Nelly Dean. Alison Case

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ days that followed recur to my memory now like time spent in another world. I seemed to be continually running or rushing about, except when I composed myself to attend to one of my patients, or collapsed into a few hours’ exhausted sleep before waking in terror that someone had died.

      Cathy and Hindley took so much of my time and attention that I all but ignored Heathcliff for a while. I was just settling them for sleep one night, when I heard a low moan from his bed, and turned to look after him. He lay on his back, still as death, and spoke not a word, but only panted faintly, his eyes wide with terror as they followed my motions, like a wounded fox that sees the dogs approach, and hopes for no mercy but a speedy end. I poured him a cup of water, and held up his head for him to drink it, and he drank greedily at first, his eyes fixed on me all the time, but swallowing seemed to pain him, and after a few gulps he leaned his head back and closed his eyes, and I laid him back down. I was speaking soothingly to him all the while – softly, so as not to wake Cathy or Hindley, but he said nothing, and gave no sign of recognition. When I felt his forehead his skin burned to my touch – Cathy and Hindley had been feverish too, but nothing like this.

      My heart smote me then, that I had not attended better to Bodkin’s advice. I thought, if I could not bring down his fever, he might die, and his death would be on my hands, for had I not neglected him, while attending to the others? I stripped the bedclothes off him, and his nightshirt as well. Then I wetted a cloth with water from the pitcher and washed him all over, in an effort to cool his burning skin.

      I have said it was hot, but there was at this time such a heat spell as I have never known before or since. Day and night, the air was still and sweltering; there was no coolness to be found anywhere in the house, even in the stillroom. Even the water in the pitcher was lukewarm, and it only sat on the poor boy’s skin like sweat, instead of drying off to cool him. I ran downstairs to fetch fresher – and, I hoped, cooler – water from the large jar in the kitchen, but it was little better. In my desperation, at length I bethought me of the well. Normally we drew our water from a shallow well in the courtyard, but the heat had caused the water in it to go foul, so we had resorted to an older well nearby, customarily used for watering the stock. It was a deep one, and water fresh-drawn from it had always the coolness of deep earth, whatever the weather. But the well was a good distance from the house, and the night black as pitch, with no moon, and stars obscured by the low haze of moisture in the air. I hastily prepared a lantern, though, and made my way as best I could to the well to draw a fresh bucketful. It was as cool as I hoped, so I filled my pitcher afresh and hurried back to the house to try its effect on my patient.

      His skin was still so hot to the touch, I half-fancied I could hear it sizzle when I applied the cloths, like water on a hot skillet. But the cool cloths did seem to give him some ease. His breathing slowed and became deeper, and his eyes looked less fearful. I lifted him again for another cool drink of water, and when he was done, his lips moved to thank me, though no sound came from them, and tears welled in his eyes. I kept up bathing him with water from the pitcher, but it was not long before it grew warm again and lost its power to cool him. Then I rushed out again to fill it from the well, and began all over again.

      Thus began the longest and strangest night of my life. I rushed back and forth from the well to Heathcliff’s sickbed, bathing his burning skin continually except when I ran out to replenish the water in the pitcher. I stopped only to drink water myself at the well, for the rushing in and out of doors and up and down the stairs kept the sweat pouring off me in rivulets, though I had stripped myself to my shift because of the heat. By the time I saw the first glow of grey dawn in the east, my arms and legs were quivering with exhaustion, and my breath came in sobs at each new exertion. Yet I dreaded the coming of day, for fear the sun would add to the heat, and make my struggle against Heathcliff’s fever yet harder.

      I had just drawn up the bucket from the well when I heard the steady clump of horses’ feet approaching. It was Dr Kenneth, and Bodkin behind him on a pony. I began waving my arms and shouting to them at the top of my voice, terrified that they would pass by without stopping (and that will tell you something of my state of mind, for there was no earthly reason for anyone to be on that road, unless it were to visit us). They clucked up their horses and hastened over to me, and it wasn’t until they were a dozen yards away that I recollected I had only my shift on! I quickly grabbed the bucket to my chest for cover, but it was full of water, of course, which duly sloshed all down my front. This, you may be sure, improved neither my appearance nor my composure. But good Dr Kenneth’s face expressed nothing but its habitual kind concern.

      ‘Good heavens, Nelly, poor child, whatever is the matter?’

      ‘Oh, Dr Kenneth, I didn’t listen to you, and now Heathcliff has the fever terribly bad, and nothing I can do will bring it down, and I’m afraid he will die,’ I sobbed out, and then commenced to babble incoherently about my long night, and my desperate efforts to cool the feverish child. Before I finished, Dr Kenneth turned his horse and hurried off to the house, pausing only to say a few words to his son in a voice too low for me to hear. His departure, and the relief that Heathcliff was now in better hands than mine, seemed to drain from me the last ounce of my desperate energy, and I crumpled to the ground and wrapped my arms around my knees, crying uncontrollably and shivering in my wet shift as if I had a chill wind on me instead of the same still heat as before. Bodkin slipped off his pony and came over to wrap his jacket around me, turning his head away as I hastily buttoned it down the front. Then he helped me up from the ground and half led, half carried me into the kitchen. There he blew up the fire, made tea, and put a mug of it before me with some oatcakes and a bit of jam he found in the storeroom. I shook my head – I could not imagine finding the strength to eat or drink.

      ‘None of that, Nelly. This is doctor’s orders. Food and something hot to drink, he said, and I’m not to leave you until you’ve swallowed some of each.’ I did manage to take some, then, which revived me enough to remind me how hungry I was, and I set to with some eagerness.

      ‘And now, Nelly, tell me where I may find a nightdress for you.’

      ‘They’re upstairs, in the cupboard in my room – that’s the second on the right,’ I said, and then added, in some confusion, ‘but I can’t put on nightclothes now – it’s already morning.’

      But Bodkin was already heading up the stairs.

      ‘Morning for those who have been sleeping all night, perhaps,’ he said, ‘but bedtime for you. Again, these are my father’s orders.’ And then he was off, to return a minute later with one of my nightdresses. ‘Here you are, milady,’ he said, ‘and here is your dressing room’ (opening the storeroom door with a flourish). That coaxed a laugh from me.

      ‘I can change more easily in my own room.’

      ‘Very likely, but you have not had near enough breakfast yet, and I can’t have you spilling jam on my best summer jacket.’

      ‘Is this your best?’ I asked doubtfully (it was a remarkably threadbare garment).

      ‘My best, my worst, and my middling all, for it’s my only one. Now go and change.’ I thought it best to obey, and indeed it felt good to get out of the wet shift and into something clean and dry. I felt shy of coming out of the storeroom in only my nightdress though, and poked my head through the door to say so.

      ‘You forget I am in training to be a doctor, Nell,’ he said. ‘Seeing folks in their nightclothes is a hazard of my chosen profession, just as getting run through with a sword is for a cavalry officer.’

      ‘Well, call up all your professional courage, then, for here I come.’

      Bodkin put some bread and cheese in front of me, and refreshed my mug of tea.

      ‘You would be astonished at СКАЧАТЬ