3 Books To Know Victorian Women. Elizabeth Gaskell
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and thought a doleful time: the clock struck eight, and nine, and still my companion paced to and fro, his head bent on his breast, and perfectly silent, unless a groan or a bitter ejaculation forced itself out at intervals. I listened to detect a woman’s voice in the house, and filled the interim with wild regrets and dismal anticipations, which, at last, spoke audibly in irrepressible sighing and weeping. I was not aware how openly I grieved, till Earnshaw halted opposite, in his measured walk, and gave me a stare of newly-awakened surprise. Taking advantage of his recovered attention, I exclaimed:
“I’m tired with my journey, and I want to go to bed! Where is the maid-servant? Direct me to her, as she won’t come to me!”
“We have none,” he answered, “you must wait on yourself!”
“Where must I sleep, then?” I sobbed: I was beyond regarding self-respect, weighed down by fatigue and wretchedness.
“Joseph will show you Heathcliff’s chamber,” said he; “open that door—he’s in there.”
I was going to obey, but he suddenly arrested me, and added in the strangest tone:
“Be so good as to turn your lock, and draw your bolt—don’t omit it!”
“Well!” I said. “But why, Mr. Earnshaw?” I did not relish the notion of deliberately fastening myself in with Heathcliff.
“Look here!” he replied, pulling from his waist-coat a curiously constructed pistol, having a double-edged spring knife attached to the barrel. “That’s a great tempter to a desperate man, is it not? I cannot resist going up with this every night, and trying his door. If once I find it open he’s done for! I do it invariably, even though the minute before I have been recalling a hundred reasons that should make me refrain: it is some devil that urges me to thwart my own schemes by killing him. You fight against that devil for love as long as you may; when the time comes, not all the angels in heaven shall save him!”
I surveyed the weapon inquisitively. A hideous notion struck me: how powerful I should be possessing such an instrument! I took it from his hand, and touched the blade. He looked astonished at the expression my face assumed during a brief second: it was not horror, it was covetousness. He snatched the pistol back, jealously; shut the knife, and returned it to its concealment.
“I don’t care if you tell him,” said he. “put him on his guard, and watch for him. You know the terms we are on, I see: his danger does not shock you.”
“What has Heathcliff done to you?” I asked. “In what has he wronged you, to warrant this appalling hatred? Wouldn’t it be wiser to bid him quit the house?”
“No!” thundered Earnshaw, “should he offer to leave me, he’s a dead man: persuade him to attempt it, and you are a murderess! Am I to lose all, without a chance of retrieval? Is Hareton to be a beggar? Oh, damnation! I will have it back; and I’ll have his gold too; and then his blood; and hell shall have his soul! It will be ten times blacker with that guest than ever it was before!”
You’ve acquainted me, Ellen, with your old master’s habits. He is clearly on the verge of madness: he was so last night at least. I shuddered to be near him, and thought on the servant’s ill-bred moroseness as comparatively agreeable. He now recommenced his moody walk, and I raised the latch, and escaped into the kitchen. Joseph was bending over the fire, peering into a large pan that swung above it; and a wooden bowl of oatmeal stood on the settle close by. The contents of the pan began to boll, and he turned to plunge his hand into the bowl; I conjectured that this preparation was probably for our supper, and, being hungry, I resolved it should be eatable; so, crying out sharply, “I’ll make the porridge!” I removed the vessel out of his reach, and proceeded to take off my hat and riding habit. “Mr. Earnshaw,” I continued, “directs me to wait on myself: I will. I’m not going to act the lady among you, for fear I should starve.”
“Gooid Lord!” he muttered, sitting down, and stroking his ribbed stockings from the knee to the ankle. “If there’s to be fresh otherings—just when I getten used to two maisters, if I mun hev a mistress set o’er my heead, it’s like time to be flitting. I niver did think to see t’ day that I mud lave th’ owld place—but I doubt it’s night at hand!”
This lamentation drew no notice from me: I went briskly to work, sighing to remember a period when it would have been all merry fun; but compelled speedily to drive off the remembrance. It racked me to recall past happiness, and the greater peril there was of conjuring up its apparition, the quicker the thible ran round, and the faster the handfuls of meal fell into the water. Joseph beheld my style of cookery with growing indignation.
“Thear!” he ejaculated, “Hareton, thou willn’t sup thy porridge toneeght; they’ll be naught but lumps as big as my neive. Thear, agean! I’d fling in bowl un all, if I wer ye! There, pale t’ gulip off, un’ then ye’ll hae done wi’t. Bang, bang. It’s a mercy t’ bothom isn’t deaved out!”
It was rather a rough mess, I own, when poured into the basins; four had been provided, and a gallon pitcher of new milk was brought from the dairy, which Hareton seized and comenced drinking and spilling from the expansive lip. I expostulated, and desired that he should have his in a mug; affirming that I could not taste the liquid treated so dirtily. The old cynic chose to be vastly offended at this nicety; assuring me, repeatedly, that “the bairn was every bit as good” as I, “and every bit as wollsome,” and wondering how I could fashion to be so conceited. Meanwhile, the infant ruffian continued sucking; and glowered at me defyingly, as he slavered into the jug.
“I shall have my supper in another room,” I said. “Have you no place you call a parlour?”
“Parlour!” he echoed sneeringly, “parlour! Nay, we’ve noa parlours. If yah dunnut loike wer company, there’s maister’s; un’ if yah dunnot loike maister, there’s us.”
“Then I shall go upstairs!” I answered; “show me a chamber.”
I put my basin on a tray, and went myself to fetch some more milk. With great grumblings, the fellow rose, and preceded me in my ascent: we mounted to the garrets; he opened a door, now and then, to look into the apartments we passed.
“Here’s a rahm,” he said, at last, flinging back a cranky board on hinges. “It’s weel eneugh to ate a few porridge in. There’s a pack o’ corn i’ t’ corner, thear, meeterly clane; if ye’re feard o’ muckying yer grand silk cloes, spread yer hankerchir o’ t’ top on’t.”
The “rahm” was a kind of lumberhole smelling strong of malt and grain; various sacks of which articles were piled around, leaving a wide, bare space in the middle.
“Why, man!” I exclaimed, facing him angrily, “this is not a place to sleep in. I wish to see my bedroom.”
“Bed-rume!” lie repeated, in a tone of mockery. “Yah’s see all t’ bed-rumes thear is—yon’s mine.”
He pointed into the second garret, only differing from the first in being more naked about the walls, and having a large low, curtained bed, with an indigo-coloured quilt at one end.
“What do I want with yours?” I retorted. “I suppose Mr. Heathcliff does not lodge at the top of the house, does he?”
“Oh! it’s Maister Hathecliff’s ye’re wanting!” cried he, as if making a new discovery. “Couldn’t ye ha’ said soa, at onst? un then, I mud ha’ telled ye, baht all this wark, that that’s just one ye cannut see—he allas keeps it locked, un nob’dy iver mells on’t but hisseln.”
“You’ve a nice house, Joseph,” I could not refrain from observing, “and pleasant inmates; and I think the concentrated essence of all the madness in the world took up its abode in my brain the day I linked my fate with theirs! However, that is not to the present purpose—there are other rooms. For heaven’s sake be quick, and let me settle somewhere!”
He made no reply to this adjuration; only plodding doggedly down the wooden steps, and halting before an apartment which,