15 Wuthering Heights -Read And Abridged By Stephanie Poppins

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë is a gothic novel that follows the antihero, Heathcliff, as he gets revenge on the people who kept him away from his love, Cathy Earnshaw. After over a decade, he finally succeeds in his revenge and gains Thrushcross Grange, the family home of Cathy's husband.

Catherine wants everything. The conflict between Heathcliff and Edgar broke her heart because it made having everything impossible. Yet at the same time her love for Heathcliff seems deeper than her love for Edgar. She never tells Edgar that she wishes she would never be parted from him.

Transcript

Hello.

Welcome to Sleep Stories with Steph,

Your go-to romantic podcast that guarantees you a calm and entertaining transition into a great night's sleep.

Come with me as we immerse ourselves in a romantic journey to a time long since forgotten.

Emily Bronte was born in Yorkshire in 1818 and along with her brother and sisters Anne and Charlotte wrote from childhood onwards.

Wuthering Heights is the story she is best remembered for.

But before we begin let's take a moment to focus on where we are now.

Take a deep breath in through your nose and let it out with a long sigh.

That's it.

Now close your eyes and feel yourself sink deeper into the support beneath you.

It is time to relax and fully let go.

There is nothing you need to be doing now and nowhere you need to go.

Happy listening.

Chapter 15 continue.

Heathcliff dear,

You should not be sullen now.

Do come to me Heathcliff,

Said Kathy.

In her eagerness she rose and supported herself on the arm of the chair.

At that earnest appeal he turned to her looking absolutely desperate.

His eyes wide and wet at last flashed fiercely on her,

His breast heaved convulsively.

An instant they held asunder and then how they met I hardly saw.

But Katherine made a spring and he caught her and they were locked in an embrace from which I thought my mistress would never be released alive.

In fact to my eyes she seemed directly insensible.

He flung himself into the nearest seat and on my approaching hurriedly to ascertain if she'd fainted he gnashed at me and foamed like a mad dog and gathered her to him with greedy jealousy.

I did not feel as if I were in the company of a creature of my own species.

It appeared to me he would not understand though I spoke to him so I stood off and held my tongue in great perplexity.

A movement of Katherine's relieved me a little presently.

She put up her hand to clasp his neck and bring her cheek to his as he held her while he in return covering her with frantic caresses said wildly.

You teach me now how cruel you've been.

Cruel and false.

Why did you despise me?

Why did you betray your own heart Kathy?

I have not one word of comfort.

You deserve this.

You have killed yourself.

Yes you may kiss me and cry and wring out my kisses and tears.

They'll blight you.

They'll damn you.

You loved me then what right had you to leave me?

What right?

Answer me for the poor fancy you left for Linton.

Because mercy and degradation and death and nothing that God or Satan could inflict would have parted us.

You of your own will did it.

I have not broken your heart.

You have broken it and in breaking it you have broken mine.

So much the worse for me that I'm strong.

Do I want to live?

What kind of living will it be like when you.

.

.

God would you like to live with your soul in the grave?

Let me alone.

Let me alone sobbed Katherine.

If I've done wrong I'm dying for it.

It's enough.

You left me too but I won't upbraid you.

I forgive you.

Forgive me.

It is hard to forgive and to look at those eyes and feel wasted hands he answered.

Kiss me again and don't let me see your eyes.

I forgive what you've done to me.

I love my murderer but yours how can I?

They were silent.

Their faces hid against each other and washed by each other's tears.

At least I assumed the weeping was on both sides.

It seemed Heathcliff could weep on a great occasion like this.

I grew very uncomfortable meanwhile.

For the afternoon wore fast away.

The man whom I had sent off returned from his errand and I could distinguish by the shine of the western sun up the valley a concourse thickening outside Gimmerton Chapel porch.

Service is over I announced.

My master will be here in half an hour.

Heathcliff groaned a curse and strained Katherine closer.

She never moved.

Earlong I perceived a group of the servants passing up the road towards the kitchen wing.

Mr.

Linton was not far behind.

He opened the gate himself and sauntered slowly up probably enjoying the lovely afternoon that breathed as soft as summer.

Now he's here I exclaimed.

For heaven's sake hurry down.

You'll not meet anyone on the front stairs.

Do be quick and stay among the trees till he's fairly in.

I must go Kathy said Heathcliff seeking to extricate himself from his companion's arms.

But if I live I'll see you again before you're asleep.

I won't stray five yards from your window.

You must not go she answered holding him as firmly as her strength allowed.

You shall not I tell you.

For one hour he pleaded earnestly.

Not for one minute she replied.

I must.

Linton will be up immediately persisted the alarmed intruder.

He would have risen and unfixed her fingers by the act.

But she clung fast gasping.

There was mad resolution in her face.

No she shrieked.

Don't go.

It is the last time.

Edgar will not hurt us.

