Wuthering Heights

When Lockwood visits Wuthering Heights the next day, he climbs over the locked gate, “just in time to escape the first feathery flakes of a snow-shower” (5). Only a young blond woman is home, and Lockwood calls her Mrs. Heathcliff. She observes Lockwood with a “cool, regardless manner, exceedingly embarrassing and disagreeable” (6). Despite her bad-tempered appearance, Lockwood finds her attractive, but “fortunately for [his]susceptible heart” (7), she seems to find him unworthy of positive attention. Lockwood notices a young man looking at him “as if there were some mortal feud unavenged between [them],” and soon, “the entrance of Heathcliff relieved [him], in some measure, from [his]uncomfortable state” (7). While Lockwood drinks tea with Heathcliff, they discuss the snowstorm, and Heathcliff introduces the young woman as his daughter-in-law.

The young man reacts badly when Lockwood teases him about “the beneficent fairy,” and demands respect when he introduces himself as Hareton Earnshaw, causing Lockwood to “laugh internally at the dignity with which he announced himself” (9). Meanwhile, the snow worsens, but no one seems willing to advise Lockwood as to how he should get home to Thrushcross Grange, and Lockwood announces that he feels “compelled to stay” (11). Moments later, “two hairy monsters flew at [his]throat” (11), knocking Lockwood over, causing a “mingled guffaw from Heathcliff and Hareton” (12) and an overreaction from Lockwood that brings on “a copious bleeding at the nose” (12) and more humiliating laughter from the men. Heathcliff’s light mood passes quickly,and he orders Zillah, a servant, “to give [him]a glass of brandy” (12) before Lockwood is shown to a bed for the night.

Under Zillah’s guidance, Lockwood stays in an old room littered with furniture and “a few mildewed books” (13) inscribed with the name Catherine. One book appears to be a diary, and Lockwoodreads it. In the diary, Lockwood learns about young Heathcliff’s trials as well as about Catherine’s attachment to Heathcliff. Someone named Hindley, “a detestable substitute” (13), runs the house when Catherine’s father is away, and Heathcliff and Catherine “have a scamper on the moors” (15) whenever they can, for fun and for escape. Lockwood falls asleep while perusing another book, and in his dream, he attends a church service.During the service he feels sleepy, until he “was moved to rise and denounce Jabes Branderham as the sinner of the sin that no Christian need pardon” (16). In Lockwood’s dream, the tapping of “the boards of the pulpit”wake him up, but it was “[m]erely the branch of a fir-tree” (17) blowing in the wind. More sounds of the branch tapping at the window annoy Lockwood, and he tries to stop the sound by “stretching an arm out to seize the importunate branch” (17). To his fright, Lockwood’s “fingers closed on the fingers of a little, ice-cold hand” (17),and he sees a ghost at the window. The ghost complains of being “a waif for twenty years” (17), and Lockwood screams in alarm, bringing Heathcliff up the stairs. Lockwood explains the matter, and Heathcliff reacts “with savage vehemence,” as he “struggled to vanquish an excess of violent emotion” (19). Lockwood leaves his room and goes down to the kitchen, where Hareton Earnshaw and Heathcliff soon arrive, and they find Mrs. Heathcliff reading a book by the fire. As soon as the sun comes up, Lockwood leaves “into the free air, now clear and still, and cold as impalpable ice” (19). Heathcliff follows Lockwood in order to guide him to the gate where Lockwood will be able to see Thrushcross Grange and arrive safely to his destination. After explaining what happened to the anxious servants at the Grange and warming up in his room, Lockwood “adjourned to [his]study, feeble as a kitten” (22).

When the housekeeper, Nelly Dean, brings Lockwood his supper, he asks her about her years in service at the house. Lockwood wants to know more about “that pretty girl-widow” (23), so he asks why Heathcliff does not live at Thrushcross Grange,which is a much more hospitable residence than Wuthering Heights. Nelly explains, but her mention of individuals with the names of Linton and Earnshaw confuse Lockwood, so she explains the complicated family dynamics between the two families. The pretty woman is Catherine Linton, the daughter of Nelly’s late master, Edgar Linton and Catherine Earnshaw. Hareton Earnshaw is Catherine Earnshaw-Linton’s nephew, and “Heathcliff married Mr. Linton’s sister” (23). At Lockwood’s request to hear more of his neighbors, Nelly obliges and begins her story.

Early in Nelly’s career, she was “always at Wuthering Heights” (24) because her mother had been in service there, looking after young Hindley Earnshaw, who later became Hareton’s father. One day, Hindley’s father, Mr. Earnshaw,left for Liverpool and came back after three days with “a dirty, ragged, black-haired child” (25), about the same age as Hindley’s sister, Catherine. He had found the child in Liverpool, alone, “starving, and houseless, and as good as dumb” (25),so he took the child home with him. The children, Catherine, Hindley, and Nelly herself, mistreated the boy, but Mr. Earnshaw cared for him and named him Heathcliff, after “a son who died in childhood” (26). Less than two years later, Mr. Earnshaw died, and Heathcliff was left alone with Hindley, who hated him, and the others.

Nelly reflects on the young Heathcliff’s character, remembering him as an uncomplaining child even when he was ill. She also recalls a confrontation he had with Hindley, when Hindley “knocked him under [a horse’s] feet” (28). Even then, Nelly was surprised at “how coolly the child gathered himself up, and went on with his intention” (28). These instances of level-headedness misled Nelly into believing Heathcliff to be an individual lacking a vindictive streak.