CHAPTER 28
On the fifth day, a lighter step approached; and Zillah entered the room. She wore a scarlet shawl and black silk bonnet, and a willow-basket swung on her arm.
‘Eh, dear! Mrs. Dean!’ she exclaimed. ‘There’s talk about you at Gimmerton. We thought you were sunk in the Blackhorse marsh, and missy with you, till master told me you’d been found, and he’d lodged you here! And how long were you in the hole? Did master save you, Mrs. Dean?’
‘Your master is a scoundrel!’ I replied. ‘He needn’t have started that tale!’
‘It’s not his tale,’ said Zillah. ‘They tell it in the village – about your being lost in the marsh; and I calls to Earnshaw, when I come in, “Eh, Mr. Hareton, it’s a sad pity of that likely young lass, and Nelly Dean.” He stared, so I told him the rumour. The master listened, and smiled, and said, “If they have been in the marsh, they are out now, Zillah. Nelly Dean is lodged in your room. You can tell her to leave, when you go up; here is the key. The bog-water got into her head; but she has come to her senses. Bid her go to the Grange, and carry a message that her young lady will follow in time to attend the squire’s funeral.”’
‘Mr. Edgar is not dead?’ I gasped. ‘Oh! Zillah!’
‘No, no; he’s not dead,’ she replied. ‘Dr. Kenneth thinks he may last another day.’
I snatched my things, and hastened below. The door stood wide open; but nobody seemed to be there, until a cough drew my attention to the hearth. Linton lay on the settle, sucking a stick of sugar-candy, and watching me with apathetic eyes.
‘Where is Miss Catherine?’ I demanded sternly. ‘Is she gone?’
‘No,’ he replied; ‘she’s upstairs: we won’t let her go.’
‘You won’t let her, little idiot!’ I exclaimed. ‘Direct me to her room immediately, or I’ll make you sing out.’
‘Papa would make you sing out, if you went there,’ he answered. ‘He says I’m not to be soft with Catherine: she’s my wife, and it’s shameful that she should wish to leave me. He says she hates me and wants me to die, so that she may have my money; but she shan’t have it: and she shan’t go home! She may cry, and be sick as much as she pleases!’
He closed his eyelids, as if he meant to drop asleep.
‘Master Heathcliff,’ I said, ‘have you forgotten all Catherine’s kindness to you last winter, when she brought you books and sung you songs, and came many a time through wind and snow to see you? She wept to miss one evening, because you would be disappointed; and you felt then that she was a hundred times too good to you: and now you believe the lies your father tells, though you know he detests you both. And you join him against her. That’s fine gratitude, is it not?’
Linton’s mouth fell open, and he took the sugar-candy from his lips.
‘Did she come to Wuthering Heights because she hated you?’ I continued. ‘Think! As to your money, she does not even know that you will have any. You say she’s sick; and yet you leave her alone, up there in a strange house! She pitied your sufferings, but you won’t pity hers! After pretending such affection, you store every tear you have for yourself, and lie there at ease. Ah! you’re a heartless, selfish boy!’
‘I can’t stay with her,’ he answered crossly. ‘She cries so I can’t bear it. And she won’t stop, though I say I’ll call my father. I did call him once, and he threatened to strangle her if she was not quiet; but she began again the instant he left the room, moaning all night, though I screamed for vexation because I couldn’t sleep.’
‘Is Mr. Heathcliff out?’ I inquired, perceiving that the wretched creature had no power to sympathize with his cousin.
‘He’s in the courtyard,’ he replied, ‘talking to Dr. Kenneth; who says uncle is dying at last. I’m glad, for I shall be master of the Grange after him. Catherine always spoke of it as her house. It isn’t hers! It’s mine: papa says everything she has is mine. She offered to give me all her nice books, and her pretty birds, and her pony Minny, if I would let her out; but I told her they were all, all mine.
‘Then she cried, and took a little picture from her neck, and said I should have that; two pictures in a gold case, on one side her mother, and on the other uncle, when they were young. I said they were mine, too; and tried to get them from her. The spiteful thing wouldn’t let me: she pushed me off, and hurt me. I shrieked out – that frightens her – she heard papa coming, and she broke the hinges and divided the case, and gave me her mother’s portrait. She tried to hide the other, but I told papa, and he took mine, and ordered her to give hers to me; she refused, and he – he struck her down, and wrenched it off the chain, and crushed it with his foot.’
‘And were you pleased to see her struck?’ I asked.
