Chapter XV

Another week over—and I am so many days nearer health, and spring! I
have now heard all my neighbour’s history, at different sittings, as
the housekeeper could spare time from more important occupations. I’ll
continue it in her own words, only a little condensed. She is, on the
whole, a very fair narrator, and I don’t think I could improve her
style.

*

In the evening, she said, the evening of my visit to the Heights, I
knew, as well as if I saw him, that Mr. Heathcliff was about the place;
and I shunned going out, because I still carried his letter in my
pocket, and didn’t want to be threatened or teased any more. I had made
up my mind not to give it till my master went somewhere, as I could not
guess how its receipt would affect Catherine. The consequence was, that
it did not reach her before the lapse of three days. The fourth was
Sunday, and I brought it into her room after the family were gone to
church. There was a man servant left to keep the house with me, and we
generally made a practice of locking the doors during the hours of
service; but on that occasion the weather was so warm and pleasant that
I set them wide open, and, to fulfil my engagement, as I knew who would
be coming, I told my companion that the mistress wished very much for
some oranges, and he must run over to the village and get a few, to be
paid for on the morrow. He departed, and I went upstairs.

Mrs. Linton sat in a loose white dress, with a light shawl over her
shoulders, in the recess of the open window, as usual. Her thick, long
hair had been partly removed at the beginning of her illness, and now
she wore it simply combed in its natural tresses over her temples and
neck. Her appearance was altered, as I had told Heathcliff; but when
she was calm, there seemed unearthly beauty in the change. The flash of
her eyes had been succeeded by a dreamy and melancholy softness; they
no longer gave the impression of looking at the objects around her:
they appeared always to gaze beyond, and far beyond—you would have said
out of this world. Then, the paleness of her face—its haggard aspect
having vanished as she recovered flesh—and the peculiar expression
arising from her mental state, though painfully suggestive of their
causes, added to the touching interest which she awakened;
and—invariably to me, I know, and to any person who saw her, I should
think—refuted more tangible proofs of convalescence, and stamped her as
one doomed to decay.

A book lay spread on the sill before her, and the scarcely perceptible
wind fluttered its leaves at intervals. I believe Linton had laid it
there: for she never endeavoured to divert herself with reading, or
occupation of any kind, and he would spend many an hour in trying to
entice her attention to some subject which had formerly been her
amusement. She was conscious of his aim, and in her better moods
endured his efforts placidly, only showing their uselessness by now and
then suppressing a wearied sigh, and checking him at last with the
saddest of smiles and kisses. At other times, she would turn petulantly
away, and hide her face in her hands, or even push him off angrily; and
then he took care to let her alone, for he was certain of doing no
good.

Gimmerton chapel bells were still ringing; and the full, mellow flow of
the beck in the valley came soothingly on the ear. It was a sweet
substitute for the yet absent murmur of the summer foliage, which
drowned that music about the Grange when the trees were in leaf. At
Wuthering Heights it always sounded on quiet days following a great
thaw or a season of steady rain. And of Wuthering Heights Catherine was
thinking as she listened: that is, if she thought or listened at all;
but she had the vague, distant look I mentioned before, which expressed
no recognition of material things either by ear or eye.

“There’s a letter for you, Mrs. Linton,” I said, gently inserting it in
one hand that rested on her knee. “You must read it immediately,
because it wants an answer. Shall I break the seal?” “Yes,” she
answered, without altering the direction of her eyes. I opened it—it
was very short. “Now,” I continued, “read it.” She drew away her hand,
and let it fall. I replaced it in her lap, and stood waiting till it
should please her to glance down; but that movement was so long delayed
that at last I resumed—“Must I read it, ma’am? It is from Mr.
Heathcliff.”

There was a start and a troubled gleam of recollection, and a struggle
to arrange her ideas. She lifted the letter, and seemed to peruse it;
and when she came to the signature she sighed: yet still I found she
had not gathered its import, for, upon my desiring to hear her reply,
she merely pointed to the name, and gazed at me with mournful and
questioning eagerness.

“Well, he wishes to see you,” said I, guessing her need of an
interpreter. “He’s in the garden by this time, and impatient to know
what answer I shall bring.”

As I spoke, I observed a large dog lying on the sunny grass beneath
raise its ears as if about to bark, and then smoothing them back,
announce, by a wag of the tail, that some one approached whom it did
not consider a stranger. Mrs. Linton bent forward, and listened
breathlessly. The minute after a step traversed the hall; the open
house was too tempting for Heathcliff to resist walking in: most likely
he supposed that I was inclined to shirk my promise, and so resolved to
trust to his own audacity. With straining eagerness Catherine gazed
towards the entrance of her chamber. He did not hit the right room
directly: she motioned me to admit him, but he found it out ere I could
reach the door, and in a stride or two was at her side, and had her
grasped in his arms.

He neither spoke nor loosed his hold for some five minutes, during
which period he bestowed more kisses than ever he gave in his life
before, I daresay: but then my mistress had kissed him first, and I
plainly saw that he could hardly bear, for downright agony, to look
into her face! The same conviction had stricken him as me, from the
instant he beheld her, that there was no prospect of ultimate recovery
there—she was fated, sure to die.

