pleased to see that they had acquired a guard of gypsy slayers to prevent them being devoured as they crossed the moors. A pretty penny they charge, but worth every cent for one’s blood, don’t you think? But the gypsies were not allowed inside, no matter how much I pleaded. Instead, they had to bide outside in the cold. They didn’t seem to mind, but wrapped their cloaks around them and scanned the house and courtyard with dark, suspicious gazes.
After the usual carols had been sung, we set them to songs and glees. Catherine loved it, too, but she said it sounded sweetest at the top of the steps, and she went up in the dark. I followed. She made no stay at the stairs’ head, but mounted farther, to the garret where Heathcliff was confined. She called to him, but he stubbornly declined answering for a while. She persevered, and finally he replied.
I let the poor things converse unmolested, till I supposed the songs were going to cease, and the singers to get some refreshment. Then I clambered up the ladder to warn her.
Instead of finding her outside, I heard her voice within. The little monkey had crept by the skylight of one garret along the roof, into the skylight of the other. It was all I could do to coax her out again.
When she did come, Heathcliff came with her, and she insisted that I should take him into the kitchen and feed him. I set him a stool by the fire and offered him a quantity of good things, but he could eat little. ‘Come now, I beg you. ’Tis better than stale crusts and blackbird bone soup that usually makes up your feast.’ But he ignored my coaxing, rested his two elbows on his knees, and his chin on his hands, and remained wrapped in dumb meditation.
‘What are you thinking?’ I asked suspiciously.
‘I’m trying to settle how I shall pay Hindley back. I don’t care how long I wait, if I can only do it at last. I hope he will not die before I do!’
‘For shame, Heathcliff! It is for God to punish wicked people.’
‘God won’t have the satisfaction that I shall,’ he returned. ‘I only wish I knew the best way! Toss him to the vampires or dangle him in front of them, letting them slowly drip him dry? No, even that seems too kind.’
“But, Mr. Lockwood, I’m annoyed how I should chatter on at such a rate with you nodding and ready for bed. I could have told Heathcliff’s history, all that you need hear, in half a dozen words.”
Thus interrupting herself, the housekeeper rose, and set aside her sewing. But I felt incapable of moving from the hearth, and I was very far from nodding.
“Do sit still, another half-hour, Mrs. Dean!” I cried. “You’ve done right to tell the story leisurely. You must continue in the same manner, for I am interested in every character you have mentioned.”
“But the clock is on the stroke of eleven, sir.”
“No matter—I’m not accustomed to go to bed in the long hours. One or two is early enough for a person who lies till ten.”
“You shouldn’t lie till ten. Some say that is a vampire’s favorite time of day to feed.”
“But I thought the vampires only came out after dark.”
“But it would be dark in your bedchamber if you slept till ten and the draperies were drawn,” she argued. “Such fate was that of the magistrate’s third wife in Chelton Town, who never rose from her bed until the sun was high in the sky. Some said the beasties came down the chimney, others claimed a servant left a window casing unlatched, but when they found the poor dame, she was as white and lifeless as whey. Not only had they sucked her dry, but they had drained every drop from her tame popinjay and left its carcass on her silk pillow.”
And she had me half convinced, but I was too eager to hear more of my neighbor than to worry about being devoured mid-morning in my bed. “Nevertheless, Mrs. Dean, resume your chair and continue your tale. And please do not leave anything out. You suggested Joseph was waiting that Christmas Eve for the woman vampire, but you said no more of it.”
“I cannot tell you every word spoken, every step taken, or we will be here beyond our deaths.” She settled back in her chair. “You must allow me to leap over some three years—”
“No, no, I’ll allow nothing of the sort!”
She settled back in her chair, her sewing in her hand again. “Very well, sir. Instead of leaping three years, I will be content to pass to the next summer—the summer of 1778. That is nearly twenty-three years ago.”
Chapter 8
On the morning of a fine June day, my first bonny little nursling, and the last of the Earnshaw stock, was born.
We were busy with the hay in a faraway field when the girl who usually brought our breakfasts came running across the meadow and up the lane, calling me as she ran.
‘Oh, such a grand bairn!’ she panted out. ‘The finest lad that ever breathed! But the doctor says the missus is bad off. He says the vampires have been feeding on her in secret for many months.’
‘Feeding on her!’ I exclaimed. ‘How could that be?’ I thought about Joseph and his many odd behaviors, even odd for him, but did not dare even consider the possibility that he could somehow be involved. ‘How can that be?’ was all I could utter.
‘No one knows,’ the maid declared with excitement. ‘But I heard the doctor tell Mr. Hindley, in her weakened state, she’ll be dead before winter. You must come home directly. You’re to nurse it, Nelly. You must feed it with sugar and milk, and take care of it day and night.’
‘But is she very ill?’ I asked, flinging down my rake and tying my bonnet.
‘I guess she is, yet she talks as if she thought of living to see it grow a man,’ the maid replied. ‘She’s out of her head for joy, it’s such a beauty! If I were her, I’m certain I should not die. I would fight the beasties, I would not let them charm me.’ She peered at me more closely, her eyes wide. ‘They say that is how it is done. The vampire charms you until you know not what you do. Then he can freely seek your blood!’
‘And what did the master say to the doctor?’ I inquired, scowling.
‘I think he swore, but I paid him no attention. I was straining to see the bairn.’
I hurried eagerly home to admire the babe, though I must say I was very sad for Hindley’s sake. I couldn’t conceive how he would bear the loss.
When we got to Wuthering Heights, there he stood at the front door. As I passed, I asked how was the baby.
‘Nearly ready to run about, Nell!’ he replied, putting on a cheerful smile.
‘And the mistress?’ I ventured to inquire. ‘What does the doctor—’
‘Damn the doctor!’ he interrupted, reddening. ‘Frances is quite right; she has encountered no vampires! She’ll be perfectly well by this time next week. Are you going upstairs? Will you tell her that I’ll come, if she’ll promise not to talk? I left her because she would not hold her tongue and the doctor says she must be quiet.’
I delivered this message to Mrs. Earnshaw and she replied merrily—
‘I hardly spoke a word, Nelly, and there he has gone out twice, crying. Well, say I promise I won’t speak, but that does not bind me not to laugh at him!’
Poor soul! Till within a week of her death that gay heart never failed her. Her husband persisted doggedly in affirming her health improved every day. When the doctor warned him that medicines were useless against long-term bloodletting, followed by the weakened condition of giving birth, he retorted—
‘She does not want any more attendance from you! No beastie ever drank of her blood. It was a fever and it is gone; her pulse is as slow as mine now, and her cheek as cool.’
He told his wife the same story, and she seemed to believe him, but one night, while leaning on his shoulder in the act of saying she thought she should be able to get up tomorrow,