him.
The care of the child Hareton fell wholly into my hands. Mr. Earnshaw saw to his health, but regarded his son no further. Mr. Earnshaw grew desperate. He neither wept nor prayed; he cursed and defied both God and man.
The servants could not bear his tyrannical and evil conduct long, and they were soon gone. Joseph and I were the only two that would stay. I did not have the heart to leave my charge. Joseph said he remained to hector over tenants and laborers, but I wondered if it was something else that held him there.
The master was seen speaking with the cloaked beasties that lurked in the shadows as daylight fell away at Wuthering Heights, for there were some who could appear in all manner and speech as human; it was only their fangs that gave them away. At first, he only talked to them from high above, in a window’s ledge, but later, he grew bolder. I sometimes think he wanted them to take his life. Later, he began to play cards and drink with them, or rather drank alone seated beside them, for they ate or drank nothing but human blood.
The master’s bad ways and bad companions formed a pretty example for Catherine and Heathcliff. His treatment of the latter was enough to make a fiend of a saint. And, truly, it appeared as if the lad were possessed of something diabolical at that period. He delighted to witness Hindley degrading himself past redemption, and became daily more notable for savage sullenness and ferocity.
Word got out that the master of the house was entertaining the vampires and nobody decent came near us, unless Edgar Linton’s visits to Miss Cathy might be an exception. At fifteen she was the queen of the countryside. What a haughty, headstrong creature she was! I did not like her, after her infancy was past; she never took an aversion to me, though. She had a wondrous constancy to old attachments; even Heathcliff kept his hold on her affections unalterably.
“That is Edgar Linton’s portrait over the fireplace. It used to hang on one side, and his wife’s on the other, but hers has been removed, or else you might see something of what she was. Can you make that out?” Mrs. Dean raised the candle, and pointed.
I looked closer and discerned a soft-featured face, exceedingly resembling the young lady at the Heights, but more pensive and amiable in expression. It formed a sweet picture. The long light hair curled slightly on the temples, the eyes large and serious; the figure almost too graceful. Looking at him, I did not wonder how Catherine Earnshaw could forget her first friend for such an individual.
“A very agreeable portrait,” I observed to the housekeeper. “Is it accurate?”
“Yes,” she answered. “But he looked better when he was animated; that is his everyday countenance.”
Catherine had kept up her acquaintance with the Lintons, and as she had no temptation to show her rough side in their company, by her ingenious cordiality toward Mr. and Mrs. Linton, she gained the admiration of Isabella, and the heart and soul of her brother. These acquisitions flattered her from the beginning and led her to adopt a double character without exactly intending to deceive anyone.
Here at Thrushcross Grange, Catherine took care not to act like the wild child she could be, but at home she had little inclination to practice politeness and made no attempt to restrain her unruly nature.
Mr. Edgar seldom mustered courage to visit Wuthering Heights openly. He had a terror of Earnshaw’s reputation, and shrank from encountering him, especially once the bloodsuckers became frequent visitors. I think his appearance there was distasteful to Catherine; she was not artful, never played the coquette, and had evidently an objection to Heathcliff and Linton meeting at all. Heathcliff expressed contempt of Linton in his presence, and when Linton spoke of disgust toward Heathcliff, she dared not treat his sentiments with indifference.
I’ve had many a laugh at her perplexities and untold troubles, which she vainly strove to hide from my mockery. That sounds ill-natured, but she was so proud, it became really impossible to pity her distresses. She did bring herself, finally, to confess, and confide in me, though, as there was no other advisor.
Mr. Hindley had gone from home, one afternoon, and Heathcliff presumed to give himself a holiday. He had reached the age of sixteen then, I think, and without having bad features, or being stupid, he gave an impression of inward and outward repulsiveness that his present aspect retains no trace of.
Catherine and he were still often companions when he could get away, but he had ceased to express his fondness for her in words, and recoiled with angry suspicion from her girlish caresses. He was spending more time among the beasties, not always fighting with them, for he did not always come home bloody and covered in their foul black stench, but doing what, I never knew.
On the before-named occasion, Heathcliff came into the house to announce his intention of doing nothing, while I was assisting Miss Cathy dressing. She had assumed Heathcliff would go to the moors to do whatever it was he did with the beasties, and she imagined she would have the whole place to herself. With this thought in mind, she managed, by some means, to inform Mr. Edgar of her brother’s absence, and was preparing to receive him.
‘Cathy, are you busy this afternoon?’ asked Heathcliff. ‘Are you going anywhere?’
‘No, it is raining,’ she answered.
‘Why have you that silk frock on, then?’ he said. ‘Nobody coming here, I hope?’
‘Not that I know of,’ stammered Miss. ‘But you should be in the moors now, Heathcliff.’
‘I’ll not work anymore today. I’ll stay with you.’
So saying, he went to the fire and sat down. Catherine reflected an instant, with knitted brows. ‘Isabella and Edgar Linton talked of calling this afternoon,’ she said, after a minute’s silence. ‘As it rains, I hardly expect them; but they may come, and if they do, you run the risk of being scolded for no good.’
‘Order Nelly to say you are engaged, Cathy,’ he said. ‘Don’t choose to spend the afternoon with those silly friends of yours instead of me! I’m on the point, sometimes, of complaining that they—but I’ll not—’
‘That they what?’ cried Catherine, gazing at him with a troubled countenance. ‘What are you on the point of complaining about, Heathcliff?’
‘Nothing—only look at the almanac on that wall.’ He pointed to a framed sheet hanging near the window, and continued. ‘The crosses are for the evenings you have spent with the Lintons, the dots for those spent with me. Do you see? I’ve marked every day.’
Catherine took on a peevish tone. ‘And where is the sense of that?’
‘To show that I do take notice,’ said Heathcliff.
‘And should I always be sitting with you?’ she demanded, growing more irritated. ‘What good do I get? What do you talk about? Nothing but the vampires and how you will control them and how you will reign over them one day and other such nonsense. You might be dumb, or a baby, for anything you say to amuse me, or for anything you do, either!’
‘You never told me before that you disliked my company, Cathy!’ exclaimed Heathcliff with agitation.
‘It’s no company at all, when people know nothing and say nothing but for boring talk of vampires,’ she muttered.
Her companion rose, but he hadn’t time to express his feelings further, for a horse’s feet were heard on the flag-stones, and having knocked gently, young Linton entered, his face brilliant with delight at the unexpected summons he had received.
Doubtless Catherine marked the difference between her friends as one came in and the other went out. The contrast resembled what you see in exchanging a bleak, hilly, coal country for a beautiful, fertile valley, and his voice and greeting were as opposite as his aspect.
‘I’m not come too soon, am I?’ he said, looking at me. I had begun to wipe the plate and tidy some drawers in the dresser at the far end, for Mr. Hindley had given me instructions that she and Linton were not to be left alone.
‘No,’ answered Catherine. ‘What are you doing there, Nelly?’
‘My