The Other Cathy (15 page)

‘So there you are at last! Where have you been all this
time? You told me you were merely going to the library.’

Wearily, Emma said, ‘I’m sorry, Aunt Chloe, but does it
matter?’

‘It matters a great deal! If you had been here, you could
have assisted Cathy through one of the worst attacks she has
ever experienced. The child was racked with coughing, it was
terrible to see, and Bernard says she must be kept very quiet.
Over and over again she called for you, but you were not here.’
Bitterness was added to Chloe’s reproof. ‘I did what I could, but you know how she always looks to you to be her comforter.’

‘Oh, poor Cathy! How is she now? Who is with her?’

‘She is calmer, from sheer exhaustion. I have put Nelly to sit with her. Cathy made it abundantly clear that she didn’t
want
me?
I’ll go up at once.’

The voice of reason, telling Emma she was in no way at
fault and could hardly be within instant call at every hour
of the day and night, was silenced by remorse. If she had not lingered so long with Matthew she might have been in time
to spare Cathy that awful feeling of desertion. Indeed, she
thought guiltily, the sole purpose of her visit to the library this afternoon, instead of staying in with Cathy as usual, had been
contrived to make a respectable pretext for her meeting with Matthew.

She sped upstairs untying the ribbons of her hat, which she
dropped with her cloak on a carved oak chest by Cathy’s
door, and hurried into the room. Her cousin’s face as she lay
upon the pillows was pathetically white and drawn, but oddly peaceful. Her eyes were closed and she appeared to be sleeping. Nelly rose from a chair beside the bed, and whispered
in an awed voice, ‘Oh, ‘twas dreadful, miss! T’poor soul was
took that bad!’

Emma nodded her dismay. ‘You may go now, Nelly. I will
remain with her.
’

‘Will tha be wanting some tea brought up, miss?’

‘No, thank you.’

Just now, thought Emma, she couldn’t have taken any
thing. All she wanted was to see Cathy well again and try to
make reparation for her neglect. She experienced a sense
almost of shame for her own abounding health, while her poor
little cousin’s hold on life grew feebler with each passing day.
As she gently took Cathy’s thin hand in hers, the girl stirred.

‘Nelly, is that you?’

‘No, dearest! It is I, Emma.’

The eyelids fluttered open. ‘Are you alone, Nelly? Where’s
Heathcliff?’

Emma stiffened with shock. Cathy’s voice sounded so nor
mal that it was an effort to realise she wasn’t in a state of rational consciousness at all. Studying her closely, Emma
saw that her eyes were glazed, as though she was seeing
through her to something beyond. She wondered apprehen
sively whether, as Cathy’s nurse, the proper course was to humour her fancies, or to attempt to rouse her.

Cathy began to mutter but Emma could make no sense of
what she heard. Then an entire sentence suddenly came out
quite clearly.

‘Nelly, do you never dream queer dreams?’

It was
,
Emma recognised, a direct quotation from the book
which had become Cathy’s obsession, and she noticed that
all three volumes of
Wuthering Heights
were there on the
table beside the bed. Emma took up the first volume and
riffled through the pages. Yes, here it was, Catherine was
talking to the servant woman, Nelly Dean, telling her of the
love she felt for Heathcliff, and likening it to the eternal
rocks. She had read the passage aloud to Cathy a dozen times.
And here was the midnight storm that followed Heathcliff’s
disappearance, so violent that it brought a great tree crashing
through the roof like a thunderbolt, like a judgment from
heaven. Emma read on swiftly.

The room was very quiet. Cathy’s muttering had almost
subsided, and Emma’s thoughts flowed on through Miss
Bronte’s passionate story. Heathcliff’s return ... a wealthy man now,
determined upon vengeance against those who had
wronged him. Where had Heathcliff been and how had he
made his fortune, she wondered. That was never explained
in the book. Did it derive, like Matthew’s, from gold ... were
gold discoveries being made at that period, in Australia or
America or some other far away land? She checked herself
abruptly. She was as foolish as Cathy, to be so caught up in the tale that she could regard it as real, instead of a work of
imaginative fiction.

