Chapter XIX
On the morrow of that Monday, Earnshaw being still unable to follow his ordinary employments, and, therefore, remaining about the house, I speedily found it would be impracticable to retain my charge beside me, as heretofore.
She got down stairs before me, and out into the garden, where she had seen her cousin performing some easy work; and when I went to bid them come to breakfast, I saw she had persuaded him to clear a large space of ground from currant and gooseberry bushes, and they were busy planning together an importation of plants from the Grange.
I was terrified at the devastation which had been accomplished in a brief half hour; the black currant trees were the apple of Joseph’s eye, and she had just fixed her choice of a flower bed in the midst of them!
‘There! That will be all shewn to the master,’ I exclaimed, ‘the minute it is discovered. And what excuse have you to offer for taking such liberties with the garden? We shall have a fine explosion on the head of it: see if we don’t!
Mr Hareton, I wonder you should have no more wit, than to go and make that mess at her bidding! ’
‘I’d forgotten they were Joseph’s,’ answered Earnshaw, rather puzzled, ‘but I’ll tell him I did it.’
We always ate our meals with Mr Heathcliff.
I held the mistress’s post in making tea and carving; so I was indispensable at table.
Catherine usually sat by me; but to-day she stole nearer to Hareton, and I presently saw she would have no more discretion in her friendship, than she had in her hostility.
‘Now, mind you don’t talk with and notice your cousin too much,’ were my whispered instructions as we entered the room; ‘It will certainly annoy Mr Heathcliff, and he’ll be mad at you both.’
‘I’m not going to,’ she answered.
The minute after, she had sidled to him, and was sticking primroses in his plate of porridge.
He dared not speak to her, there; he dared hardly look; and yet she went on teasing, till he was twice on the point of being provoked to laugh; and I frowned, and then, she glanced towards the master, whose mind was occupied on other subjects than his company, as his countenance evinced, and she grew serious for an instant, scrutinizing him with deep gravity.
Afterwards she turned, and re-commenced her nonsense; at last, Hareton uttered a smothered laugh.
Mr Heathcliff started; his eye rapidly surveyed our faces. Catherine met it with her accustomed look of nervousness, and yet defiance, which he abhorred.
‘It is well you are out of my reach,’ he exclaimed. ‘What fiend possesses you to stare back at me, continually, with those infernal eyes? Down with them! and don’t remind me of your existence again. I thought I had cured you of laughing!’
‘It was me,’ muttered Hareton.
‘What do you say?’ demanded the master.
Hareton looked at his plate, and did not repeat the confession.
Mr Heathcliff looked at him a bit, and then silently resumed his breakfast, and his interrupted musing.
We had nearly finished, and the two young people prudently shifted wider asunder, so I anticipated no further disturbance during that sitting; when Joseph appeared at the door, revealing by his quivering lip, and furious eyes, that the outrage committed on his precious shrubs was detected.
He must have seen Cathy and her cousin about the spot before he examined it, for while his jaws worked like those of a cow chewing its cud, and rendered his speech difficult to understand, he began:
‘Aw mun hev my wage, and Aw mun goa! Aw hed aimed tuh dee, wheare Aw’d sarved fur sixty year; un’ Aw thowt Aw’d lug my books up intuh t’ garret, un’ all my bits uh stuff, un’ they sud hev t’ kitchen tuh theirseln; fur t’ sake uh quietness.
It wur hard tuh gie up my awn hearthstun, bud Aw thowt Aw could do that!
Bud, nah, shoo’s taan my garden frough me, un’ by th’ heart!
Maister, Aw cannot stand it! Yah muh bend tuh th’ yoak, an ye will—Aw’m noan used to’t and an ow’d man doesn’t sooin get used tuh new barthens—Aw’d rayther arn my bite, an’ my sup, wi’ a hammer in th’ road! ’
‘Now, now, idiot!’ interrupted Heathcliff, ‘cut it short! What’s your grievance? I’ll interfere in no quarrels between you and Nelly—She may thrust you into the coal-hole for anything I care.’
‘It’s noan Nelly!’ answered Joseph. ‘Aw sudn’t shift fur Nelly—Nasty, ill nowt as shoo is, thank God!
shoo cannot stale t’sowl uh nob’dy! Shoo wer niver soa handsome, bud whet a body mud look at her baht winking.
It’s yon flaysome, graceless quean, ut’s witched ahr lad, wi’ her bold een, un’ her forrard ways—till—Nay!
It fair brusts my heart! He’s forgetten all E done for him, un’ made on him, un’ goan un’ riven up a whole row ut t’ grandest currant trees, i’ t’ garden!
