Wuthering Bites (3 page)

Mrs. Heathcliff, however, checked me by her answer.

“You scandalous old hypocrite!” she replied. “Are you not afraid of being tossed among the bloodsuckers? I warn you not to provoke me, or I'll turn you out of this house myself and then we will see how far you get.”

“Wicked! Wicked!” Joseph declared. “May the Lord deliver me from evil.”

“Too late for that.” She pointed to the window. “Be off, or I'll hang you by your thumbs from the outer wall and let them feed on you until you are fully drained. They will do it if he lets them, and let them he might. You know I speak the truth!”

The woman put a malignity into her beautiful eyes, and Joseph drew back in sincere horror and hurried out.

I didn't know quite what she meant by all of that, but wanting to be on my way, I pleaded, “Mrs. Heathcliff, could you point out some landmarks to guide me home?”

“Take the road you came,” she answered, dropping into her chair. “It is as sound advice as I can give.”

“Then if you hear of me being discovered dead in a bog or pit of snow, sucked dry of my fluids, your conscience won't whisper that it is partly your fault?”

“Certainly not. Do you expect me to provide you safe passage, wielding my sword?” she mocked.

As if women carried swords!

“Surely there are men here in training who can fend off if not kill, should the necessity arise,” I questioned.

“Who are these
men in training?
There is himself, Earnshaw, Zillah, Joseph, and I, and I guarantee you the master of this abode would not step across the lane to save your neck.”

“Are there no trained boys at the farm? Living in such an isolated place, surely—”

“No trained boys. Just us.”

“What of Joseph? He knows the way.”

“Not Joseph!” Her head snapped up. “Not after dark. Nay, you do not want Joseph after dark. Trust me, good sir.”

Her remark was odd, but I was entirely too vexed to consider her meaning. “Then, welcome or not, I am compelled to stay.”

“That you must settle with your host. I have nothing to do with it.”

“I hope it will be a lesson to you, to make no more rash journeys on these hills, without first finding your own guard,” cried Heathcliff's stern voice from the kitchen entrance. “As to staying here, I don't keep accommodations for visitors; you must share a bed with Hareton.”

“I can sleep on a chair in this room,” I replied.

“No, no. A stranger is a stranger, be he rich or poor. It will not suit me to permit anyone to roam my home in the middle of the night!”

My patience was at end. In disgust, I pushed past him into the yard, running against Earnshaw in my haste. It was so dark I could not see the means of exit, but I smelled the blood upon his coat, thick and cloying.

At first, the young man appeared about to befriend me.

“I'll go with him as far as the park,” Hareton said. “Past the worst of them.”

“And you'll go with him to hell!” Heathcliff flung back. “You are not up to the fight of such numbers. You never will be! And who is to look after the horses, then, eh?”

I drew myself up indignantly. “A man's life is of more consequence than those of horses.”

Heathcliff did not seem to hear me, for he was still upon the boy. “They will not kill you, you know; they will make you one of them!”

“Well, somebody must go,” murmured Mrs. Heathcliff, more kindly than I expected. “For this is poor hospitality to a neighbor and tenant.”

“Not at your command!” retorted Hareton.

“Then I hope his pale ghost will haunt you; and I hope Mr. Heathcliff will never get another human tenant, till the Grange is a ruin and swarming with the devils!” she answered sharply.

Joseph, toward whom I had been steering, muttered something under his breath. He sat within earshot, milking the cows by the light of a lantern, which I seized unceremoniously. Calling out that I would send it back on the morrow, I rushed to the nearest door.

“Master, he's thieving the lantern!” shouted the ancient.

On opening the little door, two cloaked vampires flew at my throat, bearing me down and extinguishing the light. As I flailed on the ground, trying to protect my neck, I heard a mingled guffaw from Heathcliff and Hareton.

Fortunately, the creatures seemed more bent on taunting me and tearing at my clothing than devouring me alive.
Well-fed vampires at Wuthering Heights?

But, oh, the stench of the creatures! When recounting a tale of attack and escape, victims fail to mention the foul scent of rotting flesh, putrid blood, and black, wet humus that wafts from them. “Help me!” I managed. Tucking in a ball to further protect my jugular, I was forced to lie till the malignant master of the abode pleased to deliver me. One bark of Heathcliff's voice and the beasts leapt off me and disappeared into the snow-driven swirl of darkness, curls of smoke, gone as fast as they had come. Then, hatless and trembling with a mixture of fear and wrath, I ordered the miscreants to let me out—on their peril to keep me one minute longer.

The vehemence of my agitation brought on copious bleeding at the nose, and still Heathcliff laughed, and still I scolded, made bold by my first true escape from death. I don't know what would have concluded the scene had there not been one person at hand rather more rational than myself, and more benevolent 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.

W
hile 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 the house door ajar to give me light, and I have got the time on with writing for twenty minutes. Heathcliff is impatient, though, and proposes that we should appropriate the dairy woman's cloak and have a scamper on the moors, where he can practice the deadly arts he is secretly acquiring.

 

I suppose Catherine fulfilled her project, for the next sentence took up another subject.

