The Key to the Bronte Works Part 2

instantly determined forehead. The it was candle to make the best intruder appeared to light.... A form fight I could, ... hesitate.... emerged from the and with my partially closet; it took the closed eyes turned ... Heathcliffe stood light and held it towards the near the entrance, in aloft.... I had risen trap-door. I had only his s.h.i.+rt and up in bed, I bent just time to make my trousers, with a forward, ... then my arrangements when, candle dripping over blood crept cold clad in a white gown, his fingers and his through my veins....

fastened close up to face white.... The It was not even that her neck, with her first creak of the strange woman Grace black hair, matted by oak startled him, ... Poole [the thick-set carelessness, hanging the light leaped from servant].... It over her collar, and his hold.... seemed ... a woman as pale as death, ... with thick and ascended my hostess. "It is only your dark hair hanging Never shall I forget guest, sir," I called long down her back. I her dreadfully out. "I had the know not what dress hideous expression. nightmare." she had on: it was She came up to the white and straight; bedside and looked at "Mr. Lockwood ... who but whether gown, me for a full minute, showed you up to this sheet or shroud I and after pa.s.sing the room?" grinding his cannot tell. The candle carefully teeth to control the features were fearful before my eyes, left maxillary and ghastly to me; me, and carefully convulsions. ... it was a savage descended the ladder. face. I wish I could "It was your servant, forget ... the Montagu arises, and, Zillah," I replied, lineaments.... Just looking down the flinging myself on to at my bedside the ladder, finds the the floor, and ... figure stopped: the thick-set servant is resuming my fiery eye glared upon also astir with the garments.... "The me--she thrust up her mysterious, hideous place ... is swarming candle close to my visitant. Then with ghosts and face, and Montagu hears his goblins." extinguished it under trap-door replaced; my eyes.

and he wakes to learn "What do you mean?"

he has had the asked Heathcliffe.... "Now," says nightmare. "Lie down and finish Rochester. "I'll out the night since explain to you all you _are_ here...." about it. It was half dream, half reality: I descended; ... a woman did, I doubt nothing was stirring not, enter your room; ... and then Joseph and that woman [shuffled] down a was--must have wooden ladder that been--Grace Poole vanished through a [the thick-set trap--the ascent to servant]. You call his garret, I her a strange being suppose. yourself."

Truly Montagu's description of the coa.r.s.e-voiced, thick-set, country-bred servant, and his implication with the mystery of the lonely house had impressed Charlotte Bronte considerably. Whether she portrayed him as the Joseph of _Wuthering Heights_ or, by her Method I., as the Grace Poole of _Jane Eyre_, Charlotte Bronte respects the original a.s.sociations of this character as they were figured to her by Frederic Montagu's little fiction of "A Night's Repose." Herewith have we evidence as to mental idiosyncrasy and elective-sensitiveness recognizable as Charlotte Bronte's--proof that her brain and none other was responsible for both the _Wuthering Heights_ and the _Jane Eyre_ versions of the midnight incident from Montagu.

CHAPTER III.

ORIGIN OF THE FOUNDLING HEATHCLIFFE AND HIS NAME IN "WUTHERING HEIGHTS"--ORIGIN OF THE INSANE LADY AND THE WHITE VEIL SCENE IN "JANE EYRE."

We have now seen that Montagu's book provided Charlotte Bronte with the idea for a lonely house of mystery--a mystery which should surround a host with a peculiar, harsh-voiced, uncouth, north-country servant, and I have shown how that idea was adopted by her for _Wuthering Heights_ and afterwards for _Jane Eyre_. At one time Charlotte Bronte wrote the _Tale of a Foundling_, and she certainly read with interest a remarkable story told by Montagu of a foundling who, he tells us in the letter next before the Malham letter, was discovered by a shepherd on the top of a craggy "mountain," a circ.u.mstance which perhaps led her in making use of this foundling story to name the child Heathcliffe. I will place the substance of the two stories side by side:--

MONTAGU. _Wuthering Heights._

On the top of a craggy height In a wild, hilly country, a male a male infant "was found by a infant was brought home by a shepherd, who took it to his farmer who had found it home, and after feeding and homeless. He brought up the clothing it he had the child child, and the rest of its named Simon; being himself but career is the obvious "cuckoo a poor man he was unable to story": the child ousts the poor maintain the foundling," when farmer's family. It was called was agreed to by his friends Heathcliffe.

that the child should be kept "ameng 'em." The child was called Simon Amenghem.

