As soon as I had perused this epistle I went to the master, and informed him that his sister had arrived at the Heights, and sent me a letter expressing her sorrow for Mrs. Linton\u2019s situation, and her ardent desire to see him; with a wish that he would transmit to her, as early as possible, some token of forgiveness by me.<\/p>\n
\u201cForgiveness!\u201d said Linton. \u201cI have nothing to forgive her, Ellen. You may call at Wuthering Heights this afternoon, if you like, and say that I am not angry, but I\u2019m sorry to have lost her; especially as I can never think she\u2019ll be happy. It is out of the question my going to see her, however: we are eternally divided; and should she really wish to oblige me, let her persuade the villain she has married to leave the country.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd you won\u2019t write her a little note, sir?\u201d I asked, imploringly.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo,\u201d he answered. \u201cIt is needless. My communication with Heathcliff\u2019s family shall be as sparing as his with mine. It shall not exist!\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr. Edgar\u2019s coldness depressed me exceedingly; and all the way from the Grange I puzzled my brains how to put more heart into what he said, when I repeated it; and how to soften his refusal of even a few lines to console Isabella. I daresay she had been on the watch for me since morning: I saw her looking through the lattice as I came up the garden causeway, and I nodded to her; but she drew back, as if afraid of being observed. I entered without knocking. There never was such a dreary, dismal scene as the formerly cheerful house presented! I must confess, that if I had been in the young lady\u2019s place, I would, at least, have swept the hearth, and wiped the tables with a duster. But she already partook of the pervading spirit of neglect which encompassed her. Her pretty face was wan and listless; her hair uncurled: some locks hanging lankly down, and some carelessly twisted round her head. Probably she had not touched her dress since yester evening. Hindley was not there. Mr. Heathcliff sat at a table, turning over some papers in his pocket-book; but he rose when I appeared, asked me how I did, quite friendly, and offered me a chair. He was the only thing there that seemed decent; and I thought he never looked better. So much had circumstances altered their positions, that he would certainly have struck a stranger as a born and bred gentleman; and his wife as a thorough little slattern! She came forward eagerly to greet me, and held out one hand to take the expected letter. I shook my head. She wouldn\u2019t understand the hint, but followed me to a sideboard, where I went to lay my bonnet, and importuned me in a whisper to give her directly what I had brought. Heathcliff guessed the meaning of her manoeuvres, and said\u2014\u201cIf you have got anything for Isabella (as no doubt you have, Nelly), give it to her. You needn\u2019t make a secret of it: we have no secrets between us.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, I have nothing,\u201d I replied, thinking it best to speak the truth at once. \u201cMy master bid me tell his sister that she must not expect either a letter or a visit from him at present. He sends his love, ma\u2019am, and his wishes for your happiness, and his pardon for the grief you have occasioned; but he thinks that after this time his household and the household here should drop intercommunication, as nothing could come of keeping it up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mrs. Heathcliff\u2019s lip quivered slightly, and she returned to her seat in the window. Her husband took his stand on the hearthstone, near me, and began to put questions concerning Catherine. I told him as much as I thought proper of her illness, and he extorted from me, by cross-examination, most of the facts connected with its origin. I blamed her, as she deserved, for bringing it all on herself; and ended by hoping that he would follow Mr. Linton\u2019s example and avoid future interference with his family, for good or evil.<\/p>\n
\u201cMrs. Linton is now just recovering,\u201d I said; \u201cshe\u2019ll never be like she was, but her life is spared; and if you really have a regard for her, you\u2019ll shun crossing her way again: nay, you\u2019ll move out of this country entirely; and that you may not regret it, I\u2019ll inform you Catherine Linton is as different now from your old friend Catherine Earnshaw, as that young lady is different from me. Her appearance is changed greatly, her character much more so; and the person who is compelled, of necessity, to be her companion, will only sustain his affection hereafter by the remembrance of what she once was, by common humanity, and a sense of duty!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is quite possible,\u201d remarked Heathcliff, forcing himself to seem calm: \u201cquite possible that your master should have nothing but common humanity and a sense of duty to fall back upon. But do you imagine that I shall leave Catherine to his duty<\/i> and humanity<\/i>? and can you compare my feelings respecting Catherine to his? Before you leave this house, I must exact a promise from you that you\u2019ll get me an interview with her: consent, or refuse, I will<\/i> see her! What do you say?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI say, Mr. Heathcliff,\u201d I replied, \u201cyou must not: you never shall, through my means. Another encounter between you and the master would kill her altogether.