Chapter XXV

“These things happened last winter, sir,” said Mrs. Dean; “hardly more
than a year ago. Last winter, I did not think, at another twelve
months’ end, I should be amusing a stranger to the family with relating
them! Yet, who knows how long you’ll be a stranger? You’re too young to
rest always contented, living by yourself; and I some way fancy no one
could see Catherine Linton and not love her. You smile; but why do you
look so lively and interested when I talk about her? and why have you
asked me to hang her picture over your fireplace? and why—?”

“Stop, my good friend!” I cried. “It may be very possible that I
should love her; but would she love me? I doubt it too much to venture
my tranquillity by running into temptation: and then my home is not
here. I’m of the busy world, and to its arms I must return. Go on. Was
Catherine obedient to her father’s commands?”

“She was,” continued the housekeeper. “Her affection for him was still
the chief sentiment in her heart; and he spoke without anger: he spoke
in the deep tenderness of one about to leave his treasure amid perils
and foes, where his remembered words would be the only aid that he
could bequeath to guide her. He said to me, a few days afterwards, ‘I
wish my nephew would write, Ellen, or call. Tell me, sincerely, what
you think of him: is he changed for the better, or is there a prospect
of improvement, as he grows a man?’

“‘He’s very delicate, sir,’ I replied; ‘and scarcely likely to reach
manhood: but this I can say, he does not resemble his father; and if
Miss Catherine had the misfortune to marry him, he would not be beyond
her control: unless she were extremely and foolishly indulgent.
However, master, you’ll have plenty of time to get acquainted with him
and see whether he would suit her: it wants four years and more to his
being of age.’”

Edgar sighed; and, walking to the window, looked out towards Gimmerton
Kirk. It was a misty afternoon, but the February sun shone dimly, and
we could just distinguish the two fir-trees in the yard, and the
sparely-scattered gravestones.

“I’ve prayed often,” he half soliloquised, “for the approach of what is
coming; and now I begin to shrink, and fear it. I thought the memory of
the hour I came down that glen a bridegroom would be less sweet than
the anticipation that I was soon, in a few months, or, possibly, weeks,
to be carried up, and laid in its lonely hollow! Ellen, I’ve been very
happy with my little Cathy: through winter nights and summer days she
was a living hope at my side. But I’ve been as happy musing by myself
among those stones, under that old church: lying, through the long June
evenings, on the green mound of her mother’s grave, and
wishing—yearning for the time when I might lie beneath it. What can I
do for Cathy? How must I quit her? I’d not care one moment for Linton
being Heathcliff’s son; nor for his taking her from me, if he could
console her for my loss. I’d not care that Heathcliff gained his ends,
and triumphed in robbing me of my last blessing! But should Linton be
unworthy—only a feeble tool to his father—I cannot abandon her to him!
And, hard though it be to crush her buoyant spirit, I must persevere in
making her sad while I live, and leaving her solitary when I die.
Darling! I’d rather resign her to God, and lay her in the earth before
me.”

“Resign her to God as it is, sir,” I answered, “and if we should lose
you—which may He forbid—under His providence, I’ll stand her friend and
counsellor to the last. Miss Catherine is a good girl: I don’t fear
that she will go wilfully wrong; and people who do their duty are
always finally rewarded.”

Spring advanced; yet my master gathered no real strength, though he
resumed his walks in the grounds with his daughter. To her
inexperienced notions, this itself was a sign of convalescence; and
then his cheek was often flushed, and his eyes were bright; she felt
sure of his recovering. On her seventeenth birthday, he did not visit
the churchyard: it was raining, and I observed—

“You’ll surely not go out to-night, sir?”

He answered,—“No, I’ll defer it this year a little longer.”

He wrote again to Linton, expressing his great desire to see him; and,
had the invalid been presentable, I’ve no doubt his father would have
permitted him to come. As it was, being instructed, he returned an
answer, intimating that Mr. Heathcliff objected to his calling at the
Grange; but his uncle’s kind remembrance delighted him, and he hoped to
meet him sometimes in his rambles, and personally to petition that his
cousin and he might not remain long so utterly divided.

That part of his letter was simple, and probably his own. Heathcliff
knew he could plead eloquently for Catherine’s company, then.

“I do not ask,” he said, “that she may visit here; but am I never to
see her, because my father forbids me to go to her home, and you forbid
her to come to mine? Do, now and then, ride with her towards the
Heights; and let us exchange a few words, in your presence! We have
done nothing to deserve this separation; and you are not angry with me:
you have no reason to dislike me, you allow, yourself. Dear uncle! send
me a kind note to-morrow, and leave to join you anywhere you please,
except at Thrushcross Grange. I believe an interview would convince you
that my father’s character is not mine: he affirms I am more your
nephew than his son; and though I have faults which render me unworthy
of Catherine, she has excused them, and for her sake, you should also.
You inquire after my health—it is better; but while I remain cut off
from all hope, and doomed to solitude, or the society of those who
never did and never will like me, how can I be cheerful and well?”

Edgar, though he felt for the boy, could not consent to grant his
request; because he could not accompany Catherine. He said, in summer,
perhaps, they might meet: meantime, he wished him to continue writing
at intervals, and engaged to give him what advice and comfort he was
able by letter; being well aware of his hard position in his family.
Linton complied; and had he been unrestrained, would probably have
spoiled all by filling his epistles with complaints and lamentations:
but his father kept a sharp watch over him; and, of course, insisted on
every line that my master sent being shown; so, instead of penning his
peculiar personal sufferings and distresses, the themes constantly
uppermost in his thoughts, he harped on the cruel obligation of being
held asunder from his friend and love; and gently intimated that Mr.
Linton must allow an interview soon, or he should fear he was purposely
deceiving him with empty promises.

Cathy was a powerful ally at home; and between them they at length
persuaded my master to acquiesce in their having a ride or a walk
together about once a week, under my guardianship, and on the moors
nearest the Grange: for June found him still declining. Though he had
set aside yearly a portion of his income for my young lady’s fortune,
he had a natural desire that she might retain—or at least return in a
short time to—the house of her ancestors; and he considered her only
prospect of doing that was by a union with his heir; he had no idea
that the latter was failing almost as fast as himself; nor had any one,
I believe: no doctor visited the Heights, and no one saw Master
Heathcliff to make report of his condition among us. I, for my part,
began to fancy my forebodings were false, and that he must be actually
rallying, when he mentioned riding and walking on the moors, and seemed
so earnest in pursuing his object. I could not picture a father
treating a dying child as tyrannically and wickedly as I afterwards
learned Heathcliff had treated him, to compel this apparent eagerness:
his efforts redoubling the more imminently his avaricious and unfeeling
plans were threatened with defeat by death.