Chapter XXVIII

On the fifth morning, or rather afternoon, a different step
approached—lighter and shorter; and, this time, the person entered the
room. It was Zillah; donned in her scarlet shawl, with a black silk
bonnet on her head, and a willow-basket swung to her arm.

“Eh, dear! Mrs. Dean!” she exclaimed. “Well! there is a talk about you
at Gimmerton. I never thought but you were sunk in the Blackhorse
marsh, and missy with you, till master told me you’d been found, and
he’d lodged you here! What! and you must have got on an island, sure?
And how long were you in the hole? Did master save you, Mrs. Dean? But
you’re not so thin—you’ve not been so poorly, have you?”

“Your master is a true scoundrel!” I replied. “But he shall answer for
it. He needn’t have raised that tale: it shall all be laid bare!”

“What do you mean?” asked Zillah. “It’s not his tale: they tell that in
the village—about your being lost in the marsh; and I calls to
Earnshaw, when I come in—‘Eh, they’s queer things, Mr. Hareton,
happened since I went off. It’s a sad pity of that likely young lass,
and cant Nelly Dean.’ He stared. I thought he had not heard aught, so I
told him the rumour. The master listened, and he just smiled to
himself, and said, ‘If they have been in the marsh, they are out now,
Zillah. Nelly Dean is lodged, at this minute, in your room. You can
tell her to flit, when you go up; here is the key. The bog-water got
into her head, and she would have run home quite flighty, but I fixed
her till she came round to her senses. You can bid her go to the Grange
at once, if she be able, and carry a message from me, that her young
lady will follow in time to attend the squire’s funeral.’”

“Mr. Edgar is not dead?” I gasped. “Oh! Zillah, Zillah!”

“No, no; sit you down, my good mistress,” she replied; “you’re right
sickly yet. He’s not dead; Doctor Kenneth thinks he may last another
day. I met him on the road and asked.”

Instead of sitting down, I snatched my outdoor things, and hastened
below, for the way was free. On entering the house, I looked about for
some one to give information of Catherine. The place was filled with
sunshine, and the door stood wide open; but nobody seemed at hand. As I
hesitated whether to go off at once, or return and seek my mistress, a
slight cough drew my attention to the hearth. Linton lay on the settle,
sole tenant, sucking a stick of sugar-candy, and pursuing my movements
with apathetic eyes. “Where is Miss Catherine?” I demanded sternly,
supposing I could frighten him into giving intelligence, by catching
him thus, alone. He sucked on like an innocent.

“Is she gone?” I said.

“No,” he replied; “she’s upstairs: she’s not to go; we won’t let her.”

“You won’t let her, little idiot!” I exclaimed. “Direct me to her room
immediately, or I’ll make you sing out sharply.”

“Papa would make you sing out, if you attempted to get there,” he
answered. “He says I’m not to be soft with Catherine: she’s my wife,
and it’s shameful that she should wish to leave me. He says she hates
me and wants me to die, that she may have my money; but she shan’t have
it: and she shan’t go home! She never shall!—she may cry, and be sick
as much as she pleases!”

He resumed his former occupation, closing his lids, as if he meant to
drop asleep.

“Master Heathcliff,” I resumed, “have you forgotten all Catherine’s
kindness to you last winter, when you affirmed you loved her, and when
she brought you books and sung you songs, and came many a time through
wind and snow to see you? She wept to miss one evening, because you
would be disappointed; and you felt then that she was a hundred times
too good to you: and now you believe the lies your father tells, though
you know he detests you both. And you join him against her. That’s fine
gratitude, is it not?”

The corner of Linton’s mouth fell, and he took the sugar-candy from his
lips.

“Did she come to Wuthering Heights because she hated you?” I continued.
“Think for yourself! As to your money, she does not even know that you
will have any. And you say she’s sick; and yet you leave her alone, up
there in a strange house! You who have felt what it is to be so
neglected! You could pity your own sufferings; and she pitied them,
too; but you won’t pity hers! I shed tears, Master Heathcliff, you
see—an elderly woman, and a servant merely—and you, after pretending
such affection, and having reason to worship her almost, store every
tear you have for yourself, and lie there quite at ease. Ah! you’re a
heartless, selfish boy!”

