‘But why, when it would mean so much to her?’ Emma sighed. ‘I dare not tell Cathy what’s happened. It would break her heart. I shall have to invent some story to explain Seth’s absence.’
Randolph rubbed his lower lip reflectively. ‘There’s no reason why the lass need ever learn the truth of the matter. We must all do what we can to keep her happy for the short time she has left, poor little soul.’
‘You might have thought of that before you threw Seth out, uncle!’
His heavy eyebrows came together in a censuring frown. ‘I’ll not condone thieving, Emma, not at any price. I never have and I never will.’
That evening when Randolph went upstairs as usual to see Cathy on his return from the mill, he was particularly kindly and affectionate with her. Emma was not surprised to hear her cousin say, ‘I want Seth to come and talk to me, papa.’
Emma held her breath, waiting for his reply. Then Randolph said evasively, ‘Aye, and so he shall! Just leave it a little while, eh, my love? Wait until you’re a wee bit stronger.’
‘When will that be, papa?’ she said hoarsely.
‘Soon, dearest. Soon!’
Cathy had asked about Seth repeatedly throughout the day, and by now it seemed the only thing she could think about. At eight o’clock Chloe looked in to see the invalid for a moment before departing to spend yet another night at High Banks with Jane; though scornful of the necessity, she regarded it as her sisterly duty. To Emma’s dismay, as Chloe approached the bed murmuring a few facile phrases of commiseration, Cathy turned away from her petulantly. ‘I don’t want to see you. I want to see Seth.’
Affronted, Chloe exclaimed, ‘What an absurdity! You had better know this, Cathy – that wretched boy of whom you’re so inordinately fond has been —’
‘No!’ Emma protested wildly. ‘You are not to say it, Aunt Chloe. I forbid it.’
‘You forbid it? How dare you!’ Turning back to Cathy, who was looking bemused, she drew herself up to her full height and said righteously, ‘Seth has been dismissed for stealing. Your father ordered him off the premises this morning.’
Seconds of throbbing silence went by. Then as Emma moved to her cousin’s side to try and soothe her, Cathy let out a piercing scream. Again and again her frail body was rent by soul-tearing shrieks until she was gripped by a spasm of coughing which left her gasping for breath.
Chloe looked alarmed at the havoc she had wrought, but there was pique in her voice too. ‘I had better leave you now, Emma, since my very presence seems to have an adverse effect upon the child. On my way out, I will send Nelly up to assist you with her. Goodnight!’
Emma scarcely heard Chloe leave the room. Absorbed with her patient, dreading the start of another outgushing of Cathy’s life blood, her heart was filled with rage against her aunt.
Chapter Seventeen
It was still dark when the bedroom door opened and Nelly crept in bearing a cup of tea. Emma was resting in the armchair and gave a start of surprise. She had not slept but was deep in the grip of her brooding thoughts.
‘How is she, miss?’ Nelly whispered.
‘It has been a bad night, Nelly. I gave her the draught Dr Mottram prescribed but it did not help very much and she was restless. Mercifully, however, she finally fell asleep about an hour ago.’
‘Poor Miss Emma! Wore out tha must be. Will tha let me sit w’ her while tha gets some sleep?’
‘But you’ve hardly been in bed four hours yourself, Nelly.’
‘Heed not about that, miss. I’ve never seen thee looking so tired and pale as this last couple o’ days. Do go to thy bed while tha can.’
‘Perhaps I will, then. Thank you, Nelly. But you must promise to call me at once if she rouses.’
‘I’ll do that, Miss Emma.’
In her own room Emma set her candle on the pedestal table and left it burning. She dropped on to the bed just as she was in her clothes and pulled the counterpane round her. For the past few hours she had been through a dreadful time with Cathy. Sometimes the girl’s hysteria about Seth’s dismissal had reached such peaks that Emma herself was distraught.
‘There’s been some horrible mistake,’ she told her cousin soothingly, ‘and somehow I’ll find a way of getting it put right. Seth has gone to his grandmother’s, I understand, so he won’t come to any harm. Everything will turn out all right in the end, I promise you.’
But her promises were of no avail in comforting Cathy, whose wild sobbing had continued through the long hours of darkness.
It was broad daylight when Emma was awakened by Nelly shaking her roughly.
‘Miss Emma! Miss Emma! Oh, ’tis dreadful. Miss Cathy’s gone!’
