Nelly Dean. Alison Case

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      My father came home earlier than usual, having finished Braithwaite’s wall not long after noon, but evidently my mother had expected this, for by the time he arrived the only evidence of our labours was the rich array of dishes crowded onto the clean white cloth on the table, and her own rather flushed and worn appearance – me she had already sent to wash and change into my Sunday best. My father seemed delighted by everything, and responded to my mother’s apologies for her own disarray by sweeping her into his arms for a kiss, and declaring she looked younger than the day he married her. Then, to my great astonishment, he did the same by me, then looked me up and down and declared me ‘the prettiest girl for ten mile around’ – a patent falsehood, but I blushed with pleasure all the same.

      ‘And for that, and because you’re a working lass now, and comin’ on for a grown woman, I’ve brought ye a bit of summat,’ wherewith he handed me a small package done up in blue paper. I opened it to find a pretty pink and green hair ribbon, of the sort travelling pedlars sell for a ha’penny. It was a small thing enough, but so much more than I ever expected of him that I felt my throat closing and my eyes filling with tears as I tried to thank him. It was hard for me to believe that this was the same man for whom I had felt such terror all my life, and from whom I had heard my mother beg Mr Earnshaw to protect me, only two days before.

      ‘She’s overcome, aren’t you, Nelly?’ my mother said hastily, apparently fearing a misinterpretation of my response. ‘Such a lovely thing, isn’t it?’ I nodded and smiled, but was still unable to speak.

      ‘Overworn is more likely,’ said my father. ‘You must have driven her hard to get all this made since this morning. She’s quite the slave-driver, isn’t she?’ he added aside to me in a loud whisper, at which I laughed and nodded again. ‘Come, let’s all eat before the poor girl faints away altogether.’

      And so we sat down together, to such a meal as I had never imagined eating in that house: my father jovial, and full of a gentle, teasing wit I had not known he possessed; my mother continually looking from one to the other of us, her face lit with joy; and myself, so lost in wonder at it all that I scarcely tasted the rich pork, the pudding, the apple sauce and buttered greens, or even the magical-looking little iced cakes, adorned with tiny candied flowers, that my mother produced with a flourish at the end. When we were done it was still early afternoon. My father pushed back his chair and sighed deeply with satisfaction, then looked about, as if in some puzzlement what to do next.

      ‘Did you ever settle with that fellow about the job, the other night at the Ox and Plough?’ my mother asked innocently.

      ‘Er, not entirely,’ my father replied, his face clearing, ‘but he’ll be there tonight, I expect. Maybe I’ll just drop by and see.’ And with that he was off.

      As we were clearing the things from the table, my mother turned the conversation to my new role at the Heights.

      ‘So, Nelly, now you are to be a servant in earnest. How shall you feel about that, do you think?’

      ‘I shan’t like it,’ I said frankly, ‘for Hindley and Cathy will get to play, the same as ever, only I won’t be able to join them any more. And how will Hindley learn his lessons, if I am not there to help him? And I shan’t have lessons at all, so I will not learn anything more. I will become as ignorant as Martha, who can scarcely write her own name.’

      ‘You would have to forget a great deal of the lessons you have had already, to become as ignorant as that,’ my mother replied. ‘And what is to stop you pursuing your lessons on your own? The books will still be there, and you are clever enough not to need help from a teacher, are you not? Indeed, you can still help Hindley with his lessons, and, in helping him, learn them yourself.’

      ‘But when will I be able to do that? The servants at the Heights are up before the family in the morning, and go to bed at the same time, and they work all the time in between.’

      ‘Oh, they will not be so hard on you as all that, just at first,’ said my mother. ‘And as you take on more responsibilities, you will find yourself more mistress of your time than you imagine. In just a few years you can become the housekeeper there, as I was, and a housekeeper sets her own tasks, and directs the other servants at theirs. If she manages her work well, she can always make time for herself to read and study.’

      My mother meant well, I’m sure, but the more she talked, the more bleak and laborious my future looked to me. Could a housekeeper make time to roll down hills and play hide-and-seek on the moors? And by the time I became one, would I even remember how to do these things? I decided to change the subject.

      ‘The new boy, Heathcliff,’ I asked her, ‘is he to be a servant, too?’

      My mother sighed heavily. ‘I don’t rightly know what they plan for him in future, but at present he is to be raised with the children, so you must think of him as one of the family, and treat him accordingly.’

      This was no more than I had learned for myself already, but hearing it from her was too much for me. ‘Why am I to be cast out, and he set up as my master? He is just some filthy boy off the streets, while I have been there almost from my birth, and I am Hindley’s foster-sister besides, and his kin, too, on our mothers’ side!’

      ‘You don’t need to tell me that, Nell,’ she said. ‘But I have always told you that you were not to think of yourself as one of the family, and nothing Mr Earnshaw does for this boy changes that. He has his own reasons, no doubt, that you cannot understand.’

      ‘Well, but I wish …’

      ‘Fie, Nell, do not make wishes. If you cannot pray for it or work for it, you may be sure it will do you no good to wish for it, and it may do ill. Come and sit here, and I will tell you a story about a wish, and the trouble it brought.’

      And so she did, and I will tell it to you. But to do that, I must take a fresh sheet, and give it a proper title, and all.

       FOUR

       The Heart’s Wish

      ‘You know that there are many stories about folk who help some magical creature – say a little man caught in a tree, or a hunted beast who turns out to be a man in disguise – and are granted three wishes in return? Well, once, not long ago, and near here, there was a man, a poor farmer on bad land, who was weary of breaking his back day after day, year after year, to put food in bellies that were never more than half full. Hearing these stories, he took it into his head that he must find a fairy or a goblin, and gain from it the wishes that would lift the burden of his laborious life, and allow him to live in ease and comfort. But he was not content to wait until he should stumble over such an opportunity, nor did he wish to waste his time and anger his neighbours by saving every hunted beast that came his way, in the hopes it might prove to be magical, so instead he resolved to catch one. Well, he gathered up every story of magical folk from all the country around, and sifted and sorted them in his mind, to determine what were their habits, where they might be found, and how he might get one into his power. Accordingly, he began leaving a cup of sweetened milk and a small plate of oatcakes (which he could ill spare) on the hearth at night, and in the morning he always found it gone. His wife derided him for his efforts. “What a fool you are to waste good food and drink on idle fancies, when it might have gone into our own bellies!” she said. “It is sure to be rats who have eaten the food, and now they will be all over the house, looking for more.”

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