Wuthering Heights
While saying this he took a pint bottle of brandy from the dresser, and
poured some into a tumbler.
“Nay, don’t!” I entreated. “Mr. Hindley, do take warning. Have mercy on
this unfortunate boy, if you care nothing for yourself!”
“Any one will do better for him than I shall,” he answered.
“Have mercy on your own soul!” I said, endeavouring to snatch the glass
from his hand.
“Not I! On the contrary, I shall have great pleasure in sending it to
perdition to punish its Maker,” exclaimed the blasphemer. “Here’s to
its hearty damnation!”
He drank the spirits and impatiently bade us go; terminating his
command with a sequel of horrid imprecations too bad to repeat or
remember.
“It’s a pity he cannot kill himself with drink,” observed Heathcliff,
muttering an echo of curses back when the door was shut. “He’s doing
his very utmost; but his constitution defies him. Mr. Kenneth says he
would wager his mare that he’ll outlive any man on this side Gimmerton,
and go to the grave a hoary sinner; unless some happy chance out of the
common course befall him.”
I went into the kitchen, and sat down to lull my little lamb to sleep.
Heathcliff, as I thought, walked through to the barn. It turned out
afterwards that he only got as far as the other side the settle, when
he flung himself on a bench by the wall, removed from the fire, and
remained silent.
I was rocking Hareton on my knee, and humming a song that began,—
It was far in the night, and the bairnies grat,
The mither beneath the mools heard that,
when Miss Cathy, who had listened to the hubbub from her room, put her
head in, and whispered,—“Are you alone, Nelly?”
“Yes, Miss,” I replied.
She entered and approached the hearth. I, supposing she was going to
say something, looked up. The expression of her face seemed disturbed
and anxious. Her lips were half asunder, as if she meant to speak, and
she drew a breath; but it escaped in a sigh instead of a sentence. I
resumed my song; not having forgotten her recent behaviour.
“Where’s Heathcliff?” she said, interrupting me.
“About his work in the stable,” was my answer.
He did not contradict me; perhaps he had fallen into a doze. There
followed another long pause, during which I perceived a drop or two
trickle from Catherine’s cheek to the flags. Is she sorry for her
shameful conduct?—I asked myself. That will be a novelty: but she may
come to the point as she will—I sha’n’t help her! No, she felt small
trouble regarding any subject, save her own concerns.
“Oh, dear!” she cried at last. “I’m very unhappy!”
“A pity,” observed I. “You’re hard to please; so many friends and so
few cares, and can’t make yourself content!”
“Nelly, will you keep a secret for me?” she pursued, kneeling down by
me, and lifting her winsome eyes to my face with that sort of look
which turns off bad temper, even when one has all the right in the
world to indulge it.
“Is it worth keeping?” I inquired, less sulkily.
“Yes, and it worries me, and I must let it out! I want to know what I
should do. To-day, Edgar Linton has asked me to marry him, and I’ve
given him an answer. Now, before I tell you whether it was a consent or
denial, you tell me which it ought to have been.”
“Really, Miss Catherine, how can I know?” I replied. “To be sure,
considering the exhibition you performed in his presence this
afternoon, I might say it would be wise to refuse him: since he asked
you after that, he must either be hopelessly stupid or a venturesome
fool.”
“If you talk so, I won’t tell you any more,” she returned, peevishly
rising to her feet. “I accepted him, Nelly. Be quick, and say whether I
was wrong!”
“You accepted him! Then what good is it discussing the matter? You have
pledged your word, and cannot retract.”
“But say whether I should have done so—do!” she exclaimed in an
irritated tone; chafing her hands together, and frowning.
“There are many things to be considered before that question can be
answered properly,” I said, sententiously. “First and foremost, do you
love Mr. Edgar?”
“Who can help it? Of course I do,” she answered.
Then I put her through the following catechism: for a girl of
twenty-two it was not injudicious.
“Why do you love him, Miss Cathy?”
“Nonsense, I do—that’s sufficient.”
“By no means; you must say why?”
“Well, because he is handsome, and pleasant to be with.”
“Bad!” was my commentary.
“And because he is young and cheerful.”
“Bad, still.”
“And because he loves me.”
“Indifferent, coming there.”
“And he will be rich, and I shall like to be the greatest woman of the
neighbourhood, and I shall be proud of having such a husband.”
“Worst of all. And now, say how you love him?”
“As everybody loves—You’re silly, Nelly.”
“Not at all—Answer.”
“I love the ground under his feet, and the air over his head, and
everything he touches, and every word he says. I love all his looks,
and all his actions, and him entirely and altogether. There now!”
“And why?”
“Nay; you are making a jest of it: it is exceedingly ill-natured! It’s
no jest to me!” said the young lady, scowling, and turning her face to
the fire.
“I’m very far from jesting, Miss Catherine,” I replied. “You love Mr.
Edgar because he is handsome, and young, and cheerful, and rich, and
loves you. The last, however, goes for nothing: you would love him
without that, probably; and with it you wouldn’t, unless he possessed
the four former attractions.”
“No, to be sure not: I should only pity him—hate him, perhaps, if he
were ugly, and a clown.”
“But there are several other handsome, rich young men in the world:
handsomer, possibly, and richer than he is. What should hinder you from
loving them?”
“If there be any, they are out of my way: I’ve seen none like Edgar.”
