to forsake Heathcliff. Oh, that’s not what I intend – that’s not what I mean! I shouldn’t be Mrs Linton were such a price demanded! He’ll be as much to me as he has been all his lifetime. Edgar must shake off his antipathy, and tolerate him, at least. He will when he learns my true feelings towards him. Nelly, I see now, you think me a selfish wretch, but, did it never strike you that, if Heathcliff and I married, we should be beggars? whereas, if I marry Linton, I can aid Heathcliff to rise, and place him out of my brother’s power.’
‘With your husband’s money, Miss Catherine?’ I asked. ‘You’ll find him not so pliable as you calculate upon: and, though I’m hardly a judge, I think that’s the worst motive you’ve given yet for being the wife of young Linton.’
‘It is not,’ retorted she, ‘it is the best! The others were the satisfaction of my whims; and for Edgar’s sake, too, to satisfy him. This is for the sake of one who comprehends in his person my feelings to Edgar and myself. I cannot express it; but surely you and everybody have a notion that there is, or should be, an existence of yours beyond you. What were the use of my creation if I were entirely contained here? My great miseries in this world have been Heathcliff’s miseries, and I watched and felt each from the beginning; my great thought in living is himself. If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and, if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the Universe would turn to a mighty stranger. I should not seem a part of it. My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods. Time will change it, I’m well aware, as winter changes the trees – my love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath – a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff – he’s always, always in my mind – not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself – but, as my own being – so, don’t talk of our separation again – it is impracticable; and –’
She paused, and hid her face in the folds of my gown; but I jerked it forcibly away. I was out of patience with her folly!
‘If I can make any sense of your nonsense, Miss,’ I said, ‘it only goes to convince me that you are ignorant of the duties you undertake in marrying; or else, that you are a wicked, unprincipled girl. But, trouble me with no more secrets. I’ll not promise to keep them.’
‘You’ll keep that?’ she asked, eagerly.
‘No, I’ll not promise,’ I repeated.
She was about to insist, when the entrance of Joseph finished our conversation; and Catherine removed her seat to a corner, and nursed Hareton, while I made the supper.
After it was cooked, my fellow servant and I began to quarrel who should carry some to Mr Hindley; and we didn’t settle it till all was nearly cold. Then we came to the agreement that we would let him ask, if he wanted any, for we feared particularly to go into his presence when he had been some time alone.
‘Und hah isn’t that nowt comed in frough th’ field, be this time? What is he abaht? girt eedle seeght!’ demanded the old man, looking round for Heathcliff.
‘I’ll call him,’ I replied. ‘He’s in the barn, I’ve no doubt.’
I went and called, but got no answer. On returning, I whispered to Catherine that he had heard a good part of what she said, I was sure; and told how I saw him quit the kitchen just as she complained of her brother’s conduct regarding him.
She jumped up in a fine fright – flung Hareton onto the settle, and ran to seek for her friend herself, not taking leisure to consider why she was so flurried, or how her talk would have affected him.
She was absent such a while that Joseph proposed we should wait no longer. He cunningly conjectured they were staying away in order to avoid hearing his protracted blessing. They were ‘ill eneugh for ony fahl manners,’ he affirmed. And, on their behalf, he added that night a special prayer to the usual quarter of an hour’s supplication before meat, and would have tacked another to the end of the grace, had not his young mistress broken in upon him with a hurried command that he must run down the road, and, wherever Heathcliff had rambled, find and make him re-enter directly!
‘I want to speak to him, and I must, before I go upstairs,’ she said. ‘And the gate is open, he is somewhere out of hearing; for he would not reply, though I shouted at the top of the fold as loud as I could.’
Joseph objected at first; she was too much in earnest, however, to suffer contradiction; and, at last, he placed his hat on his head, and walked grumbling forth.
Meantime, Catherine paced up and down the floor, exclaiming –
‘I wonder where he is – I wonder where he can be! What did I say, Nelly? I’ve forgotten. Was he vexed at my bad humour this afternoon? Dear! tell me what I’ve said to grieve him? I do wish he’d come. I do wish he would!’
‘What a noise for nothing!’ I cried, though rather uneasy myself. ‘What a trifle scares you! It’s surely no great cause of alarm that Heathcliff should take a moonlight saunter on the moors, or even lie too sulky to speak to us, in the hay-loft. I’ll engage he’s lurking there. See if I don’t ferret him out!’
I departed to renew my search; its result was disappointment, and Joseph’s quest ended in the same.
‘Yon lad gets war un war!’ observed he on re-entering. ‘He’s left th’ yate ut t’ full swing, and miss’s pony has trodden dahn two rigs uh corn, un plottered through, raight o’er intuh t’ meadow! Hahsomdiver, t’ maister ‘ull play t’ divil to-morn, and he’ll do weel. He’s patience itsseln wi’ sich careless, offald craters – patience itsseln he is! Bud he’ll nut be soa allus – yah’s see, all on ye! Yah munn’t drive him aht uf his heead fur nowt!’
‘Have you found Heathcliff, you ass?’ interrupted Catherine. ‘Have you been looking for him, as I ordered?’
‘Aw sud more likker look for th’ horse,’ he replied. ‘It ‘ud be tuh more sense. Bud, Aw can look for norther horse, nur man uf a neeght loike this – as black as t’ chimbley! und Hathecliff’s noan t’ chap tuh coom ut maw whistle – happen he’ll be less hard uh hearing wi ye!’
It was a very dark evening for summer: the clouds appeared inclined to thunder, and I said we had better all sit down; the approaching rain would be certain to bring him home without further trouble.
However, Catherine would not be persuaded into tranquillity. She kept wandering to and fro, from the gate to the door, in a state of agitation which permitted no repose, and at length took up a permanent situation on one side of the wall, near the road; where, heedless of my expostulations, and the growling thunder, and the great drops that began to plash around her, she remained, calling at intervals, and then listening, and then crying outright. She beat Hareton, or any child, at a good, passionate fit of crying.
About midnight, while we still sat up, the storm came rattling over the Heights in full fury. There was a violent wind, as well as thunder, and either one or the other split a tree off at the corner of the building; a huge bough fell across the roof, and knocked down a portion of the east chimney-stack, sending a clatter of stones and soot into the kitchen fire.
We thought a bolt had fallen in the middle of us, and Joseph swung onto his knees, beseeching the Lord to remember the Patriarchs Noah and Lot; and, as in former times, spare the righteous, though he smote the ungodly. I felt some sentiment that it must be a judgment on us also. The Jonah, in my mind, was Mr Earnshaw, and I shook the handle of his den that I might ascertain if he were yet living. He replied audibly enough, in a fashion which made my companion vociferate more clamorously than before that a wide distinction might be drawn between saints like himself and sinners like his master. But, the uproar passed away in twenty minutes, leaving us all unharmed, excepting Cathy, who got thoroughly drenched for her obstinacy in refusing to take shelter, and standing bonnetless and shawlless to catch as much water as she could with her hair and clothes.
She came in and lay down on the settle, all soaked as she was, turning her face to the back, and putting her hands before it.
‘Well,