Wuthering Heights

father again why he had
never ever told her about Linton and Heathcliff. At the mention of the latter,
Master Edgar became downcast, but thanks to Famous Grouse he became upcast
again.
    ‘ “Heathcliff,” he snarled,
spitting in the fire, missed, hitting the marble surround.
    ‘Against her will Master
Edgar, between sips, forbade Cathy to visit Wuthering Heights again and, in
between sips — “There’s not enough time between sips to get there,” she said —
he had sips.
    ‘Cathy was heart-broken but
she refused a by-pass. But she wrote secretly to Linton. He kept getting pieces
of paper with the words secretly on it, “Love Cathy”. He sent back pieces of
paper with the word “fish”. She also wrote love letters that Master Edgar had
forbidden. “She must stop writing forbidden love letters,” he said. On Master
Edgar’s orders I intercepted all her letters both in- and out-going. I tried to
cheer her up, sending her for walks in the torrential rain, then to play hide
and seek on her own. On a lead, Master Edgar took her on merry walks through
cornfields. To make it more interesting he would sing Psalm no, accompanied by
a fine bottle of Macallan nineteen-year-old malt whisky available in a half
bottle. We really were buggering up her life. We had but one bit of cheer, her
father became dangerously ill with bronchitis, he was so drunk it wasn’t until
he was sober that he knew he’d got it.
    ‘Cathy yearned for him, she
lived in a cloud of gloom. One day I found her crying on her knees, then she
cried on her shins and ankles. “Oh, fie, silly child,” I exclaimed, “you have
no real sorrow. Suppose for a minute that master and I were dead.”
    ‘ “I’d like it to last
longer than that,” she said, and then with a gesture I had never seen before said,
“Oh fie, now piss off.”
    ‘Where had she learnt to
say “Oh fie, now piss off” from was a mystery. No one, but no one, in the
district was a known Piss-Off-sayer. It was a mystery. Should we call the
police?
    ‘One afternoon, looking
through Cathy’s desk, I found a sheaf of love letters from Linton. “Fish”, they
said. I confronted her with them, “Fish! what does it mean?” I asked.
    ‘ “It’s a creature that
lives in the sea,” she said.
    ‘Then I confronted her as I
burnt them. Then she confronted me as an evil cow of a woman. Then I confronted
her by saying I wasn’t. Upstairs the doctor was confronting Master Edgar with
his bill and Master Edgar confronted him with his overdraft.
    ‘Under Master’s
instructions I wrote to Heathcliff telling him that under no circumstances
should Linton write “fish” to Miss Cathy. To cheer her up we went for walks in
her room. I gazed around for some means of diverting her thoughts. “Look,
Miss,” I exclaimed excitedly. “A clothes cupboard! — and there’s a chest-of
drawers and oh! look, a fireplace!” She went into the cupboard and pretended to
be an overcoat. In the chest-of-drawers she pretended to be a freshly laundered
bed-sheet, then she stood by the fire and pretended to be a scuttle. She was
full of gloom.
    ‘ “Come,” I said cheerily,
taking her hands. “Let’s run o’er the moor.”
    ‘ “No,” she said. “You
bloody well run o’er the moor.” It was hard to please him.’ 22

Chapter
XXII
    --------------
     
     
     
    E SAUNTERED over the moor, pausing for
me to show her a bit of moss, bindweed from a puddle or a broken twig. “What’s
the matter, girl?” I said. “Don’t you like moss or bindweed, look here, you can
keep the broken twig.”
    ‘At this she burst into
tears. “Oh, dear,” she sobbed. “What shall I do when you and papa die and I am
by myself?”
    ‘ “Well, there’s
flower-arranging or origami and banjo-playing,” I said, “and”, I added, “your
papa and I may not die for years.”
    ‘ “Can you give me a rough
date?” she asked.
    ‘ “How about December
1864?” I said.
    ‘ “You know, Nelly,” she
said. “I fret about nothing on earth except papa’s illness, I care for nothing
in comparison with papa, except eel and mushroom pie with faggots.”
    ‘ “How dare you think more
of eel and mushroom pie with faggots than your father. Your father is ill, but
the eel and mushroom pie with faggots is perfectly healthy.”
    ‘One evening as we finished
our walk, we arrived at a side door to the garden. Cathy danced in front of it
while singing “Champagne Charlie is my name”. I went round the back to get