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 nine continued.
We sat together some time,
Kathy and I,
Continued Nellie.
She was confused,
That was for sure,
Starts rambling on about her dreams and heaven.
This is nothing,
Cried she.
I was only going to say that heaven isn't my home and I broke my heart with weeping to come back to earth in my dream and the angels were so angry they flung me out into the middle of the heath on the top of Wuthering Heights where I woke up sobbing for joy.
Then she paused.
I've no more business to marry Edgar Linton than I have to be in heaven,
She said,
And if Hindley and Nair had not brought Heathcliff so low I shouldn't have thought of it.
It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now so he shall never know how I love him and that's not because he's handsome Nellie but because he's more myself than I am.
Whatever our souls are made of his and mine are the same and Linton's is as different as a moonbeam from lightning or frost from fire.
Ere this speech ended I became sensible of Heathcliff's presence.
Having noticed a slight movement I turned my head and saw him rise from the bench and steal out noiselessly.
He'd listened till he heard Catherine say it would degrade her to marry him then he stayed to hear no further.
My companion,
Sitting on the ground,
Was prevented by the back of the settle from remarking his presence or departure but I started and bade her hush.
Why,
She asked.
Joseph is here,
I answered,
And Heathcliff will come in with him.
I'm not sure whether we're at the door this moment.
Oh he couldn't hear me at the door,
Says she.
I ought to cheat my uncomfortable conscience and be convinced Heathcliff has no notion of these things.
He does not know what being in love is.
I see no reason that Heathcliff shouldn't know as well as you,
Says I.
If you're his choice he'll be the most unfortunate creature that was ever born.
As soon as you become Mrs Linton he loses friend and love and awe.
Have you considered how you'll bear the separation and how he'll bear to be quite deserted in the world because Miss Catherine,
No one shall separate us,
She cried.
Who is to separate us?
They'll meet the fate of Milo not as long as I live,
Nellie,
For no mortal creature.
Every Linton on the face of the earth might melt into nothing before I could consent to forsake Heathcliff.
He will be as much to me as he's been all his lifetime.
Edgar must shake off his antipathy and tolerate him at least and he will when he learns my true feelings towards him.
Nellie,
I see now you think me a selfish wretch but did it ever strike you that if Heathcliff and I married we should be beggars whereas if I marry Linton I can aid Heathcliff to rise and place him out of my brother's power.
With your husband's money Miss Catherine,
I asked,
You'll find him not so pliable as you calculate upon and though I'm hardly a judge I think that's the worst motive you've given yet for being the wife of young Linton.
It is not,
Retorted she,
It's the best.
The others were the satisfaction of my whims and for Edgar's sake too to satisfy him.
This is for the sake of one who comprehends in his person my feelings to Edgar and myself.
I cannot express it but surely you and everybody have a notion that there is or should be an existence of yours beyond you.
What were the use of my creation if I was entirely contained here?
My great miseries in this world have been Heathcliff's miseries and I watched and felt each from the beginning.
If all else perished and Heathcliff remained I should still continue to be and if all else remained and he were annihilated the universe would turn into a mighty stranger.
I should not seem part of it.
My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods.
Time will change it I'm well aware as winter changes the trees.
My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath,
A source of little visible delight but necessary.
Nellie,
I am Heathcliff.
He's always,
Always in my mind.
Not as a pleasure any more than I'm always a pleasure to myself but as my own being.
So don't talk of our separation again.
She paused and hid her face in the folds of my gown but I jerked it forcibly away.
I was out of patience with her folly.
If I can make any sense of your nonsense miss,
I said,
It only goes to convince me you're ignorant of the duties you undertake in marrying or else you're a wicked unprincipled girl but trouble me with no more secrets.
I'll not promise to keep them.
You'll keep that one?
She asked eagerly.
No,
I'll not promise,
I repeated.
She was about to insist when the entrance of Joseph finished our conversation and Catherine removed her seat to a corner and nursed Hairton while I made the supper.
After it was cooked my fellow servant and I began to quarrel who should carry some to Mr Hindley and we didn't settle it till all was nearly cold.
Then we came to the agreement we would let him ask if he wanted any for we feared particularly to go into his presence when he'd been some time alone.
Then Joseph exclaimed,
Where is he about?
Get in seat.
He was looking around for Heathcliff.
I'll call him,
I replied,
He's in the bar no doubt and I went out and called but got no answer.
On returning I whispered to Catherine he'd heard a good part of what she said I was sure and told her how I saw him quit the kitchen just as she complained of her brother's conduct regarding him.
She jumped into a fine fright flung Hairton onto the settle and ran to seat for Heathcliff herself not taking leisure to consider why it was so flurried or how her talk would have affected him.
She was absent such a while that Joseph proposed we should wait no longer.
He conjectured they were staying away in order to avoid hearing his protracted blessing but then Cathy burst in with a hurry command that he must run down the road and wherever Heathcliff had rambled find and make him re-enter directly.
I want to speak to him and I must before I go upstairs she said.
