Wuthering Heights | Page 6

'Nor-ne me! I'll hae no hend wi't,' muttered the head, vanishing.
The snow began to drive thickly. I seized the handle to essay another
trial; when a young man without coat, and shouldering a pitchfork,
appeared in the yard behind. He hailed me to follow him, and, after
marching through a wash-house, and a paved area containing a
coal-shed, pump, and pigeon-cot, we at length arrived in the huge,
warm, cheerful apartment where I was formerly received. It glowed
delightfully in the radiance of an immense fire, compounded of coal,
peat, and wood; and near the table, laid for a plentiful evening meal, I
was pleased to observe the 'missis,' an individual whose existence I had
never previously suspected. I bowed and waited, thinking she would
bid me take a seat. She looked at me, leaning back in her chair, and
remained motionless and mute.
'Rough weather!' I remarked. 'I'm afraid, Mrs. Heathcliff, the door must
bear the consequence of your servants' leisure attendance: I had hard
work to make them hear me.'
She never opened her mouth. I stared - she stared also: at any rate, she
kept her eyes on me in a cool, regardless manner, exceedingly
embarrassing and disagreeable.
'Sit down,' said the young man, gruffly. 'He'll be in soon.'
I obeyed; and hemmed, and called the villain Juno, who deigned, at this
second interview, to move the extreme tip of her tail, in token of
owning my acquaintance.
'A beautiful animal!' I commenced again. 'Do you intend parting with
the little ones, madam?'
'They are not mine,' said the amiable hostess, more repellingly than
Heathcliff himself could have replied.

'Ah, your favourites are among these?' I continued, turning to an
obscure cushion full of something like cats.
'A strange choice of favourites!' she observed scornfully.
Unluckily, it was a heap of dead rabbits. I hemmed once more, and
drew closer to the hearth, repeating my comment on the wildness of the
evening.
'You should not have come out,' she said, rising and reaching from the
chimney-piece two of the painted canisters.
Her position before was sheltered from the light; now, I had a distinct
view of her whole figure and countenance. She was slender, and
apparently scarcely past girlhood: an admirable form, and the most
exquisite little face that I have ever had the pleasure of beholding;
small features, very fair; flaxen ringlets, or rather golden, hanging loose
on her delicate neck; and eyes, had they been agreeable in expression,
that would have been irresistible: fortunately for my susceptible heart,
the only sentiment they evinced hovered between scorn and a kind of
desperation, singularly unnatural to be detected there. The canisters
were almost out of her reach; I made a motion to aid her; she turned
upon me as a miser might turn if any one attempted to assist him in
counting his gold.
'I don't want your help,' she snapped; 'I can get them for myself.'
'I beg your pardon!' I hastened to reply.
'Were you asked to tea?' she demanded, tying an apron over her neat
black frock, and standing with a spoonful of the leaf poised over the
pot.
'I shall be glad to have a cup,' I answered.
'Were you asked?' she repeated.
'No,' I said, half smiling. 'You are the proper person to ask me.'

She flung the tea back, spoon and all, and resumed her chair in a pet;
her forehead corrugated, and her red under-lip pushed out, like a child's
ready to cry.
Meanwhile, the young man had slung on to his person a decidedly
shabby upper garment, and, erecting himself before the blaze, looked
down on me from the corner of his eyes, for all the world as if there
were some mortal feud unavenged between us. I began to doubt
whether he were a servant or not: his dress and speech were both rude,
entirely devoid of the superiority observable in Mr. and Mrs. Heathcliff;
his thick brown curls were rough and uncultivated, his whiskers
encroached bearishly over his cheeks, and his hands were embrowned
like those of a common labourer: still his bearing was free, almost
haughty, and he showed none of a domestic's assiduity in attending on
the lady of the house. In the absence of clear proofs of his condition, I
deemed it best to abstain from noticing his curious conduct; and, five
minutes afterwards, the entrance of Heathcliff relieved me, in some
measure, from my uncomfortable state.
'You see, sir, I am come, according to promise!' I exclaimed, assuming
the cheerful; 'and I fear I shall be weather-bound for half an hour, if
you can afford me shelter during that space.'
'Half an hour?' he said, shaking the white flakes from his clothes; 'I
wonder you should select the thick of a snow-storm to ramble