3 Books To Know Victorian Women. Elizabeth Gaskell

before; and he looked sparer in person. His daughter-in-law, on perceiving him through the window, immediately escaped to the kitchen, so that I remained alone.

      “I’m glad to see you out of doors again, Mr. Lockwood,” he said, in reply to my greeting; “from selfish motives partly: I don’t think I could readily supply your loss in this desolation. I’ve wondered more than once what brought you here.”

      “An idle whim, I fear, sir,” was my answer; “or else an idle whim is going to spirit me away. I shall set out for London, next week; and I must give you warning that I feel no disposition to retain Thrushcross Grange beyond the twelve months I agreed to rent it. I believe I shall not live there any more.”

      “Oh, indeed; you’re tired of being banished from the world, are you?” he said. “But if you be coming to plead off paying for a place you won’t occupy, your journey is useless: I never relent in exacting my due from any one.”

      “I’m coming to plead off nothing about it,” I exclaimed considerably irritated. “Should you wish it, I’ll settle with you now,” and I drew my note-book from my pocket.

      “No, no,” he replied coolly; “you’ll leave sufficient behind to cover your debts, if you fail to return: I’m not in such a hurry. Sit down and take your dinner with us; a guest that is safe from repeating his visit can generally be made welcome. Catherine, bring the things in: where are you?”

      Catherine reappeared, bearing a tray of knives and forks.

      “You may get your dinner with Joseph,” muttered Heathcliff aside, “and remain in the kitchen till he is gone.”

      She obeyed his directions very punctually; perhaps she had no temptation to transgress. Living among clowns and misanthropists, she probably cannot appreciate a better class of people when she meets them.

      With Mr. Heathcliff, grim and saturnine, on the one hand, and Hareton, absolutely dumb, on the other, I made a somewhat cheerless meal, and bade adieu early. I would have departed by the back way, to get a last glimpse of Catherine and annoy old Joseph; but Hareton received orders to lead up my horse, and my host himself escorted me to the door, so I could not fulfil my wish.

      “How dreary life gets over in that house!” I reflected, while riding down the road. “What a realisation of something more romantic than a fairy tale it would have been for Mrs. Linton Heathcliff, had she and I struck up an attachment, as her good nurse desired, and migrated together into the stirring atmosphere of the town!”

      Chapter 32

      1802—

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      This September I was invited to devastate the moors of a friend in the north, and on my journey to his abode, I unexpectedly came within fifteen miles of Gimmerton. The ‘ostler at a roadside public house was holding a pail of water to refresh my horses, when a cart of very green oats, newly reaped, passed by, and he remarked:

      “Yon’s frough Gimmerton, nah! They’re allas three wick after other folk wi’ ther harvest.”

      “Gimmerton?” I repeated—my residence in that locality had already grown dim and dreamy. “Ah! I know. How far is it from this?”

      “Happen fourteen mile o’er th’ hills; and a rough road,” he answered.

      A sudden impulse seized me to visit Thrushcross Grange. It was scarcely noon, and I conceived that I might as well pass the night under my own roof as in an inn. Besides, I could spare a day easily to arrange matters with my landlord, and thus save myself the trouble of invading the neighbourhood again. Having rested awhile, I directed my servant to enquire the way to the village; and, with great fatigue to our beasts, we managed the distance in some three hours.

      I left him there, and proceeded down the valley alone. The grey church looked grayer, and the lonely churchyard lonelier. I distinguished a moor sheep cropping the short turf on the graves. It was sweet, warm weather—too warm for travelling; but the heat did not hinder me from enjoying the delightful scenery above and below: had I seen it nearer August, I’m sure it would have tempted me to waste a month among its solitudes. In winter nothing more dreary, in summer nothing more divine, than those glens shut in by hills, and those bluff, bold swells of heath.

      I reached the Grange before sunset, and knocked for admittance; but the family had retreated into the back premises, I judged, by one thin, blue wreath curling from the kitchen chimney, and they did not hear. I rode into the court. Under the porch, a girl of nine or ten sat knitting, and an old woman reclined on the housesteps, smoking a meditative pipe.

      “Is Mrs. Dean within?” I demanded of the dame.

      “Mistress Dean? Nay!” she answered, “shoo doesn’t bide here: Shoo’s up at th’ Heights.”

      “Are you the housekeeper, then?” I continued.

      “Eea, aw keep th’ house,” she replied.

      “Well, I’m Mr. Lockwood, the master. Are there any rooms to lodge me in, I wonder? I wish to stay all night.”

      “T’maister!” she cried in astonishment. “Whet, whoiver knew yah wur coming? Yah sud ha’ send word. They’s nowt norther dry nor mensful abaht t’ place: nowt there isn’t!”

      She threw down her pipe and bustled in, the girl followed, and I entered too; soon perceiving that her report was true, and, moreover, that I had almost upset her wits by my unwelcome apparition, I bade her be composed. I would go out for a walk; and, meantime, she must try to prepare a corner of a sitting-room for me to sup in, and a bedroom to sleep in. No sweeping and dusting, only good fire and dry sheets were necessary. She seemed willing to do her best; though she thrust the hearth-brush into the grates in mistake for the poker, and mal-appropriated several other articles of her craft: but I retired, confiding in her energy for a resting-place against my return. Wuthering Heights was the goal of my proposed excursion. An after-thought brought me back, when I had quitted the court.

      “All well at the Heights?” I enquired of the woman.

      “Eea, f’r owt ee knew,” she answered, skurrying away with a pan of hot cinders.

      I would have asked why Mrs. Dean had deserted the Grange, but it was impossible to delay her at such a crisis, so I turned away and made my exit, rambling leisurely along with the glow of a sinking sun behind, and the mild glory of a rising moon in front—one fading, and the other brightening—as I quitted the park, and climbed the stony byroad branching off to Mr. Heathcliff’s dwelling. Before I arrived in sight of it, all that remained of day was a beamless amber light along the west: but I could see every pebble on the path, and every blade of grass, by that splendid moon. I had neither to climb the gate nor to knock—it yielded to my hand. That is an improvement, I thought. And I noticed another, by the aid of my nostrils; a fragrance of stocks and wall-flowers wafted on the air from amongst the homely fruit-trees.

      Both doors and lattices were open; and yet, as is usually the case in a coal district, a fine, red fire illumined the chimney: the comfort which the eyes derives from it renders the extra heat endurable. But the house of Wuthering Heights is so large, that the inmates have plenty of space for withdrawing out of its influence; and accordingly, what inmates there were had stationed themselves not far from one of the windows. I could both see them and hear them talk before I entered, and looked and listened in consequence; being moved thereto by a mingled sense of curiosity and envy, that grew as I lingered.

      “Con-trary!” said a voice as sweet as a silver bell —“That for the third time, you dunce! I’m not going to tell you again. Recollect or I’ll pull your hair!

      “Contrary, then,” answered another, in deep but softened tones. “And now, kiss me, for minding so well.”

      “No, read it over first correctly, without a single mistake.”