One evening Edgar was away and I was left alone with Isabella. She became particularly whiny and fretful. Nothing I could say or do would please her. In the end I told her to go to bed early and that in the morning I’d send for the doctor. She suddenly turned on me. It was all my fault, she declared. I was the reason she was ill. I was making her miserable.

Her attack was so sudden, so startling that for a moment I was lost for words. “How so?” I asked.

An outburst poured from her mouth. Isabella complained that the previous day when we’d been out walking on the moor I’d sent her away.

“I did no such thing,” I said. “I told you only to go where you pleased. Heathcliff and I were talking of the past. I did not want you bored and there was nothing in our conversation to interest you.”

“You did it so you could have him all to yourself,” Isabella said. “You’re so greedy. You hog all his attention and will not let me get a look in. Everyone must worship you! But I’m worthy of love too!”

Isabella’s secret came tumbling out then. She declared she loved Heathcliff with a passion far greater than Edgar had for me. She was sure that Heathcliff would love her back if only I didn’t keep getting in her way!

How she ran on! I listened, amazed. Somehow she’d talked herself into believing that Heathcliff’s rough exterior hid a noble mind, a poetic soul and a tender, loving heart. The silly girl had created a perfect fairy tale prince out of a man I knew to be as hard as granite. Heathcliff had good reason to be the way he was – I don’t blame him for it. But I knew he would crush Isabella like a robin’s egg if he ever had her in his power!

So I told Isabella of Heathcliff’s nature. I was honest with her as I never had been with Edgar. She did not believe me. She called me a dog in the manger. A poisonous friend.

I should have left her to it. Her “love” would have faded in time. But Isabella angered me so much I was not thinking straight.

The following day, she and I were sitting in the library, silent, but both of us festering with dreadful bad temper, when Heathcliff came calling.

Isabella’s obsession with him was a thing that had grown in the dark, I thought. I was sure that if it was exposed to the light of day, it would crumble to dust.

I welcomed Heathcliff and told him I’d found someone who doted on him more than I did, intending to be playful. I said Isabella and I had been fighting like cats over him. I told him she was dying of love for a man so physically and morally perfect.

Heathcliff looked at Isabella then for the first time, and his hatred of her Linton blood was clear in every line in his face. He couldn’t have looked more disgusted had she been a slug. Isabella ran from the room in tears.