\u201cThese things happened last winter, sir,\u201d said Mrs. Dean; \u201chardly more than a year ago. Last winter, I did not think, at another twelve months\u2019 end, I should be amusing a stranger to the family with relating them! Yet, who knows how long you\u2019ll be a stranger? You\u2019re 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\u2014?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cStop, my good friend!\u201d I cried. \u201cIt may be very possible that I<\/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\u2019m of the busy world, and to its arms I must return. Go on. Was Catherine obedient to her father\u2019s commands?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cShe was,\u201d continued the housekeeper. \u201cHer 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, \u2018I 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?\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2018He\u2019s very delicate, sir,\u2019 I replied; \u2018and 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\u2019ll 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.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve prayed often,\u201d he half soliloquised, \u201cfor 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\u2019ve been very happy with my little Cathy: through winter nights and summer days she was a living hope at my side. But I\u2019ve 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\u2019s grave, and wishing\u2014yearning for the time when I might lie beneath it. What can I do for Cathy? How must I quit her? I\u2019d not care one moment for Linton being Heathcliff\u2019s son; nor for his taking her from me, if he could console her for my loss. I\u2019d not care that Heathcliff gained his ends, and triumphed in robbing me of my last blessing! But should Linton be unworthy\u2014only a feeble tool to his father\u2014I 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\u2019d rather resign her to God, and lay her in the earth before me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cResign her to God as it is, sir,\u201d I answered, \u201cand if we should lose you\u2014which may He forbid\u2014under His providence, I\u2019ll stand her friend and counsellor to the last. Miss Catherine is a good girl: I don\u2019t fear that she will go wilfully wrong; and people who do their duty are always finally rewarded.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u2014\u201cYou\u2019ll surely not go out to-night, sir?\u201d<\/p>\n
He answered,\u2014\u201cNo, I\u2019ll defer it this year a little longer.\u201d He wrote again to Linton, expressing his great desire to see him; and, had the invalid been presentable, I\u2019ve 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
That part of his letter was simple, and probably his own. Heathcliff knew he could plead eloquently for Catherine\u2019s company, then.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do not ask,\u201d he said, \u201cthat 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\u2019s 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\u2014it 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?\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s fortune, he had a natural desire that she might retain\u2014or at least return in a short time to\u2014the 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":299,"menu_order":25,"template":"","meta":{"pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[48],"contributor":[],"license":[],"class_list":["post-48","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\/48","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":3,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/wutheringheights\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/48\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":175,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/wutheringheights\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/48\/revisions\/175"}],"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\/48\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/wutheringheights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/wutheringheights\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=48"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/wutheringheights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=48"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.library.torontomu.ca\/wutheringheights\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=48"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}