Nelly Dean

At Gimmerton we exchanged the pony and carriage for a post-chaise, and drove on to Brassing at the fastest pace the post-boy could be coaxed to permit, stopping only to change horses again. All this was very new to me, and would have been a wondering pleasure, but in me both thought and feeling seemed stuck in one round. I didn’t know which I feared more: that my father would die before I arrived, or that he would be alive, and not pleased to see me. Mrs Thorne seemed to understand something of what I was feeling, for she talked but little herself, and asked almost nothing of me.

Brassing, when we finally drew nigh, looked to be a much larger town than Gimmerton, but it had little else to recommend it that I could see. The houses were of grey stone, and crowded together all higgledy-piggledy, and the air was thick with an acrid miasma composed of coal smoke mingled with the smell of open privies. The post-boy let us down at the top of a narrow lane, next to a small public house. Mrs Thorne said we would stop in there to get ready. Inside, she carried out a whispered consultation with the landlady, who then produced a pair of pattens for each of us. Mrs Thorne pulled a packet of pins from her bag, and said we must pin up our skirts, and strap on the pattens, before venturing into the lane, for it was ankle-deep, or worse, in dirt. I was in a trembling hurry to be on our way, but she assured me, on the landlady’s information, that there was no immediate cause for haste. Once equipped, we set off down the lane. Mrs Thorne kept a tight grip on my arm, which was just as well, as I was unaccustomed both to pattens and to cobblestones, and until I found my feet, each step threatened to pitch me head-foremost into the muck. From halfway down that lane, we turned into another still narrower, and at the end of it I saw my mother standing in a doorway. Mrs Thorne restrained me from rushing forward, but quickened her pace, and in another minute I was in my mother’s arms. Mrs Thorne stayed only to receive my mother’s thanks for fetching me, and then went on her way back up the lane.

‘How is Father?’ I asked, as soon as I caught my breath.

‘He’s resting,’ she said, and then set me on a stool in the entryway and began removing the pattens and taking the pins from my skirt. That done, she declared me fit to step indoors. The cottage had two small rooms, but the door to the bedroom was shut. My mother sat me down by the small fire, and fetched me tea and some sweet biscuits. For some time, she would not let me speak, only directing me to eat and drink instead. I would have thought that I had no appetite at all, but the tea awakened it, and between it, the biscuits, and some bread and cheese that followed, I found the haze lifting that I had been in since Mrs Thorne’s first news.

‘Do you think Father will wake soon?’ I asked at last. ‘When will I be able to see him?’ My mother knelt beside me and put her arms around me. Her eyes were filled with tears.

‘Oh Nelly, he will never wake more in this world,’ she said. ‘He went to his final rest some three hours since. He asked for you near the end, though, to say farewell, and to beg your forgiveness for his early cruelty to you.’ This opened the floodgates at last. I sobbed myself into exhaustion on her shoulder, and she sobbed as well. Then a woman opened the door to the bedroom to say that all was ready – she had been engaged to wash his body and lay it out. So we went in, both of us, and I saw my father. The stone had struck his chest, so his face was his own, only paler and thinner than I remembered. I bent down and kissed his cold cheek – the first kiss I ever bestowed on him, that I remember, and the last.

My father lay in state for two days, so that his friends and neighbours could come to pay their respects. Mr and Mrs Thorne were among the first, and they spoke simply and frankly of their respect for my father, and their regret that they should have been in some manner the cause of his death, and Mr Thorne shed real tears for his boyhood friend. They also left with us a hamper of food, containing a ham, a large Dundee cake, a block of good Cheddar cheese, and a packet of fine tea, to feed ourselves and to offer to the other mourners as they came. There were a good many of them, for all my father’s residence in the town had been so short – all the men who had worked with him or under him on the house, and all those whose acquaintance he had made in the pub. My mother’s milk customers came too, and the wool-comber next door with his children. Their grief was very real, though I think it was less for my father himself than for the imminent departure of my mother and her cow.

My mother did not wish my father to be buried in Brassing, where the churchyards were all crowded and airless. The weather being cool, she resolved to transport him back home, to be buried in the churchyard at Gimmerton. The Thornes very kindly arranged all this, so we had only to pack up the household’s few things to put in a hired wagon (not the one the coffin was in, to my relief) and tie Reenie to the back of it, before setting off home. Our progress going back was considerably slower than mine had been on the way, but another day brought us within sight of my parents’ cottage. Reenie grew excited then, and threatened to overset the wagon, so my mother untied her, whereupon she tossed her head and took off at a slow, lumbering gallop towards the barn.