The cuckoo story derived obviously from the history Montagu gives of the foundling became thus the backbone of _Wuthering Heights_; but it is possible that the cuckoo story requiring the foundling should be painted with all the viciousness and cruelty of character necessary to his part, Charlotte Bronte found herself dissatisfied with the story. And portraying herself in the narrative as Catherine Earnshaw, her hero became M. Heger. This naturally led to an awkward clas.h.i.+ng. Whether the extreme "demonism" of Heathcliffe must be understood as being in the main due to his role as the "cuckoo," who was to oust the poor farmer's offspring "like unfledged dunnocks," to quote Mrs. Dean, I will not in this chapter inquire.

Turning again to Montagu's book, Charlotte saw a further suggestion that contained excellent "plot" possibilities. This was the question of lunacy being an exception to the objection against the separation of husband and wife, Montagu's relation being Barry Cornwall (to whom, by the way, Thackeray dedicated _Vanity Fair_), who was a Metropolitan Commissioner in Lunacy. To Charlotte Bronte, however, the subject came simply as a useful suggestion. She had no views upon it, and she desired only that her heroine would marry Rochester, the hero with an insane wife. At heart Charlotte was indifferent as to the vital point, even nullifying the very theme of the plot by making Rochester aver that if Jane Eyre had been the mad wife, he would still have loved and cherished her.

It would appear that in conjunction with Montagu's remarks on lunacy and the separation of husband and wife, an extract he gives from Sh.e.l.ley is also responsible for a wife's lunacy being the theme of the plot of _Jane Eyre_. The extract which Montagu quotes in the Malham letter is where the poet speaks of "The Waning Moon" as like--

"A ... lady lean and pale Who totters forth wrapt in a gauzy veil Out of her chamber led by the insane And feeble wanderings of her fading brain."

Thus was evidently suggested to Charlotte Bronte the hanging up in the closet of the "vapoury veil" for the stage purposes of the "insane lady"; and in _Jane Eyre_ Montagu's night-wandering, candle-bearing hostess became a lady who pa.s.sed, after the manner of the lines he quoted,--

Out of her chamber led by the insane And feeble wanderings of her fading brain--

became Mrs. Rochester. Norton Conyers, a house near Ripon, it is said, is a.s.sociated with the story that a mad woman was once confined there.[17] If Charlotte Bronte was familiar with this story, and we are told the interior is somewhat similar to the descriptions of Thornfield, we can understand that, perusing Montagu's book at the time when she was utilizing his narrative of the candle-bearing, hideous-faced, white-clad midnight visitant in a house of mystery, she would the more readily appropriate the further suggestions his work contained in regard to a wife's insanity, and the "veil-clad" apparition of a night-roaming insane lady. It is important to note, however, that the evidence of my preceding chapter proves indubitably the "mad woman" was but a secondary suggestion--the primary suggestion responsible for the plot of _Jane Eyre_ being that of Montagu's midnight apparition. And just as the thick-set country-bred servant denotes in the question as to the origin and author of the candle-bearing bedside visitant in _Wuthering Heights_ and _Jane Eyre_, the "gauzy veil" likewise denotes as to the origin of the mad woman of _Jane Eyre_. So we read in the beginning of Chapter XXV. of _Jane Eyre_, that Jane leaves the vapoury veil in the closet:--

To conceal the strange, wraith-like apparel it contained; which, at this evening hour ... gave out certainly a most ghostly s.h.i.+mmer through the shadow of my apartment. "I will leave you by yourself, white dream," I said.

Then farther on we read that:--

The moon shut herself wholly within her chamber, and drew close her curtain of cloud,

which is simply an ant.i.thetical paraphrase of Montagu's quoted verse on "The Waning Moon" which, like

A ... lady ... pale ... totters forth wrapt in a gauzy veil, out of her chamber.

And in the same chapter of _Jane Eyre_ we read finally that the insane lady, who has come out of her chamber,

"... took my veil from its place; she held it up, gazed at it long, and then she threw it over her head, and turned to the mirror ... it removed my veil from its gaunt head, rent it in two parts, and flinging both on the floor, trampled on them."

CHAPTER IV.

A RAINY DAY IN CHARLOTTE BRONTe'S CHILDHOOD: THE OPENING INCIDENT IN THE AUTOBIOGRAPHIES OF THE HEROINES OF "WUTHERING HEIGHTS" AND "JANE EYRE."

Seeing Catherine Earnshaw, the heroine of _Wuthering Heights_, was drawn, as I find, by Charlotte Bronte for her autobiographical self, the real commencement of that work, in so far as personal narrative was concerned, is the diary extract she wrote of herself in her earliest childhood.[18] In _Jane Eyre_ she placed her earliest childhood memories at the beginning of the story. I will give extracts side by side, when it will be seen they agree practically word for word. It is of course undeniable that none but Charlotte Bronte herself would or could have penned these incidents of her own childhood.

_Wuthering Heights._ _Jane Eyre._

Chapter III. Chapter I.

A rainy day in the early A rainy day in the early childhood of Catherine childhood of Jane Eyre, Earnshaw, as told by herself. as told by herself.