 

How little did I dream that Hindley would ever make me cry so!
she wrote.
My head aches, till I cannot keep it on the pillow, and still I can't give over. Poor Heathcliff! Hindley calls him a vagabond and won't let him sit with us, nor eat with us anymore. He says he and I must not play together. Most tragic of all, he has forbidden Heathcliff to practice the skills necessary to fight the vampires running rampant on the moors. My brother threatens to turn him out of the house if we break his orders.

He has been blaming our father (how dared he?) for treating H. too liberally, and he swears he will reduce him to his right place.

 

I began to nod drowsily over the dim page, hearing the sound of a branch of a fir tree touch my window as the blast wailed by and rattled against the panes. I listened an instant, detected the disturber, then turned and dozed, and dreamt.

I remembered I was lying in the oak closet, only it was now a silk-lined casket, and I heard distinctly the gusty wind and the driving of the snow. I heard, also, the fir bough repeat its teasing sound, but it annoyed me so much that I resolved to silence it. I rose from my grave and endeavored to unhasp the casement. The hook was soldered into the staple, a circumstance observed by me when awake, but forgotten.

“I must stop it, nevertheless!” I muttered, knocking my knuckles through the glass and stretching an arm out to seize the branch, instead of which, my fingers closed on the fingers of a little, ice-cold hand!

The intense horror of nightmare came over me. I tried to draw back my arm, but the hand clung to it, and a most melancholy voice sobbed—

“Let me in—let me in!”

“Who are you?” I asked, struggling to disengage myself.

“Catherine Linton,” it replied shiveringly. “I'm come home. I'd lost my way on the moor and been chased by the bloodthirsty devils!”

As it spoke, I discerned a child's pale face, her neck punctured and bleeding freely, staring through the window. Terror made me cruel, and, finding it useless to attempt shaking the creature off, I pulled its wrist onto the broken pane and rubbed it to and fro till the blood ran down and soaked the bedclothes. Still it wailed, “Let me in!” and maintained its tenacious grip. Horror gripped me at the icy touch of the unholy thing!

“How can I!” I said. “You must let
me
go, if you want me to let you in!”

The fingers relaxed, I snatched mine through the hole, hurriedly piled the books up in a pyramid against it, and stopped my ears to exclude the lamentable prayer.

I seemed to keep them closed above a quarter of an hour; yet, the instant I listened again, there was the doleful cry moaning on!

“Begone!” I shouted. “I'll never let you in, not if you beg for twenty years.”

“It is twenty years,” mourned the voice. “Twenty years. I've been a fed-upon for twenty years! Dead but not dead.”

The feeble scratching outside began anew, and the pile of books moved as if thrust forward.

I tried to jump up, but could not stir a limb in the tight confines of my death chamber, and so I yelled aloud, in a frenzy of fright.

To my confusion, I discovered the yell was not ideal. Hasty footsteps approached my chamber door; somebody pushed it open with a vigorous hand, and a light pierced the top of my coffin, which had transformed into a bed again. I sat shuddering and wiping the perspiration from my forehead. The intruder appeared to hesitate, and muttered to himself.

At last he said in a half-whisper, plainly not expecting an answer, “Is anyone here?”

I opened the panels to confess my presence, and I shall not soon forget the effect my action produced.

Heathcliff stood near the entrance, in his shirt and trousers, with a candle dripping over his fingers, and his face as white as the wall behind him. The first creak of the oak startled him like an electric shock: the light leapt from his hold to a distance of some feet, and his agitation was so extreme that he could hardly pick it up.

“It is only your guest, sir. I had the misfortune to scream in my sleep, owing to a frightful nightmare. I'm sorry I disturbed you.”

He blinked and seemed to fall from his trance. “God confound you, Mr. Lockwood! Who showed you up to this room?” he demanded, crushing his nails into his palms and grinding his teeth. “Who was it? I've a good mind to turn them out of the house this moment!”

“It was your servant, Zillah,” I replied, flinging myself out of the bed and pulling on my coat. “I should not care if you did, Mr. Heathcliff; she richly deserves it. I suppose that she wanted to get another proof that the place was haunted, at my expense. Well, it is—swarming with ghosts and goblins! You have reason in shutting it up, I assure you!”

“What do you mean?” asked Heathcliff. “And what are you doing? Lie down and finish out the night, since you are here. But for heaven's sake, don't repeat that horrid noise. Nothing could excuse it, unless you were having your arteries sapped!”

“If the little fiend had got in at the window, she probably would have bitten me!” I returned. “I'm not going to endure the persecutions of your hospitable ancestors again. That minx, Catherine Linton, or Earnshaw, or however she was called—she must have been a changeling—human turned vampire—wicked little soul! She told me she had been walking the earth these twenty years, a just punishment for her mortal transgressions, I've no doubt!”

Scarcely were these words uttered, when I recollected the association of Heathcliff's with Catherine's name in the book, which had completely slipped from my memory. I blushed at my inconsideration, but, without showing further consciousness of the offense, I hastened to add—

“The truth is, sir, I passed the first part of the night in spelling over the name scratched on that window ledge. A monotonous occupation, calculated to set me asleep, like counting or—”

“What
can
you mean by talking this way to
me?
” thundered Heathcliff with savage vehemence. “How—how
dare
you, under my roof?” And he struck his forehead with rage.