CHAPTER 33
On the next day, Catherine went out into the garden early with her cousin; and persuaded him to clear a large space of ground, so that they could bring in plants from the Grange.
I was terrified at the devastation which had been accomplished in a brief half-hour; the black-currant trees were the apple of Joseph’s eye, and she had just fixed her choice of a flower-bed in the midst of them.
‘What excuse have you for taking such liberties with the garden?’ I exclaimed. ‘We shall have a fine explosion over this: see if we don’t! Mr. Hareton, I wonder you should have no more wit than to go and make that mess at her bidding!’
‘I’d forgotten they were Joseph’s bushes,’ answered Earnshaw, rather puzzled; ‘but I’ll tell him I did it.’
We always ate our meals with Mr. Heathcliff. I made the tea, and Catherine usually sat by me, but today she stole nearer to Hareton. I saw she would have no more discretion in her friendship than she had in her hostility.
‘Now, mind you don’t talk with your cousin too much,’ I whispered as we entered the room. ‘It will annoy Mr. Heathcliff.’
‘I’m not going to,’ she answered.
The minute after, she had sidled to Hareton, and was sticking primroses in his porridge.
He dared not speak to her: he dared hardly look; and yet she went on teasing, till he twice almost laughed. I frowned, and she glanced towards the master. Heathcliff’s mind was on other subjects, as his face showed; and she grew serious for an instant. But then she turned, and recommenced her nonsense; at last, Hareton uttered a smothered laugh.
Mr. Heathcliff started and surveyed us. Catherine met his gaze with her usual look of nervous defiance, which he abhorred.
‘It is well you are out of my reach,’ he exclaimed. ‘What fiend possesses you to stare back at me with those infernal eyes? Don’t remind me of your existence again. I thought I had cured you of laughing.’
‘It was me,’ muttered Hareton.
‘What did you say?’ demanded the master.
Hareton looked at his plate, and did not repeat the confession. Mr. Heathcliff looked at him, and then silently resumed his breakfast and his musing. We had nearly finished, when Joseph appeared at the door, revealing by his quivering lip that the outrage committed on his precious shrubs was detected.
‘I must have my wage, and go! I had aimed to die where I’d served for sixty year. But now she’s taken my garden fro’ me, and I cannot stand it!’
‘Now, now, idiot!’ interrupted Heathcliff, ‘cut it short! What’s your grievance? I’ll interfere in no quarrels between you and Nelly. She may thrust you into the coal-hole for anything I care.’
‘It’s noan Nelly!’ answered Joseph. ‘It’s yon graceless queen, that’s witched our lad, wi’ her bold eyes and her forrard ways. It bursts my heart! He’s forgotten all I’ve done for him, and gone and riven up a whole row o’ t’ grandest currant-trees in t’ garden!’
‘Is the fool drunk?’ asked Mr. Heathcliff. ‘Hareton, is it you he’s finding fault with?’
‘I’ve pulled up two or three bushes,’ replied the young man; ‘but I’m going to set ’em again.’
‘And why have you pulled them up?’ said the master.
Catherine wisely put in her tongue.
‘We wanted to plant some flowers there,’ she cried. ‘I’m the person to blame, for I wished him to do it.’
‘And who the devil gave you leave to touch a stick about the place?’ demanded her father-in-law, much surprised. ‘And who ordered you to obey her?’ he added, turning to Hareton.
The latter was speechless. Catherine replied, ‘You shouldn’t grudge me a few yards of earth, when you have taken all my land!’
‘Your land, insolent slut! You never had any,’ said Heathcliff.
‘And my money,’ she continued, returning his angry glare.
‘Silence!’ he exclaimed. ‘Begone!’
‘And Hareton’s land, and his money,’ pursued the reckless thing. ‘Hareton and I are friends now; and I shall tell him all about you!’
The master seemed confounded: he grew pale, and rose up, eyeing her with an expression of hate.
‘If you strike me, Hareton will strike you,’ she said; ‘so you may as well sit down.’
‘If Hareton does not turn you out of the room, I’ll strike him to hell,’ thundered Heathcliff. ‘Damnable witch! dare you pretend to rouse him against me? Off with her! Do you hear? Fling her into the kitchen! I’ll kill her, Ellen Dean, if you let her come into my sight again!’
Hareton tried, under his breath, to persuade her to go.
‘Drag her away!’ cried Heathcliff, savagely.
‘He’ll not obey you any more, wicked man,’ said Catherine. ‘He’ll soon detest you as much as I do.’
‘Hush!’ muttered the young man reproachfully. ‘I will not hear you speak so to him.’
‘But you won’t let him strike me?’ she cried.
‘Come away, then,’ he whispered.
It was too late: Heathcliff had caught hold of her.
‘Now, you go!’ he said to Earnshaw. ‘Accursed witch! she has provoked me unbearably; and I’ll make her repent it for ever!’
He had his hand in her hair; Hareton attempted to release her, entreating him not to hurt her. Heathcliff’s black eyes flashed; he seemed ready to tear Catherine in pieces, when suddenly his fingers relaxed. He shifted his grasp, and gazed intently in her face.
