Wuthering Heights
by
Emily Bronte

Part 5 out of 7




CHAPTER XXI



WE had sad work with little Cathy that day: she rose in high glee,
eager to join her cousin, and such passionate tears and
lamentations followed the news of his departure that Edgar himself
was obliged to soothe her, by affirming he should come back soon:
he added, however, 'if I can get him'; and there were no hopes of
that. This promise poorly pacified her; but time was more potent;
and though still at intervals she inquired of her father when
Linton would return, before she did see him again his features had
waxed so dim in her memory that she did not recognise him.

When I chanced to encounter the housekeeper of Wuthering Heights,
in paying business visits to Gimmerton, I used to ask how the young
master got on; for he lived almost as secluded as Catherine
herself, and was never to be seen. I could gather from her that he
continued in weak health, and was a tiresome inmate. She said Mr.
Heathcliff seemed to dislike him ever longer and worse, though he
took some trouble to conceal it: he had an antipathy to the sound
of his voice, and could not do at all with his sitting in the same
room with him many minutes together. There seldom passed much talk
between them: Linton learnt his lessons and spent his evenings in
a small apartment they called the parlour: or else lay in bed all
day: for he was constantly getting coughs, and colds, and aches,
and pains of some sort.

'And I never know such a fainthearted creature,' added the woman;
'nor one so careful of hisseln. He WILL go on, if I leave the
window open a bit late in the evening. Oh! it's killing, a breath
of night air! And he must have a fire in the middle of summer; and
Joseph's bacca-pipe is poison; and he must always have sweets and
dainties, and always milk, milk for ever - heeding naught how the
rest of us are pinched in winter; and there he'll sit, wrapped in
his furred cloak in his chair by the fire, with some toast and
water or other slop on the hob to sip at; and if Hareton, for pity,
comes to amuse him - Hareton is not bad-natured, though he's rough
- they're sure to part, one swearing and the other crying. I
believe the master would relish Earnshaw's thrashing him to a
mummy, if he were not his son; and I'm certain he would be fit to
turn him out of doors, if he knew half the nursing he gives
hisseln. But then he won't go into danger of temptation: he never
enters the parlour, and should Linton show those ways in the house
where he is, he sends him up-stairs directly.'

I divined, from this account, that utter lack of sympathy had
rendered young Heathcliff selfish and disagreeable, if he were not
so originally; and my interest in him, consequently, decayed:
though still I was moved with a sense of grief at his lot, and a
wish that he had been left with us. Mr. Edgar encouraged me to
gain information: he thought a great deal about him, I fancy, and
would have run some risk to see him; and he told me once to ask the
housekeeper whether he ever came into the village? She said he had
only been twice, on horseback, accompanying his father; and both
times he pretended to be quite knocked up for three or four days
afterwards. That housekeeper left, if I recollect rightly, two
years after he came; and another, whom I did not know, was her
successor; she lives there still.

Time wore on at the Grange in its former pleasant way till Miss
Cathy reached sixteen. On the anniversary of her birth we never
manifested any signs of rejoicing, because it was also the
anniversary of my late mistress's death. Her father invariably
spent that day alone in the library; and walked, at dusk, as far as
Gimmerton kirkyard, where he would frequently prolong his stay
beyond midnight. Therefore Catherine was thrown on her own
resources for amusement. This twentieth of March was a beautiful
spring day, and when her father had retired, my young lady came
down dressed for going out, and said she asked to have a ramble on
the edge of the moor with me: Mr. Linton had given her leave, if
we went only a short distance and were back within the hour.

'So make haste, Ellen!' she cried. 'I know where I wish to go;
where a colony of moor-game are settled: I want to see whether
they have made their nests yet.'

'That must be a good distance up,' I answered; 'they don't breed on
the edge of the moor.'

'No, it's not,' she said. 'I've gone very near with papa.'

I put on my bonnet and sallied out, thinking nothing more of the
matter. She bounded before me, and returned to my side, and was
off again like a young greyhound; and, at first, I found plenty of
entertainment in listening to the larks singing far and near, and
enjoying the sweet, warm sunshine; and watching her, my pet and my
delight, with her golden ringlets flying loose behind, and her
bright cheek, as soft and pure in its bloom as a wild rose, and her
eyes radiant with cloudless pleasure. She was a happy creature,
and an angel, in those days. It's a pity she could not be content.

'Well,' said I, 'where are your moor-game, Miss Cathy? We should
be at them: the Grange park-fence is a great way off now.'

'Oh, a little further - only a little further, Ellen,' was her
answer, continually. 'Climb to that hillock, pass that bank, and
by the time you reach the other side I shall have raised the
birds.'

But there were so many hillocks and banks to climb and pass, that,
at length, I began to be weary, and told her we must halt, and
retrace our steps. I shouted to her, as she had outstripped me a
long way; she either did not hear or did not regard, for she still
sprang on, and I was compelled to follow. Finally, she dived into
a hollow; and before I came in sight of her again, she was two
miles nearer Wuthering Heights than her own home; and I beheld a
couple of persons arrest her, one of whom I felt convinced was Mr.
Heathcliff himself.

Cathy had been caught in the fact of plundering, or, at least,
hunting out the nests of the grouse. The Heights were Heathcliff's
land, and he was reproving the poacher.

'I've neither taken any nor found any,' she said, as I toiled to
them, expanding her hands in corroboration of the statement. 'I
didn't mean to take them; but papa told me there were quantities up
here, and I wished to see the eggs.'

Heathcliff glanced at me with an ill-meaning smile, expressing his
acquaintance with the party, and, consequently, his malevolence
towards it, and demanded who 'papa' was?

'Mr. Linton of Thrushcross Grange,' she replied. 'I thought you
did not know me, or you wouldn't have spoken in that way.'

'You suppose papa is highly esteemed and respected, then?' he said,
sarcastically.

'And what are you?' inquired Catherine, gazing curiously on the
speaker. 'That man I've seen before. Is he your son?'

She pointed to Hareton, the other individual, who had gained
nothing but increased bulk and strength by the addition of two
years to his age: he seemed as awkward and rough as ever.

'Miss Cathy,' I interrupted, 'it will be three hours instead of one
that we are out, presently. We really must go back.'

'No, that man is not my son,' answered Heathcliff, pushing me
aside. 'But I have one, and you have seen him before too; and,
though your nurse is in a hurry, I think both you and she would be
the better for a little rest. Will you just turn this nab of
heath, and walk into my house? You'll get home earlier for the
ease; and you shall receive a kind welcome.'

I whispered Catherine that she mustn't, on any account, accede to
the proposal: it was entirely out of the question.

'Why?' she asked, aloud. 'I'm tired of running, and the ground is
dewy: I can't sit here. Let us go, Ellen. Besides, he says I
have seen his son. He's mistaken, I think; but I guess where he
lives: at the farmhouse I visited in coming from Penistone' Crags.
Don't you?'

'I do. Come, Nelly, hold your tongue - it will he a treat for her
to look in on us. Hareton, get forwards with the lass. You shall
walk with me, Nelly.'

'No, she's not going to any such place,' I cried, struggling to
release my arm, which he had seized: but she was almost at the
door-stones already, scampering round the brow at full speed. Her
appointed companion did not pretend to escort her: he shied off by
the road-side, and vanished.

'Mr. Heathcliff, it's very wrong,' I continued: 'you know you mean
no good. And there she'll see Linton, and all will be told as soon
as ever we return; and I shall have the blame.'

'I want her to see Linton,' he answered; 'he's looking better these
few days; it's not often he's fit to be seen. And we'll soon
persuade her to keep the visit secret: where is the harm of it?'

'The harm of it is, that her father would hate me if he found I
suffered her to enter your house; and I am convinced you have a bad
design in encouraging her to do so,' I replied.

'My design is as honest as possible. I'll inform you of its whole
scope,' he said. 'That the two cousins may fall in love, and get
married. I'm acting generously to your master: his young chit has
no expectations, and should she second my wishes she'll be provided
for at once as joint successor with Linton.'

'If Linton died,' I answered, 'and his life is quite uncertain,
Catherine would be the heir.'

'No, she would not,' he said. 'There is no clause in the will to
secure it so: his property would go to me; but, to prevent
disputes, I desire their union, and am resolved to bring it about.'

'And I'm resolved she shall never approach your house with me
again,' I returned, as we reached the gate, where Miss Cathy waited
our coming.

Heathcliff bade me be quiet; and, preceding us up the path,
hastened to open the door. My young lady gave him several looks,
as if she could not exactly make up her mind what to think of him;
but now he smiled when he met her eye, and softened his voice in
addressing her; and I was foolish enough to imagine the memory of
her mother might disarm him from desiring her injury. Linton stood
on the hearth. He had been out walking in the fields, for his cap
was on, and he was calling to Joseph to bring him dry shoes. He
had grown tall of his age, still wanting some months of sixteen.
His features were pretty yet, and his eye and complexion brighter
than I remembered them, though with merely temporary lustre
borrowed from the salubrious air and genial sun.

'Now, who is that?' asked Mr. Heathcliff, turning to Cathy. 'Can
you tell?'

'Your son?' she said, having doubtfully surveyed, first one and
then the other.

'Yes, yes,' answered he: 'but is this the only time you have
beheld him? Think! Ah! you have a short memory. Linton, don't
you recall your cousin, that you used to tease us so with wishing
to see?'

'What, Linton!' cried Cathy, kindling into joyful surprise at the
name. 'Is that little Linton? He's taller than I am! Are you
Linton?'

The youth stepped forward, and acknowledged himself: she kissed
him fervently, and they gazed with wonder at the change time had
wrought in the appearance of each. Catherine had reached her full
height; her figure was both plump and slender, elastic as steel,
and her whole aspect sparkling with health and spirits. Linton's
looks and movements were very languid, and his form extremely
slight; but there was a grace in his manner that mitigated these
defects, and rendered him not unpleasing. After exchanging
numerous marks of fondness with him, his cousin went to Mr.
Heathcliff, who lingered by the door, dividing his attention
between the objects inside and those that lay without: pretending,
that is, to observe the latter, and really noting the former alone.

'And you are my uncle, then!' she cried, reaching up to salute him.
'I thought I liked you, though you were cross at first. Why don't
you visit at the Grange with Linton? To live all these years such
close neighbours, and never see us, is odd: what have you done so
for?'

'I visited it once or twice too often before you were born,' he
answered. 'There - damn it! If you have any kisses to spare, give
them to Linton: they are thrown away on me.'

'Naughty Ellen!' exclaimed Catherine, flying to attack me next with
her lavish caresses. 'Wicked Ellen! to try to hinder me from
entering. But I'll take this walk every morning in future: may I,
uncle? and sometimes bring papa. Won't you be glad to see us?'

