The Key to the Bronte Works Part 10

not call him ... names.... She'd be sadly grieved to hear you. "... I came only this evening,"

She was nearly heart-broken when I answered.

he ran off. I guess his return will make a jubilee to her." "Great G.o.d!--what delusion has come over me? What sweet madness "Oh, ... Heathcliffe's come has seized me?... Oh! I _cannot_ back--he is," panted Catherine. see.... Whatever--whoever you "... I'll ... secure my guest. are--be perceptible to my touch I'm afraid the joy is too great or I cannot live!"

to be real!"

I arrested his hand and prisoned "... Catherine, try to be glad it in both mine.

without being absurd! The whole household need not witness the "Is that Jane?"

sight of your welcoming a runaway servant." "... This is her voice," I added.... "My dear master, ... I I ... found Heathcliffe ... and am Jane Eyre:... I am come back ushered him into the presence of to you."

the master and mistress.

"In truth?--in the flesh? My ... Now, I was amazed [by] the living Jane?"

transformation of Heathcliffe;... A half-civilized "You touch me, sir--you hold me.

ferocity lurked yet in the I am not vacant like air, am I?"

depressed brows and eyes full of black fire, but it was subdued, "... But I cannot be so blest quite divested of roughness, after all my misery. It is a though too stern for grace.... dream: such dreams I have He took a seat opposite had.... But I always woke and Catherine, who kept her gaze found it an empty mockery; and I fixed on him, as if she feared was desolate and abandoned."

he would vanish were she to remove it. He did not raise his ... I began ... to withdraw to her often; a quick glance now myself from his arms--but he and then sufficed; but it eagerly s.n.a.t.c.hed me closer:-- flashed back each time; ... the undisguised delight he drank "No, you must not go. No--I have from hers.... Catherine ... rose touched you, heard you; ... my and seized Heathcliffe's hands very soul demands you.... Who again, and laughed like one can tell what a dark, hopeless beside herself. life I have dragged on for months past? ... feeling but a "I shall think it a dream ceaseless sorrow, and at times a to-morrow!" she cried. "I shall very delirium of desire to not be able to believe that I behold my Jane again. Yes; for have seen and touched, and her restoration I longed....

spoken to you once more.... Will she not depart as suddenly Cruel Heathcliffe! You don't as she came? To-morrow ... I deserve this welcome. To be shall find her no more....

absent and silent for three Cruel, cruel deserter! O Jane, years, and never to think of what did I feel when I me!" discovered you had fled and left Thornfield?"

"... I've fought through a bitter life since I last heard "Jane! ... my heart swells your voice, and you must forgive with grat.i.tude to the beneficent me, for I struggled only for G.o.d of this earth just now.... I you!" did wrong: I would have sullied my innocent flower: the "... The event of this evening," Omnipotent s.n.a.t.c.hed it from me.

said Catherine, "has reconciled I, in my stiff-necked rebellion, me to G.o.d and humanity! I had almost cursed the dispensation: risen in angry rebellion against instead of bending to the decree Providence--oh, I've endured I defied it.... Of late, Jane, very, very bitter misery.... I ... I began to experience can afford to suffer anything remorse, repentance; the wish hereafter! Should the meanest for reconciliation to my thing alive slap me on the Maker.... Now I thank G.o.d."

cheek, I'd not only turn the other, but I'd ask pardon for provoking it.... I'm an angel!"

(Later on in _Wuthering Heights_ Charlotte Bronte, temporarily neglecting her use of Method I., interchange of the s.e.xes, in this connection, makes Heathcliffe say to Catherine:--

"Why did you betray your own heart, Cathy?... You loved me, then what _right_ had you to leave me?... Because misery and degradation and death and nothing that G.o.d or Satan could inflict would have parted us, _you_ of your own will did it.").

The above parallel descriptions, it will be found, agree practically word for word. I will now give the substance side by side, and let the reader keep in mind Charlotte Bronte's Method I., interchange of the s.e.xes of characters:--

_Wuthering Heights._ _Jane Eyre._

Catherine and Heathcliffe love Jane and Rochester love each each other, but Heathcliffe other, but Jane suddenly suddenly disappears. disappears.

One evening Heathcliffe as One evening Jane as suddenly suddenly returns. The narrator returns. The narrator of the of the return of the runaway return of the runaway Jane tells Heathcliffe tells us that it is us that it is evening, and she evening, and she is outside the is outside the house, when in house, when in the dim light she the dim light she distinguishes distinguishes the figure of a the figure of a man, a stranger man, a stranger she has not seen she has not seen for some time.

for some time. Dusk as it is, Dusk as it is, she recognizes she recognizes Heathcliffe. Rochester.