Heathcliff I shall die.

I shall die.

Damn the fool.

There he is cried Heathcliff sinking back into his seat.

Hush my darling.

Hush hush Katherine.

I'll stay.

If he shot me so I'll expire with a blessing on my lips.

And there they were fast again.

I heard my master mounting the stairs.

The cold sweat ran from my forehead.

I was horrified.

Are you going to listen to her ravings?

I said passionately.

She does not know what she says.

Will you ruin her because she's not wit to help herself?

Get up Heathcliff.

You could be free instantly.

This is the most diabolical deed you ever did.

We're all done for.

Master mistress and servant.

I wrung my hands and cried out and Mr.

Linton hastened his step at the noise.

In the midst of my agitation I was sincerely glad to observe that Katherine's arms had fallen relaxed and her head hung down.

She's fainted or dead.

I thought.

So much the better.

Far better that she should be dead than linger in a burden and misery maker to all about her.

Edgar sprang to his unbidden guest blanched with astonishment and rage.

What he meant to do I cannot tell.

However the other stopped all demonstrations at once by placing the lifeless looking form in his arms.

Look there he said.

Unless you be a fiend help her first then you shall speak to me.

He walked into the parlor and sat down.

Mr.

Linton summoned me and with great difficulty and after resorting to many means we managed to restore her to sensation.

But she was all bewildered.

She sighed and moaned and knew nobody.

Edgar in his anxiety for her forgot her hated friend.

I did not.

I went at the earliest opportunity and besought him to depart affirming that Katherine was better and he should hear from me in the morning how she passed the night.

I shall not refuse to go out of doors he answered but I shall stay in the garden and Nellie mind you keep your word tomorrow.

I shall be under those large trees mind or I pay another visit where the Linton be in or not.

He sent a rapid glance through the half-open door of the chamber and ascertaining that what I stated was apparently true delivered the house of his luckless presence.

Chapter 16 About 12 o'clock that night was born the Katherine you saw at Wuthering Heights.

A puny seven months child and two hours after the mother died having never recovered sufficient consciousness to miss Heathcliff or know Edgar.

The latter's distraction at his bereavement is a subject too painful to be dwelt on.

Its after effects showed how deep the sorrows sunk.

A great addition in my eyes was his being left without an heir.

I bemoaned that as I gazed on the feeble orphan and I mentally abused old Linton for what was only natural partiality the securing his estate to his own daughter instead of his son.

An unwelcome infant it was poor thing.

It might have wailed out of life and nobody cared a morsel during those first hours of existence.

We redeemed the neglect afterwards but its beginning was as friendless as its end is likely to be.

Next morning bright and cheerful out of doors bright and cheerful out of doors stole softening through the blinds of the silent room and suffused the couch and its occupant with a mellow tender glow.

Edgar Linton had his head laid on the pillow and his eyes shut.

His young and fair features were almost as deathlike as those of the form behind him and almost as fixed but his was the hush of exhausted anguish and hers a perfect peace.

Her brow smooth her lids closed her lips wearing the expression of a smile no angel in heaven could be more beautiful than Kathy appeared and I partook of the infinite calm in which she lay.

My mind was never in a holier frame than while I gazed on that untroubled image of divine rest.

I instinctively echoed the word she'd muttered a few hours before.

Incomparably beyond and above us all whether still on earth or now in heaven her spirit is at home with God.

I don't know if it be a peculiarity in me but I am seldom otherwise than happy while watching in the chamber of death should no frenzied or despairing mourner share the duty with me.

I see a repose that neither earth nor hell can break and I feel an assurance of the endless and shadowless hereafter where life is boundless in its duration and love in its sympathy and joy in its fullness.

I noticed on that occasion how much selfishness there is even in a love like Mr Linton's when he so regretted Katherine's blessed belief.

To be sure one might have doubted after the wayward and impatient existence she'd led whether she merited a haven of peace at last.

One might doubt in seasons of cold reflection but not then in the presence of her corpse.

It asserted its own tranquility which seemed a pledge of equal quiet to its former inhabitant.

The servants thought me gone to shake off the drowsiness of my protracted watch.

In reality my chief motive was seeing Mr Heathcliff.

If he had remained among the larches all night he would have heard nothing of the stir at the grange unless perhaps he might catch the gallop of the messenger going to Gimmerton.

If he had come nearer he would probably be aware from the lights flitting to and fro and the opening and shutting of the outer doors that all was not right within.

I wished yet feared to find him.

I felt the terrible news must be told and I longed to get it over but how to do it I did not know.

He was there at least a few yards further in the park lent against an old ash tree,

His hat off and his hair soaked with a dew that had gathered on the budded branches and fell pattering around him.

He'd been standing a long time in that position for I saw a pair of owls passing and repassing scarcely three feet from him,

Busy in building their nest and regarding his proximity no more than that of a piece of timber.

