CHAPTER 17
That week the weather broke: the wind shifted to the north-east, and brought rain first, and then sleet and snow. The primroses and crocuses were hidden under wintry drifts; the larks were silent, the young leaves smitten and blackened.
A dreary, dismal morning! I was sitting in the lonely parlour with the child moaning on my knee; rocking it and watching the snowflakes on the window, when the door opened, and someone entered, out of breath and laughing!
‘Quiet!’ I cried, supposing it to be one of the maids.
‘Excuse me!’ answered a familiar voice; ‘but I cannot stop myself.’
The speaker came forward, panting.
‘I have run the whole way from Wuthering Heights!’ she continued. ‘The falls I’ve had! I’m aching all over! Please order the carriage to take me to Gimmerton, and tell a servant to seek a few clothes in my wardrobe.’
The intruder was Mrs. Heathcliff. Her hair was dripping; she was dressed in a light, girlish frock with short sleeves, which clung to her with wet. Her feet were protected merely by thin slippers; add to this a deep cut under one ear, a white face scratched and bruised, and a frame hardly able to support itself through fatigue; and you may fancy my alarm.
‘My dear young lady,’ I exclaimed, ‘I’ll stir nowhere, till you have removed your clothes, and put on dry things; and certainly you shall not go to Gimmerton tonight.’
‘Certainly I shall,’ she said. ‘Ah, see how the blood flows down my neck now! The fire does make it smart.’
Not until the coachman had been instructed to get ready, did she let me bind her wound and help her to change her clothes.
‘Now, Ellen,’ she said, when she was seated with a cup of tea, ‘you sit down opposite me, and put poor Catherine’s baby away: I don’t like to see it! You mustn’t think I care little for Catherine, because I laughed: I’ve cried, too, bitterly. We parted unreconciled, and I shan’t forgive myself. But, for all that, I was not going to sympathise with him – the brute beast! Oh, give me the poker! This is the last thing of his I have.’
She slipped the gold ring from her finger, and threw it on the floor.
‘I’ll smash it!’ she continued, striking it with childish spite, ‘and then I’ll burn it!’ and she threw it among the coals. ‘There! he shall buy another, if he gets me back again. He’d be capable of coming to seek me, to tease Edgar. Edgar has not been kind, has he? I won’t ask him for help. If I had not learned he was out, I’d have halted at the kitchen, warmed myself, and departed again, to anywhere out of the reach of my accursed – of that goblin! Ah, he was in such a fury! If he had caught me! It’s a pity Earnshaw is not his match in strength: I wouldn’t have run till I’d seen him beaten, had Hindley been able to do it!’
‘Don’t talk so fast, Miss!’ I interrupted; ‘you’ll make the cut bleed again. Drink your tea, and give over laughing: laughter is sadly out of place under this roof, and in your condition!’
‘True,’ she replied. ‘Listen to that child wailing! Send it out of my hearing for an hour; I shan’t stay any longer.’
I rang the bell, and gave it to a servant’s care. Then I inquired what had urged her to escape from Wuthering Heights, and where she meant to go, if she would not stay with us.
‘I wish to stay,’ answered she, ‘to cheer Edgar and take care of the baby, but I tell you Heathcliff wouldn’t let me! Do you think he could bear to think that we were tranquil, without resolving to poison our comfort? He detests me: when I enter his presence, I see hatred in his face. Because of it, I feel pretty certain that he would not chase me over England; and therefore I have escaped. He has extinguished my love; yet I can recollect how I loved him; and can dimly imagine that I could still love him, if – no, no! Even if he doted on me, his devilish nature would have revealed itself somehow. Catherine had an awfully perverted taste to esteem him so dearly, knowing him so well. Monster! I wish he could be blotted out of creation!’
‘Hush, hush! He’s a human being,’ I said. ‘Be more charitable!’
