Читать книгу Wuthering Bites - Sarah Gray - Страница 12

Cathy stayed at Thrushcross Grange five weeks, until Christmas. By that time her ankle was thoroughly cured, and her manners much improved. The mistress visited her often, and began a plan of reform with fine clothes and flattery, which Cathy took readily. So, instead of a wild, hatless little savage jumping into the house and rushing to squeeze us all breathless, a very dignified person with brown ringlets falling from the cover of a feathered beaver hat lighted from a handsome pony.

Hindley lifted her from her horse, delighted. ‘Why, Cathy, you are quite a beauty! I should scarcely have known you. You look like a lady now.’

I removed Catherine’s coat and beneath she wore 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 hardly touched them, fearing they might soil her splendid garments.

She kissed me gently. Then she looked round for Heathcliff. ‘Is Heathcliff not here?’ she demanded, pulling off her gloves and displaying fingers wonderfully whitened from staying indoors.

‘Heathcliff, you may come forward,’ ordered Mr. Earnshaw. ‘You may come and wish Miss Catherine welcome, like the other servants.’

Cathy, catching a glimpse of her friend, flew to embrace him. She kissed him seven or eight times on his cheek and then drawing back, burst into laughter. ‘How very black and cross you look! Heathcliff, have you forgotten me?’

Shame and pride threw double gloom over his countenance and kept him immovable.

‘Shake hands, Heathcliff,’ said Mr. Earnshaw, condescendingly.

‘I will not,’ replied the boy, finding his tongue at last. ‘I will not stand to be laughed at.’

Miss Cathy seized him again before he could escape. ‘I did not mean to laugh at you,’ she said. ‘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!’

I must tell you that if Heathcliff was careless and uncared for before Catherine’s absence, it was ten times worse now. His clothes were dirty and covered with dry blood from wandering the moors. I could not say when he had last bathed. Truthfully, he had been gone from Wuthering Heights more than he had been there—where, I didn’t know, but I could guess. Gypsy slayers had been camping in the area, and while the vampires had been bold only weeks before, they were quieter again, keeping to themselves and the shadows.

Catherine gazed at Heathcliff’s soiled fingers and then at her dress, which he had dirtied where he touched her.

He snatched his hand away. ‘I shall be as dirty as I please, and I like to be dirty, and I will be dirty.’

With that he dashed out of the room, leaving Catherine unable to comprehend how her remark had made him so angry.

After playing lady’s maid to the newcomer, and putting my cakes in the oven, and making the house and kitchen cheerful with great fires, befitting Christmas Eve, I sat down to amuse myself by singing carols. Mr. and Mrs. Earnshaw were engaging Missy’s attention by gay trifles bought for her to present to the little Lintons, as an acknowledgment of their kindness.

They had invited them to spend the next day at Wuthering Heights, and the invitation had been accepted, on one condition: Heathcliff must be banned from coming in contact with the Linton offspring.

Smelling the rich scent of heating spices in the kitchen, 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 gift. From that I went on to think of his fondness for Heathcliff. That naturally led me to consider the poor lad’s situation now, and I got up and walked into the court to seek him.

He was not far; I found him in the stable, cornering a young female vampire with the aid of a pitchfork. It hissed and bared ivory fangs, but the gleam in its eyes was more of lust than fierceness, and the amount of white ankle and shapely leg it revealed beneath its gown and cloak bordered on indecent.

‘Stay back, Nelly,’ he warned, thrusting the tines of the fork in the beastie’s direction.

It squealed, cowering, its arms thrust out in an attempt to protect its face.

I drew back, pulling my cloak around me, horrified and yet oddly intrigued at the same time.

‘What did I tell you?’ Heathcliff demanded of the creature. Her long, stringy black hair was the color of pitch, her eyes black holes, her lips blood red, and when she shrieked, I could see her fangs.

‘I told you, you could not pass beyond the outer walls! You take advantage of my Christmas cheer!’ he bellowed. ‘I throw you and yours a perfectly good sheep and then you dare come after my horses?’

It shrilled in response, almost as if it could speak, but if it could, its language was beyond me.

‘I should kill you,’ Heathcliff threatened. ‘Christmas cheer be damned.’ But then he lowered the pitchfork. ‘Go, before I change my mind.’

With a hiss, the vampire scurried past me and out into the darkness.

Heathcliff returned the pitchfork to its place along the wall. He said nothing about the vampire, so I said nothing. Instead, I said, ‘The kitchen is so comfortable, and Joseph is upstairs. 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.’