Emma sat upright. ‘Gone? What do you mean?’
“She – she’s disappeared, miss.’
Leaping up from the bed, Emma ran across the corridor to Cathy’s room, Nelly close on her heels. The unfortunate girl was so choked with distress that it was difficult for Emma to follow her gabbled explanation. She had been sitting in the armchair and dozed off for a moment – only a moment. When she awoke everything was in order, or so it seemed. Morning had come but it was still dim with the curtains drawn across the windows and just a single shaded candle burning. It was only when she realised that Cathy hadn’t stirred for almost an hour that she nervously approached the bed, fearful of finding that her young mistress had passed away. But to Nelly’s shock and dismay the bed was empty.
‘Oh miss, I was so afeard! Ran all over t’house I did looking for Miss Cathy, but there weren’t no sign of her anywheres, so I come straight to thee.’
Emma held down her panic and forced herself to think. If Cathy had made the supreme effort of rising from her bed, it could mean only one thing. She had gone to find Seth. That meant she was intent on taking the moorland path to Ursly’s cottage, which was impossible, of course, far beyond the limit of her frail strength. Fervently Emma hoped she would find her quickly quite near the house; she decided that there was no need to send messages to Uncle Randolph at the mill, and Aunt Chloe at High Banks.
‘Nelly, I think I know where Cathy is, and she can’t have got far. I won’t be long. Please don’t tell anyone what has happened. I don’t want to raise the alarm unnecessarily.’
Outside it was a raw morning with a clammy mist rolling down the valley. The very worst sort of weather for Cathy’s impaired lungs, she thought miserably as she hastened along the grass path that joined the ancient packhorse track. The steep climb up to the moor’s edge soon made Emma breathless, and she marvelled at her cousin’s endurance. And what strength of purpose to have got so far! She reached the high plateau and allowed herself a moment’s pause. Ahead, the moor stretched grey and silent and mysterious, mantled by curling wraiths of mist. Emma pressed forward as fast as she could, expecting every second to come across a huddled shape which would be Cathy collapsed from exhaustion. Pray God she was still alive.
But as Emma hurried on, her eyes searching, darting from side to side of the rugged lonely track, there was no sign of Cathy. It was impossible, she decided at last, her cousin could not have come so far. Somehow she must have missed her. Emma was on the point of turning back, defeated, when something red showed up against the peat-black of the track. She ran forward and snatched it up; it was a cashmere shawl of Cathy’s that she must have thrown around her shoulders before setting out on her foolhardy escapade. Emma was immensely heartened, but fearful too. Cathy would now have nothing to protect her from the chill morning air. And how was she to be got home again over such a distance in this wasteland of heather and furze? Gathering up her skirts, Emma began to run.
‘Cathy!’ she called. ‘Cathy! Wait for me! I’m coming!’ But her voice was swallowed by the swirling mist, without echo; and there was no answering cry.
At long last she began the descent into the shallow clough where Ursly’s cottage lay. She felt it scarcely possible that Cathy could have reached here; and yet – where else? Emma crossed the stepping-stones, passed th
rough the gap in the dry stone sheep wall, and hastened to the door. In her agitation she went in without knocking.
Ursly, carrying an earthenware crock of water in her hands, glanced round and nodded at Emma.
‘So tha’s here, then!’
‘Is Cathy—?’
‘Aye!’ The old woman nodded towards a shadowy corner, where Cathy lay on a rough pallet covered with a patchwork blanket. Crouched beside her was Seth, who rose slowly to his feet and faced Emma, flushing with embarrassment. Emma ran to her cousin’s side and dropped to her knees, taking a limp hand in hers.
‘Oh Cathy, that was a foolish thing to do,’ she chided. ‘To come so far – in this, dreadful mist, too!’
Cathy’s thin fingers were burning hot and fluttered feebly like a trapped night-moth. But her eyes, two dark hollows in the pale gaunt face, paid Emma no heed. They gazed beyond her at Seth, and her lips were moving, as though reciting some well-remembered phrases. Emma bent closer to her but the voice was low and indistinct, just a feverish murmuring.
Emma laid Cathy’s hand back upon the blanket, and glanced round at Ursly.
‘I think we had better send for Dr Mottram.’
‘There’s nowt he can do to aid t’poor bairn! She’s beyond all help now, she is.’ The old woman’s voice quivered. ‘My little pet, my sweetie! Slipping away from us in a minute, she’ll be.’