'Of course,' replied the uncle, with a hardly suppressed grimace,
resulting from his deep aversion to both the proposed visitors.
'But stay,' he continued, turning towards the young lady. 'Now I
think of it, I'd better tell you. Mr. Linton has a prejudice
against me: we quarrelled at one time of our lives, with
unchristian ferocity; and, if you mention coming here to him, he'll
put a veto on your visits altogether. Therefore, you must not
mention it, unless you be careless of seeing your cousin hereafter:
you may come, if you will, but you must not mention it.'

'Why did you quarrel?' asked Catherine, considerably crestfallen.

'He thought me too poor to wed his sister,' answered Heathcliff,
'and was grieved that I got her: his pride was hurt, and he'll
never forgive it.'

'That's wrong!' said the young lady: 'some time I'll tell him so.
But Linton and I have no share in your quarrel. I'll not come
here, then; he shall come to the Grange.'

'It will be too far for me,' murmured her cousin: 'to walk four
miles would kill me. No, come here, Miss Catherine, now and then:
not every morning, but once or twice a week.'

The father launched towards his son a glance of bitter contempt.

'I am afraid, Nelly, I shall lose my labour,' he muttered to me.
'Miss Catherine, as the ninny calls her, will discover his value,
and send him to the devil. Now, if it had been Hareton! - Do you
know that, twenty times a day, I covet Hareton, with all his
degradation? I'd have loved the lad had he been some one else.
But I think he's safe from HER love. I'll pit him against that
paltry creature, unless it bestir itself briskly. We calculate it
will scarcely last till it is eighteen. Oh, confound the vapid
thing! He's absorbed in drying his feet, and never looks at her. -
Linton!'

'Yes, father,' answered the boy.

'Have you nothing to show your cousin anywhere about, not even a
rabbit or a weasel's nest? Take her into the garden, before you
change your shoes; and into the stable to see your horse.'

'Wouldn't you rather sit here?' asked Linton, addressing Cathy in a
tone which expressed reluctance to move again.

'I don't know,' she replied, casting a longing look to the door,
and evidently eager to be active.

He kept his seat, and shrank closer to the fire. Heathcliff rose,
and went into the kitchen, and from thence to the yard, calling out
for Hareton. Hareton responded, and presently the two re-entered.
The young man had been washing himself, as was visible by the glow
on his cheeks and his wetted hair.

'Oh, I'll ask YOU, uncle,' cried Miss Cathy, recollecting the
housekeeper's assertion. 'That is not my cousin, is he?'

'Yes,' he, replied, 'your mother's nephew. Don't you like him!'

Catherine looked queer.

'Is he not a handsome lad?' he continued.

The uncivil little thing stood on tiptoe, and whispered a sentence
in Heathcliff's ear. He laughed; Hareton darkened: I perceived he
was very sensitive to suspected slights, and had obviously a dim
notion of his inferiority. But his master or guardian chased the
frown by exclaiming -

'You'll be the favourite among us, Hareton! She says you are a -
What was it? Well, something very flattering. Here! you go with
her round the farm. And behave like a gentleman, mind! Don't use
any bad words; and don't stare when the young lady is not looking
at you, and be ready to hide your face when she is; and, when you
speak, say your words slowly, and keep your hands out of your
pockets. Be off, and entertain her as nicely as you can.'

He watched the couple walking past the window. Earnshaw had his
countenance completely averted from his companion. He seemed
studying the familiar landscape with a stranger's and an artist's
interest. Catherine took a sly look at him, expressing small
admiration. She then turned her attention to seeking out objects
of amusement for herself, and tripped merrily on, lilting a tune to
supply the lack of conversation.

'I've tied his tongue,' observed Heathcliff. 'He'll not venture a
single syllable all the time! Nelly, you recollect meat his age -
nay, some years younger. Did I ever look so stupid: so
"gaumless," as Joseph calls it?'

'Worse,' I replied, 'because more sullen with it.'

'I've a pleasure in him,' he continued, reflecting aloud. 'He has
satisfied my expectations. If he were a born fool I should not
enjoy it half so much. But he's no fool; and I can sympathise with
all his feelings, having felt them myself. I know what he suffers
now, for instance, exactly: it is merely a beginning of what he
shall suffer, though. And he'll never be able to emerge from his
bathos of coarseness and ignorance. I've got him faster than his
scoundrel of a father secured me, and lower; for he takes a pride
in his brutishness. I've taught him to scorn everything extra-
animal as silly and weak. Don't you think Hindley would be proud
of his son, if he could see him? almost as proud as I am of mine.
But there's this difference; one is gold put to the use of paving-
stones, and the other is tin polished to ape a service of silver.
MINE has nothing valuable about it; yet I shall have the merit of
making it go as far as such poor stuff can go. HIS had first-rate
qualities, and they are lost: rendered worse than unavailing. I
have nothing to regret; he would have more than any but I are aware
of. And the best of it is, Hareton is damnably fond of me! You'll
own that I've outmatched Hindley there. If the dead villain could
rise from his grave to abuse me for his offspring's wrongs, I
should have the fun of seeing the said offspring fight him back
again, indignant that he should dare to rail at the one friend he
has in the world!'

Heathcliff chuckled a fiendish laugh at the idea. I made no reply,
because I saw that he expected none. Meantime, our young
companion, who sat too removed from us to hear what was said, began
to evince symptoms of uneasiness, probably repenting that he had
denied himself the treat of Catherine's society for fear of a
little fatigue. His father remarked the restless glances wandering
to the window, and the hand irresolutely extended towards his cap.

'Get up, you idle boy!' he exclaimed, with assumed heartiness.

'Away after them! they are just at the corner, by the stand of
hives.'

Linton gathered his energies, and left the hearth. The lattice was
open, and, as he stepped out, I heard Cathy inquiring of her
unsociable attendant what was that inscription over the door?
Hareton stared up, and scratched his head like a true clown.

'It's some damnable writing,' he answered. 'I cannot read it.'

'Can't read it?' cried Catherine; 'I can read it: it's English.
But I want to know why it is there.'

Linton giggled: the first appearance of mirth he had exhibited.

'He does not know his letters,' he said to his cousin. 'Could you
believe in the existence of such a colossal dunce?'

'Is he all as he should be?' asked Miss Cathy, seriously; 'or is he
simple: not right? I've questioned him twice now, and each time
he looked so stupid I think he does not understand me. I can
hardly understand him, I'm sure!'

Linton repeated his laugh, and glanced at Hareton tauntingly; who
certainly did not seem quite clear of comprehension at that moment.

'There's nothing the matter but laziness; is there, Earnshaw?' he
said. 'My cousin fancies you are an idiot. There you experience
the consequence of scorning "book-larning," as you would say. Have
you noticed, Catherine, his frightful Yorkshire pronunciation?'

'Why, where the devil is the use on't?' growled Hareton, more ready
in answering his daily companion. He was about to enlarge further,
but the two youngsters broke into a noisy fit of merriment: my
giddy miss being delighted to discover that she might turn his
strange talk to matter of amusement.

'Where is the use of the devil in that sentence?' tittered Linton.
'Papa told you not to say any bad words, and you can't open your
mouth without one. Do try to behave like a gentleman, now do!'

'If thou weren't more a lass than a lad, I'd fell thee this minute,
I would; pitiful lath of a crater!' retorted the angry boor,
retreating, while his face burnt with mingled rage and
mortification! for he was conscious of being insulted, and
embarrassed how to resent it.

Mr. Heathcliff having overheard the conversation, as well as I,
smiled when he saw him go; but immediately afterwards cast a look
of singular aversion on the flippant pair, who remained chattering
in the door-way: the boy finding animation enough while discussing
Hareton's faults and deficiencies, and relating anecdotes of his
goings on; and the girl relishing his pert and spiteful sayings,
without considering the ill-nature they evinced. I began to
dislike, more than to compassionate Linton, and to excuse his
father in some measure for holding him cheap.

We stayed till afternoon: I could not tear Miss Cathy away sooner;
but happily my master had not quitted his apartment, and remained
ignorant of our prolonged absence. As we walked home, I would fain
have enlightened my charge on the characters of the people we had
quitted: but she got it into her head that I was prejudiced
against them.

'Aha!' she cried, 'you take papa's side, Ellen: you are partial I
know; or else you wouldn't have cheated me so many years into the
notion that Linton lived a long way from here. I'm really
extremely angry; only I'm so pleased I can't show it! But you must
hold your tongue about MY uncle; he's my uncle, remember; and I'll
scold papa for quarrelling with him.'

And so she ran on, till I relinquished the endeavour to convince
her of her mistake. She did not mention the visit that night,
because she did not see Mr. Linton. Next day it all came out,
sadly to my chagrin; and still I was not altogether sorry: I
thought the burden of directing and warning would be more
efficiently borne by him than me. But he was too timid in giving
satisfactory reasons for his wish that she should shun connection
with the household of the Heights, and Catherine liked good reasons
for every restraint that harassed her petted will.

'Papa!' she exclaimed, after the morning's salutations, 'guess whom
I saw yesterday, in my walk on the moors. Ah, papa, you started!
you've not done right, have you, now? I saw - but listen, and you
shall hear how I found you out; and Ellen, who is in league with
you, and yet pretended to pity me so, when I kept hoping, and was
always disappointed about Linton's coming back!'

She gave a faithful account of her excursion and its consequences;
and my master, though he cast more than one reproachful look at me,
said nothing till she had concluded. Then he drew her to him, and
asked if she knew why he had concealed Linton's near neighbourhood
from her? Could she think it was to deny her a pleasure that she
might harmlessly enjoy?

'It was because you disliked Mr. Heathcliff,' she answered.

'Then you believe I care more for my own feelings than yours,
Cathy?' he said. 'No, it was not because I disliked Mr.
Heathcliff, but because Mr. Heathcliff dislikes me; and is a most
diabolical man, delighting to wrong and ruin those he hates, if
they give him the slightest opportunity. I knew that you could not
keep up an acquaintance with your cousin without being brought into
contact with him; and I knew he would detest you on my account; so
for your own good, and nothing else, I took precautions that you
should not see Linton again. I meant to explain this some time as
you grew older, and I'm sorry I delayed it.'

'But Mr. Heathcliff was quite cordial, papa,' observed Catherine,
not at all convinced; 'and he didn't object to our seeing each
other: he said I might come to his house when I pleased; only I
must not tell you, because you had quarrelled with him, and would
not forgive him for marrying aunt Isabella. And you won't. YOU
are the one to be blamed: he is willing to let us be friends, at
least; Linton and I; and you are not.'

