Chapter XXII

Summer drew to an end, and early autumn: it was past Michaelmas, but
the harvest was late that year, and a few of our fields were still
uncleared. Mr. Linton and his daughter would frequently walk out among
the reapers; at the carrying of the last sheaves they stayed till dusk,
and the evening happening to be chill and damp, my master caught a bad
cold, that settled obstinately on his lungs, and confined him indoors
throughout the whole of the winter, nearly without intermission.

Poor Cathy, frightened from her little romance, had been considerably
sadder and duller since its abandonment; and her father insisted on her
reading less, and taking more exercise. She had his companionship no
longer; I esteemed it a duty to supply its lack, as much as possible,
with mine: an inefficient substitute; for I could only spare two or
three hours, from my numerous diurnal occupations, to follow her
footsteps, and then my society was obviously less desirable than his.

On an afternoon in October, or the beginning of November—a fresh watery
afternoon, when the turf and paths were rustling with moist, withered
leaves, and the cold blue sky was half hidden by clouds—dark grey
streamers, rapidly mounting from the west, and boding abundant rain—I
requested my young lady to forego her ramble, because I was certain of
showers. She refused; and I unwillingly donned a cloak, and took my
umbrella to accompany her on a stroll to the bottom of the park: a
formal walk which she generally affected if low-spirited—and that she
invariably was when Mr. Edgar had been worse than ordinary, a thing
never known from his confession, but guessed both by her and me from
his increased silence and the melancholy of his countenance. She went
sadly on: there was no running or bounding now, though the chill wind
might well have tempted her to race. And often, from the side of my
eye, I could detect her raising a hand, and brushing something off her
cheek. I gazed round for a means of diverting her thoughts. On one side
of the road rose a high, rough bank, where hazels and stunted oaks,
with their roots half exposed, held uncertain tenure: the soil was too
loose for the latter; and strong winds had blown some nearly
horizontal. In summer Miss Catherine delighted to climb along these
trunks, and sit in the branches, swinging twenty feet above the ground;
and I, pleased with her agility and her light, childish heart, still
considered it proper to scold every time I caught her at such an
elevation, but so that she knew there was no necessity for descending.
From dinner to tea she would lie in her breeze-rocked cradle, doing
nothing except singing old songs—my nursery lore—to herself, or
watching the birds, joint tenants, feed and entice their young ones to
fly: or nestling with closed lids, half thinking, half dreaming,
happier than words can express.

“Look, Miss!” I exclaimed, pointing to a nook under the roots of one
twisted tree. “Winter is not here yet. There’s a little flower up
yonder, the last bud from the multitude of bluebells that clouded those
turf steps in July with a lilac mist. Will you clamber up, and pluck it
to show to papa?”

Cathy stared a long time at the lonely blossom trembling in its earthy
shelter, and replied, at length—“No, I’ll not touch it: but it looks
melancholy, does it not, Ellen?”

“Yes,” I observed, “about as starved and sackless as you: your cheeks
are bloodless; let us take hold of hands and run. You’re so low, I
daresay I shall keep up with you.”

“No,” she repeated, and continued sauntering on, pausing at intervals
to muse over a bit of moss, or a tuft of blanched grass, or a fungus
spreading its bright orange among the heaps of brown foliage; and, ever
and anon, her hand was lifted to her averted face.

“Catherine, why are you crying, love?” I asked, approaching and putting
my arm over her shoulder. “You mustn’t cry because papa has a cold; be
thankful it is nothing worse.”

She now put no further restraint on her tears; her breath was stifled
by sobs.

“Oh, it will be something worse,” she said. “And what shall I do when
papa and you leave me, and I am by myself? I can’t forget your words,
Ellen; they are always in my ear. How life will be changed, how dreary
the world will be, when papa and you are dead.”

“None can tell whether you won’t die before us,” I replied. “It’s wrong
to anticipate evil. We’ll hope there are years and years to come before
any of us go: master is young, and I am strong, and hardly forty-five.
My mother lived till eighty, a canty dame to the last. And suppose Mr.
Linton were spared till he saw sixty, that would be more years than you
have counted, Miss. And would it not be foolish to mourn a calamity
above twenty years beforehand?”

“But Aunt Isabella was younger than papa,” she remarked, gazing up with
timid hope to seek further consolation.

“Aunt Isabella had not you and me to nurse her,” I replied. “She wasn’t
as happy as Master: she hadn’t as much to live for. All you need do, is
to wait well on your father, and cheer him by letting him see you
cheerful; and avoid giving him anxiety on any subject: mind that,
Cathy! I’ll not disguise but you might kill him if you were wild and
reckless, and cherished a foolish, fanciful affection for the son of a
person who would be glad to have him in his grave; and allowed him to
discover that you fretted over the separation he has judged it
expedient to make.”

“I fret about nothing on earth except papa’s illness,” answered my
companion. “I care for nothing in comparison with papa. And I’ll
never—never—oh, never, while I have my senses, do an act or say a word
to vex him. I love him better than myself, Ellen; and I know it by
this: I pray every night that I may live after him; because I would
rather be miserable than that he should be: that proves I love him
better than myself.”

“Good words,” I replied. “But deeds must prove it also; and after he is
well, remember you don’t forget resolutions formed in the hour of
fear.”

As we talked, we neared a door that opened on the road; and my young
lady, lightening into sunshine again, climbed up and seated herself on
the top of the wall, reaching over to gather some hips that bloomed
scarlet on the summit branches of the wild-rose trees shadowing the
highway side: the lower fruit had disappeared, but only birds could
touch the upper, except from Cathy’s present station. In stretching to
pull them, her hat fell off; and as the door was locked, she proposed
scrambling down to recover it. I bid her be cautious lest she got a
fall, and she nimbly disappeared. But the return was no such easy
matter: the stones were smooth and neatly cemented, and the rosebushes
and blackberry stragglers could yield no assistance in re-ascending.
I, like a fool, didn’t recollect that, till I heard her laughing and
exclaiming—“Ellen! you’ll have to fetch the key, or else I must run
round to the porter’s lodge. I can’t scale the ramparts on this side!”

