I tiptoed downstairs and put my head around the door. “Are you alone, Nelly?” I asked.

“Yes, miss.” Nelly replied gently so as not to disturb Hareton, but her face was far from welcoming.

“Where’s Heathcliff?” I said.

Nelly told me he was in the stables, working. And then she sat, as still as stone, her lips clenched tight. Did Nelly have no sympathy for me? No pity? I felt my tears begin to flow. “I’m very unhappy,” I said.

Nelly grunted. “So many friends and so few cares and yet you can’t make yourself content!”

Few cares? I almost laughed out loud. Had Nelly forgotten the evening’s events? Had she wiped from her mind the scenes of horror performed in this house every day of the week? My brother was an ugly, raging drunk. Did she not see how Heathcliff suffered at his hands? How could she think I had no cares? The woman was an idiot! And yet still I needed to talk. “Will you keep a secret for me?” I asked.

Nelly looked up. She liked a secret and the idea that I’d give her one of mine snagged her like a fish on a hook. “Is it worth keeping?” she said.

“Yes,” I replied. “And it worries me so much I must let it out. Edgar has asked me to marry him. I’ve given him an answer. But tell me – what should I have said? Yes or no?”

Nelly’s eyebrows shot almost to the ceiling. “After your display of temper this afternoon?” she said. “Edgar must be hopelessly stupid or wilfully reckless.”

“He’s neither,” I told her. “I said yes.”

“You’ve given your word then,” Nelly sniffed. “There’s no getting out of it now. What more is there to be said on the matter?”

“There is so much more! Have I done right?”

“Do you love him?” Nelly asked.

“Of course,” I said. Edgar was so eager to please, he tried so hard to make me happy, he gave so much and asked so little. It was as easy to love Edgar as it was to love a puppy.

“Well, your brother will be pleased, I suppose,” Nelly said. “He’ll have you off his hands and you’ll escape this hellhole. So why are you unhappy? Where’s the problem?”

I slapped my forehead. “Here,” I said. I struck my chest. “And here. Wherever the soul lives. In my heart and soul I know it’s wrong.”

I paused a while, then said, “I had a dream last night, Nelly. I’d died and gone to Heaven and I was so very miserable up there that I cried and cried. And at last the angels got sick of hearing me and threw me out. I landed on the moor near Wuthering Heights and I woke up sobbing for joy. I’ve no more right to marry Edgar Linton than I have to be in Heaven. If my blasted brother hadn’t brought Heathcliff so low, I’d never even have thought of it. It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now.” I sighed and wiped the tears that spilled down my cheeks. “So Heathcliff will never know how much I love him. Not because he’s handsome but because he’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made from, Heathcliff’s and mine are the same. But Edgar’s soul is as different from mine as frost is from fire.”