“Oh, Cathy! Oh, my life! how can I bear it?” was the first sentence he
uttered, in a tone that did not seek to disguise his despair. And now
he stared at her so earnestly that I thought the very intensity of his
gaze would bring tears into his eyes; but they burned with anguish:
they did not melt.

“What now?” said Catherine, leaning back, and returning his look with a
suddenly clouded brow: her humour was a mere vane for constantly
varying caprices. “You and Edgar have broken my heart, Heathcliff! And
you both come to bewail the deed to me, as if you were the people to be
pitied! I shall not pity you, not I. You have killed me—and thriven on
it, I think. How strong you are! How many years do you mean to live
after I am gone?”

Heathcliff had knelt on one knee to embrace her; he attempted to rise,
but she seized his hair, and kept him down.

“I wish I could hold you,” she continued, bitterly, “till we were both
dead! I shouldn’t care what you suffered. I care nothing for your
sufferings. Why shouldn’t you suffer? I do! Will you forget me? Will
you be happy when I am in the earth? Will you say twenty years hence,
‘That’s the grave of Catherine Earnshaw? I loved her long ago, and was
wretched to lose her; but it is past. I’ve loved many others since: my
children are dearer to me than she was; and, at death, I shall not
rejoice that I am going to her: I shall be sorry that I must leave
them!’ Will you say so, Heathcliff?”

“Don’t torture me till I’m as mad as yourself,” cried he, wrenching his
head free, and grinding his teeth.

The two, to a cool spectator, made a strange and fearful picture. Well
might Catherine deem that heaven would be a land of exile to her,
unless with her mortal body she cast away her moral character also. Her
present countenance had a wild vindictiveness in its white cheek, and a
bloodless lip and scintillating eye; and she retained in her closed
fingers a portion of the locks she had been grasping. As to her
companion, while raising himself with one hand, he had taken her arm
with the other; and so inadequate was his stock of gentleness to the
requirements of her condition, that on his letting go I saw four
distinct impressions left blue in the colourless skin.

“Are you possessed with a devil,” he pursued, savagely, “to talk in
that manner to me when you are dying? Do you reflect that all those
words will be branded in my memory, and eating deeper eternally after
you have left me? You know you lie to say I have killed you: and,
Catherine, you know that I could as soon forget you as my existence! Is
it not sufficient for your infernal selfishness, that while you are at
peace I shall writhe in the torments of hell?”

“I shall not be at peace,” moaned Catherine, recalled to a sense of
physical weakness by the violent, unequal throbbing of her heart, which
beat visibly and audibly under this excess of agitation. She said
nothing further till the paroxysm was over; then she continued, more
kindly—

“I’m not wishing you greater torment than I have, Heathcliff. I only
wish us never to be parted: and should a word of mine distress you
hereafter, think I feel the same distress underground, and for my own
sake, forgive me! Come here and kneel down again! You never harmed me
in your life. Nay, if you nurse anger, that will be worse to remember
than my harsh words! Won’t you come here again? Do!”

Heathcliff went to the back of her chair, and leant over, but not so
far as to let her see his face, which was livid with emotion. She bent
round to look at him; he would not permit it: turning abruptly, he
walked to the fireplace, where he stood, silent, with his back towards
us. Mrs. Linton’s glance followed him suspiciously: every movement woke
a new sentiment in her. After a pause and a prolonged gaze, she
resumed; addressing me in accents of indignant disappointment:—

“Oh, you see, Nelly, he would not relent a moment to keep me out of the
grave. That is how I’m loved! Well, never mind. That is not my
Heathcliff. I shall love mine yet; and take him with me: he’s in my
soul. And,” added she musingly, “the thing that irks me most is this
shattered prison, after all. I’m tired of being enclosed here. I’m
wearying to escape into that glorious world, and to be always there:
not seeing it dimly through tears, and yearning for it through the
walls of an aching heart: but really with it, and in it. Nelly, you
think you are better and more fortunate than I; in full health and
strength: you are sorry for me—very soon that will be altered. I shall
be sorry for you. I shall be incomparably beyond and above you all. I
wonder he won’t be near me!” She went on to herself. “I thought he
wished it. Heathcliff, dear! you should not be sullen now. Do come to
me, Heathcliff.”

In her eagerness she rose and supported herself on the arm of the
chair. At that earnest appeal he turned to her, looking absolutely
desperate. His eyes, wide and wet, at last flashed fiercely on her; his
breast heaved convulsively. An instant they held asunder, and then how
they met I hardly saw, but Catherine made a spring, and he caught her,
and they were locked in an embrace from which I thought my mistress
would never be released alive: in fact, to my eyes, she seemed directly
insensible. He flung himself into the nearest seat, and on my
approaching hurriedly to ascertain if she had fainted, he gnashed at
me, and foamed like a mad dog, and gathered her to him with greedy
jealousy. I did not feel as if I were in the company of a creature of
my own species: it appeared that he would not understand, though I
spoke to him; so I stood off, and held my tongue, in great perplexity.

