Chapter XII

While Miss Linton moped about the park and garden, always silent, and
almost always in tears; and her brother shut himself up among books
that he never opened—wearying, I guessed, with a continual vague
expectation that Catherine, repenting her conduct, would come of her
own accord to ask pardon, and seek a reconciliation—and she fasted
pertinaciously, under the idea, probably, that at every meal Edgar was
ready to choke for her absence, and pride alone held him from running
to cast himself at her feet; I went about my household duties,
convinced that the Grange had but one sensible soul in its walls, and
that lodged in my body. I wasted no condolences on Miss, nor any
expostulations on my mistress; nor did I pay much attention to the
sighs of my master, who yearned to hear his lady’s name, since he might
not hear her voice. I determined they should come about as they pleased
for me; and though it was a tiresomely slow process, I began to rejoice
at length in a faint dawn of its progress: as I thought at first.

Mrs. Linton, on the third day, unbarred her door, and having finished
the water in her pitcher and decanter, desired a renewed supply, and a
basin of gruel, for she believed she was dying. That I set down as a
speech meant for Edgar’s ears; I believed no such thing, so I kept it
to myself and brought her some tea and dry toast. She ate and drank
eagerly, and sank back on her pillow again, clenching her hands and
groaning. “Oh, I will die,” she exclaimed, “since no one cares anything
about me. I wish I had not taken that.” Then a good while after I heard
her murmur, “No, I’ll not die—he’d be glad—he does not love me at
all—he would never miss me!”

“Did you want anything, ma’am?” I inquired, still preserving my
external composure, in spite of her ghastly countenance and strange,
exaggerated manner.

“What is that apathetic being doing?” she demanded, pushing the thick
entangled locks from her wasted face. “Has he fallen into a lethargy,
or is he dead?”

“Neither,” replied I; “if you mean Mr. Linton. He’s tolerably well, I
think, though his studies occupy him rather more than they ought: he is
continually among his books, since he has no other society.”

I should not have spoken so if I had known her true condition, but I
could not get rid of the notion that she acted a part of her disorder.

“Among his books!” she cried, confounded. “And I dying! I on the brink
of the grave! My God! does he know how I’m altered?” continued she,
staring at her reflection in a mirror hanging against the opposite
wall. “Is that Catherine Linton? He imagines me in a pet—in play,
perhaps. Cannot you inform him that it is frightful earnest? Nelly, if
it be not too late, as soon as I learn how he feels, I’ll choose
between these two: either to starve at once—that would be no punishment
unless he had a heart—or to recover, and leave the country. Are you
speaking the truth about him now? Take care. Is he actually so utterly
indifferent for my life?”

“Why, ma’am,” I answered, “the master has no idea of your being
deranged; and of course he does not fear that you will let yourself die
of hunger.”

“You think not? Cannot you tell him I will?” she returned. “Persuade
him! speak of your own mind: say you are certain I will!”

“No, you forget, Mrs. Linton,” I suggested, “that you have eaten some
food with a relish this evening, and to-morrow you will perceive its
good effects.”

“If I were only sure it would kill him,” she interrupted, “I’d kill
myself directly! These three awful nights I’ve never closed my lids—and
oh, I’ve been tormented! I’ve been haunted, Nelly! But I begin to fancy
you don’t like me. How strange! I thought, though everybody hated and
despised each other, they could not avoid loving me. And they have all
turned to enemies in a few hours. They have, I’m positive; the people
here. How dreary to meet death, surrounded by their cold faces!
Isabella, terrified and repelled, afraid to enter the room, it would be
so dreadful to watch Catherine go. And Edgar standing solemnly by to
see it over; then offering prayers of thanks to God for restoring peace
to his house, and going back to his books! What in the name of all
that feels has he to do with books, when I am dying?”

