Free Heathcliff's Tale by Emma Tennant

of doubt in me that I had walked behind none other than Heathcliff. He it was who led me to the place where he had run free with his childhood sweetheart, and where he must live on in bitterness as she indulges her desire for calm and comfort with another. This man who cried so copiously, thinking himself far from prying eyes, was the man his Cathy had refused when talking to the housekeeper by the kitchen door up at The Heights. And it was to this house that I knew he must now lead me.
    â€˜Who are you?’ The stranger’s voice was low and gentle: I would not have imagined it to issue from such a one as Heathcliff. ‘And’—for he saw by now that I had no evil intentions towards him—‘you must be lost, sir. Where are you from? Where do you go?’
    As he spoke, the good man—more of a saint now than a devil, I had to admit, but still as handsome as when I had first seen him, propelled me gently down a slope to the side of the now-invisible road. A light gleamed in thenear-night to which this New Year’s Day had, due to the gathering snow-clouds, sourly turned. My feet, I realised, as this kind stranger placed his hand on my back to guide me further in the direction of a huddle of buildings, were devoid of sensation. I shall never forget the gratitude I felt at that time, for the appearance of the man I saw as Heathcliff: he had known, somehow, of my sympathy for his sad fate, so I considered, and he had come to me like a shepherd who, after days searching in the blind whiteness of the snow, catches sight of a member of his missing flock.
    That this had indeed been pure conjecture came both as a sorrow and a relief to me. The stranger, as soon as he crossed the threshold of a hostelry dimly proclaiming itself as the Black Bull on a battered sign which swung alongside a lantern, was greeted with familiarity and respect. It was soon clear that my Heathcliff’s name was John Brown; references were made to recent work in the churchyard at Haworth, the chiselling of inscriptions and so on, which convinced me he must be sexton of the parish; and very soon, when I was seated in the ‘snug’ by a roaring fire and sipping a glass of hot brandy, I had forgotten my insistence on labelling my saviour by the name of a man I had never encountered. This had been due to hearing the dog up at the farm called for by this name, I concluded. But I was curious, I confess, to discover from the agreeable Mr Brown just what the connection could be between the man whose confession I had read just one long night ago at the Parsonage and the people hereabouts. Was Heathcliff, like Mr Bony, the Napoleon of popular nightmare, a bogeyman for the district? Where did he reside now, if still living? All this I determined to ask the good sexton when he returned from his conversation at a table with friends and companions and resumed the seat next to me, on the wooden bench by the fire.
    As it transpired, my new friend John Brown had many to visit on this bleak morning of 1st January last; and soon I desisted from following his progress round the room, a sense of tact and discretion preventing me from attempting to overhear the murmured expressions of grief—and, so it seemed—condolence, both given and received by the good sexton. There was a predominance of the mention of ‘Master Branwell’—that I will say—and on each occasion the sad demise of the son of that cavernous Reverend Brontë whom I had met briefly at the Parsonage was mentioned, poor Mr Brown wiped away a tear. But the name of ‘Miss Emily’, said with an altogether different and cautious-sounding ring, was, to my mind at least, the more affecting of the two recent bereavements suffered by the people of Haworth. I took the opportunity, therefore, when approached by the host and asked in the blunt tones so different from those of my native Leeds, if I desired more of the hot brandy, to double my order in the