Chapter 9: The Father's Rage — Wuthering Heights

Hindley staggers home vociferating oaths, catches Nelly hiding Hareton in the kitchen cupboard, and threatens her with a carving-knife. The toddler has learned stillness: he never knows whether his father will squeeze and kiss him or fling him into the fire. Hindley dangles the screaming child over the banister until the boy slips from his careless grasp and falls. Heathcliff catches him underneath, his face showing the intensest anguish at having made himself the instrument of thwarting his own revenge. Hindley blames Nelly, drinks more brandy, and passes out, swearing he will not murder Heathcliff tonight unless he sets the house on fire. Heathcliff mutters that drink will not kill his enemy; Kenneth wagers Hindley will outlive them all unless chance intervenes.

While Nelly rocks Hareton, Catherine whispers that Edgar proposed and she accepted. Nelly runs a catechism: handsome, cheerful, rich, greatest woman in the neighbourhood. Catherine strikes her breast and forehead and insists she is wrong in soul. She tells the heaven dream on the heath, where angels flung her back to Wuthering Heights. She says it would degrade her to marry Heathcliff now, so he shall never know how she loves him. Heathcliff has been behind the settle. He steals out when he hears that line and stays for none of what follows: that their souls are the same, that Linton's soul differs like moonbeam from lightning, that her love for Edgar is foliage while her love for Heathcliff is eternal rock, and that she is Heathcliff. She also explains she will marry Linton to aid Heathcliff with a husband's money and place him out of Hindley's power. When Nelly later admits Heathcliff overheard, Catherine flings Hareton on the settle and runs into the storm, frantic that he heard only the cruelest sentence.

Joseph hunts the moors without success. Catherine waits at the gate through thunder and rain till midnight, drenched and shrieking Heathcliff's name. Next morning Hindley confronts her; Joseph accuses her of courting the gipsy after midnight. She denies seeing Heathcliff and breaks into fever and delirium so violent Nelly fears madness. Kenneth bleeds her; old Mrs. Linton bears her to Thrushcross Grange, catches the fever nursing her, and dies with her husband within days. Heathcliff is not heard of again. For months Catherine treats Nelly as a mere servant; Edgar grows infatuated while Hindley indulges her caprices to secure the Linton alliance. Three years later Edgar leads Catherine to Gimmerton Chapel. Nelly leaves Wuthering Heights for the Grange, kisses five-year-old Hareton, and knows he will forget her entirely.

The chapter's hinge is partial hearing: Heathcliff acts on the wound and misses the repair in the same breath. Nelly glances at the clock, half-past one, and sends Lockwood to bed before the next catastrophe she is about to narrate.