Chapter XXIII

The rainy night had ushered in a misty morning—half frost, half
drizzle—and temporary brooks crossed our path—gurgling from the
uplands. My feet were thoroughly wetted; I was cross and low; exactly
the humour suited for making the most of these disagreeable things. We
entered the farm-house by the kitchen way, to ascertain whether Mr.
Heathcliff were really absent: because I put slight faith in his own
affirmation.

Joseph seemed sitting in a sort of elysium alone, beside a roaring
fire; a quart of ale on the table near him, bristling with large pieces
of toasted oat-cake; and his black, short pipe in his mouth. Catherine
ran to the hearth to warm herself. I asked if the master was in? My
question remained so long unanswered, that I thought the old man had
grown deaf, and repeated it louder.

“Na—ay!” he snarled, or rather screamed through his nose. “Na—ay! yah
muh goa back whear yah coom frough.”

“Joseph!” cried a peevish voice, simultaneously with me, from the inner
room. “How often am I to call you? There are only a few red ashes now.
Joseph! come this moment.”

Vigorous puffs, and a resolute stare into the grate, declared he had no
ear for this appeal. The housekeeper and Hareton were invisible; one
gone on an errand, and the other at his work, probably. We knew
Linton’s tones, and entered.

“Oh, I hope you’ll die in a garret, starved to death!” said the boy,
mistaking our approach for that of his negligent attendant.

He stopped on observing his error: his cousin flew to him.

“Is that you, Miss Linton?” he said, raising his head from the arm of
the great chair, in which he reclined. “No—don’t kiss me: it takes my
breath. Dear me! Papa said you would call,” continued he, after
recovering a little from Catherine’s embrace; while she stood by
looking very contrite. “Will you shut the door, if you please? you left
it open; and those—those detestable creatures won’t bring coals to
the fire. It’s so cold!”

I stirred up the cinders, and fetched a scuttleful myself. The invalid
complained of being covered with ashes; but he had a tiresome cough,
and looked feverish and ill, so I did not rebuke his temper.

“Well, Linton,” murmured Catherine, when his corrugated brow relaxed,
“are you glad to see me? Can I do you any good?”

“Why didn’t you come before?” he asked. “You should have come, instead
of writing. It tired me dreadfully writing those long letters. I’d far
rather have talked to you. Now, I can neither bear to talk, nor
anything else. I wonder where Zillah is! Will you” (looking at me)
“step into the kitchen and see?”

I had received no thanks for my other service; and being unwilling to
run to and fro at his behest, I replied—

“Nobody is out there but Joseph.”

“I want to drink,” he exclaimed fretfully, turning away. “Zillah is
constantly gadding off to Gimmerton since papa went: it’s miserable!
And I’m obliged to come down here—they resolved never to hear me
upstairs.”

“Is your father attentive to you, Master Heathcliff?” I asked,
perceiving Catherine to be checked in her friendly advances.

“Attentive? He makes them a little more attentive at least,” he
cried. “The wretches! Do you know, Miss Linton, that brute Hareton
laughs at me! I hate him! indeed, I hate them all: they are odious
beings.”

Cathy began searching for some water; she lighted on a pitcher in the
dresser, filled a tumbler, and brought it. He bid her add a spoonful of
wine from a bottle on the table; and having swallowed a small portion,
appeared more tranquil, and said she was very kind.

“And are you glad to see me?” asked she, reiterating her former
question, and pleased to detect the faint dawn of a smile.

“Yes, I am. It’s something new to hear a voice like yours!” he replied.
“But I have been vexed, because you wouldn’t come. And papa swore it
was owing to me: he called me a pitiful, shuffling, worthless thing;
and said you despised me; and if he had been in my place, he would be
more the master of the Grange than your father by this time. But you
don’t despise me, do you, Miss—?”

“I wish you would say Catherine, or Cathy,” interrupted my young lady.
“Despise you? No! Next to papa and Ellen, I love you better than
anybody living. I don’t love Mr. Heathcliff, though; and I dare not
come when he returns: will he stay away many days?”

“Not many,” answered Linton; “but he goes on to the moors frequently,
since the shooting season commenced; and you might spend an hour or two
with me in his absence. Do say you will. I think I should not be
peevish with you: you’d not provoke me, and you’d always be ready to
help me, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes,” said Catherine, stroking his long soft hair, “if I could only
get papa’s consent, I’d spend half my time with you. Pretty Linton! I
wish you were my brother.”

“And then you would like me as well as your father?” observed he, more
cheerfully. “But papa says you would love me better than him and all
the world, if you were my wife; so I’d rather you were that.”

“No, I should never love anybody better than papa,” she returned
gravely. “And people hate their wives, sometimes; but not their sisters
and brothers: and if you were the latter, you would live with us, and
papa would be as fond of you as he is of me.”