Then he drew his hand over his eyes, stood a moment to collect himself, and turning to Catherine, said, with assumed calmness:
‘You must learn to avoid putting me in a passion, or I shall really murder you some time! Go with Mrs. Dean, and stay with her. As to Hareton Earnshaw, if I see him listen to you, I’ll make him an outcast and a beggar. Nelly, take her; and leave me, all of you! Leave me!’
I led my young lady out: Hareton followed, and Mr. Heathcliff had the room to himself till dinner. I had advised Catherine to dine upstairs; but, as soon as he perceived her vacant seat, he sent me to call her. He spoke to none of us, ate very little, and went out directly afterwards, saying that he should not return before evening.
During his absence, I heard Hareton sternly stop his cousin from telling him about her father-in-law’s conduct. He said he wouldn’t suffer a word to be uttered against Heathcliff: if he were the devil, it didn’t matter; he would stand by him. Catherine grew cross, until he asked if she would like him to speak ill of her father?
Then she comprehended that Earnshaw was attached to the master by ties stronger than reason could break – chains which it would be cruel to attempt to loosen. She showed a good heart in avoiding any further complaints about Heathcliff; and indeed, I don’t believe she has breathed a syllable, in Hareton’s hearing, against Heathcliff since.
After this they were friends again, and as busy as possible in their occupations of pupil and teacher. I came in to sit with them, after I had done my work; and I felt comforted to watch them, as if they had been my own children. Hareton’s honest, warm, and intelligent nature shook off rapidly the clouds of ignorance; and Catherine’s praise spurred him to industry. His features gained spirit and nobility: I hardly thought him the same person I had beheld on the day I discovered my little lady at Wuthering Heights.
Meanwhile dusk drew on, and with it returned the master. He entered unexpectedly, and had a full view of us before we could raise our heads. Well, I reflected, there was never a pleasanter, or more harmless sight: their faces showed the eager interest of children; for, though he was twenty-three and she eighteen, each had so much to feel and learn, that neither felt the disenchantment of maturity.
They lifted their eyes together: perhaps you have never noticed that their eyes are precisely similar, and they are those of Catherine Earnshaw. The present Catherine has no other likeness to her, except a breadth of forehead, and a certain haughty arch of the nostril. But with Hareton the resemblance is singular at all times, and just then it was particularly striking.
‘It is a poor end, is it not, to my exertions?’ he observed. ‘I work like Hercules to demolish the two houses, and when everything is in my power, I can’t take the trouble to raise my hand! It is not generosity that stops me: but I have lost the faculty of enjoying their destruction, and I am too idle to destroy for nothing.
‘Nelly, there is a strange change approaching; I’m in its shadow at present. I take so little interest in my daily life that I hardly remember to eat and drink. Those two who have left the room are the only objects which retain a distinct material appearance to me; and that appearance causes me pain, amounting to agony. About her I won’t speak; but I earnestly wish she were invisible: her presence is maddening. He moves me differently: and yet if I could, I’d never see him again! You’ll perhaps think me insane,’ he added, making an effort to smile, ‘if I try to describe the thousand ideas of the past he awakens.
‘Five minutes ago Hareton seemed a personification of my youth, not a human being. His startling likeness to Catherine connected him fearfully with her. But then, what does not connect her to me? and what does not recall her? I cannot look down to this floor without seeing her features in the flagstones! In every cloud, in every tree – filling the air at night, and caught by glimpses in every object by day – I am surrounded with her image! The most ordinary faces mock me with a resemblance. The entire world is a dreadful collection of memoranda that she did exist, and that I have lost her! Well, Hareton’s aspect was the ghost of my immortal love; of my degradation, my pride, my happiness, and my anguish—
‘But it is frenzy to repeat these thoughts to you: only it will explain why his society is a torment to me. I do not care how he and his cousin go on together. I can give them no attention any more.’
‘But what do you mean by a change, Mr. Heathcliff?’ I said, alarmed at his manner, although I did not think he was in danger of losing his senses, nor of dying. He was quite strong and healthy; and, as to his reason, from childhood he had a delight in dwelling on dark things. He might have been obsessed with the dead Catherine; but on every other point his wits were as sound as mine.
‘I shall not know that till it comes,’ he said; ‘I’m only half conscious of it now.’
‘Do you feel ill?’ I asked.
‘No, Nelly.’
‘Then you are not afraid of death?’
‘Afraid? No!’ he replied. ‘I have neither fear nor hope of death. Why should I? With my hard constitution, I ought to remain above ground till there is scarcely a black hair on my head. And yet I cannot continue in this condition! I have to remind myself to breathe – almost to remind my heart to beat! It is by compulsion that I do the slightest act, or notice anything alive or dead, which is not associated with one universal idea. I have a single wish, and my whole being yearns to attain it. I have yearned towards it so long, and so unwaveringly, that I’m convinced it will be reached – and soon – because it has devoured my existence: I am swallowed up in the anticipation of its fulfilment. O God! It is a long fight; I wish it were over!’
He began to pace the room, muttering terrible things, till I was inclined to believe, as Joseph did, that conscience had turned his heart to an earthly hell. I wondered how it would end. Though he seldom before had revealed this state of mind, it was his habitual mood, I had no doubt; but nobody would have guessed it. You did not guess it when you saw him, Mr. Lockwood: for he appeared as usual, but more solitary and silent.
Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights: Abridged Page 34