‘Well, she is not sorry to shake the dust of Brassing from her feet, at any rate,’ said my mother.

And so we settled back into our old places – I at the Heights, and my mother at the cottage, which she had resolved to keep. I used most of my small stock of savings to buy myself a full suit of mourning, and made much of my grief for my father. Had I known what was coming, I would have saved my tears.

SIX (#ulink_8f4b1f9d-d268-5603-a5fb-95328a444e28)

I did not dare to speak to you of her death – the mistress’s, that is – how it tore us all apart, and left wounds that never did heal. Yet if I didn’t mention it to you, you might have asked about it at any time, and caught me unawares, and that would be worse. So I gabbled over it as fast as I could, and in the wrong place, too, so that I had to go back and tell things that came before it, as if they were after. But this is cool paper, that soaks up all I tell it without remark, and I am not so grieved now as I was then, either, by all that happened in those days.

It began with the measles. It was midsummer. My mother, I forgot to mention, had left her little cottage. It proved lonelier than she had expected, she said, without my father. And then Mrs Thorne, who had been much impressed with my mother’s good sense and practical energy, wrote to ask if she would come back to Brassing to manage the dairy Mrs Thorne had been persuaded by her to establish. She offered generous terms, including the purchase of all my mother’s cows, and my mother thought it best to accept. But her cows were not all as fresh-footed as young Reenie, and so my mother, as she put it, ‘turned drover for a time’, driving the cows before her at an easy pace, taking frequent rests, and boarding at farmhouses along the way.

It was only a day or two after she had left that Hindley first took sick with the measles, and Cathy caught them soon after, and it fell on me to nurse them, for I had been through the measles already, as a baby. It was no easy task: Cathy and Hindley complained vociferously of their many discomforts, and called on me peremptorily for help as if every cup of water or basin to be emptied and cleaned were the only thing standing between them and a speedy exit from this life. Heathcliff I tried to protect from infection by keeping him away from Cathy, for his own sake, and because I could not imagine how I was to manage without him to fetch things up and down the stairs and keep the coal-bin loaded, the fire burning, and the kettle full. It wasn’t easy to keep them apart, but I told him that the excitement of seeing him would make Cathy’s fever worse, and I took to locking the door of the children’s sickroom whenever I was not there to guard it. But then Cathy’s fever reached a crisis, and she began crying out at one moment that she was afraid to die, and at the next that she could not bear to live another minute. After that, nothing in Heaven or earth, I believe, could have kept him from her. I woke from an exhausted nap to find my pocket picked and the key gone, and found them both in her bed, clasped in each other’s arms while Heathcliff sobbed and Cathy alternately burned and shivered. After that, Heathcliff took the infection, of course, though he hid it as long as he could, and took to his bed only when the telltale spots confessed his secret for him.

Then the mistress took the infection as well, which was odd, for she said she had had the measles in her youth. As a patient, she was gentle and undemanding, but she fretted continually, dividing her time between dreading the loss of her children and fearing that she would leave them motherless. Hers looked to be a mild case, to judge from the spots, but Mr Earnshaw was concerned about her, and called in Dr Kenneth.

He came later that day, looking harried and exhausted. The weather had turned remarkably hot – even the nights brought no relief – and this, he told us, had set off a rash of putrid fevers all over the neighbourhood, which had him running off his feet from morning to night.

This was not the Dr Robert Kenneth who attended you, Mr Lockwood, but his father, Dr Richard Kenneth. The former was a lad only a couple of years older than Hindley and me, and he had often been a playmate of ours when we were quite small, and the doctor was a frequent visitor to the mistress. At fourteen – that would be a year or two before Heathcliff came – he had been formally prenticed to his father, and after that we saw him less. His father called him Robin, and Hindley and I, through some childish corruption of that with his last name, and because he used to be so slight he could sit between the two of us on one stout pony, had come to call him Bodkin, and Bodkin he still was to us, whenever we did see him.

So Dr Kenneth came to see us, as I said. About the mistress he looked grave.

‘The whole system must be weak,’ he said, ‘to take ill of this after having it in her youth.’ He prescribed bed rest, beef jellies, and port wine, fortified with a brown mixture he left with us.

Heathcliff was only just coming out in the spots when the doctor came, while Cathy and Hindley were in full bloom. The latter were noisy and demanding patients, as I said before, but Heathcliff was quiet as a lamb, and so I had assumed his was the milder case. But Dr Kenneth clucked and sighed as he examined him.

