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Hareton enters, "dilating his nostrils", and deigns not to speak with our long-suffering narrator. Said narrator concludes that since he is looking for a shovel, it must be time to leave! And makes ready to do so.
Hareton Earnshaw, however, points at the door to the inside of the house,
intimating by an inarticulate sound that there was the place where I must go, if I changed my locality.
That is the longest way to say a man grunted which I have ever had the misfortune to read.
So through the door we go! The ladies are up by now; Zillah is waking up the coals into flames, and Mrs. Heathcliff is... on the floor?
and Mrs Heathcliff, kneeling on the hearth, reading a book by the aid of the blaze.
On the floor.
Now I admit, my first reaction to this was "this is stupid, why would she be right next to the fireplace while Zillah is blowing air into it, she'll get covered in ash!"
desisting from it only to chide the servant for covering her with sparks
Oh.
This paragraph is written as though Lockwood watched them in silence for some time, broken only by the occasional snipping of the lady - until suddenly OH BY THE WAY HEATHCLIFF IS HERE TOO AND HE'S YELLING AT ZILLAH!
Hmm, what could he possibly be yelling at her about...?
Zillah seems to have taken it reasonably well, and we are just in time to see Heathcliff turn his anger on the china-doll!
"And you, you worthless --" he broke out as I entered, turning to his daughter-in-law, and employing an epithet as harmless as duck, or sheep, but generally represented by a dash ----.
That is the most amusing commentary on the word 'bitch' I have ever seen. Clearly Emily has opinions on this matter!
Heathcliff proceeds to berate her for being idle and unhelpful and living on his charity and demands she put the book away. She complies, retorting that she only does it because she knows he'll make her otherwise, but she won't do a thing she doesn't want to.
Er? Right?
Heathcliff moves to hit her but she scrambles out of reach. Lockwood, showing one of his rare moments of perspicacity, quickly steps into the room while pretending he just entered and saw none of it.
The two of them, being sensible enough not to fight in front of a stranger, settle down sullenly, for, as Lockwood put it: "the remainder of my stay. That was not long."
Huzzah! WE'RE FINALLY LEAVING WUTHERING HEIGHTS! The estate, that is. Not the book.
We've got a couple hundred more pages to go for that one.