But she soon saw where the wind lay: Hindley would frown and look dark at any friendly words from her to me, but he petted and kissed her for complaining of me and ordering me about. And to tell the truth, I did little to encourage her friendliness myself. She would have liked to make a confidante of me, I could see, and small wonder: she had no one else to talk to, poor child, with Cathy wild and scornful, and no visiting in the neighbourhood. But I was having none of it. I gave her no more than ‘yes, ma’am’ and ‘no, ma’am’ and ‘if you please, ma’am’, though I could see it hurt her to be put off so. You see, Mr Lockwood, when Hindley brought her back, and flaunted her in front of me as his fine lady bride, I vowed to myself that from then on I’d work for my wages, and no more. ‘Never again,’ I said to them all in my head, ‘will I split myself in two for you, to be kin one day, and slave the next, as you see need.’ And as far as she went, I kept my word, and I was well pleased with myself for keeping it. Now, though, looking back, I think how lonely she must have been, for I think, silly as she was, she saw through all Hindley’s petting and praise, that his heart was elsewhere, though she little guessed who had had the keeping of it.
Yes, Mr Lockwood, if you’d come to Wuthering Heights then, you’d have seen Hindley a doting husband, and me, a bustling and solicitous servant, and Frances, fluttering and laughing as if all the world loved her. And you’d have thought the only thing amiss in the family was a brooding, dark-faced boy and a wild mischievous girl, and their endless skirmishing with Hindley and Joseph. But all the time, Hindley was using her to strike at me, and I was using her to strike at him, and she, poor thing, was battered between us, and died of it. Of all the ghosts at Wuthering Heights, hers is the one I fear, for I wronged her, and God knows she meant me no harm.
But this will not do: I am meandering about like a puppy on the moors, following after one scent and then another in every direction at once. I must make a proper start, and tell you my story in a more collected fashion.
Heathcliff’s arrival was the end of my childhood.
I had lived at the Heights as long as I could remember. My mother had been nurse to Hindley when we were both babes-in-arms, so we had been nearly always together. After we were weaned, my mother returned home to the cottage she shared with my father, coming to the Heights only one or two days a week to help with the churning and other tasks too heavy for the mistress and too skilled to be left to maids. But she chose, for reasons of her own, that I should stay on with the Earnshaws, to live in the nursery and, in time, have lessons with Hindley and Cathy.
I knew that I was not really one of the family. I knew that my own parents were poor, and that when I grew older I should have to work for my bread, as they did. I knew that I was only permitted to live and be educated at the Heights because of Mrs Earnshaw’s old friendship with my mother, and her gratitude for my mother’s services to the family, and that it was expected of me that I would be a pleasing companion to the children and a help to Mrs Earnshaw – and to my mother too, when she came over. I knew all this, I say, because I had been told it, but it was not a truth I had before me in my day-to-day life. Mrs Earnshaw was an indulgent mistress – if anything, kinder to me than to her own children, though perhaps that was only because I tried her patience less. Mr Earnshaw was a good deal sterner than his wife, but again, not more so to me than to his own, and with him too, I felt myself to be something of a favourite. It is true that I was often called from my lessons to do chores in the kitchen, but Hindley was almost equally called upon out-of-doors, his father thinking it best to give him an early introduction to the labours required by the estate he was to inherit. For the rest, I ate, slept, studied and played with Hindley and Cathy, shared in their treats and their punishments, and participated as an equal in their games. I knew, if I thought about it, that my future prospects were widely different from theirs, but what child can think about that, when the sun is shining and the bees are humming over the blooming heather, and she and her nursery-mates have just been granted an unexpected holiday from lessons in honour of the first sunny day in a week? And looking back on it now, my childhood seems composed only of such holidays. But all that changed when Heathcliff came.
We were little prepared for such a change that evening. We had all been eagerly anticipating the master’s return from his trip to Liverpool, and our minds were dwelling much on the good things that were to arrive with him. You must not think, though, that we were greedy children, always looking after gifts and treats, or that we were much attached to toys and other possessions. This was an exceptional occasion, for the master had never been gone so far or so long from the house before. In those days, Gimmerton was the outermost limit of our known world, and Liverpool seemed scarcely less distant and magical than Paris or Constantinople. Then, too, the gifts Mr Earnshaw had engaged to bring back for us held a significance far beyond their price. For Hindley, who had asked for a fiddle, his father’s cheerful promise to bring him one had come like a peace offering, for he endured much criticism for preferring all forms of play and merrymaking – which his father termed indolence – to schoolwork or farm business. Cathy, too, had been often scolded for being too wild and too much out-of-doors, when she ought to be sitting in the house with her sampler, or helping her mother. Emboldened by Hindley’s success, she had asked for a whip – and took her father’s smiling acquiescence in the request as tacit permission for many a future gallop across the moors on her little pony. I myself, when asked, had not ventured to request anything more extravagant than ‘an apple’, whereupon he called me a good girl and promised me a whole pocketful.
As the hour of his expected return approached, our excitement reached a pitch that made any pretence of rational employment impossible. Hindley, in anticipation of his fiddle, was holding an invisible one stiffly to his shoulder with his head bent sideways, and sawing the air over it with the grimmest possible expression on his face, while his feet danced merrily under him as if disconnected from the top, in perfect imitation of our best local fiddler – a performance that had even the mistress in fits of laughter. Cathy, not to be outdone, was cantering around the outside of the room as if she were pony and rider both, and, by judicious application of her imaginary whip (signalled by shouting ‘Thwack!’ as she moved her arm), leaping every obstacle in her path with ease. I, with nothing more exciting to expect than apples, was trying to prove my superior virtue by sitting quietly with some plain sewing, but Hindley’s glee was infectious, and I soon jumped up to improvise a dance to his imaginary tune – earning me a gallant bow from the pretending fiddler – while Mrs Earnshaw clapped the time, and Cathy galloped about to the same rhythm.
In all the riot we half forgot the object of our anticipation, so that the master’s weary ‘Halloo’ from outside, announcing his arrival at the gate, came like a magical signal ending the revels all in a flash, as we scurried to our seats, still flushed and laughing, to compose ourselves for a more seemly welcome. In addition to the promised gifts, we had formed hopes of getting some marvellous sweets, for Mr Earnshaw never went to town without bringing us back a few small indulgences of that kind, and, with childish logic, we thought that this much longer trip, to a much larger town, would yield treats proportionately more magnificent.
But even our more reasonable