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  “Yes.”

  “Where did she come from originally?”

  “Why, sir, she is my late master’s daughter; Catherine Linton was her maiden name. I nursed her, poor thing! I wish Mr. Heathcliff would have come here and then we might have been together again, she and I.”

  “Catherine Linton?” I exclaimed, astonished. Surely not the ghostly Catherine. A chill skittered down my spine. If only I could tell this good woman what I had seen…. “Then my predecessor’s name was Linton?”

  “It was.”

  “And who is that Earnshaw, Hareton Earnshaw, who lives with Mr. Heathcliff?”

  “He is the late Mrs. Linton’s nephew.”

  “The young lady’s cousin, then?”

  “Yes. Heathcliff married Mr. Linton’s sister.”

  “I saw the house at Wuthering Heights has ‘Earnshaw’ carved over the front door. Are they an old family?”

  “Very old, sir, and Hareton is the last of them, as our Miss Cathy is of us—I mean the Lintons.”

  “What of the cloaked figures carved over the door? They could not possibly be vampires, could they? Not with a date so long ago. The bloodsuckers have only come to England in the last, what, forty years?”

  “I can give you no explanation of the carvings,” she said, tight-lipped. But then her manner changed. “So you have been to Wuthering Heights? I beg your pardon for asking, but I should like to hear how she is.”

  “Mrs. Heathcliff looked very well, and very handsome, yet, I think, not very happy.”

  “Oh dear, I don’t wonder!” She narrowed her gaze. “And how did you like the master?”

  “A rather rough fellow, Mrs. Dean.”

  “Rough as a saw-edge, and hard as whinstone! The less you meddle with him, the better.”

  “He must have had some ups and downs in life to make him such a churl.” I thought about the rumors of him being vampire. Of his aversion to the garlic tea we had partaken. But I didn’t dare ask outright. Maybe because I didn’t want to learn the truth, or maybe because I was enjoying too greatly the unraveling of the mysteries of Wuthering Heights and my surrounding countryside. “Do you know anything of his history?”

  “I know all about it, except where he was born, and who were his parents. No one knows that but the devil, I think.”

  “Well, Mrs. Dean, it will be a charitable deed to tell me something of my neighbors, so be good enough to sit and chat an hour.”

  “Oh, certainly, sir! I’ll just fetch a little sewing, and then I’ll sit as long as you please.”

  The woman bustled off, and I crouched nearer the fire. My head felt hot, and the rest of me cold, but I was excited by the prospect of hearing the sad tale of Wuthering Heights and its occupants.

  The housekeeper returned, bringing a basket of work, and drew in her seat, evidently pleased to find me so companionable.

  “Before I came to live here,” she commenced—waiting for no further invitation to her story—“I was almost always at Wuthering Heights. My mother had nursed Mr. Hindley Earnshaw, that was Hareton’s father, and I got used to playing with the children. I ran errands, too, and helped to make hay, and hung about the farm ready for anything that anybody would set me to. Those were good days, before the beasties set upon us.

  One fine summer morning Mr. Earnshaw, the old master, came downstairs dressed for a journey. After he had told Joseph what was to be done during the day, he turned to Hindley, and Cathy, and me—for I sat eating my porridge with them—and he said, speaking to his son,

  ‘Now, my bonny man, I’m going to Liverpool today. What shall I bring you? You may choose what you like, only let it be little, for I shall walk there and back. It’s sixty miles each way and a long spell!’

  Hindley named a fiddle, and then he asked Miss Cathy. She was hardly six years old, but she could ride any horse in the stable, and she chose a whip.

  He did not forget me, for he had a kind heart, though he was rather severe sometimes. He promised to bring me a pocketful of apples and pears, and then he kissed his children, said good-bye, and set off.

  It seemed a long while to us all—the three days of his absence—and little Cathy often asked when he would be home. Mrs. Earnshaw expected him by supper-time on the third evening, and she put the meal off hour after hour. There were no signs of his coming, however, and at last the children got tired of running down to the gate to look. Then it grew dark and she would have put them to bed, but they begged to be allowed to stay up. Just about eleven o’clock, the door latch raised quietly and in stepped the master. He threw himself into a chair, laughing and groaning, and bid them all stand off, for he was nearly killed. He said he would not have such another walk for the three kingdoms.

