Yesterday afternoon turned misty and cold. I briefly considered staying by my study fire instead of wading through mud and heath to Wuthering Heights. However, upon returning from lunch, I found a servant-girl creating an infernal dust as she cleaned the fireplace. This sight drove me out immediately. After a four-mile walk, I arrived at Heathcliff’s garden gate just as the first flakes of a snow shower began to fall.
On that bleak hilltop, the earth was frozen hard, and the biting air made me shiver. Finding the gate chained, I jumped over it and ran up the path, knocking until my knuckles tingled and the dogs began to howl.
“Wretched people!” I muttered to myself. “You deserve to be isolated for your terrible inhospitality.”
Determined to enter, I shook the latch vehemently. Finally, the vinegar-faced Joseph poked his head out of a barn window.
“What do you want?” he shouted. “The master is down in the sheepfold. Go around the end of the barn if you want to speak to him.”
“Is there nobody inside to open the door?” I yelled back.
“Only the mistress, and she won’t open it even if you make a terrible noise until nightfall.”
The snow began to fall more heavily. I was about to try the handle again when a young man without a coat, carrying a pitchfork, appeared in the yard. He signaled for me to follow him. After passing through various outbuildings, we arrived in the large, warm room where I had been received the day before. It glowed in the light of a magnificent fire, and near a table set for tea, I was pleased to see “the mistress,” a person whose existence I had not suspected. I bowed and waited, expecting her to offer me a seat. She merely leaned back in her chair, remaining silent and motionless.
“Rough weather!” I remarked. “I’m afraid the door must suffer for your servants' lack of attention, Mrs. Heathcliff.”
She did not speak. She simply stared at me in a cool, detached manner that was exceedingly embarrassing.
“Sit down,” the young man said gruffly. “He’ll be in soon.”
I obeyed and attempted to pet the dog, Juno, who finally wagged the tip of her tail in recognition. To break the awkward silence, I commented on the puppies, asking if she intended to sell them.
“They are not mine,” she replied, her tone even more repelling than Heathcliff’s.
“Ah, your favorites are these?” I continued, pointing to a cushion covered in what looked like cats.
“A strange choice for favorites!” she observed scornfully. Unluckily, the "cats" turned out to be a heap of dead rabbits.
When she rose to reach for the tea canisters, I finally had a clear view of her. She was slender and appeared to be in her late teens. She had an exquisite face—small features, very fair, with golden ringlets hanging around her delicate neck. Her eyes would have been irresistible if not for their expression, which hovered between scorn and desperation. As she struggled to reach the canisters, I moved to assist her, but she snapped at me.
“I don’t want your help. I can get them myself.”
“Were you invited to tea?” she demanded a moment later, poised with a spoonful of tea leaves over the pot.
“I should be glad to have a cup,” I answered.
“Were you invited?” she repeated.
“No,” I said, smiling slightly. “But you are the proper person to invite me.”
She threw the tea back into the canister and returned to her chair in a fit of temper, her forehead wrinkled and her lip pouting like a child about to cry.
Meanwhile, the young man stood by the fire, looking at me as if we were enemies. I began to doubt if he were a servant. His dress and speech were rough, and his hands were brown like those of a common laborer; yet his bearing was free, almost haughty. Before I could conclude who he was, Heathcliff entered.
“You see, sir, I have come as promised!” I exclaimed, trying to sound cheerful. “And I fear I am trapped by the weather.”
“I wonder why you chose a snowstorm for a walk,” Heathcliff remarked, shaking snow from his coat. “The moors are dangerous in such weather. There is no chance of the storm stopping tonight.”
“Could you spare a guide to lead me back to the Grange?” I asked.
“No, I could not.”
The meal was served in a grim, silent atmosphere. I felt it was my duty to try and lighten the mood.
“It is strange,” I began, “how isolation can change our ideas. Many people could not imagine being happy in such a remote place, but here you are, Mr. Heathcliff, surrounded by your family and your amiable lady—”
“My amiable lady!” he interrupted with a diabolical sneer. “Where is she?”
“Mrs. Heathcliff, your wife, I mean.”
“Oh, you mean to say her spirit guards Wuthering Heights even though she is dead? Is that it?”
I realized my mistake. Heathcliff was about forty, while the girl did not look seventeen. I then assumed the young man at my elbow must be her husband—Heathcliff’s son. I felt a pang of pity for her, thinking she had thrown herself away on such a rude fellow out of ignorance.
“Mrs. Heathcliff is my daughter-in-law,” Heathcliff said, confirming my guess but looking at her with an expression of pure hatred.
“Then this young man is your son?” I asked.
“Certainly not,” Heathcliff replied, smiling as if the idea were a joke.
“My name is Hareton Earnshaw,” the youth growled, “and I suggest you respect it!”
I began to feel unmistakably out of place. The hostile atmosphere was more powerful than the physical comfort of the fire. When the meal ended, I went to the window. The sky and hills were lost in a bitter whirl of suffocating snow.
“I cannot get home without a guide,” I exclaimed.
No one answered. Joseph brought in food for the dogs, and Mrs. Heathcliff occupied herself by burning a bundle of matches. Joseph began to scold her, telling her she was going straight to the devil like her mother before her.
“You old hypocrite!” she replied. “Don’t provoke me, or I’ll use the Black Art on you. I’m learning how to clear this house of you all!”
She spoke with a kind of dreary humor, and Joseph, trembling with genuine horror, retreated from the room. I turned to her, hoping she might help me find my way home.
“Take the road you came,” she said, opening a book. “That is the only advice I can give.”
“I cannot stay here,” I said. “I don’t want to be found dead in a bog.”
“You must settle that with your host,” she replied indifferently.
Heathcliff’s voice came from the kitchen. “I don’t have rooms for visitors. If you stay, you must share a bed with Hareton or Joseph.”
“I can sleep on a chair here,” I replied.
“No,” said the unmannerly wretch. “I won’t allow a stranger to have the run of the house while I am asleep.”
This final insult broke my patience. I pushed past him into the yard. It was so dark I couldn't see the exit. Hareton seemed briefly willing to help, but Heathcliff forbid it, choosing the welfare of his horses over a man’s life.
Frustrated and desperate, I spotted Joseph milking cows by the light of a lantern. I seized it, shouting that I would return it tomorrow.
“Master! He’s stealing the lantern!” Joseph shouted. “Dogs! Wolf! Gnasher! Hold him!”
Two large dogs instantly tackled me, knocking me down and extinguishing the light. Heathcliff and Hareton laughed loudly at my humiliation. I was forced to lie there, pinned by the beasts, until they chose to call them off. By then, I was trembling with rage and my nose had begun to bleed profusely from the stress.
Finally, Zillah, the housekeeper, heard the uproar and came to investigate. Seeing my state, she scolded Hareton and pulled me into the kitchen to help me. I felt so sick and dizzy that I was forced to accept a bed under Heathcliff’s roof. After a glass of brandy to revive me, Zillah led me upstairs to my room.