Chapter 15

Heathcliff's flight

01 I urged my companion to speak lower.

02 'Why?' she asked, looking round nervously.

03 'Joseph is here,' I answered, 'and I think that Heathcliff is about at this moment'

04 'Oh, he couldn't have heard me just here!' she said. 'Give me Hareton while you get the supper, and let me have it with you. I want to cheat my uncomfortable conscience, and be made to believe that Heathcliff has no idea of my feelings. He hasn't, has he? He doesn't know what being in love is?'

05 'I see no reason why he shouldn't know, as well as you,' I answered, 'and if you are his choice, he is the most unfortunate being that ever was born! As soon as you become Mrs Linton, he loses friend, and love, and all! Have you considered how you'll bear the separation, and how he'll bear to be left quite friendless in the world?'

06 'He left friendless! We separated! Not as long as I live! Edgar must get rid of his dislike of him. Nelly, did it never strike you that if Heathcliff and I married, we should be beggars, but if I marry Edgar I can help Heathcliff to rise in life, and place him out of my brother's power?'

07 'With your husband's money? That's the worst reason you've given yet for being the wife of young Linton.'

08 'It's not! It's the best! This is for the sake of one who ... I can't express it; but surely you and everybody have an idea that there is or should be an existence of yours beyond you? My great miseries in this world have been Heathcliff's miseries: my great thought in living is himself. If all else were destroyed, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were gone, the universe would seem a stranger. My love for Edgar is like the leaves in the woods: time will change it, as the winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff is like the unchanging rocks beneath: a cause of little conscious delight, but necessary to my being. Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He's always in my mind, not as a pleasure, but as part of me.'

09 'If I can make any sense of your nonsense, Miss, it only causes me to believe that either you know nothing of the duties that you take on yourself in marrying, or else you are a wicked girl.'

10 The entrance of Joseph put an end to our talk.

11 Hours passed by, and there was no sign of Heathcliff. Catherine became worried, especially when I told her that he had really heard a large part of what she had said.

12 'I wonder where he is. What did I say? I've forgotten. Was he upset by my bad temper this afternoon? I do wish he'd come.'

13 It was a very dark evening for summer, and about midnight, while we were still sitting up, a storm came over the Heights in full fury. There was a violent wind, as well as thunder, and lightning and either one or the other split a tree at the corner of the building and knocked down a part of the east chimney.

14 Catherine remained out by the gate, waiting for Heathcliff, listening and calling, careless of the weather, until she was wet to the skin. She would not take off her wet things, and in the morning I found her still seated near the fireplace. She was shivering uncontrollably, and Hindley ordered me to get her to bed.

15 I shall never forget the scene when we reached her room, It alarmed me. I thought she was going mad, and I begged Joseph to run for the doctor. It was the beginning of high fever. The doctor declared her to be dangerously ill, told me to feed her on liquids, and take care that she did not throw herself from the window. He then left, as he had enough to do in the district, where the cottages were often widely separated.

16 I was not a gentle nurse, and Joseph and the master were no better. Cathy was as wearying and as difficult to manage as any sick person can be. Old Mrs Linton paid us several visits, and when Catherine was recovering, took her to Thrushcross Grange. The poor lady had reason to regret her kindness. She and her husband both caught the fever, and died within a few days of each other.

17 Our young lady returned to us prouder and more violent in temper than ever. Heathcliff had never been heard of since the evening of the thunderstorm, and one day I had the misfortune to lay the blame for his disappearance on her, where indeed it belonged. From that period for several months she would not speak to me, except as a servant. She considered herself as a woman now, and our mistress, and thought her recent illness gave her a special claim to attention. The doctor had said that she could not bear people going much against her wishes, and ought to have her own way, so no one dared disobey her. Her brother was alarmed by serious threats of some kind of fit that often attacked her during her fury, and he allowed her whatever she pleased, in order to avoid awakening her fierce temper.

18 Three years after his father's death, Edgar Linton led her to church and married her, believing himself the happiest man alive.