Wuthering Bites (17 page)

‘For shame!' I interrupted. ‘One might suppose you had never opened a Bible in your life. If God afflict your enemies, surely that ought to suffice you.'

‘In general, I'll allow that it would be, Nelly,' she continued, ‘but what misery laid on Heathcliff could content me, unless I have a hand in it? I'd rather he suffered
less,
if I might cause his sufferings and he might
know
that I was the cause. Oh, I owe him so much. Anyway, Hindley wanted some water, and I handed him a glass, and asked him how he was.

‘ “Not as ill as I wish,” he replied. “Every inch of me is as sore as if I had been fighting with a legion of vampires!” '

‘ “Yes, no wonder,” was my next remark. “Catherine used to boast that she stood between you and bodily harm. She meant that certain persons would not hurt you for fear of offending her. It's well people don't
really
rise from their grave, or, last night, she might have witnessed a repulsive scene!”

‘ “What do you mean? Did he dare to strike me when I was down?”

‘ “He trampled on, and kicked you, and dashed you on the ground,” I whispered. “And his mouth watered to tear you with his teeth because he's only half a man.”

‘Mr. Earnshaw looked up at Heathcliff, who, absorbed in his anguish, seemed insensible to anything around him. The longer he stood, the plainer his reflections revealed their blackness through his features.

‘ “Oh, if God would but give me strength to strangle him in my last agony, I'd go to hell with joy,” groaned Earnshaw, writhing to rise, and sinking back in despair.

‘ “Nay, it's enough that he has murdered one of you,” I observed aloud. “At the Grange, everyone knows your sister would have been living now, had Heathcliff not made himself so friendly with the vampires.”

‘Most likely, Heathcliff noticed more the truth of what was said, for his attention was roused. His eyes rained down tears and he drew his breath in suffocating sighs.

‘I stared full at him and laughed scornfully. The clouded windows of hell flashed a moment toward me. The fiend that usually looked out, however, was so dimmed and drowned that I did not fear him.

‘ “Get up, and be gone out of my sight,” Heathcliff said.

‘ “I beg your pardon,” I replied.

‘ “Get up, wretched idiot, before I stamp you to death!” he cried, making a movement that caused me to start.

‘ “But then,” I continued, holding myself ready to flee, “if poor Catherine had trusted you, and assumed the ridiculous, contemptible, degrading title of Mrs. Heathcliff, as you wished, she would soon have presented a similar picture as I!
She
wouldn't have borne your abominable behavior quietly; her detestation and disgust must have found voice.”

‘Heathcliff snatched a dinner knife from the table and flung it at my head. It struck beneath my ear and stopped the sentence I was uttering. The last glimpse I caught of him was a furious rush on his part, checked by the embrace of Earnshaw, and both fell locked together on the hearth.

‘I flew through the kitchen like a soul escaped from purgatory and down the steep road. I shot across the moor, rolling over banks and wading through marshes toward the beacon light of the Grange. I'd rather be condemned to a perpetual dwelling in the infernal regions than, even for one night, abide beneath the roof of Wuthering Heights again.'

Isabella ceased speaking, and took a drink of tea, then rose and put on the bonnet and shawl I had brought. Turning a deaf ear to my entreaties for her to remain another hour, she stepped onto a chair, kissed Edgar's and Catherine's portraits, bestowed a similar salute on me, and descended to the carriage. She was driven away, never to revisit this neighborhood, though a regular correspondence was established between her and my master when things were more settled.

I believe Isabella's new abode was in the south, near London; there she had a son born, a few months later. He was christened Linton, and, from the first, she reported him to be an ailing, peevish creature.

Mr. Heathcliff, meeting me one day in the village, inquired where she lived. I refused to tell. He remarked that he did not care, so long as she stayed away from her brother. Apparently he had learned from others that his wife had born a son, his heir, the fruit of his loins, a man-child.”

Nelly plucked at a hair on her chin. “It was about that time that I began to notice changes in Heathcliff. Paler he was, more drawn. And his hairline seemed to be changing,” she remarked, seeming to contemplate the information.

“The child,” I urged. “You were telling me about Isabella's son.”

