The Key to the Bronte Works Part 3

It is interesting to recall Branwell avowed he, and not Emily, wrote _Wuthering Heights_. This fact and the a.s.sociation of Branwell Bronte incidents and epithets with the book induced Mr. Leyland to advocate Branwell's authors.h.i.+p. _The Key to the Bronte Works_ shows the absurdness of such a claim. Mr. Leyland suggested Branwell may have collaborated with Emily; and he professed to discover a break in the style. I find, however, that though there were violent psychical fluctuations in the mood of the writer of _Wuthering Heights_, the book is throughout the work of Charlotte Bronte. This may be proved alone by the Chapter III., with which I now deal: it is the "key" chapter, and is, so to speak, a microcosm of _Wuthering Heights_, as the reader will perceive by help of my index. Whosoever was the writer of this third chapter wrote the whole of _Wuthering Heights_, and we see it was Currer Bell.

By Charlotte Bronte's Method I., interchange of the s.e.xes, the interloper Jane in the early chapters of _Jane Eyre_ and the interloper Heathcliffe in the early chapters of _Wuthering Heights_ become one and the same; and Hindley's tyrannizing over Heathcliffe is John Reed's (Branwell Bronte's) tyrannizing over Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte).

Again, by Method I., interchange of the s.e.xes, old Joseph, in Charlotte's _Wuthering Heights_ version of the rainy day incident in her childhood, serves the part of the servant Tabitha Aykroyd, for whom Bessie in the _Jane Eyre_ version of the rainy day incident was drawn.

(See "Joseph" and his bit of garden, _Wuthering Heights_, Chapter x.x.xIII.; also my footnote on page 47.) Thus Charlotte Bronte as Catherine tells us that when she was banished from the comfortable fire "Joseph" sermonizes, and that she hoped he might give "a short homily for his own sake"; and in the scene in _Jane Eyre_ drawn from the same incident Jane was left to Bessie, who "supplied the hiatus by a homily of an hour's length, in which she proved beyond a doubt that I was the most wicked and abandoned child ever reared under a roof."

Catherine's story of the rainy day in _Wuthering Heights_ was written by her in childhood on "a 'red-hot' Methodist's tract." Hence it is interesting to read Charlotte Bronte's words in _Villette_, where as Lucy Snowe she says she had "once read when a child certain Wesleyan Methodist tracts seasoned with ... excitation to fanaticism." As Caroline Helstone[21] in _s.h.i.+rley_, Charlotte tells us she had read "some mad Methodist magazines, full of miracles and apparitions, of preternatural warnings, ominous dreams, and frenzied fanaticism; ...

from these faded flowers Caroline had in her childhood extracted the honey--they were tasteless to her now." Let the reader compare Charlotte Bronte's reference to Briar Chapel and the shouts, yells, e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns, frantic cries of "the a.s.sembly" in Chapter IX. of _s.h.i.+rley_ with the references in Chapter III. of _Wuthering Heights_ to the frantic zeal of "the a.s.sembly" of the chapel of Gimmerden Sough. It will be at once recognized that the former is but the extension of the other, amplified by the same hand.

Thus, in the light of the name Branderham ("Brander'em," from "brander,"

a hot iron over a fire) for the name of the zealous Rev. Jabes Branderham,[22] of the chapel of Gimmerden Sough, of _Wuthering Heights_, we see a connection with the play Charlotte Bronte makes upon "burning and fire" in the hymn sung at Briar Chapel in Chapter IX. of _s.h.i.+rley_:--

"For every fight Is dreadful and loud-- The warrior's delight Is slaughter and blood; His foes overturning Till all shall expire-- And this is with burning And fuel and fire."

In the rainy day incident Charlotte Bronte as Catherine vowed "she hated a good book," and this rebellion against the thrusting upon her of religious "lumber," as she calls it in _Wuthering Heights_, was a characteristic of her childhood shown also in the "Jane Eyre and Mr.

Brocklehurst" incident, where the latter asks--

"And the Psalms? I hope you like them?"

"No, sir," replied Jane.

"No? Oh, shocking!"

At heart, however, Charlotte Bronte was a true Christian, though disliking excessive zealousness in the demonstrations of the members of any church. Read what M. Emanuel says in Chap. x.x.xVI. of _Villette_; the last paragraph. Lockwood tells us in the incident connected with Catherine's diary that "a glare of white letters started from the dark as vivid as spectres--the air swarmed with Catherines." This, Charlotte Bronte's idea of spectral writing running in the air, occurs in Chap.