A movement of Catherine’s relieved me a little presently: she put up
her hand to clasp his neck, and bring her cheek to his as he held her;
while he, in return, covering her with frantic caresses, said wildly—

“You teach me now how cruel you’ve been—cruel and false. Why did you
despise me? Why did you betray your own heart, Cathy? I have not one
word of comfort. You deserve this. You have killed yourself. Yes, you
may kiss me, and cry; and wring out my kisses and tears: they’ll blight
you—they’ll damn you. You loved me—then what right had you to leave
me? What right—answer me—for the poor fancy you felt for Linton?
Because misery and degradation, and death, and nothing that God or
Satan could inflict would have parted us, you, of your own will, did
it. I have not broken your heart—you have broken it; and in breaking
it, you have broken mine. So much the worse for me that I am strong. Do
I want to live? What kind of living will it be when you—oh, God! would
you like to live with your soul in the grave?”

“Let me alone. Let me alone,” sobbed Catherine. “If I’ve done wrong,
I’m dying for it. It is enough! You left me too: but I won’t upbraid
you! I forgive you. Forgive me!”

“It is hard to forgive, and to look at those eyes, and feel those
wasted hands,” he answered. “Kiss me again; and don’t let me see your
eyes! I forgive what you have done to me. I love my murderer—but
yours! How can I?”

They were silent—their faces hid against each other, and washed by each
other’s tears. At least, I suppose the weeping was on both sides; as it
seemed Heathcliff could weep on a great occasion like this.

I grew very uncomfortable, meanwhile; for the afternoon wore fast away,
the man whom I had sent off returned from his errand, and I could
distinguish, by the shine of the western sun up the valley, a concourse
thickening outside Gimmerton chapel porch.

“Service is over,” I announced. “My master will be here in half an
hour.”

Heathcliff groaned a curse, and strained Catherine closer: she never
moved.

Ere long I perceived a group of the servants passing up the road
towards the kitchen wing. Mr. Linton was not far behind; he opened the
gate himself and sauntered slowly up, probably enjoying the lovely
afternoon that breathed as soft as summer.

“Now he is here,” I exclaimed. “For heaven’s sake, hurry down! You’ll
not meet any one on the front stairs. Do be quick; and stay among the
trees till he is fairly in.”

“I must go, Cathy,” said Heathcliff, seeking to extricate himself from
his companion’s arms. “But if I live, I’ll see you again before you are
asleep. I won’t stray five yards from your window.”

“You must not go!” she answered, holding him as firmly as her strength
allowed. “You shall not, I tell you.”

“For one hour,” he pleaded earnestly.

“Not for one minute,” she replied.

“I must—Linton will be up immediately,” persisted the alarmed
intruder.

He would have risen, and unfixed her fingers by the act—she clung fast,
gasping: there was mad resolution in her face.

“No!” she shrieked. “Oh, don’t, don’t go. It is the last time! Edgar
will not hurt us. Heathcliff, I shall die! I shall die!”

“Damn the fool! There he is,” cried Heathcliff, sinking back into his
seat. “Hush, my darling! Hush, hush, Catherine! I’ll stay. If he shot
me so, I’d expire with a blessing on my lips.”

And there they were fast again. I heard my master mounting the
stairs—the cold sweat ran from my forehead: I was horrified.

“Are you going to listen to her ravings?” I said, passionately. “She
does not know what she says. Will you ruin her, because she has not wit
to help herself? Get up! You could be free instantly. That is the most
diabolical deed that ever you did. We are all done for—master,
mistress, and servant.”

I wrung my hands, and cried out; and Mr. Linton hastened his step at
the noise. In the midst of my agitation, I was sincerely glad to
observe that Catherine’s arms had fallen relaxed, and her head hung
down.

“She’s fainted, or dead,” I thought: “so much the better. Far better
that she should be dead, than lingering a burden and a misery-maker to
all about her.”

Edgar sprang to his unbidden guest, blanched with astonishment and
rage. What he meant to do I cannot tell; however, the other stopped all
demonstrations, at once, by placing the lifeless-looking form in his
arms.

“Look there!” he said. “Unless you be a fiend, help her first—then you
shall speak to me!”

He walked into the parlour, and sat down. Mr. Linton summoned me, and
with great difficulty, and after resorting to many means, we managed to
restore her to sensation; but she was all bewildered; she sighed, and
moaned, and knew nobody. Edgar, in his anxiety for her, forgot her
hated friend. I did not. I went, at the earliest opportunity, and
besought him to depart; affirming that Catherine was better, and he
should hear from me in the morning how she passed the night.

“I shall not refuse to go out of doors,” he answered; “but I shall stay
in the garden: and, Nelly, mind you keep your word to-morrow. I shall
be under those larch-trees. Mind! or I pay another visit, whether
Linton be in or not.”

He sent a rapid glance through the half-open door of the chamber, and,
ascertaining that what I stated was apparently true, delivered the
house of his luckless presence.