  ‘I was near frightened to death!’ he exclaimed. ‘It’s true, the rumors. The vampires have set upon our country. Twice, no, three times, I encountered them on my way home, and it was only by my luck and the bad luck of others that I was not attacked.’

  ‘My dear husband, you must tell me what happened!’ cried the lady of the house.

  ‘Not here. Not now.’ He eyed the children. ‘Later.’ Then he opened his great-coat, which he held bundled up in his arms.

  We crowded round, and over Miss Cathy’s head I had a peep at a dirty, ragged, pale, black-haired child, big enough both to walk and talk. His face looked older than Catherine’s, yet when he was set on his feet, he only stared round, and repeated over and over again some gibberish that nobody could understand. I was frightened, and Mrs. Earnshaw was ready to fling him out of doors. She demanded of Mr. Earnshaw how he could bring that gypsy brat into the house when they had their own bairns to feed and fend for? Those were the days before it was widely known that the best vampire slayers were gypsies and that the gypsies had some sort of powers over the vampires.

  Mrs. Dean held up a gnarled finger. “But Mr. Earnshaw, he was a wise man. A learned man he was, and he read books about the blood-seeking creatures and the threat they posed in various regions. He knew what was coming.

  “The master tried to explain the matter without frightening his wife with tales of vampires, I think, but he was really half dead with fatigue and did not have the patience for her. All that I could make out, amongst her scolding, was a tale of his seeing the boy starving and houseless in the streets of Liverpool. Not a soul knew to whom he belonged, he said, and both his money and time being limited, he thought it better to take the child home with him at once.

  The conclusion was that my mistress grumbled herself calm, and Mr. Earnshaw told me to wash the boy, give him clean things, and let him sleep with the children.

  Hindley and Cathy contented themselves with looking and listening till peace was restored, then both began searching their father’s pockets for the presents he had promised them. Hindley was a boy of fourteen, but when he drew out what had been a fiddle, crushed to morsels in the great-coat, he blubbered. And Cathy, when she learned the master had lost her whip in attending to the stranger, showed her humor by spitting at the little boy. That bit of nasty behavior earned a sound blow from her father. ‘Rather you should love him,’ said the master. ‘For it was his warning that saved me. While traveling home, our traveling party was ambushed. Together, he and I hid in a haystack until the fiends had sucked the life’s blood from my other companions.’

  Mrs. Dean looked at me earnestly. “I remember clearly, sir, as if it had only just happened. The master believed the boy had saved his life and that it was the great spilling of blood that kept the vampires from sniffing them out. They say the beasties smell the way they hear, with supernatural powers!”

  “Really?” I asked, enthralled with the tale. “Master Earnshaw believed the gypsy had saved him? Shouldn’t that have changed his wife and family’s opinion of the foundling?”

  “Should and would are often far apart,” she replied philosophically as she began to stitch a nightcap, drawing her needle in and out as she continued her story.

  “The Earnshaw children entirely refused to have the gypsy boy in bed with them or even in their room, so I put him on the landing of the stairs, hoping he might be gone on the morrow. Instead, he crawled into Mr. Earnshaw’s bedchamber and was found at the foot of the bed when daylight came.

  They christened him ‘Heathcliff.’ It was the name of a son who died in childhood, and it has served him ever since, both for Christian and surname.

  Miss Cathy and he became very thick, but Hindley hated him, and to say the truth I did the same. In those days, we didn’t realize how badly the moors would become infested with the vampires, or how greatly we would need the slayers.”

  “So the boy was of slayer stock?” I exclaimed. “I knew it!” I wanted to ask how the rumor could have started that he was a vampire, if all knew he was a gypsy, but I didn’t dare.

  “No one knew for sure what he was, except us, below-stairs.” She looked up at me. “A matter of speech, you understand, sir, for no one could abide long in the cellars of Wuthering Heights. There are dark tunnels there, you see, and a great, dark hole covered with an iron slab. Some say the hole leads to hell.” She began to stitch again. “Not that I’m superstitious, you understand, but some do say it.”

