Nelly Dean Read online

  It began with the measles. It was midsummer. My mother, I forgot to mention, had left her little cottage. It proved lonelier than she had expected, she said, without my father. And then Mrs Thorne, who had been much impressed with my mother’s good sense and practical energy, wrote to ask if she would come back to Brassing to manage the dairy Mrs Thorne had been persuaded by her to establish. She offered generous terms, including the purchase of all my mother’s cows, and my mother thought it best to accept. But her cows were not all as fresh-footed as young Reenie, and so my mother, as she put it, ‘turned drover for a time’, driving the cows before her at an easy pace, taking frequent rests, and boarding at farmhouses along the way.

  It was only a day or two after she had left that Hindley first took sick with the measles, and Cathy caught them soon after, and it fell on me to nurse them, for I had been through the measles already, as a baby. It was no easy task: Cathy and Hindley complained vociferously of their many discomforts, and called on me peremptorily for help as if every cup of water or basin to be emptied and cleaned were the only thing standing between them and a speedy exit from this life. Heathcliff I tried to protect from infection by keeping him away from Cathy, for his own sake, and because I could not imagine how I was to manage without him to fetch things up and down the stairs and keep the coal-bin loaded, the fire burning, and the kettle full. It wasn’t easy to keep them apart, but I told him that the excitement of seeing him would make Cathy’s fever worse, and I took to locking the door of the children’s sickroom whenever I was not there to guard it. But then Cathy’s fever reached a crisis, and she began crying out at one moment that she was afraid to die, and at the next that she could not bear to live another minute. After that, nothing in Heaven or earth, I believe, could have kept him from her. I woke from an exhausted nap to find my pocket picked and the key gone, and found them both in her bed, clasped in each other’s arms while Heathcliff sobbed and Cathy alternately burned and shivered. After that, Heathcliff took the infection, of course, though he hid it as long as he could, and took to his bed only when the telltale spots confessed his secret for him.

  Then the mistress took the infection as well, which was odd, for she said she had had the measles in her youth. As a patient, she was gentle and undemanding, but she fretted continually, dividing her time between dreading the loss of her children and fearing that she would leave them motherless. Hers looked to be a mild case, to judge from the spots, but Mr Earnshaw was concerned about her, and called in Dr Kenneth.

  He came later that day, looking harried and exhausted. The weather had turned remarkably hot – even the nights brought no relief – and this, he told us, had set off a rash of putrid fevers all over the neighbourhood, which had him running off his feet from morning to night.

  This was not the Dr Robert Kenneth who attended you, Mr Lockwood, but his father, Dr Richard Kenneth. The former was a lad only a couple of years older than Hindley and me, and he had often been a playmate of ours when we were quite small, and the doctor was a frequent visitor to the mistress. At fourteen – that would be a year or two before Heathcliff came – he had been formally prenticed to his father, and after that we saw him less. His father called him Robin, and Hindley and I, through some childish corruption of that with his last name, and because he used to be so slight he could sit between the two of us on one stout pony, had come to call him Bodkin, and Bodkin he still was to us, whenever we did see him.

  So Dr Kenneth came to see us, as I said. About the mistress he looked grave.

  ‘The whole system must be weak,’ he said, ‘to take ill of this after having it in her youth.’ He prescribed bed rest, beef jellies, and port wine, fortified with a brown mixture he left with us.

  Heathcliff was only just coming out in the spots when the doctor came, while Cathy and Hindley were in full bloom. The latter were noisy and demanding patients, as I said before, but Heathcliff was quiet as a lamb, and so I had assumed his was the milder case. But Dr Kenneth clucked and sighed as he examined him.

  ‘He’s not of English stock, I think,’ he said. ‘God only knows where his parents were from. These foreign-bred folk can take our common illnesses quite hard. I would advise you to watch him closely. And don’t set too much store by what he says, Nelly – I’m thinking he’s one of those that suffer in silence. Judge by his spots, his fever, and his appetite.’

  Dr Kenneth went into the next room, then, to talk to the master privately, and Bodkin motioned me over.

  ‘Father claims that whenever he hears a patient moaning and complaining a great deal, he has good hopes of their recovery. He says that crying out is almost as good as bloodletting for releasing poisons from the body. I thought at first that he only said that to cheer nurses with tiresome patients on their hands, but now that I have been observing cases with him, I think there is a grain of truth in it. Look to young Heathcliff, Nelly, and don’t let the other two wear you down.’ I assured him that I would.

  Seeing my hands full with the children, the master said he would take over the nursing of his wife himself, which he did, I must say, with great gentleness and thoughtful consideration. But everything else in the house fell onto my shoulders. Joseph, who had never had the measles and was mortally afraid of contracting them, made up a pallet for himself in the barn, and took charge of all matters in the dairy and out-of-doors, never setting foot in the house. There was no time to make cheese or churn butter, and it was too hot for milk to keep, so I made up the pots of porridge for myself and my patients with fresh milk instead of water; we set the two calves to nurse for themselves on our gentlest cow, and sent the remainder of the milk home with the dairymaid, who lived hard by with her parents and a pack of hungry brothers and sisters.

