Free Wuthering Bites by Sarah Gray Page A

not, Nelly? Why would she admire them?’
    â€˜There will more come of this business than you reckon on,’ I answered, covering him up and extinguishing the light. ‘You are incurable, Heathcliff, and Mr. Hindley will have to proceed to extremes, see if he won’t.’
    My words came truer than I desired. The luckless adventure made Earnshaw furious. And then Mr. Linton, to mend matters, paid us a visit himself on the morrow and read the young master such a lecture on the road he guided his family.
    Heathcliff received no flogging, but he was told that the first word he spoke to Miss Catherine should see him driven from Wuthering Heights. Mrs. Earnshaw undertook to keep her sister-in-law in due restraint when she returned home, employing art not force, for with force she would have found it impossible.

Chapter 7
    C athy stayed at Thrushcross Grange five weeks, until Christmas. By that time her ankle was thoroughly cured, and her manners much improved. The mistress visited her often, and began a plan of reform with fine clothes and flattery, which Cathy took readily. So, instead of a wild, hatless little savage jumping into the house and rushing to squeeze us all breathless, a very dignified person with brown ringlets falling from the cover of a feathered beaver hat lighted from a handsome pony.
    Hindley lifted her from her horse, delighted. ‘Why, Cathy, you are quite a beauty! I should scarcely have known you. You look like a lady now.’
    I removed Catherine’s coat and beneath she wore a grand plaid silk frock, white trousers, and burnished shoes, and, while her eyes sparkled joyfully when the dogs came bounding up to welcome her, she hardly touched them, fearing they might soil her splendid garments.
    She kissed me gently. Then she looked round for Heathcliff. ‘Is Heathcliff not here?’ she demanded, pulling off her gloves and displaying fingers wonderfully whitened from staying indoors.
    â€˜Heathcliff, you may come forward,’ ordered Mr. Earnshaw. ‘You may come and wish Miss Catherine welcome, like the other servants.’
    Cathy, catching a glimpse of her friend, flew to embrace him. She kissed him seven or eight times on his cheek and then drawing back, burst into laughter. ‘How very black and cross you look! Heathcliff, have you forgotten me?’
    Shame and pride threw double gloom over his countenance and kept him immovable.
    â€˜Shake hands, Heathcliff,’ said Mr. Earnshaw, condescendingly.
    â€˜I will not,’ replied the boy, finding his tongue at last. ‘I will not stand to be laughed at.’
    Miss Cathy seized him again before he could escape. ‘I did not mean to laugh at you,’ she said. ‘Heathcliff, shake hands, at least! What are you sulky for? It was only that you looked odd. If you wash your face, and brush your hair, it will be all right, but you are so dirty!’
    I must tell you that if Heathcliff was careless and uncared for before Catherine’s absence, it was ten times worse now. His clothes were dirty and covered with dry blood from wandering the moors. I could not say when he had last bathed. Truthfully, he had been gone from Wuthering Heights more than he had been there—where, I didn’t know, but I could guess. Gypsy slayers had been camping in the area, and while the vampires had been bold only weeks before, they were quieter again, keeping to themselves and the shadows.
    Catherine gazed at Heathcliff’s soiled fingers and then at her dress, which he had dirtied where he touched her.
    He snatched his hand away. ‘I shall be as dirty as I please, and I like to be dirty, and I will be dirty.’
    With that he dashed out of the room, leaving Catherine unable to comprehend how her remark had made him so angry.
    After playing lady’s maid to the newcomer, and putting my cakes in the oven, and making the house and kitchen cheerful with great fires, befitting Christmas Eve, I sat down to