‘He’s not a human being,’ she retorted; ‘and he has no claim on my charity. I gave him my heart, and he pinched it to death, and flung it back to me. I would not feel sorry for him if he groaned until his dying day, and wept tears of blood for Catherine! No, indeed, I wouldn’t!’ And here Isabella began to cry; but immediately dashing the tears away, she went on.
‘You asked, what has driven me to flight at last? I had succeeded in rousing his rage to such a pitch that he forgot his prudence, and became murderously violent. I had pleasure in exasperating him: my pleasure woke my instinct of self-preservation, so I broke free.
‘Yesterday Mr. Earnshaw should have been at the funeral. He kept himself tolerably sober for the purpose – not going to bed mad at six o’clock and getting up drunk at twelve. Consequently, he rose in suicidal low spirits, sat down by the fire and swallowed gin and brandy by tumblerfuls.
‘Heathcliff – I shudder to name him! has been a stranger in the house since last Sunday. He has not eaten a meal with us for nearly a week. He has come home at dawn, and locked himself in his chamber – as if anybody dreamt of wanting his company! There he has stayed, praying to dust and ashes, and confusing God with his own black father. When he was hoarse with prayers, he would be off again; always straight down to the Grange!
‘Once he was gone, I recovered my spirits enough to bear Joseph’s eternal lectures without weeping. 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 master” and that odious old man! When Heathcliff is not in, I sit by the fire, near Mr. Earnshaw. He is quieter now than he used to be, if no one provokes him: more sullen and depressed, and less furious.
‘Yesterday I sat in my nook reading till almost midnight. With the wild snow blowing outside, my thoughts continually turned to the church-yard and the new-made grave. Hindley sat opposite, his head leant on his hand; he had neither stirred nor spoken for two or three hours. There was no sound through the house but the moaning wind, which shook the windows, and the faint crackling of the coals. Hareton and Joseph were probably fast asleep in bed.
‘The doleful silence was broken at length by the sound of the kitchen latch: Heathcliff had returned 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, but Hindley turned to look at me.
‘“I’ll keep him out five minutes,” he said. “You won’t object?”
‘“No, you may keep him out the whole night for me,” I answered. “Do bolt the door!”
‘Earnshaw did this, and then leaned over the table, searching in my eyes for a sympathy with the burning hate that gleamed from his. He looked like an assassin.
‘“You, and I,” he said, “have each a great debt to settle with that man! If we were neither of us cowards, we might combine. Are you willing to endure to the last?”
‘“I’m weary of enduring now,” I replied; “but treachery and violence are spears pointed at both ends; they wound those who resort to them.”
‘“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. I’m sure you would be as glad to see the fiend dead as I would. Damn the hellish villain! He knocks at the door as if he were master here already! Promise to hold your tongue, and you’ll be a free woman!”
‘He took out his pistol with its knife, and would have put out the candle, when I seized his arm.
‘“I’ll not hold my tongue!” I said; “you mustn’t touch him. Let the door remain shut!”
‘“No! I’ve formed my resolution, and by God I’ll do it!” cried the desperate man. “I’ll do you a kindness in spite of yourself, and Hareton justice! Nobody alive would regret me, if 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. All I could do was run to a window and warn Heathcliff.
‘“You’d better seek shelter somewhere else to-night!” I exclaimed, rather triumphantly. “Mr. Earnshaw has a mind to shoot you, if you try to enter.”
‘“You’d better open the door, you ___” he answered, addressing me by a term that I don’t care to repeat.
‘“I shall not meddle,” I retorted. “Come in and get shot, if you please. I’ve done my duty.”
‘I shut the window and returned to my place by the fire. Earnshaw swore at me, affirming that I loved the villain yet; and calling me all sorts of names. And I, in my secret heart, thought what a blessing it would be for him should Heathcliff put him out of his misery; and what a blessing for me should he send Heathcliff to hell!
‘As I sat thinking this, the window behind me was banged on to the floor by a blow, and Heathcliff’s black countenance looked through. It was too narrow for his shoulders to follow, and I smiled, exulting in my fancied security. His hair and clothes were white with snow, and his sharp cannibal teeth gleamed through the dark.