XV. of _Jane Eyre_, where Rochester speaks of a phantom hag (see Charlotte Bronte's phantom hag in Chap. XII. of _Wuthering Heights_), who "wrote in the air a memento which ran in lurid hieroglyphics all along the house-front." Says Lockwood in _Wuthering Heights_, continuing:--"An immediate interest kindled within me for the unknown Catherine, and I began ... to decipher her hieroglyphics"--the diary.

CHAPTER V.

CHARLOTTE BRONTe'S FRIEND, TABITHA AYKROYD, THE BRONTeS' SERVANT, AS MRS. DEAN OF "WUTHERING HEIGHTS," AND AS BESSIE AND HANNAH OF "JANE EYRE."

It is a remarkable fact that of all the members of Charlotte Bronte's home circle the one to whom, excepting herself, she gave most prominence in her works was Tabitha Aykroyd, the Brontes' servant or housekeeper.

For I find this good woman was portrayed by Charlotte Bronte as Mrs.

Dean of _Wuthering Heights_, Bessie and Hannah of _Jane Eyre_, and, on occasion, as Mrs. Pryor of _s.h.i.+rley_. Indeed, strange though it may sound to say, my discovery that Tabitha Aykroyd, as she appealed to Currer Bell, was the original of these characters, alone explains the chief mystery of _Wuthering Heights_, and shows clearly enough Charlotte Bronte was its heroine and its author. In a word, we see by this discovery that _Wuthering Heights_ is book the first of Charlotte Bronte's life as told by herself from old Tabitha's standpoint, and _Jane Eyre_ book the second, giving her life's story and confession as related by herself entirely from her own point of view.

Never in _Wuthering Heights_ did Nelly Dean really understand Catherine, and "the honest but inflexible servant," as Currer Bell calls Tabitha as Hannah of _Jane Eyre_, never yielded herself to a surrender of her rough-hearted but genuine nature wherein Charlotte was concerned.

"Tabby," said Mrs. Gaskell, "had a Yorks.h.i.+re keenness of perception into character, and it was not everybody she liked." That Tabitha Aykroyd would readily appeal to Charlotte Bronte as fitted for the narrator of the histories in _Wuthering Heights_ we may easily perceive by reading Mrs. Gaskell's further words on this Bronte servant:--

"When Charlotte was little more than nine years old ... an elderly woman of the village came to live as servant at the parsonage. She remained there, as a member of the household, thirty years [Hannah was thirty years with the Rivers family in _Jane Eyre_--an approximate date, of course, when that work was written] and from the length of her faithful service, and the attachment and respect she inspired is deserving of mention. Tabby was a thorough specimen of a Yorks.h.i.+re woman of her cla.s.s, in dialect, in character. She abounded in strong, practical sense and shrewdness. Her words were far from flattering, but she would spare no deeds in the cause of those whom she kindly regarded. She ruled the children pretty sharply; and yet never grudged a little extra trouble to provide them with such small treats as came within her power. In return she claimed to be looked upon as a humble friend.... Tabby had lived in Haworth in the days when the pack-horses went through once a week....

What is more, she had known the 'bottom' or valley in those primitive days when the fairies frequented the margin of the 'beck' on moonlight nights, and had known folk who had seen them. [See references to 'Bessie's' fairy tales in _Jane Eyre_, Chaps. I., II., and IV.].... No doubt she had many a tale to tell of bygone days of the countryside: old ways of living, former inhabitants, decayed gentry, who had melted away, and whose places knew them no more; family tragedies and dark superst.i.tious dooms; and in telling these things, without the least consciousness that there might ever be anything requiring to be softened down, would give at full length the bare and simple details."

Says Mrs. Dean, the Yorks.h.i.+re servant who narrates the family tragedies of _Wuthering Heights_ just after the manner of Tabitha Aykroyd:--

"But, Mr. Lockwood, I forget these tales cannot divert you, ... I could have told Heathcliffe's history, all that you need hear, in half-a-dozen words."

"Sit still, Mrs. Dean," cried Lockwood, "... you've done just right to tell the story leisurely. That is the method I like....

Excepting a few provincialisms, ... you have no marks of the manners ... peculiar to your cla.s.s; ... you have been compelled to cultivate your reflective faculties for want of occasions for frittering your life away in silly trifles."

Mrs. Dean laughed. "I certainly esteem myself a steady, reasonable kind of body," she said; "not exactly from living among the hills and seeing one set of faces, and one series of actions, from year's end to year's end; but I have undergone sharp discipline which has taught me wisdom."

