‘From whom he gets a loving heart and a merry spirit, if they be not trampled down by harsh treatment.’

‘Mrs Dean, I have listened to you on the subject of your daughter, and I have responded not ungenerously, I think, to your plea on her behalf. But I will not be dictated to by you about the way I raise my own children. I trust that is understood?’

‘Forgive me, sir. I still have something of a mother’s feeling for my old nursling, and I couldn’t wish to see him slighted for a child who has no prior claims on your heart. But I had no wish to give offence. You must do as you think best, of course. And I thank you heartily for what you have done for Nell.’ With this I heard sounds suggestive of my mother wrapping her shawl again in preparation for leaving.

‘Will you not stop in to visit with my wife? She would be grieved to hear that you’d come and gone without seeing her.’

‘Perhaps it would be best not to mention it, then.’

‘Not possible, I’m afraid – the children will have brought her word already. Do go in and see her – and while you are there you can tell her of my decision about Nell. She will be glad of it – I know she has been sorely grieved by all this.’ The master spoke with some embarrassment here. I guessed – what I later learned was true – that he had had hard words from the mistress over the new child and my expulsion, and he did not feel it would be conducive to his dignity or authority as master of the house to confess directly to suspending my punishment so soon. ‘You are also best able to explain to her about Nelly’s new duties,’ he added, ‘which of course it will be her task to oversee.’

‘Very well then, I will just stop in briefly to speak to her.’

‘While you are there, please tell her that I will be up in the high pasture this afternoon, so she should not expect me to dinner.’

With that they went their separate ways, my mother heading into the house, and the master taking off with his brisk, long strides towards the heights behind the house – which, fortunately, lay in another direction than my own way. No sooner had they disappeared from view than I began extracting myself from my hiding place. This proved awkward, for my entrance had dislodged much of the wickerwork lining the passageway, and I was hard-pressed to make progress while detaching the snagged prickles that threatened to tear my clothes. My dress made it out unscathed, but my arms and face were not so lucky – a fact that I realized would require some explanation when I saw my mother again, as I was supposed to have been sitting quietly at home all the while. No sooner did I emerge than Hindley pounced on me with a shout.

‘Nell, I’m so glad you’re back. It would be too much to have that filthy little horror foisted upon us and lose you too all at one blow. But what in Heaven have you been doing? You look like the cat’s been at you.’

‘Hush, Hindley – keep your voice low and come around the corner behind this wall – I’m not supposed to be here now. I had to scurry roundabout to get here without Mother spotting me, and I took a tumble into some brambles on the way.’ I didn’t think it wise to mention my eavesdropping, as Hindley would insist on hearing everything that had been said, and I knew from long experience that his discretion was not to be relied on.

‘Is your mother here now?’

‘She’s stepped in to see the mistress, I believe to see about my coming back.’

‘Well, let’s hear them, then. Come over here beneath the window, and I’ll lift you up.’

‘Better I should lift you – you’re smaller than I am.’

‘Nonsense! I’m older, and anyway you’re only a girl.’ In fact, I was the elder, though only by a few months, but from the time he could talk Hindley had always insisted it was he, and if anyone asked his age would always proudly claim his full years while subtracting one from mine, as in ‘I am four, and Nelly is three.’ At the time, this had been terribly galling to my childish dignity, but my mother would not let me contradict him. As she said, it only made folk think me forward for my age, which was no harm to me. By this time, I had grown so used to Hindley’s claim to be my elder that I all but forgot that it wasn’t so. So I let him grasp me about the knees and heave me up, but he staggered about so that I begged him to put me down.

‘Hindley, please let’s switch places,’ I said. ‘If your face is spotted at the window you’ll get only a scolding from your mother, but I shall be in a peck of trouble with my mother and the master both if I’m caught. And anyway,’ I added cannily, ‘you are better at gripping the sill than I am, which takes off a good deal of the weight.’ So Hindley allowed me to lift him up, and overheard just enough to announce to me with great importance the news I had already gleaned from my nest in the gooseberry bush.

