Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights: Abridged
Page 17
CHAPTER 16
About twelve o’clock that night was born the Catherine you saw at Wuthering Heights: a puny, seven-months’ child; and two hours later the mother died, having never recovered consciousness.
Edgar’s sorrow sunk deep; and was made worse, in my eyes, by his being left without an heir. As I gazed on the feeble orphan, I mentally abused old Linton for securing his estate to his own daughter, instead of his son’s. An unwelcomed infant it was, poor thing! It might have wailed out of life, and nobody cared during those first hours of existence. We redeemed the neglect afterwards; but its beginning was as friendless as its end is likely to be.
Next morning, the cheerful light stole in through the blinds of the silent room, and suffused the couch and its occupant with a mellow, tender glow. Edgar Linton had his head laid on the pillow, and his eyes shut. His young, fair features were almost as deathlike as those of the form beside him: but his was the hush of exhausted anguish, and hers of perfect peace. Her brow smooth, her lids closed, her lips smiling, no angel could be more beautiful. Seeing the infinite calm in which she lay, I echoed the words she had uttered a few hours before: ‘Far beyond and above us all! Her spirit is at home with God!’
I saw in her a repose that neither earth nor hell could break – the Eternity of endless love and joy. How much selfishness there is even in a love like Mr. Linton’s, when he so regretted Catherine’s blessed release! To be sure, one might have doubted, after her wayward life, whether she merited a haven of peace at last; but her tranquil corpse seemed to promise equal quiet to her spirit.
The master looked asleep, and soon after sunrise I stole out into the fresh air. I hoped to see Mr. Heathcliff. If he had remained among the larches all night, he would have heard nothing; but if he had come nearer, he would know, from the lights and the opening and shutting of doors, that all was not right within.
I wished, yet feared, to find him. I felt the terrible news must be told; but how to do it I did not know. He was not far away, in the park; leaning against an old ash-tree, his hat off, and his hair soaked with dew. He had been standing a long time in that position, for I saw a pair of thrushes pass scarcely three feet from him, busy in building their nest, and taking no notice of him.
He raised his eyes and spoke. ‘She’s dead! I’ve not waited for you to learn that. Put your handkerchief away – don’t snivel before me. Damn you all! she wants none of your tears!’
I was weeping as much for him as her: we do sometimes pity creatures that feel no pity for themselves or others. A foolish notion struck me that he prayed, because his lips moved and his gaze was bent on the ground.
‘Yes, she’s dead!’ I answered. ‘Gone to heaven, I hope!’
‘Did she die like a saint, then?’ asked Heathcliff, attempting a sneer. ‘Come, tell me truly. How did—?’
He tried to say the name, but could not manage it; and compressing his mouth he held a silent combat with his inward agony, defying my sympathy with a ferocious stare. ‘How did she die?’ he resumed at last, trembling in spite of himself, to his very finger-ends.
‘Poor wretch!’ I thought; ‘you have a heart and nerves the same as any man! Why try to conceal them?’
‘Quietly as a lamb!’ I answered, aloud. ‘She drew a sigh, and stretched, and sank again to sleep; and I felt one little pulse at her heart, and nothing more!’
‘And – did she ever mention me?’ he asked, hesitating, as if he dreaded the answer.
‘Her senses never returned: she recognised nobody,’ I said. ‘She lies with a sweet smile on her face. Her life closed in a gentle dream. May she wake as kindly in the other world!’
‘May she wake in torment!’ he cried, with frightful vehemence, stamping his foot, and groaning in sudden passion. ‘Why, she’s a liar to the end! Where is she? Not there – not in heaven – not perished – where? I pray one prayer – Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living. You said I killed you – haunt me, then! Be with me always – take any form – drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! it is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!’
He dashed his head against the trunk, and howled like a savage beast. There were splashes of blood on the tree, and his hand and forehead were both stained; probably he had been doing the same thing through the night. It appalled me. But when he noticed me watching, he thundered a command for me to go, and I obeyed. He was beyond my skill to quiet or console!
Mrs. Linton’s funeral was to take place on the following Friday. Till then her coffin remained uncovered, strewn with flowers, in the drawing-room. Linton spent his days and nights there, a sleepless guardian; and – unknown to anyone but me – Heathcliff spent his nights outside, equally sleepless. I did not speak to him: still, I knew he planned to enter, if he could; and on the Tuesday, after dark, when my master had retired, I opened one of the windows, to give Heathcliff a chance of saying one last farewell.
He entered cautiously and briefly, not betraying his presence by the slightest noise. Indeed, I shouldn’t have known that he had been there, except for the disarrangement of the drapery about the corpse’s face; and on the floor lay a curl of light hair, fastened with a silver thread, which I found had been taken from a locket hung round Catherine’s neck. Heathcliff had opened it and cast out its contents, replacing them by a black lock of his own. I twisted the two, and enclosed them together.
Mr. Hindley Earnshaw was, of course, invited to the funeral, but he never came; so that, besides her husband, the mourners were wholly composed of tenants and servants. Isabella was not asked.
To the surprise of the villagers, Catherine was buried neither in the chapel under the Lintons’ monument, nor by the tombs of her own relations, outside. Her resting-place was on a green slope in a corner of the church-yard, where the wall is so low that heather and bilberry-plants have climbed over it from the moor. Her husband lies in the same spot now; and they have each a simple headstone to mark their graves.