"Jane" says of Mrs. Dean as "Bessie" of _Jane Eyre_, Chap. IV., Method II., altering the age of characters portrayed:--

When gentle, Bessie seemed to me the ... kindest being in the world;... I wished ... intensely ... she would always be so pleasant and amiable, and never push about or scold, or task me unreasonably, as she was ... wont to do. Bessie Lee[23] must, I think, have been a girl of good natural capacity, for she was smart in all she did, and had a remarkable knack of narrative; so, at least, I judge from the impression made upon me by her nursery tales.... But she had a capricious and hasty temper and indifferent ideas of principle or justice ["Hannah" would have driven off the dest.i.tute Jane Eyre], still, such as she was, I preferred her to any one else at Gateshead Hall.

"Mrs. Dean"[24] in her turn says of "Catherine"--Charlotte Bronte:--

"She was never so happy as when we were all scolding her at once and she defying us.... I vexed her frequently by trying to bring down her arrogance; she never took an aversion to me though."

In Chap. IV. of _Jane Eyre_ Bessie says to Jane Eyre, after the latter has asked her not to scold:--

"Well, I will, but mind you are a very good girl, and don't be afraid of me. Don't start when I chance to speak sharply."

"I don't think I shall ever be afraid of you again, Bessie, because I have got used to you."

Jane suggests Bessie dislikes her, to which is replied:--

"I don't dislike you.... I believe I am fonder of you than of all the others."

"You don't show it."

"You sharp little thing!... What makes you so venturesome and hardy?"

The idiosyncratic appeal Tabitha Aykroyd made to Charlotte is related identically wherever she is portrayed. That Charlotte Bronte had been initially entranced by her fairy tales, and the old songs she sang, is shown more especially in the phases she gives of Tabitha as Bessie and as Ellen Dean. Thus we read in _Jane Eyre_, Chap. IV., in the close of the scene just given:--

"That afternoon lapsed in peace and harmony; ... in the evening Bessie told me some of her most enchaining stories, and sang me some of her sweetest songs. Even for me life had its gleams of suns.h.i.+ne." And in _Wuthering Heights_, Chap. XXII., Ellen Dean says of Miss Catherine Linton (see my reference to this character as a phase of Charlotte Bronte, in my preface):--"From dinner to tea she would lie doing nothing except singing old songs--my nursery lore--to herself, ... half thinking, half dreaming, happier than words can express." So in the same work, Chap. XXIV., the same Catherine says:--"He was charmed with two or three pretty songs [I sang]--_your_ songs, Ellen." The italics are Charlotte Bronte's.

_Jane Eyre_, Chap. III., says:--

Bessie had now finished ... tidying the room ... she sang:--

"In the days we went agipsying A long time ago."

I had often heard the song before, and always with lively delight; for Bessie had a sweet voice--at least I thought so. But now, though her voice was still sweet, I found in its melody an indescribable sadness. Sometimes, preoccupied with her work, she sang the refrain very low, very lingeringly: "a long time ago,"

came like the saddest cadence of a funeral hymn. She pa.s.sed into another ballad.

Tabby Aykroyd going to the Parsonage when the motherless Charlotte Bronte was but nine, Charlotte seems to have been drawn to look upon her as a new-found friend, and afterwards she idealized those memories a.s.sociated with her. It is noticeable she had been impressed in childhood by her singing and the sympathetic sweetness of her voice.

There is a world of meaning--a gracious waiving aside of qualifying fact in the sentence, "Bessie had a sweet voice--at least I thought so."

Charlotte was fond of Scottish ballads, and in _Villette_, Chapter XXV., she identifies herself in her phase as Paulina (see my further reference to this phase of Charlotte Bronte) with a a love for a Scottish song.

With Tabitha Aykroyd she loved to a.s.sociate the singing of her favourite ballads, as we have seen in her reference to the songs of Tabitha in her phases as Bessie of _Jane Eyre_ and Mrs. Dean of _Wuthering Heights_.

And so it is we find Mrs. Dean telling us in Chapter IX. of _Wuthering Heights_, 'I was rocking Hareton on my knee, and humming a song that began:--

"It was far in the night and the bairnies grat, The mither beneath the mools heard that."'

Whether traits of Nancy Garrs or her sister, or Martha Brown, the other Bronte servants, contributed to Charlotte's portrayal is doubtful. I think they did not. We see in this chapter the original of Bessie of _Jane Eyre_ was certainly the original of Mrs. Dean of _Wuthering Heights_--Tabitha Aykroyd; and as Charlotte Bronte portrayed Mrs. Dean as an elderly woman servant, before she began _Jane Eyre_, we must decide the question of the real age of the original of Bessie by that fact. Confirming is the portrayal of the same character by Charlotte as the elderly Hannah in _Jane Eyre_. See my chapter on "The Rivers or Bronte Family."[25]