Chapter 21 — Wuthering Heights

Cathy grieves Linton's removal until memory fades; Gimmerton gossip paints him as a faint-hearted invalid whom Heathcliff barely tolerates behind closed doors. Nelly hears from the Heights housekeeper that Linton lives secluded, coughs constantly, demands fires in summer and sweets year-round, and quarrels with Hareton when pity brings them together. Edgar still asks after the boy but will not risk fetching him.

On the twentieth of March, Cathy's sixteenth birthday and the anniversary of her mother's death, Edgar retreats to the library and kirkyard. Cathy coaxes Nelly on a moor walk toward game nests, then leads her past the park limits onto Heathcliff's land. He intercepts them, insists they enter Wuthering Heights, and reunites Cathy with a taller Linton she barely recognizes.

Inside, Cathy charms Heathcliff briefly while Linton performs weakness and spite. Heathcliff tells Nelly outright that the cousins will marry so he inherits both estates; Hareton sits degraded, unable to read the inscription over the door that bears his own name. Cathy returns radiant; when she blurts the visit to Edgar, he explains Heathcliff's malice and forbids further contact or letters.

Heathcliff forbids Cathy to mention the visit to Edgar, claiming an old quarrel over Isabella's marriage. Cathy promises to bring her father; Linton pleads that four miles would kill him and asks her to return once or twice a week instead. Heathcliff mutters to Nelly that Catherine will send the boy to the devil, covets Hareton's strength, and orders Linton to show Cathy the garden while Hareton enters fresh from washing.

Cathy smuggles love letters through a milk-boy until Nelly discovers the drawer, threatens to tell Edgar, and burns the entire cache in the kitchen. Cathy snatches two half-burned scraps from the fire with burned fingers and sobs that Nelly is crueler than Heathcliff. The milk-boy channel ends; Edgar still believes separation keeps his daughter safe.

Hareton watches from the stair, excluded and illiterate, while Heathcliff names the marriage plot in front of him. Linton whines for cakes and fires; Cathy kisses Nelly for blocking the door, then leaves humming, planning morning walks her father will forbid. At the Grange she hides paper and ink; at the Heights Heathcliff counts months until Edgar dies. Edgar promises Linton may visit when he is stronger, not knowing the wedding deed was spoken aloud in the kitchen. The chapter closes with charred paper, a hidden drawer, and a sixteen-year-old already bound to a cousin she pities more than she knows. Michael the groom later admits he carried letters for pies and apples, and Nelly resolves to tell Edgar everything if another note appears. The bond hardens.