My master, perceiving that she would not take his word for her
uncle-in-law's evil disposition, gave a hasty sketch of his conduct
to Isabella, and the manner in which Wuthering Heights became his
property. He could not bear to discourse long upon the topic; for
though he spoke little of it, he still felt the same horror and
detestation of his ancient enemy that had occupied his heart ever
since Mrs. Linton's death. 'She might have been living yet, if it
had not been for him!' was his constant bitter reflection; and, in
his eyes, Heathcliff seemed a murderer. Miss Cathy - conversant
with no bad deeds except her own slight acts of disobedience,
injustice, and passion, arising from hot temper and
thoughtlessness, and repented of on the day they were committed -
was amazed at the blackness of spirit that could brood on and cover
revenge for years, and deliberately prosecute its plans without a
visitation of remorse. She appeared so deeply impressed and
shocked at this new view of human nature - excluded from all her
studies and all her ideas till now - that Mr. Edgar deemed it
unnecessary to pursue the subject. He merely added: 'You will
know hereafter, darling, why I wish you to avoid his house and
family; now return to your old employments and amusements, and
think no more about them.'

Catherine kissed her father, and sat down quietly to her lessons
for a couple of hours, according to custom; then she accompanied
him into the grounds, and the whole day passed as usual: but in
the evening, when she had retired to her room, and I went to help
her to undress, I found her crying, on her knees by the bedside.

'Oh, fie, silly child!' I exclaimed. 'If you had any real griefs
you'd be ashamed to waste a tear on this little contrariety. You
never had one shadow of substantial sorrow, Miss Catherine.
Suppose, for a minute, that master and I were dead, and you were by
yourself in the world: how would you feel, then? Compare the
present occasion with such an affliction as that, and be thankful
for the friends you have, instead of coveting more.'

'I'm not crying for myself, Ellen,' she answered, 'it's for him.
He expected to see me again to-morrow, and there he'll be so
disappointed: and he'll wait for me, and I sha'n't come!'

'Nonsense!' said I, 'do you imagine he has thought as much of you
as you have of him? Hasn't he Hareton for a companion? Not one in
a hundred would weep at losing a relation they had just seen twice,
for two afternoons. Linton will conjecture how it is, and trouble
himself no further about you.'

'But may I not write a note to tell him why I cannot come?' she
asked, rising to her feet. 'And just send those books I promised
to lend him? His books are not as nice as mine, and he wanted to
have them extremely, when I told him how interesting they were.
May I not, Ellen?'

'No, indeed! no, indeed!' replied I with decision. 'Then he would
write to you, and there'd never be an end of it. No, Miss
Catherine, the acquaintance must be dropped entirely: so papa
expects, and I shall see that it is done.'

'But how can one little note - ?' she recommenced, putting on an
imploring countenance.

'Silence!' I interrupted. 'We'll not begin with your little notes.
Get into bed.'

She threw at me a very naughty look, so naughty that I would not
kiss her good-night at first: I covered her up, and shut her door,
in great displeasure; but, repenting half-way, I returned softly,
and lo! there was Miss standing at the table with a bit of blank
paper before her and a pencil in her hand, which she guiltily
slipped out of sight on my entrance.

'You'll get nobody to take that, Catherine,' I said, 'if you write
it; and at present I shall put out your candle.'

I set the extinguisher on the flame, receiving as I did so a slap
on my hand and a petulant 'cross thing!' I then quitted her again,
and she drew the bolt in one of her worst, most peevish humours.
The letter was finished and forwarded to its destination by a milk-
fetcher who came from the village; but that I didn't learn till
some time afterwards. Weeks passed on, and Cathy recovered her
temper; though she grew wondrous fond of stealing off to corners by
herself and often, if I came near her suddenly while reading, she
would start and bend over the book, evidently desirous to hide it;
and I detected edges of loose paper sticking out beyond the leaves.
She also got a trick of coming down early in the morning and
lingering about the kitchen, as if she were expecting the arrival
of something; and she had a small drawer in a cabinet in the
library, which she would trifle over for hours, and whose key she
took special care to remove when she left it.

One day, as she inspected this drawer, I observed that the
playthings and trinkets which recently formed its contents were
transmuted into bits of folded paper. My curiosity and suspicions
were roused; I determined to take a peep at her mysterious
treasures; so, at night, as soon as she and my master were safe
upstairs, I searched, and readily found among my house keys one
that would fit the lock. Having opened, I emptied the whole
contents into my apron, and took them with me to examine at leisure
in my own chamber. Though I could not but suspect, I was still
surprised to discover that they were a mass of correspondence -
daily almost, it must have been - from Linton Heathcliff: answers
to documents forwarded by her. The earlier dated were embarrassed
and short; gradually, however, they expanded into copious love-
letters, foolish, as the age of the writer rendered natural, yet
with touches here and there which I thought were borrowed from a
more experienced source. Some of them struck me as singularly odd
compounds of ardour and flatness; commencing in strong feeling, and
concluding in the affected, wordy style that a schoolboy might use
to a fancied, incorporeal sweetheart. Whether they satisfied Cathy
I don't know; but they appeared very worthless trash to me. After
turning over as many as I thought proper, I tied them in a
handkerchief and set them aside, relocking the vacant drawer.

Following her habit, my young lady descended early, and visited the
kitchen: I watched her go to the door, on the arrival of a certain
little boy; and, while the dairymaid filled his can, she tucked
something into his jacket pocket, and plucked something out. I
went round by the garden, and laid wait for the messenger; who
fought valorously to defend his trust, and we spilt the milk
between us; but I succeeded in abstracting the epistle; and,
threatening serious consequences if he did not look sharp home, I
remained under the wall and perused Miss Cathy's affectionate
composition. It was more simple and more eloquent than her
cousin's: very pretty and very silly. I shook my head, and went
meditating into the house. The day being wet, she could not divert
herself with rambling about the park; so, at the conclusion of her
morning studies, she resorted to the solace of the drawer. Her
father sat reading at the table; and I, on purpose, had sought a
bit of work in some unripped fringes of the window-curtain, keeping
my eye steadily fixed on her proceedings. Never did any bird
flying back to a plundered nest, which it had left brimful of
chirping young ones, express more complete despair, in its
anguished cries and flutterings, than she by her single 'Oh!' and
the change that transfigured her late happy countenance. Mr.
Linton looked up.

'What is the matter, love? Have you hurt yourself?' he said.

His tone and look assured her HE had not been the discoverer of the
hoard.

'No, papa!' she gasped. 'Ellen! Ellen! come up-stairs - I'm sick!'

I obeyed her summons, and accompanied her out.

'Oh, Ellen! you have got them,' she commenced immediately, dropping
on her knees, when we were enclosed alone. 'Oh, give them to me,
and I'll never, never do so again! Don't tell papa. You have not
told papa, Ellen? say you have not? I've been exceedingly naughty,
but I won't do it any more!'

With a grave severity in my manner I bade her stand up.

'So,' I exclaimed, 'Miss Catherine, you are tolerably far on, it
seems: you may well be ashamed of them! A fine bundle of trash
you study in your leisure hours, to be sure: why, it's good enough
to be printed! And what do you suppose the master will think when
I display it before him? I hav'n't shown it yet, but you needn't
imagine I shall keep your ridiculous secrets. For shame! and you
must have led the way in writing such absurdities: he would not
have thought of beginning, I'm certain.'

'I didn't! I didn't!' sobbed Cathy, fit to break her heart. 'I
didn't once think of loving him till - '

'LOVING!' cried I, as scornfully as I could utter the word.
'LOVING! Did anybody ever hear the like! I might just as well
talk of loving the miller who comes once a year to buy our corn.
Pretty loving, indeed! and both times together you have seen Linton
hardly four hours in your life! Now here is the babyish trash.
I'm going with it to the library; and we'll see what your father
says to such LOVING.'

She sprang at her precious epistles, but I hold them above my head;
and then she poured out further frantic entreaties that I would
burn them - do anything rather than show them. And being really
fully as much inclined to laugh as scold - for I esteemed it all
girlish vanity - I at length relented in a measure, and asked, -
'If I consent to burn them, will you promise faithfully neither to
send nor receive a letter again, nor a book (for I perceive you
have sent him books), nor locks of hair, nor rings, nor
playthings?'

'We don't send playthings,' cried Catherine, her pride overcoming
her shame.

'Nor anything at all, then, my lady?' I said. 'Unless you will,
here I go.'

'I promise, Ellen!' she cried, catching my dress. 'Oh, put them in
the fire, do, do!'

But when I proceeded to open a place with the poker the sacrifice
was too painful to be borne. She earnestly supplicated that I
would spare her one or two.

'One or two, Ellen, to keep for Linton's sake!'

I unknotted the handkerchief, and commenced dropping them in from
an angle, and the flame curled up the chimney.

'I will have one, you cruel wretch!' she screamed, darting her hand
into the fire, and drawing forth some half-consumed fragments, at
the expense of her fingers.

'Very well - and I will have some to exhibit to papa!' I answered,
shaking back the rest into the bundle, and turning anew to the
door.

She emptied her blackened pieces into the flames, and motioned me
to finish the immolation. It was done; I stirred up the ashes, and
interred them under a shovelful of coals; and she mutely, and with
a sense of intense injury, retired to her private apartment. I
descended to tell my master that the young lady's qualm of sickness
was almost gone, but I judged it best for her to lie down a while.
She wouldn't dine; but she reappeared at tea, pale, and red about
the eyes, and marvellously subdued in outward aspect. Next morning
I answered the letter by a slip of paper, inscribed, 'Master
Heathcliff is requested to send no more notes to Miss Linton, as
she will not receive them.' And, henceforth, the little boy came
with vacant pockets.



CHAPTER XXII



SUMMER drew to an end, and early autumn: it was past Michaelmas,
but the harvest was late that year, and a few of our fields were
still uncleared. Mr. Linton and his daughter would frequently walk
out among the reapers; at the carrying of the last sheaves they
stayed till dusk, and the evening happening to be chill and damp,
my master caught a bad cold, that settled obstinately on his lungs,
and confined him indoors throughout the whole of the winter, nearly
without intermission.

Poor Cathy, frightened from her little romance, had been
considerably sadder and duller since its abandonment; and her
father insisted on her reading less, and taking more exercise. She
had his companionship no longer; I esteemed it a duty to supply its
lack, as much as possible, with mine: an inefficient substitute;
for I could only spare two or three hours, from my numerous diurnal
occupations, to follow her footsteps, and then my society was
obviously less desirable than his.

