Nelly Dean

‘Hindley, please let’s switch places,’ I said. ‘If your face is spotted at the window you’ll get only a scolding from your mother, but I shall be in a peck of trouble with my mother and the master both if I’m caught. And anyway,’ I added cannily, ‘you are better at gripping the sill than I am, which takes off a good deal of the weight.’ So Hindley allowed me to lift him up, and overheard just enough to announce to me with great importance the news I had already gleaned from my nest in the gooseberry bush.

‘You’re to come back after church next Sunday,’ he said, ‘but you’re to be a servant now, Nell, and you’ll get a shilling a week! I wish I was a servant – no lessons to do, and more pocket money than I shall ever see. But you’ll share with me, won’t you, Nell?’

‘All my wages will go to my father,’ I said, ‘and if I get no lessons, there’ll be no play either: I shall have to work all day, so you needn’t be jealous. But hush now – I want to hear what else is said.’ I lowered him to the ground, for in truth the conversation was perfectly audible from there, and easier to follow without Hindley relaying his own versions from above.

‘I am so glad we are to have Nelly back with us, Mary,’ the mistress was saying. ‘I was sorely grieved that she should be sent away on so slight a fault. But I do verily think my husband has gone mad! How could he bring this creature here all the way from Liverpool, and then turn on our own children so? And it’s worse than that – he’s named the child Heathcliff, after our firstborn! It is cruel of him, don’t you think? Positively cruel to bring that name before me every day!’ She began sobbing bitterly. Hindley’s eyes filled with tears too.

‘The little beast!’ he hissed. ‘I shall make him pay for this – just watch me.’ Poor Hindley never could bear to see his mother cry (though it was a common enough occurrence), and generally contrived to get angry at someone else, to cover his own grief for her. In this case, I saw that the new child would bear the brunt of the anger Hindley dared not show towards his father. To be honest, I was not inclined to take the new child’s part either, for I still felt aggrieved myself that he had pushed me, as I saw it, from my place with the children at the Heights.

From the window came the familiar sounds of my mother soothing and cheering her old friend, as the mistress’s sobs gradually subsided into sighs. ‘You mustn’t take it so, Helen,’ my mother was saying. ‘It was a good deed, surely, to rescue the poor child from starvation or worse on the streets, and now that he is here it will be your duty to bring him up to be a credit to the family. Probably Mr Earnshaw thought that giving the boy the name of your firstborn would help you to feel a mother’s affection for him. I am sure he meant you no harm by it. You know you have been sad not to be able to have more children about you, and now here is another little one come to you as if by magic, like the return of your lost child. And that Nelly is coming back as a servant need not grieve you either – it only means she’ll be spending her days helping you instead of scampering over the moors with Hindley. Really, she’ll be more like a daughter to you than ever. And I shall have to come over here more often myself, at first, to help her learn her new duties.’

‘I wish you could be here always, Mary,’ said the mistress with a sigh. ‘Those were the happiest years, when you were here, and I have never managed so well since you left. Why did you have to get married and go away?’

‘It was you who married first, Helen, long before me,’ said my mother gently. ‘And if I had not married and had Nell, what would have become of Hindley? He would have died like all the rest, would he not? Those times seem happy to you now because you remember what you had then and have not now, but you forget that you didn’t have your bairns then, and thought you never would, and that grieved you sorely. We never get all we want in this world. We must bear the trials God sends to us, and do our duty with a cheerful heart.’ Then, with special firmness, she added, ‘And your duty now is to this child, to Heathcliff.’

‘Heathcliff,’ the mistress sighed. ‘I suppose I must accustom myself to using it.’

‘It won’t take long – you’ll see,’ my mother replied, ‘but I cannot stay longer, Helen. I’ve left Nelly at home by herself, waiting to hear what is to become of her, and I should prefer to be back before Tom gets home, too.’

‘Send Nelly my love, then, and tell her how glad I shall be to have her back again, and she must not mind too much about the work, for I will be an easy mistress to her.’

‘I’ll send your love to be sure,’ said my mother, ‘but as to her work, I’ll tell her nothing of the sort, and really, Helen, you will do her no favours by encouraging idleness, unless you have a fortune hidden somewhere you are planning to endow her with. Nelly will always have to earn her bread, like the rest of us, and the sooner she resigns herself to that, the happier she will be.’

I did not stay to hear more, for now I had to contrive to get home before my mother, and make it look as if I’d never left. ‘Hindley,’ I said, ‘do you think you can manage to delay my mother a few minutes, so I can get well away before she sets out?’

‘Leave it to me,’ he said with a grin, delighted as always to have a hand in mischief of any kind. ‘You know your mother can never resist an appeal from her old nursling.’ He took off for the door, while I took one of our more circuitous and well-hidden routes back towards my parents’ cottage.