“I can’t stay with her,” he answered crossly. “I’ll not stay by myself.
She cries so I can’t bear it. And she won’t give over, though I say
I’ll call my father. I did call him once, and he threatened to strangle
her if she was not quiet; but she began again the instant he left the
room, moaning and grieving all night long, though I screamed for
vexation that I couldn’t sleep.”

“Is Mr. Heathcliff out?” I inquired, perceiving that the wretched
creature had no power to sympathise with his cousin’s mental tortures.

“He’s in the court,” he replied, “talking to Doctor Kenneth; who says
uncle is dying, truly, at last. I’m glad, for I shall be master of the
Grange after him. Catherine always spoke of it as her house. It isn’t
hers! It’s mine: papa says everything she has is mine. All her nice
books are mine; she offered to give me them, and her pretty birds, and
her pony Minny, if I would get the key of our room, and let her out;
but I told her she had nothing to give, they were all, all mine. And
then she cried, and took a little picture from her neck, and said I
should have that; two pictures in a gold case, on one side her mother,
and on the other uncle, when they were young. That was yesterday—I said
they were mine, too; and tried to get them from her. The spiteful
thing wouldn’t let me: she pushed me off, and hurt me. I shrieked
out—that frightens her—she heard papa coming, and she broke the hinges
and divided the case, and gave me her mother’s portrait; the other she
attempted to hide: but papa asked what was the matter, and I explained
it. He took the one I had away, and ordered her to resign hers to me;
she refused, and he—he struck her down, and wrenched it off the chain,
and crushed it with his foot.”

“And were you pleased to see her struck?” I asked: having my designs in
encouraging his talk.

“I winked,” he answered: “I wink to see my father strike a dog or a
horse, he does it so hard. Yet I was glad at first—she deserved
punishing for pushing me: but when papa was gone, she made me come to
the window and showed me her cheek cut on the inside, against her
teeth, and her mouth filling with blood; and then she gathered up the
bits of the picture, and went and sat down with her face to the wall,
and she has never spoken to me since: and I sometimes think she can’t
speak for pain. I don’t like to think so; but she’s a naughty thing for
crying continually; and she looks so pale and wild, I’m afraid of her.”

“And you can get the key if you choose?” I said.

“Yes, when I am upstairs,” he answered; “but I can’t walk upstairs
now.”

“In what apartment is it?” I asked.

“Oh,” he cried, “I shan’t tell you where it is. It is our secret.
Nobody, neither Hareton nor Zillah, is to know. There! you’ve tired
me—go away, go away!” And he turned his face on to his arm, and shut
his eyes again.

I considered it best to depart without seeing Mr. Heathcliff, and bring
a rescue for my young lady from the Grange. On reaching it, the
astonishment of my fellow-servants to see me, and their joy also, was
intense; and when they heard that their little mistress was safe, two
or three were about to hurry up and shout the news at Mr. Edgar’s door:
but I bespoke the announcement of it myself. How changed I found him,
even in those few days! He lay an image of sadness and resignation
awaiting his death. Very young he looked: though his actual age was
thirty-nine, one would have called him ten years younger, at least. He
thought of Catherine; for he murmured her name. I touched his hand, and
spoke.

“Catherine is coming, dear master!” I whispered; “she is alive and
well; and will be here, I hope, to-night.”

I trembled at the first effects of this intelligence: he half rose up,
looked eagerly round the apartment, and then sank back in a swoon. As
soon as he recovered, I related our compulsory visit, and detention at
the Heights. I said Heathcliff forced me to go in: which was not quite
true. I uttered as little as possible against Linton; nor did I
describe all his father’s brutal conduct—my intentions being to add no
bitterness, if I could help it, to his already overflowing cup.

He divined that one of his enemy’s purposes was to secure the personal
property, as well as the estate, to his son: or rather himself; yet why
he did not wait till his decease was a puzzle to my master, because
ignorant how nearly he and his nephew would quit the world together.
However, he felt that his will had better be altered: instead of
leaving Catherine’s fortune at her own disposal, he determined to put
it in the hands of trustees for her use during life, and for her
children, if she had any, after her. By that means, it could not fall
to Mr. Heathcliff should Linton die.