On an afternoon in October, or the beginning of November - a fresh
watery afternoon, when the turf and paths were rustling with moist,
withered leaves, and the cold blue sky was half hidden by clouds -
dark grey streamers, rapidly mounting from the west, and boding
abundant rain - I requested my young lady to forego her ramble,
because I was certain of showers. She refused; and I unwillingly
donned a cloak, and took my umbrella to accompany her on a stroll
to the bottom of the park: a formal walk which she generally
affected if low-spirited - and that she invariably was when Mr.
Edgar had been worse than ordinary, a thing never known from his
confession, but guessed both by her and me from his increased
silence and the melancholy of his countenance. She went sadly on:
there was no running or bounding now, though the chill wind might
well have tempted her to race. And often, from the side of my eye,
I could detect her raising a hand, and brushing something off her
cheek. I gazed round for a means of diverting her thoughts. On
one side of the road rose a high, rough bank, where hazels and
stunted oaks, with their roots half exposed, held uncertain tenure:
the soil was too loose for the latter; and strong winds had blown
some nearly horizontal. In summer Miss Catherine delighted to
climb along these trunks, and sit in the branches, swinging twenty
feet above the ground; and I, pleased with her agility and her
light, childish heart, still considered it proper to scold every
time I caught her at such an elevation, but so that she knew there
was no necessity for descending. From dinner to tea she would lie
in her breeze-rocked cradle, doing nothing except singing old songs
- my nursery lore - to herself, or watching the birds, joint
tenants, feed and entice their young ones to fly: or nestling with
closed lids, half thinking, half dreaming, happier than words can
express.

'Look, Miss!' I exclaimed, pointing to a nook under the roots of
one twisted tree. 'Winter is not here yet. There's a little
flower up yonder, the last bud from the multitude of bluebells that
clouded those turf steps in July with a lilac mist. Will you
clamber up, and pluck it to show to papa?' Cathy stared a long
time at the lonely blossom trembling in its earthy shelter, and
replied, at length - 'No, I'll not touch it: but it looks
melancholy, does it not, Ellen?'

'Yes,' I observed, 'about as starved and suckless as you your
cheeks are bloodless; let us take hold of hands and run. You're so
low, I daresay I shall keep up with you.'

'No,' she repeated, and continued sauntering on, pausing at
intervals to muse over a bit of moss, or a tuft of blanched grass,
or a fungus spreading its bright orange among the heaps of brown
foliage; and, ever and anon, her hand was lifted to her averted
face.

'Catherine, why are you crying, love?' I asked, approaching and
putting my arm over her shoulder. 'You mustn't cry because papa
has a cold; be thankful it is nothing worse.'

She now put no further restraint on her tears; her breath was
stifled by sobs.

'Oh, it will be something worse,' she said. 'And what shall I do
when papa and you leave me, and I am by myself? I can't forget
your words, Ellen; they are always in my ear. How life will be
changed, how dreary the world will be, when papa and you are dead.'

'None can tell whether you won't die before us,' I replied. 'It's
wrong to anticipate evil. We'll hope there are years and years to
come before any of us go: master is young, and I am strong, and
hardly forty-five. My mother lived till eighty, a canty dame to
the last. And suppose Mr. Linton I were spared till he saw sixty,
that would be more years than you have counted, Miss. And would it
not be foolish to mourn a calamity above twenty years beforehand?'

'But Aunt Isabella was younger than papa,' she remarked, gazing up
with timid hope to seek further consolation.

'Aunt Isabella had not you and me to nurse her,' I replied. 'She
wasn't as happy as Master: she hadn't as much to live for. All
you need do, is to wait well on your father, and cheer him by
letting him see you cheerful; and avoid giving him anxiety on any
subject: mind that, Cathy! I'll not disguise but you might kill
him if you were wild and reckless, and cherished a foolish,
fanciful affection for the son of a person who would be glad to
have him in his grave; and allowed him to discover that you fretted
over the separation he has judged it expedient to make.'

'I fret about nothing on earth except papa's illness,' answered my
companion. 'I care for nothing in comparison with papa. And I'll
never - never - oh, never, while I have my senses, do an act or say
a word to vex him. I love him better than myself, Ellen; and I
know it by this: I pray every night that I may live after him;
because I would rather be miserable than that he should be: that
proves I love him better than myself.'

'Good words,' I replied. 'But deeds must prove it also; and after
he is well, remember you don't forget resolutions formed in the
hour of fear.'

As we talked, we neared a door that opened on the road; and my
young lady, lightening into sunshine again, climbed up and seated
herself on the top of the wall, reaching over to gather some hips
that bloomed scarlet on the summit branches of the wild-rose trees
shadowing the highway side: the lower fruit had disappeared, but
only birds could touch the upper, except from Cathy's present
station. In stretching to pull them, her hat fell off; and as the
door was locked, she proposed scrambling down to recover it. I bid
her be cautious lest she got a fall, and she nimbly disappeared.
But the return was no such easy matter: the stones were smooth and
neatly cemented, and the rose-bushes and black-berry stragglers
could yield no assistance in re-ascending. I, like a fool, didn't
recollect that, till I heard her laughing and exclaiming - 'Ellen!
you'll have to fetch the key, or else I must run round to the
porter's lodge. I can't scale the ramparts on this side!'

'Stay where you are,' I answered; 'I have my bundle of keys in my
pocket: perhaps I may manage to open it; if not, I'll go.'

Catherine amused herself with dancing to and fro before the door,
while I tried all the large keys in succession. I had applied the
last, and found that none would do; so, repeating my desire that
she would remain there, I was about to hurry home as fast as I
could, when an approaching sound arrested me. It was the trot of a
horse; Cathy's dance stopped also.

'Who is that?' I whispered.

'Ellen, I wish you could open the door,' whispered back my
companion, anxiously.

'Ho, Miss Linton!' cried a deep voice (the rider's), 'I'm glad to
meet you. Don't be in haste to enter, for I have an explanation to
ask and obtain.'

'I sha'n't speak to you, Mr. Heathcliff,' answered Catherine.
'Papa says you are a wicked man, and you hate both him and me; and
Ellen says the same.'

'That is nothing to the purpose,' said Heathcliff. (He it was.)
'I don't hate my son, I suppose; and it is concerning him that I
demand your attention. Yes; you have cause to blush. Two or three
months since, were you not in the habit of writing to Linton?
making love in play, eh? You deserved, both of you, flogging for
that! You especially, the elder; and less sensitive, as it turns
out. I've got your letters, and if you give me any pertness I'll
send them to your father. I presume you grew weary of the
amusement and dropped it, didn't you? Well, you dropped Linton
with it into a Slough of Despond. He was in earnest: in love,
really. As true as I live, he's dying for you; breaking his heart
at your fickleness: not figuratively, but actually. Though
Hareton has made him a standing jest for six weeks, and I have used
more serious measures, and attempted to frighten him out of his
idiotcy, he gets worse daily; and he'll be under the sod before
summer, unless you restore him!'

'How can you lie so glaringly to the poor child?' I called from the
inside. 'Pray ride on! How can you deliberately get up such
paltry falsehoods? Miss Cathy, I'll knock the lock off with a
stone: you won't believe that vile nonsense. You can feel in
yourself it is impossible that a person should die for love of a
stranger.'

'I was not aware there were eavesdroppers,' muttered the detected
villain. 'Worthy Mrs. Dean, I like you, but I don't like your
double-dealing,' he added aloud. 'How could YOU lie so glaringly
as to affirm I hated the "poor child"? and invent bugbear stories
to terrify her from my door-stones? Catherine Linton (the very
name warms me), my bonny lass, I shall be from home all this week;
go and see if have not spoken truth: do, there's a darling! Just
imagine your father in my place, and Linton in yours; then think
how you would value your careless lover if he refused to stir a
step to comfort you, when your father himself entreated him; and
don't, from pure stupidity, fall into the same error. I swear, on
my salvation, he's going to his grave, and none but you can save
him!'

The lock gave way and I issued out.

'I swear Linton is dying,' repeated Heathcliff, looking hard at me.
'And grief and disappointment are hastening his death. Nelly, if
you won't let her go, you can walk over yourself. But I shall not
return till this time next week; and I think your master himself
would scarcely object to her visiting her cousin.'

'Come in,' said I, taking Cathy by the arm and half forcing her to
re-enter; for she lingered, viewing with troubled eyes the features
of the speaker, too stern to express his inward deceit.

He pushed his horse close, and, bending down, observed - 'Miss
Catherine, I'll own to you that I have little patience with Linton;
and Hareton and Joseph have less. I'll own that he's with a harsh
set. He pines for kindness, as well as love; and a kind word from
you would be his best medicine. Don't mind Mrs. Dean's cruel
cautions; but be generous, and contrive to see him. He dreams of
you day and night, and cannot be persuaded that you don't hate him,
since you neither write nor call.'

I closed the door, and rolled a stone to assist the loosened lock
in holding it; and spreading my umbrella, I drew my charge
underneath: for the rain began to drive through the moaning
branches of the trees, and warned us to avoid delay. Our hurry
prevented any comment on the encounter with Heathcliff, as we
stretched towards home; but I divined instinctively that
Catherine's heart was clouded now in double darkness. Her features
were so sad, they did not seem hers: she evidently regarded what
she had heard as every syllable true.

The master had retired to rest before we came in. Cathy stole to
his room to inquire how he was; he had fallen asleep. She
returned, and asked me to sit with her in the library. We took our
tea together; and afterwards she lay down on the rug, and told me
not to talk, for she was weary. I got a book, and pretended to
read. As soon as she supposed me absorbed in my occupation, she
recommenced her silent weeping: it appeared, at present, her
favourite diversion. I suffered her to enjoy it a while; then I
expostulated: deriding and ridiculing all Mr. Heathcliff's
assertions about his son, as if I were certain she would coincide.
Alas! I hadn't skill to counteract the effect his account had
produced: it was just what he intended.

'You may be right, Ellen,' she answered; 'but I shall never feel at
ease till I know. And I must tell Linton it is not my fault that I
don't write, and convince him that I shall not change.'

What use were anger and protestations against her silly credulity?
We parted that night - hostile; but next day beheld me on the road
to Wuthering Heights, by the side of my wilful young mistress's
pony. I couldn't bear to witness her sorrow: to see her pale,
dejected countenance, and heavy eyes: and I yielded, in the faint
hope that Linton himself might prove, by his reception of us, how
little of the tale was founded on fact.



CHAPTER XXIII



THE rainy night had ushered in a misty morning - half frost, half
drizzle - and temporary brooks crossed our path - gurgling from the
uplands. My feet were thoroughly wetted; I was cross and low;
exactly the humour suited for making the most of these disagreeable
things. We entered the farm-house by the kitchen way, to ascertain
whether Mr. Heathcliff were really absent: because I put slight
faith in his own affirmation.

Joseph seemed sitting in a sort of elysium alone, beside a roaring
fire; a quart of ale on the table near him, bristling with large
pieces of toasted oat-cake; and his black, short pipe in his mouth.
Catherine ran to the hearth to warm herself. I asked if the master
was in? My question remained so long unanswered, that I thought
the old man had grown deaf, and repeated it louder.

'Na - ay!' he snarled, or rather screamed through his nose. 'Na -
ay! yah muh goa back whear yah coom frough.'

'Joseph!' cried a peevish voice, simultaneously with me, from the
inner room. 'How often am I to call you? There are only a few red
ashes now. Joseph! come this moment.'

Vigorous puffs, and a resolute stare into the grate, declared he
had no ear for this appeal. The housekeeper and Hareton were
invisible; one gone on an errand, and the other at his work,
probably. We knew Linton's tones, and entered.

