She stepped close up, leaving Linton’s side, her eyes flashing with passion and resolution. ‘Give me that key. I will have it!’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t eat or drink here if I were starving.’

  Heathcliff had the key in his hand that remained on the table. He looked up, seized with a sort of surprise at her boldness, or, possibly, reminded by her voice and glance, of the person from whom she inherited it.

  She snatched at the instrument, and half succeeded in getting it out of his loosened fingers, but he recovered it speedily.

  ‘Now, Catherine Linton,’ he said. ‘Back off, or I shall knock you down, and that will make Mrs. Dean mad.’

  Regardless of this warning, she captured his closed hand and its contents again.

  ‘We will go!’ she repeated, exerting her utmost efforts to cause the iron muscles to relax, and finding that her nails made no impression, she applied her teeth pretty sharply.

  Heathcliff shot a look at me that kept me from interfering. His black eyes were so intense, so frightening, that I expected his teeth to grow into fangs at any moment. Catherine was too intent on his fingers to notice his face. ‘I know what you are!’ she shouted. ‘Linton told me—’

  He opened his hand, the key fell, and in one swift movement he slapped her in the face.

  At this diabolical violence, I rushed on him furiously, drawing my dagger from my apron. ‘You villain!’ I began to cry. ‘You villain!’

  He saw the glint of the dagger and, I swear by all that is holy, moved quicker than humanly possible. He hit my forearm so hard with his fist that I staggered dizzily back.

  ‘No silver in my house!’ the fiend raged. ‘Pick it up! Pick it up and throw it out the window,’ he ordered Cathy.

  Trembling like a reed, poor thing, she did as he ordered, tossing my small but mighty weapon into the yard through the tiny opening in the window.

  Mr. Heathcliff picked up the key from the floor, and when he looked at Cathy again, he seemed to have gained control of himself. ‘Go to Linton now, as I told you, and cry at your ease! I shall be your father tomorrow—all the father you’ll have in a few days—and you shall have plenty of that—you can bear plenty—you’re no weakling—you shall have a daily taste, if I catch such a devil of a temper in your eyes again!’

  Cathy ran to me instead of Linton, and knelt down, and put her burning cheek on my lap, weeping aloud. As brave as she was, his attack had been a shock. In her life, none had ever struck her, and she knew not how to bear it.

  Mr. Heathcliff, ignoring us all, tucked the key into his pocket and made tea. The cups and saucers were laid ready. He poured it and handed me a cup. I took one sniff and looked him in his eye. ‘I prefer mine with a heavy dollop of garlic,’ I dared to say.

  ‘Well, I do not.’ He was silent for a moment, his gaze locked solidly with mine, but then he looked away. ‘I’m going out to seek your horses. Do not try to leave.’ His black-eyed gaze met mine again as he made his departure. ‘You know what lies beyond these doors, Mrs. Dean. I have given them leave to do as they please, should anyone leave this house unescorted by me.’

  I had only to peer out the window to spot not just the herd-boy vampire, but two other shady characters in black cloaks, the same two I had seen feeding on Joseph that day. When they caught my eye, the female smiled, baring her fangs, and gave a little wave. I slammed the window shut and turned the latch. ‘Master Linton,’ I cried, whipping around to face him. ‘You know what your diabolical father is after. Tell us or I’ll box your ears.’

  ‘Yes, Linton, you must tell,’ said Catherine. ‘It was for your sake I came, and it will be wickedly ungrateful if you refuse.’

  ‘Give me some tea and then I’ll tell you,’ he answered. ‘Mrs. Dean, go away. I don’t like you standing over me.’

  Catherine gave him his tea and wiped her face. I felt disgusted at the little wretch’s composure, since he was no longer in terror for himself. The anguish he had exhibited on the moor subsided as soon as he entered Wuthering Heights, so I guessed that now that he had done his father’s evil bidding, he had no further immediate fears.

  ‘Papa wants us to be married,’ he continued, after sipping some of the liquid. ‘And he knows your papa wouldn’t let us marry now, and he’s afraid of my dying if we wait. We are to be married in the morning, and you are to stay here all night. If you do as he wishes, you shall return home the next day, and take me with you.’