‘I winced,’ he answered: ‘I wince to see my father strike a dog or a horse, he does it so hard. Yet I was glad at first – she deserved punishing: but when papa was gone, she showed me her cheek cut on the inside, and her mouth filling with blood; and then she gathered up the bits of the picture, and went and sat down with her face to the wall, and she has never spoken to me since: and I sometimes think she can’t speak for pain. She’s a naughty thing for crying continually; and she looks so pale and wild, I’m afraid of her.’
‘And you can get the key if you choose?’ I said.
‘Yes, when I am upstairs,’ he answered; ‘but I can’t walk upstairs now.’
‘In what room is it?’ I asked.
‘Oh,’ he cried, ‘I shan’t tell you. Nobody is to know. You’ve tired me – go away!’ And he shut his eyes again.
I considered it best to depart without seeing Mr. Heathcliff, and to bring a rescue for my young lady from Thrushcross Grange.
On reaching the Grange, the astonishment and joy of my fellow-servants was intense. I went to tell Mr. Edgar the news; but how changed I found him, even in those few days! He lay, an image of sadness and resignation, awaiting his death. He murmured Catherine’s name: I touched his hand.
‘Catherine is coming, dear master!’ I whispered; ‘she is alive and well; and will be here, I hope, to-night.’
I trembled at the effects of this news: he half rose up, looked round eagerly, and then sank back in a swoon. When he recovered, I related the events of our visit, saying Heathcliff forced me to go in. I said as little as possible against Linton; nor did I describe his father’s brutal conduct – not wishing to add more bitterness to Edgar’s already over-flowing cup.
He guessed that one of his enemy’s purposes was to secure the property and the estate to his son: yet why Heathcliff did not wait till his death was a puzzle to my master, because he was ignorant of how nearly he and his nephew would quit the world together. However, he felt that his will had better be altered, to put Catherine’s fortune in the hands of trustees for her use during life, and for her children after her. Then it could not fall to Mr. Heathcliff should Linton die.
I sent a man to fetch the attorney; and four more men, with weapons, went to demand my young lady from her jailor. Both parties were delayed. The single servant returned first. He said Mr. Green, the lawyer, was out when he arrived, and he had to wait two hours for him; and then Mr. Green told him he had business in the village; but that he would be at Thrushcross Grange before morning.
The four men came back unaccompanied also. They brought word that Catherine was too ill to quit her room, and Heathcliff would not let them see her. I scolded the stupid fellows for listening to that tale, and resolved to take a whole mob up to the Heights, and storm it unless the prisoner were surrendered to us.
Happily, I was spared the journey and the trouble. At three o’clock, a sharp knock at the front door made me jump.
‘Oh! it is only Green,’ I said; but it was not the attorney. My own sweet little mistress sprang on my neck sobbing, ‘Ellen, Ellen! Is papa alive?’
‘Yes,’ I cried: ‘yes, my angel, he is. God be thanked, you are safe with us again!’
She wanted to run, breathless as she was, to Mr. Linton’s room; but I made her sit down, and washed her pa
le face. Then I said I must go first, and tell of her arrival; imploring her to say she should be happy with young Heathcliff. She assured me she would not complain.
I couldn’t bear to be present at their meeting. I stood outside the chamber-door a quarter of an hour before going in. All was composed, however: Catherine’s despair was as silent as her father’s joy. She supported him calmly; and he gazed at her with eyes full of ecstasy.
He died blissfully, Mr. Lockwood: he died so. Kissing her cheek, he murmured, ‘I am going to her; and you, darling child, shall come to us!’ He never stirred or spoke again; but continued that rapt, radiant gaze, till his pulse stopped and his soul departed.
Catherine sat there dry-eyed till the sun rose: she stayed till noon, and would have remained brooding over that deathbed, but I insisted on her coming away and taking some rest. At dinner-time Mr. Green, the lawyer, appeared, having called at Wuthering Heights to get his instructions. He had sold himself to Mr. Heathcliff: that was the cause of his delay.
Mr. Green took upon himself to order everybody about the place. He gave all the servants but me notice to quit. He tried to insist that Edgar Linton should not be buried beside his wife, but in the chapel, with his family. There was the will, however, to hinder that, and I protested loudly. The funeral was hurried over; Catherine, Mrs. Linton Heathcliff now, was allowed to stay at the Grange till her father’s corpse had quitted it.
She told me that her anguish had at last spurred Linton to take the risk of liberating her. He had the cunning to unlock and re-lock the door, without shutting it; and when he should have gone to bed, he begged to sleep with Hareton. Catherine stole out before dawn, finding an open window in her mother’s empty room. She climbed out easily, and got to the ground by means of the fir-tree close by. Her accomplice suffered for his share in the escape, despite his timid contrivances.