第40章

`I think you belie her,' said Heathcliff, twisting his chair to face them.`She wishes to be out of my society now, at any rate!' And he stared hard at the object of discourse, as one might do at a strange repulsive animal: a centipede from the Indies, for instance, which curiosity leads one to examine in spite of the aversion it raises.The poor thing couldn't bear that: she grew white and red in rapid succession, and, while tears beaded her lashes, bent the strength of her small fingers to loosen the firm clutch of Catherine; and perceiving that as fast as she raised one finger off her arm another closed down, and she could not remove the whole together, she began to make use of her nails; and their sharpness presently ornamented the detainer's with crescents of red.

`There's a tigress!' exclaimed Mrs Linton, setting her free, and shaking her hand with pain.`Begone, for God's sake, and hide your vixen face! How foolish to reveal those talons to him.Can't you fancy the conclusions he'll draw? Look, Heathcliff! they are instruments that will do execution--you must beware of your eyes.

`I'd wrench them off her fingers, if they ever menaced me,' he answered brutally, when the door had closed after her.`But what did you mean by teasing the creature in that manner, Cathy? You were not speaking the truth, were you?'

`I assure you I was,' she returned.`She has been pining for your sake several weeks; and raving about you this morning, and pouring forth a deluge of abuse, because I represented your failings in a plain light, for the purpose of mitigating her adoration.But don't notice it further:

I wished to punish her sauciness, that's all.I like her too well, my dear Heathcliff, to let you absolutely seize and devour her up.'

`And I like her too ill to attempt it,' said he, `except in a very ghoulish fashion.You'd hear of odd things if I lived alone with that mawkish, waxen face: the most ordinary would be painting on its white the colours of the rainbow, and turning the blue eyes black, every day or two:

they detestably resemble Linton's.'

`Delectably!' observed Catherine.`They are dove's eyes--angel's!'

`She's her brother's heir, is she not?' he asked, after a brief silence.

`I should be sorry to think so,' returned his companion.`Half a dozen nephews shall erase her title, please Heaven! Abstract your mind from the subject at present: you are too prone to covet your neighbour's goods; remember this neighbour's goods are mine.'

`If they were mine , they would be none the less that,'

said Heathcliff; `but though Isabella Linton may be silly, she is scarcely mad; and, in short, we'll dismiss the matter, as you advise.'

From their tongues they did dismiss it; and Catherine, probably, from her thoughts.The other, I felt certain, recalled it often in the course of the evening.I saw him smile to himself--grin rather--and lapse into ominous musing whenever Mrs Linton had occasion to be absent from the apartment.

I determined to watch his movements.My heart invariably cleaved to the master's, in preference to Catherine's side: with reason I imagined, for he was kind, and trustful, and honourable; and she--she could not be called the opposite, yet she seemed to allow herself such wide latitude, that I had little faith in her principles, and still less sympathy for her feelings.I wanted something to happen which might have the effect of freeing both Wuthering Heights and the Grange of Mr Heathcliff, quietly;leaving us as we had been prior to his advent.His visits were a continual nightmare to me; and, I suspected, to my master also.His abode at the Heights was an oppression past explaining.I felt that God had forsaken the stray sheep there to its own wicked wanderings, and an evil beast prowled between it and the fold, waiting his time to spring and destroy.