That Friday was the last fine day for a month. In the evening, the weather broke; the wind shifted, bringing rain, sleet, and then heavy snow. By the next morning, it was impossible to believe it had been summer just a week before. The primroses were buried under wintry drifts, and the young leaves were blackened by the frost.
The house felt hollow and dismal. My master stayed in his room, so I converted the lonely parlour into a nursery. I was sitting there, rocking the crying infant on my knee and watching the snow build up against the window, when the door flew open. Someone entered, out of breath and laughing. My initial shock turned to anger, assuming it was a giddy servant.
"How dare you behave like this?" I cried. "What would Mr. Linton say?"
"Excuse me, Ellen," a familiar voice replied. "I know Edgar is in bed, and I simply cannot stop myself."
The speaker stepped toward the fire, panting and clutching her side. It was Isabella—Mrs. Heathcliff. She was in a terrible state. Her hair was dripping with snow, and she wore only a light silk dress with short sleeves and thin slippers, completely unsuitable for the weather. There was a deep cut under her ear that was just beginning to bleed as she warmed up, and her face was covered in scratches and bruises.
"My dear young lady!" I exclaimed. "I won’t hear a word until you are in dry clothes. And you certainly aren't going to Gimmerton tonight."
"I am," she insisted. "Whether I walk or ride. But I’ll change first. The fire makes this cut sting terribly."
Once she was dry and seated by the fire with a cup of tea, she looked at the baby and winced. "Put the child away, Ellen; I can’t look at it. You mustn't think I don't care about Catherine, but I’ve cried until I have no tears left. We parted as enemies, and I’ll never forgive myself for that. But I won't spend a single second sympathising with that brute, her husband!"
She pulled her gold wedding ring from her finger and threw it on the floor. "I’ll smash it, and then I’ll burn it!" she cried, striking it with the poker. "He’ll have to buy another if he ever finds me, but I won’t stay here long enough for him to try. I don't want to bring any more trouble to Edgar, and I won't beg for his help. I only came here because I knew Heathcliff was out of the house. He was in such a fury! If he had caught me, he would have killed me."
I begged her to calm down and explain what had happened.
"I wanted to stay and help Edgar with the baby," she said, "but Heathcliff would never allow it. He detests me so much that he cannot even look at me without his face distorting in hatred. He has extinguished my love so completely that I feel nothing but a desire to be free of him. He isn't human, Ellen. I gave him my heart, and he pinched it to death and threw it back at me."
She began to describe the previous night at Wuthering Heights. Hindley had stayed sober enough to be in a state of suicidal depression, drinking gin by the glassful. Heathcliff had been absent since Sunday, spending his days and nights at Catherine’s grave. He would return only at dawn to pray in his room—if you can call his desperate, hoarse cries to Catherine's ghost 'prayer.'
"Last night," Isabella continued, "the storm drove him back earlier than usual. Hindley locked the doors against him. He turned to me with a look like an assassin and asked if I was tired of enduring Heathcliff's cruelty. He showed me his pistol—the one with the blade—and told me that if I stayed silent, I would be a free woman within minutes.
"I refused to be a part of a murder. I ran to the window and warned Heathcliff that Hindley was waiting to shoot him. Heathcliff cursed me and told me to open the door, but I sat back down by the fire. I didn't care which one of them killed the other.
"Heathcliff eventually smashed through the window. As he jumped in, Hindley fired, but the weapon went off in his own hand, the blade closing on his wrist. Heathcliff didn't hesitate. He wrenched the weapon away, slicing Hindley’s flesh, and then he fell upon him. He kicked and trampled the senseless man, dashing his head against the stone floor. It was only out of sheer exhaustion that he finally stopped. He bound Hindley’s wound with brutal roughness, cursing the entire time.
"This morning," she went on, "I found them both in the kitchen. Hindley was deathly sick, and Heathcliff looked like a ghost himself—his eyes were quenched by sleeplessness and his face was masked in unspeakable sadness. I couldn't resist mocking him. I told him that Catherine would have hated him if she had lived to see what he had become. I told him he was more fiend than man.
"He snatched a knife from the table and flung it at me. It struck me under the ear. I didn't wait for a second blow; I sprang to the door and ran. I flew down the road and across the moors, rolling over banks and wading through marshes until I saw the lights of the Grange. I would rather live in hell than spend another night at Wuthering Heights."
Despite my pleas, Isabella refused to stay. She kissed the portraits of Edgar and Catherine, bid me a tearful goodbye, and left in a carriage. She moved to the south, near London, where she eventually gave birth to a son named Linton. She died thirteen years later, never having returned to the north.
In the village, Heathcliff eventually discovered where she was, but he didn't bother her. When he heard the child’s name, he smiled grimly. "I’ll have him when I want him," he remarked. "They can count on that."
Back at the Grange, Edgar became a complete hermit. He gave up his work as a magistrate and avoided the village entirely. However, he found consolation in his daughter, Cathy. He loved her with a tender, protective devotion that bordered on worship. To him, she was a living connection to his lost wife.
Six months after Catherine’s death, Hindley Earnshaw died as well. Dr. Kenneth brought the news, saying he had died as he lived—drunk. He was only twenty-seven years old.
I felt a deep sorrow for my old foster-brother and requested permission to go to the Heights to help with the funeral arrangements. Edgar’s lawyer warned me that Hareton would be a beggar; Hindley had mortgaged all his land to Heathcliff to pay for his gambling debts.
When I arrived at the Heights, Heathcliff was cold and indifferent. He told me that Hindley had spent his final night drinking himself to death after locking everyone out. As the coffin was being carried from the house, Heathcliff lifted the young Hareton onto the table.
"Now, my bonny lad, you are mine!" he muttered with a dark satisfaction. "We’ll see if one tree won't grow as crooked as another if the same wind twists it."
I told him I would be taking Hareton back to Thrushcross Grange, as his uncle Edgar was his legal guardian.
"Does Linton say so?" Heathcliff demanded. "Well, tell your master that if he tries to take Hareton, I will take my own son, Linton, from Isabella. I think he’ll find that a fair trade."
That threat was enough. Edgar, wanting to protect Isabella and her child, did not interfere further. Heathcliff was now the undisputed master of Wuthering Heights. He kept Hareton as a servant in his own house, denying the boy an education and keeping him in a state of primitive ignorance—a final, cruel revenge against the family that had once looked down on him.