Wuthering Heights

foot
six, isn’t that long enough?” she said. I pleaded with her to stay, but she
turned a deaf ear, she also turned the sound one, alternating between the two:
it sounded as if she was coming and going at the same time.
    ‘She boarded her coach and
went to live at some address in London. There she gave birth to a son, called
Linton. He was an ailing peevish creature with a cough like a horse, which made
the mother happy as she loved horse. I said Mrs Heathcliff lived about a dozen
years — actually it was eleven so it was about, as I say, a dozen years after
quitting her husband, she had frequently quitted him, his body was one mass of
quitmarks. She and Edgar Linton both lacked the ruddy health that you generally
meet in these parts. The people’s parts around here are all ruddy. What her
illness was is uncertain: some say an elephant charged her and gave her
elephantitis. Before she died, she wrote to Edgar to inform him of how she had
suffered from elephants, also instructions on how he must adopt her son,
Linton, along with a recipe for jam rolls and lentil cake. The letter was
eighty-six pages long. It took Edgar seven days to read it. At the bottom a PS
read: “Please come and see me, bring the jam rolls, lentil cake and
anti-elephant cream. Hurry, I am dying!” In a frenzy, Edgar spent the next two
days making the rolls and cake. Then leaving young Catherine in my charge, 16 he left for London
by walking stick. He was a mean man. He was away three weeks, two he spent
getting there. I remained behind with of which more anon. 17
    ‘Mr Heathcliff met me in
the village one day, inquired where she lived. I refused to tell. I put it like
this: “Fuck off.” Another time he asked me about the infant. I put it like
this: “Fuck off,” I said with a grim smile. He mounted his horse and fucked
off. Then Isabella died. She died from deafness: there was this steamroller
coming up behind her and she didn’t hear it. That was twelve years ago. We come
now to Mr Edgar Linton, still pissed and mourning for Cathy; he shunned
conversation and was fit for discussing nothing. The death of Cathy transformed
him, he threw up his office of magistrate. It crashed three miles away. He missed
Cathy, so in memory of her he invested in a life-size rubber doll. I used to
draw comparisons between Linton and Earnshaw. Linton recalled Cathy’s memory
with ardent alcoholism and the rubber doll.
    'One day Dr Kenneth
arrived. He stepped off his horse into a pile of it. “Guess who’s given us the
slip now, do you think?” the delighted doctor said.
    ‘ “Mrs Gladys Noffs at No.
22 Gabriel Street?” I said hopefully.
    ‘ “Guess again,” said the
cheery doctor, “and nip up the comer of your apron. 17 I’m certain you’ll need it.”
    ‘So I nipped up the corner
of my apron 18 but I
told him I didn’t need to. “Who has snuffed it?” I asked.
    ‘ “It’s Earnshaw,” said the
cheery doctor.
    ‘ “Why do you sound so
happy?” I asked.
    ‘ “Because”, he said, “it
wasn’t me. He died of the drink, he fell in it and drowned.”
    ‘Poor Mr Earnshaw, I
couldn’t help missing him, though he had the worst tricks a man can imagine. He
could do the white-eared elephant and the last turkey in the shop! I had only
heard how lonely soldiers used to do these tricks to entertain each other.
    ‘I went to Wuthering
Heights to see Earnshaw laid out. I had seen him laid out before, but only face
down, but this was my last chance to see him again. I saw poor Earnshaw laid
out surrounded by empty bottles. The fumes were everywhere; no one dared strike
a match or he would have exploded. When he died he’d been wearing his lovely
off-the-shoulder white gown. Except for the egg down the front, Earnshaw in his
white gown looked lovely in his coffin. I thought, did this man really do the last turkey in the shop? Alcohol had preserved him so well. It seemed a
shame to bury him, but any minute he might explode, and as it was coming on to
rain and we didn’t want to get him wet, we put him under.
    ‘Heathcliff was now master of Wuthering Heights! He had also against his wishes inherited Hareton whom he
weaned off roast beef and two veg on to Chicken Vindaloo. He also kept him for
occasional hitting.’

Chapter
XVI
    ---------------
     
     
     
    ATHY’S CHILD, Catherine, was now
thirteen, and grew like a larch, which is in the direction of up, she had the
Earnshaws’ dark eyes, but the Linton’s small features, some so