Cathy Earnshaw

“ Earnshaw agreed, though with a heavy spirit, for he said—“Hindley was nought, and would never thrive as where he wandered.”
I hoped heartily we should have peace now. It hurt me to think the master should be made uncomfortable by his own good deed. I fancied the discontent of age and disease arose from his family disagreements; as he would have it that it did: really, you know, sir, it was in his sinking frame. We might have got on tolerably, notwithstanding, but for two people—Miss Cathy, and Joseph, the servant: you saw him, I daresay, up yonder. ”

“ Earnshaw's troubles on earth. He died quietly in his chair one October evening, seated by the fire-side.
A high wind blustered round the house, and roared in the chimney: it sounded wild and stormy, yet it was not cold, and we were all together—I, a little removed from the hearth, busy at my knitting, and Joseph reading his Bible near the table, (for the servants generally sat in the house then, after their work was done.) Miss Cathy had been sick, and that made her still; she leant against her father's knee, and Heathcliff was lying on the floor with his head in her lap. ”

“ Put him in the cellar, papa. He’s exactly like the son of the fortune-teller that stole my tame pheasant. Isn’t he, Edgar?”
‘While they examined me, Cathy came round; she heard the last speech, and laughed. Edgar Linton, after an inquisitive stare, collected sufficient wit to recognise her. They see us at church, you know, though we seldom meet them elsewhere. “That’s Miss Earnshaw?” he whispered to his mother, “and look how Skulker has bitten her—how her foot bleeds!”
‘“Miss Earnshaw? Nonsense!” cried the dame; “Miss Earnshaw scouring the country with a gipsy! ”

“ She made an effort to rise; then, groaning with pain, she sank back on to the ground, and buried her face in her hands.
"I can't walk!" she moaned, "I've broken my foot. Go, girls, and leave me! If I have to die, I must."
"What nonsense!" said Cathy. "You're not going to die yet. I expect you twisted your ankle when you fell. You're quite safe here, for the bull can't leap a six-foot wall, or climb up crooked stone steps. We'll go for help, and Mr. Thompson and one of the men must come to carry you back to the farm."
"You go, Cathy," I said, "and I'll stay with Ernestine. ”

“ It is true that there is always a faint foreign fragrance about her speech, no matter what language she is talking, but it is only just noticeable, nothing more, and is rather a charm than a mar, I think. In the ordinary child-studies Cathy is neither before nor behind the average child of nine, I should say. But I can say this for her: in love for her friends and in high-mindedness and good-heartedness she has not many equals, and in my opinion no superiors. ”

“ She made known the news of her engagement to her friends at Church-Stile House in a shame-faced manner that was quite new to her. Cathy fairly danced round her with delight, and even Langley's wan face brightened with sympathy.
"Dear Faith, I am so glad," she whispered. "Such constancy deserves its reward."
"A wedding at Hepshaw, and one of the cardinal virtues, of all people!" crowed Cathy. "What will the sisterhood do without you? in such a household, loss of Faith must be terrible," finished the girl solemnly. ”

“ I thought how I would introduce Cathy to him, and how much he would admire her, and how perhaps we could go and stay somewhere near Marshlands in the holidays, so that he could see all the Winstanleys together. I imagined him coming to our Mid-summer breaking-up party, and how proud [199] and happy I should be to have him there. It was an annual occasion to which the parents and friends of the girls were invited, and I had often felt, with a little pang, when I saw the warm greetings between others, that it seemed hard to have no one there to love me specially above everyone else. ”

“ Dick and I will undertake to look after the house. You girls had better lock your bedroom door to-night; and be sure you don't let the servants get a hint of it, or we shall have them all in hysterics."
So far our hoax had answered admirably, and Cathy and I retired upstairs after breakfast in fits of delighted laughter.
"He looked so solemn over it," chuckled Cathy; "that touch about his being the future squire was most effective. He feels [114] he's quite a man and must defend the family property." ”

“ But to return to Cathy. Whenever possible I sat next her in school, I was her partner when we walked out "in crocodile", and she kindly initiated me into the mysteries of cricket, Badminton, archery, and croquet, in all of which I had hitherto been profoundly ignorant. She was a most stimulating companion. A little older than myself, and brought up among a family of brothers, she had all the frank open ways of a boy, with the pretty attractive manners which often mark a much-thought-of only daughter. ”