I soon saw that it would be hard to keep out of sight and ahead of my mother all the way (though stout, she was a brisk walker), and still arrive in time to compose myself and my story for her arrival, but I thought of something that would save me a good portion of my trip, and serve as excuse for my injuries as well. I brought myself around nigh and to one side of her, climbed up on a hummock, and waved, calling ‘Mother, Mother!’ from a direction that was neither before nor behind her path.

‘Nelly! What brings you here? I told you to stay at home. And what in Heaven have you done to yourself?’ she added, noticing the scratches on my arms and face.

‘I’m very sorry, Mother, but I just couldn’t stay. I was … I had …’ There was no need to pretend my embarrassment. ‘I didn’t know what I should say if Father came in, and I grew anxious, so I ran out onto the moors and came to meet you, and then there were brambles in my way, and I got tangled in them.’ This was all true enough as far as it went, but I then bethought me that I ought to show some suspense about the result of her errand, and begged her to tell me if I would be permitted to return.

‘Yes, Nelly, you are to go home with them after church on Sunday. But you shall be earning wages now, and must not go running off to the moors with the other children.’

‘And what am I to do until then? Will I stay here with you and Father?’

‘You will, for tonight anyway – but don’t fear, Nell, all will be well with him, you’ll see. Come with me now, and I’ll tell you all about it.’ She told me, of course, a good deal less than all I had heard for myself, but I listened with as much interest as if it were all new to me. The events of that day had set me thinking about a number of things I had not given much thought to until then, and had made my mother an object of interest and curiosity to me in a way she had never been before.

Dusk was approaching by the time we reached the cottage, but my father was not yet home. My mother hurried to build up the fire and set supper in motion. She was just looking at my scratches, and putting salve on the deeper ones, when we heard my father’s footsteps outside. She waved me into an inconspicuous corner, where I cowered, trying to quell my fear and be ready to compose my face into a smile when he should spot me. He came in without looking around, and sat down heavily in his chair by the fire. My mother quickly brought him a mug of tea and a large slice of bread and butter. He took these in either hand and leaned back with a sigh.

‘How did the job go on?’ she asked solicitously. ‘Did you finish it today?’

‘Noo, I did not. It’s bigger nor I thought – half the wall ’ill have to come down a’ the north side, and be done all anew. I’d told the fellow at the start he munna think it war only a hole to be filled in, if the wall round it weren’t fit, and so it weren’t. But he took it with an ill grace, all the same. I asked for payment today, and he were right shy of givin’ it. Said as how he’d pay when the job were done, but I were having none of that. “I’ve earned me wages,” I said to him. “Ye needn’t fear that I won’t finish the job – I’ve never left one unfinished yet, and I’m not starting now. But I’ve got t’ buy me bread and pay me rent same as the next man, and I don’t see why I should be stinted because another man’s wall is in worse shape than he thought.”

‘“Nought a penny till the job is done,” says ee. “I know your ways, and if I pay you now, you’ll be drunk tomorrow, and my cows ’ill ’ve the cold wind on their backs another day.” Can you believe that? I’d aff a mind to swing my fist at him.

‘“And what are we to do without my wages tomorrow? Are we to have porridge for our Sunday dinner for the sake of your cows?” I asked.’

‘Fie, Tom,’ my mother interjected, her voice drifting into broader Yorkshire than she ever employed at the Heights, ‘when have I ever given you porridge for Sunday dinner? There’ll be roast fowl and ale, and apple pasty, same as ever, whether you get your wages tomorrow or Saturday, or not till Monday. And there’s money in the house now too – look, Nelly’s come home, and she’s earning wages now. Here’s two shillings for you, and she’s to have one every week.’

I took this as my cue to emerge from the corner, and I did my best to look cheerful and glad to see him.

‘Hello, Father,’ I said, with a bit of a curtsey.

‘Hoo, “Father” is it? Well, aren’t we the fine lady,’ he said, but he was hampered by the tea and bread in either hand from offering worse hostilities than this.

‘Whisht, husband,’ my mother chided, ‘is that any way to greet your daughter who’s just brought you her first wages, like a good girl?’

‘What wages? I ’aven’t seen any yet.’

‘She’s afraid to come near ye, most likely. If you can’t be friendly the first time you’ve seen her in six months, I’ll just tell her to bring her wages elsewhere.’