In his countenance, however, In his countenance, however, there is "a transformation, ... there is "a change--that looked a half-civilized ferocity lurked desperate and brooding--that yet in his eyes full of black reminded ... of ... some fire, but was subdued." fettered wild beast ...

dangerous to approach in his sullen woe."

"What! you come back? Is it "Is it really you, Miss, come at really you?" cries the servant, this late hour?" cries the "raising her hands, uncertain servant, "starting as if she had whether to regard him as a seen a ghost," addressing the worldly visitor," addressing the runaway Jane.

runaway Heathcliffe.

"I want to have one word with "... Tell your master a person your mistress," says Heathcliffe wishes to see him," says Jane to to the servant. "Go and tell her the servant.

some person ... desires to see her."

But there is a difficulty, and But there is a difficulty, and eventually, to accomplish the eventually, to accomplish the meeting of the parted lovers, meeting of the parted lovers, the taking in of the candles is the taking in of the candles is considered as a pretext. considered as a pretext.

Catherine cries:--"Heathcliffe's Rochester cries:--"... What come back--he is.... I'm afraid sweet delusion has come over me?

the joy is too great to be What sweet madness has seized real!" me?"

"I shall think it a dream "I am come back to you," says to-morrow. I shall not be able Jane.

to believe I have seen and touched and spoken to you once "I have touched you, heard more," says Catherine to you.... To-morrow I fear I shall Heathcliffe. And reproachfully find [you] no more," says he exclaims:-- Rochester to Jane. And reproachfully he exclaims:-- "I've fought through a bitter life since last I heard your "Who can tell what a dark, voice, and you must forgive me, hopeless life I have dragged on for I struggled only for you." for months past? ... feeling ...

but ... a ceaseless sorrow and "Cruel Heathcliffe, you don't ... a very delirium of desire to deserve this welcome," says behold my Jane again. Yes; for Catherine; "to be absent ... and her restoration I longed....

never think of me." Cruel, cruel, deserter! O Jane, what did I feel when I discovered you had fled from Thornfield?" says Rochester.

Catherine had risen in angry Rochester had risen in angry rebellion against G.o.d because of rebellion against G.o.d because of the cruel fate that had divided the cruel fate that had divided her and Heathcliffe; but now him and Jane, but now that she that he was restored to her, she was restored to him, he was was reconciled, and was thankful reconciled, and was thankful of of heart. heart.

And thus, from the rainy day And thus, from the rainy day incident in Catherine's early incident in Jane's early childhood to the reconciliation childhood to the reconciliation of Catherine and Heathcliffe, we of Jane and Rochester, we have have the main narrative of the the main narrative of the heroine and hero of _Wuthering heroine and hero of _Jane Eyre_, Heights_, obviously written by obviously written by Charlotte Charlotte Bronte from facts in Bronte from facts in her own her own life. life.

The absolute dependence of Charlotte Bronte's _Wuthering Heights_, _Jane Eyre_, and _Villette_ upon her own inner life in relation to M. Heger is proved by the evidence in the chapter on "The Rivers Family," in the chapters on "Eugene Sue and Charlotte Bronte's Brussels Life," and in those ent.i.tled "The Recoil."

CHAPTER XII.

EUGeNE SUE AND CHARLOTTE BRONTe'S BRUSSELS LIFE.

I.

MDLLE. LAGRANGE AND HER Ma.n.u.sCRIPT "CATHERINE BELL THE ORPHAN."

When Mrs. Gaskell published her Bronte biography it was discovered that while she had been enabled by aid of the ma.s.s of commonplace Bronte correspondence to present an interesting picture of the domestic conditions at the Haworth parsonage, she had yet been unable to throw any light upon that episode in Charlotte Bronte's life which, it had been suspected, was responsible for the extraordinary love pa.s.sages in the Bronte works and Miss Bronte's insistence in choosing the hero of each of her books from the same model.

It is therefore most miraculous and sensational that after having found Montagu's _Gleanings in Craven_ was the key to _Wuthering Heights_ and _Jane Eyre_, I should further come to discover, what the world had thought would never be found: external evidence throwing light upon Miss Bronte's real relations with the Hegers at Brussels, to whose _pensionnat_ she went in the 'forties. This discovery was the subject of my article "The Lifting of the Bronte Veil" Mr. W. L. Courtney commissioned me to write in the _Fortnightly Review_. Therein I showed Eugene Sue had presented the whole history of M. Heger's pa.s.sion for Charlotte Bronte, and Madame Heger's jealousy, in a work ent.i.tled _Miss Mary ou l'Inst.i.tutrice_, published in 1850-51--seven years before the publication of Mrs. Gaskell's _Life_, and before the publication of either _The Professor_ or _Villette_; and we saw that M. Heger knew all Miss Bronte's literary secrets in 1850.