‘“Isabella, let me in, or I’ll make you repent!” he snarled.
‘“I cannot commit murder,” I replied. “Mr. Hindley stands guard 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! The moment a blast of winter returns, you must run for shelter! Heathcliff, if I were you, I’d 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 Hindley, rushing over.
‘I wouldn’t have aided an attempt on Heathcliff’s life, Ellen. Still, I was fearfully disappointed when he flung himself on Earnshaw’s weapon and wrenched it from his grasp.
‘The charge exploded, and the knife, in springing back, closed into its owner’s wrist. Heathcliff pulled it away, slitting the flesh, and thrust it dripping into his pocket. He then took a stone, broke the window-frame, and sprang in. His enemy had fallen senseless with pain and the gushing flow of blood. The ruffian kicked and trampled on him, and dashed his head repeatedly against the flagstones, holding me with one hand to prevent me from summoning Joseph. He abstained from finishing him off; but finally stopped and dragged Earnshaw’s body on to the settle. There he tore off the sleeve of his coat, and bound up the wound with brutal roughness, spitting and cursing. Meanwhile, I lost no time in seeking Joseph, who hurried in, gasping:
“What is there to do, now?”
‘“There’s this to do,” thundered Heathcliff, “that your master’s mad; and should go to an asylum. And how the devil did you come to lock me out, you toothless hound? Don’t stand mumbling there. Come, wash that stuff away!”
‘“Ye’ve been murthering him!” exclaimed Joseph, lifting his hands and eyes in horror. “If ever I seed a sight like this!”
‘Heathcliff pushed him to his knees in the middle of the blood, and flung a towel to him; but instead of drying it up, Joseph joined his hands and began a prayer, which made me laugh.
‘“Oh, I forgot you,” said the tyrant. “You conspire with him against me, do you, viper?”
‘He shook me till my teeth rattled, and threw me beside Joseph, who finished his prayer and rose, vowing he would set off for the Grange directly. Mr. Linton was a magistrate, and he should inquire into this.
‘He was so obstinate in his resolution, that Heathcliff forced me to recount what had taken place, and tell the old man that Earnshaw was the aggressor. Joseph hastened to give a dose of spirits to his master, who groaned as he regained consciousness. Heathcliff, aware that Earnshaw was ignorant of the beating he’d received while insensible, called him intoxicated; and advised him to get to bed. He then left, and I departed to my own room, marvelling that I had escaped so easily.
‘This morning, when I came down, Mr. Earnshaw was sitting by the fire, deadly sick; his evil genius Heathcliff, almost as gaunt and ghastly, leant against the chimney. Neither appeared inclined to dine, so I ate heartily alone. I felt a certain satisfaction and superiority, as I glanced towards my silent companions, with the comfort of a quiet conscience. After I had finished, I took the unusual liberty of drawing near the fire, and kneeling beside Earnshaw.
‘Heathcliff did not glance my way, and I gazed up at his features. His forehead, that I once thought so manly, and that I now think so diabolical, was shaded with a heavy cloud; his basilisk eyes were nearly quenched by sleeplessness, and their lashes were wet: his lips, devoid of their ferocious sneer, were sealed in an expression of unspeakable sadness. Had it been another, I would have covered my face in the presence of such grief. In his case, I was gratified; and I couldn’t miss this chance of sticking in a dart.’
‘Fie, Miss!’ I interrupted. ‘One might suppose you had never opened a Bible in your life. It is both mean and presumptuous to add your torture to God’s judgement!’
‘In general I’d agree, Ellen,’ she continued; ‘but I owe Heathcliff so much. It is utterly impossible I can ever be revenged, and therefore I cannot forgive him. Hindley wanted some water, and I handed him a glass, and asked him how he was.
‘“Every inch of me is as sore as if I had been fighting with a legion of imps!” he replied.