‘You’re to come back after church next Sunday,’ he said, ‘but you’re to be a servant now, Nell, and you’ll get a shilling a week! I wish I was a servant – no lessons to do, and more pocket money than I shall ever see. But you’ll share with me, won’t you, Nell?’

‘All my wages will go to my father,’ I said, ‘and if I get no lessons, there’ll be no play either: I shall have to work all day, so you needn’t be jealous. But hush now – I want to hear what else is said.’ I lowered him to the ground, for in truth the conversation was perfectly audible from there, and easier to follow without Hindley relaying his own versions from above.

‘I am so glad we are to have Nelly back with us, Mary,’ the mistress was saying. ‘I was sorely grieved that she should be sent away on so slight a fault. But I do verily think my husband has gone mad! How could he bring this creature here all the way from Liverpool, and then turn on our own children so? And it’s worse than that – he’s named the child Heathcliff, after our firstborn! It is cruel of him, don’t you think? Positively cruel to bring that name before me every day!’ She began sobbing bitterly. Hindley’s eyes filled with tears too.

‘The little beast!’ he hissed. ‘I shall make him pay for this – just watch me.’ Poor Hindley never could bear to see his mother cry (though it was a common enough occurrence), and generally contrived to get angry at someone else, to cover his own grief for her. In this case, I saw that the new child would bear the brunt of the anger Hindley dared not show towards his father. To be honest, I was not inclined to take the new child’s part either, for I still felt aggrieved myself that he had pushed me, as I saw it, from my place with the children at the Heights.

From the window came the familiar sounds of my mother soothing and cheering her old friend, as the mistress’s sobs gradually subsided into sighs. ‘You mustn’t take it so, Helen,’ my mother was saying. ‘It was a good deed, surely, to rescue the poor child from starvation or worse on the streets, and now that he is here it will be your duty to bring him up to be a credit to the family. Probably Mr Earnshaw thought that giving the boy the name of your firstborn would help you to feel a mother’s affection for him. I am sure he meant you no harm by it. You know you have been sad not to be able to have more children about you, and now here is another little one come to you as if by magic, like the return of your lost child. And that Nelly is coming back as a servant need not grieve you either – it only means she’ll be spending her days helping you instead of scampering over the moors with Hindley. Really, she’ll be more like a daughter to you than ever. And I shall have to come over here more often myself, at first, to help her learn her new duties.’

‘I wish you could be here always, Mary,’ said the mistress with a sigh. ‘Those were the happiest years, when you were here, and I have never managed so well since you left. Why did you have to get married and go away?’

‘It was you who married first, Helen, long before me,’ said my mother gently. ‘And if I had not married and had Nell, what would have become of Hindley? He would have died like all the rest, would he not? Those times seem happy to you now because you remember what you had then and have not now, but you forget that you didn’t have your bairns then, and thought you never would, and that grieved you sorely. We never get all we want in this world. We must bear the trials God sends to us, and do our duty with a cheerful heart.’ Then, with special firmness, she added, ‘And your duty now is to this child, to Heathcliff.’

‘Heathcliff,’ the mistress sighed. ‘I suppose I must accustom myself to using it.’

‘It won’t take long – you’ll see,’ my mother replied, ‘but I cannot stay longer, Helen. I’ve left Nelly at home by herself, waiting to hear what is to become of her, and I should prefer to be back before Tom gets home, too.’

‘Send Nelly my love, then, and tell her how glad I shall be to have her back again, and she must not mind too much about the work, for I will be an easy mistress to her.’

‘I’ll send your love to be sure,’ said my mother, ‘but as to her work, I’ll tell her nothing of the sort, and really, Helen, you will do her no favours by encouraging idleness, unless you have a fortune hidden somewhere you are planning to endow her with. Nelly will always have to earn her bread, like the rest of us, and the sooner she resigns herself to that, the happier she will be.’