I waited, 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 his reproofs on one side and sauciness on the other. He seemed in even a fouler mood than usual, though why, I did not know. He kept glancing at the door, as if expecting a visitor. What I would not know until later was that he had been, the very same unfortunate visitor Heathcliff had just run off. But that is another story.

Cathy sat up late, preparing for the reception of her new friends; she came into the kitchen once to speak to her old one, but Heathcliff was gone. She only stayed to ask what was the matter with him, and then went back.

In the morning he rose early and disappeared into the moors. Seeking the female vampire I had seen the night before? I wondered. He did not reappear till the family were departed for church. Heathcliff’s time away from the house seemed to have brought him to a better spirit. He hung about me for a while, and having screwed up his courage, exclaimed—

‘Nelly, make me decent. Make me acceptable in appearance so I do not distress Cathy any further.’

‘High time, Heathcliff,’ I said. ‘You have grieved Catherine; she’s sorry she ever came home, I dare say! 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. 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. 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.’

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.’

‘Perhaps you could defend us from a vampire so as to demonstrate your admirable skills and make a fool of Edgar Linton. You could bid return that woman creature you had in the barn and then send her on her way again with a fine thrust of a pitchfork, or your sword. Surely Edgar does not have such skills. One shriek from that beastie and I dare say he would be shaking in his boots.’

‘I cannot lure vampires here just to fight them.’ He scowled and lowered his head. ‘It would not be right.’ He sighed. ‘Dear Nelly, 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 Edgar Linton will be!’

‘And cried for mamma, at every turn,’ I added. ‘And trembled if a vampire so much as crossed his path. Oh, Heathcliff, you are showing a poor spirit! All you must do is clean up and not look so much like a vicious cur. Smooth the lines of your frown. Let the goodness in your soul shine through your black eyes.

‘A good heart will help you to a bonny face, my lad,’ I continued, ‘and now that we’ve done washing, and combing, and sulking—tell me whether you don’t think yourself rather handsome?’ I looked into the mirror before him. ‘I’ll tell you, I do. You’re fit for a prince in disguise.’

So I chattered on, and Heathcliff gradually lost his scowl 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.

I urged Heathcliff to hasten now and show his amiable humor, 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, shoved him back with a sudden thrust, and angrily bid, ‘Keep out of the room. You’ll be cramming your fingers in the tarts and stealing the fruit.’

‘Nay, sir,’ I could not avoid answering. ‘He’ll touch nothing, not he. 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 again till dark,’ cried Hindley. ‘Begone, you vagabond!’

But Heathcliff did not move.

‘What!’ cried Hindley. ‘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 intended no 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 blade from beneath his coat, one no doubt used to defend himself against the vampires, and drew it under Master Linton’s white throat. The young neighbor gave such a cry of fright that it brought Isabella and Catherine hurrying in.

‘Heathcliff, no,’ Catherine cried, grasping his arm before Hindley could reach him. ‘He is not the enemy your blade is intended for.’

Heathcliff slowly lowered the knife. ‘But I fear he is,’ he whispered. Then he dashed out, Hindley following after him and shouting for Joseph.

Master Linton was fine, not even the skin broken, but his sister began weeping to go home, and Cathy stood by, confounded, blushing for all.

‘You should not have spoken to him!’ she expostulated with Master Linton. ‘He was in a bad temper, and now you’ve spoilt your visit. He’ll be flogged. I hate him to be flogged! Why did you speak to him, Edgar?’

‘I didn’t,’ sobbed the youth. ‘I promised Mamma that I wouldn’t say one word to him, and I didn’t.’

‘Well, don’t cry,’ replied Catherine contemptuously. ‘You’re not killed. You would be dead on the floor and fodder for the beasties by now if he wanted you so. Don’t make more mischief; my brother is coming: be quiet! Give over, Isabella! Has anybody hurt you?’

‘There, there, children—to your seats!’ cried Hindley, bustling in. ‘That brute of a lad has warmed me nicely. Next time, Master Edgar, take the law into your own fists—it will give you an appetite!’

The little party recovered its equanimity at the sight of the fragrant feast I had prepared for them. They were hungry after their ride, and easily consoled, since no real harm had truly befallen them.

Mr. Earnshaw carved bountiful platefuls, and the mistress made them merry with lively talk. I waited behind her chair, and was pained to behold Catherine, with dry eyes and an indifferent air, commence cutting up the wing of a goose before her.

An unfeeling child, I thought to myself. How lightly she dismisses her old playmate’s troubles. I could not have imagined her to be so selfish.