The gate is open he's somewhere out of hearing for he wouldn't reply though I shouted at the top of the fold as loud as I could.
Joseph objected at first but Cathy was too much in earnest however to suffer contradiction and at last he placed his hat on his head and walked grumbling forth.
What a trifle scares you I asked Cathy.
It's surely no great cause of alarm that Heathcliff should take a moonlight saunter on the moors or even lie to Sulky to speak to us in the hayloft.
I'll engage he's lurking there see if I don't ferry him out.
Then I departed to renew my search but its result was disappointment and Joseph's quest ended in the same.
It was a very dark evening for summer.
The clouds appeared inclined to thunder and I said we better all sit down.
The approaching rain will be certain to bring Heathcliff home without further trouble.
However Catherine would not be persuaded into tranquility.
She kept wandering to and fro from the gate to the door in a state of agitation which permitted no repose and at length she took up a permanent position on one side of the wall near the road.
Where heedless of the great drops that began to plush around her she remained calling into the darkness.
Where heedless of the great drops that began to plush around her she remained calling at intervals then listening then crying outright.
She beat hair to know any child had a good passionate fit of crying did that one.
About midnight while we all sat up the storm came rattling over the heights in full fury.
There was a violent wind as well as thunder and either one or the other split a tree off at the corner of the building.
A huge bough fell across the road and knocked down a portion of the east chimney stack sending a clatter of stones and soot into the kitchen fire.
We thought a bolt had fallen in the middle of us and Joseph swung onto his knees but the uproar passed away in 20 minutes leaving us all unharmed excepting Kathy who got thoroughly drenched standing bonnetless and shawless to catch as much water as she could with her hair and clothes.
She came in and sat down on the settle all soaked as she was turning her face to the back and putting her hands before it.
Well miss I exclaimed touching her shoulder you're not bent on getting your death are you?
You know what o'clock it is?
It's half past 12.
Come to bed there's no use waiting any longer on that foolish boy he'll be gone to Gimmerton and he'll stay up there now.
Then after some time Hindley comes back in again and says tell me Kathy were you not with Heathcliff last night?
Speak the truth now you need not be afraid of harming him he says.
I never saw Heathcliff last night she answered beginning to sob bitterly and if you do turn him out of doors I'll go with him she says but perhaps you'll never have the opportunity because he's gone.
Then she burst into uncontrollable grief and the remainder of her words were inarticulate.
At this Hindley lavished on her a torrent of scornful abuse and bid her get her to a room immediately or she shouldn't cry for nothing and I obliged her to obey.
I shall never forget what a scene she acted when we reached her chamber it terrified me.
I thought she was going mad and I begged Joseph to run for the doctor.
It proved the commencement of delirium.
Mr Kenneth as soon as he saw her pronounced her dangerously ill and said she had a fever.
He bled her and told me to let her live on way and water gruel and take care she didn't throw herself downstairs or out of the window.
Then he left for he had enough to do in the parish where two or three miles was the ordinary distance between cottage and cottage.
Though I can't say I made a gentle nurse and Joseph and the master were no better and though our patient was as wearisome and headstrong as a patient could be Kathy managed to weather it through.
Over time old Mrs Linton paid us several visits and set things to rights and when Katherine was convalescent she insisted on conveying her to Thrushcross Grange for which deliverance we were very grateful but the poor dame had reason to repent of her kindness for she and her husband both took the fever and died within a few days of each other.
Then Kathy returned to us saucier and more passionate and haughtier than ever.
Heathcliff had never been heard of since the evening of the thunderstorm and one day I had the misfortune when she provoked me to lay the blame of his disappearance on her.
From that period for several months she ceased to hold any communication with me saving the relation of a mere servant.
Then the doctor said Kathy would not bear crossing much she ought to have her own way and it was nothing less than murder in her eyes for anyone to presume to stand up and contradict her.
Edgar Linton as multitudes have been before and will be after him was infatuated by her.
He believed he was the happiest man alive on the day he led her to Gimmerton Chapel three years subsequent to his father's death.
Much against my inclination I was persuaded to leave Wuthering Heights and accompany her here.
Little Hairton was nearly five years old and I'd just begun to teach him his letters.
We made a sad parting but Kathryn's tears were more powerful than ours.
When I refused to go and when she found her entreaties didn't move me she went lamenting to her husband and brother.
The former offered me magnificent wages and the latter ordered me to pack up.
He wanted no women in the house he said now that there was no mistress and as to Hairton the cure should take him in hand by and by.
So I had but one choice left to do as I was ordered.
I told the master he got rid of all decent people only to run into ruin then I kissed Hairton and said goodbye.
Since then he's been a stranger.
It's been very queer to think about it but I've no doubt he's completely forgotten all about Nellie Dean.
At this point of the housekeeper's story she chanced to glance towards the timepiece over the chimney and was in amazement on seeing the minute hand measure half past one.
She would not hear of staying a second longer.
In truth I felt rather disposed to defer the sequel of her narrative myself and now that she has vanished to her rest and I have meditated for another hour or so I shall summon courage to go also in spite of aching laziness of head and limbs.
