Free Withering Heights by Dorothy Cannell Page B

from the vehicles to the buildings. Metal and glass . . . concrete and glass . . . all stripped of color, scale, and shape. Everything moving at the same automated speed. Where were the famous dales, the mysterious, beckoning moors? Did the Yorkshire I had imagined exist anymore? Or had it been paved over and roofed in for a shopping center?
    “I’ve changed my mind.” Ariel spoke from behind my head. “I will have a toffee, Mrs. Malloy.”
    “Aren’t you the kind little miss?” An irritable rustling of paper bag. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you the word
please
hasn’t been rationed since World War Two?”
    “Maybe Betty attempted to clamp down on her behavior.” Ben spoke in a low aside to me, but Ariel must have heard. She sucked in an infuriated breath.
    “Ellie, can we
please
put him out of the car?”
    “That’s enough.” I almost yanked my head off in turning around to face her. “I understand you’re on edge—”
    “I’m not. I’m perfectly calm.”
    “That’s neither here nor there.”
    “You just said—”
    “What my wife is attempting to explain, Ariel, is that we are fast losing sympathy for you,” Ben informed her, “whatever your grievances.”
    I settled back in my seat, staring rigidly at the windshield. More silence. We were exiting the motorway to a view of hills as rough-hewn as the stone walls bordering the fields surrounding the outline of a farmhouse that might have been Wuthering—not Withering—Heights. Way off to our right spread a shadowy stretch of what I hoped might be moorland. But I couldn’t enjoy this introduction to the county of gothic glory. Had Ben and I spoken too sharply to the girl? How precarious was her state of mind? Would Tom and Betty prove especially difficult if we returned her blank-eyed and silent?
    “I don’t know why I have to come off sounding bratty, at the very times when I really want to be nice so people will like me,” Ariel remarked plaintively. “Like last night, Ellie, when I knew I needed to win you and Mrs. Malloy over. I could hear myself talking and it didn’t sound right, but there just didn’t seem anything I could do about it.”
    “Got one of them multiple personalities?” Mrs. M asked eagerly.
    “I suppose I’m perverse.”
    “Probably.” Ben laughed, and I felt myself relax.
    “Our own worst enemies, that’s what we all are sometimes.” Mrs. Malloy sounded ready to enlarge on this theme. But Ariel announced that we were now within a few miles of Milton Moor.
    “And we haven’t stopped for lunch.” I looked at my watch to see that it was nearly noon. “Should we look out for somewhere?”
    “It’s all right. That toffee did the trick. I’m not starving anymore. Why put off the evil hour? Of course, it’ll be bread and water for me.” Ariel sounded almost cheerful. It was Mrs. Malloy who betrayed uneasiness.
    “I wonder if Melody will think I’ve aged some.”
    It seemed likely after a span of forty years, but I crossed my fingers and said probably not. Ben nosed the car onto a sharply steep road with buff-colored houses, grimed with smoke, butting up against the pavement. All very prim and properly Victorian, with lace curtains screening the windows and pots of stiff-looking maroon and purple flowers on the steps. It was truly like stepping back in time. Finally my heart thrilled. A woman opened her door and whacked a mat against the wall. A cat leaped out of a tree and a little boy of about three came pumping along on his tricycle. A woman with orange hair came out of a house with a BED AND BREAKFAST sign on the gatepost. I noted a couple of side streets with shops and other businesses. Then we were again looking out on more open country, bordered by the dry-stone walls and punctuated by solitary trees and outcroppings of rock. Some cultivation, but mostly a sea of coarse wavering grass. We passed a man with shaggy black hair streaked with white, striding alongside asimilarly colored sheepdog, both