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‘My father
is very ill,’ she said; ‘and why am I called from his bedside? Why didn’t you send to absolve me from my promise, when you wished I wouldn’t keep it? Come! I desire an explanation: playing and trifling are completely banished out of my mind; and I can’t dance attendance on your affections now!’
In Chapter 27, Cathy grows impatient with Linton. Rather than tell her not to come because her father is dying, Linton expected her to keep her promise. It’s revealed that Heathcliff is indeed forcing Linton to court her, and that Linton is terrified of what Heathcliff will do to him if Cathy rejects him.
He approached once more, and made as if he would seize the fragile being; but, shrinking back, Linton clung to his cousin, and implored her to accompany him, with a frantic importunity that admitted no denial . . . We reached the threshold; Catherine walked in, and I stood waiting till she had conducted the invalid to a chair, expecting her out immediately; when Mr. Heathcliff, pushing me forward, exclaimed—‘My house is not stricken with the plague, Nelly; and I have a mind to be hospitable today[.]’
Further in Chapter 27, Heathcliff manipulates Cathy and Nelly Dean to accompany him to Wuthering Heights. Linton, terrified, tells Cathy he can’t return without her, and Cathy agrees to go, despite her father forbidding her.
All was composed, however: Catherine’s despair was as silent as her father’s joy. She supported him calmly, in appearance; and he fixed on her features his raised eyes that seemed dilating with ecstasy . . . He died blissfully . . . Kissing her cheek, he murmured, --‘I am going to her; and you, darling child, shall come to us!’ and never stirred or spoke again[.]
In Chapter 28, Cathy returns to Thrushcross Grange in time to say goodbye to the dying Edgar. He is happy to see her, unaware of the true circumstances of her marriage to Linton. He dies before he is able to change his will to prevent Heathcliff acquiring Cathy’s inheritance, and tells her he will soon see her mother, and eventually she (Cathy) will join them both.
‘But I’m glad I’ve a better, to forgive it; and I know he loves me, and for that reason I love him. Mr. Heathcliff,
you havenobody to love you; and, however miserable you make us, we all still have the revenge of thinking that your cruelty arises from your greater misery. Youare miserable, are you not? . . .nobody will cry for you when you die!’
Demonstrating that she is indeed the daughter of the brazen Catherine Earnshaw, Cathy stands up to Heathcliff in Chapter 29. She informs him that her and Linton’s love will be revenge enough upon a man who loves, and is loved by, no one at all.
Heathcliff went up once, to show her Linton’s will. He had bequeathed the whole of his, and what had been her, moveable property, to his father: the poor creature was threatened, or coaxed, into that act during her week’s absence, when his uncle died . . . Catherine, destitute of cash and friends, cannot disturb his possession.
Heathcliff forces Cathy to care for the dying Linton alone in Chapter 30. After his death, Heathcliff shows her Linton’s will, which states everything he owned—everything that had once been Cathy’s—has been left to Heathcliff. At long last, Heathcliff achieves what he set out to do at the beginning of the novel: claim both Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange as his own.