  ‘Take you with her, pitiful changeling?’ I exclaimed. ‘Marry you? Why, the man is mad! Do you imagine that beautiful young lady, that healthy, hearty girl, will tie herself to a little perishing monkey like you? Are you cherishing the notion that anybody, let alone Miss Catherine Linton, would have you for a husband? I’ve a very good mind to shake you severely, for your contemptible treachery, and your imbecile conceit.’

  I did give him a slight shaking, but it brought on the cough, and he took to his ordinary resource of moaning and weeping.

  ‘Stay all night? No!’ Cathy said, looking slowly round. ‘Nelly, I’ll burn that door down, but I’ll get out.’

  ‘And let the vampires string you up and suck the blood from your veins until you’re nothing but a pretty little shell?’ I demanded. ‘Your papa will certainly appreciate that. Your grave will need not be deep or wide.’

  Linton clasped her in his two feeble arms, sobbing. ‘Won’t you have me, and save me? Oh! Darling Catherine! You mustn’t go, and leave me, after all. You must obey my father, you must! You do not know what he is, what he is capable of doing!’

  Our jailer re-entered at that moment. ‘Your beasts have trotted off,’ he said. ‘Linton! Sniveling again? What has she been doing to you? Come, come, get to bed. Zillah won’t be here tonight; you must undress yourself. Hush! Hold your noise! Once in your own room, I’ll not come near you, you needn’t fear. By chance, you’ve managed tolerably. I’ll look to the rest.’

  He spoke these words, holding the door open for his son to pass, and closed it behind him. Mr. Heathcliff then approached the fire, where my mistress and I stood silent. Catherine looked up and instinctively raised her hand to her cheek where he had struck her.

  ‘Oh, you are not afraid of me?’ he muttered. ‘Your courage is well disguised. You seem damnably afraid!’

  ‘I am afraid now,’ she replied. ‘But only because I do not have a sword to run through your black heart. That and because if I stay, Papa will be miserable. Mr. Heathcliff, let me go home! I promise to marry Linton. Papa would like me to, and I love him—and why should you wish to force me to do what I’ll willingly do of myself?’

  ‘Let him dare to force you!’ I cried. ‘There’s law in the land, thank God, there is!’

  ‘Silence!’ he barked. ‘To the devil with your clamor! I don’t want you to speak. Miss Linton, I shall enjoy myself remarkably in thinking your father will be miserable.’

  ‘At least send Nelly to let Papa know I’m safe!’ exclaimed Catherine, weeping bitterly. ‘Or marry me now. Poor Papa! Nelly, he’ll think we’re lost. What shall we do?’

  ‘He’ll think you are tired of waiting on him, and ran off for a little amusement,’ answered Heathcliff. ‘You cannot deny that you entered my house of your own accord, despite your father’s warnings. And it is quite natural that you should desire amusement at your age and that you should weary of nursing a sick man. Catherine, his happiest days were over when your days began. He cursed you, I dare say, for coming into the world. And it would just do if he cursed you as he went out of it. Weep away. As far as I can see, it will be your chief diversion hereafter.’

  ‘I’ll not retract my word, I swear it,’ said Catherine. ‘I’ll marry him, within this hour, if I may go to Thrushcross Grange afterward. Mr. Heathcliff, you’re a cruel man, but you’re not really the fiend they say, are you? No, don’t turn away! Do look! I don’t hate you. You cannot help what you are any more than I can help what I will be. I’m not angry that you struck me. Have you never loved anybody, in all your life, Uncle? Never? Ah! You must look once—I’m so wretched—you can’t help being sorry and pitying me.’

  ‘Keep your hands off me, or I’ll kick you!’ cried Heathcliff, brutally repulsing her. ‘I’d rather be hugged by a snake. How the devil can you dream of fawning on me? I detest you!’

  It was growing dark by then, and we heard a sound of voices at the garden gate. Our host hurried out instantly. There was talk for two or three minutes, and he returned alone.

  ‘It was three servants sent to seek you from the Grange,’ said Heathcliff. ‘You should have opened a shutter and called out, for then I could have turned them over to the beasties. I would have liked that.’

  Then he bid us go upstairs, through the kitchen, to Zillah’s chamber. I did not know how we could get away, but the less time we spent in Mr. Heathcliff’s presence, the safer our necks would be. There was no telling when he might throw open the door and allow a bloodsucker to drag one of us off into the moors.

