She insisted on my fulfilling her directions, before she would let
me touch her; and not till after the coachman had been instructed
to get ready, and a maid set to pack up some necessary attire, did
I obtain her consent for binding the wound and helping to change
her garments.
'Now, Ellen,' she said, when my task was finished and she was
seated in an easy-chair on the hearth, with a cup of tea before
her, 'you sit down opposite me, and put poor Catherine's baby away:
I don't like to see it! You mustn't think I care little for
Catherine, because I behaved so foolishly on entering: I've cried,
too, bitterly - yes, more than any one else has reason to cry. We
parted unreconciled, you remember, and I sha'n't forgive myself.
But, for all that, I was not going to sympathise with him - the
brute beast! Oh, give me the poker! This is the last thing of his
I have about me:' she slipped the gold ring from her third finger,
and threw it on the floor. 'I'll smash it!' she continued,
striking it with childish spite, 'and then I'll burn it!' and she
took and dropped the misused article among the coals. 'There! he
shall buy another, if he gets me back again. He'd be capable of
coming to seek me, to tease Edgar. I dare not stay, lest that
notion should possess his wicked head! And besides, Edgar has not
been kind, has he? And I won't come suing for his assistance; nor
will I bring him into more trouble. Necessity compelled me to seek
shelter here; though, if I had not learned he was out of the way,
I'd have halted at the kitchen, washed my face, warmed myself, got
you to bring what I wanted, and departed again to anywhere out of
the reach of my accursed - of that incarnate goblin! Ah, he was in
such a fury! If he had caught me! It's a pity Earnshaw is not his
match in strength: I wouldn't have run till I'd seen him all but
demolished, had Hindley been able to do it!'
|