She could not bear the notion which I had put into her head of Mr.
Linton’s philosophical resignation. Tossing about, she increased her
feverish bewilderment to madness, and tore the pillow with her teeth;
then raising herself up all burning, desired that I would open the
window. We were in the middle of winter, the wind blew strong from the
north-east, and I objected. Both the expressions flitting over her
face, and the changes of her moods, began to alarm me terribly; and
brought to my recollection her former illness, and the doctor’s
injunction that she should not be crossed. A minute previously she was
violent; now, supported on one arm, and not noticing my refusal to obey
her, she seemed to find childish diversion in pulling the feathers from
the rents she had just made, and ranging them on the sheet according to
their different species: her mind had strayed to other associations.

“That’s a turkey’s,” she murmured to herself; “and this is a wild
duck’s; and this is a pigeon’s. Ah, they put pigeons’ feathers in the
pillows—no wonder I couldn’t die! Let me take care to throw it on the
floor when I lie down. And here is a moor-cock’s; and this—I should
know it among a thousand—it’s a lapwing’s. Bonny bird; wheeling over
our heads in the middle of the moor. It wanted to get to its nest, for
the clouds had touched the swells, and it felt rain coming. This
feather was picked up from the heath, the bird was not shot: we saw its
nest in the winter, full of little skeletons. Heathcliff set a trap
over it, and the old ones dared not come. I made him promise he’d never
shoot a lapwing after that, and he didn’t. Yes, here are more! Did he
shoot my lapwings, Nelly? Are they red, any of them? Let me look.”

“Give over with that baby-work!” I interrupted, dragging the pillow
away, and turning the holes towards the mattress, for she was removing
its contents by handfuls. “Lie down and shut your eyes: you’re
wandering. There’s a mess! The down is flying about like snow.”

I went here and there collecting it.

“I see in you, Nelly,” she continued dreamily, “an aged woman: you have
grey hair and bent shoulders. This bed is the fairy cave under
Penistone Crags, and you are gathering elf-bolts to hurt our heifers;
pretending, while I am near, that they are only locks of wool. That’s
what you’ll come to fifty years hence: I know you are not so now. I’m
not wandering: you’re mistaken, or else I should believe you really
were that withered hag, and I should think I was under Penistone
Crags; and I’m conscious it’s night, and there are two candles on the
table making the black press shine like jet.”

“The black press? where is that?” I asked. “You are talking in your
sleep!”

“It’s against the wall, as it always is,” she replied. “It does
appear odd—I see a face in it!”

“There’s no press in the room, and never was,” said I, resuming my
seat, and looping up the curtain that I might watch her.

“Don’t you see that face?” she inquired, gazing earnestly at the
mirror.

And say what I could, I was incapable of making her comprehend it to be
her own; so I rose and covered it with a shawl.

“It’s behind there still!” she pursued, anxiously. “And it stirred. Who
is it? I hope it will not come out when you are gone! Oh! Nelly, the
room is haunted! I’m afraid of being alone!”

I took her hand in mine, and bid her be composed; for a succession of
shudders convulsed her frame, and she would keep straining her gaze
towards the glass.

“There’s nobody here!” I insisted. “It was yourself, Mrs. Linton: you
knew it a while since.”

“Myself!” she gasped, “and the clock is striking twelve! It’s true,
then! that’s dreadful!”

Her fingers clutched the clothes, and gathered them over her eyes. I
attempted to steal to the door with an intention of calling her
husband; but I was summoned back by a piercing shriek—the shawl had
dropped from the frame.

“Why, what is the matter?” cried I. “Who is coward now? Wake up! That
is the glass—the mirror, Mrs. Linton; and you see yourself in it, and
there am I too by your side.”

Trembling and bewildered, she held me fast, but the horror gradually
passed from her countenance; its paleness gave place to a glow of
shame.

“Oh, dear! I thought I was at home,” she sighed. “I thought I was lying
in my chamber at Wuthering Heights. Because I’m weak, my brain got
confused, and I screamed unconsciously. Don’t say anything; but stay
with me. I dread sleeping: my dreams appal me.”

“A sound sleep would do you good, ma’am,” I answered: “and I hope this
suffering will prevent your trying starving again.”

“Oh, if I were but in my own bed in the old house!” she went on
bitterly, wringing her hands. “And that wind sounding in the firs by
the lattice. Do let me feel it—it comes straight down the moor—do let
me have one breath!”

