Wuthering Heights
“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
idiocy, 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 I
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
upstairs.”
“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