Oh, yes. Heathcliff often asked about the infant when he saw me, and on hearing its name, smiled grimly, and observed, ‘They wish me to hate it, too, do they?'

‘I don't think they wish you to know anything about it,' I answered.

‘But I'll have it,' he said, ‘when I want it. They may reckon on that!'

“A foreshadowing of what was to come,” Nelly explained.

“Time passed those years as time does. I was busy with little Cathy. At first I would go to Catherine's grave, but the earth was always upturned, as if she was freshly buried, and the heath and bilberry that grew down from the moors wove its way around the site, but never over it. It frightened me to the point that I was afraid to go, no matter how much garlic I wore in my underdrawers or braided into the moppet's hair and sewed into her petticoats.”

“What did Mr. Earnshaw think of the upturned earth?” I asked.

“I've no idea! I'm not sure he ever knew. He never went to the place where she was laid, and certainly no one would ever have mentioned the matter, though there was plenty of talk among the servants and in the village.”

“What did they say?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Some said she came forth from the grave regularly to feed, having become a vampire, but I thought that unlikely, else she would have come to her babe and I'd have known it, wouldn't I? She'd not have been able to easily hide. In those years there were few vampires in the moors due to Heathcliff's massacre. The ones we did see were just passing through. The ones foolish enough to stay were hunted down by Heathcliff and their heads added to the pikes. So many heads, so many fangs gleaming in the moonlight, 'twas said that other than a rainy night or in the dark of the moon, you'd need no lantern to pass that way, the fangs did reflect the light so. Boys liked to take their girls there, to scare them, and maybe get a kiss. Sometimes we had coach-loads of curious folk from the bigger towns, come just to see the heads that Master Heathcliff had taken. Queer what some folks do find interesting, don't you think, sir?”

I cleared my throat, thinking that with the proper company, I might have satisfied my curiosity by going to observe the collection myself, not out of morbid desire but because a gentleman of the world should observe what he can of the underbelly of life.

“They didn't stink, not like regular heads of them what's been hanged or come to no good ends,” Mrs. Dean continued. “They just hung there and stared with their fangs all bared.”

“So if she wasn't rising from the grave, what was your theory of the loose earth on Mrs. Linton's grave?” I asked, almost fearing her answer.

Nelly drew herself up indignantly. “I'm a servant, sir. It's not my place to have an opinion on such matters.”

“But you
did
have an opinion?”

“Perhaps, but I wasn't about to prove my thoughts. I will tell you this; Mr. Heathcliff was seen often walking to the kirkyard at night. He never slept at night anymore to anyone's knowledge.”

“I thought Catherine wasn't buried in holy ground.”

“No, sir, she weren't, but just outside the churchyard wall. That's how I think Mr. Linton let himself pretend she was inside the fence, her soul safe.”

“I see.” I rolled those thoughts over in my head and looked back at Nelly. “What of Heathcliff's child? He never laid eyes on him?”

“Not until some thirteen years after the decease of Catherine, when Linton was twelve, or a little more.

On the day succeeding Isabella's unexpected visit, I told Mr. Linton what had happened and I saw it pleased him that his sister had left her husband, whom he abhorred with an intensity that the mildness of his nature would scarcely seem to allow. So deep and sensitive was his aversion that he refrained from going anywhere he was likely to see or hear of Heathcliff. Grief, and that aversion to Heathcliff, transformed him into a complete hermit. He gave up his office of magistrate, ceased even to attend church, avoided the village on all occasions, and spent a life of entire seclusion within the limits of his park.

But he was too good to be thoroughly unhappy long. He didn't pray for Catherine's soul to haunt him like the other one. Maybe he knew better. Be careful what you ask for, that's what I always say. Time brought resignation, and a melancholy sweeter than common joy. He recalled her memory with ardent, tender love, and hopeful aspiring to the better world, where, he doubted not, she was gone. In his mind, it was as if the circumstances of her death had never existed. In his mind, I think he believed he had buried her inside the kirkyard on holy ground as he had intended and not outside, beyond the pale, as it were.

And he had earthly consolation. It was named Catherine, and his attachment sprang from its relation to his dear departed, far more than from its being his own. After the death of Catherine many whispered that Edgar would not be far behind her, but he did not give in to grief as many expected.