‘“No wonder,” I remarked. “Catherine used to boast that she stood between you and bodily harm: she meant that certain persons would not hurt you for fear of offending her. It’s as well people don’t really rise from the grave, or last night she might have witnessed a repulsive scene! Are not you bruised, and cut on your chest and shoulders?”
‘“What do you mean?” he answered. “Did Heathcliff strike me when I was down?”
‘“He trampled and kicked you, and dashed you on the ground,” I whispered. “And he wanted to tear you with his teeth; he’s barely human.”
‘Mr. Earnshaw looked up at Heathcliff, who, absorbed in his black anguish, saw nothing around him.
‘“Oh, if God would but give me strength to strangle him in my last agony, I’d go to hell with joy,” groaned the impatient Hindley, trying to rise, and sinking back in despair.
‘“Nay, it’s enough that he has murdered one of you,” I observed aloud. “At the Grange, everyone knows your sister would have been living now had it not been for Mr. Heathcliff. When I recollect how happy Catherine was before he came – I curse the day.”
‘Heathcliff’s attention was roused, for I saw that he wept and drew his breath in suffocating sighs. I stared at him, and laughed scornfully. The clouded windows of hell flashed a moment towards me; the fiend which usually looked out, however, was dimmed and drowned.
‘“Go out of my sight,” he said, his voice hardly intelligible.
‘“I beg your pardon,” I replied. “But I loved Catherine too; and I need to attend on her brother. Now, that she’s dead, I see her in Hindley: he has exactly her eyes, if you had not tried to gouge them out, and her—”
‘“Get up, wretched idiot, before I stamp you to death!” he cried.
‘“But then,” I continued, standing ready to flee, “if poor Catherine had trusted you, and assumed the ridiculous, degrading title of Mrs. Heathcliff, she wouldn’t have borne your abominable behaviour! She would have voiced her hatred and disgust.”
‘He snatched a dinner-knife from the table and flung it at my head. It struck beneath my ear; but, pulling it out, I sprang to the door and delivered another sentence; which I hope went deep. As I left, he made a furious rush, which was stopped by his host; and both fell locked together on the hearth.
‘In my flight through the kitchen I bid Joseph hurry to his master; I knocked over Hareton, who was hanging a litter of puppies from a chair-back; and, blessed as a soul escaped fro
m purgatory, I leaped and flew down the steep road; then shot across the moor, rolling over banks, and wading through marshes towards the Grange. And I would rather dwell in Hell than, even for one night, stay beneath the roof of Wuthering Heights again.’
Isabella ceased speaking, and took a drink of tea; then she rose, and put on a shawl. Turning a deaf ear to my entreaties for her to stay another hour, she kissed Edgar’s and Catherine’s portraits, kissed me likewise, and went to the carriage. She was driven away, never to revisit this neighbourhood: but she wrote regularly to my master. She lived near London; there she had a son born a few months after her escape. He was christened Linton, and, from the first, she reported him to be an ailing, peevish creature.
Mr. Heathcliff, meeting me one day in the village, inquired where she lived. I refused to tell. He remarked that it did not matter, only she must beware of coming to her brother. He learnt from some of the other servants about the existence of the child, and often asked about the infant; on hearing its name, he smiled grimly, and observed: ‘They wish me to hate it too, do they?’
‘I don’t think they wish you to know anything about it,’ I answered.
‘But I’ll have it,’ he said, ‘when I want it. They may reckon on that!’
Fortunately its mother died before that time arrived; some thirteen years after the death of Catherine, when Linton was twelve.
My master was pleased that Isabella had left her husband, whom he abhorred with an intensity which his mild nature would scarcely seem to allow. So deep was his aversion, that he would not go anywhere where he was likely to see or hear of Heathcliff. He became a hermit: he gave up his office of magistrate, ceased to attend church, avoided the village, and lived a life of seclusion within his park and grounds; only varied by solitary rambles on the moors, and visits to the grave of his wife.
But he was too good to be unhappy long. Time brought resignation, and he recalled her memory with ardent, tender love, and hopeful aspiring to the better world.
