Title: Eternal Beloved
Description: Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights; ETERNAL BELOVED by Belle Ellis is an edited version of Emily Bronte's only novel, supplemented with imagery inspired by her poetry. See details below the following extract. 'I felt the fingers relax, I snatched my hand back through the glass ... and stopped my ears to exclude that lamentable, lamenting voice. But it had no effect, the voice was still there, the voice was now inside my head; 'There is blood!' the voice said simply, so pathetically; and she wept such piteous tears and with woe-filled wails, 'I am bleeding.' By now, it felt to me that I had been struggling for an hour or more with this partially living-partial apparition. It continued, 'I became lost in the snow while out on the moor! It is falling so densely I could not see where I should go. Why is Heathcliff not here? Heathcliff always lit a lamp for me. I saw your light, I thought he had left the light to guide me home...' her doleful crying continued ....she insisted, 'Let me in! I am tired, and cold. I've been wandering without warmth or comfort for twenty years.' She now used her free hand to scratch me, and such scratches they were; they felt like hellish barbs chastising my flesh. I saw the face again as the snow whipped by. In my dream I suddenly comprehended her appearance, it was that of a ghostly and wasted angel, she was whatever the devil has for seraphs, for she was surely supreme at scaring my mortal soul....' .... 'The long and short of it all, Mr Lockwood, you'll not be surprised to hear, is that they were married. It was a vile design, that worked to demonically successful effect for Mr. Heathcliff. For he told her, on informing her of the condition of her father, that she would not be allowed her liberty from the Heights, if she would not marry Linton Heathcliff. Providing she married him immediately - you will appreciate that the marriage was inconsequential if it took place after the masters death - she would be allowed to return to the Grange. I confess, vile though he was, I was almost astonished at this concession on Mr. Heathcliff's part; it would have suited his desire for revenge to deprive Mr. Edgar of the comfort of seeing his daughter before he died. I'd like to think that my intercession caused this to happen. .... I was there at the Heights when the marriage took place, but was kept locked-up. I was allowed out of the chamber afterwards, but that was a joyless and grim event; my mistress could not stop from weeping, I could hardly stop either. As we sat together, I heard Linton say, 'Uncle is truly dying; I'm glad because of his ill-turn he did me, of him sending me on up to this place, and I shall be master of the Grange. Catherine always spoke of it as her house, but it will be mine.' I snapped at him, 'It is her house. You'll never live to see it, you miserable whelp! Or, if it is yours, it will not be for long, Heathcliff will have it. Can you be so slow-witted as not to see that?' For that stark truth Mr. Heathcliffe had me, unsurprisingly, banished back under lock and key in the chamber. That was how your benevolent and benign landlord completed his revenge, Mr Lockwood.... Most of this version of the novel retains Emily Bronte's own words. It has been edited throughout, lightly in the first part, before the death of Catherine Linton, although the well-known dream sequence has been extended; the editing is much more severe in the second part. Although the plot remains substantially unchanged, elements of it have been supplemented throughout; there are substitutions of language, other alterations, excisions and additions. Although the original novel has both mystical and down-to-earth elements, it has been my intention to accentuate some of the more mystical elements; much of the plot in the second part of the story, concerning the revenge taken against the Linton family, has been severely cut, while it retains consistency within the narration given by Nelly Dean. -B.E. -Amazon