While Cathy drifted into a doze Emma’s thoughts returned
to her conversation with Matthew Sutcliffe, and his shocking
suggestion that it was Uncle William who had killed her father.
Surely it could not be him—yet Matthew’s deductions were
so convincing. It came to her suddenly, almost with a sense of
surprise, that she still had no more than Matthew’s own word
that he was innocent. Since their second encounter on the
moor, her hatred and distrust of him just seemed to have
melted away. Yet British justice had condemned him! Matthew
was asking her to believe that her father had been killed
by his own brother, his own flesh and blood. Why should she listen to his ideas on this count, when he was so devious, she suspected, about his relationship with Blanche?
I happened to be passing her house, and decided to call.
That didn’t have the ring of truth. So was Matthew Sutcliffe a man whose word she
dare trust?

Cathy stirred under the bedcovers, and murmured, ‘Emma, do you believe what he says?’

Emma jumped, then she realised that the words, though
fitting her own thoughts so aptly, must be a part of Cathy’s
wandering dream. But she had called her Emma, not Nelly,
and the pale blue eyes
,
wide open, were no longer staring
blankly. Now they held a question.

‘Why are you looking so surprised? I was only asking if you believe what Bernard says about me getting better all the
time.’

Emma’s features broke into a smile. Nothing would have in
duced her to betray Bernard’s comforting professional lie.

‘He wouldn’t say it if it weren’t true, dearest. You have to
expect an occasional setback, you know.’

‘Yes, I suppose so. That is what Bernard told me.’

Emma rose and adjusted the position of the draught screen
a little, then leaned across the bed and smoothed Cathy’s
pillows. She said, ‘What were you dreaming about, dearest? I heard you talking in your sleep, and wondered whether I should wake you up.’

‘What did I say?’

‘I couldn’t quite make it out. Can’t you remember your dream?’

Emma was wondering if Cathy would speak about Seth or
Heathcliff, and how best to talk her out of her strange fan
tasies where fact and fiction had merged. But she was given
no opportunity, for Cathy’s face took on a cunning, secretive
expression.

‘No, I can’t remember anything, Emma. I don’t think I was
really dreaming at all.’

It took longer than ever for Cathy to get over her latest attack
and gather what feeble strength remained to her. For five days Emma scarcely left her bedside, but at last there was a small sign of improvement. Cathy could sit up, and was able
to take solid food again instead of occasional spoonfuls of
beef tea or egg whipped in wine. She was painfully thin.

In the early evening Emma heard the sound of a carriage
outside, and going to the window she saw Seth bringing the dog cart round to the front.

‘Who is it?’ asked Cathy.

‘Seth, with the dog cart. I expect your papa is going out.’
She went to the door. ‘I won’t be a moment, Cathy. I want to
catch him before he leaves. There is something I have to ask
him.’

As she sped down the stairs, skirts flying, she saw Hoad
waiting at the front door with his master’s gloves and cane. Randolph, wearing a new black alpaca frock coat, emerged
from his study. He paused a moment at the hall stand to adjust the tilt of his top hat.

‘Uncle, may I have a word with you, please?’ Emma said
breathlessly.

He glanced round at her, amused. ‘Your aunt would tell you it isn’t ladylike to run about the house like that. But you’re still nobbut a little lass really, eh?’ Randolph’s eyes were warm
with fondness. ‘What is it you want, then? I’m just on my way out, as you can see.’

‘Could you tell me where to find the key to mama’s deed box? I wanted to go through the papers, but when I went to
look just now I found it was locked.’

Randolph stared at her in astonishment, his thick brows
drawn together in a single straight line.

‘A queer thing to want to do, is that! There’ll be nowt to interest you, lass. Old legal documents and suchlike, that’s
all.’

‘I realise that, uncle, but it seems a good idea for me to go
through them – to see if there’s anything I should know about. When mama died I was too upset to do more than just glance inside and the box went straight up to the attic here, where
it has been ever since.’