Emma nodded sadly, knowing what Ursly said was true. Bernard should be sent for, but even so he might not be at home. If Seth could deliver the message at once it would take nearly an hour for Bernard to get here. And Emma doubted whether her cousin would survive that long.
Cathy uttered a strangled cry and her voice was suddenly clear and piping.
‘Heathcliff, come here and kneel down again. Nelly, make him come.’
Seth shuffled his feet and looked ill at ease. ‘She’s been talking on like this, she has, ever sin’ she come here, Miss Emma – more’n a half-hour gone.’
‘It is just her sick fancy,’ Emma whispered. ‘Humour her, Seth, it will bring her comfort. Kneel beside her and hold her hand, and let her talk to you.’
Scarlet about the ears, the lad did as he was bid. With a cry of delight, Cathy somehow found the strength to lift her arms and clutch them wildly around his neck. Looking on helplessly, Emma felt stabbed with misgivings at what she was permitting, but it was too late now to separate them.
Cathy was babbling, ‘I wish I could hold you till we were both dead. Will you forget me, Heathcliff ? Will you be happy when I am in the earth?’
‘Nay, Miss Cathy, easy on!’ protested Seth, trying gently to extricate himself. But she clung to him all the more tenaciously.
‘No! Oh don’t, don’t go. It is the last time. Heathcliff, I shall die! I shall die!’
So it was no longer Heathcliff the boy whom her cousin saw personified in Seth – the wayward, gypsy-bred playmate of Cathy Earnshaw’s childhood. Now in her sick, fevered mind the years had sped by and he was grown into Heathcliff the man. The Heathcliff possessed by a devouring need for vengeance against those he believed had wronged him; yet possessed, too, by such a wild, obsessive passion for the adult Cathy that his very soul had entered into her soul and they had become one ... the Heathcliff who would be haunted in a torment of hell by Cathy’s ghost after she was dead, only finding release when at last he joined her beyond the grave. This was the sick girl’s deathbed vision of gentle, bewildered Seth, the Hardakers’ stable lad.
Cathy was speaking again, her eyes bright and burning. ‘How strong you are! How many years do you mean to live after I am gone?’ And then, with a wild, demented cry, ‘Kiss me, Heathcliff! Let me feel the touch of your lips.’
Nervous and embarrassed, Seth averted his head, silently pleading for release. Emma felt hopelessly at a loss, knowing she should intervene but not knowing what was for the best. Ursly, however, had no doubts.
‘Do tha as t’lass says,’ she ordered her grandson. ‘Quick, afore she goes, give her a proper kiss like.’
Seth hesitated a fraction longer, then turned to meet Cathy’s eager lips. She clung to him fiercely, ecstatically, whimpering with joy; then suddenly her frail body went limp in his arms. With great tenderness he lowered her back upon the bed.
A sob escaping her, Emma dropped to her knees again and laid a hand against her cousin’s cheek. It felt cool to her fingertips, and the pale, oval face looked marvellously serene.
‘Thank you, Seth, that was kind of you,’ she murmured brokenly. ‘You made her happy at the end.’
He gave no answer, and Emma saw that his dark eyes were misted with tears. While she and the old woman straightened the bed and covered Cathy’s face, the boy stood silent by the window, staring out.
At last, finding it an effort to speak, Emma said, ‘Dr Mottram must be fetched. He will know what’s to be done. Seth, will you go for him, please? And—’ She hesitated, wishing she hadn’t got to ask this of him. ‘Seth, my uncle must be told at once. Will you go to the mill as well and find someone to tell him what has happened.’
He nodded wordlessly, snatched up his cap and was gone.
Ursly sat in the ladder-back chair before the smoking peat fire, her crooked fingers intertwining restlessly. Emma hovered beside the bed, somehow not wanting to leave Cathy; but presently she moved away and took the chair at the opposite side of the hearth.
‘Cathy was heartbroken because Seth was dismissed,’ she said heavily.
Ursly made no reply, and Emma knew the old woman was deeply affected by Cathy’s death – strangely so for one who must have witnessed death so often in her long life. When at last she spoke her voice was thick with venom.
‘Innocent as a new-born babby, is my Seth. Him’d never steal, not a penny piece!’
‘I know that, Ursly. There must have been some mistake.’