To pacify her I held the casement ajar a few seconds. A cold blast
rushed through; I closed it, and returned to my post. She lay still
now, her face bathed in tears. Exhaustion of body had entirely subdued
her spirit: our fiery Catherine was no better than a wailing child.

“How long is it since I shut myself in here?” she asked, suddenly
reviving.

“It was Monday evening,” I replied, “and this is Thursday night, or
rather Friday morning, at present.”

“What! of the same week?” she exclaimed. “Only that brief time?”

“Long enough to live on nothing but cold water and ill-temper,”
observed I.

“Well, it seems a weary number of hours,” she muttered doubtfully: “it
must be more. I remember being in the parlour after they had
quarrelled, and Edgar being cruelly provoking, and me running into this
room desperate. As soon as ever I had barred the door, utter blackness
overwhelmed me, and I fell on the floor. I couldn’t explain to Edgar
how certain I felt of having a fit, or going raging mad, if he
persisted in teasing me! I had no command of tongue, or brain, and he
did not guess my agony, perhaps: it barely left me sense to try to
escape from him and his voice. Before I recovered sufficiently to see
and hear, it began to be dawn, and, Nelly, I’ll tell you what I
thought, and what has kept recurring and recurring till I feared for my
reason. I thought as I lay there, with my head against that table leg,
and my eyes dimly discerning the grey square of the window, that I was
enclosed in the oak-panelled bed at home; and my heart ached with some
great grief which, just waking, I could not recollect. I pondered, and
worried myself to discover what it could be, and, most strangely, the
whole last seven years of my life grew a blank! I did not recall that
they had been at all. I was a child; my father was just buried, and my
misery arose from the separation that Hindley had ordered between me
and Heathcliff. I was laid alone, for the first time; and, rousing from
a dismal doze after a night of weeping, I lifted my hand to push the
panels aside: it struck the table-top! I swept it along the carpet, and
then memory burst in: my late anguish was swallowed in a paroxysm of
despair. I cannot say why I felt so wildly wretched: it must have been
temporary derangement; for there is scarcely cause. But, supposing at
twelve years old I had been wrenched from the Heights, and every early
association, and my all in all, as Heathcliff was at that time, and
been converted at a stroke into Mrs. Linton, the lady of Thrushcross
Grange, and the wife of a stranger: an exile, and outcast, thenceforth,
from what had been my world. You may fancy a glimpse of the abyss where
I grovelled! Shake your head as you will, Nelly, you have helped to
unsettle me! You should have spoken to Edgar, indeed you should, and
compelled him to leave me quiet! Oh, I’m burning! I wish I were out of
doors! I wish I were a girl again, half savage and hardy, and free; and
laughing at injuries, not maddening under them! Why am I so changed?
why does my blood rush into a hell of tumult at a few words? I’m sure I
should be myself were I once among the heather on those hills. Open the
window again wide: fasten it open! Quick, why don’t you move?”

“Because I won’t give you your death of cold,” I answered.

“You won’t give me a chance of life, you mean,” she said sullenly.
“However, I’m not helpless yet; I’ll open it myself.”

And sliding from the bed before I could hinder her, she crossed the
room, walking very uncertainly, threw it back, and bent out, careless
of the frosty air that cut about her shoulders as keen as a knife. I
entreated, and finally attempted to force her to retire. But I soon
found her delirious strength much surpassed mine (she was delirious,
I became convinced by her subsequent actions and ravings). There was no
moon, and everything beneath lay in misty darkness: not a light gleamed
from any house, far or near; all had been extinguished long ago: and
those at Wuthering Heights were never visible—still she asserted she
caught their shining.

“Look!” she cried eagerly, “that’s my room with the candle in it, and
the trees swaying before it; and the other candle is in Joseph’s
garret. Joseph sits up late, doesn’t he? He’s waiting till I come home
that he may lock the gate. Well, he’ll wait a while yet. It’s a rough
journey, and a sad heart to travel it; and we must pass by Gimmerton
Kirk to go that journey! We’ve braved its ghosts often together, and
dared each other to stand among the graves and ask them to come. But,
Heathcliff, if I dare you now, will you venture? If you do, I’ll keep
you. I’ll not lie there by myself: they may bury me twelve feet deep,
and throw the church down over me, but I won’t rest till you are with
me. I never will!”

