Wuthering Heights

I thought,
wait till I tell her about Earnshaw ! I was still trying to get this
little bastard Hareton to sleep.
    ‘ “Today,” said Cathy,
“Edgar Linton asked me to marry him. He went down on one knee, so heavily he
could hardly carry on. He read the terms of the marriage contract, in the event
of a split we’d go fifty fifty. I’ll get the gas stove. As yet I have not said
yea or nay. Tell me, Nelly, what ought it to be?”
    ‘The baby let out a shriek.
“Quiet, baby darling,” I said, pouring the remains of the brandy down him.
“Cathy,” I said, “I can’t tell you yea or nay, that’s up to you.”
    ‘ “Well,” she said, “I love
the ground under his feet and the air over his head.” “That’s all very well,” I
said. “But what about him?”
    ‘Cathy stood up with a
triumphant smile, so saying she pirouetted and fell back on the floor, lying
there a while unconscious, her eyes slightly crossed. Eventually she came to
and admitted to me that she had accepted Edgar’s proposal of marriage. Then she
lowered her voice to a deep baritone, she did it by crossing her legs and pressing
hard with her right hand into her crotch. “It would have degraded me to marry
Heathcliff, so he will never know how much I loved him and his curries. He’s
more myself than I am.”
    ‘So I asked her who she
was. “What are souls made of, both our souls are the same,” she said.
    ‘ “So you both have the
same arsole?” I said.
    ‘I suddenly became aware of
Heathcliff’s presence — just a whiff of garlic, ghee and dung. He had heard all
Cathy had to say. He arose from his bench and went into the night; likewise he
went against the wall.
    ‘ “For this relief, much
thanks, Horatio,” 11 he said as he shook the drips off. I told Cathy that when Heathcliff hears of
her forthcoming marriage, he will be a broken man.
    ‘ “With modern science,”
said Cathy, “he can be togethered again.”
    ‘ “As soon as you marry the
nerd, Heathcliff will lose a friend, love and the five-mile knackering runs on
the moor,” I said.
    ‘ “No,” she said. “Nothing
will consent forsaking Heathcliff. I have felt his and he has felt mine and no
one can take that away from us. My love for Linton is like the foliage in the
woods, but my love for Heathcliff is like Chicken Madras. Nelly, I am
Heathcliff.”
    ‘ “Oh,” I said, “then who
is he?”
    ‘ “Don’t you see, Nelly,”
she said, “he is me.”
    ‘ “I see, you are both each
other,” I said.
    ‘She smiled and nodded.
    ‘Joseph interrupted our
conversation. He spoke his traditional rubbish, “Und hah, isn’t that nowt
porridge corned in frough the’ field be thus time? What is e a baht porridge
girt eedle seeght Heathcliff e?”
    ‘I called softly for
Heathcliff.
    ‘Softly he didn’t answer.
    ‘Cathy jumped up in a fine
fright. The finest fright I had ever seen.
    ‘I whispered to her that
Heathcliff had heard a good part of what she had said.
    ‘ “Wait till he hears the
bad part,” she said, tapping her nose but nothing fell out. Catherine paced up
and down the kitchen floor, sometimes she’d pace down and then up. “Where is
he, where is he? What did I say, Nelly? I’ve forgotten.”
    ‘ “You have just said,
‘where is he, where is he?’” I said. I had administered the last of the brandy
to little Hareton who was now pissed and fast asleep.
    ‘Meantime, Mr Earnshaw had
come home via the back stairs so Miss Cathy didn’t see him in drag. He had a
wonderful time with a guardsman at the Black Bull Inn. Cathy had gone running
across the moor looking for Heathcliff. A terrible storm broke out over
Wuthering Heights and Cathy barefoot and beautiful ran across the drenching
moor calling Heathcliff’s name. She would pause on tiptoe, cup her dainty hand
to her sweet lips and call “Heathcliff!!!”. A tree fell on her. Unhurt but
trapped to the ground she called, “Heathcliff, where the fuck are you?” By dawn
she had managed to extricate herself from the tree, she arrived home soaked, to
be greeted by Hindley who had just removed his make-up.
    ‘ “What ails you?” he said.
    ‘ “A tree ailed me,” she
said.
    ‘I witnessed this as I had
come down early to give the baby his morning bottle of brandy.
    ‘ “But Cathy, you’re
soaking wet,” said Hindley.
    ‘ “Yes, that’s what rain
does,” she said steaming by the fire.
    ‘She called to me, “Nelly,
shut the window, I’m starving.”
    ‘So I shut the