Linton denied that people ever hated their wives; but Cathy affirmed
they did, and, in her wisdom, instanced his own father’s aversion to
her aunt. I endeavoured to stop her thoughtless tongue. I couldn’t
succeed till everything she knew was out. Master Heathcliff, much
irritated, asserted her relation was false.

“Papa told me; and papa does not tell falsehoods,” she answered pertly.

“My papa scorns yours!” cried Linton. “He calls him a sneaking fool.”

“Yours is a wicked man,” retorted Catherine; “and you are very naughty
to dare to repeat what he says. He must be wicked to have made Aunt
Isabella leave him as she did.”

“She didn’t leave him,” said the boy; “you sha’n’t contradict me.”

“She did,” cried my young lady.

“Well, I’ll tell you something!” said Linton. “Your mother hated your
father: now then.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Catherine, too enraged to continue.

“And she loved mine,” added he.

“You little liar! I hate you now!” she panted, and her face grew red
with passion.

“She did! she did!” sang Linton, sinking into the recess of his chair,
and leaning back his head to enjoy the agitation of the other
disputant, who stood behind.

“Hush, Master Heathcliff!” I said; “that’s your father’s tale, too, I
suppose.”

“It isn’t: you hold your tongue!” he answered. “She did, she did,
Catherine! she did, she did!”

Cathy, beside herself, gave the chair a violent push, and caused him to
fall against one arm. He was immediately seized by a suffocating cough
that soon ended his triumph. It lasted so long that it frightened even
me. As to his cousin, she wept with all her might, aghast at the
mischief she had done: though she said nothing. I held him till the fit
exhausted itself. Then he thrust me away, and leant his head down
silently. Catherine quelled her lamentations also, took a seat
opposite, and looked solemnly into the fire.

“How do you feel now, Master Heathcliff?” I inquired, after waiting ten
minutes.

“I wish she felt as I do,” he replied: “spiteful, cruel thing!
Hareton never touches me: he never struck me in his life. And I was
better to-day: and there—” his voice died in a whimper.

“I didn’t strike you!” muttered Cathy, chewing her lip to prevent
another burst of emotion.

He sighed and moaned like one under great suffering, and kept it up for
a quarter of an hour; on purpose to distress his cousin apparently, for
whenever he caught a stifled sob from her he put renewed pain and
pathos into the inflexions of his voice.

“I’m sorry I hurt you, Linton,” she said at length, racked beyond
endurance. “But I couldn’t have been hurt by that little push, and I
had no idea that you could, either: you’re not much, are you, Linton?
Don’t let me go home thinking I’ve done you harm. Answer! speak to me.”

“I can’t speak to you,” he murmured; “you’ve hurt me so that I shall
lie awake all night choking with this cough. If you had it you’d know
what it was; but you’ll be comfortably asleep while I’m in agony, and
nobody near me. I wonder how you would like to pass those fearful
nights!” And he began to wail aloud, for very pity of himself.

“Since you are in the habit of passing dreadful nights,” I said, “it
won’t be Miss who spoils your ease: you’d be the same had she never
come. However, she shall not disturb you again; and perhaps you’ll get
quieter when we leave you.”

“Must I go?” asked Catherine dolefully, bending over him. “Do you want
me to go, Linton?”

“You can’t alter what you’ve done,” he replied pettishly, shrinking
from her, “unless you alter it for the worse by teasing me into a
fever.”

“Well, then, I must go?” she repeated.

“Let me alone, at least,” said he; “I can’t bear your talking.”

She lingered, and resisted my persuasions to departure a tiresome
while; but as he neither looked up nor spoke, she finally made a
movement to the door, and I followed. We were recalled by a scream.
Linton had slid from his seat on to the hearthstone, and lay writhing
in the mere perverseness of an indulged plague of a child, determined
to be as grievous and harassing as it can. I thoroughly gauged his
disposition from his behaviour, and saw at once it would be folly to
attempt humouring him. Not so my companion: she ran back in terror,
knelt down, and cried, and soothed, and entreated, till he grew quiet
from lack of breath: by no means from compunction at distressing her.

“I shall lift him on to the settle,” I said, “and he may roll about as
he pleases: we can’t stop to watch him. I hope you are satisfied, Miss
Cathy, that you are not the person to benefit him; and that his
condition of health is not occasioned by attachment to you. Now, then,
there he is! Come away: as soon as he knows there is nobody by to care
for his nonsense, he’ll be glad to lie still.”

She placed a cushion under his head, and offered him some water; he
rejected the latter, and tossed uneasily on the former, as if it were a
stone or a block of wood. She tried to put it more comfortably.

“I can’t do with that,” he said; “it’s not high enough.”

Catherine brought another to lay above it.

“That’s too high,” murmured the provoking thing.

“How must I arrange it, then?” she asked despairingly.

He twined himself up to her, as she half knelt by the settle, and
converted her shoulder into a support.

“No, that won’t do,” I said. “You’ll be content with the cushion,
Master Heathcliff. Miss has wasted too much time on you already: we
cannot remain five minutes longer.”