She lifted a mouthful to her lips, then she set it down again. Her cheeks flushed, tears gushed over them. She slipped her fork to the floor, and hastily dived under the cloth to conceal her emotion. I did not call her unfeeling long. She was in purgatory throughout the day, and wearying to find an opportunity of paying a visit to Heathcliff, who had been locked up by the master.

In the evening we had a dance. Cathy begged that he might be liberated then, as Isabella Linton had no partner; her entreaties were in vain, and I was appointed to supply the deficiency.

We got rid of all gloom in the excitement of the exercise, and our pleasure was increased by the arrival of the Gimmerton Band, mustering fifteen strong: a trumpet, a trombone, clarinets, bassoons, French horns, and a bass viol, besides singers. They go the round of all the respectable houses, and receive contributions every Christmas, and we esteemed it a first-rate treat to hear them. This year, I was pleased to see that they had acquired a guard of gypsy slayers to prevent them being devoured as they crossed the moors. A pretty penny they charge, but worth every cent for one’s blood, don’t you think? But the gypsies were not allowed inside, no matter how much I pleaded. Instead, they had to bide outside in the cold. They didn’t seem to mind, but wrapped their cloaks around them and scanned the house and courtyard with dark, suspicious gazes.

After the usual carols had been sung, we set them to songs and glees. Catherine loved it, too, but she said it sounded sweetest at the top of the steps, and she went up in the dark. I followed. She made no stay at the stairs’ head, but mounted farther, to the garret where Heathcliff was confined. She called to him, but he stubbornly declined answering for a while. She persevered, and finally he replied.

I let the poor things converse unmolested, till I supposed the songs were going to cease, and the singers to get some refreshment. Then I clambered up the ladder to warn her.

Instead of finding her outside, I heard her voice within. The little monkey had crept by the skylight of one garret along the roof, into the skylight of the other. It was all I could do to coax her out again.

When she did come, Heathcliff came with her, and she insisted that I should take him into the kitchen and feed him. I set him a stool by the fire and offered him a quantity of good things, but he could eat little. ‘Come now, I beg you. ’Tis better than stale crusts and blackbird bone soup that usually makes up your feast.’ But he ignored my coaxing, rested his two elbows on his knees, and his chin on his hands, and remained wrapped in dumb meditation.

‘What are you thinking?’ I asked suspiciously.

‘I’m trying to settle how I shall pay Hindley back. I don’t care how long I wait, if I can only do it at last. I hope he will not die before I do!’

‘For shame, Heathcliff! It is for God to punish wicked people.’

‘God won’t have the satisfaction that I shall,’ he returned. ‘I only wish I knew the best way! Toss him to the vampires or dangle him in front of them, letting them slowly drip him dry? No, even that seems too kind.’

“But, Mr. Lockwood, I’m annoyed how I should chatter on at such a rate with you nodding and ready for bed. I could have told Heathcliff’s history, all that you need hear, in half a dozen words.”

Thus interrupting herself, the housekeeper rose, and set aside her sewing. But I felt incapable of moving from the hearth, and I was very far from nodding.

“Do sit still, another half-hour, Mrs. Dean!” I cried. “You’ve done right to tell the story leisurely. You must continue in the same manner, for I am interested in every character you have mentioned.”

“But the clock is on the stroke of eleven, sir.”

“No matter—I’m not accustomed to go to bed in the long hours. One or two is early enough for a person who lies till ten.”

“You shouldn’t lie till ten. Some say that is a vampire’s favorite time of day to feed.”

“But I thought the vampires only came out after dark.”

“But it would be dark in your bedchamber if you slept till ten and the draperies were drawn,” she argued. “Such fate was that of the magistrate’s third wife in Chelton Town, who never rose from her bed until the sun was high in the sky. Some said the beasties came down the chimney, others claimed a servant left a window casing unlatched, but when they found the poor dame, she was as white and lifeless as whey. Not only had they sucked her dry, but they had drained every drop from her tame popinjay and left its carcass on her silk pillow.”

And she had me half convinced, but I was too eager to hear more of my neighbor than to worry about being devoured mid-morning in my bed. “Nevertheless, Mrs. Dean, resume your chair and continue your tale. And please do not leave anything out. You suggested Joseph was waiting that Christmas Eve for the woman vampire, but you said no more of it.”

“I cannot tell you every word spoken, every step taken, or we will be here beyond our deaths.” She settled back in her chair. “You must allow me to leap over some three years—”

“No, no, I’ll allow nothing of the sort!”

She settled back in her chair, her sewing in her hand again. “Very well, sir. Instead of leaping three years, I will be content to pass to the next summer—the summer of 1778. That is nearly twenty-three years ago.”