第95章

On her seventeenth birthday, he did not visit the churchyard: it was raining, and I observed:

`You'll surely not go out tonight, sir?'

He answered:

`No, I'll defer it this year a little longer.'

He wrote again to Linton, expressing his great desire to see him;and, had the invalid been presentable, I've no doubt his father would have permitted him to come.As it was, being instructed, he returned an answer, intimating that Mr Heathcliff objected to his calling at the Grange; but his uncle's kind remembrance delighted him, and he hoped to meet him, sometimes, in his rambles, and personally to petition that his cousin and he might not remain long so utterly divided.

That part of his letter was simple, and probably his own.Heathcliff knew he could plead eloquently enough for Catherine's company, then.

`I do not ask', he said, `that she may visit here; but, am I never to see her, because my father forbids me to go to her home, and you forbid her to come to mine? Do now and then, ride with her towards the Heights;and let us exchange a few words, in your presence! We have done nothing to deserve this separation; and you are not angry with me; you have no reason to dislike me, you allow, yourself.Dear uncle! send me a kind note tomorrow, and leave to join you anywhere you please, except at Thrushcross Grange.I believe an interview would convince you that my father's character is not mine: he affirms I am more your nephew than his son; and though I have faults which render me unworthy of Catherine, she has excused them, and for her sake, you should also.You inquire after my health--it is better;but while I remain cut off from all hope, and doomed to solitude, or the society of those who never did and never will like me, how can I be cheerful and well?'

Edgar, though he felt for the boy, could not consent to grant his request; because he could not accompany Catherine.He said, in summer, perhaps, they might meet: meantime, he wished him to continue writing at intervals, and engaged to give him what advice and comfort he was able by letter; being well aware of his hard position in his family.Linton complied; and had he been unrestrained, would probably have spoiled all by filling his epistles with complaints and lamentations: but his father kept a sharp watch over him; and, of course, insisted on every line that my master sent being shown; so, instead of penning his peculiar personal sufferings and distresses, the themes constantly uppermost in his thoughts, he harped on the cruel obligation of being held asunder from his friend and love; and gently intimated that Mr Linton must allow an interview soon, or he should fear he was purposely deceiving him with empty promises.

Cathy was a powerful ally at home; and, between them, they at length persuaded my master to acquiesce in their having a ride or a walk together about once a week, under my guardianship, and on the moors nearest the Grange: for June found him still declining; and though he had set aside yearly a portion of his income for my young lady's fortune, he had a natural desire that she might retain--or at least return in a short time to--the house of her ancestors; and he considered her only prospect of doing that was by a union with his heir; he had no idea that the latter was failing almost as fast as himself; nor had anyone; I believe: no doctor visited the Heights, and no one saw Master Heathcliff to make report of his condition among us.I, for my part, began to fancy my forebodings were false, and that he must be actually rallying, when he mentioned riding and walking on the moors, and seemed so earnest in pursuing his object.I could not picture a father treating a dying child as tyrannically and wickedly as I afterwards learned Heathcliff had treated him, to compel this apparent eagerness: his efforts redoubling the more imminently his avaricious and unfeeling plans were threatened with defeat by death.