Catherine's Recovery — Wuthering Heights

For two months the fugitives remain absent while Catherine survives brain fever under Edgar's constant watch. Dr. Kenneth warns that what Edgar saves from the grave may only buy constant future anxiety, sacrificing his strength to preserve a mere ruin of humanity. Edgar still flatters sanguine hopes that her mind will settle back to its right balance and former self and sits hour after hour tracing her gradual return to bodily health.

In March she first leaves her chamber. Golden crocuses, the earliest flowers at the Heights, delight her; then she weeps and tells Edgar she shall be at the moors only once more. Nelly moves her to the sunny parlour and this room; on her existence depends another, and the household hopes Mr. Linton's lands will be secured by the birth of an heir. Isabella sends a dry marriage note announcing her wedding with a pencilled plea for reconciliation; Edgar does not answer. In a fortnight Nelly receives a long letter from the bride just out of the honeymoon.

Nelly keeps the letter as any relic of the valued dead and reads it while Catherine rests. Isabella describes arriving after dark at the Heights, meeting Hareton and his bull-dog Throttler, Joseph's scorn, and Hindley gaunt as a hungry wolf with a spring-knife pistol at his waist. There is no maid, no parlour, and no proper bed; Joseph mocks her silk dress while she cooks porridge, breaks the tray in despair, and sleeps in Hareton's empty room. Heathcliff keeps their chamber locked and wakes her demanding what she is doing there.

Heathcliff tells her Catherine is very ill, blames Edgar for causing it, and vows Isabella will be Edgar's stand-in in suffering until he can get hold of him. She closes: I do hate him, I am wretched, I have been a fool, and begs Nelly to visit soon without writing. Edgar nurses hope upstairs while the letter proves what four miles of moor have become: a marriage already hell, a house without comfort, and a witness account Nelly must hold in silence so Catherine's fragile convalescence is not shattered.