Read Online The Other Cathy by Nancy Buckingham - Free Book Online
Authors: Nancy Buckingham
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you. To me, you are beneath contempt. I am only here this evening because I was ordered to be present by my uncle.’
His eyes blazed and Emma saw a pulse throb at his temple, but he made a visible effort to conquer his anger.
‘I am reprimanded and thoroughly abused for my faulty recollection,’ he said lightly. ‘Yet you cannot rob me of the version I prefer to remember. I have a picture of myself rid ing alone across the moor; the harsh, empty wasteland match ing my sombre mood. I can still experience the shock of seeing a tall, graceful girl standing alone upon the Abraham Stone almost as though she awaited my coming. We talked briefly, and my mood was suddenly transformed. A strange feeling of happiness possessed me. Afterwards, I almost came to believe that she was some faery spirit conjured up magically from my dreams. Then to my astonishment and delight we met once more in the prosaic surroundings of the local bank, and it seemed that she still smiled upon me. Those are the memories, Miss Hardaker, to which I shall obstinately cling.’
He rose to his feet, bowed and crossed the room to where Aunt Chloe still presided over her tea table. In a daze Emma heard him saying his adieus.
‘A very great pleasure. I hope and trust that you will do me the honour of dining at Oakroyd House when my domestic staff is sufficiently organised.’ His gaze swept the assembled company – Randolph and Chloe, Paget and Jane, lingering a moment upon Blanche and passing briefly to Cathy, but never quite reaching Emma herself. ‘All of you,’ he added.
When he had gone Emma sat silent and withdrawn, a hand pressed against her thudding heart. So he had felt it too, the strangely unreal sensation that those minutes spent together up by Black Scar Rocks had been stolen out of time.
Chapter Five
‘Tell Seth to try and find some white heather for me.’ Cathy’s voice was wistful as she gazed from her window at the purple- hazed moorland slopes rising above the house. She added art lessly, ‘Oh Emma, I wish it were I instead of you who went out riding with him.’
Emma, readjusting the cambric collar of her riding habit before the looking-glass in Cathy’s room, gave her young cousin a troubled glance. Constantly she alluded to herself and Seth as if he was one of the family; a very dear brother, or closer even than that; like Cathy and Heathcliff, she had suggested. What nonsense!
‘Seth doesn’t exactly come out riding with me,’ she pointed out gently. ‘He just accompanies me as a groom because your papa doesn’t permit me to go alone.’
‘It amounts to the same thing. If it were I it would, anyway. Oh, what fun we’d have, racing our horses and leaping the sheep walls, and climbing to the very top of Black Scar Rocks, and – and -’ Her eyes were bright with longing, and Emma saw she was becoming lost in her world of make-believe.
‘Well, I must be off now,’ she said matter-of-factly. ‘While I’m gone, why don’t you paste those nature pictures we cut out yesterday into your scrapbook. You always enjoy that.’
Cathy shook her head. ‘I don’t feel like it.’
‘How about working on the bead table mat for Aunt Jane’s birthday, then?’
‘I might, I’ll see how I feel. Emma, you won’t forget to tell Seth about the heather, will you? I want some sprigs from right up by the Abraham Stone.’
Seth was waiting in the stable yard with the two horses saddled and ready. He helped Emma to mount, and they set off along the grassy path that linked with the old packhorse track. But the golden brightness of the morning and the sweet fragrance of the air failed to lift her spirits,
‘Cathy asked for some sprigs of white heather from Black Scar Rocks,’ she told the boy.
‘Aye, happen we’ll find some there.’ For a few minutes they rode in silence, then Seth went on, ‘’Tis being said Miss Cathy is chronic bad. Gran’mer telled me that she’ll never see the winter.’
It was exactly
His eyes blazed and Emma saw a pulse throb at his temple, but he made a visible effort to conquer his anger.
‘I am reprimanded and thoroughly abused for my faulty recollection,’ he said lightly. ‘Yet you cannot rob me of the version I prefer to remember. I have a picture of myself rid ing alone across the moor; the harsh, empty wasteland match ing my sombre mood. I can still experience the shock of seeing a tall, graceful girl standing alone upon the Abraham Stone almost as though she awaited my coming. We talked briefly, and my mood was suddenly transformed. A strange feeling of happiness possessed me. Afterwards, I almost came to believe that she was some faery spirit conjured up magically from my dreams. Then to my astonishment and delight we met once more in the prosaic surroundings of the local bank, and it seemed that she still smiled upon me. Those are the memories, Miss Hardaker, to which I shall obstinately cling.’
He rose to his feet, bowed and crossed the room to where Aunt Chloe still presided over her tea table. In a daze Emma heard him saying his adieus.
‘A very great pleasure. I hope and trust that you will do me the honour of dining at Oakroyd House when my domestic staff is sufficiently organised.’ His gaze swept the assembled company – Randolph and Chloe, Paget and Jane, lingering a moment upon Blanche and passing briefly to Cathy, but never quite reaching Emma herself. ‘All of you,’ he added.
When he had gone Emma sat silent and withdrawn, a hand pressed against her thudding heart. So he had felt it too, the strangely unreal sensation that those minutes spent together up by Black Scar Rocks had been stolen out of time.
Chapter Five
‘Tell Seth to try and find some white heather for me.’ Cathy’s voice was wistful as she gazed from her window at the purple- hazed moorland slopes rising above the house. She added art lessly, ‘Oh Emma, I wish it were I instead of you who went out riding with him.’
Emma, readjusting the cambric collar of her riding habit before the looking-glass in Cathy’s room, gave her young cousin a troubled glance. Constantly she alluded to herself and Seth as if he was one of the family; a very dear brother, or closer even than that; like Cathy and Heathcliff, she had suggested. What nonsense!
‘Seth doesn’t exactly come out riding with me,’ she pointed out gently. ‘He just accompanies me as a groom because your papa doesn’t permit me to go alone.’
‘It amounts to the same thing. If it were I it would, anyway. Oh, what fun we’d have, racing our horses and leaping the sheep walls, and climbing to the very top of Black Scar Rocks, and – and -’ Her eyes were bright with longing, and Emma saw she was becoming lost in her world of make-believe.
‘Well, I must be off now,’ she said matter-of-factly. ‘While I’m gone, why don’t you paste those nature pictures we cut out yesterday into your scrapbook. You always enjoy that.’
Cathy shook her head. ‘I don’t feel like it.’
‘How about working on the bead table mat for Aunt Jane’s birthday, then?’
‘I might, I’ll see how I feel. Emma, you won’t forget to tell Seth about the heather, will you? I want some sprigs from right up by the Abraham Stone.’
Seth was waiting in the stable yard with the two horses saddled and ready. He helped Emma to mount, and they set off along the grassy path that linked with the old packhorse track. But the golden brightness of the morning and the sweet fragrance of the air failed to lift her spirits,
‘Cathy asked for some sprigs of white heather from Black Scar Rocks,’ she told the boy.
‘Aye, happen we’ll find some there.’ For a few minutes they rode in silence, then Seth went on, ‘’Tis being said Miss Cathy is chronic bad. Gran’mer telled me that she’ll never see the winter.’
It was exactly
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