The Other Cathy (29 page)

Emma scarcely heard Chloe leave the room. Absorbed with
her patient, dreading the start of another outgushing of
Cathy’s life blood, her heart was filled with rage against her
aunt.

It was still dark when the bedroom door opened and Nelly
crept in bearing a cup of tea. Emma was resting in the armchair and gave a start of surprise. She had not slept but was deep in the grip of her brooding thoughts.

‘How is she, miss?’ Nelly whispered.

‘It has been a bad night, Nelly. I gave her the draught Dr
Mottram prescribed but it did not help very much and she
was restless. Mercifully, however, she finally fell asleep about
an hour ago.’

‘Poor Miss Emma! Wore out tha must be. Will tha let me sit w’ her while tha gets some sleep?’

‘But you’ve hardly been in bed four hours yourself, Nelly.’

‘Heed not about that, miss. I’ve never seen thee looking so
tired and pale as this last couple o’ days. Do go to thy bed
while tha can.’

‘Perhaps I will, then. Thank you, Nelly. But you must promise to call me at once if she rouses.’

‘I’ll do that, Miss Emma.’

In her own room Emma set her candle on the pedestal
table and left it burning. She dropped on to the bed just as she
was in her clothes and pulled the counterpane round her. For the past few hours she had been through a dreadful time with
Cathy. Sometimes the girl’s hysteria about Seth’s dismissal
had reached such peaks that Emma herself was distraught.

‘There’s been some horrible mistake,’ she told her cousin
soothingly, ‘and somehow I’ll find a way of getting it put
right. Seth has gone to his grandmother’s, I understand, so he won’t come to any harm. Everything will turn out all right in the end, I promise you.’

But her promises were of no avail in comforting Cathy,
whose wild sobbing had continued through the long hours of
darkness.

It was broad daylight when Emma was awakened by Nelly
shaking her roughly.

‘Miss Emma! Miss Emma! Oh, ’tis dreadful. Miss Cathy’s
gone!’

Emma sat upright. ‘Gone? What do you mean?’

“She – she’s disappeared, miss.’

Leaping up from the bed, Emma ran across the corridor to
Cathy’s room, Nelly close on her heels. The unfortunate girl
was so choked with distress that it was difficult for Emma to
follow her gabbled explanation. She had been sitting in the
armchair and dozed off for a moment – only a moment. When
she awoke everything was in order, or so it seemed. Morning
had come but it was still dim with the curtains drawn across
the windows and just a single shaded candle burning. It was
only when she realised that Cathy hadn’t stirred for almost an hour that she nervously approached the bed, fearful of finding
that her young mistress had passed away. But to Nelly’s
shock and dismay the bed was empty.

‘Oh miss, I was so afeard! Ran all over t’house I did looking for Miss Cathy, but there weren’t no sign of her anywheres, so I come straight to thee.’

Emma held down her panic and forced herself to think. If
Cathy had made the supreme effort of rising from her bed, it could mean only one thing. She had gone to find Seth. That
meant she was intent on taking the moorland path to Ursly’s
cottage, which was impossible, of course, far beyond the limit
of her frail strength. Fervently Emma hoped she would find
her quickly quite near the house; she decided that there
was no need to send messages to Uncle Randolph at the mill,
and Aunt Chloe at High Banks.

‘Nelly, I think I know where Cathy is, and she can’t have
got far. I won’t be long. Please don’t tell anyone what has happened. I don’t want to raise the alarm unnecessarily.’

Outside it was a raw morning with a clammy mist rolling
down the valley. The very worst sort of weather for Cathy’s
impaired lungs, she thought miserably as she hastened along
the grass path that joined the ancient packhorse track. The steep climb up to the moor’s edge soon made Emma breath
less, and she marvelled at her cousin’s endurance. And what strength of purpose to have got so far! She reached the high
plateau and allowed herself a moment’s pause. Ahead, the
moor stretched grey and silent and mysterious, mantled by
curling wraiths of mist. Emma pressed forward as fast as she
could, expecting every second to come across a huddled shape
which would be Cathy collapsed from exhaustion. Pray God
she was still alive.

