Return to the Heights — Wuthering Heights

September 1802: Lockwood, hunting nearby, impulsively visits the Grange, then walks to the Heights at moonrise. Open doors, flowers, and firelight greet him where the jealous gate once stood locked. He had meant only to settle rent, yet curiosity and envy keep him listening at the window before he hides in the kitchen where Nelly sits sewing. Through the glass he sees Catherine drilling Hareton in reading, slapping his inattention, then kissing him as reward before Joseph's curses rise from the kitchen.

Nelly, now housekeeper at the Heights, tells him Heathcliff died three months ago. After Lockwood left for London she came for Catherine's sake and smuggled in books, but Catherine grew restless in the narrow garden and taunted Hareton, comparing him to a dog until his gun burst wounded him in March and trapped him by the fire. On Easter Monday frost bound them indoors; she broke his pipe, declared she wanted him as cousin, kissed his cheek, and gave him a wrapped book to learn from. They became allies over a picture volume that kept them bent over the same page until Joseph came home.

Lockwood hears how months of mockery reversed: Hareton had burned his books and shut down until Catherine's remorse became practical teaching, leaving volumes in the table drawer and reading aloud while Nelly ironed until he finally opened the gift. Joseph still rages in the kitchen, but the parlour now holds slates, primers, and laughter while the house finally breathes after Heathcliff's death.

Nelly hopes for their New Year's wedding at the Grange. Lockwood settles rent with her, envies what he sees through the window, and slips away jealous of their growing intimacy. He never dreamt Heathcliff would die before his return; the queer end Nelly describes over ale closes the reign that made literacy itself a weapon. Hareton's shame and Catherine's temper had mirrored the first generation's cruelty until pity replaced mockery. The flashback closes on alliance forged at the hearth, and Lockwood walks home through moors that feel less haunted than when Heathcliff lived, promising how education and tenderness can undo decades of deliberate degradation.