“Have you thought how Heathcliff will take the marriage?” Nelly asked.

Of course I’d thought of it! I never thought of anything else. I’d decided that my marriage would not give him pain. Heathcliff had been so cold these last few months, so locked within himself. He would not be hurt but helped by it – it would rescue him from the prison he’d built around himself. I’d thought this only yesterday. But today I’d seen Heathcliff’s marks on the calendar. Tormented, I said to Nelly, “Heathcliff has no idea of these things, does he? He does not know what being in love is.”

“You think not?” Nelly said. “When you become Catherine Linton, Heathcliff will lose his friend, love, everything. He’ll be deserted and alone in the world.”

I laughed aloud at that idea. “Heathcliff deserted?” I said. “Alone? The two of us, separated? Who would have the power to do that? I’ll never leave Heathcliff, never! He’ll be as much to me as he always has been. Edgar must learn to tolerate him. If I married Heathcliff, we’d be beggars. We’d starve. But when I marry Edgar, I can help Heathcliff. I can free him from my brother’s grip, set him on his own two feet, help him be the man he was meant to be.”

Nelly was aghast. “You’ll use your husband’s money?” she said. “That’s as poor a reason to get married as I ever heard.”

“It is the best!” I told her. “I do not marry for my pleasure – there is no selfishness in this! I am marrying Edgar for Heathcliff. I see no other way to help him.”

Nelly gave me such a look that I had to explain myself. “Nelly, what would be the use of me if all I am is within in this body? I have watched and felt all of Heathcliff’s miseries from the beginning. My only purpose in living is him. If all else perished and Heathcliff remained, I should still continue to be. And if all else remained and Heathcliff were destroyed, the universe would turn into a mighty stranger – I should not seem part of it. My love for Edgar is like the leaves in the woods. Time will change it as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff is like the eternal rocks beneath – an unseen delight perhaps, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff. He’s always, always in my mind – not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being. So don’t talk of our separation again. It is impossible.”

I wished I had not bothered, for Nelly looked at me as if I’d told her I was to be the bride of Satan. And I had not said the half of it. I could hardly admit to myself the dark thought that lingered at the back of my head: that people close to me died. They died all the time. Mother. Father. Frances. And Edgar was such a pale, weak thing: I’d surely outlive him. And then when Edgar died? I’d be rich. Free. I could do whatever I chose.