He raised his eyes.

She's dead he said.

I have not waited for you to learn that but you have to learn it.

Put your handkerchief away and don't snivel before me Nellie,

Damn you all she wants none of your tears.

I was weeping as much for him as her.

We do sometimes pity creatures that have none of the feeling either for themselves or others.

When I first looked into his face I perceived he'd got intelligence of the catastrophe and a foolish notion struck me that his heart was quelled and he prayed because his lips moved and his gaze was bent on the ground.

Yes she's dead I answered checking my sobs and drying my cheeks.

Gone to heaven I hope where we may everyone join her if we take due warning and leave our evil ways to follow good.

Did she die like a saint?

Come give me a true history of the event.

How did he attempt to pronounce the name but could not manage it and compressing his mouth he held a silent combat with his inward agony defying meanwhile my sympathy with an unflinching ferocious stare.

How did she die?

He resumed at last notwithstanding his hardyhood to have a support behind him for after the struggle he trembled in spite of himself to his very finger ends.

Poor wretch I thought you have a heart and nerves the same as your brother men why should you be the one to blame for his death?

Poor wretch I thought you have a heart and nerves the same as your brother men why should you be anxious to conceal them?

Your pride cannot blind God you tempt him to wring them till he forces a cry of humiliation.

Quiet is a lamb I answered aloud.

She drew a sigh stretched herself like a child reviving and sinking again to sleep.

Five minutes after I felt one little pulse at her heart and nothing more.

Did she ever mention me?

He asked hesitating as if he dreaded the answer to his question with introduced details he could not bear to hear.

Her senses never returned she recognized nobody from the time you left her I said.

She lies with a sweet smile on her face and her latest ideas wander back to pleasant early days.

Her life closed in a gentle dream may she wake as kindly in the other world.

May she wake in torment he cried in a sudden paroxysm of ungovernable passion.

Why she's a liar to the end.

Where is she?

Not there.

Not in heaven.

Not perished.

Where?

You said you cared nothing for my sufferings and I pray one prayer I repeat it till my tongue stiffens.

Catherine Earnshaw may you not rest as long as I am living.

You said I killed you.

Haunt me then.

The murdered do haunt their murderers I believe.

I know that ghosts have wandered on earth.

Be with me always.

Take any form.

Drive me mad.

Only do not leave me alone in this abyss where I cannot find you.

God it is unutterable.

I cannot live without my life.

I cannot live without my soul.

He dashed his head against the knotted trunk and lifting up his eyes he howled not like a man but like a savage beast being goaded to death with knives and spears.

I observed several splashes of blood about the bark of the tree and his hand and forehead were both stained.

Probably the scene I witnessed was a repetition of others acted during the night.

It hardly moved my compassion.

It appalled me.

Still I felt reluctant to quit him so.

Mrs Linton's funeral was appointed to take place on the Friday following her decease.

Until then her coffin remained uncovered and strewn with flowers and scented leaves in the great drawing room.

Linton spent his days and nights there a sleepless guardian and a circumstance concealed from all but me.

Heathcliff spent his nights at least outside equally a stranger to repose.

I held no communication with him.

Still I was conscious of his design to enter if he could and on the Tuesday a little after dark when my master from sheer fatigue was compelled to retire for a couple of hours I went and opened one of the windows moved by Heathcliff's perseverance to give him a chance of bestowing on the faded image of his idol one final adieu.

He did not omit to avail himself of the opportunity cautiously and briefly too cautiously to betray his presence by the slightest noise.

Indeed I shouldn't have discovered he'd been there except for the disarrangement of the drapery around the corpse's face and for observing on the floor a curl of light hair fastened with a silver thread which on examination I ascertained to have been taken from a locket hung around Catherine's neck.

Heathcliff had opened the trinket and cast out its contents replacing them by a black lock of his own.

I twisted the two together and enclosed them.

Mr Earnshaw was of course invited to attend the remains of his sister to the grave.

He sent no excuse but he never came so that besides her husband the mourners were wholly composed of tenants and servants.

Isabella was not asked.

The place of Catherine's internment to the surprise of the villagers was neither in the chapel under the carved monument of the Lintons nor yet by the tombs of her own relations outside.

It was dug on a green slope in a corner of the kirk yard where the wall is so low that Heath and Bilberry Prance have climbed over it from the moor and Pete Mould almost buries it.

Her husband lies in the same spot now and they have each a simple headstone above and a plain grey block at their feet to mark the graves.

Reviews

Now that's a different end of Cathie's life than the movie, with Merle Oberon. The book is even more sad. 💕
Edit: 'true gothic tale .... your description makes it very clear. 😘

I fell 😴 sorry, Will listen on my walk later. 🐱🐱😃🌻

Ahhh the tragic end… what now, heathcliff? Thank you Steph!❤️🙏🏼