She paused, and resumed with a strange smile. “He’s considering—he’d
rather I’d come to him! Find a way, then! not through that kirkyard.
You are slow! Be content, you always followed me!”

Perceiving it vain to argue against her insanity, I was planning how I
could reach something to wrap about her, without quitting my hold of
herself (for I could not trust her alone by the gaping lattice), when,
to my consternation, I heard the rattle of the door-handle, and Mr.
Linton entered. He had only then come from the library; and, in passing
through the lobby, had noticed our talking and been attracted by
curiosity, or fear, to examine what it signified, at that late hour.

“Oh, sir!” I cried, checking the exclamation risen to his lips at the
sight which met him, and the bleak atmosphere of the chamber. “My poor
mistress is ill, and she quite masters me: I cannot manage her at all;
pray, come and persuade her to go to bed. Forget your anger, for she’s
hard to guide any way but her own.”

“Catherine ill?” he said, hastening to us. “Shut the window, Ellen!
Catherine! why—”

He was silent. The haggardness of Mrs. Linton’s appearance smote him
speechless, and he could only glance from her to me in horrified
astonishment.

“She’s been fretting here,” I continued, “and eating scarcely anything,
and never complaining: she would admit none of us till this evening,
and so we couldn’t inform you of her state, as we were not aware of it
ourselves; but it is nothing.”

I felt I uttered my explanations awkwardly; the master frowned. “It is
nothing, is it, Ellen Dean?” he said sternly. “You shall account more
clearly for keeping me ignorant of this!” And he took his wife in his
arms, and looked at her with anguish.

At first she gave him no glance of recognition: he was invisible to her
abstracted gaze. The delirium was not fixed, however; having weaned her
eyes from contemplating the outer darkness, by degrees she centred her
attention on him, and discovered who it was that held her.

“Ah! you are come, are you, Edgar Linton?” she said, with angry
animation. “You are one of those things that are ever found when least
wanted, and when you are wanted, never! I suppose we shall have plenty
of lamentations now—I see we shall—but they can’t keep me from my
narrow home out yonder: my resting-place, where I’m bound before spring
is over! There it is: not among the Lintons, mind, under the
chapel-roof, but in the open air, with a head-stone; and you may please
yourself whether you go to them or come to me!”

“Catherine, what have you done?” commenced the master. “Am I nothing to
you any more? Do you love that wretch Heath—”

“Hush!” cried Mrs. Linton. “Hush, this moment! You mention that name
and I end the matter instantly by a spring from the window! What you
touch at present you may have; but my soul will be on that hill-top
before you lay hands on me again. I don’t want you, Edgar: I’m past
wanting you. Return to your books. I’m glad you possess a consolation,
for all you had in me is gone.”

“Her mind wanders, sir,” I interposed. “She has been talking nonsense
the whole evening; but let her have quiet, and proper attendance, and
she’ll rally. Hereafter, we must be cautious how we vex her.”

“I desire no further advice from you,” answered Mr. Linton. “You knew
your mistress’s nature, and you encouraged me to harass her. And not to
give me one hint of how she has been these three days! It was
heartless! Months of sickness could not cause such a change!”

I began to defend myself, thinking it too bad to be blamed for
another’s wicked waywardness. “I knew Mrs. Linton’s nature to be
headstrong and domineering,” cried I: “but I didn’t know that you
wished to foster her fierce temper! I didn’t know that, to humour her,
I should wink at Mr. Heathcliff. I performed the duty of a faithful
servant in telling you, and I have got a faithful servant’s wages!
Well, it will teach me to be careful next time. Next time you may
gather intelligence for yourself!”

“The next time you bring a tale to me you shall quit my service, Ellen
Dean,” he replied.