‘He’s not of English stock, I think,’ he said. ‘God only knows where his parents were from. These foreign-bred folk can take our common illnesses quite hard. I would advise you to watch him closely. And don’t set too much store by what he says, Nelly – I’m thinking he’s one of those that suffer in silence. Judge by his spots, his fever, and his appetite.’

Dr Kenneth went into the next room, then, to talk to the master privately, and Bodkin motioned me over.

‘Father claims that whenever he hears a patient moaning and complaining a great deal, he has good hopes of their recovery. He says that crying out is almost as good as bloodletting for releasing poisons from the body. I thought at first that he only said that to cheer nurses with tiresome patients on their hands, but now that I have been observing cases with him, I think there is a grain of truth in it. Look to young Heathcliff, Nelly, and don’t let the other two wear you down.’ I assured him that I would.

Seeing my hands full with the children, the master said he would take over the nursing of his wife himself, which he did, I must say, with great gentleness and thoughtful consideration. But everything else in the house fell onto my shoulders. Joseph, who had never had the measles and was mortally afraid of contracting them, made up a pallet for himself in the barn, and took charge of all matters in the dairy and out-of-doors, never setting foot in the house. There was no time to make cheese or churn butter, and it was too hot for milk to keep, so I made up the pots of porridge for myself and my patients with fresh milk instead of water; we set the two calves to nurse for themselves on our gentlest cow, and sent the remainder of the milk home with the dairymaid, who lived hard by with her parents and a pack of hungry brothers and sisters.

The days that followed recur to my memory now like time spent in another world. I seemed to be continually running or rushing about, except when I composed myself to attend to one of my patients, or collapsed into a few hours’ exhausted sleep before waking in terror that someone had died.

Cathy and Hindley took so much of my time and attention that I all but ignored Heathcliff for a while. I was just settling them for sleep one night, when I heard a low moan from his bed, and turned to look after him. He lay on his back, still as death, and spoke not a word, but only panted faintly, his eyes wide with terror as they followed my motions, like a wounded fox that sees the dogs approach, and hopes for no mercy but a speedy end. I poured him a cup of water, and held up his head for him to drink it, and he drank greedily at first, his eyes fixed on me all the time, but swallowing seemed to pain him, and after a few gulps he leaned his head back and closed his eyes, and I laid him back down. I was speaking soothingly to him all the while – softly, so as not to wake Cathy or Hindley, but he said nothing, and gave no sign of recognition. When I felt his forehead his skin burned to my touch – Cathy and Hindley had been feverish too, but nothing like this.

My heart smote me then, that I had not attended better to Bodkin’s advice. I thought, if I could not bring down his fever, he might die, and his death would be on my hands, for had I not neglected him, while attending to the others? I stripped the bedclothes off him, and his nightshirt as well. Then I wetted a cloth with water from the pitcher and washed him all over, in an effort to cool his burning skin.

I have said it was hot, but there was at this time such a heat spell as I have never known before or since. Day and night, the air was still and sweltering; there was no coolness to be found anywhere in the house, even in the stillroom. Even the water in the pitcher was lukewarm, and it only sat on the poor boy’s skin like sweat, instead of drying off to cool him. I ran downstairs to fetch fresher – and, I hoped, cooler – water from the large jar in the kitchen, but it was little better. In my desperation, at length I bethought me of the well. Normally we drew our water from a shallow well in the courtyard, but the heat had caused the water in it to go foul, so we had resorted to an older well nearby, customarily used for watering the stock. It was a deep one, and water fresh-drawn from it had always the coolness of deep earth, whatever the weather. But the well was a good distance from the house, and the night black as pitch, with no moon, and stars obscured by the low haze of moisture in the air. I hastily prepared a lantern, though, and made my way as best I could to the well to draw a fresh bucketful. It was as cool as I hoped, so I filled my pitcher afresh and hurried back to the house to try its effect on my patient.

His skin was still so hot to the touch, I half-fancied I could hear it sizzle when I applied the cloths, like water on a hot skillet. But the cool cloths did seem to give him some ease. His breathing slowed and became deeper, and his eyes looked less fearful. I lifted him again for another cool drink of water, and when he was done, his lips moved to thank me, though no sound came from them, and tears welled in his eyes. I kept up bathing him with water from the pitcher, but it was not long before it grew warm again and lost its power to cool him. Then I rushed out again to fill it from the well, and began all over again.