  “Well, it certainly makes sense. The gypsy orphan knowing to hide in the haystack whilst the others were slain,” I agreed. As for the entrance to hell she described, I was unsure what I thought, but I was too eager to have her continue to allow her to digress too far. “Tell me more about the child Heathcliff,” I urged, sliding up in my comfortable chair.

  He seemed a sullen, patient child who had an aversion to the few sunny days we saw on these moors. He was hardened, perhaps, to the ways of his people, we would guess later. He would stand Hindley’s blows without winking or shedding a tear, as if he had hurt himself by accident and nobody was to blame.

  This endurance made old Earnshaw furious when he discovered his son was persecuting the poor, fatherless child. He took to Heathcliff strangely, believing all he said. There seemed some bond between them we did not understand.

  So, from the very beginning, Heathcliff bred bad feelings in the house. At Mrs. Earnshaw’s death two years later, the young master had learnt to regard his father as an oppressor rather than a friend, and Heathcliff as a usurper of his father’s affections, and he grew bitter with brooding over these injuries.

  I sympathized awhile, but when the children fell ill of the measles, and I had to tend them, I changed my idea of Heathcliff. He was dangerously sick; however, I will say this, he was the quietest child that I ever watched over. The difference between him and the others forced me to be less partial. Cathy and her brother harassed me terribly; he was as uncomplaining as a lamb, though hardness, not gentleness, made him give little trouble.” She knotted her thread, threaded her needle once more, and began to hem the lace around the outside of the cap. “It made me certain he was a gypsy brat. They aren’t like us, sir. Not even human, perhaps.”

  “But he recovered,” I prompted, wanting to hear more facts firsthand.

  “He got through, and the doctor affirmed it was in a great measure owing to me, and praised me for my care. I softened toward Heathcliff, and thus Hindley lost his last ally. Still, I couldn’t dote on Heathcliff, and I wondered often what my master saw to admire so much in the sullen boy, who never, to my recollection, repaid his indulgence by any sign of gratitude. He was not insolent to his benefactor; he was simply unfeeling, but he had only to speak and Mr. Earnshaw would bend to his wishes.

  As an instance, I remember Mr. Earnshaw and the children once met upon a band of gypsies at a parish fair. The gypsies noticed young Heathcliff at once and it came about that they knew him and they knew his poor dead mother. The tale told was that the boy became lost in Liverpool from the others and was thought dead. When Heathcliff learned the tale, he begged that he should go with the gypsies to meet his relations and, at first, Mr. Earnshaw forbid it.

  ‘Gypsy!’ taunted Hindley, cuffing him heartily when his father walked away. ‘Orphan, gypsy.’

  ‘Tell him to let me go with them,’ Heathcliff insisted, allowing himself to be pummeled again and again, ‘or I will speak of these blows and you’ll get them from your father with interest.’

  ‘Off with you, dog!’ cried Hindley, threatening him with an iron weight used for weighing potatoes and hay in one of the market stalls.

  ‘Throw it,’ Heathcliff replied, standing still, ‘and then I’ll tell how you boasted that you will turn me out of doors as soon as he dies, and see whether he will not turn you out directly.’

  Hindley threw it, hitting Heathcliff on the breast. The boy fell, but staggered up immediately, breathless and white. The master did come along at that very moment and, taking pity, sent young Earnshaw home and allowed Heathcliff to catch up to the gypsies and go along.

  I do not know what the boy did that day and night with the gypsies, but I can tell you he returned a different boy. He somehow seemed darker, but carried a confidence I sometimes found frightening. As he entered the barn upon his return, Hindley demanded to know where he had been and what the gypsies had told him of his parentage. When Heathcliff did ignore the request, Hindley knocked him off his feet. I was surprised to witness how coolly the child gathered himself and sat down on a bundle of hay to overcome the qualm which the violent blow occasioned, before he entered the house to announce his return. I persuaded him easily to let me lay the blame of his bruises on a new horse purchased only the day before at the fair: he minded little what tale was told since he had gotten what he wanted in going with the strangers. He complained so seldom, indeed, of such stirs as these with Hindley that I really thought him not vindictive.”