’ and here he lamented outright, unmanned by a sense of his bitter injuries, and Earnshaw’s ingratitude and dangerous condition.
‘Is the fool drunk?’ asked Mr Heathcliff. ‘Hareton, is it you he’s finding fault with?’
‘I’ve pulled up two or three bushes,’ replied the young man, ‘but I’m going to set ‘em again.’
‘And why have you pulled them up?’ said the master.
Catherine wisely put in her tongue.
‘We wanted to plant some flowers there,’ she cried. ‘I’m the only person to blame, for I wished him to do it.’
‘And who the devil gave you leave to touch a stick about the place?’ demanded her father-in-law, much surprised. ‘And who ordered you to obey her?’ he added, turning to Hareton.
The latter was speechless; his cousin replied—
‘You shouldn’t grudge a few yards of earth, for me to ornament, when you have taken all my land!’
‘Your land, insolent slut? You never had any!’ said Heathcliff.
‘And my money,’ she continued, returning his angry glare, and meantime, biting a piece of crust, the remnant of her breakfast.
‘Silence!’ he exclaimed. ‘Get done, and begone!’
‘And Hareton’s land, and his money,’ pursued the reckless thing. ‘Hareton and I are friends now; and I shall tell him all about you!’
The master seemed confounded a moment, he grew pale, and rose up, eyeing her all the while, with an expression of mortal hate.
‘If you strike me, Hareton will strike you!’ she said, ‘so you may as well sit down.’
‘If Hareton does not turn you out of the room, I’ll strike him to Hell,’ thundered Heathcliff. ‘Damnable witch! dare you pretend to rouse him against me? Off with her! Do you hear? Fling her into the kitchen! I’ll kill her, Ellen Dean, if you let her come into my sight again!’
Hareton tried under his breath to persuade her to go.
‘Drag her away!’ he cried savagely. ‘Are you staying to talk?’ And he approached to execute his own command.
‘He’ll not obey you, wicked man, any more!’ said Catherine, ‘and he’ll soon detest you, as much as I do!’
‘Wisht! wisht!’ muttered the young man reproachfully. ‘I will not hear you speak so to him—Have done!’
‘But you won’t let him strike me?’ she cried.
‘Come then!’ he whispered earnestly.
It was too late—Heathcliff had caught hold of her.
‘Now you go!’ he said to Earnshaw. ‘Accursed witch! this time she has provoked me, when I could not bear it; and I’ll make her repent it for ever!’
He had his hand in her hair; Hareton attempted to release the locks, entreating him not to hurt her that once.
His black eyes flashed, he seemed ready to tear Catherine in pieces, and I was just worked up to risk coming to the rescue, when of a sudden, his fingers relaxed, he shifted his grasp from her head, to her arm, and gazed intently in her face—Then, he drew his hand over his eyes, stood a moment to collect himself apparently, and turning anew to Catherine, said with assumed calmness,
‘You must learn to avoid putting me in a passion, or I shall really murder you, some time! Go with Mrs Dean, and keep with her, and confine your insolence to her ears. As to Hareton Earnshaw, if I see him listen to you, I’ll send him seeking his bread where he can get it!
Your love will make him an outcast, and a beggar—Nelly, take her, and leave me, all of you! Leave me!’
I led my young lady out; she was too glad of her escape, to resist; the other followed, and Mr Heathcliff had the room to himself, till dinner.
I had counselled Catherine to get hers upstairs; but, as soon as he perceived her vacant seat, he sent me to call her. He spoke to none of us, ate very little, and went out directly afterwards, intimating that he should not return before evening.
The two new friends established themselves in the house, during his absence, where I heard Hareton sternly check his cousin, on her offering a revelation of her father-in-law’s conduct to his father.
He said he wouldn’t suffer a word to be uttered to him, in his disparagement; if he were the devil, it didn’t signify; he would stand by him; and he’d rather she would abuse himself, as she used to, than begin on Mr Heathcliff.
Catherine was waxing cross at this; but he found means to make her hold her tongue, by asking, how she would like him to speak ill of her father?
and then she comprehended that Earnshaw took the master’s reputation home to himself: and was attached by ties stronger than reason could break—chains, forged by habit, which it would be cruel to attempt to loosen.
She showed a good heart, thenceforth, in avoiding both complaints and expressions of antipathy concerning Heathcliff; and confessed to me her sorrow that she had endeavoured to raise a bad spirit between him and Hareton—indeed, I don’t believe she has ever breathed a syllable, in the latter’s hearing, against her oppressor, since.