“So the sickly child did live?” I asked, almost ashamed that I'd given little thought to the plight of the innocent babe.

“That she did, but more on her later,” Nelly continued.

Now, the end of Earnshaw was what might have been expected; it followed fast on his sister's, scarcely six months between them. We, at the Grange, never got a very succinct account of his state preceding it. The doctor came to announce the event to my master.

‘Well, Nelly,' said he, riding into the yard one morning, too early not to alarm me with an instant presentiment of bad news, ‘Who's given us the slip now, do you think?'

‘Who?' I asked in a flurry.

‘Why, guess!' he returned, dismounting, and slinging his bridle on a hook by the door.

‘Not Mr. Heathcliff, surely?' I exclaimed, for by then I was on to him and was beginning to suspect he would never die any more than those bloodsuckers' heads would rot.

‘No, Heathcliff's a tough young fellow; he looks blooming today. I've just seen him. He actually had a little color in his cheeks.'

‘Who is it, then, Mr. Kenneth?' I repeated impatiently.

‘Hindley Earnshaw! Your old friend Hindley,' he replied. ‘He died true to his character, drunk as a lord. He's barely twenty-seven, it seems.'

I confess this blow was greater to me than the shock of Mrs. Linton's death; ancient associations lingered round my heart.

I could not hinder myself from pondering on the question—Had his death involved foul play? Whatever I did, that idea would bother me until finally I thought I should go see for myself and requested that I be allowed to go to Wuthering Heights, and assist in the last duties of the dead. Mr. Linton was extremely reluctant to consent, but I pleaded eloquently for the friendless condition in which he lay. I said my old master and foster-brother had a claim on my services as strong as his own. Besides, I reminded him that the child Hareton was his wife's nephew, and, in the absence of nearer kin, he ought to act as its guardian. I told him he ought to and must inquire how the property was left, and look over the concerns of his brother-in-law.

He was unfit for attending to such matters then, but he bid me speak to his lawyer and permitted me to go. His lawyer had been Earnshaw's also, so I went to the village and asked him to accompany me. He shook his head and advised that Heathcliff should be let alone, affirming, if the truth were known, Hareton would be found little else than a beggar.

‘His father died in debt,' he said. ‘We all said that playing cards with those bloodsuckers would not end well. They were clever, for the undead. The whole property is mortgaged, and the sole chance for the natural heir is to allow him an opportunity of creating some interest in the creditor's heart, that he may be inclined to deal leniently toward him.'

When I reached the Heights, I explained that I had come to see everything carried on decently. Mr. Heathcliff said I might stay and order the arrangements for the funeral, if I chose.

‘Correctly,' he remarked. ‘That fool's body should be buried at the crossroads, without ceremony of any kind. I happened to leave him ten minutes yesterday afternoon, and in that interval he fastened the two doors of the house against me, and he has spent the night in drinking himself to death deliberately! We broke in this morning, for we heard him snorting like a horse, and there he was, laid over the settle. Flaying and scalping would not have wakened him. I sent for the doctor, and he came, but he was both dead and cold, and stark. So, there will be no fuss; he doesn't deserve it.'

Despite his words, I insisted on the funeral being respectable. Mr. Heathcliff said I might have my own way, but I was to remember that the money for the whole affair came out of his pocket.

Bathed the body myself, I did. He was marked, of course.

“Marked?” I asked, eyes wide.

“Vampire bites. Here and here.” She struck both sides of her neck. “And here and here.” She touched her wrists, then her ankles.

“But I thought you said there weren't any vampires left in the county.”

“So I was told.”

“What did Mr. Heathcliff say about the bites?”

“He didn't say a word.”

He maintained a hard, careless deportment, indicative of neither joy nor sorrow. If anything, it expressed a flinty gratification at a piece of difficult work successfully executed. I observed once, indeed, something like exultation in his aspect. It was just when the people were bearing the coffin from the house. He had the hypocrisy to represent himself as a mourner! Just before he and Hareton went, he lifted the unfortunate child on to the table and muttered, with peculiar gusto, ‘Now, my bonny lad, you are
mine!
And we'll see if one tree won't grow as crooked as another, with the same wind to twist it!'