Mr. Hindley had gone from home one afternoon,and Heathcliff presumed to give himself a holiday on the strength of it.He had reached the age of sixteen then, I think,and without having bad features,or being deficient in intellect,he contrived to convey an impression of inward and outward repulsiveness that his present aspect retains no traces of. In the first place, he had by that time lost the benefit of his early education: continual hard work, begun soon and concluded late, had extinguished any curiosity he once possessed in pursuit of knowledge, and any love for books or learning. His childhood’s sense of superiority, instilled into him by the favours of old Mr. Earnshaw, was faded away. He struggled long to keep up an equality with Catherine in her studies, and yielded with poignant though silent regret: but he yielded completely; and there was no prevailing on him to take a step in the way of moving upward, when he found he must, necessarily, sink beneath his former level. Then personal appearance sympathised with mental deterioration: he acquired a slouching gait and ignoble look; his naturally reserved disposition was exaggerated into an almost idiotic excess of unsociable moroseness; and he took a grim pleasure, apparently, in exciting the aversion rather than the esteem of his few acquaintance.
Catherine and he were constant companions still at his seasons of respite from labour; but he had ceased to express his fondness for her in words, and recoiled with angry suspicion from her girlish caresses, as if conscious there could be no gratification in lavishing such marks of affection on him. On the before-named occasion he came into the house to announce his intention of doing nothing, while I was assisting Miss Cathy to arrange her dress: she had not reckoned on his taking it into his head to be idle; and imagining she would have the whole place to herself, she managed, by some means, to inform Mr. Edgar of her brother’s absence, and was then 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 field now, Heathcliff.It is an hour past dinner time;I thought you were gone.”
“Hindley does not often free us from his accursed presence,” observed the boy. “I’ll not work any more to-day:I’ll stay with you.”
“Oh, but Joseph will tell,” she suggested; “you’d better go!”
“Joseph is loading lime on the further side of Penistone Crags;it will take him till dark, and he’ll never know.”
So saying, he lounged to the fire, and sat down.Catherine reflected an instant,with knitted brows—she found it needful to smooth the way for an intrusion.“Isabella and Edgar Linton talked of calling this afternoon,” she said, at the conclusion of 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 Ellen to say you are engaged, Cathy,” he persisted; “don’t turn me out for those pitiful,silly friends of yours!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. “Oh, Nelly!” she added petulantly,jerking her head away from my hands,“you’ve combed my hair quite out of curl!That’s enough; let me alone.What are you on the point of complaining about, Heathcliff?”
“Nothing—only look at the almanack 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.”
“Yes—very foolish: as if I took notice!” replied Catherine, in 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?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 I talked too little,or that you disliked my company, Cathy!” exclaimed Heathcliff, in much agitation.
“It’s no company at all,when people know nothing and say nothing, ” she muttered.
Her companion rose up,but he hadn’t time to express his feelings further,for a horse’s feet were heard on the flags,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.He had a sweet, low manner of speaking,and pronounced his words as you do:that’s less gruff than we talk here, and softer.
“I’m not come too soon, am I?” he said, casting a look at me:I had begun to wipe the plate,and tidy some drawers at the far end in the dresser.
“No,” answered Catherine. “What are you doing there, Nelly?”
“My work, Miss,” I replied. (Mr.Hindley had given me directions to make a third party in any private visits Linton chose to pay.)
She stepped behind me and whispered crossly,“Take yourself and your dusters off;when company are in the house,servants don’t commence scouring and cleaning in the room where they are!”
“It’s a good opportunity, now that master is away,” I answered aloud: “he hates me to be fidgeting over these things in his presence. I’m sure Mr. Edgar will excuse me.”
“I hate you to be fidgeting in _my_ presence,” exclaimed the young lady imperiously,not allowing her guest time to speak:she had failed to recover her equanimity since the little dispute with Heathcliff.
“I’m sorry for it, Miss Catherine,” was my response;and I proceeded assiduously with my occupation.
She, supposing Edgar could not see her,snatched the cloth from my hand, and pinched me,with a prolonged wrench, very spitefully on the arm.I’ve said I did not love her,and rather relished mortifying her vanity now and then:besides, she hurt me extremely;so I started up from my knees, and screamed out, “Oh,Miss, that’s a nasty trick!You have no right to nip me,and I’m not going to bear it.”
“I didn’t touch you, you lying creature!” cried she, her fingers tingling to repeat the act,and her ears red with rage.She never had power to conceal her passion,it always set her whole complexion in a blaze.
“What’s that, then?” I retorted, showing a decided purple witness to refute her.
She stamped her foot, wavered a moment, and then,irresistibly impelled by the naughty spirit within her,slapped me on the cheek:a stinging blow that filled both eyes with water.
“Catherine, love!Catherine!” interposed Linton,greatly shocked at the double fault of falsehood and violence which his idol had committed.
“Leave the room, Ellen!” she repeated, trembling all over.
Little Hareton, who followed me everywhere,and was sitting near me on the floor,at seeing my tears commenced crying himself,and sobbed out complaints against “wicked aunt Cathy,” which drew her fury on to his unlucky head:she seized his shoulders,and shook him till the poor child waxed livid,and Edgar thoughtlessly laid hold of her hands to deliver him.In an instant one was wrung free,and the astonished young man felt it applied over his own ear in a way that could not be mistaken for jest. He drew back in consternation. I lifted Hareton in my arms, and walked off to the kitchen with him, leaving the door of communication open, for I was curious to watch how they would settle their disagreement. The insulted visitor moved to the spot where he had laid his hat, pale and with a quivering lip.