Skilfully enough Eugene Sue in this story--the first version of which was issued serially in September 1850, from _The Weekly Times_ Office, London, whence were published many of M. Sue's serials;[56] the second, an abridged and altered version for French readers, published in Paris in March 1851--gave two phases of Charlotte Bronte, something after the method we see Miss Bronte herself employed in _Jane Eyre_, wherein she gave two phases of Tabitha Aykroyd, one in the beginning as Bessie, another later on as Hannah of the Rivers family.[57]

Indeed it will be found that in this work Eugene Sue also imitated Charlotte Bronte's Method I., interchange of the s.e.xes of characters portrayed from life.

The two phases of Miss Bronte in this romance are Miss Mary Lawson, an Irish governess at the de Morville establishment; and Mademoiselle Lagrange, a former governess at the same house. The Mademoiselle Lagrange is, however, always referred to in the abstract, and serves to ill.u.s.trate, it appears, Miss Bronte before her first departure from and return to Brussels, as well as after, for she was twice at the Hegers.

And it may be observed that Charlotte Bronte was called "Mademoiselle Charlotte" at the Heger _pension_ when she was governess there in 1843.

Certainly the choice of Lagrange for Miss Bronte was pertinent: _la grange_ is French for "the barn," and may have been suggested by the Eyre of _Jane Eyre_, which to a French ear would recall _aire_--a barn floor. Mdlle. Lagrange who had left the de Morville (_Anglice_, Morton.

As we have seen, Morton of _Jane Eyre_ was Haworth to Charlotte Bronte) establishment on account of the jealousy of Madame de Morville, whom I identify as Madame Heger, is a plain-featured literary aspirant, and she writes a ma.n.u.script ent.i.tled not exactly Currer Bell, but "Kitty Bell, the Orphan."

This ma.n.u.script has been sent by the author for an opinion of its merits to M. de Morville, who reads it aloud to his family. It is a parody, as it were, of _Jane Eyre_, with an imitation of Charlotte Bronte's methods of introducing private biographical facts. For instance, in presenting the Lowood school incidents it calls the school "the Kendall Inst.i.tute,"

named after "a Mr. Kendall, its founder." Evidently the writer had heard, as only few indeed had at this early day, that the Lowood school of _Jane Eyre_ was afterwards removed to Casterton in the Union of Kendal, or had heard that in a wise it was connected with a place of that name.

Other extraordinary facts with which he shows acquaintance are, that Charlotte Bronte had a sister Elizabeth at this school; that Helen Burns was her sister; that there was a West Indian girl at the school; that Charlotte Bronte was born on or about the 21st of April; that she might be called Kitty (Currer) Bell at home, but she must be called Catherine (Catherine Earnshaw); that Miss Bronte was the governess-daughter of an Irishman; that the original of John Reed was her brother and was no hero, and had shown strange signs of insanity during the last year or two, as it is now known he had at the time; that a female relative had provided Miss Bronte the money for the _pensionnat_; that skin disorders as well as the typhus fever were prevalent at the Clergy Daughters'

School (it is in a private letter that Miss Bronte referred to scrofula at this school); that the original of Mr. Rochester was a foreigner and a resident abroad, an ex-soldier, and married to a lady who was not pretty, albeit "la vivacite, l'agrement de sa physionomie expressive, suppleaient a la beaute qui lui manquait"; that Charlotte Bronte had had in her possession since her childhood an old copy in English of _The Imitation of Christ_; that Miss Bronte was called a _bas bleu_ at the _pensionnat_; that to form an opinion of her character by Madame Heger's estimate of her disposition would be completely erroneous; that M. Heger was accustomed to read _feuilletons_ aloud; that religious differences existed between her and others at the establishment where Charlotte Bronte was; that Catherine's (Catherine Earnshaw's) rival was Isabella (Heathcliffe's wife--Madame Heger of the Rue d'Isabelle); that Miss Bronte travelled alone to Brussels and was accosted by _deux jeunes gens_--compare the opening chapters of _Miss Mary_ with Lucy Snowe's arrival at Villette, evidently in some wise founded on fact, as to these two young men. See also _The Professor_, Chapter VII.

But to return to "Mdlle. Lagrange's Ma.n.u.script," the pseudo _Jane Eyre_, which of course at once identifies its author, Mdlle. Lagrange, as Charlotte Bronte, I find therein the whole Lowood school incidents--the typhus fever, the hair-cutting incident, the death of the consumptive Helen Burns, etc., amplified with biographical additions. For instance, take the hair-cutting incident of _Jane Eyre_ as represented in "Lagrange's Ma.n.u.script"--

The master called out:--

"Elizabeth----"

... Meanwhile all the Elizabeths in the school must have felt the claws of the tiger in their necks, for who could tell which of them it was?...

"Superintendent of the Kendall Inst.i.tute! you are aware, madam, one of the rules of this establishment enjoins you to cut short the hair of every new girl.... And yet what do I see? Six girls with long hair...."