than my entertainer. This was Zillah, the stout housewife, who entered the room to inquire into the nature of the uproar.
“Are you going to allow folk to be murdered on our very door-stones? Look at the lad, he’s fair choking! Wisht, wisht!” She waved to me. “Come in, and I’ll see to that. There now, hold ye still.”
With these words she splashed a pint of icy water into my face and pulled me into the kitchen. Mr. Heathcliff followed, his accidental merriment expiring quickly in his habitual moroseness.
I was dizzy and faint, realizing I had not even drawn my dagger to defend myself. What man was I! In this state, I was compelled to accept lodgings under Heathcliff’s roof. He told Zillah to give me a glass of brandy, and then passed on to the inner room, whereby I was somewhat revived and ushered to bed.
Chapter 3
While leading the way upstairs, Zillah recommended that I should hide the candle and not make a noise, for her master had an odd notion about the chamber she would put me in, and he never willingly let anybody lodge there.
I asked the reason.
She didn’t know for certain, but the girl in the kitchen had told her that the ghost of a lady vampire haunted it. Zillah doubted the story because the silly chit was a known liar. Zillah said she’d only lived at Wuthering Heights a year, and they had so many queer goings-on with the vampires hanging about the outbuildings and peering in the windows that she wasn’t sure she cared to know the truth about the room. She said this position was far better than her last near London, where the vampires actually entered the dwelling and killed a kitchen maid and the master’s ugliest daughter. Zillah went on further to tell me, as we climbed the dark, dank-smelling stairwell, that it had been her experience that the vampires here at Wuthering Heights rarely attacked, and when they did, the injury was almost never fatal. There were whispers that the Master Heathcliff had some nature of power over them.
“Of course, then there is the matter of Joseph to keep them somewhat content,” she uttered, glancing over her shoulder at me.
I held a rag to my bloody nose. “What of Joseph?”
“Some things are better left alone.”
And alone she left me. Zillah took her leave and I fastened my door and glanced round for the bedchamber, wondering if I should expect a coffin. But surely she would have warned me had there been a coffin instead of a bed. Fortunately, the whole furniture consisted of a chair, a clothespress, and a large oak case, with squares cut out near the top, resembling coach windows. The chamber had a thick dampness about it, and deep shadows draped in folds against the walls. My candle cast a feeble light against the gloom. I held it high and peered around me, fearing the worst.
No coffin.
Approaching the odd structure, I looked inside and discovered it to be a singular sort of old-fashioned couch, very conveniently designed. The clever piece formed a little closet, and the ledge of a window, which it enclosed, served as a table.
I slid back the paneled sides, got in with my light, pulled them together again, and felt secure against the vigilance of Heathcliff and anyone and everyone who might be lurking. I couldn’t call the space cozy, but I liked it far better than the parlor. Here, no hounds were ready to rip me apart, and no Joseph with who knows what evil plot simmering in his black heart. And here, I had shelter both from the snow and the ever-present danger of the vampires that apparently roamed at will here in the moors.
The ledge, where I placed my candle, had a few mildewed books piled up in one corner, and it was covered with writing scratched on the paint. This writing, however, was nothing but a name repeated in all kinds of characters, large and small—Catherine Earnshaw, here and there varied to Catherine Heathcliff, and then again to Catherine Linton.
Listlessly, I leaned my head against the window. My nose having ceased bleeding, I tucked away the rag for possible later need. Staring at the writing in the paint, I continued spelling over Catherine Earnshaw—Heathcliff—Linton, till my eyes closed; but they had not rested five minutes when a glare of white letters, dripping blood, started from the dark, as vivid as specters—the air swarmed with Catherines. Rousing myself to dispel the obtrusive name, I discovered my candlewick reclining on one of the antique volumes and perfuming the place with an odor of roasted calfskin.
I snuffed it off, and, very ill at ease under the influence of cold and lingering nausea, sat up and spread open the injured tome on my knee. It was a Testament, in lean type, and smelling dreadfully musty: a flyleaf bore the inscription “Catherine Earnshaw, her book,” and a date some quarter of a century back.
I shut it, and took up another, and another, till I had examined them all. Catherine’s library was select, and its state of dilapidation proved it to have been well used, though not altogether for a legitimate purpose. Scarcely one chapter had escaped a pen-and-ink commentary—at least, the appearance of one—covering every morsel of blank that the printer had left.
Some were detached sentences, other parts took the form of a regular diary, scrawled in an unformed, childish hand. At the top of an extra page, I was greatly amused to find an excellent caricature of my friend Joseph, rudely yet powerfully sketched in the form of a hideous bloodsucking creature with fangs that nearly reached his waist.
An immediate interest kindled within me for the unknown Catherine, and I began to decipher her faded hieroglyphics.
An awful Sunday! commenced the paragraph beneath. I wish my father had not succumbed to that last nasty vampire attack and were back again. Hindley is a detestable substitute—his conduct to Heathcliff is atrocious—he has no idea what or who he is crossing. H. and I are going to rebel—we took our initiatory step this evening.
All day had been flooding with rain; we could not go to church, so Joseph got up a congregation in the garret. While Hindley and his wife basked downstairs before a comfortable fire, doing anything but reading their Bibles, Heathcliff, myself, and the unhappy plough-boy were commanded to take our prayer-books. We were set in a row on a sack of corn, groaning and shivering, and hoping that Joseph would shiver, too, so that he might give us a short homily. A vain idea! The service lasted precisely three hours, and yet my brother had the face to exclaim, when he saw us descending—
‘What, done already?’
On Sunday evenings we used to be permitted to play, if we did not make much noise; now a mere titter is sufficient to send us into corners!
‘You forget you have a master here,’ says the tyrant. ‘I’ll demolish the first who puts me out of temper! I insist on perfect sobriety and silence. Frances, darling,’ he said to his wife. ‘Pull the boy’s hair as you go by.’
Frances pulled Heathcliff’s hair heartily, and then went and seated herself on her husband’s knee, and there they were, kissing and talking nonsense by the hour.
We made ourselves as snug as our means allowed in the arch of the dresser. I had just fastened our pinafores together, and hung them up for a curtain, when in comes Joseph, on an errand from the stables. He tears down my handiwork, boxes my ears, and croaks—
‘Your own father just buried and the Sabbath not over, and you dare play your silly games. Shame on ye! Sit down. There’s good books to be read. Sit down, and save yer souls!’
I could not bear the employment. I took my dingy volume and hurled it into the dog kennel, vowing I hated a good book.
Heathcliff kicked his to the same place. Then there was a hubbub!
‘Master Hindley!’ shouted our self-made chaplain. ‘Master, come quick! Miss Catherine’s ripped the back off The Helmet of Salvation, and Heathcliff’s put his foot into the first part of The Broad Way to Destruction! The old man would have beat them soundly for such a crime—but he’s gone!’
Hindley hurried up from his paradise on the hearth, and seizing one of us by the collar, and the other by the arm, hurled both into the back kitchen.
I reached for this book, and a pot of ink from the shelf, and pushed