Heathcliff's Tale by Emma Tennant

indication of her own passion and had no shame in showing it. ‘Edgar, my sweet’ she would purr at my poor brother, who was as besotted as a mooncalf and twice as clumsy and maladroit in her presence as any brute would be, ‘fetch me my shawl and we’ll go out walking in the garden’. And she would rub herself up against him, this while Nelly was standing there and I was in the rocking-chair in the morning-room, all of us on a calm, grey day trying not to observe the excited antics of the mistress of Thrushcross Grange. ‘Or shall we go as far as the orchard?’And I knew then that I had in turn been watched and followed; and that my kiss had been like a knife plunging right into that pretty breast. But Edgar perceived only the flesh, and almost moaned aloud at his wife’s teasing. ‘No, it’s raining!’ Cathy went on, and I knew she saw how monstrously dull the orchard would be without Heathcliff, even if her last visit there had meant seeing him kiss me. ‘I’ll sit here and write my letters’. And this coy harridan settled herself in the inglenook of the old fireplace while Nelly was sent for her writing-case and the rest. ‘Why did not Mr Rutherford agree to visit next week with his parents?’ Cathy wanted to know next; though her pout and simper showed she knew perfectly well that tales of my escapade on the night of the ball must have reached the young man’s ears and quenched his desires most efficiently. ‘We do not wish to offend the county, do we Edgar dear? I shall invite them once more, making clear the company will consist solely of Mr and Mrs Edgar Linton.’
    These insults and insinuations were too much for me, and I left the room with burning cheeks. My resolve was heightened, however: if I had lost the respect of the neighbourhood, as my sister-in-law was anxious to make out, then I should visit The Heights without any further dilly-dallying. I—and my family later—must take the consequences.
    So, by the time I set out, I was half-swooning with the need to see the man I had all my young life despised and ignored—‘the Gypsy up at The Heights’. As it turned out, I did not have to travel that far to find him—but, as my flushed face and faltering step must have betrayed—I had no notion when I left The Grange in a light rain and found him no more than a mile down the road leading to the moor, whether he lingered there in the hope of finding
her
… or me.
    I was soon to discover where I stood—if, alas, that can even be said to be the word, for I was to fall often at his cruel blows or lie prone, too numb with grief to speak, after one of his dreadful sallies. ‘You’ll take me to Miss Catherine’, was his command, when I had sidled up to him, no more capable of showing pride or dignity in my position as sister of the master of Thrushcross Grange than my own pet dog, Fanny. ‘And make no excuses about it’, he added, this time with a leer I was foolish enough to believe at first was a smile. And he held up his hand with outstretched index finger, to show me what I already had a sad suspicion of: that Edgar departed for a visit of some hours to the tenants on outlying farms, and so the house and its mistress would be able to receive the vagabond.
    Heathcliff had no desire to wait while I dithered there in the lane, as I fast discovered. No sooner did the figure of my brother and his horse Paddy begin to grow smaller—and then disappear in the bend in the road that leads down to the soft landscape of our pasturage, than my companion—the very man who had kissed me a few days before in the orchard of The Grange, proceeded to do so again. Which of us indeed, did he yearn after?— but I was a fool, and knew it—for the kiss was to act as a key or open sesame to Catherine’s boudoir, and no more; and before I knew fully what I did, I led him straight in there, nodding