'Oh, I hope you'll die in a garret, starved to death!' said the
boy, mistaking our approach for that of his negligent attendant.

He stopped on observing his error: his cousin flew to him.

'Is that you, Miss Linton?' he said, raising his head from the arm
of the great chair, in which he reclined. 'No - don't kiss me: it
takes my breath. Dear me! Papa said you would call,' continued
he, after recovering a little from Catherine's embrace; while she
stood by looking very contrite. 'Will you shut the door, if you
please? you left it open; and those - those DETESTABLE creatures
won't bring coals to the fire. It's so cold!'

I stirred up the cinders, and fetched a scuttleful myself. The
invalid complained of being covered with ashes; but he had a
tiresome cough, and looked feverish and ill, so I did not rebuke
his temper.

'Well, Linton,' murmured Catherine, when his corrugated brow
relaxed, 'are you glad to see me? Can I do you any good?'

'Why didn't you come before?' he asked. 'You should have come,
instead of writing. It tired me dreadfully writing those long
letters. I'd far rather have talked to you. Now, I can neither
bear to talk, nor anything else. I wonder where Zillah is! Will
you' (looking at me) 'step into the kitchen and see?'

I had received no thanks for my other service; and being unwilling
to run to and fro at his behest, I replied - 'Nobody is out there
but Joseph.'

'I want to drink,' he exclaimed fretfully, turning away. 'Zillah
is constantly gadding off to Gimmerton since papa went: it's
miserable! And I'm obliged to come down here - they resolved never
to hear me up-stairs.'

'Is your father attentive to you, Master Heathcliff?' I asked,
perceiving Catherine to be checked in her friendly advances.

'Attentive? He makes them a little more attentive at least,' he
cried. 'The wretches! Do you know, Miss Linton, that brute
Hareton laughs at me! I hate him! indeed, I hate them all: they
are odious beings.'

Cathy began searching for some water; she lighted on a pitcher in
the dresser, filled a tumbler, and brought it. He bid her add a
spoonful of wine from a bottle on the table; and having swallowed a
small portion, appeared more tranquil, and said she was very kind.

'And are you glad to see me?' asked she, reiterating her former
question and pleased to detect the faint dawn of a smile.

'Yes, I am. It's something new to hear a voice like yours!' he
replied. 'But I have been vexed, because you wouldn't come. And
papa swore it was owing to me: he called me a pitiful, shuffling,
worthless thing; and said you despised me; and if he had been in my
place, he would be more the master of the Grange than your father
by this time. But you don't despise me, do you, Miss - ?'

'I wish you would say Catherine, or Cathy,' interrupted my young
lady. 'Despise you? No! Next to papa and Ellen, I love you
better than anybody living. I don't love Mr. Heathcliff, though;
and I dare not come when he returns: will he stay away many days?'

'Not many,' answered Linton; 'but he goes on to the moors
frequently, since the shooting season commenced; and you might
spend an hour or two with me in his absence. Do say you will. I
think I should not be peevish with you: you'd not provoke me, and
you'd always be ready to help me, wouldn't you?'

'Yes" said Catherine, stroking his long soft hair: 'if I could
only get papa's consent, I'd spend half my time with you. Pretty
Linton! I wish you were my brother.'

'And then you would like me as well as your father?' observed he,
more cheerfully. 'But papa says you would love me better than him
and all the world, if you were my wife; so I'd rather you were
that.'

'No, I should never love anybody better than papa,' she returned
gravely. 'And people hate their wives, sometimes; but not their
sisters and brothers: and if you were the latter, you would live
with us, and papa would be as fond of you as he is of me.'

Linton denied that people ever hated their wives; but Cathy
affirmed they did, and, in her wisdom, instanced his own father's
aversion to her aunt. I endeavoured to stop her thoughtless
tongue. I couldn't succeed till everything she knew was out.
Master Heathcliff, much irritated, asserted her relation was false.

'Papa told me; and papa does not tell falsehoods,' she answered
pertly.

'MY papa scorns yours!' cried Linton. 'He calls him a sneaking
fool.'

'Yours is a wicked man,' retorted Catherine; 'and you are very
naughty to dare to repeat what he says. He must be wicked to have
made Aunt Isabella leave him as she did.'

'She didn't leave him,' said the boy; 'you sha'n't contradict me.'

'She did,' cried my young lady.

'Well, I'll tell you something!' said Linton. 'Your mother hated
your father: now then.'

'Oh!' exclaimed Catherine, too enraged to continue.

'And she loved mine,' added he.

'You little liar! I hate you now!' she panted, and her face grew
red with passion.

'She did! she did!' sang Linton, sinking into the recess of his
chair, and leaning back his head to enjoy the agitation of the
other disputant, who stood behind.

'Hush, Master Heathcliff!' I said; 'that's your father's tale, too,
I suppose.'

'It isn't: you hold your tongue!' he answered. 'She did, she did,
Catherine! she did, she did!'

Cathy, beside herself, gave the chair a violent push, and caused
him to fall against one arm. He was immediately seized by a
suffocating cough that soon ended his triumph. It lasted so long
that it frightened even me. As to his cousin, she wept with all
her might, aghast at the mischief she had done: though she said
nothing. I held him till the fit exhausted itself. Then he thrust
me away, and leant his head down silently. Catherine quelled her
lamentations also, took a seat opposite, and looked solemnly into
the fire.

'How do you feel now, Master Heathcliff?' I inquired, after waiting
ten minutes.

'I wish SHE felt as I do,' he replied: 'spiteful, cruel thing!
Hareton never touches me: he never struck me in his life. And I
was better to-day: and there - ' his voice died in a whimper.

'I didn't strike you!' muttered Cathy, chewing her lip to prevent
another burst of emotion.

He sighed and moaned like one under great suffering, and kept it up
for a quarter of an hour; on purpose to distress his cousin
apparently, for whenever he caught a stifled sob from her he put
renewed pain and pathos into the inflexions of his voice.

'I'm sorry I hurt you, Linton,' she said at length, racked beyond
endurance. 'But I couldn't have been hurt by that little push, and
I had no idea that you could, either: you're not much, are you,
Linton? Don't let me go home thinking I've done you harm. Answer!
speak to me.'

'I can't speak to you,' he murmured; 'you've hurt me so that I
shall lie awake all night choking with this cough. If you had it
you'd know what it was; but YOU'LL be comfortably asleep while I'm
in agony, and nobody near me. I wonder how you would like to pass
those fearful nights!' And he began to wail aloud, for very pity
of himself.

'Since you are in the habit of passing dreadful nights,' I said,
'it won't be Miss who spoils your ease: you'd be the same had she
never come. However, she shall not disturb you again; and perhaps
you'll get quieter when we leave you.'

'Must I go?' asked Catherine dolefully, bending over him. 'Do you
want me to go, Linton?'

'You can't alter what you've done,' he replied pettishly, shrinking
from her, 'unless you alter it for the worse by teasing me into a
fever.'

'Well, then, I must go?' she repeated.

'Let me alone, at least,' said he; 'I can't bear your talking.'

She lingered, and resisted my persuasions to departure a tiresome
while; but as he neither looked up nor spoke, she finally made a
movement to the door, and I followed. We were recalled by a
scream. Linton had slid from his seat on to the hearthstone, and
lay writhing in the mere perverseness of an indulged plague of a
child, determined to be as grievous and harassing as it can. I
thoroughly gauged his disposition from his behaviour, and saw at
once it would be folly to attempt humouring him. Not so my
companion: she ran back in terror, knelt down, and cried, and
soothed, and entreated, till he grew quiet from lack of breath: by
no means from compunction at distressing her.

'I shall lift him on to the settle,' I said, 'and he may roll about
as he pleases: we can't stop to watch him. I hope you are
satisfied, Miss Cathy, that you are not the person to benefit him;
and that his condition of health is not occasioned by attachment to
you. Now, then, there he is! Come away: as soon as he knows
there is nobody by to care for his nonsense, he'll be glad to lie
still.'

She placed a cushion under his head, and offered him some water; he
rejected the latter, and tossed uneasily on the former, as if it
were a stone or a block of wood. She tried to put it more
comfortably.

'I can't do with that,' he said; 'it's not high enough.'

Catherine brought another to lay above it.

'That's too high,' murmured the provoking thing.

'How must I arrange it, then?' she asked despairingly.

He twined himself up to her, as she half knelt by the settle, and
converted her shoulder into a support.

'No, that won't do,' I said. 'You'll be content with the cushion,
Master Heathcliff. Miss has wasted too much time on you already:
we cannot remain five minutes longer.'

'Yes, yes, we can!' replied Cathy. 'He's good and patient now.
He's beginning to think I shall have far greater misery than he
will to-night, if I believe he is the worse for my visit: and then
I dare not come again. Tell the truth about it, Linton; for I
musn't come, if I have hurt you.'

'You must come, to cure me,' he answered. 'You ought to come,
because you have hurt me: you know you have extremely! I was not
as ill when you entered as I am at present - was I?'

'But you've made yourself ill by crying and being in a passion. - I
didn't do it all,' said his cousin. 'However, we'll be friends
now. And you want me: you would wish to see me sometimes,
really?'

'I told you I did,' he replied impatiently. 'Sit on the settle and
let me lean on your knee. That's as mamma used to do, whole
afternoons together. Sit quite still and don't talk: but you may
sing a song, if you can sing; or you may say a nice long
interesting ballad - one of those you promised to teach me; or a
story. I'd rather have a ballad, though: begin.'

Catherine repeated the longest she could remember. The employment
pleased both mightily. Linton would have another, and after that
another, notwithstanding my strenuous objections; and so they went
on until the clock struck twelve, and we heard Hareton in the
court, returning for his dinner.

'And to-morrow, Catherine, will you be here to-morrow?' asked young
Heathcliff, holding her frock as she rose reluctantly.

'No,' I answered, 'nor next day neither.' She, however, gave a
different response evidently, for his forehead cleared as she
stooped and whispered in his ear.

'You won't go to-morrow, recollect, Miss!' I commenced, when we
were out of the house. 'You are not dreaming of it, are you?'

She smiled.

'Oh, I'll take good care,' I continued: 'I'll have that lock
mended, and you can escape by no way else.'

'I can get over the wall,' she said laughing. 'The Grange is not a
prison, Ellen, and you are not my gaoler. And besides, I'm almost
seventeen: I'm a woman. And I'm certain Linton would recover
quickly if he had me to look after him. I'm older than he is, you
know, and wiser: less childish, am I not? And he'll soon do as I
direct him, with some slight coaxing. He's a pretty little darling
when he's good. I'd make such a pet of him, if he were mine. We
should, never quarrel, should we after we were used to each other?
Don't you like him, Ellen?'