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWith your aid that may be avoided,\u201d he continued; \u201cand should there be danger of such an event\u2014should he be the cause of adding a single trouble more to her existence\u2014why, I think I shall be justified in going to extremes! I wish you had sincerity enough to tell me whether Catherine would suffer greatly from his loss: the fear that she would restrains me. And there you see the distinction between our feelings: had he been in my place, and I in his, though I hated him with a hatred that turned my life to gall, I never would have raised a hand against him. You may look incredulous, if you please! I never would have banished him from her society as long as she desired his. The moment her regard ceased, I would have torn his heart out, and drunk his blood! But, till then\u2014if you don\u2019t believe me, you don\u2019t know me\u2014till then, I would have died by inches before I touched a single hair of his head!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd yet,\u201d I interrupted, \u201cyou have no scruples in completely ruining all hopes of her perfect restoration, by thrusting yourself into her remembrance now, when she has nearly forgotten you, and involving her in a new tumult of discord and distress.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou suppose she has nearly forgotten me?\u201d he said. \u201cOh, Nelly! you know she has not! You know as well as I do, that for every thought she spends on Linton she spends a thousand on me! At a most miserable period of my life, I had a notion of the kind: it haunted me on my return to the neighbourhood last summer; but only her own assurance could make me admit the horrible idea again. And then, Linton would be nothing, nor Hindley, nor all the dreams that ever I dreamt. Two words would comprehend my future\u2014death<\/i> and hell<\/i>: existence, after losing her, would be hell. Yet I was a fool to fancy for a moment that she valued Edgar Linton\u2019s attachment more than mine. If he loved with all the powers of his puny being, he couldn\u2019t love as much in eighty years as I could in a day. And Catherine has a heart as deep as I have: the sea could be as readily contained in that horse-trough as her whole affection be monopolised by him. Tush! He is scarcely a degree dearer to her than her dog, or her horse. It is not in him to be loved like me: how can she love in him what he has not?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCatherine and Edgar are as fond of each other as any two people can be,\u201d cried Isabella, with sudden vivacity. \u201cNo one has a right to talk in that manner, and I won\u2019t hear my brother depreciated in silence!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYour brother is wondrous fond of you too, isn\u2019t he?\u201d observed Heathcliff, scornfully. \u201cHe turns you adrift on the world with surprising alacrity.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is not aware of what I suffer,\u201d she replied. \u201cI didn\u2019t tell him that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have been telling him something, then: you have written, have you?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTo say that I was married, I did write\u2014you saw the note.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd nothing since?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMy young lady is looking sadly the worse for her change of condition,\u201d I remarked. \u201cSomebody\u2019s love comes short in her case, obviously; whose, I may guess; but, perhaps, I shouldn\u2019t say.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI should guess it was her own,\u201d said Heathcliff. \u201cShe degenerates into a mere slut! She is tired of trying to please me uncommonly early. You\u2019d hardly credit it, but the very morrow of our wedding she was weeping to go home. However, she\u2019ll suit this house so much the better for not being over nice, and I\u2019ll take care she does not disgrace me by rambling abroad.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, sir,\u201d returned I, \u201cI hope you\u2019ll consider that Mrs. Heathcliff is accustomed to be looked after and waited on; and that she has been brought up like an only daughter, whom every one was ready to serve. You must let her have a maid to keep things tidy about her, and you must treat her kindly. Whatever be your notion of Mr. Edgar, you cannot doubt that she has a capacity for strong attachments, or she wouldn\u2019t have abandoned the elegancies, and comforts, and friends of her former home, to fix contentedly, in such a wilderness as this, with you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe abandoned them under a delusion,\u201d he answered; \u201cpicturing in me a hero of romance, and expecting unlimited indulgences from my chivalrous devotion. I can hardly regard her in the light of a rational creature, so obstinately has she persisted in forming a fabulous notion of my character and acting on the false impressions she cherished. But, at last, I think she begins to know me: I don\u2019t perceive the silly smiles and grimaces that provoked me at first; and the senseless incapability of discerning that I was in earnest when I gave her my opinion of her infatuation and herself. It was a marvellous effort of perspicacity to discover that I did not love her. I believed, at one