“You may see some; and he won’t always be handsome, and young, and may
not always be rich.”
“He is now; and I have only to do with the present. I wish you would
speak rationally.”
“Well, that settles it: if you have only to do with the present, marry
Mr. Linton.”
“I don’t want your permission for that—I _shall_ marry him: and yet you
have not told me whether I’m right.”
“Perfectly right; if people be right to marry only for the present. And
now, let us hear what you are unhappy about. Your brother will be
pleased; the old lady and gentleman will not object, I think; you will
escape from a disorderly, comfortless home into a wealthy, respectable
one; and you love Edgar, and Edgar loves you. All seems smooth and
easy: where is the obstacle?”
“_Here_! and _here_!” replied Catherine, striking one hand on her
forehead, and the other on her breast: “in whichever place the soul
lives. In my soul and in my heart, I’m convinced I’m wrong!”
“That’s very strange! I cannot make it out.”
“It’s my secret. But if you will not mock at me, I’ll explain it: I
can’t do it distinctly; but I’ll give you a feeling of how I feel.”
She seated herself by me again: her countenance grew sadder and graver,
and her clasped hands trembled.
“Nelly, do you never dream queer dreams?” she said, suddenly, after
some minutes’ reflection.
“Yes, now and then,” I answered.
“And so do I. I’ve dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me
ever after, and changed my ideas: they’ve gone through and through me,
like wine through water, and altered the colour of my mind. And this is
one: I’m going to tell it—but take care not to smile at any part of
it.”
“Oh! don’t, Miss Catherine!” I cried. “We’re dismal enough without
conjuring up ghosts and visions to perplex us. Come, come, be merry and
like yourself! Look at little Hareton! _he’s_ dreaming nothing dreary.
How sweetly he smiles in his sleep!”
“Yes; and how sweetly his father curses in his solitude! You remember
him, I daresay, when he was just such another as that chubby thing:
nearly as young and innocent. However, Nelly, I shall oblige you to
listen: it’s not long; and I’ve no power to be merry to-night.”
“I won’t hear it, I won’t hear it!” I repeated, hastily.
I was superstitious about dreams then, and am still; and Catherine had
an unusual gloom in her aspect, that made me dread something from which
I might shape a prophecy, and foresee a fearful catastrophe. She was
vexed, but she did not proceed. Apparently taking up another subject,
she recommenced in a short time.
“If I were in heaven, Nelly, I should be extremely miserable.”
“Because you are not fit to go there,” I answered. “All sinners would
be miserable in heaven.”
“But it is not for that. I dreamt once that I was there.”
“I tell you I won’t hearken to your dreams, Miss Catherine! I’ll go to
bed,” I interrupted again.
She laughed, and held me down; for I made a motion to leave my chair.
“This is nothing,” cried she: “I was only going to say that heaven did
not seem to be my home; and I broke my heart with weeping to come back
to earth; and the angels were so angry that they flung me out into the
middle of the heath on the top of Wuthering Heights; where I woke
sobbing for joy. That will do to explain my secret, as well as the
other. I’ve no more business to marry Edgar Linton than I have to be in
heaven; and if the wicked man in there had not brought Heathcliff so
low, I shouldn’t have thought of it. It would degrade me to marry
Heathcliff now; so he shall never know how I love him: and that, not
because he’s handsome, Nelly, but because he’s more myself than I am.
Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same; and Linton’s
is as different as a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire.”
Ere this speech ended I became sensible of Heathcliff’s presence.
Having noticed a slight movement, I turned my head, and saw him rise
from the bench, and steal out noiselessly. He had listened till he
heard Catherine say it would degrade her to marry him, and then he
stayed to hear no further. My companion, sitting on the ground, was
prevented by the back of the settle from remarking his presence or
departure; but I started, and bade her hush!
“Why?” she asked, gazing nervously round.
“Joseph is here,” I answered, catching opportunely the roll of his
cartwheels up the road; “and Heathcliff will come in with him. I’m not
sure whether he were not at the door this moment.”
“Oh, he couldn’t overhear me at the door!” said she. “Give me Hareton,
while you get the supper, and when it is ready ask me to sup with you.
I want to cheat my uncomfortable conscience, and be convinced that
Heathcliff has no notion of these things. He has not, has he? He does
not know what being in love is!”
“I see no reason that he should not know, as well as you,” I returned;
“and if _you_ are his choice, he’ll be the most unfortunate creature
that ever was born! As soon as you become Mrs. Linton, he loses friend,
and love, and all! Have you considered how you’ll bear the separation,
and how he’ll bear to be quite deserted in the world? Because, Miss
Catherine—”
“He quite deserted! we separated!” she exclaimed, with an accent of
indignation. “Who is to separate us, pray? They’ll meet the fate of
Milo! Not as long as I live, Ellen: for no mortal creature. Every
Linton on the face of the earth might melt into nothing before I could
consent to forsake Heathcliff. Oh, that’s not what I intend—that’s not
what I mean! I shouldn’t be Mrs. Linton were such a price demanded!
He’ll be as much to me as he has been all his lifetime. Edgar must
shake off his antipathy, and tolerate him, at least. He will, when he
learns my true feelings towards him. Nelly, I see now you think me a
selfish wretch; but did it never strike you that if Heathcliff and I
married, we should be beggars? whereas, if I marry Linton I can aid
Heathcliff to rise, and place him out of my brother’s power.”