  Again, Mrs. Dean met my gaze. “I was deceived completely, as you will later hear.”

  Chapter 5

  In time, of course, Mr. Earnshaw began to fail. He had been active and healthy, yet his strength left him suddenly, and when he was confined to a chair in the corner, he grew grievously irritable. He became preoccupied by the growing number of vampires in the countryside and worried what would become of his children. We understood that the vampires were flooding into England and Scotland from their native land of Transylvania, where human blood was becoming scarce, but none knew what to do about it. Mr. Earnshaw could not sleep or eat for his obsession with the bloodsuckers. All day he filled journals with plans for strengthening the defenses at Wuthering Heights, and at night he burned candle after candle to the nub. By then, he was barely able to walk without the steady arm of a companion. His temper flared over the smallest things, and even though his body had grown weak, he could still rage with the roar of a charging bull. Nothing would make him so furious as some suspected slight of his authority.

  This was especially true concerning Heathcliff. He had come to believe that the orphan lad could do no wrong, and he believed that the rest of the household was jealous. In his sickness, he became certain that because he liked Heathcliff, all hated him and longed to do him ill. In truth, the master’s favor did more harm to the boy than good. To have peace in the house, we all humored Heathcliff. That is never best for any child. Giving him what he demanded without question turned a gentle, grateful lad to a youth full of pride and black tempers. As expected, Heathcliff and Hindley clashed. Perhaps there was jealousy of the love Mr. Earnshaw showered on the foundling, but denied his own son. We’ll never know. But our peaceful home became a battleground as Hindley defied his father again and again, rousing the old man to fury. In a fit of rage, Mr. Earnshaw would seize his cane to strike Hindley, and his son would heap scorn on him, moving out of range of the ivory-handled weapon. More than once, we feared the master’s terrible wrath would be the death of young Earnshaw.

  It was a bad time for all. Two households of our small church were ravished by the bloodsuckers. The small son of the butler at Grievegate Hall, not fifteen miles from here, was sent to fetch cheese from their well house at twilight. Six years of age was all he possessed. The child had run the distance a thousand times, yet on that night, he was snatched up by a heartless vampire. When they found poor Georgie, he was as pale as clabber, and two great wounds gaped on his throat.”

  “The child was dead?” I asked, horrified and fascinated in the same blink of an eye. “Murdered by vampires?”

  “Worse,” the woman hissed. “Shortly after his recovery, he was found sinking his teeth into pigeons. Then it was rats and larger animals. The family did all they could, but little Georgie was lost to the darkness. When he sucked a parlor maid dry and went for his little sister, his own father surrendered him to the authorities.”

  “To be imprisoned?” I pleaded, although I knew what the penalty for murder was, even for a child.

  “Not that.” She shrugged her shrunken shoulders. “What else could be done? Once they get the taste of human blood, even a servant’s blood, they will hunt. And even a six-year-old vampire has the strength of three human men. Sadly, it is kill or be killed.”

  “Sadly,” I echoed. Then raised my gaze to her again. “Go on.”

  At last, our curate, who taught the little Lintons and Earnshaws their numbers and letters, advised that Hindley should be sent away to college to be educated and to learn skills in fighting the vampires. All knew the threat would be greater as time passed, and this was becoming a necessary part of a young man’s education. Mr. Earnshaw agreed, though with a heavy spirit, for he said—

  ‘Hindley will never succeed no matter how many schools we send him to. It isn’t in his nature to defend those who cannot defend themselves. He is my son and it shames me to utter such words,’ the old man muttered. ‘But Hindley will be nearly useless should the vampires sweep the moors and invade Wuthering Heights. He doesn’t have it in his soul in the manner that Heathcliff does,’ he insisted, rapping his stick. ‘Heathcliff is the one who will save our immortal souls in the end!’

  With the boy gone, I hoped heartily we would have peace. It hurt me to think the master would regret his own good deed by bringing the gypsy orphan home. And we might have got on tolerably, notwithstanding, but for two people, Miss Cathy and Joseph. You saw old Joseph, I dare say, up yonder. He was more religious in those days. He used the word of God to heap praise on his own head and flung curses on his neighbors.