time, no lessons could teach her that! And yet it is poorly learnt; for this morning she announced, as a piece of appalling intelligence, that I had actually succeeded in making her hate me! A positive labour of Hercules, I assure you! If it be achieved, I have cause to return thanks. Can I trust your assertion, Isabella? Are you sure you hate me? If I let you alone for half a day, won\u2019t you come sighing and wheedling to me again? I daresay she would rather I had seemed all tenderness before you: it wounds her vanity to have the truth exposed. But I don\u2019t care who knows that the passion was wholly on one side: and I never told her a lie about it. She cannot accuse me of showing one bit of deceitful softness. The first thing she saw me do, on coming out of the Grange, was to hang up her little dog; and when she pleaded for it, the first words I uttered were a wish that I had the hanging of every being belonging to her, except one: possibly she took that exception for herself. But no brutality disgusted her: I suppose she has an innate admiration of it, if only her precious person were secure from injury! Now, was it not the depth of absurdity\u2014of genuine idiocy, for that pitiful, slavish, mean-minded brach to dream that I could love her? Tell your master, Nelly, that I never, in all my life, met with such an abject thing as she is. She even disgraces the name of Linton; and I\u2019ve sometimes relented, from pure lack of invention, in my experiments on what she could endure, and still creep shamefully cringing back! But tell him, also, to set his fraternal and magisterial heart at ease: that I keep strictly within the limits of the law. I have avoided, up to this period, giving her the slightest right to claim a separation; and, what\u2019s more, she\u2019d thank nobody for dividing us. If she desired to go, she might: the nuisance of her presence outweighs the gratification to be derived from tormenting her!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMr. Heathcliff,\u201d said I, \u201cthis is the talk of a madman; your wife, most likely, is convinced you are mad; and, for that reason, she has borne with you hitherto: but now that you say she may go, she\u2019ll doubtless avail herself of the permission. You are not so bewitched, ma\u2019am, are you, as to remain with him of your own accord?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTake care, Ellen!\u201d answered Isabella, her eyes sparkling irefully; there was no misdoubting by their expression the full success of her partner\u2019s endeavours to make himself detested. \u201cDon\u2019t put faith in a single word he speaks. He\u2019s a lying fiend! a monster, and not a human being! I\u2019ve been told I might leave him before; and I\u2019ve made the attempt, but I dare not repeat it! Only, Ellen, promise you\u2019ll not mention a syllable of his infamous conversation to my brother or Catherine. Whatever he may pretend, he wishes to provoke Edgar to desperation: he says he has married me on purpose to obtain power over him; and he sha\u2019n\u2019t obtain it\u2014I\u2019ll die first! I just hope, I pray, that he may forget his diabolical prudence and kill me! The single pleasure I can imagine is to die, or to see him dead!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2014that will do for the present!\u201d said Heathcliff. \u201cIf you are called upon in a court of law, you\u2019ll remember her language, Nelly! And take a good look at that countenance: she\u2019s near the point which would suit me. No; you\u2019re not fit to be your own guardian, Isabella, now; and I, being your legal protector, must retain you in my custody, however distasteful the obligation may be. Go upstairs; I have something to say to Ellen Dean in private. That\u2019s not the way: upstairs, I tell you! Why, this is the road upstairs, child!\u201d<\/p>\n
He seized, and thrust her from the room; and returned muttering\u2014\u201cI have no pity! I have no pity! The more the worms writhe, the more I yearn to crush out their entrails! It is a moral teething; and I grind with greater energy in proportion to the increase of pain.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you understand what the word pity means?\u201d I said, hastening to resume my bonnet. \u201cDid you ever feel a touch of it in your life?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPut that down!\u201d he interrupted, perceiving my intention to depart. \u201cYou are not going yet. Come here now, Nelly: I must either persuade or compel you to aid me in fulfilling my determination to see Catherine, and that without delay. I swear that I meditate no harm: I don\u2019t desire to cause any disturbance, or to exasperate or insult Mr. Linton; I only wish to hear from herself how she is, and why she has been ill; and to ask if anything that I could do would be of use to her. Last night I was in the Grange garden six hours, and I\u2019ll return there to-night; and every night I\u2019ll haunt the place, and every day, till I find an opportunity of entering. If Edgar Linton meets me, I shall not hesitate to knock him down, and give him enough to insure his quiescence while I stay. If his servants oppose me, I shall threaten them off with these pistols. But wouldn\u2019t it be better to prevent my coming in contact with them, or their master? And you could do it so easily. I\u2019d warn you when I came, and then you might let me in unobserved, as soon as she was alone, and watch till I departed, your conscience quite calm: you would be hindering mischief.\u201d<\/p>\n