  Once in the room, neither of us lay down, for different reasons, I think. Catherine took her station by the window and watched anxiously for morning so that the plan could unfold and she could return to her father.

  I seated myself in a chair in front of the door, and rocked, to and fro, half expecting a swarm of vampires to crash through at any moment. How I thought I would protect my Cathy without my dagger, I did not know. A bedpost for a spike, perhaps? A well-placed hairpin? As I rocked, I passed harsh judgment on my many derelictions of duty from which, it struck me then, all the misfortunes of all my employers sprang. It was not the case, in reality, I am aware, but in my imagination that dismal night, I thought Heathcliff himself less guilty than I.

  At seven o’clock, after a near-sleepless night, he came and inquired if Miss Linton had risen.

  She ran to the door immediately and answered, ‘Yes.’

  ‘Here, then,’ he said, opening it and pulling her out.

  I rose to follow, but he turned the lock again. I demanded my release.

  ‘Be patient,’ he replied. ‘I’ll send up your breakfast in a while.’

  I thumped on the panels, and rattled the latch angrily, and Catherine asked why I was still shut up. He answered, I must try to endure it another hour, and they went away.

  I endured it two or three hours before I heard a footstep, not Mr. Heathcliff’s.

  ‘I’ve brought you something to eat,’ said a voice. The door opened and I beheld Hareton, laden with food enough to last me all day.

  ‘Take it,’ he added, thrusting the tray into my hand.

  ‘Stay one minute,’ I began.

  ‘Nay!’ cried he, slamming the door and locking it behind him.

  All that day I waited, but no one returned for me. That night, instead of waiting at the door for the beasties to come for me, I set my chair at the window. To this day, I do not know what possessed me to do so. Did I expect them to fly through the window? Did I wish to see death before it overtook me?

  What I saw through the window that night was far more frightening than death. It was close to the witching hour, and I must have drifted off. Something woke me as strong as a nudge on the shoulder and I peered out into the darkness, through the wavy glass. There was a queer half-moon low in the sky that illuminated the yard below where shadows lurked. Drawing closer to the window, my breath fogging on the glass, I squinted. The shadows had shifted. Then, not shadows at all; I realized it was cloaked figures I watched. They came from the corners of the house, from over the stone wall, through the gaps in the eaves of the dovecote…crawling, walking, oozing.

  Creatures with a purpose, they were. Evil for certain; I could smell it in the air, like the foul breath of Satan’s hounds. Toward a tall, cloaked figure they moved, drawn to it. As I watched, my breath caught in my throat and I realized it enticed a part of me, as well. Suddenly, my heart pounded and my palms were slick with sweat. Something deep inside me wanted to squeeze beneath the window sash, slip down the wall, and slink across the shadows to join them in worshipping it.

  The tallest of the creatures raised its hands, the hood of its cloak falling, and that was when I saw him. My first instinct was to draw back, to pull the draperies, to hide beneath the bed, and pray for dawn, but I could not look away. You see…

  It was Mr. Heathcliff!

  Frozen I was by fear, by dread, by the knowledge that somewhere deep in my heart, I had known what Linton suggested was true. I had known he was one of them from the beginning. From the day Mr. Earnshaw brought him home.

  He was one of the undead—he was vampire!

  Before I could contemplate the meaning of such a revelation, I heard the swarm of beasties begin to hiss and growl, spit and snarl. From the midst of them, I saw them thrust something, someone forward. A young girl with long, pale hair and a slender, pretty face. The moonlight shimmered off her hair as she was offered to Mr. Heathcliff. I don’t think she made a peep; perhaps she was too terrified or perhaps all the hissing and squealing, now near a frenzy, simply drowned out her meager voice.

  The shadows-turned-bloodsuckers held the girl by her upper arms and I watched with unspeakable horror as Mr. Heathcliff leaned over her and bared his fangs. One of the beasties grabbed her hair, pulling her head back to expose her pretty, slender neck, and just as Mr. Heathcliff was about to sink his ivory teeth into her, he looked up at the window and his gaze met mine. In those black, hellish eyes I was shocked not by the violence in them, but by what appeared to be remorse. It lasted no more than a blink of an eye and then he took her. She screamed…or perhaps it was I. I do not know, for my head was so full of the sound that I fell back in my chair, my hands clasped over my ears.