‘There weren’t no mistake! As a warning, it were meant. A warning to me.’
‘Whatever do you mean?’
Ursly didn’t seem to hear. A tear escaped her eye and ran down her withered cheek. ‘My little Cathy!’ she muttered huskily. ‘My poor little pet!’
Emma waited, but getting no answer to her question she decided it could not be left there, and went on, ‘I don’t understand, Ursly. What do you mean by saying that Seth’s dismissal was meant as a warning to you?’
The old woman peered at her near-sightedly in the dim light of the room, then suddenly she leaned forward and there was urgency in her voice.
‘Tak’ my advice, dearie, and go off with that man o’ yourn. I know tha trusts him, and reetly. He never killed Mr Hugh Hardaker.’
Emma took a quick gasp of breath. ‘You speak as if you know that – know it for certain, I mean.5
‘Aye, I do!’
Then tell me! Tell me, Ursly.’
‘That poor child there would never have come into t’world, but for me. ‘Twere my potions that brought her mother safe to childbed. Yet he give me no thanks for’t. Always hated me, he has.’
‘Uncle Randolph, you mean?’
‘Aye, Mr Randolph Hardaker! He’s evil, child! Take thy man an’ go away from here, an’ never return no more.’
‘Uncle Randolph evil? That is going too far!’ Emma protested. ‘I won’t listen to you.’ Then in a less aggressive tone, she added, ‘Please explain yourself, Ursly.’
‘I will an’ all, I’m not afeard o’ him! If tha asks me who killed Hugh Hardaker, it were his brother Randolph. There now, it’s out! ‘
Shocked into silence, Emma sat limp in the chair trying to shut the thought away. Dazedly she watched as Ursly got up and fetched her pestle and mortar, and started grinding some seeds. At last she gathered the strength to whisper, ‘Go on, tell me what you know.’
‘That night at t’mill, when Mr Hugh died, they wasn’t alone like t’master thought. Two others was there – two others as shouldn’ have been there at all. So they kept themselves hid and watched it all happen.’
‘Two others?’
‘Aye! My Rosie, and – Seth’s father! Though t’lad’s never to know that,’ she added in a rush. ‘He’s never to know whose seed he comes from, for ’tis bad seed. It were Johnny Gone-tomorrow, that one who got murdered. And ’tis easy to guess who killed him, too. Johnny’d kept well clear of t’Brackle Valley all those years, but when he found out Matthew Sutcliffe were back, he saw his chance to get some brass for what he knowed.
‘It were bitter cold that night,’ Ursly recollected, ‘and Johnny had telled my Rosie to leave a window off latch at t’mill when she knocked off work in t’carding room. Later on, they went there and climbed in one o’ they big skips o’ wool to keep theirselves warm. They was still there when t’door were unlocked an’ someone come in carrying a lantern. It were Mr Hugh Hardaker, and he started doing summat or other to one o’ the machines. My Rosie and Johnny, they dursn’t move, then after a bit Mr Randolph Hardaker come in too, an’ he began picking on his brother, all about things always going wrong and couldn’t he do nowt right. Then it got worse an’ they was really bawling at each other. All of a sudden Mr Hugh raised his fist, but Randolph he were quicker. Snatched up one o’ they pointed shuttle things, he did, and hit out wi’ it, twice or more, Hugh give a terrible cry and fell to t’floor wi’ blood pouring from his head. Randolph sort of gasped an’ stared down at Hugh for a bit, then he grabbed up t’lamp and run off. Well, my Rosie and that Johnny, terrified out o’ their wits, they was. There weren’t no sound coming from Mr Hugh an’ they reckoned he were done for, and Johnny was afeard he’d get the blame for’t. So they crept out of their hiding place an’ run off quick. The way it turned out, though, Mr Hugh weren’t quite dead at the time, ’cause afterwards it were found out he’d scratched out some message on t’stone floor.’
Emma heard it all and understood every word. Yet somehow none of this horrifying story seemed to have any link with reality. Here was the truth at last, the evidence that would clear Matthew’s name once and for all. But she could not rejoice, felt no sense of relief. A numbness seemed to pervade her whole body. Her Uncle Randolph had killed her father! And only three weeks ago, to prevent his dreadful crime from coming to light, he had killed a second time. It was a long while before she found her voice; and then it came out so cracked and dry it hardly seemed her own.
The Other Cathy Page 20
