| 1 |
THE evening after the funeral, my young lady and I were
seated in the library; now musing mournfully, one of us
despairingly, on our loss; now venturing conjectures as to the
gloomy future.
| 2 |
We had just agreed the best destiny which could await Catherine,
would be a permission to continue resident at the Grange, at least,
during Linton's life: he being allowed to join her there, and I to
remain as housekeeper.
That seemed rather too favourable an arrangement to be hoped for,
and yet I did hope, and began to cheer up under the prospect of
retaining my home, and my employment, and, above all, my beloved
young mistress, when a servant -- one of the discarded ones, not
yet departed -- rushed hastily in, and said, "that devil
Heathcliff" was coming through the court, should he fasten the door
in his face?
| | 3 |
If we had been mad enough to order that proceeding, we had not
time.
He made no ceremony of knocking, or announcing his name; he was
master, and availed himself of the master's privilege to walk
straight in, without saying a word.
| | 4 |
The sound of our informant's voice directed him to the library: he
entered; and motioning him out, shut the door.
| | 5 |
It was the same room into which he had been ushered, as a guest,
eighteen years before: the same moon shone through the window; and
the same autumn landscape lay outside.
We had not yet lighted a candle, but all the apartment was visible,
even to the portraits on the wall -- the splendid head of Mrs
Linton, and the graceful one of her husband.
| | 6 |
Heathcliff advanced to the hearth.
There was the same man: his dark face rather sallower, and more
composed, his frame a stone or two heavier, perhaps, and no other
difference.
| | 7 |
Catherine had risen with an impulse to dash out, when she saw him.
| | 8 |
"Stop!" he said, arresting her by the arm.
"No more runnings away!
Where would you go?
I'm come to fetch you home; and I hope you will be a dutiful
daughter, and not encourage my son to further disobedience.
I was embarrassed how to punish him, when I discovered his part in
the business -- he's such a cobweb, a pinch would annihilate him --
but, you'll see by his look that he has received his due!
I brought him down one evening, the day before yesterday, and just
set him in a chair, and never touched him afterwards.
I sent Hareton out, and we had the room to ourselves.
In two hours, I called Joseph to carry him up again; and, since
then, my presence is as potent on his nerves, as a ghost; and I
fancy he sees me often, though I am not near, Hareton says he wakes
and shrieks in the night by the hour together; and calls you to
protect him from me; and, whether you like your precious mate or
not, you must come -- he's your concern now; I yield all my
interest in him to you."
| | 9 |
"Why not let Catherine continue here?" I pleaded, "and send Master
Linton to her.
As you hate them both, you'd not miss them -- they can
only be a daily plague to your unnatural heart."
| | 10 |
"I'm seeking a tenant for the Grange," he answered; "and I want my
children about me, to be sure -- besides that lass owes me her
services for her bread; I'm not going to nurture her in luxury and
idleness after Linton has gone.
Make haste and get ready now.
And don't oblige me to compel you."
| | 11 |
"I shall," said Catherine.
"Linton is all I have to love in the world, and, though you have
to him, you cannot make us hate each other! and I defy
you to hurt him when I am by, and I defy you to frighten me!"
| | 12 |
"You are a boastful champion!" replied Heathcliff; "but I don't
like you well enough to hurt him -- you shall get the full benefit
of the torment, as long as it lasts.
It is not I who will make him hateful to you -- it is his own sweet
spirit.
He's as bitter as gall at your desertion, and its consequences --
don't expect thanks for this noble devotion.
I heard him draw a pleasant picture to Zillah of what he would do,
if he were as strong as I -- the inclination is there, and his very
weakness will sharpen his wits to find a substitute for strength."
| | 13 |
"I know he has a bad nature," said Catherine; "he's your son.
But I'm glad I've a better, to forgive it; and I know he loves me
and for that reason I love him.
Mr Heathcliff, you have nobody to love you;
and, however miserable you make us, we shall still have the revenge
of thinking that your cruelty arises from your greater misery!
You are miserable, are you not?
Lonely, like the devil, and envious like him?
Nobody loves you -- nobody will cry for you,
when you die!
I wouldn't be you!"
| | 14 |
Catherine spoke with a kind of dreary triumph: she seemed to have
made up her mind to enter into the spirit of her future family, and
draw pleasure from the griefs of her enemies.
| | 15 |
"You shall be sorry to be yourself presently," said her father-in-
law, "if you stand there another minute.
Begone, witch, and get your things."
| | 16 |
She scornfully withdrew.
| | 17 |
In her absence, I began to beg for Zillah's place at the Heights,
offering to resign her mine; but he would suffer it on no account.
He bid me be silent, and then, for the first time, allowed himself
a glance round the room, and a look at the pictures.
| | 18 |
"I shall have that at home.
Not because I need it, but -- -- "
| | 19 |
He turned abruptly to the fire, and continued, with what, for lack
of a better word, I must call a smile --
| | 20 |
"I'll tell you what I did yesterday!
I got the sexton, who was digging Linton's grave, to remove the
earth off her coffin lid, and I opened it.
I thought, once, I would have stayed there, when I saw her face
again -- it is hers yet -- he had hard work to stir me; but he said
it would change, if the air blew on it, and so I struck one side of
the coffin loose -- and covered it up--not Linton's side, damn him!
I wish he'd been soldered in lead -- and I bribed the sexton to
pull it away, when I'm laid there, and slide mine out too, I'll
have it made so, and then, by the time Linton gets to us, he'll not
know which is which!"
| | 21 |
"You were very wicked, Mr Heathcliff!" I exclaimed; "were you not
ashamed to disturb the dead?"
| | 22 |
"I disturbed nobody, Nelly," he replied; "and I gave some ease to
myself.