“You’d rather hear nothing about it, I suppose, then, Mr. Linton?” said
I. “Heathcliff has your permission to come a-courting to Miss, and to
drop in at every opportunity your absence offers, on purpose to poison
the mistress against you?”

Confused as Catherine was, her wits were alert at applying our
conversation.

“Ah! Nelly has played traitor,” she exclaimed, passionately. “Nelly is
my hidden enemy. You witch! So you do seek elf-bolts to hurt us! Let me
go, and I’ll make her rue! I’ll make her howl a recantation!”

A maniac’s fury kindled under her brows; she struggled desperately to
disengage herself from Linton’s arms. I felt no inclination to tarry
the event; and, resolving to seek medical aid on my own responsibility,
I quitted the chamber.

In passing the garden to reach the road, at a place where a bridle hook
is driven into the wall, I saw something white moved irregularly,
evidently by another agent than the wind. Notwithstanding my hurry, I
stayed to examine it, lest ever after I should have the conviction
impressed on my imagination that it was a creature of the other world.
My surprise and perplexity were great on discovering, by touch more
than vision, Miss Isabella’s springer, Fanny, suspended by a
handkerchief, and nearly at its last gasp. I quickly released the
animal, and lifted it into the garden. I had seen it follow its
mistress upstairs when she went to bed; and wondered much how it could
have got out there, and what mischievous person had treated it so.
While untying the knot round the hook, it seemed to me that I
repeatedly caught the beat of horses’ feet galloping at some distance;
but there were such a number of things to occupy my reflections that I
hardly gave the circumstance a thought: though it was a strange sound,
in that place, at two o’clock in the morning.

Mr. Kenneth was fortunately just issuing from his house to see a
patient in the village as I came up the street; and my account of
Catherine Linton’s malady induced him to accompany me back immediately.
He was a plain rough man; and he made no scruple to speak his doubts of
her surviving this second attack; unless she were more submissive to
his directions than she had shown herself before.

“Nelly Dean,” said he, “I can’t help fancying there’s an extra cause
for this. What has there been to do at the Grange? We’ve odd reports up
here. A stout, hearty lass like Catherine does not fall ill for a
trifle; and that sort of people should not either. It’s hard work
bringing them through fevers, and such things. How did it begin?”

“The master will inform you,” I answered; “but you are acquainted with
the Earnshaws’ violent dispositions, and Mrs. Linton caps them all. I
may say this; it commenced in a quarrel. She was struck during a
tempest of passion with a kind of fit. That’s her account, at least:
for she flew off in the height of it, and locked herself up.
Afterwards, she refused to eat, and now she alternately raves and
remains in a half dream; knowing those about her, but having her mind
filled with all sorts of strange ideas and illusions.”

“Mr. Linton will be sorry?” observed Kenneth, interrogatively.

“Sorry? he’ll break his heart should anything happen!” I replied.
“Don’t alarm him more than necessary.”

“Well, I told him to beware,” said my companion; “and he must bide the
consequences of neglecting my warning! Hasn’t he been intimate with Mr.
Heathcliff lately?”

“Heathcliff frequently visits at the Grange,” answered I, “though more
on the strength of the mistress having known him when a boy, than
because the master likes his company. At present he’s discharged from
the trouble of calling; owing to some presumptuous aspirations after
Miss Linton which he manifested. I hardly think he’ll be taken in
again.”

“And does Miss Linton turn a cold shoulder on him?” was the doctor’s
next question.

“I’m not in her confidence,” returned I, reluctant to continue the
subject.

“No, she’s a sly one,” he remarked, shaking his head. “She keeps her
own counsel! But she’s a real little fool. I have it from good
authority that last night (and a pretty night it was!) she and
Heathcliff were walking in the plantation at the back of your house
above two hours; and he pressed her not to go in again, but just mount
his horse and away with him! My informant said she could only put him
off by pledging her word of honour to be prepared on their first
meeting after that: when it was to be he didn’t hear; but you urge Mr.
Linton to look sharp!”