“ Well, you know, she’s a nuisance herself, Miss Cathy is, she is so busy, and into everything, like that bird. It’s all just as innocent, you know, and she don’t mean any harm, and is so good and dear; and it ain’t her fault, it’s her nature; her interest is always a-working and always red-hot, and she can’t keep quiet. Well, yesterday it was ‘Please, Miss Cathy, don’t do that’; and, ‘Please, Miss Cathy, let that alone’; and, ‘Please, Miss Cathy, don’t make so much noise’; and so on and so on, till I reckon I had found fault fourteen times in fifteen minutes ”

“ Why did you betray your own heart, Cathy? I have not one word of comfort. You deserve this. You have killed yourself. Yes, you may kiss me, and cry; and wring out my kisses and tears: they’ll blight you—they’ll damn you. You loved me—then what right had you to leave me? What right—answer me—for the poor fancy you felt for Linton? Because misery and degradation, and death, and nothing that God or Satan could inflict would have parted us, you, of your own will, did it. ”

“ From this time Catharine's friendship with Heathcliff was chequered by intermittent jealousy on his side and intermittent disgust upon hers; and for this evil turn, far more than for any coarser brutality, Heathcliff longed for revenge on Hindley Earnshaw. Meanwhile Edgar Linton, greatly smitten with the beautiful Catharine, went from time to time to visit at Wuthering Heights. He would have gone far oftener, but that he had a terror of Hindley Earnshaw's reputation, and shrank from encountering him. ”

“ After a year's absolute misery and loneliness, Catharine's lot was a little lightened by Mr. Heathcliff's preferring Ellen Dean to the vacant post of housekeeper at Wuthering Heights.
For the all-absorbing presence of Catharine Earnshaw had nearly secluded Heathcliff from enmity with the world; he was seldom violent now. He became yet more and more disinclined to society, sitting alone, seldom eating, often walking about the whole night. [Pg 201] His face changed, and the look of brooding hate gave way to a yet more alarming expression—an excited, wild, unnatural appearance of joy. ”

“ These slight diversities of opinion were not unusual between Cathy and her brother; but Queenie had never before heard him express himself so strongly.
"I am glad you take such a sensible view of it," returned Garth, mollified in an instant. "Cathy is thoughtless with her tongue sometimes, and hurts people. Miss Cunningham always takes a lively interest in all that concerns Hepshaw; you see, their own parish is managed so admirably, Crossgill is quite a model village in every way, that she feels she has some authority in speaking." ”

“ As to Ernestine Salt, I would defy her, sneer as she might. It was unfortunate for me that my first lesson of the day should be with Miss Percy. With the wretched boots and bobbins sticking into me whenever I attempted to lean back in my seat, I felt in anything but a docile or tractable frame of mind, and, though she certainly would not have allowed it, I do not think she herself was in the best of tempers. She corrected Janet sharply for stooping, reduced Millicent to the very verge of tears, and even found fault with Cathy's beautifully [159] neat and tidy exercise. ”

“ My soul's bliss kills my body, but does not satisfy itself.'"
Meanwhile the schemes of a life, the deeply-laid purposes of his revenge, were toppling unheeded all round him, like a house of cards. His son was dead. Hareton Earnshaw, the real heir of Wuthering Heights, and Catharine, the real heir of Thmshcross Grange, had fallen in love with each other. A most unguessed-at and unlikely finale; yet most natural. For Catharine was spoiled, accomplished, beautiful, proud—yet most affectionate and tender-hearted: and Hareton rude, surly, ignorant, fierce ”

“ ‘Oh, Cathy! Oh, my life! how can I bear it?’ was the first sentence he uttered, in a tone that did not seek to disguise his despair. And now he stared at her so earnestly that I thought the very intensity of his gaze would bring tears into his eyes; but they burned with anguish: they did not melt. ”

