Alison Case - Nelly Dean

My reception was not at all what I expected. Instead of being angry at me, or sympathizing with my sorrow, she began cross-questioning me about matters that had little to do with what was uppermost in my mind, which was the fault I’d committed and the punishment I was to bear for it.

‘What orphan boy was this?’

‘The one the master brought home from Liverpool yesterday.’

‘Liverpool! When did he go there? I saw him in church only last Sunday.’

‘Aye, he left just after dinner Sunday.’

‘Travelling of a Sunday! That’s unlike him. And he must have half-killed his horse, to go there and back in this time. Or did he take the coach from Gimmerton?’

‘Neither one. He walked all the way, and it’s his feet that were half killed, as I saw myself when I brought him a basin and towel to wash them. All swollen they were, and rubbed raw and bleeding in many places. It is not wrong to walk on a Sunday, is it?’ I added, a bit concerned about this point. ‘How could it be, when we all walk to church and back?’

‘To be sure not – though if he’d waited until Monday he could still have got there quicker by coach. Very strange that he should walk all that way. And why should he go at all?’

‘He said he had business there.’

‘What business could he possibly have in Liverpool?’

‘Probably something about the wool, I should think.’

‘No, he deals with a wool stapler in Gimmerton, and any business he had further afield than that would be handled by his solicitor.’

‘Well I’m sure I don’t know,’ I said, beginning, perversely enough, to feel rather slighted by her focus on Mr Earnshaw’s doings. ‘He doesn’t tell me his business. But I don’t know why he’d make such a journey if he didn’t need to.’

‘No … And you say he picked up the child there? How did he come by it?’

‘He said he found it in the street, half-starved, and no one to take charge of it.’

‘And so he brought it all that way home? And on foot too? Strange.’

‘Well, he couldn’t leave him there to die, could he?’ I said, now feeling rather defensive on Mr Earnshaw’s part. ‘Are we not bid to care for orphans and widows?’

‘We are. But we needn’t walk sixty miles to Liverpool to find them, when there’s misery enough within a day’s walk to keep the charity of ten Earnshaws occupied.’

‘But he was there anyway, on business,’ I reminded her, ‘and he found the child there, and no one would own it, and he couldn’t leave it to starve, and so …’

‘Aye. So you said. What does the child look like?’

‘Dark all over. Partly from dirt, I guess – I don’t think he had ever been bathed before. But his skin was dark even after bathing.’

‘How old?’

‘Two or three years by size, but he seems older by his manner.’

‘Can he not speak for himself?’

‘Only some queer gibberish. Nothing we can understand.’

‘Stranger and stranger! How does he act towards Mr Earnshaw? Does he seem to know him?’

‘He looks to him all the time, and seems less frightened of him than of the rest of us,’ I said – choosing not to mention that this was no doubt because Hindley and Cathy pinched him whenever they could, and I made faces at him, while even Mrs Earnshaw made no secret of her dislike. ‘But he doesn’t seem to understand him any better than the rest of us.’

‘Hmm.’ She sank into a chair, looking puzzled.

Like most children, I was accustomed to take what my elders told me as simple truth, never thinking to question it except insofar as it directly concerned myself. Little as I liked the strange new creature, and sorry as I was for the trouble he had brought on my head, it had never occurred to me that there was anything unaccountable in Mr Earnshaw’s having brought him home. That he was a good, wise, and just man I firmly believed. If he thought it his duty to claim a stray child in a far-off city as his responsibility, no doubt it was so. But this did not appear to be my mother’s view of the case.

‘How does he act towards the child? Is he very fond of it?’

‘He seems so. He fires up if anyone seems to be slighting him in any way. He was very angry when he found I’d—’ I stopped, unable to speak further.

‘What did you do, Nelly?’

‘Nothing!’ I cried, all my sense of grievance returning. ‘Hindley and Cathy wouldn’t have him in the nursery, and Mrs Earnshaw was in hysterics that he was in the house at all, and it was left to me to find him a place to sleep, so where was I to put him? What else was I to do? Take him into my own bed? I just left him on the landing, and hoped he’d be gone by morning.’

‘Hush, Nelly. Calm yourself and stop shouting. Did you tell Mr Earnshaw this?’

‘No. I don’t like to carry tales, and—’

‘And what?’

‘I didn’t want Hindley to be beaten, as I knew he would be.’

‘Is Hindley beaten often?’

‘I don’t know. Not so very often. It’s just that—’

‘What?’

‘Just … I don’t like to see it. Mr Earnshaw is so angry when he does it. His face gets purple. And Hindley, he … I …’ I took a deep breath, and looked at the ground. ‘I feel as if it’s happening to me.’

‘Does Mr Earnshaw ever beat you?’

‘No. If Hindley and I get into mischief, it is always Hindley who gets the blame – he takes the blame. And I never do wrong on my own. At least not until now. So how could I bring him into it?’

‘What did Mr Earnshaw do when he found out what you’d done with the child?’

‘He was so angry it frightened me. He said … he said I must leave and never come again. But I would rather he had beaten me, if only I could stay. What will Hindley do without me? He’ll have no friend at all. And what will become of me?’

You may think it strange, Mr Lockwood, that a child of fourteen could ask such a question of her mother, and under her father’s roof. But I was mortally afraid of my father, and my mother’s care in keeping me from the sight of him, by making him unfamiliar to me, only increased my terror. No doubt it was wrong of me, but I verily believed he might kill me if he had to see me every day.

My mother sat me down in the kitchen, and shortly produced a mug of tea and some bread and butter. All the while, she was speaking to me in her gentlest tones.

‘Hindley is a difficult lad,’ she said, ‘and has been so from a babe. Mr Earnshaw doesn’t wish to spare the rod and spoil him, and doubtless he is right in that, although … well, it may be difficult for you to see it. Mr Earnshaw may be a hard man, Nelly, but he is a just man. If his anger has not fallen on you before today, it is because he has cause to believe Hindley is at the root of any mischief you two get into together. And that is so, is it not? Did you not say you never do wrong except with him – until now, anyway?’

I nodded silently, looking steadily into my mug of tea.

‘It is generous in Hindley to take all the blame to himself,’ she went on. ‘It shows a good heart. But it means you have all the more duty to head him away from wrongdoing when you are with him, Nelly. That is the best way to shield him from punishment.’

‘But how am I to do that if I am never to return?’ I wailed.

‘Leave that to me,’ she said, and began removing her apron and wrapping her shawl, preparatory to going out. I rose and was beginning to do the same, but she stopped me.

‘You stay here, Nelly. I am going to the Heights, and I will see what I can do to allow you to return there, but I must go alone.’ I glanced towards the door, not liking to say what was in my mind.

‘In all likelihood I will be back before your father returns. But if I’m not—’ She began looking about the cottage – perhaps for a likely hiding place, I thought, though the rooms were too small and sparsely furnished to afford one. At last, with an air of decision, she reached down the crock of sugar, and, feeling her way to the bottom of it, pulled out a small purse, from which she drew two shillings, and put them on the table.