‘Aw right then,’ he said, and, balancing his slice atop his mug, he extended a large, calloused hand to me in a reasonable imitation of friendship. I came forward, at my mother’s encouraging nod, and put my small hand in his great one for a brief shake, before proffering the shillings. ‘Eh, you’re a good enough lass,’ he said, pulling me a foot or two closer and tousling my hair, at which I needed every ounce of self-control I had not to flinch. Then my mother motioned me to a stool at the other side of the fire, and handed me a mug and slice of my own before settling into the other chair herself. I had little appetite, but I was grateful for anything that would save me looking at or talking to my father, and so took to eating and drinking with a great show of earnestness, and we all sat munching in silence for some time.

His supper finished, my father rose and headed for the door.

‘I’ll just step out to the Ox and Plough to meet a man about a job of work,’ he said.

‘Aye, go then,’ said my mother, with as much good humour as if she believed him. When he was gone, she put an arm around me and heaved a sigh.

‘Well done, Nelly, you’re a good lass. He’ll drink that off at the inn, and before he’s back we’ll have you tucked snug into bed up the ladder in the loft, where he never goes. And anyway, he’s not one of those men who become more violent with drink – quite the contrary, thank Heaven.’

It was a better end than I could have imagined to a day begun so badly, but for all that I could not help collapsing into her arms and sobbing as if my heart were broken. ‘Why does he hate me so?’ I wailed – rather to my own surprise, I must confess, since normally I did not think myself much concerned about what he thought of me, only provided I were out of reach of his fists. But, of all that had distressed me that day, this was the safest to express to my mother, and the likeliest to earn her sympathy, so perhaps that had something to do with it.

My mother never had much patience for tears, but on this occasion she did no more than tighten her arms and ease me down beside her by the fire, rocking gently, until my sobs began to subside.

‘He doesn’t hate you, Nelly,’ she said at last. ‘How could he? He doesn’t know you at all.’

‘But he acts as if he does.’

‘He was … not kind to you when you were just a little thing, and that sits heavy on his conscience now. He’s not a bad man, Nelly. I can’t excuse how he has treated you, but I want you to know that in the main he is not a bad man. He has never laid a finger on me, nor done me any more wrong than to drink wages he ought to save. And then perhaps I’ve taken too much care to keep you clear of him, so that he feels awkward with you, and acts rough to cover it. But you got off to a good start with him today, and perhaps these few days at home will prove a blessing in disguise, and make you better friends in future.’

I could see that she was convincing herself as she spoke, but I remembered too vividly her urgency in pleading with Mr Earnshaw for my return to the Heights to feel the same confidence in her assurances. Nor had she really answered my question.

‘But why me?’ I persisted. ‘He liked little Tommy well enough. Is it only because I’m a girl? Or is it because I was – because I’m the eldest?’

She sighed heavily, and let silence gather for a time. When she finally spoke, it was with some reluctance: ‘When a man marries beneath himself, Nell – and let this be a lesson to you – he raises his wife to his level. His friends and relations may wish he had looked higher, but that just puts the more responsibility on his wife to ensure that he never regrets his choice. But when a woman marries down, she brings shame on herself and no credit to her husband. She is thought less of for it, and he partakes in some measure of her shame. I did your father no service by marrying him.’

That my mother had married ‘beneath her’ was not news to me – it being a rather frequent subject of querulous commentary by Mrs Earnshaw – but I was surprised to hear her own it so frankly, and it emboldened me to ask what I had never dared to ask before: ‘Why did you marry him then?’

My mother flushed at this, and I could have pinched myself. I knew very well why they had married – as did anyone else who had ever looked in the parish record to compare the date of their marriage with that of my birth.

‘I mean,’ I stumbled, ‘why him?’

‘I was over forty years old, Nelly, and I had never been a beauty, even in my youth. I had no fortune aside from some little savings out of my wages, nor any prospects of any, and no family remaining who could be of material assistance to a husband of mine. It is true that I had better birth and education than many in my situation, and some claim to family connection with the Earnshaws, but that would not be enough to tempt a man of any stature unless it were backed by more tangible attractions of person or property. Thomas Dean earned day wages by the work of his hands, and possessed but little book learning, true, but his skill was much in demand and well paid, and his character was generally respected. It was said, too, that he had been a most devoted son to his mother, who was but lately dead, and perhaps it was that made him look so kindly on a plain woman eight years his elder. At any rate, he smiled whenever he saw me, and made all manner of excuses to come by the Heights to visit, and in time … well, I thought I could not do better, and might do a great deal worse.’

‘But why should you have wished to do anything – I mean, to change your situation at all?’ I persisted. I had crossed into forbidden territory already, I felt, and thought I might as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, and ask all my questions at once. ‘That is what Mrs Earnshaw cannot understand. She says you were already mistress of Wuthering Heights in all but name, because she was so often ill, and even that you had the best of it, for you got more in wages than she ever did in pin money.’