I did not stay to hear more, for now I had to contrive to get home before my mother, and make it look as if I’d never left. ‘Hindley,’ I said, ‘do you think you can manage to delay my mother a few minutes, so I can get well away before she sets out?’

‘Leave it to me,’ he said with a grin, delighted as always to have a hand in mischief of any kind. ‘You know your mother can never resist an appeal from her old nursling.’ He took off for the door, while I took one of our more circuitous and well-hidden routes back towards my parents’ cottage.

I soon saw that it would be hard to keep out of sight and ahead of my mother all the way (though stout, she was a brisk walker), and still arrive in time to compose myself and my story for her arrival, but I thought of something that would save me a good portion of my trip, and serve as excuse for my injuries as well. I brought myself around nigh and to one side of her, climbed up on a hummock, and waved, calling ‘Mother, Mother!’ from a direction that was neither before nor behind her path.

‘Nelly! What brings you here? I told you to stay at home. And what in Heaven have you done to yourself?’ she added, noticing the scratches on my arms and face.

‘I’m very sorry, Mother, but I just couldn’t stay. I was … I had …’ There was no need to pretend my embarrassment. ‘I didn’t know what I should say if Father came in, and I grew anxious, so I ran out onto the moors and came to meet you, and then there were brambles in my way, and I got tangled in them.’ This was all true enough as far as it went, but I then bethought me that I ought to show some suspense about the result of her errand, and begged her to tell me if I would be permitted to return.

‘Yes, Nelly, you are to go home with them after church on Sunday. But you shall be earning wages now, and must not go running off to the moors with the other children.’

‘And what am I to do until then? Will I stay here with you and Father?’

‘You will, for tonight anyway – but don’t fear, Nell, all will be well with him, you’ll see. Come with me now, and I’ll tell you all about it.’ She told me, of course, a good deal less than all I had heard for myself, but I listened with as much interest as if it were all new to me. The events of that day had set me thinking about a number of things I had not given much thought to until then, and had made my mother an object of interest and curiosity to me in a way she had never been before.

Dusk was approaching by the time we reached the cottage, but my father was not yet home. My mother hurried to build up the fire and set supper in motion. She was just looking at my scratches, and putting salve on the deeper ones, when we heard my father’s footsteps outside. She waved me into an inconspicuous corner, where I cowered, trying to quell my fear and be ready to compose my face into a smile when he should spot me. He came in without looking around, and sat down heavily in his chair by the fire. My mother quickly brought him a mug of tea and a large slice of bread and butter. He took these in either hand and leaned back with a sigh.

‘How did the job go on?’ she asked solicitously. ‘Did you finish it today?’

‘Noo, I did not. It’s bigger nor I thought – half the wall ’ill have to come down a’ the north side, and be done all anew. I’d told the fellow at the start he munna think it war only a hole to be filled in, if the wall round it weren’t fit, and so it weren’t. But he took it with an ill grace, all the same. I asked for payment today, and he were right shy of givin’ it. Said as how he’d pay when the job were done, but I were having none of that. “I’ve earned me wages,” I said to him. “Ye needn’t fear that I won’t finish the job – I’ve never left one unfinished yet, and I’m not starting now. But I’ve got t’ buy me bread and pay me rent same as the next man, and I don’t see why I should be stinted because another man’s wall is in worse shape than he thought.”

‘“Nought a penny till the job is done,” says ee. “I know your ways, and if I pay you now, you’ll be drunk tomorrow, and my cows ’ill ’ve the cold wind on their backs another day.” Can you believe that? I’d aff a mind to swing my fist at him.

‘“And what are we to do without my wages tomorrow? Are we to have porridge for our Sunday dinner for the sake of your cows?” I asked.’

