WHILE MISS LINTON moped about the park and garden, always silent, and almost always in tears; and her brother shut himself
up among the 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 enquired, still preserving my external composure, in spite of her ghastly
countenance and strange exaggerated manner.
“What is that apathetic being doing?” she demanded, pushing her 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 tomorrow 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 dare 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 Crag, 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 Crag; 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 curtains
that I might watch her.
“Don’t you see that face?” she enquired, 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 appall 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 put 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 centered 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 headstone; 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 know your mistress’s nature, and
you encouraged me to harass her. And not to give me one hint of how she had 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 elfbolts to hurt us! Let me go, 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 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 dare 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 proclamation 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 enquired. “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 enquiry 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.