  The 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 f
rom 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 what we’ve seen in this heat, Nelly,’ he went on. ‘Some of it makes your wet shift look like a noble sacrifice to the cause of modesty.’ I laughed and shook my head. ‘No, truly,’ he said, laughing himself, ‘do you know Old Elspeth?’

  ‘I know of her,’ I said.

  ‘Well, Father and I called by her cottage yesterday afternoon.’

  ‘Was she ill?’ I interrupted. ‘It doesn’t speak well of her art, that she couldn’t cure herself, but had to call in a doctor to help.’

  ‘Nothing of the sort; she’s as hale as ever – it was we who needed her.’

  ‘Really! And I thought doctors and herbwomen were at daggers drawn.’

  ‘Not in this case. Father respects her. She serves more of the poor than he could get to if there were three of him, he says, and serves them well. And she makes a salve for the rheumatics that is better than anything. Gentlefolk won’t touch it if they know it comes from her, so Father buys it from her and dispenses it as his own concoction, and thus keeps everybody happy. But to get back to my story: we rode up to her cottage and knocked at the door, but there was no answer, and then we heard her in the garden behind the cottage, so we went round there. You know she is rather deaf, so I suppose she didn’t hear us coming. When we came upon her, she stood up from behind a bush, and can you guess what she was wearing, Nell?’ I shook my head. ‘A broad-brimmed straw hat!’ he announced, making his eyes wide with feigned shock.

  ‘Well, what is so surprising about that?’ I asked, a little puzzled. ‘I wear one myself, when I am working outside on a sunny day.’ Bodkin gazed at me expectantly, his eyes twinkling.

  ‘I am telling you, she was wearing … a broad-brimmed straw hat.’ It hit me then.

  ‘And nothing else?’ I gasped.

  ‘Not a stitch. The hat was the sum total of her costume. A woman over eighty! I tell you, I needed every ounce of my professional courage not to turn tail and flee.’ I collapsed into helpless laughter, and he with me, and we both sat there giggling like a pair of naughty children.

  ‘I would love to have seen her face when she saw you there,’ I said at last.

  ‘You would have seen little to amuse you, actually, for her face showed no awkward consciousness at all. I tell you, a savage chief from the Americas could not have borne his nakedness with more dignity than that old woman. She simply turned and strode into the cottage, then emerged later, clothed, and with the pot of salve for my father, and we all exchanged the usual pleasa
ntries as if nothing had happened. As we were leaving, Father turned to me and asked, “So, Robin, what do you make of that?” “Well, Father,” I replied, “I know that older ladies often cling to the fashions of their youth, but I had not realized that Elspeth was old enough to take hers from Mother Eve.” That made him laugh, and then we said not another word about it.’

  ‘You are a funny fellow, Bodkin.’

  ‘Well, laughter is the only medication I am at present qualified to dispense – that and tea,’ he added, ‘and the occasional article of dry clothing. And I see that those have had their usual miraculous restorative effect, so let us get you off to bed.’ But, before we could head up the stairs, we met the master and Dr Kenneth coming down.

  ‘What, not abed yet, Nelly?’ the doctor said. ‘Off with you, then, post haste.’

  ‘Please, sir,’ I asked, my old anxiety suddenly returning, ‘how is Heathcliff?’

  ‘His fever has broken, thanks to you,’ he said, ‘and he is resting peacefully. He should make a full recovery, as will Cathy and Hindley. This young woman, sir,’ he said, turning to the master, ‘has done heroic service for yon poor lad – all night long she ran back and forth to the old well, and up and down these stairs, to ease his fever with cooling baths – it was her own thought, and I could not have had a better one myself – and she wore herself near to collapse doing it. You have her to thank that he will pull through.’

  The master looked haggard and worn himself, from worry and sleepless nights nursing his wife, but at this he turned to me, and I saw tears in his eyes.

  ‘Come here, child,’ he said hoarsely. When I came up to him, he gestured me to kneel in front of him, and put both hands on my head. ‘God bless you, Ellen Dean,’ he said in a choked voice, ‘I think you were born to be the salvation of this house, and I swear that while I live you will always have a home here.’ His hands rested on my head, and we both remained there in silence, he standing, I kneeling and looking at the floor, for what seemed a long time, and then he said again, ‘God bless you,’ and released me. I was weeping by then, and could scarcely rise, but Bodkin helped me up, and led me up the stairs. At the top I saw Hindley, out of bed and poking his head out of his door. He flashed on me a look of such anger and pain that I realized he must have heard every word below.