But as Emma hurried on, her eyes searching, darting from
side to side of the rugged lonely track, there was no sign of
Cathy. It was impossible, she decided at last, her cousin
could not have come so far. Somehow she must have missed
her. Emma was on the point of turning back, defeated, when
something red showed up against the peat-black of the track.
She ran forward and snatched it up; it was a cashmere shawl of Cathy’s that she must have thrown around her shoulders
before setting out on her foolhardy escapade. Emma was im
mensely heartened, but fearful too. Cathy would now have
nothing to protect her from the chill morning air. And how
was she to be got home again over such a distance in this
wasteland of heather and furze? Gathering up her skirts, Emma began to run.

‘Cathy!’ she called. ‘Cathy! Wait for me! I’m coming!’
But her voice was swallowed by the swirling mist, without
echo; and there was no answering cry.

At long last she began the descent into the shallow clough
where Ursly’s cottage lay. She felt it scarcely possible that
Cathy could have reached here; and yet – where else? Emma
crossed the stepping-stones, passed through the gap in the dry stone sheep wall, and hastened to the door. In her agita
tion she went in without knocking.

Ursly, carrying an earthenware crock of water in her hands,
glanced round and nodded at Emma.

‘So tha’s here, then!’

‘Is Cathy—?’

‘Aye!’ The old woman nodded towards a shadowy corner, where Cathy lay on a rough pallet covered with a patchwork blanket. Crouched beside her was Seth, who rose slowly to his
feet and faced Emma, flushing with embarrassment. Emma
ran to her cousin’s side and dropped to her knees, taking a
limp hand in hers.

‘Oh Cathy, that was a foolish thing to do,’ she chided. ‘To
come so far – in this, dreadful mist, too!’

Cathy’s thin fingers were burning hot and fluttered feebly like a trapped night-moth. But her eyes, two dark hollows in
the pale gaunt face, paid Emma no heed. They gazed beyond
her at Seth, and her lips were moving, as though reciting some
well-remembered phrases. Emma bent closer to her but the
voice was low and indistinct, just a feverish murmuring.

Emma laid Cathy’s hand back upon the blanket, and
glanced round at Ursly.

‘I think we had better send for Dr Mottram.’

‘There’s nowt he can do to aid t’poor bairn! She’s beyond
all help now, she is.’ The old woman’s voice quivered. ‘My
little pet, my sweetie! Slipping away from us in a minute,
she’ll be.’

Emma nodded sadly, knowing what Ursly said was true.
Bernard
should
be sent for, but even so he might not be at
home. If Seth could deliver the message at once it would take
nearly an hour for Bernard to get here. And Emma doubted whether her cousin would survive that long.

Cathy uttered a strangled cry and her voice was suddenly clear and piping.

‘Heathcliff, come here and kneel down again. Nelly, make
him
come.’

Seth shuffled his feet and looked ill at ease. ‘She’s been talk
ing on like this, she has, ever sin’ she come here, Miss Emma –
more’n a half-hour gone.’

‘It is just her sick fancy,’ Emma whispered. ‘Humour her,
Seth, it will bring her comfort. Kneel beside her and hold her
hand, and let her talk to you.’

Scarlet about the ears, the lad did as he was bid. With a
cry of delight, Cathy somehow found the strength to lift her
arms and clutch them wildly around his neck. Looking on
helplessly, Emma felt stabbed with misgivings at what she
was permitting, but it was too late now to separate them.

Cathy was babbling, ‘I wish I could hold you till we were
both dead. Will you forget me, Heathcliff ? Will you be happy
when I am in the earth?’

‘Nay, Miss Cathy, easy on!’ protested Seth, trying gently to extricate himself. But she clung to him all the more
tenaciously.

‘No! Oh don’t, don’t go. It is the last time. Heathcliff, I shall die! I shall die!’