'Like him!' I exclaimed. 'The worst-tempered bit of a sickly slip
that ever struggled into its teens. Happily, as Mr. Heathcliff
conjectured, he'll not win twenty. I doubt whether he'll see
spring, indeed. And small loss to his family whenever he drops
off. And lucky it is for us that his father took him: the kinder
he was treated, the more tedious and selfish he'd be. I'm glad you
have no chance of having him for a husband, Miss Catherine.'

My companion waxed serious at hearing this speech. To speak of his
death so regardlessly wounded her feelings.

'He's younger than I,' she answered, after a protracted pause of
meditation, 'and he ought to live the longest: he will - he must
live as long as I do. He's as strong now as when he first came
into the north; I'm positive of that. It's only a cold that ails
him, the same as papa has. You say papa will get better, and why
shouldn't he?'

'Well, well,' I cried, 'after all, we needn't trouble ourselves;
for listen, Miss, - and mind, I'll keep my word, - if you attempt
going to Wuthering Heights again, with or without me, I shall
inform Mr. Linton, and, unless he allow it, the intimacy with your
cousin must not be revived.'

'It has been revived,' muttered Cathy, sulkily.

'Must not be continued, then,' I said.

'We'll see,' was her reply, and she set off at a gallop, leaving me
to toil in the rear.

We both reached home before our dinner-time; my master supposed we
had been wandering through the park, and therefore he demanded no
explanation of our absence. As soon as I entered I hastened to
change my soaked shoes and stockings; but sitting such awhile at
the Heights had done the mischief. On the succeeding morning I was
laid up, and during three weeks I remained incapacitated for
attending to my duties: a calamity never experienced prior to that
period, and never, I am thankful to say, since.

My little mistress behaved like an angel in coming to wait on me,
and cheer my solitude; the confinement brought me exceedingly low.
It is wearisome, to a stirring active body: but few have slighter
reasons for complaint than I had. The moment Catherine left Mr.
Linton's room she appeared at my bedside. Her day was divided
between us; no amusement usurped a minute: she neglected her
meals, her studies, and her play; and she was the fondest nurse
that ever watched. She must have had a warm heart, when she loved
her father so, to give so much to me. I said her days were divided
between us; but the master retired early, and I generally needed
nothing after six o'clock, thus the evening was her own. Poor
thing! I never considered what she did with herself after tea.
And though frequently, when she looked in to bid me good-night, I
remarked a fresh colour in her cheeks and a pinkness over her
slender fingers, instead of fancying the line borrowed from a cold
ride across the moors, I laid it to the charge of a hot fire in the
library.



CHAPTER XXIV



AT the close of three weeks I was able to quit my chamber and move
about the house. And on the first occasion of my sitting up in the
evening I asked Catherine to read to me, because my eyes were weak.
We were in the library, the master having gone to bed: she
consented, rather unwillingly, I fancied; and imagining my sort of
books did not suit her, I bid her please herself in the choice of
what she perused. She selected one of her own favourites, and got
forward steadily about an hour; then came frequent questions.

'Ellen, are not you tired? Hadn't you better lie down now? You'll
be sick, keeping up so long, Ellen.'

'No, no, dear, I'm not tired,' I returned, continually.

Perceiving me immovable, she essayed another method of showing her
disrelish for her occupation. It changed to yawning, and
stretching, and -

'Ellen, I'm tired.'

'Give over then and talk,' I answered.

That was worse: she fretted and sighed, and looked at her watch
till eight, and finally went to her room, completely overdone with
sleep; judging by her peevish, heavy look, and the constant rubbing
she inflicted on her eyes. The following night she seemed more
impatient still; and on the third from recovering my company she
complained of a headache, and left me. I thought her conduct odd;
and having remained alone a long while, I resolved on going and
inquiring whether she were better, and asking her to come and lie
on the sofa, instead of up-stairs in the dark. No Catherine could
I discover up-stairs, and none below. The servants affirmed they
had not seen her. I listened at Mr. Edgar's door; all was silence.
I returned to her apartment, extinguished my candle, and seated
myself in the window.

The moon shone bright; a sprinkling of snow covered the ground, and
I reflected that she might, possibly, have taken it into her head
to walk about the garden, for refreshment. I did detect a figure
creeping along the inner fence of the park; but it was not my young
mistress: on its emerging into the light, I recognised one of the
grooms. He stood a considerable period, viewing the carriage-road
through the grounds; then started off at a brisk pace, as if he had
detected something, and reappeared presently, leading Miss's pony;
and there she was, just dismounted, and walking by its side. The
man took his charge stealthily across the grass towards the stable.
Cathy entered by the casement-window of the drawing-room, and
glided noiselessly up to where I awaited her. She put the door
gently too, slipped off her snowy shoes, untied her hat, and was
proceeding, unconscious of my espionage, to lay aside her mantle,
when I suddenly rose and revealed myself. The surprise petrified
her an instant: she uttered an inarticulate exclamation, and stood
fixed.

'My dear Miss Catherine,' I began, too vividly impressed by her
recent kindness to break into a scold, 'where have you been riding
out at this hour? And why should you try to deceive me by telling
a tale? Where have you been? Speak!'

'To the bottom of the park,' she stammered. 'I didn't tell a
tale.'

'And nowhere else?' I demanded.

'No,' was the muttered reply.

'Oh, Catherine!' I cried, sorrowfully. 'You know you have been
doing wrong, or you wouldn't be driven to uttering an untruth to
me. That does grieve me. I'd rather be three months ill, than
hear you frame a deliberate lie.'

She sprang forward, and bursting into tears, threw her arms round
my neck.

'Well, Ellen, I'm so afraid of you being angry,' she said.
'Promise not to be angry, and you shall know the very truth: I
hate to hide it.'

We sat down in the window-seat; I assured her I would not scold,
whatever her secret might be, and I guessed it, of course; so she
commenced -

'I've been to Wuthering Heights, Ellen, and I've never missed going
a day since you fell ill; except thrice before, and twice after you
left your room. I gave Michael books and pictures to prepare Minny
every evening, and to put her back in the stable: you mustn't
scold him either, mind. I was at the Heights by half-past six, and
generally stayed till half-past eight, and then galloped home. It
was not to amuse myself that I went: I was often wretched all the
time. Now and then I was happy: once in a week perhaps. At
first, I expected there would be sad work persuading you to let me
keep my word to Linton: for I had engaged to call again next day,
when we quitted him; but, as you stayed up-stairs on the morrow, I
escaped that trouble. While Michael was refastening the lock of
the park door in the afternoon, I got possession of the key, and
told him how my cousin wished me to visit him, because he was sick,
and couldn't come to the Grange; and how papa would object to my
going: and then I negotiated with him about the pony. He is fond
of reading, and he thinks of leaving soon to get married; so he
offered, if I would lend him books out of the library, to do what I
wished: but I preferred giving him my own, and that satisfied him
better.

'On my second visit Linton seemed in lively spirits; and Zillah
(that is their housekeeper) made us a clean room and a good fire,
and told us that, as Joseph was out at a prayer-meeting and Hareton
Earnshaw was off with his dogs - robbing our woods of pheasants, as
I heard afterwards - we might do what we liked. She brought me
some warm wine and gingerbread, and appeared exceedingly good-
natured, and Linton sat in the arm-chair, and I in the little
rocking chair on the hearth-stone, and we laughed and talked so
merrily, and found so much to say: we planned where we would go,
and what we would do in summer. I needn't repeat that, because you
would call it silly.

'One time, however, we were near quarrelling. He said the
pleasantest manner of spending a hot July day was lying from
morning till evening on a bank of heath in the middle of the moors,
with the bees humming dreamily about among the bloom, and the larks
singing high up overhead, and the blue sky and bright sun shining
steadily and cloudlessly. That was his most perfect idea of
heaven's happiness: mine was rocking in a rustling green tree,
with a west wind blowing, and bright white clouds flitting rapidly
above; and not only larks, but throstles, and blackbirds, and
linnets, and cuckoos pouring out music on every side, and the moors
seen at a distance, broken into cool dusky dells; but close by
great swells of long grass undulating in waves to the breeze; and
woods and sounding water, and the whole world awake and wild with
joy. He wanted all to lie in an ecstasy of peace; I wanted all to
sparkle and dance in a glorious jubilee. I said his heaven would
be only half alive; and he said mine would be drunk: I said I
should fall asleep in his; and he said he could not breathe in
mine, and began to grow very snappish. At last, we agreed to try
both, as soon as the right weather came; and then we kissed each
other and were friends.

'After sitting still an hour, I looked at the great room with its
smooth uncarpeted floor, and thought how nice it would be to play
in, if we removed the table; and I asked Linton to call Zillah in
to help us, and we'd have a game at blindman's-buff; she should try
to catch us: you used to, you know, Ellen. He wouldn't: there
was no pleasure in it, he said; but he consented to play at ball
with me. We found two in a cupboard, among a heap of old toys,
tops, and hoops, and battledores and shuttlecocks. One was marked
C., and the other H.; I wished to have the C., because that stood
for Catherine, and the H. might be for Heathcliff, his name; but
the bran came out of H., and Linton didn't like it. I beat him
constantly: and he got cross again, and coughed, and returned to
his chair. That night, though, he easily recovered his good
humour: he was charmed with two or three pretty songs - YOUR
songs, Ellen; and when I was obliged to go, he begged and entreated
me to come the following evening; and I promised. Minny and I went
flying home as light as air; and I dreamt of Wuthering Heights and
my sweet, darling cousin, till morning.

'On the morrow I was sad; partly because you were poorly, and
partly that I wished my father knew, and approved of my excursions:
but it was beautiful moonlight after tea; and, as I rode on, the
gloom cleared. I shall have another happy evening, I thought to
myself; and what delights me more, my pretty Linton will. I
trotted up their garden, and was turning round to the back, when
that fellow Earnshaw met me, took my bridle, and bid me go in by
the front entrance. He patted Minny's neck, and said she was a
bonny beast, and appeared as if he wanted me to speak to him. I
only told him to leave my horse alone, or else it would kick him.
He answered in his vulgar accent, "It wouldn't do mitch hurt if it
did;" and surveyed its legs with a smile. I was half inclined to
make it try; however, he moved off to open the door, and, as he
raised the latch, he looked up to the inscription above, and said,
with a stupid mixture of awkwardness and elation: "Miss Catherine!
I can read yon, now."

'"Wonderful," I exclaimed. "Pray let us hear you - you ARE grown
clever!"

'He spelt, and drawled over by syllables, the name - "Hareton
Earnshaw."

'"And the figures?" I cried, encouragingly, perceiving that he came
to a dead halt.

'"I cannot tell them yet," he answered.

'"Oh, you dunce!" I said, laughing heartily at his failure.

