I obeyed: and, in passing,I noticed he breathed as fast as a cat.
“Yes!” I reflected to myself,“we shall have a fit of illness.I cannot conceive what he has been doing.”
That noon he sat down to dinner with us,and received a heaped-up plate from my hands,as if he intended to make amends for previous fasting.
“I’ve neither cold nor fever, Nelly,” he remarked,in allusion to my morning’s speech;“and I’m ready to do justice to the food you give me.”
He took his knife and fork,and was going to commence eating,when the inclination appeared to become suddenly extinct.He laid them on the table,looked eagerly towards the window,then rose and went out.We saw him walking to and fro in the garden while we concluded our meal,and Earnshaw said he’d go and ask why he would not dine:he thought we had grieved him some way.
“Well, is he coming?” cried Catherine, when her cousin returned.
“Nay,” he answered; “but he’s not angry:he seemed rarely pleased indeed;only I made him impatient by speaking to him twice;and then he bid me be off to you:he wondered how I could want the company of anybody else. ”
I set his plate to keep warm on the fender;and after an hour or two he re-entered,when the room was clear, in no degree calmer:the same unnatural—it was unnatural—appearance of joy under his black brows;the same bloodless hue, and his teeth visible,now and then, in a kind of smile; his frame shivering,not as one shivers with chill or weakness,but as a tight-stretched cord vibrates—a strong thrilling,rather than trembling.
I will ask what is the matter, I thought; or who should?And I exclaimed—“Have you heard any good news, Mr. Heathcliff?You look uncommonly animated.”
“Where should good news come from to me?” he said. “I’m animated with hunger; and, seemingly, I must not eat.”
“Your dinner is here,” I returned;“why won’t you get it?”
“I don’t want it now,” he muttered, hastily:“I’ll wait till supper. And, Nelly, once for all,let me beg you to warn Hareton and the other away from me.I wish to be troubled by nobody:I wish to have this place to myself.”
“Is there some new reason for this banishment?” I inquired. “Tell me why you are so queer, Mr. Heathcliff?Where were you last night?I’m not putting the question through idle curiosity, but—”
“You are putting the question through very idle curiosity,” he interrupted, with a laugh. “Yet I’ll answer it.Last night I was on the threshold of hell. To-day,I am within sight of my heaven. I have my eyes on it:hardly three feet to sever me!And now you’d better go!You’ll neither see nor hear anything to frighten you,if you refrain from prying.”
Having swept the hearth and wiped the table, I departed;more perplexed than ever.
He did not quit the house again that afternoon,and no one intruded on his solitude; till,at eight o’clock, I deemed it proper,though unsummoned, to carry a candle and his supper to him.He was leaning against the ledge of an open lattice,but not looking out:his face was turned to the interior gloom.The fire had smouldered to ashes;the room was filled with the damp,mild air of the cloudy evening; and so still,that not only the murmur of the beck down Gimmerton was distinguishable,but its ripples and its gurgling over the pebbles,or through the large stones which it could not cover.I uttered an ejaculation of discontent at seeing the dismal grate,and commenced shutting the casements,one after another, till I came to his.
“Must I close this?” I asked, in order to rouse him; for he would not stir.
The light flashed on his features as I spoke. Oh, Mr.Lockwood, I cannot express what a terrible start I got by the momentary view!Those deep black eyes!That smile, and ghastly paleness!It appeared to me, not Mr. Heathcliff, but a goblin;and, in my terror, I let the candle bend towards the wall,and it left me in darkness.
“Yes, close it,” he replied, in his familiar voice.“There, that is pure awkwardness!Why did you hold the candle horizontally?Be quick, and bring another.”
I hurried out in a foolish state of dread,and said to Joseph—“The master wishes you to take him a light and rekindle the fire.” For I dared not go in myself again just then.
Joseph rattled some fire into the shovel, and went:but he brought it back immediately,with the supper-tray in his other hand,explaining that Mr. Heathcliff was going to bed,and he wanted nothing to eat till morning.We heard him mount the stairs directly;he did not proceed to his ordinary chamber,but turned into that with the panelled bed: its window,as I mentioned before,is wide enough for anybody to get through;and it struck me that he plotted another midnight excursion,of which he had rather we had no suspicion.
“Is he a ghoul or a vampire?” I mused. I had read of such hideous incarnate demons.And then I set myself to reflect how I had tended him in infancy,and watched him grow to youth,and followed him almost through his whole course;and what absurd nonsense it was to yield to that sense of horror.“But where did he come from, the little dark thing,harboured by a good man to his bane?” muttered Superstition,as I dozed into unconsciousness. And I began,half dreaming, to weary myself with imagining some fit parentage for him;and, repeating my waking meditations,I tracked his existence over again,with grim variations; at last,picturing his death and funeral: of which,all I can remember is,being exceedingly vexed at having the task of dictating an inscription for his monument, and consulting the sexton about it; and, as he had no surname, and we could not tell his age, we were obliged to content ourselves with the single word, “Heathcliff.” That came true: we were. If you enter the kirkyard, you’ll read, on his headstone, only that, and the date of his death.
Dawn restored me to common sense. I rose,and went into the garden, as soon as I could see,to ascertain if there were any footmarks under his window.There were none. “He has stayed at home,” I thought,“and he’ll be all right to-day.” I prepared breakfast for the household,as was my usual custom,but told Hareton and Catherine to get theirs ere the master came down,for he lay late. They preferred taking it out of doors,under the trees, and I set a little table to accommodate them.
On my re-entrance, I found Mr. Heathcliff below.He and Joseph were conversing about some farming business;he gave clear, minute directions concerning the matter discussed,but he spoke rapidly,and turned his head continually aside,and had the same excited expression,even more exaggerated.When Joseph quitted the room he took his seat in the place he generally chose,and I put a basin of coffee before him.He drew it nearer, and then rested his arms on the table,and looked at the opposite wall, as I supposed,surveying one particular portion, up and down,with glittering, restless eyes,and with such eager interest that he stopped breathing during half a minute together.
“Come now,” I exclaimed,pushing some bread against his hand,“eat and drink that, while it is hot:it has been waiting near an hour.”
He didn’t notice me, and yet he smiled.I’d rather have seen him gnash his teeth than smile so.
“Mr. Heathcliff!master!” I cried, “don’t, for God’s sake,stare as if you saw an unearthly vision.”
“Don’t, for God’s sake, shout so loud,” he replied.“Turn round, and tell me, are we by ourselves?”
“Of course,” was my answer; “of course we are.”
Still, I involuntarily obeyed him,as if I was not quite sure.With a sweep of his hand he cleared a vacant space in front among the breakfast things, and leant forward to gaze more at his ease.