Having received his orders, I despatched a man to fetch the attorney,
and four more, provided with serviceable weapons, to demand my young
lady of her jailor. Both parties were delayed very late. The single
servant returned first. He said Mr. Green, the lawyer, was out when he
arrived at his house, and he had to wait two hours for his re-entrance;
and then Mr. Green told him he had a little business in the village
that must be done; but he would be at Thrushcross Grange before
morning. The four men came back unaccompanied also. They brought word
that Catherine was ill: too ill to quit her room; and Heathcliff would
not suffer them to see her. I scolded the stupid fellows well for
listening to that tale, which I would not carry to my master; resolving
to take a whole bevy up to the Heights, at daylight, and storm it
literally, unless the prisoner were quietly surrendered to us. Her
father shall see her, I vowed, and vowed again, if that devil be
killed on his own door-stones in trying to prevent it!

Happily, I was spared the journey and the trouble. I had gone
downstairs at three o’clock to fetch a jug of water; and was passing
through the hall with it in my hand, when a sharp knock at the front
door made me jump. “Oh! it is Green,” I said, recollecting myself—“only
Green,” and I went on, intending to send somebody else to open it; but
the knock was repeated: not loud, and still importunately. I put the
jug on the banister and hastened to admit him myself. The harvest moon
shone clear outside. It was not the attorney. My own sweet little
mistress sprang on my neck sobbing, “Ellen, Ellen! Is papa alive?”

“Yes,” I cried: “yes, my angel, he is, God be thanked, you are safe
with us again!”

She wanted to run, breathless as she was, upstairs to Mr. Linton’s
room; but I compelled her to sit down on a chair, and made her drink,
and washed her pale face, chafing it into a faint colour with my apron.
Then I said I must go first, and tell of her arrival; imploring her to
say, she should be happy with young Heathcliff. She stared, but soon
comprehending why I counselled her to utter the falsehood, she assured
me she would not complain.

I couldn’t abide to be present at their meeting. I stood outside the
chamber-door a quarter of an hour, and hardly ventured near the bed,
then. All was composed, however: Catherine’s despair was as silent as
her father’s joy. She supported him calmly, in appearance; and he fixed
on her features his raised eyes that seemed dilating with ecstasy.

He died blissfully, Mr. Lockwood: he died so. Kissing her cheek, he
murmured,—“I am going to her; and you, darling child, shall come to
us!” and never stirred or spoke again; but continued that rapt, radiant
gaze, till his pulse imperceptibly stopped and his soul departed. None
could have noticed the exact minute of his death, it was so entirely
without a struggle.

Whether Catherine had spent her tears, or whether the grief were too
weighty to let them flow, she sat there dry-eyed till the sun rose: she
sat till noon, and would still have remained brooding over that
deathbed, but I insisted on her coming away and taking some repose. It
was well I succeeded in removing her, for at dinner-time appeared the
lawyer, having called at Wuthering Heights to get his instructions how
to behave. He had sold himself to Mr. Heathcliff: that was the cause of
his delay in obeying my master’s summons. Fortunately, no thought of
worldly affairs crossed the latter’s mind, to disturb him, after his
daughter’s arrival.

Mr. Green took upon himself to order everything and everybody about the
place. He gave all the servants but me, notice to quit. He would have
carried his delegated authority to the point of insisting that Edgar
Linton should not be buried beside his wife, but in the chapel, with
his family. There was the will, however, to hinder that, and my loud
protestations against any infringement of its directions. The funeral
was hurried over; Catherine, Mrs. Linton Heathcliff now, was suffered
to stay at the Grange till her father’s corpse had quitted it.

She told me that her anguish had at last spurred Linton to incur the
risk of liberating her. She heard the men I sent disputing at the door,
and she gathered the sense of Heathcliff’s answer. It drove her
desperate. Linton who had been conveyed up to the little parlour soon
after I left, was terrified into fetching the key before his father
re-ascended. He had the cunning to unlock and re-lock the door, without
shutting it; and when he should have gone to bed, he begged to sleep
with Hareton, and his petition was granted for once. Catherine stole
out before break of day. She dared not try the doors lest the dogs
should raise an alarm; she visited the empty chambers and examined
their windows; and, luckily, lighting on her mother’s, she got easily
out of its lattice, and on to the ground, by means of the fir-tree
close by. Her accomplice suffered for his share in the escape,
notwithstanding his timid contrivances.