“Stay where you are,” I answered; “I have my bundle of keys in my
pocket: perhaps I may manage to open it; if not, I’ll go.”

Catherine amused herself with dancing to and fro before the door, while
I tried all the large keys in succession. I had applied the last, and
found that none would do; so, repeating my desire that she would remain
there, I was about to hurry home as fast as I could, when an
approaching sound arrested me. It was the trot of a horse; Cathy’s
dance stopped also.

“Who is that?” I whispered.

“Ellen, I wish you could open the door,” whispered back my companion,
anxiously.

“Ho, Miss Linton!” cried a deep voice (the rider’s), “I’m glad to meet
you. Don’t be in haste to enter, for I have an explanation to ask and
obtain.”

“I sha’n’t speak to you, Mr. Heathcliff,” answered Catherine. “Papa
says you are a wicked man, and you hate both him and me; and Ellen says
the same.”

“That is nothing to the purpose,” said Heathcliff. (He it was.) “I
don’t hate my son, I suppose; and it is concerning him that I demand
your attention. Yes; you have cause to blush. Two or three months
since, were you not in the habit of writing to Linton? making love in
play, eh? You deserved, both of you, flogging for that! You especially,
the elder; and less sensitive, as it turns out. I’ve got your letters,
and if you give me any pertness I’ll send them to your father. I
presume you grew weary of the amusement and dropped it, didn’t you?
Well, you dropped Linton with it into a Slough of Despond. He was in
earnest: in love, really. As true as I live, he’s dying for you;
breaking his heart at your fickleness: not figuratively, but actually.
Though Hareton has made him a standing jest for six weeks, and I have
used more serious measures, and attempted to frighten him out of his
idiocy, he gets worse daily; and he’ll be under the sod before summer,
unless you restore him!”

“How can you lie so glaringly to the poor child?” I called from the
inside. “Pray ride on! How can you deliberately get up such paltry
falsehoods? Miss Cathy, I’ll knock the lock off with a stone: you won’t
believe that vile nonsense. You can feel in yourself it is impossible
that a person should die for love of a stranger.”

“I was not aware there were eavesdroppers,” muttered the detected
villain. “Worthy Mrs. Dean, I like you, but I don’t like your
double-dealing,” he added aloud. “How could you lie so glaringly as
to affirm I hated the ‘poor child’? and invent bugbear stories to
terrify her from my door-stones? Catherine Linton (the very name warms
me), my bonny lass, I shall be from home all this week; go and see if I
have not spoken truth: do, there’s a darling! Just imagine your father
in my place, and Linton in yours; then think how you would value your
careless lover if he refused to stir a step to comfort you, when your
father himself entreated him; and don’t, from pure stupidity, fall into
the same error. I swear, on my salvation, he’s going to his grave, and
none but you can save him!”

The lock gave way and I issued out.

“I swear Linton is dying,” repeated Heathcliff, looking hard at me.
“And grief and disappointment are hastening his death. Nelly, if you
won’t let her go, you can walk over yourself. But I shall not return
till this time next week; and I think your master himself would
scarcely object to her visiting her cousin.”

“Come in,” said I, taking Cathy by the arm and half forcing her to
re-enter; for she lingered, viewing with troubled eyes the features of
the speaker, too stern to express his inward deceit.

He pushed his horse close, and, bending down, observed—

“Miss Catherine, I’ll own to you that I have little patience with
Linton; and Hareton and Joseph have less. I’ll own that he’s with a
harsh set. He pines for kindness, as well as love; and a kind word from
you would be his best medicine. Don’t mind Mrs. Dean’s cruel cautions;
but be generous, and contrive to see him. He dreams of you day and
night, and cannot be persuaded that you don’t hate him, since you
neither write nor call.”

I closed the door, and rolled a stone to assist the loosened lock in
holding it; and spreading my umbrella, I drew my charge underneath: for
the rain began to drive through the moaning branches of the trees, and
warned us to avoid delay. Our hurry prevented any comment on the
encounter with Heathcliff, as we stretched towards home; but I divined
instinctively that Catherine’s heart was clouded now in double
darkness. Her features were so sad, they did not seem hers: she
evidently regarded what she had heard as every syllable true.

The master had retired to rest before we came in. Cathy stole to his
room to inquire how he was; he had fallen asleep. She returned, and
asked me to sit with her in the library. We took our tea together; and
afterwards she lay down on the rug, and told me not to talk, for she
was weary. I got a book, and pretended to read. As soon as she supposed
me absorbed in my occupation, she recommenced her silent weeping: it
appeared, at present, her favourite diversion. I suffered her to enjoy
it a while; then I expostulated: deriding and ridiculing all Mr.
Heathcliff’s assertions about his son, as if I were certain she would
coincide. Alas! I hadn’t skill to counteract the effect his account had
produced: it was just what he intended.

“You may be right, Ellen,” she answered; “but I shall never feel at
ease till I know. And I must tell Linton it is not my fault that I
don’t write, and convince him that I shall not change.”

What use were anger and protestations against her silly credulity? We
parted that night—hostile; but next day beheld me on the road to
Wuthering Heights, by the side of my wilful young mistress’s pony. I
couldn’t bear to witness her sorrow: to see her pale, dejected
countenance, and heavy eyes: and I yielded, in the faint hope that
Linton himself might prove, by his reception of us, how little of the
tale was founded on fact.