Wuthering Heights (1847)

Chapter XXXIII

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 downstairs 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 shown 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.  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 recommenced 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:—

‘I mun hev’ my wage, and I mun goa!  I hed aimed to dee wheare I’d sarved fur sixty year; and I thowt I’d lug my books up into t’ garret, and all my bits o’ stuff, and they sud hev’ t’ kitchen to theirseln; for t’ sake o’ quietness.  It wur hard to gie up my awn hearthstun, but I thowt I could do that!  But nah, shoo’s taan my garden fro’ me, and by th’ heart, maister, I cannot stand it!  Yah may bend to th’ yoak an ye will—I noan used to ’t, and an old man doesn’t sooin get used to new barthens.  I’d rayther arn my bite an’ my sup wi’ a hammer in th’ road!’