Thus began the longest and strangest night of my life. I rushed back and forth from the well to Heathcliff’s sickbed, bathing his burning skin continually except when I ran out to replenish the water in the pitcher. I stopped only to drink water myself at the well, for the rushing in and out of doors and up and down the stairs kept the sweat pouring off me in rivulets, though I had stripped myself to my shift because of the heat. By the time I saw the first glow of grey dawn in the east, my arms and legs were quivering with exhaustion, and my breath came in sobs at each new exertion. Yet I dreaded the coming of day, for fear the sun would add to the heat, and make my struggle against Heathcliff’s fever yet harder.

I had just drawn up the bucket from the well when I heard the steady clump of horses’ feet approaching. It was Dr Kenneth, and Bodkin behind him on a pony. I began waving my arms and shouting to them at the top of my voice, terrified that they would pass by without stopping (and that will tell you something of my state of mind, for there was no earthly reason for anyone to be on that road, unless it were to visit us). They clucked up their horses and hastened over to me, and it wasn’t until they were a dozen yards away that I recollected I had only my shift on! I quickly grabbed the bucket to my chest for cover, but it was full of water, of course, which duly sloshed all down my front. This, you may be sure, improved neither my appearance nor my composure. But good Dr Kenneth’s face expressed nothing but its habitual kind concern.

‘Good heavens, Nelly, poor child, whatever is the matter?’

‘Oh, Dr Kenneth, I didn’t listen to you, and now Heathcliff has the fever terribly bad, and nothing I can do will bring it down, and I’m afraid he will die,’ I sobbed out, and then commenced to babble incoherently about my long night, and my desperate efforts to cool the feverish child. Before I finished, Dr Kenneth turned his horse and hurried off to the house, pausing only to say a few words to his son in a voice too low for me to hear. His departure, and the relief that Heathcliff was now in better hands than mine, seemed to drain from me the last ounce of my desperate energy, and I crumpled to the ground and wrapped my arms around my knees, crying uncontrollably and shivering in my wet shift as if I had a chill wind on me instead of the same still heat as before. Bodkin slipped off his pony and came over to wrap his jacket around me, turning his head away as I hastily buttoned it down the front. Then he helped me up from the ground and half led, half carried me into the kitchen. There he blew up the fire, made tea, and put a mug of it before me with some oatcakes and a bit of jam he found in the storeroom. I shook my head – I could not imagine finding the strength to eat or drink.

‘None of that, Nelly. This is doctor’s orders. Food and something hot to drink, he said, and I’m not to leave you until you’ve swallowed some of each.’ I did manage to take some, then, which revived me enough to remind me how hungry I was, and I set to with some eagerness.

‘And now, Nelly, tell me where I may find a nightdress for you.’

‘They’re upstairs, in the cupboard in my room – that’s the second on the right,’ I said, and then added, in some confusion, ‘but I can’t put on nightclothes now – it’s already morning.’

But Bodkin was already heading up the stairs.

‘Morning for those who have been sleeping all night, perhaps,’ he said, ‘but bedtime for you. Again, these are my father’s orders.’ And then he was off, to return a minute later with one of my nightdresses. ‘Here you are, milady,’ he said, ‘and here is your dressing room’ (opening the storeroom door with a flourish). That coaxed a laugh from me.

‘I can change more easily in my own room.’

‘Very likely, but you have not had near enough breakfast yet, and I can’t have you spilling jam on my best summer jacket.’

‘Is this your best?’ I asked doubtfully (it was a remarkably threadbare garment).

‘My best, my worst, and my middling all, for it’s my only one. Now go and change.’ I thought it best to obey, and indeed it felt good to get out of the wet shift and into something clean and dry. I felt shy of coming out of the storeroom in only my nightdress though, and poked my head through the door to say so.

‘You forget I am in training to be a doctor, Nell,’ he said. ‘Seeing folks in their nightclothes is a hazard of my chosen profession, just as getting run through with a sword is for a cavalry officer.’

‘Well, call up all your professional courage, then, for here I come.’

Bodkin put some bread and cheese in front of me, and refreshed my mug of tea.

‘You would be astonished at what we’ve seen in this heat, Nelly,’ he went on. ‘Some of it makes your wet shift look like a noble sacrifice to the cause of modesty.’ I laughed and shook my head. ‘No, truly,’ he said, laughing himself, ‘do you know Old Elspeth?’

‘I know of her,’ I said.

‘Well, Father and I called by her cottage yesterday afternoon.’

‘Was she ill?’ I interrupted. ‘It doesn’t speak well of her art, that she couldn’t cure herself, but had to call in a doctor to help.’

‘Nothing of the sort; she’s as hale as ever – it was we who needed her.’