... All day had been flooding There was no possibility of with rain; we could not go to taking a walk that day, ...

church. the cold winter wind had brought with it a rain so penetrating that further outdoor exercise was out of the question.

Hindley [Branwell Bronte] and Eliza, John [Branwell Bronte], his wife [? Sister Maria] basked and Georgiana were now cl.u.s.tered downstairs before a comfortable round their mamma [Aunt fire. Branwell] in the drawing-room ... by the fireside ... looking perfectly happy.

Heathcliffe [Method I., Me she had dispensed from interchange of the s.e.xes. In joining the group.... A small the childhood of Heathcliffe breakfast-room adjoined the Charlotte often portrays drawing-room; I slipped in herself], myself, and the ... there, ... I possessed myself of ploughboy were commanded to take a volume, ... I mounted into the our prayer-books and mount ... window-seat, ... and having on a sack ... [in the garret. drawn the ... curtain nearly They go downstairs again]. close, I was shrined in ...

retirement.... With ... [a book]

"You forget you have a master in on my knee I was ... happy; ...

me," says the tyrant [Hindley: but interruption ... came too Branwell Bronte]. soon. The ... door opened: "Boh!" cried the voice of John ... We made ourselves ... snug Reed [Branwell Bronte].

... in the arch of the dresser.

I had just fastened our "It is well I drew the curtain,"

pinafores together and hung them thought I, ... but Eliza ...

up for a curtain, when in comes said: "She is in the Joseph.[19]... He tears down my window-seat, ... Jack handiwork [the curtain], boxes [Branwell]."

my ears, and ... thrust [a book]

upon us.... I took my ... volume ... and hurled it into the dog-kennel, vowing I hated a good book.

Hindley [Branwell Bronte] I came out immediately, for I hurried up from his paradise on trembled at the idea of being the hearth, and seizing ... us dragged forth by the said Jack ... hurled both into the [Branwell Bronte].

back-kitchen.

"What were you doing behind the curtain?" he asked. "I'll teach you to rummage my bookshelves, for they _are_ mine; all the house belongs to me, or soon will do.... Go ... by the door."

I did so, ... but ... I saw him lift the book and stand in the act to hurl it.... The volume was flung.... He ran ... at me.... I saw in him a tyrant....

Then Mrs. Reed [Aunt Branwell]

subjoined: "Take her to the red-room."...

... How little did I dream that ... All John Reed's [Branwell Hindley [Branwell Bronte] would Bronte's] violent tyrannies ...

ever make me cry so.... My head turned in my disturbed mind....

aches, till I cannot keep it on My head still ached ... no one the pillow; and still I can't reproved John [Branwell].... How give over. all my brain was in tumult.... I could not answer the question _why_ I thus suffered; now at the distance of--I will not say how many years--I see it clearly.

Thus we see the "volume-hurling" incident with which John Reed is a.s.sociated had its origin in some incident connected with Charlotte Bronte's childhood and her brother Branwell. As Catherine, Charlotte Bronte calls Hindley "a tyrant" in this connection, and as Jane Eyre she calls John Reed "a tyrant" here. Branwell, as John Reed, is made to tell Jane in connection with this incident that "all this house belongs to me, or will do"; and as Hindley Earnshaw he tells his sister Catherine, "You forget you have a master here." By Charlotte Bronte's Method II., altering the age of a character portrayed, Branwell is represented in the _Wuthering Heights_ scene as a man in years. Without further appeal it was likely enough that Hindley Earnshaw, Catherine's brother, was drawn for Charlotte Bronte's brother, seeing Catherine was Charlotte.

Herewith we find an explanation for a fact Mr. Francis A. Leyland has strongly emphasized in his work _The Bronte Family_, that in _Wuthering Heights_ incidents (the carving-knife incident, etc.) and epithets known by his intimates to have been common to Branwell Bronte are a.s.sociated with Hindley Earnshaw in the days of his moral deterioration. That deterioration is reflected in the portrayal of the latter end of John Reed in _Jane Eyre_; in _Wuthering Heights_ it is given in detail. As for Emily Bronte, she always liked and commiserated with Branwell Bronte.[20]

I hope the attempt to interfere with this tradition recently has no relation to the fact that I briefly stated in my _Fortnightly Review_ article that John Reed and Hindley Earnshaw were one and the same. It is plain to see that if Emily really liked Branwell, as people stated who gleaned from hearsay, she could not have portrayed him as Hindley Earnshaw. But a wrong estimate of the nature of the evidence I promised to bring has been formed if it were thought I should base my book upon such a point. It is enough that Charlotte Bronte's private letters regarding Branwell are quite in agreement with her own harsh portrayals of him in her _Wuthering Heights_ and _Jane Eyre_.