This news filled me with fresh fears; I outstripped Kenneth, and ran
most of the way back. The little dog was yelping in the garden yet. I
spared a minute to open the gate for it, but instead of going to the
house door, it coursed up and down snuffing the grass, and would have
escaped to the road, had I not seized it and conveyed it in with me. On
ascending to Isabella’s room, my suspicions were confirmed: it was
empty. Had I been a few hours sooner Mrs. Linton’s illness might have
arrested her rash step. But what could be done now? There was a bare
possibility of overtaking them if pursued instantly. I could not
pursue them, however; and I dared not rouse the family, and fill the
place with confusion; still less unfold the business to my master,
absorbed as he was in his present calamity, and having no heart to
spare for a second grief! I saw nothing for it but to hold my tongue,
and suffer matters to take their course; and Kenneth being arrived, I
went with a badly composed countenance to announce him. Catherine lay
in a troubled sleep: her husband had succeeded in soothing the excess
of frenzy; he now hung over her pillow, watching every shade and every
change of her painfully expressive features.

The doctor, on examining the case for himself, spoke hopefully to him
of its having a favourable termination, if we could only preserve
around her perfect and constant tranquillity. To me, he signified the
threatening danger was not so much death, as permanent alienation of
intellect.

I did not close my eyes that night, nor did Mr. Linton: indeed, we
never went to bed; and the servants were all up long before the usual
hour, moving through the house with stealthy tread, and exchanging
whispers as they encountered each other in their vocations. Every one
was active but Miss Isabella; and they began to remark how sound she
slept: her brother, too, asked if she had risen, and seemed impatient
for her presence, and hurt that she showed so little anxiety for her
sister-in-law. I trembled lest he should send me to call her; but I was
spared the pain of being the first proclaimant of her flight. One of
the maids, a thoughtless girl, who had been on an early errand to
Gimmerton, came panting upstairs, open-mouthed, and dashed into the
chamber, crying: “Oh, dear, dear! What mun we have next? Master,
master, our young lady—”

“Hold your noise!” cried I hastily, enraged at her clamorous manner.

“Speak lower, Mary—What is the matter?” said Mr. Linton. “What ails
your young lady?”

“She’s gone, she’s gone! Yon’ Heathcliff’s run off wi’ her!” gasped the
girl.

“That is not true!” exclaimed Linton, rising in agitation. “It cannot
be: how has the idea entered your head? Ellen Dean, go and seek her. It
is incredible: it cannot be.”

As he spoke he took the servant to the door, and then repeated his
demand to know her reasons for such an assertion.

“Why, I met on the road a lad that fetches milk here,” she stammered,
“and he asked whether we weren’t in trouble at the Grange. I thought he
meant for missis’s sickness, so I answered, yes. Then says he, ‘There’s
somebody gone after ’em, I guess?’ I stared. He saw I knew nought about
it, and he told how a gentleman and lady had stopped to have a horse’s
shoe fastened at a blacksmith’s shop, two miles out of Gimmerton, not
very long after midnight! and how the blacksmith’s lass had got up to
spy who they were: she knew them both directly. And she noticed the
man—Heathcliff it was, she felt certain: nob’dy could mistake him,
besides—put a sovereign in her father’s hand for payment. The lady had
a cloak about her face; but having desired a sup of water, while she
drank it fell back, and she saw her very plain. Heathcliff held both
bridles as they rode on, and they set their faces from the village, and
went as fast as the rough roads would let them. The lass said nothing
to her father, but she told it all over Gimmerton this morning.”

I ran and peeped, for form’s sake, into Isabella’s room; confirming,
when I returned, the servant’s statement. Mr. Linton had resumed his
seat by the bed; on my re-entrance, he raised his eyes, read the
meaning of my blank aspect, and dropped them without giving an order,
or uttering a word.

“Are we to try any measures for overtaking and bringing her back,” I
inquired. “How should we do?”

“She went of her own accord,” answered the master; “she had a right to
go if she pleased. Trouble me no more about her. Hereafter she is only
my sister in name: not because I disown her, but because she has
disowned me.”

And that was all he said on the subject: he did not make a single inquiry
further, or mention her in any way, except directing me to send what
property she had in the house to her fresh home, wherever it was, when
I knew it.