‘Fie, Tom,’ my mother interjected, her voice drifting into broader Yorkshire than she ever employed at the Heights, ‘when have I ever given you porridge for Sunday dinner? There’ll be roast fowl and ale, and apple pasty, same as ever, whether you get your wages tomorrow or Saturday, or not till Monday. And there’s money in the house now too – look, Nelly’s come home, and she’s earning wages now. Here’s two shillings for you, and she’s to have one every week.’

I took this as my cue to emerge from the corner, and I did my best to look cheerful and glad to see him.

‘Hello, Father,’ I said, with a bit of a curtsey.

‘Hoo, “Father” is it? Well, aren’t we the fine lady,’ he said, but he was hampered by the tea and bread in either hand from offering worse hostilities than this.

‘Whisht, husband,’ my mother chided, ‘is that any way to greet your daughter who’s just brought you her first wages, like a good girl?’

‘What wages? I ’aven’t seen any yet.’

‘She’s afraid to come near ye, most likely. If you can’t be friendly the first time you’ve seen her in six months, I’ll just tell her to bring her wages elsewhere.’

‘Aw right then,’ he said, and, balancing his slice atop his mug, he extended a large, calloused hand to me in a reasonable imitation of friendship. I came forward, at my mother’s encouraging nod, and put my small hand in his great one for a brief shake, before proffering the shillings. ‘Eh, you’re a good enough lass,’ he said, pulling me a foot or two closer and tousling my hair, at which I needed every ounce of self-control I had not to flinch. Then my mother motioned me to a stool at the other side of the fire, and handed me a mug and slice of my own before settling into the other chair herself. I had little appetite, but I was grateful for anything that would save me looking at or talking to my father, and so took to eating and drinking with a great show of earnestness, and we all sat munching in silence for some time.

His supper finished, my father rose and headed for the door.

‘I’ll just step out to the Ox and Plough to meet a man about a job of work,’ he said.

‘Aye, go then,’ said my mother, with as much good humour as if she believed him. When he was gone, she put an arm around me and heaved a sigh.

‘Well done, Nelly, you’re a good lass. He’ll drink that off at the inn, and before he’s back we’ll have you tucked snug into bed up the ladder in the loft, where he never goes. And anyway, he’s not one of those men who become more violent with drink – quite the contrary, thank Heaven.’

It was a better end than I could have imagined to a day begun so badly, but for all that I could not help collapsing into her arms and sobbing as if my heart were broken. ‘Why does he hate me so?’ I wailed – rather to my own surprise, I must confess, since normally I did not think myself much concerned about what he thought of me, only provided I were out of reach of his fists. But, of all that had distressed me that day, this was the safest to express to my mother, and the likeliest to earn her sympathy, so perhaps that had something to do with it.

My mother never had much patience for tears, but on this occasion she did no more than tighten her arms and ease me down beside her by the fire, rocking gently, until my sobs began to subside.

‘He doesn’t hate you, Nelly,’ she said at last. ‘How could he? He doesn’t know you at all.’

‘But he acts as if he does.’

‘He was … not kind to you when you were just a little thing, and that sits heavy on his conscience now. He’s not a bad man, Nelly. I can’t excuse how he has treated you, but I want you to know that in the main he is not a bad man. He has never laid a finger on me, nor done me any more wrong than to drink wages he ought to save. And then perhaps I’ve taken too much care to keep you clear of him, so that he feels awkward with you, and acts rough to cover it. But you got off to a good start with him today, and perhaps these few days at home will prove a blessing in disguise, and make you better friends in future.’

I could see that she was convincing herself as she spoke, but I remembered too vividly her urgency in pleading with Mr Earnshaw for my return to the Heights to feel the same confidence in her assurances. Nor had she really answered my question.

‘But why me?’ I persisted. ‘He liked little Tommy well enough. Is it only because I’m a girl? Or is it because I was – because I’m the eldest?’