'The fool stared, with a grin hovering about his lips, and a scowl
gathering over his eyes, as if uncertain whether he might not join
in my mirth: whether it were not pleasant familiarity, or what it
really was, contempt. I settled his doubts, by suddenly retrieving
my gravity and desiring him to walk away, for I came to see Linton,
not him. He reddened - I saw that by the moonlight - dropped his
hand from the latch, and skulked off, a picture of mortified
vanity. He imagined himself to be as accomplished as Linton, I
suppose, because he could spell his own name; and was marvellously
discomfited that I didn't think the same.'

'Stop, Miss Catherine, dear!' - I interrupted. 'I shall not scold,
but I don't like your conduct there. If you had remembered that
Hareton was your cousin as much as Master Heathcliff, you would
have felt how improper it was to behave in that way. At least, it
was praiseworthy ambition for him to desire to be as accomplished
as Linton; and probably he did not learn merely to show off: you
had made him ashamed of his ignorance before, I have no doubt; and
he wished to remedy it and please you. To sneer at his imperfect
attempt was very bad breeding. Had you been brought up in his
circumstances, would you be less rude? He was as quick and as
intelligent a child as ever you were; and I'm hurt that he should
be despised now, because that base Heathcliff has treated him so
unjustly.'

'Well, Ellen, you won't cry about it, will you?' she exclaimed,
surprised at my earnestness. 'But wait, and you shall hear if he
conned his A B C to please me; and if it were worth while being
civil to the brute. I entered; Linton was lying on the settle, and
half got up to welcome me.

'"I'm ill to-night, Catherine, love," he said; "and you must have
all the talk, and let me listen. Come, and sit by me. I was sure
you wouldn't break your word, and I'll make you promise again,
before you go."

'I knew now that I mustn't tease him, as he was ill; and I spoke
softly and put no questions, and avoided irritating him in any way.
I had brought some of my nicest books for him: he asked me to read
a little of one, and I was about to comply, when Earnshaw burst the
door open: having gathered venom with reflection. He advanced
direct to us, seized Linton by the arm, and swung him off the seat.

'"Get to thy own room!" he said, in a voice almost inarticulate
with passion; and his face looked swelled and furious. "Take her
there if she comes to see thee: thou shalln't keep me out of this.
Begone wi' ye both!"

'He swore at us, and left Linton no time to answer, nearly throwing
him into the kitchen; and he clenched his fist as I followed,
seemingly longing to knock me down. I was afraid for a moment, and
I let one volume fall; he kicked it after me, and shut us out. I
heard a malignant, crackly laugh by the fire, and turning, beheld
that odious Joseph standing rubbing his bony hands, and quivering.

'"I wer sure he'd sarve ye out! He's a grand lad! He's getten t'
raight sperrit in him! HE knaws - ay, he knaws, as weel as I do,
who sud be t' maister yonder - Ech, ech, ech! He made ye skift
properly! Ech, ech, ech!"

'"Where must we go?" I asked of my cousin, disregarding the old
wretch's mockery.

'Linton was white and trembling. He was not pretty then, Ellen:
oh, no! he looked frightful; for his thin face and large eyes were
wrought into an expression of frantic, powerless fury. He grasped
the handle of the door, and shook it: it was fastened inside.

'"If you don't let me in, I'll kill you! - If you don't let me in,
I'll kill you!" he rather shrieked than said. "Devil! devil! -
I'll kill you - I'll kill you!"

Joseph uttered his croaking laugh again.

'"Thear, that's t' father!" he cried. "That's father! We've allas
summut o' either side in us. Niver heed, Hareton, lad - dunnut be
'feard - he cannot get at thee!"

'I took hold of Linton's hands, and tried to pull him away; but he
shrieked so shockingly that I dared not proceed. At last his cries
were choked by a dreadful fit of coughing; blood gushed from his
mouth, and he fell on the ground. I ran into the yard, sick with
terror; and called for Zillah, as loud as I could. She soon heard
me: she was milking the cows in a shed behind the barn, and
hurrying from her work, she inquired what there was to do? I
hadn't breath to explain; dragging her in, I looked about for
Linton. Earnshaw had come out to examine the mischief he had
caused, and he was then conveying the poor thing up-stairs. Zillah
and I ascended after him; but he stopped me at the top of the
steps, and said I shouldn't go in: I must go home. I exclaimed
that he had killed Linton, and I WOULD enter. Joseph locked the
door, and declared I should do "no sich stuff," and asked me
whether I were "bahn to be as mad as him." I stood crying till the
housekeeper reappeared. She affirmed he would be better in a bit,
but he couldn't do with that shrieking and din; and she took me,
and nearly carried me into the house.

'Ellen, I was ready to tear my hair off my head! I sobbed and wept
so that my eyes were almost blind; and the ruffian you have such
sympathy with stood opposite: presuming every now and then to bid
me "wisht," and denying that it was his fault; and, finally,
frightened by my assertions that I would tell papa, and that he
should be put in prison and hanged, he commenced blubbering
himself, and hurried out to hide his cowardly agitation. Still, I
was not rid of him: when at length they compelled me to depart,
and I had got some hundred yards off the premises, he suddenly
issued from the shadow of the road-side, and checked Minny and took
hold of me.

'"Miss Catherine, I'm ill grieved," he began, "but it's rayther too
bad - "

'I gave him a cut with my whip, thinking perhaps he would murder
me. He let go, thundering one of his horrid curses, and I galloped
home more than half out of my senses.

'I didn't bid you good-night that evening, and I didn't go to
Wuthering Heights the next: I wished to go exceedingly; but I was
strangely excited, and dreaded to hear that Linton was dead,
sometimes; and sometimes shuddered at the thought of encountering
Hareton. On the third day I took courage: at least, I couldn't
bear longer suspense, and stole off once more. I went at five
o'clock, and walked; fancying I might manage to creep into the
house, and up to Linton's room, unobserved. However, the dogs gave
notice of my approach. Zillah received me, and saying "the lad was
mending nicely," showed me into a small, tidy, carpeted apartment,
where, to my inexpressible joy, I beheld Linton laid on a little
sofa, reading one of my books. But he would neither speak to me
nor look at me, through a whole hour, Ellen: he has such an
unhappy temper. And what quite confounded me, when he did open his
mouth, it was to utter the falsehood that I had occasioned the
uproar, and Hareton was not to blame! Unable to reply, except
passionately, I got up and walked from the room. He sent after me
a faint "Catherine!" He did not reckon on being answered so: but
I wouldn't turn back; and the morrow was the second day on which I
stayed at home, nearly determined to visit him no more. But it was
so miserable going to bed and getting up, and never hearing
anything about him, that my resolution melted into air before it
was properly formed. It had appeared wrong to take the journey
once; now it seemed wrong to refrain. Michael came to ask if he
must saddle Minny; I said "Yes," and considered myself doing a duty
as she bore me over the hills. I was forced to pass the front
windows to get to the court: it was no use trying to conceal my
presence.

'"Young master is in the house," said Zillah, as she saw me making
for the parlour. I went in; Earnshaw was there also, but he
quitted the room directly. Linton sat in the great arm-chair half
asleep; walking up to the fire, I began in a serious tone, partly
meaning it to be true -

'"As you don't like me, Linton, and as you think I come on purpose
to hurt you, and pretend that I do so every time, this is our last
meeting: let us say good-bye; and tell Mr. Heathcliff that you
have no wish to see me, and that he mustn't invent any more
falsehoods on the subject."

'"Sit down and take your hat off, Catherine," he answered. "You
are so much happier than I am, you ought to be better. Papa talks
enough of my defects, and shows enough scorn of me, to make it
natural I should doubt myself. I doubt whether I am not altogether
as worthless as he calls me, frequently; and then I feel so cross
and bitter, I hate everybody! I am worthless, and bad in temper,
and bad in spirit, almost always; and, if you choose, you may say
good-bye: you'll get rid of an annoyance. Only, Catherine, do me
this justice: believe that if I might be as sweet, and as kind,
and as good as you are, I would be; as willingly, and more so, than
as happy and as healthy. And believe that your kindness has made
me love you deeper than if I deserved your love: and though I
couldn't, and cannot help showing my nature to you, I regret it and
repent it; and shall regret and repent it till I die!"

'I felt he spoke the truth; and I felt I must forgive him: and,
though we should quarrel the next moment, I must forgive him again.
We were reconciled; but we cried, both of us, the whole time I
stayed: not entirely for sorrow; yet I WAS sorry Linton had that
distorted nature. He'll never let his friends be at ease, and
he'll never be at ease himself! I have always gone to his little
parlour, since that night; because his father returned the day
after.

'About three times, I think, we have been merry and hopeful, as we
were the first evening; the rest of my visits were dreary and
troubled: now with his selfishness and spite, and now with his
sufferings: but I've learned to endure the former with nearly as
little resentment as the latter. Mr. Heathcliff purposely avoids
me: I have hardly seen him at all. Last Sunday, indeed, coming
earlier than usual, I heard him abusing poor Linton cruelly for his
conduct of the night before. I can't tell how he knew of it,
unless he listened. Linton had certainly behaved provokingly:
however, it was the business of nobody but me, and I interrupted
Mr. Heathcliff's lecture by entering and telling him so. He burst
into a laugh, and went away, saying he was glad I took that view of
the matter. Since then, I've told Linton he must whisper his
bitter things. Now, Ellen, you have heard all. I can't be
prevented from going to Wuthering Heights, except by inflicting
misery on two people; whereas, if you'll only not tell papa, my
going need disturb the tranquillity of none. You'll not tell, will
you? It will be very heartless, if you do.'

'I'll make up my mind on that point by to-morrow, Miss Catherine,'
I replied. 'It requires some study; and so I'll leave you to your
rest, and go think it over.'

I thought it over aloud, in my master's presence; walking straight
from her room to his, and relating the whole story: with the
exception of her conversations with her cousin, and any mention of
Hareton. Mr. Linton was alarmed and distressed, more than he would
acknowledge to me. In the morning, Catherine learnt my betrayal of
her confidence, and she learnt also that her secret visits were to
end. In vain she wept and writhed against the interdict, and
implored her father to have pity on Linton: all she got to comfort
her was a promise that he would write and give him leave to come to
the Grange when he pleased; but explaining that he must no longer
expect to see Catherine at Wuthering Heights. Perhaps, had he been
aware of his nephew's disposition and state of health, he would
have seen fit to withhold even that slight consolation.



CHAPTER XXV



'THESE things happened last winter, sir,' said Mrs. Dean; 'hardly
more than a year ago. Last winter, I did not think, at another
twelve months' end, I should be amusing a stranger to the family
with relating them! Yet, who knows how long you'll be a stranger?
You're too young to rest always contented, living by yourself; and
I some way fancy no one could see Catherine Linton and not love
her. You smile; but why do you look so lively and interested when
I talk about her? and why have you asked me to hang her picture
over your fireplace? and why - ?'

'Stop, my good friend!' I cried. 'It may be very possible that I
should love her; but would she love me? I doubt it too much to
venture my tranquillity by running into temptation: and then my
home is not here. I'm of the busy world, and to its arms I must
return. Go on. Was Catherine obedient to her father's commands?'

