Chapter 40

Forbidden visits

01 At last I was able to leave my room, and move about the house. The first time I sat up in the evening, I asked Cathy to read to me, because my eyes were weak. She did so rather unwillingly, and after half an hour, began to question me:

02 'Ellen, aren't you tired? Hadn't you better lie down now?'

03 'No, no, dear, I'm not tired,' I answered, several times.

04 She then opened her own mouth sleepily, and stretched herself, rubbing her eyes and looking at her watch. At last, she went to her room.

05 The next night she seemed more impatient still, and on the third she complained of a headache and left me. I thought her behaviour strange, and having remained alone for some time, went up to see if she was feeling better. I could discover no Cathy, upstairs or down. The servants had not seen her, and all was silent in Mr Edgar's room. I returned to my young lady's room, put out my candle, and seated myself at the window.

06 The moon shone bright, and I wondered if she had had a fancy to walk about the garden. I saw a figure creeping along the inner fence of the park, but this was one of the stable boys. He stood watching the carriage road through the grounds for some time, then suddenly disappeared, to reappear later leading Miss Cathy's pony, and there she was, having just got down, and walking by its side. She entered the drawing room by the long window, and came noiselessly upstairs to her room. She closed the door gently, slipped off her snowy shoes, untied her hat, and was about to remove her outdoor clothes when I suddenly arose and showed myself. She stood motionless with surprise.

07 'My dear Miss Cathy,' I began, 'where have you been riding at this time of night? And why should you try to deceive me, by telling a story?'

08 'To the bottom of the park,' she said, uncomfortably.

09 'And nowhere else?'

10 'No,' was the reply, in a low voice.

11 'Oh, Cathy,' I cried sorrowfully, 'you know you have been doing wrong. I'd rather be three months ill, than hear you tell a lie!'

12 She sprang forward, and bursting into tears, threw her arms round my neck.

13 'Well, Ellen, I'm so afraid of your being angry,' she said. 'Promise that you won't be, and you shall know the truth. I hate to hide it. I've been to Wuthering Heights. I had to keep my promise to Linton. I got possession of the key when the door in the park was being refastened, and I've hardly missed a day since you fell ill. It wasn't to amuse myself that I went. I was often miserable all the time. Now and then I was happy: once in a week, perhaps.

14 'On my second visit Linton seemed in good spirits. We laughed and talked quite merrily for an hour. Then I got tired of sitting, and suggested a game. He agreed to play ball with me. I won every time, and then he became disagreeable again, and coughed, and returned to his chair. He easily recovered his good temper when I sang some pretty songs. That night I came riding home as light as air.

15 'The next night, Hareton met me and took my pony in. I told him to leave my horse alone. He moved off, and looking up at the letters in stone over the front door, said with a stupid mixture of awkwardness and pride,

16 '"Miss Cathy, I can read that now."

17 '"Wonderful," I exclaimed, "let me hear you—you are getting clever!"

18 'He slowly spelt out the name "Hareton Earnshaw".

19 '"And the figures?" I cried, encouragingly.

20 '"I cannot tell them yet," he answered.

21 'I laughed loudly, and told him to walk away, as I had come to see Linton, not him. He became red in the face, and went off, annoyed. I suppose he thought himself as educated as Linton!'

22 'Miss Cathy, dear,' I interrupted, 'you should remember that Hareton is as much your cousin as Master Linton. At least it was praiseworthy ambition for him to desire to learn. You made him ashamed of his ignorance before, and he tried to cure it, and please you. If you had been brought up as he has, would you have been any better? He was as quick - and intelligent a child as ever you were.'

23 'But wait, Ellen, and hear the rest.

24 'I entered. Linton was lying on the high-backed bench in the kitchen, and said that he was ill. He asked me to read to him for a bit, and I was going to begin, when Hareton pushed the door open, seized Linton by the arm, and swung him off the seat.

25 '"Get to your own room," he said, in a voice of fury. "Take her there, if she comes to see you. You shan't keep me out of this place!"

26 'He swore, and nearly threw Linton out. I followed, dropping my book. He kicked it after me, and shut us out.

27 'Linton stood there white and trembling. He was not pretty then, Ellen. His eyes were full of an expression of mad, powerless fury. He shook the handle of the door. It was fastened. He screamed out the most horrible threats.

28 'I took hold of his hands, and tried to pull him away. At last his cries were stopped by a terrible fit of coughing. Blood rushed from his mouth, and he fell to the ground. I ran into the yard, calling for Zillah. Meanwhile Hareton carried Linton upstairs. Joseph locked the door, and all three of them said I must go home.

29 'Hareton appeared again, a little way along the roadside. "Miss Cathy," he began, "I'm sorry ... "

30 'I struck him with my whip, and rode off.

31 'I didn't go the Heights the next evening. I had a fear that Linton was dead. On the third day, I took courage, and went. I found him, to my great joy, lying on a sofa in a small, tidy room upstairs, reading one of my books. He would neither speak to me, nor look at me, for an hour, Ellen. And when he did open his mouth, it was to blame me, not Hareton, for what had happened! I got up and walked from the room, determined to visit him no more.

32 'It was so miserable going to bed, and getting up, and never hearing anything about him, that my determination melted, and two days after, I rode over. I told him that as he thought I came to hurt him, I had now come to say goodbye, and he must tell his father so.

33 '"You are so much happier than I, Cathy," he said, "that you ought to be better. Sometimes I am worthless and bad-tempered, and bad in spirit. But believe me, if I might be as sweet, and kind, and good as you are, I would be. Your kindness has made me love you more deeply than if I deserved your love, and though I can't help showing my nature to you, I shall regret it till I die!"

34 'I felt he spoke the truth, and I must forgive him.

35 'About three times since, we have been merry and hopeful The rest of my visits have been dull and unhappy, partly from his selfishness and bad nature, partly from his sufferings. I've learnt to bear them all. Mr Heathcliff purposely avoids me. I have hardly seen him.

36 'Now, Ellen, you've heard everything. You'll not tell Papa, will you?'

37 I thought the matter over, and then went straight to my master's room, and told him the whole story. Mr Linton was alarmed and upset. Cathy learnt that her visits were to end. In vain she wept. All she got to comfort her was a promise that her father would write and give her cousin permission to come to the Grange when he pleased. Perhaps, if he had realized his nephew's true nature and state of health, details of which I had kept from him, he would not have allowed even that.