  I did not look out that window again that night. Nor did I watch the door. For some reason, for once, I was not afraid for myself or my charge, and I slept long and hard, a dreamless sleep.

  In the morning, I half expected Mr. Heathcliff to come for me, for he knew I had seen the truth of his existence. But he did not come. I remained enclosed, the whole day, and the whole of the next night, and another, and another. Five nights and four days I remained. The bloodsuckers did not congregate again in the courtyard below my window, and I saw nobody but Hareton, once every morning. He was a model of a jailer: surly, and dumb, and deaf to every attempt at moving his sense of justice or compassion.

  As time passed with no word of Cathy, I began to wish Heathcliff had sent one of his vampires for me, for that could have been no less cruel than my imprisonment.

  Chapter 28

  On the fifth afternoon of my incarceration at Wuthering Heights, a different step approached—lighter and shorter, and this time, the person entered the room. It was Zillah, donned in her scarlet shawl, with a black silk bonnet on her head and a willow basket swung on her arm.

  ‘Eh, dear! Mrs. Dean,’ she exclaimed. ‘Blessed be to see you! There’s been talk of you at Gimmerton. They all said you had been carried off by a swarm of bloodsuckers from Cheshire on their way to a vampire fair, and the miss with you. I didn’t believe it; you strike me as too smart for Cheshire beasties, and then the master told me you’d been rescued, and he’d lodged you here! Did you escape from them on your own, or did my master and young Hareton come brandishing swords and rip you from their talons? They say Hareton is a master of the sword already, though mostly he prefers a hoe. He has a way of hooking them with it and then he draws them close, beheads them with the sharp blade, and runs the handle through their black hearts just to be certain the deed is done. I haven’t seen it myself, but—’

  ‘Your master is a true scoundrel!’ I interrupted. ‘But he shall answer for it. He needn’t have raised that tale; it shall all be laid bare!’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Zillah. ‘It’s not his tale. They tell that in the village—about how you were swept off the road to Gimmerton into vampire carriages. Yellow wheels, they said they had. I said to Earnshaw, when I came in, “There’s queer things, Mr. Hareton, happened since I went off,” I said to him. “It’s a sad pity what happened to that young lass, and Nelly Dean. She was a good housekeeper,” I told him. From the way he looked at me, I thought he had not heard, so I told him the rumor of the Cheshire bloodsuckers. The master listened, and he just smiled to himself, and said, “If they have been in the hands of vampires, they are free now, Zillah. Nelly Dean is lodged, at this minute, in your room. You can tell her she can go when you go up; here is the key. The fright of her encounter with the beasties got into her head, and she would have run home and perhaps been swept up again, but I kept her here safe till she came round to her senses. You can bid her go to the Grange, at once, if she be able, and carry a message from me, that her young lady will follow in time to attend the squire’s funeral.”

  ‘My master is dead?’ I asked, overwhelmed by the thought of it.

  ‘No, no. Sit you down, Mrs. Dean,’ Zillah replied. ‘He’s not dead. Doctor Kenneth thinks he may last another day. I met him on the road and asked.’

  Instead of sitting down, I snatched my outdoor things and hastened below, for the door was now open.

  On entering the kitchen, I looked about for someone to give information of Catherine. The place was filled with sunshine and the door stood wide open, but nobody seemed at hand. As I hesitated whether to go off at once, or return and seek my mistress, a slight cough drew my attention to the hearth.

  Linton lay on the settle, sole tenant, sucking a stick of sugar-candy and pursuing my movements with apathetic eyes.

  ‘Where is Miss Catherine?’ I demanded sternly, supposing I could frighten him into giving information by catching him thus, alone.

  He sucked on like an innocent.

  ‘Is she gone?’

  ‘No,’ he replied. ‘She’s upstairs. She’s not to go with you; we won’t let her.’

  ‘You won’t let her, little idiot!’ I exclaimed. ‘Direct me to her room immediately, or I’ll make you sing out sharply.’

  ‘Papa would make you sing out, if you attempt to get there,’ he answered. ‘He says I’m not to be soft with Catherine; she’s my wife, and it’s shameful that she should wish to leave me! He says she hates me and wants me to die, so that she may have my money. But she shan’t have it, and she shan’t go home! She never shall! She may cry as much as she pleases!’