Wuthering Heights / Грозовой перевал. Уровень 3

It is strange that people can be so greedy, when they are alone in the world!'

'He had a son, it seems?'

'Yes, he had one – he is dead.'

'And that young lady, Mrs. Heathcliff, is his widow?'

'Yes.'

'Where did she come from originally?'

'Why, sir, she is my late master's daughter: Catherine Linton was her maiden name. I nursed her, poor thing[7 - poor thing – бедняжка]!'

'What! Catherine Linton?' I exclaimed, astonished.

But a minute's reflection convinced me it was not my ghostly Catherine.

'Then,' I continued, 'my predecessor's name was Linton?'

'It was.'

'And who is that Earnshaw: Hareton Earnshaw, who lives with Mr. Heathcliff? Are they relations?'

'No; he is the late Mrs. Linton's nephew.'

'The young lady's cousin, then?'

'Yes; and her husband was her cousin also: one on the mother's, the other on the father's side: Heathcliff married Mr. Linton's sister.'

'I see the house at Wuthering Heights has “Earnshaw” carved over the front door.

'Very old, sir; and Hareton is the last of them, as our Miss Cathy is of us – I mean, of the Lintons. Have you been to Wuthering Heights? I beg pardon for asking; but I want to hear how she is.'

'Mrs. Heathcliff? She looked very well, and very handsome; yet, I think, not very happy.'

'Oh dear, I don't wonder! And how did you like the master?'

'A rough fellow, rather, Mrs. Dean. Is not that his character?'

'Indeed! The less you meddle with him the better.

'Well, Mrs. Dean, it will be a charitable deed to tell me something of my neighbours: I feel I shall not rest if I go to bed; so be good enough to sit and talk.'

And so she told me the whole story.

Before I came to live here, she said, I was almost always at Wuthering Heights; because my mother had nursed Mr. Hindley Earnshaw, that was Hareton's father. I used to play with the children, I helped a little, too. One fine summer morning – it was the beginning of harvest, I remember – Mr. Earnshaw, the old master, went to Liverpool for a short time. But it seemed a long time to us all – the three days of his absence. Mrs.