And he had earthly consolation also. For a few days, I said, he seemed unaware of Catherine’s baby: but that coldness melted, and soon the tiny thing ruled his heart. She was named Catherine, but he always called her Cathy: it gave her a distinction from the mother, and yet a connection with her.
I used to compare Edgar to Hindley Earnshaw, whose conduct was so opposite in similar circumstances. They had both been fond husbands, and were both attached to their children; but Hindley was the worse and weaker man. Linton, on the contrary, trusted God; and God comforted him. One hoped, and the other despaired. Hindley’s end was what might have been expected, scarcely six months after his sister’s. I learnt of his death from Dr. Kenneth.
‘Well, Nelly,’ said he, riding into the yard one morning, ‘Who’s given us the slip now, do you think?’
‘Not Mr. Heathcliff, surely?’
‘What! would you weep for him?’ said the doctor. ‘No, Heathcliff’s a tough young fellow.’
‘Who is it, then?’ I repeated impatiently.
‘Hindley Earnshaw!’ he replied, ‘He died true to his character: drunk as a lord. Poor lad! One can’t help missing an old companion: though he had the worst tricks that ever man imagined. He’s barely twenty-seven, it seems.’
This blow was greater to me than the shock of Mrs. Linton’s death. I sat down and wept as if for a blood relation. I could not help pondering on the question – ‘Had he had fair play?’ That idea bothered me so much that I asked leave to go to Wuthering Heights, and assist in the last duties to the dead.
Mr. Linton was extremely reluctant to consent, but I pleaded that my old master and foster-brother had a claim on my services as strong as his own. Besides, I reminded him that the child Hareton was his wife’s nephew, and that he ought to act as its guardian and inquire how the property was left. He told me to speak to his lawyer; and at length permitted me to go.
Calling at the village, I asked the lawyer to accompany me. He shook his head, and advised that Heathcliff should be let alone. He thought that Hareton would be found little more than a beggar.
‘His father died in debt,’ he said; ‘the whole property is mortgaged, and the only chance for Hareton is to allow him an opportunity of creating some interest in Heathcliff’s heart, so that he may be kind to him.’
When I reached the Heights, I explained that I had come to see everything carried on decently. Mr. Heathcliff said he did not perceive that I was wanted; but I might stay and order the arrangements for the funeral, if I chose.
‘Really,’ he remarked, ‘that fool’s body should be buried at the cross-roads, without ceremony. I happened to leave him for ten minutes yesterday, and in that interval he fastened the doors of the house against me, and then spent the night in drinking himself to death! We broke in this morning; and there he was, laid over the settle. I sent Joseph to get Kenneth, but he did not come till the beast had changed into carrion: he was cold and stark.’
Joseph confirmed this, but muttered: ‘He warn’t dead when I left, nowt o’ the sort!’
At the funeral, Mr. Heathcliff appeared hard and careless. At one time, indeed, he even showed something like exultation: it was when the people were bearing the coffin from the house. Before following it, he lifted Hareton on to the table and said, with peculiar gusto, ‘Now, my bonny lad, you are mine! And we’ll see if one tree won’t grow as crooked as another, with the same wind to twist it!’
The unsuspecting lad played with Heathcliff’s whiskers, and stroked his cheek; but I observed tartly, ‘That boy must go back with me to Thrushcross Grange, sir. Mr. Linton has ordered me to take him.’
‘Well,’ said the scoundrel, ‘we’ll not argue now: but I have a fancy to try my hand at rearing a young one; so tell your master that I must supply the place of this with my own, if he should attempt to remove it.’
This hint was enough to bind our hands. When I repeated it to Edgar, he spoke no more of interfering.
Heathcliff was now the master of Wuthering Heights: for Earnshaw had mortgaged every yard of land he owned to supply his mania for gaming; and Heathcliff was the mortgagee. So Hareton became completely dependent on his father’s enemy; and now he lives in his own house as a servant with no wages: quite unable to right himself, and ignorant that he has been wronged.