In Ch. 7 Catherine is forced to spend five weeks at
Thrushcross Grange, the home of the Lintons. When she returns to her home at Wuthering
Heights, she is a much altered person - she has been transformed completely into a fine
and elegant lady.
But nowhere is it mentioned
that this is because of Isabella Linton.
In
Ch.10 Catherine, now Mrs. Catherine Edgar Linton, clashes with her sister in law
Isabella Linton, because Isabella who is now,
a charming young lady of eighteen;
infantile in manners, though possessed of keen wit, keen
feelings, and a keen temper, too, if
irritated.
has become
infatuated with Heathcliff!
Soon, Catherine and Isabella
begin to quarrel over Heathcliff when Isabella
remarks,
'I
love him more than ever you loved Edgar, and he might love me, if you
would let
him!'
Isabella
wrongly believes that Catherine is in love with Heathcliff and that she is preventing
Heathcliff from loving her. No amount of reasoning on the part of Catherine is able to
dissuade her sister in law Isabella from falling in love with
Heathcliff.
In the same chapter, when Mr.Edgar is away on
business and Catherine and Isabella are in the library Heathcliff arrives. Catherine at
once begins to mock at both Isabella and Heathcliff and she remarks
sarcastically,
My poor little sister-in-law is breaking her
heart by mere contemplation of your physical and moral beauty. It lies in your own power
to be Edgar's
brother!
Catherine's
attitude towards her sister in law is one of pity. Having been
acquainted with Heathcliff from the time when both of them were children, she knows
fully well what sort of a person he really is and so she advises Isabella against
marrying Heathcliff. But there is no stopping Isabella who elopes with Heathcliff only
to find out, as she writes to Nelly Dean in Ch. 13:
Is Mr. Heathcliff a man?
If so, is he mad? And if not, is he a
devil?
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