So it was no longer Heathcliff the boy whom her cousin
saw personified in Seth – the wayward, gypsy-bred playmate
of Cathy Earnshaw’s childhood. Now in her sick, fevered mind
the years had sped by and he was grown into Heathcliff the
man. The Heathcliff possessed by a devouring need for ven
geance against those he believed had wronged him; yet
possessed, too, by such a wild, obsessive passion for the adult
Cathy that his very soul had entered into her soul and they
had become one ... the Heathcliff who would be haunted in a
torment of hell by Cathy’s ghost after she was dead, only
finding release when at last he joined her beyond the grave.
This was the sick girl’s deathbed vision of gentle, bewildered
Seth, the Hardakers’ stable lad.

Cathy was speaking again, her eyes bright and burning.
‘How strong you are! How many years do you mean to live
after I am gone?’ And then, with a wild, demented cry, ‘Kiss
me, Heathcliff! Let me feel the touch of your lips.’

Nervous and embarrassed, Seth averted his head, silently pleading for release. Emma felt hopelessly at a loss, knowing she should intervene but not knowing what was for the best. Ursly, however, had no doubts.

‘Do tha as t’lass says,’ she ordered her grandson. ‘Quick,
afore she goes, give her a proper kiss like.’

Seth hesitated a fraction longer, then turned to meet
Cathy’s eager lips. She clung to him fiercely, ecstatically,
whimpering with joy; then suddenly her frail body went limp in his arms. With great tenderness he lowered her back upon
the bed.

A sob escaping her, Emma dropped to her knees again and
laid a hand against her cousin’s cheek. It felt cool to her fingertips, and the pale, oval face looked marvellously serene.

‘Thank you, Seth, that was kind of you,’ she murmured
brokenly. ‘You made her happy at the end.’

He gave no answer, and Emma saw that his dark eyes were
misted with tears. While she and the old woman straightened the bed and covered Cathy’s face, the boy stood silent by the window, staring out.

At last, finding it an effort to speak, Emma said, ‘Dr Mottram must be fetched. He will know what’s to be done. Seth,
will you go for him, please? And—’ She hesitated, wishing
she hadn’t got to ask this of him. ‘Seth, my uncle must be told
at once. Will you go to the mill as well and find someone to
tell him what has happened.’

He nodded wordlessly, snatched up his cap and was gone.

Ursly sat in the ladder-back chair before the smoking peat
fire, her crooked fingers intertwining restlessly. Emma
hovered beside the bed, somehow not wanting to leave Cathy;
but presently she moved away and took the chair at the opposite side of the hearth.

‘Cathy was heartbroken because Seth was dismissed,’ she
said heavily.

Ursly made no reply, and Emma knew the old woman was
deeply affected by Cathy’s death – strangely so for one who must have witnessed death so often in her long life. When at
last she spoke her voice was thick with venom.

‘Innocent as a new-born babby, is my Seth. Him’d never steal, not a penny piece!’

‘I know that, Ursly. There must have been some mistake.’

‘There weren’t no mistake! As a warning, it were meant. A
warning to me.’

‘Whatever do you mean?’

Ursly didn’t seem to hear. A tear escaped her eye and ran
down her withered cheek. ‘My little Cathy!’ she muttered
huskily. ‘My poor little pet!’

Emma waited, but getting no answer to her question she decided it could not be left there, and went on, ‘I don’t under
stand, Ursly. What do you mean by saying that Seth’s dis
missal was meant as a warning to you?’

The old woman peered at her near-sightedly in the dim light of the room, then suddenly she leaned forward and there was urgency in her voice.

‘Tak’ my advice, dearie, and go off with that man o’
yourn. I know tha trusts him, and reetly. He never killed Mr
Hugh Hardaker.’

Emma took a quick gasp of breath. ‘You speak as if you
know that – know it for certain, I mean.
5

‘Aye, I do!’

Then tell me! Tell me, Ursly.’

‘That poor child there would never have come into t’world,
but for me. ‘Twere my potions that brought her mother safe
to childbed. Yet he give me no thanks for’t. Always hated me,
he has.’