Wuthering Heights — CHAPTER XVII

During a sudden snowstorm, Isabella Heathcliff staggers into Thrushcross Grange, injured and frantic, demanding a carriage onward to Gimmerton. After changing, she recounts life at Wuthering Heights since Catherine’s death: Heathcliff’s nightly vigils at the Grange, Hindley’s drunken misery, and her own growing defiance.

Isabella describes the previous night: Hindley planned to shoot Heathcliff at the locked door; Isabella warned Heathcliff through a casement, taunted him, and Heathcliff wrenched Hindley’s weapon, the shot discharging and maiming Hindley’s wrist. Heathcliff forced entry, savagely beat Hindley, then roughly bound his wound. Joseph threatened to inform Edgar; Heathcliff coerced Isabella’s account to frame Hindley as deliriously drunk. By morning, Heathcliff, grief-stricken over Catherine, wept; Isabella goaded him until he hurled a knife, cutting her. She fled across the moor to the Grange.

Refusing to stay, Isabella kisses Catherine’s and Edgar’s portraits and departs south, later corresponding regularly. She bears a sickly son, Linton. Heathcliff discovers their location and the child’s existence, vowing he will claim the boy when he wishes; Isabella eventually dies when Linton is about twelve.

Edgar, abhorring Heathcliff, resigns public duties and lives reclusively, finding tender consolation in his infant daughter, Catherine (Cathy), whose presence softens his grief.

Months after Catherine’s death, Hindley dies, reportedly drunk. Nelly attends the funeral arrangements at Wuthering Heights. Heathcliff reveals Earnshaw had mortgaged all his property to him, making Heathcliff legal master. At the coffin’s removal, Heathcliff asserts control over Hareton, declaring the boy his. Nelly’s attempt to take Hareton to the Grange is thwarted by Heathcliff’s threat to seize Linton’s heir instead. Hareton remains, degraded to dependence in his own home.