'She was,' continued the housekeeper. 'Her affection for him was
still the chief sentiment in her heart; and he spoke without anger:
he spoke in the deep tenderness of one about to leave his treasure
amid perils and foes, where his remembered words would be the only
aid that he could bequeath to guide her. He said to me, a few days
afterwards, "I wish my nephew would write, Ellen, or call. Tell
me, sincerely, what you think of him: is he changed for the
better, or is there a prospect of improvement, as he grows a man?"

'"He's very delicate, sir," I replied; "and scarcely likely to
reach manhood: but this I can say, he does not resemble his
father; and if Miss Catherine had the misfortune to marry him, he
would not be beyond her control: unless she were extremely and
foolishly indulgent. However, master, you'll have plenty of time
to get acquainted with him and see whether he would suit her: it
wants four years and more to his being of age."'

Edgar sighed; and, walking to the window, looked out towards
Gimmerton Kirk. It was a misty afternoon, but the February sun
shone dimly, and we could just distinguish the two fir-trees in the
yard, and the sparely-scattered gravestones.

'I've prayed often,' he half soliloquised, 'for the approach of
what is coming; and now I begin to shrink, and fear it. I thought
the memory of the hour I came down that glen a bridegroom would be
less sweet than the anticipation that I was soon, in a few months,
or, possibly, weeks, to be carried up, and laid in its lonely
hollow! Ellen, I've been very happy with my little Cathy: through
winter nights and summer days she was a living hope at my side.
But I've been as happy musing by myself among those stones, under
that old church: lying, through the long June evenings, on the
green mound of her mother's grave, and wishing - yearning for the
time when I might lie beneath it. What can I do for Cathy? How
must I quit her? I'd not care one moment for Linton being
Heathcliff's son; nor for his taking her from me, if he could
console her for my loss. I'd not care that Heathcliff gained his
ends, and triumphed in robbing me of my last blessing! But should
Linton be unworthy - only a feeble tool to his father - I cannot
abandon her to him! And, hard though it be to crush her buoyant
spirit, I must persevere in making her sad while I live, and
leaving her solitary when I die. Darling! I'd rather resign her
to God, and lay her in the earth before me.'

'Resign her to God as it is, sir,' I answered, 'and if we should
lose you - which may He forbid - under His providence, I'll stand
her friend and counsellor to the last. Miss Catherine is a good
girl: I don't fear that she will go wilfully wrong; and people who
do their duty are always finally rewarded.'

Spring advanced; yet my master gathered no real strength, though he
resumed his walks in the grounds with his daughter. To her
inexperienced notions, this itself was a sign of convalescence; and
then his cheek was often flushed, and his eyes were bright; she
felt sure of his recovering. On her seventeenth birthday, he did
not visit the churchyard: it was raining, and I observed - 'You'll
surely not go out to-night, sir?'

He answered, - 'No, I'll defer it this year a little longer.' He
wrote again to Linton, expressing his great desire to see him; and,
had the invalid been presentable, I've no doubt his father would
have permitted him to come. As it was, being instructed, he
returned an answer, intimating that Mr. Heathcliff objected to his
calling at the Grange; but his uncle's kind remembrance delighted
him, and he hoped to meet him sometimes in his rambles, and
personally to petition that his cousin and he might not remain long
so utterly divided.

That part of his letter was simple, and probably his own.
Heathcliff knew he could plead eloquently for Catherine's company,
then.

'I do not ask,' he said, 'that she may visit here; but am I never
to see her, because my father forbids me to go to her home, and you
forbid her to come to mine? Do, now and then, ride with her
towards the Heights; and let us exchange a few words, in your
presence! We have done nothing to deserve this separation; and you
are not angry with me: you have no reason to dislike me, you
allow, yourself. Dear uncle! send me a kind note to-morrow, and
leave to join you anywhere you please, except at Thrushcross
Grange. I believe an interview would convince you that my father's
character is not mine: he affirms I am more your nephew than his
son; and though I have faults which render me unworthy of
Catherine, she has excused them, and for her sake, you should also.
You inquire after my health - it is better; but while I remain cut
off from all hope, and doomed to solitude, or the society of those
who never did and never will like me, how can I be cheerful and
well?'

Edgar, though he felt for the boy, could not consent to grant his
request; because he could not accompany Catherine. He said, in
summer, perhaps, they might meet: meantime, he wished him to
continue writing at intervals, and engaged to give him what advice
and comfort he was able by letter; being well aware of his hard
position in his family. Linton complied; and had he been
unrestrained, would probably have spoiled all by filling his
epistles with complaints and lamentations. but his father kept a
sharp watch over him; and, of course, insisted on every line that
my master sent being shown; so, instead of penning his peculiar
personal sufferings and distresses, the themes constantly uppermost
in his thoughts, he harped on the cruel obligation of being held
asunder from his friend and love; and gently intimated that Mr.
Linton must allow an interview soon, or he should fear he was
purposely deceiving him with empty promises.

Cathy was a powerful ally at home; and between them they at length
persuaded my master to acquiesce in their having a ride or a walk
together about once a week, under my guardianship, and on the moors
nearest the Grange: for June found him still declining. Though he
had set aside yearly a portion of his income for my young lady's
fortune, he had a natural desire that she might retain - or at
least return in a short time to - the house of her ancestors; and
he considered her only prospect of doing that was by a union with
his heir; he had no idea that the latter was failing almost as fast
as himself; nor had any one, I believe: no doctor visited the
Heights, and no one saw Master Heathcliff to make report of his
condition among us. I, for my part, began to fancy my forebodings
were false, and that he must be actually rallying, when he
mentioned riding and walking on the moors, and seemed so earnest in
pursuing his object. I could not picture a father treating a dying
child as tyrannically and wickedly as I afterwards learned
Heathcliff had treated him, to compel this apparent eagerness: his
efforts redoubling the more imminently his avaricious and unfeeling
plans were threatened with defeat by death.



CHAPTER XXVI



SUMMER was already past its prime, when Edgar reluctantly yielded
his assent to their entreaties, and Catherine and I set out on our
first ride to join her cousin. It was a close, sultry day: devoid
of sunshine, but with a sky too dappled and hazy to threaten rain:
and our place of meeting had been fixed at the guide-stone, by the
cross-roads. On arriving there, however, a little herd-boy,
despatched as a messenger, told us that, - 'Maister Linton wer just
o' this side th' Heights: and he'd be mitch obleeged to us to gang
on a bit further.'

'Then Master Linton has forgot the first injunction of his uncle,'
I observed: 'he bid us keep on the Grange land, and here we are
off at once.'

'Well, we'll turn our horses' heads round when we reach him,'
answered my companion; 'our excursion shall lie towards home.'

But when we reached him, and that was scarcely a quarter of a mile
from his own door, we found he had no horse; and we were forced to
dismount, and leave ours to graze. He lay on the heath, awaiting
our approach, and did not rise till we came within a few yards.
Then he walked so feebly, and looked so pale, that I immediately
exclaimed, - 'Why, Master Heathcliff, you are not fit for enjoying
a ramble this morning. How ill you do look!'

Catherine surveyed him with grief and astonishment: she changed
the ejaculation of joy on her lips to one of alarm; and the
congratulation on their long-postponed meeting to an anxious
inquiry, whether he were worse than usual?

'No - better - better!' he panted, trembling, and retaining her
hand as if he needed its support, while his large blue eyes
wandered timidly over her; the hollowness round them transforming
to haggard wildness the languid expression they once possessed.

'But you have been worse,' persisted his cousin; 'worse than when I
saw you last; you are thinner, and - '

'I'm tired,' he interrupted, hurriedly. 'It is too hot for
walking, let us rest here. And, in the morning, I often feel sick
- papa says I grow so fast.'

Badly satisfied, Cathy sat down, and he reclined beside her.

'This is something like your paradise,' said she, making an effort
at cheerfulness. 'You recollect the two days we agreed to spend in
the place and way each thought pleasantest? This is nearly yours,
only there are clouds; but then they are so soft and mellow: it is
nicer than sunshine. Next week, if you can, we'll ride down to the
Grange Park, and try mine.'

Linton did not appear to remember what she talked of and he had
evidently great difficulty in sustaining any kind of conversation.
His lack of interest in the subjects she started, and his equal
incapacity to contribute to her entertainment, were so obvious that
she could not conceal her disappointment. An indefinite alteration
had come over his whole person and manner. The pettishness that
might be caressed into fondness, had yielded to a listless apathy;
there was less of the peevish temper of a child which frets and
teases on purpose to be soothed, and more of the self-absorbed
moroseness of a confirmed invalid, repelling consolation, and ready
to regard the good-humoured mirth of others as an insult.
Catherine perceived, as well as I did, that he held it rather a
punishment, than a gratification, to endure our company; and she
made no scruple of proposing, presently, to depart. That proposal,
unexpectedly, roused Linton from his lethargy, and threw him into a
strange state of agitation. He glanced fearfully towards the
Heights, begging she would remain another half-hour, at least.

'But I think,' said Cathy, 'you'd be more comfortable at home than
sitting here; and I cannot amuse you to-day, I see, by my tales,
and songs, and chatter: you have grown wiser than I, in these six
months; you have little taste for my diversions now: or else, if I
could amuse you, I'd willingly stay.'

'Stay to rest yourself,' he replied. 'And, Catherine, don't think
or say that I'm VERY unwell: it is the heavy weather and heat that
make me dull; and I walked about, before you came, a great deal for
me. Tell uncle I'm in tolerable health, will you?'

'I'll tell him that YOU say so, Linton. I couldn't affirm that you
are,' observed my young lady, wondering at his pertinacious
assertion of what was evidently an untruth.

'And be here again next Thursday,' continued he, shunning her
puzzled gaze. 'And give him my thanks for permitting you to come -
my best thanks, Catherine. And - and, if you DID meet my father,
and he asked you about me, don't lead him to suppose that I've been
extremely silent and stupid: don't look sad and downcast, as you
are doing - he'll be angry.'

'I care nothing for his anger,' exclaimed Cathy, imagining she
would be its object.

'But I do,' said her cousin, shuddering. 'DON'T provoke him
against me, Catherine, for he is very hard.'

'Is he severe to you, Master Heathcliff?' I inquired. 'Has he
grown weary of indulgence, and passed from passive to active
hatred?'

Linton looked at me, but did not answer; and, after keeping her
seat by his side another ten minutes, during which his head fell
drowsily on his breast, and he uttered nothing except suppressed
moans of exhaustion or pain, Cathy began to seek solace in looking
for bilberries, and sharing the produce of her researches with me:
she did not offer them to him, for she saw further notice would
only weary and annoy.

'Is it half-an-hour now, Ellen?' she whispered in my ear, at last.


 


Back to Full Books