“Yes, yes, we can!” replied Cathy. “He’s good and patient now. He’s
beginning to think I shall have far greater misery than he will
to-night, if I believe he is the worse for my visit: and then I dare
not come again. Tell the truth about it, Linton; for I mustn’t come, if
I have hurt you.”

“You must come, to cure me,” he answered. “You ought to come, because
you have hurt me: you know you have extremely! I was not as ill when
you entered as I am at present—was I?”

“But you’ve made yourself ill by crying and being in a passion.—I
didn’t do it all,” said his cousin. “However, we’ll be friends now. And
you want me: you would wish to see me sometimes, really?”

“I told you I did,” he replied impatiently. “Sit on the settle and let
me lean on your knee. That’s as mamma used to do, whole afternoons
together. Sit quite still and don’t talk: but you may sing a song, if
you can sing; or you may say a nice long interesting ballad—one of
those you promised to teach me; or a story. I’d rather have a ballad,
though: begin.”

Catherine repeated the longest she could remember. The employment
pleased both mightily. Linton would have another, and after that
another, notwithstanding my strenuous objections; and so they went on
until the clock struck twelve, and we heard Hareton in the court,
returning for his dinner.

“And to-morrow, Catherine, will you be here to-morrow?” asked young
Heathcliff, holding her frock as she rose reluctantly.

“No,” I answered, “nor next day neither.” She, however, gave a
different response evidently, for his forehead cleared as she stooped
and whispered in his ear.

“You won’t go to-morrow, recollect, Miss!” I commenced, when we were
out of the house. “You are not dreaming of it, are you?”

She smiled.

“Oh, I’ll take good care,” I continued: “I’ll have that lock mended,
and you can escape by no way else.”

“I can get over the wall,” she said laughing. “The Grange is not a
prison, Ellen, and you are not my gaoler. And besides, I’m almost
seventeen: I’m a woman. And I’m certain Linton would recover quickly if
he had me to look after him. I’m older than he is, you know, and wiser:
less childish, am I not? And he’ll soon do as I direct him, with some
slight coaxing. He’s a pretty little darling when he’s good. I’d make
such a pet of him, if he were mine. We should never quarrel, should we,
after we were used to each other? Don’t you like him, Ellen?”

“Like him!” I exclaimed. “The worst-tempered bit of a sickly slip that
ever struggled into its teens. Happily, as Mr. Heathcliff conjectured,
he’ll not win twenty. I doubt whether he’ll see spring, indeed. And
small loss to his family whenever he drops off. And lucky it is for us
that his father took him: the kinder he was treated, the more tedious
and selfish he’d be. I’m glad you have no chance of having him for a
husband, Miss Catherine.”

My companion waxed serious at hearing this speech. To speak of his
death so regardlessly wounded her feelings.

“He’s younger than I,” she answered, after a protracted pause of
meditation, “and he ought to live the longest: he will—he must live as
long as I do. He’s as strong now as when he first came into the north;
I’m positive of that. It’s only a cold that ails him, the same as papa
has. You say papa will get better, and why shouldn’t he?”

“Well, well,” I cried, “after all, we needn’t trouble ourselves; for
listen, Miss,—and mind, I’ll keep my word,—if you attempt going to
Wuthering Heights again, with or without me, I shall inform Mr. Linton,
and, unless he allow it, the intimacy with your cousin must not be
revived.”

“It has been revived,” muttered Cathy, sulkily.

“Must not be continued, then,” I said.

“We’ll see,” was her reply, and she set off at a gallop, leaving me to
toil in the rear.

We both reached home before our dinner-time; my master supposed we had
been wandering through the park, and therefore he demanded no
explanation of our absence. As soon as I entered I hastened to change
my soaked shoes and stockings; but sitting such a while at the Heights
had done the mischief. On the succeeding morning I was laid up, and
during three weeks I remained incapacitated for attending to my duties:
a calamity never experienced prior to that period, and never, I am
thankful to say, since.

My little mistress behaved like an angel in coming to wait on me, and
cheer my solitude; the confinement brought me exceedingly low. It is
wearisome, to a stirring active body: but few have slighter reasons for
complaint than I had. The moment Catherine left Mr. Linton’s room she
appeared at my bedside. Her day was divided between us; no amusement
usurped a minute: she neglected her meals, her studies, and her play;
and she was the fondest nurse that ever watched. She must have had a
warm heart, when she loved her father so, to give so much to me. I said
her days were divided between us; but the master retired early, and I
generally needed nothing after six o’clock, thus the evening was her
own. Poor thing! I never considered what she did with herself after
tea. And though frequently, when she looked in to bid me good-night, I
remarked a fresh colour in her cheeks and a pinkness over her slender
fingers, instead of fancying the hue borrowed from a cold ride across
the moors, I laid it to the charge of a hot fire in the library.