‘Aye, best place for it, too! It’s all old stuff, past and done with. Leave it be, that’s my advice.’

Emma said a little desperately, ‘It occurred to me as a possibility – just a faint possibility – that I might learn something
about the events that led up to papa’s death.’

‘We know what led up to it,’ Randolph said grimly. ‘We
know all about that.’

‘But can we be sure?’ she persisted. ‘Now that Matthew
Sutcliffe has come back after all this time, still claiming his
innocence, it seems only right and fair to investigate where we
can.’

‘Aye, well that’s up to you, lass. But you can’t have the key
tonight for it’s locked away in the office safe down at the mill, where I keep all the keys I don’t have cause to use often. You’ll
have to wait until tomorrow.’ He took out his gold half-hunter
and consulted it. ‘I must be off, I’ve got a train to catch.’

Emma watched him depart with mixed feelings. Though she was frustrated over the delay in getting the key, at the
same time she felt happy that she and Uncle Randolph were
back on their usual affectionate terms. Their quarrel over
Matthew Sutcliffe had been most distressing, but as things
had turned out Emma was glad, now, that he’d taken a firm
stand. Otherwise, she would have denied herself the chance of
getting to know Matthew.

She was still standing by the open front door when Chloe emerged from the parlour and demanded in a critical voice,
‘What about Cathy? Have you left her all alone?’

‘It’s all right, Aunt Chloe, I’ve only been down here for a
few minutes. I just wanted a word with Uncle Randolph be
fore he went out.’

When Chloe frowned, she frowned with her whole face. ‘It really is vexing of him, going out this evening. He should have
remembered that we are invited to supper with Jane and
Paget. Now I shall have to go on my own, and make apologies
for him.’

‘Tell Uncle Paget and Aunt Jane I send them my love.’

‘Blanche will be there, too,’ Chloe reminded her, but Emma
couldn’t bring herself to send a similar message of affection to
her other aunt.

    * * *

The following morning Cathy received visitors. The Eades
were the first to arrive, and after Jane had collapsed thankfully into a chair, she panted, ‘We’ve come to enquire how our
brave little invalid is progressing.’

‘I feel better this morning, thank you, Aunt Jane.’

‘Splendid!’

Paget followed his wife into the room with the cautious gait
of a man unsure of his equilibrium. He grasped one of the brass bedknobs and stood looking down at his niece.

‘Bernard has given me a good report on your progress, Cathy dear, and I know I can safely leave you in his capable hands. Ah, what is this ... have you and Emma been playing
draughts? Excellent! The finest therapy for any condition is
to keep the mind active.’

‘We’ve played four games this morning and Emma hasn’t
won one of them,’ Cathy boasted gleefully.

Emma, receiving a little smile of approval from Jane, felt
a rush of affection for her aunt. Sitting there in her outdoor
things, she made an even quainter figure than usual in a vol
uminous yellow mantle with wide bell sleeves. The bavolet of
her straw bonnet made her look as if she had no neck at all,
and altogether she was as plump and round as a dumpling.
Emma decided that for all her irritating attempts to prod her
into marriage with Bernard, she was a kindly, well-meaning woman. And poor Aunt Jane had a lot to contend with, Uncle
Paget being so immoderately fond of alcohol.

Presently Blanche arrived, bringing Priscilla with her, and
it turned into quite a jolly family party. Chloe remained in
good temper even when Jane dared, to question her treatment
of the aspidistra plant in the parlour, and the two sisters went downstairs to examine it together. Blanche left the room too, remembering a packet of damson drops she had brought for Cathy, which she must have left on the seat of the gig. Paget entertained the three girls with a clumsy display of card tricks which Priscilla watched open-mouthed. Poor Uncle Paget,
thought Emma compassionately, he really loves children. How
poignant that he should have lost his own little daughter in such tragic circumstances. Eventually the three aunts re
appeared and it was almost dinner time before the party broke
up.