Wuthering Heights
handkerchief I have tied round your face, and make the cut bleed again.
Drink your tea, and take breath, and give over laughing: laughter is
sadly out of place under this roof, and in your condition!”
“An undeniable truth,” she replied. “Listen to that child! It maintains
a constant wail—send it out of my hearing for an hour; I sha’n’t stay
any longer.”
I rang the bell, and committed it to a servant’s care; and then I
inquired what had urged her to escape from Wuthering Heights in such an
unlikely plight, and where she meant to go, as she refused remaining
with us.
“I ought, and I wished to remain,” answered she, “to cheer Edgar and
take care of the baby, for two things, and because the Grange is my
right home. But I tell you he wouldn’t let me! Do you think he could
bear to see me grow fat and merry—could bear to think that we were
tranquil, and not resolve on poisoning our comfort? Now, I have the
satisfaction of being sure that he detests me, to the point of its
annoying him seriously to have me within ear-shot or eyesight: I
notice, when I enter his presence, the muscles of his countenance are
involuntarily distorted into an expression of hatred; partly arising
from his knowledge of the good causes I have to feel that sentiment for
him, and partly from original aversion. It is strong enough to make me
feel pretty certain that he would not chase me over England, supposing
I contrived a clear escape; and therefore I must get quite away. I’ve
recovered from my first desire to be killed by him: I’d rather he’d
kill himself! He has extinguished my love effectually, and so I’m at my
ease. I can recollect yet how I loved him; and can dimly imagine that I
could still be loving him, if—no, no! Even if he had doted on me, the
devilish nature would have revealed its existence somehow. Catherine
had an awfully perverted taste to esteem him so dearly, knowing him so
well. Monster! would that he could be blotted out of creation, and out
of my memory!”
“Hush, hush! He’s a human being,” I said. “Be more charitable: there
are worse men than he is yet!”
“He’s not a human being,” she retorted; “and he has no claim on my
charity. I gave him my heart, and he took and pinched it to death, and
flung it back to me. People feel with their hearts, Ellen: and since he
has destroyed mine, I have not power to feel for him: and I would not,
though he groaned from this to his dying day, and wept tears of blood
for Catherine! No, indeed, indeed, I wouldn’t!” And here Isabella began
to cry; but, immediately dashing the water from her lashes, she
recommenced. “You asked, what has driven me to flight at last? I was
compelled to attempt it, because I had succeeded in rousing his rage a
pitch above his malignity. Pulling out the nerves with red hot pincers
requires more coolness than knocking on the head. He was worked up to
forget the fiendish prudence he boasted of, and proceeded to murderous
violence. I experienced pleasure in being able to exasperate him: the
sense of pleasure woke my instinct of self-preservation, so I fairly
broke free; and if ever I come into his hands again he is welcome to a
signal revenge.
“Yesterday, you know, Mr. Earnshaw should have been at the funeral. He
kept himself sober for the purpose—tolerably sober: not going to bed
mad at six o’clock and getting up drunk at twelve. Consequently, he
rose, in suicidal low spirits, as fit for the church as for a dance;
and instead, he sat down by the fire and swallowed gin or brandy by
tumblerfuls.
“Heathcliff—I shudder to name him! has been a stranger in the house
from last Sunday till to-day. Whether the angels have fed him, or his
kin beneath, I cannot tell; but he has not eaten a meal with us for
nearly a week. He has just come home at dawn, and gone upstairs to his
chamber; locking himself in—as if anybody dreamt of coveting his
company! There he has continued, praying like a Methodist: only the
deity he implored is senseless dust and ashes; and God, when addressed,
was curiously confounded with his own black father! After concluding
these precious orisons—and they lasted generally till he grew hoarse
and his voice was strangled in his throat—he would be off again; always
straight down to the Grange! I wonder Edgar did not send for a
constable, and give him into custody! For me, grieved as I was about
Catherine, it was impossible to avoid regarding this season of
deliverance from degrading oppression as a holiday.
“I recovered spirits sufficient to hear Joseph’s eternal lectures
without weeping, and to move up and down the house less with the foot
of a frightened thief than formerly. You wouldn’t think that I should
cry at anything Joseph could say; but he and Hareton are detestable
companions. I’d rather sit with Hindley, and hear his awful talk, than
with ‘t’ little maister’ and his staunch supporter, that odious old
man! When Heathcliff is in, I’m often obliged to seek the kitchen and
their society, or starve among the damp uninhabited chambers; when he
is not, as was the case this week, I establish a table and chair at one
corner of the house fire, and never mind how Mr. Earnshaw may occupy
himself; and he does not interfere with my arrangements. He is quieter
now than he used to be, if no one provokes him: more sullen and
depressed, and less furious. Joseph affirms he’s sure he’s an altered
man: that the Lord has touched his heart, and he is saved ‘so as by
fire.’ I’m puzzled to detect signs of the favourable change: but it is
not my business.
“Yester-evening I sat in my nook reading some old books till late on
towards twelve. It seemed so dismal to go upstairs, with the wild snow
blowing outside, and my thoughts continually reverting to the kirkyard
and the new-made grave! I dared hardly lift my eyes from the page
before me, that melancholy scene so instantly usurped its place.