She sighed heavily, and let silence gather for a time. When she finally spoke, it was with some reluctance: ‘When a man marries beneath himself, Nell – and let this be a lesson to you – he raises his wife to his level. His friends and relations may wish he had looked higher, but that just puts the more responsibility on his wife to ensure that he never regrets his choice. But when a woman marries down, she brings shame on herself and no credit to her husband. She is thought less of for it, and he partakes in some measure of her shame. I did your father no service by marrying him.’

That my mother had married ‘beneath her’ was not news to me – it being a rather frequent subject of querulous commentary by Mrs Earnshaw – but I was surprised to hear her own it so frankly, and it emboldened me to ask what I had never dared to ask before: ‘Why did you marry him then?’

My mother flushed at this, and I could have pinched myself. I knew very well why they had married – as did anyone else who had ever looked in the parish record to compare the date of their marriage with that of my birth.

‘I mean,’ I stumbled, ‘why him?’

‘I was over forty years old, Nelly, and I had never been a beauty, even in my youth. I had no fortune aside from some little savings out of my wages, nor any prospects of any, and no family remaining who could be of material assistance to a husband of mine. It is true that I had better birth and education than many in my situation, and some claim to family connection with the Earnshaws, but that would not be enough to tempt a man of any stature unless it were backed by more tangible attractions of person or property. Thomas Dean earned day wages by the work of his hands, and possessed but little book learning, true, but his skill was much in demand and well paid, and his character was generally respected. It was said, too, that he had been a most devoted son to his mother, who was but lately dead, and perhaps it was that made him look so kindly on a plain woman eight years his elder. At any rate, he smiled whenever he saw me, and made all manner of excuses to come by the Heights to visit, and in time … well, I thought I could not do better, and might do a great deal worse.’

‘But why should you have wished to do anything – I mean, to change your situation at all?’ I persisted. I had crossed into forbidden territory already, I felt, and thought I might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, and ask all my questions at once. ‘That is what Mrs Earnshaw cannot understand. She says you were already mistress of Wuthering Heights in all but name, because she was so often ill, and even that you had the best of it, for you got more in wages than she ever did in pin money.’

‘She ought not to say such things,’ my mother snapped, looking nettled. ‘She forgets that I earned the household more than my wages and her pin money combined, selling the surplus butter and eggs that came out of my own good management of the dairy and poultry. Had I been mistress indeed that money would have been mine by right.’

‘Please don’t be angry at her,’ I cried, stricken with guilt for having provoked her to lash out at the mistress, whom I loved dearly. ‘Mrs Earnshaw never meant it seriously, I’m sure – it was only for a joke, and because she wishes you were still there, you know.’

‘Don’t fret about it, Nelly,’ she said, softening. ‘I am not really angry at her – I know she meant no harm. She only means that I did the work of a mistress, and held some of a mistress’s authority over the servants. And she was always sorry that she could not do those things herself, as she thought she ought to, so she envied me that. But she doesn’t understand, because she hasn’t felt it, how it is to have the work and cares and responsibilities of a mistress without’ – she paused to find the right words – ‘without a mistress’s honours, or privileges. I wanted a home of my own, even if it were a humble one, and children too, if that were still possible. I thought that I could give your father a better home than a woman of his own class could, and that would make up for … any disparities in what we brought to our marriage. And so I have done, so far as material things go. When I saw that he was prone to drinking, I made sure that I could put food on the table and clothes on our backs and make up the rent on this cottage, by my own efforts, and I have managed it in such a way that there is scarcely ever money about that he could demand of me for his own uses. But his pride has suffered from it, I think. If he knew that his own comfort and mine depended on what he brought home, if he had to face an empty belly or the threat of eviction, perhaps he would not be so ready to drink all he earns, and the need of drink would not have grown on him as much as it has. And that is why I say that I did him no favour in marrying him.’

I had never before heard my mother speak so frankly about my father or her marriage. I was much struck by the regret in her voice, and I found myself thinking more kindly of my father than I had ever done before. In that state I was bundled off to bed in the loft, and it was not until I was almost asleep that I realized that she had never answered my first question.