“ Her violent temper did not frighten him, although his own character was singularly sweet, placid and feeble; her compromising friendship with such a mere boor as young Heathcliff was only a trifling annoyance easily to be excused. And when his own father and mother died of a fever caught in nursing her he did not love her less for the sorrow she brought. A fever she had wilfully taken in despair, and a sudden sickness of life. One evening pretty Cathy came into the kitchen to tell Nelly Dean that she had engaged herself to marry Edgar Linton. ”

“ My housekeeper entreated me to bear a little note from her to her young lady, and I did not refuse, for the worthy woman was not conscious of anything odd in her request. Hareton Earnshaw unchained the gate for me. The fellow is as handsome a rustic as need be seen, but he does his best, apparently, to make the least of his advantages. Catherine, who was preparing vegetables for a meal, looked more sulky and less spirited than when I had seen her first. ”

“ Heathcliff, unseen, was seated on the other side the settle, on a bench by the wall, quite hidden from those at the fireside.
[Pg 183]
Cathy was very elated, but not at all happy. Edgar was rich, handsome, young, gentle, passionately in love with her; still she was miserable. Nelly Dean, who was nursing the baby Hareton by the fire, finally grew out of patience with her whimsical discontent.
"'Your brother will be pleased,'" she said; "'the old lady and gentleman will not object, I think; you will escape from a disorderly, comfortless home into a wealthy, respectable one ”

“ I shall be your father, to-morrow—all the father you’ll have in a few days—and you shall have plenty of that. You can bear plenty; you’re no weakling: you shall have a daily taste, if I catch such a devil of a temper in your eyes again!”
Cathy ran to me instead of Linton, and knelt down and put her burning cheek on my lap, weeping aloud. Her cousin had shrunk into a corner of the settle, as quiet as a mouse, congratulating himself, I dare say, that the correction had alighted on another than him. Mr. Heathcliff, perceiving us all confounded, rose, and expeditiously made the tea himself. ”

“ He twined himself up to her, as she half knelt by the settle, and converted her shoulder into a support.
"No, that won't do!" I said. "You'll be content with the cushion, Master Heathcliff! Miss has wasted too much time on you, already; we cannot remain five minutes longer."
"Yes, yes, we can!" replied Cathy. "He's good and patient, now—He's beginning to think I shall have far greater misery than he will, to-night, if I believe he is the worse for my visit; and then, I dare not come again—Tell the truth about it, Linton—for I mutsn't come, if I have hurt you." ”

“ I should never love anybody better than papa," she returned gravely. "And people hate their wives, sometimes; but not their sisters and brothers, and if you were the latter, you would live with us, and papa would be as fond of you, as he is of me."
Linton denied that people ever hated their wives; but Cathy affirmed they did, and in her wisdom, instanced his own father's aversion to her aunt.
I endeavoured to stop her thoughtless tongue—I couldn't succeed, till everything she knew was out. Master Heathcliff, much irritated, asserted her relation was false. ”

“ She's a dear old thing, though, and as good as gold; and I shall consider your second cousin a lucky man if he persuades her."
"I wonder where we shall all be when you come back, Katy," said Esther Dearborn as they parted at the gate. "A year is a long time; all sorts of things may happen in a year."
These words rang in Katy's ears as she fell asleep that night. "All sorts of things may happen in a year," she thought, "and they may not be all happy things, either." Almost she wished that the journey to Europe had never been thought of! ”

“ Do you know, Miss Linton, that brute Hareton laughs at me! I hate him! indeed, I hate them all: they are odious beings.”
Cathy began searching for some water; she lighted on a pitcher in the dresser, filled a tumbler, and brought it. He bid her add a spoonful of wine from a bottle on the table ”

“ ‘I wish I could hold you,’ she continued, bitterly, ‘till we were both dead! I shouldn’t care what you suffered. I care nothing for your sufferings. Why shouldn’t you suffer? I do! Will you forget me? Will you be happy when I am in the earth? Will you say twenty years hence, “That’s the grave of Catherine Earnshaw? I loved her long ago, and was wretched to lose her; but it is past. I’ve loved many others since: my children are dearer to me than she was; and, at death, I shall not rejoice that I am going to her: I shall be sorry that I must leave them!” Will you say so, Heathcliff?’ ”