Hindley sat opposite, his head leant on his hand; perhaps meditating on
the same subject. He had ceased drinking at a point below
irrationality, and had neither stirred nor spoken during two or three
hours. There was no sound through the house but the moaning wind, which
shook the windows every now and then, the faint crackling of the coals,
and the click of my snuffers as I removed at intervals the long wick of
the candle. Hareton and Joseph were probably fast asleep in bed. It was
very, very sad: and while I read I sighed, for it seemed as if all joy
had vanished from the world, never to be restored.
“The doleful silence was broken at length by the sound of the kitchen
latch: Heathcliff had returned from his watch earlier than usual;
owing, I suppose, to the sudden storm. That entrance was fastened, and
we heard him coming round to get in by the other. I rose with an
irrepressible expression of what I felt on my lips, which induced my
companion, who had been staring towards the door, to turn and look at
me.
“‘I’ll keep him out five minutes,’ he exclaimed. ‘You won’t object?’
“‘No, you may keep him out the whole night for me,’ I answered. ‘Do!
put the key in the lock, and draw the bolts.’
“Earnshaw accomplished this ere his guest reached the front; he then
came and brought his chair to the other side of my table, leaning over
it, and searching in my eyes for a sympathy with the burning hate that
gleamed from his: as he both looked and felt like an assassin, he
couldn’t exactly find that; but he discovered enough to encourage him
to speak.
“‘You, and I,’ he said, ‘have each a great debt to settle with the man
out yonder! If we were neither of us cowards, we might combine to
discharge it. Are you as soft as your brother? Are you willing to
endure to the last, and not once attempt a repayment?’
“‘I’m weary of enduring now,’ I replied; ‘and I’d be glad of a
retaliation that wouldn’t recoil on myself; but treachery and violence
are spears pointed at both ends; they wound those who resort to them
worse than their enemies.’
“‘Treachery and violence are a just return for treachery and violence!’
cried Hindley. ‘Mrs. Heathcliff, I’ll ask you to do nothing; but sit
still and be dumb. Tell me now, can you? I’m sure you would have as
much pleasure as I in witnessing the conclusion of the fiend’s
existence; he’ll be _your_ death unless you overreach him; and he’ll be
_my_ ruin. Damn the hellish villain! He knocks at the door as if he
were master here already! Promise to hold your tongue, and before that
clock strikes—it wants three minutes of one—you’re a free woman!’
“He took the implements which I described to you in my letter from his
breast, and would have turned down the candle. I snatched it away,
however, and seized his arm.
“‘I’ll not hold my tongue!’ I said; ‘you mustn’t touch him. Let the
door remain shut, and be quiet!’
“‘No! I’ve formed my resolution, and by God I’ll execute it!’ cried the
desperate being. ‘I’ll do you a kindness in spite of yourself, and
Hareton justice! And you needn’t trouble your head to screen me;
Catherine is gone. Nobody alive would regret me, or be ashamed, though
I cut my throat this minute—and it’s time to make an end!’
“I might as well have struggled with a bear, or reasoned with a
lunatic. The only resource left me was to run to a lattice and warn his
intended victim of the fate which awaited him.
“‘You’d better seek shelter somewhere else to-night!’ I exclaimed, in
rather a triumphant tone. ‘Mr. Earnshaw has a mind to shoot you, if you
persist in endeavouring to enter.’
“‘You’d better open the door, you—’ he answered, addressing me by some
elegant term that I don’t care to repeat.
“‘I shall not meddle in the matter,’ I retorted again. ‘Come in and get
shot, if you please. I’ve done my duty.’
“With that I shut the window and returned to my place by the fire;
having too small a stock of hypocrisy at my command to pretend any
anxiety for the danger that menaced him. Earnshaw swore passionately at
me: affirming that I loved the villain yet; and calling me all sorts of
names for the base spirit I evinced. And I, in my secret heart (and
conscience never reproached me), thought what a blessing it would be
for _him_ should Heathcliff put him out of misery; and what a blessing
for _me_ should he send Heathcliff to his right abode! As I sat nursing
these reflections, the casement behind me was banged on to the floor by
a blow from the latter individual, and his black countenance looked
blightingly through. The stanchions stood too close to suffer his
shoulders to follow, and I smiled, exulting in my fancied security. His
hair and clothes were whitened with snow, and his sharp cannibal teeth,
revealed by cold and wrath, gleamed through the dark.
“‘Isabella, let me in, or I’ll make you repent!’ he ‘girned,’ as Joseph
calls it.
“‘I cannot commit murder,’ I replied. ‘Mr. Hindley stands sentinel with
a knife and loaded pistol.’
“‘Let me in by the kitchen door,’ he said.
“‘Hindley will be there before me,’ I answered: ‘and that’s a poor love
of yours that cannot bear a shower of snow! We were left at peace in
our beds as long as the summer moon shone, but the moment a blast of
winter returns, you must run for shelter! Heathcliff, if I were you,
I’d go stretch myself over her grave and die like a faithful dog. The
world is surely not worth living in now, is it? You had distinctly
impressed on me the idea that Catherine was the whole joy of your life:
I can’t imagine how you think of surviving her loss.’
“‘He’s there, is he?’ exclaimed my companion, rushing to the gap. ‘If I
can get my arm out I can hit him!’
“I’m afraid, Ellen, you’ll set me down as really wicked; but you don’t
know all, so don’t judge. I wouldn’t have aided or abetted an attempt
on even _his_ life for anything. Wish that he were dead, I must; and
therefore I was fearfully disappointed, and unnerved by terror for the