I shall be a great deal more comfortable now; and you'll have a
better chance of keeping me underground, when I get there.
Disturbed her?
No! she has disturbed me, night and day, through eighteen years --
incessantly -- remorselessly -- till yesternight -- and
yesternight, I was tranquil.
I dreamt I was sleeping the last sleep, by that sleeper, with my
heart stopped, and my cheek frozen against hers."
| | 23 |
"And if she had been dissolved into earth, or worse, what would you
have dreamt of then?" I said.
| | 24 |
"Of dissolving with her, and being more happy still!" he answered.
"Do you suppose I dread any change of that sort?
I expected such a transformation on raising the lid, but I'm better
pleased that it should not commence till I share it.
Besides, unless I had received a distinct impression of her
passionless features, that strange feeling would hardly have been
removed.
It began oddly.
You know, I was wild after she died, and eternally, from dawn to
have a strong faith in ghosts; I have a conviction that they can,
and do exist, among us!
| | 25 |
"The day she was buried there came a fall of snow.
In the evening I went to the churchyard.
It blew bleak as winter -- all round was solitary: I didn't fear
that her fool of a husband would wander up the den so late -- and
no one else had business to bring them there.
| | 26 |
"Being alone, and conscious two yards of loose earth was the sole
barrier between us, I said to myself --
| | 27 |
" 'I'll have her in my arms again!
If she be cold, I'll think it is this north wind that chills
me; and if she be motionless, it is sleep.'
| | 28 |
"I got a spade from the toolhouse, and began to delve with all my
might -- it scraped the coffin; I fell to work with my hands; the
wood commenced cracking about the screws, I was on the point of
attaining my object, when it seemed that I heard a sigh from some
one above, close at the edge of the grave, and bending down.
-- 'If I can only get this off,' I muttered, 'I wish they may
shovel in the earth over us both!' and I wrenched at it more
desperately still.
There was another sigh, close at my ear.
I appeared to feel the warm breath of it displacing the sleet-laden
wind.
I knew no living thing in flesh and blood was by -- but as
certainly as you perceive the approach to some substantial body in
the dark, though it cannot be discerned, so certainly I felt that
Cathy was there, not under me, but on the earth.
| | 29 |
"A sudden sense of relief flowed, from my heart, through every
limb.
I relinquished my labour of agony, and turned consoled at once,
unspeakably consoled.
Her presence was with me; it remained while I re-filled the grave,
and led me home.
You may laugh, if you will, but I was sure I should see her there.
I was sure she was with me, and I could not help talking to her.
| | 30 |
"Having reached the Heights, I rushed eagerly to the door.
It was fastened; and, I remember, that accursed Earnshaw and my
wife opposed my entrance.
I remember stopping to kick the breath out of him, and then
hurrying up stairs, to my room, and hers -- I looked round
impatiently -- I felt her by me -- I could almost see
her, and yet I could not!
I ought to have sweat blood then, from the anguish of my yearning,
from the fervour of my supplications to have but one glimpse!
I had not one.
She showed herself, as she often was in life, a devil to me!
And, since then, sometimes more, and sometimes less, I've been the
sport of that intolerable torture!
Infernal -- keeping my nerves at such a stretch, that, if they had
not resembled catgut, they would, long ago, have relaxed to the
feebleness of Linton's.
| | 31 |
"When I sat in the house with Hareton, it seemed that on going out,
I should meet her; when I walked on the moors I should meet her
coming in.
When I went from home, I hastened to return, she must be
somewhere at the Heights, I was certain!
And when I slept in her chamber -- I was beaten out of that -- I
couldn't lie there; for the moment I closed my eyes, she was either
outside the window, or sliding back the panels, or entering the
room, or even resting her darling head on the same pillow as she
did when a child.
And I must open my lids to see.
And so I opened and closed them a hundred times a-night -- to be
always disappointed!
It racked me!
I've often groaned aloud, till that old rascal Joseph, no doubt
believed that my conscience was playing the fiend inside of me.
| | 32 |
"Now since I've seen her, I'm pacified -- a little.
It was a strange way of killing, not by inches, but by fractions of
hair-breadths, to beguile me with the spectre of a hope, through
eighteen years!"
| | 33 |
Mr Heathcliff paused and wiped his forehead -- his hair clung to
it, wet with perspiration; his eyes were fixed on the
raised next the temples, diminishing the grim aspect of his
countenance, but imparting a peculiar look of trouble, and a
painful appearance of mental tension towards one absorbing subject.
He only half addressed me, and I maintained silence -- I didn't
like to hear him talk!
| | 34 |
After a short period, he resumed his meditation on the picture,
took it down, and leant it against the sofa to contemplate it at
better advantage; and while so occupied Catherine entered,
announcing that she was ready, when her pony should be saddled.
| | 35 |
"Send that over to-morrow," said Heathcliff to me, then turning to
her he added, "You may do without your pony -- it is a fine
evening, and you'll need no ponies at Wuthering Heights, for what
journies you take, your own feet will serve you -- Come along."
| | 36 |
"Good-bye, Ellen!" whispered my dear little mistress.
As she kissed me, her lips felt like ice.
"Come and see me Ellen, don't forget."
| | 37 |
"Take care you do no such thing, Mrs Dean!" said her new father.
"When I wish to speak to you I'll come here.
I want none of your prying at my house!"
| | 38 |
He signed her to precede him; and casting back a look that cut my
heart, she obeyed.
| | 39 |
I watched them, from the window, walk down the garden.
Heathcliff fixed Catherine's arm under his, though she disputed the
act, at first, evidently, and with rapid strides, he hurried her
into the alley, whose trees concealed them.
| | 40 |
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