Читать книгу Wuthering Heights / Грозовой перевал. Уровень 3 - Эмили Бронте, Эмили Бронте - Страница 4

She led me upstairs and recommended to hide the candle and not make noise. Her master has odd ideas about the room she will put me in. I asked the reason. She did not know, she answered: she had only lived there a year or two; and they had many strange things here.

So I fastened my door and glanced round for the bed. The whole furniture consisted of a chair, a clothes-press, and a large oak case, with squares windows near the top. I put my candle on the shelf and felt secure against the vigilance of Heathcliff, and everyone else.

The shelf had books on it; and it was covered with writing scratched on the paint. This writing, however, was nothing but a name repeated in all kinds of characters, large and small – Catherine Earnshaw, here and there varied to Catherine Heathcliff, and then again to Catherine Linton.

Catherine's library was select, though not altogether for a legitimate purpose: scarcely one chapter had escaped a pen-and-ink commentary. Some were detached sentences; other parts took the form of a regular diary, scrawled in an unformed, childish hand. At the top of an extra page I was greatly amused to behold an excellent caricature of my friend Joseph, – rudely, yet powerfully sketched. An immediate interest aroused in me, and I began to decipher her faded hieroglyphics.

'An awful Sunday. I wish my father were back again. Hindley is a detestable creature – his conduct to Heathcliff is horrible – H. and I are going to rebel – we took our initiatory step this evening.

'All day was flooding with rain; we could not go to church, so we prayed in the barn! On Sunday evenings we played, and did not make much noise; now a mere titter is sufficient to send us into corners.

'“You forget you have a master here,” says the tyrant. “I'll crash the first who puts me out of temper! I insist on perfect sobriety and silence. Oh, boy! was that you? Frances darling, pull his hair as you go by: I heard him snap his fingers.”

Frances pulled his hair heartily, and then went and seated herself on her husband's knee, and there they were, like two babies, kissing and talking nonsense – foolish behaviour. But they did not like the way we behaved, so soon we both were thrown into the back kitchen, where we awaited our punishment.

My companion suggested using the dairywoman's cloak, and have a scamper on the moors, under its shelter. A pleasant suggestion – we cannot be damper, or colder, in the rain than we are here.'

* * *

I suppose Catherine fulfilled her project, for the next sentence took up another subject: she waxed lachrymose.

'Poor Heathcliff!' she wrote. 'Hindley calls him a vagabond, and won't let him sit with us, nor eat with us any more. He says, he and I must not play together, and threatens to turn him out of the house if we break his orders. He is blaming our father (how dares he?) for treating H. too liberally; and swears he will reduce him to his right place,'

* * *

I began to nod drowsily over the dim page, so I sank in bed, and fell asleep. I began to dream, I thought it was morning; and I had set out on my way home, with Joseph for a guide. The snow lay yards deep in our road; and somehow we got to the church, then to the forest. I touched a three-branch – and cold little fingers clutched my hand! The intense horror of nightmare came over me: I tried to draw back my arm, but the hand clung to it, and a most melancholy voice sobbed,

'Let me in – let me in!'

'Who are you?'

'Catherine Linton. I've come home: I lost my way on the moor!'

As it spoke, I saw a child's face looking through the window.

'Begone!' I shouted. 'I'll never let you in, not if you beg for twenty years.'

'It is twenty years,' mourned the voice: 'twenty years. I have been a waif for twenty years!'

A feeble scratching outside – and the pile of books moved. I tried to jump up; but could not stir; and so cried aloud, out of fright. Suddenly, hasty footsteps approached my door; somebody pushed it open, and a light glimmered through: the intruder appeared to hesitate, and muttered to himself. At last, he said, in a half-whisper, plainly not expecting an answer,

'Is anyone here?'

I considered it best to confess my presence.

Heathcliff stood near the entrance, in his shirt and trousers; with a candle dripping over his fingers, and his face as white as the wall behind him. The first creak of the oak startled him like an electric shock: the light leaped from his hold to a distance of some feet. His agitation was so extreme, that he could hardly pick it up.

'It is only your guest, sir,' I called out. 'I had the misfortune to scream in my sleep. It was a frightful nightmare. I'm sorry I disturbed you.'

'Oh, God confound you, Mr. Lockwood! Go to…' commenced my host, setting the candle on a chair, because he found it impossible to hold it steady. 'And who showed you up into this room?' he continued, crushing his nails into his palms, and grinding his teeth. 'Who was it? I'll turn them out of the house this moment!'

'It was your servant Zillah,' I replied, rapidly resuming my garments. 'I don't care if you do it, Mr. Heathcliff; she richly deserves it. I suppose that she wanted to get another proof that the place was haunted. Well, it is – swarming with ghosts and goblins! You have reason to shut it up, I assure you. No one will thank you for a sleep in such a den!'

'What do you mean?' asked Heathcliff, 'and what are you doing? Lie down and finish out

the night, since you are here; but, for heaven's sake! don't repeat that horrid noise!'

'If the little fiend gets in at the window, she probably will strangle me!' I returned. 'Catherine Linton, or Earnshaw, or however she was called – she is a wicked little soul! She tells me she has been walking the earth these twenty years: a just punishment for her mortal sins!'

Then I realized Catherine did actually mention Heathcliff in her diaries and blushed at my inconsideration.

'What do you mean by that?' thundered Heathcliff, 'How – how dare you, under my roof?' Heathcliff reacted very emotionally.

'Sir, I mean it,' I said.

'We go to bed at nine in winter, and rise at four,' said my host, suppressing a groan: and dashing a tear from his eyes. 'Mr. Lockwood,' he added, 'you may go into my room. Your childish outcry has sent sleep to the devil for me.'

'And for me, too,' I replied. 'I'll walk in the yard till daylight, and then I'll be off. I'm now quite cured of seeking pleasure in society. A sensible man must find sufficient company in himself.'

'Delightful company!' muttered Heathcliff. 'Take the candle, and go where you please. I shall join you directly. Keep out of the yard, though, the dogs are unchained; and the house – Juno mounts sentinel there, and – nay, you can only ramble about the steps and passages. But go away! I'll come in two minutes!'

I obeyed, so far as to quit the chamber; when, ignorant where the narrow lobbies led, I stood still, and was witness, involuntarily, to a piece of superstition on the part of my landlord which belied, oddly, his apparent sense. He got on to the bed, and wrenched open the lattice, bursting, as he pulled at it, into an uncontrollable passion of tears.

'Come in! come in!' he sobbed. 'Cathy, come! Oh, do – once more! Oh! my heart's darling! hear me this time, Catherine, at last!'

The spectre showed a spectre's ordinary caprice: it gave no sign of existense; but the snow and wind whirled wildly through, even reaching my station, and blowing out the light.

There was such anguish in the gush of grief that accompanied this raving, that my compassion

made me overlook its folly. I drew off, angry to listen at all, and vexed. Why did I relate my ridiculous nightmare? It produced that agony that was beyond my comprehension. I descended cautiously to the lower regions, and landed in the back-kitchen, where a gleam of fire, enabled me to rekindle my candle. Nothing was stirring except a brindled, grey cat, which crept from the ashes, and saluted me with a querulous mew.

In the morning, I had no desire to enjoy a combat between Heathcliff and his daughter-in law, so I declined joining their breakfast, and, at the first gleam of dawn, escaped into the free air, now clear, and still, and cold.