I protested against playing that treacherous part in my employer\u2019s house: and, besides, I urged the cruelty and selfishness of his destroying Mrs. Linton\u2019s tranquillity for his satisfaction. \u201cThe commonest occurrence startles her painfully,\u201d I said. \u201cShe\u2019s all nerves, and she couldn\u2019t bear the surprise, I\u2019m positive. Don\u2019t persist, sir! or else I shall be obliged to inform my master of your designs; and he\u2019ll take measures to secure his house and its inmates from any such unwarrantable intrusions!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIn that case I\u2019ll take measures to secure you, woman!\u201d exclaimed Heathcliff; \u201cyou shall not leave Wuthering Heights till to-morrow morning. It is a foolish story to assert that Catherine could not bear to see me; and as to surprising her, I don\u2019t desire it: you must prepare her\u2014ask her if I may come. You say she never mentions my name, and that I am never mentioned to her. To whom should she mention me if I am a forbidden topic in the house? She thinks you are all spies for her husband. Oh, I\u2019ve no doubt she\u2019s in hell among you! I guess by her silence, as much as anything, what she feels. You say she is often restless, and anxious-looking: is that a proof of tranquillity? You talk of her mind being unsettled. How the devil could it be otherwise in her frightful isolation? And that insipid, paltry creature attending her from duty<\/i> and humanity<\/i>! From pity<\/i> and charity<\/i>! He might as well plant an oak in a flower-pot, and expect it to thrive, as imagine he can restore her to vigour in the soil of his shallow cares? Let us settle it at once: will you stay here, and am I to fight my way to Catherine over Linton and his footman? Or will you be my friend, as you have been hitherto, and do what I request? Decide! because there is no reason for my lingering another minute, if you persist in your stubborn ill-nature!\u201d<\/p>\n
Well, Mr. Lockwood, I argued and complained, and flatly refused him fifty times; but in the long run he forced me to an agreement. I engaged to carry a letter from him to my mistress; and should she consent, I promised to let him have intelligence of Linton\u2019s next absence from home, when he might come, and get in as he was able: I wouldn\u2019t be there, and my fellow-servants should be equally out of the way. Was it right or wrong? I fear it was wrong, though expedient. I thought I prevented another explosion by my compliance; and I thought, too, it might create a favourable crisis in Catherine\u2019s mental illness: and then I remembered Mr. Edgar\u2019s stern rebuke of my carrying tales; and I tried to smooth away all disquietude on the subject, by affirming, with frequent iteration, that that betrayal of trust, if it merited so harsh an appellation, should be the last. Notwithstanding, my journey homeward was sadder than my journey thither; and many misgivings I had, ere I could prevail on myself to put the missive into Mrs. Linton\u2019s hand.<\/p>\n
But here is Kenneth; I\u2019ll go down, and tell him how much better you are. My history is dree<\/i>, as we say, and will serve to while away another morning.<\/p>\n
Dree, and dreary! I reflected as the good woman descended to receive the doctor: and not exactly of the kind which I should have chosen to amuse me. But never mind! I\u2019ll extract wholesome medicines from Mrs. Dean\u2019s bitter herbs; and firstly, let me beware of the fascination that lurks in Catherine Heathcliff\u2019s brilliant eyes. I should be in a curious taking if I surrendered my heart to that young person, and the daughter turned out a second edition of the mother.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":299,"menu_order":14,"template":"","meta":{"pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[48],"contributor":[],"license":[],"class_list":["post-37","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry","chapter-type-numberless"],"part":3,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/wutheringheights\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/37","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/wutheringheights\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/wutheringheights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/wutheringheights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/299"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/wutheringheights\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/37\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":164,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/wutheringheights\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/37\/revisions\/164"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/wutheringheights\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/3"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/wutheringheights\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/37\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/wutheringheights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/wutheringheights\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=37"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/wutheringheights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=37"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/wutheringheights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=37"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}