The Key to the Bronte Works Part 5

"Begone!" I shouted; "I'll never let you in, not if you beg for twenty years."

In _Wuthering Heights_ Charlotte Bronte has worked the child-phantom into the story proper, setting it for the spirit of the departed Catherine, who as a child again (Method II., altering age of the character portrayed) seeks Heathcliffe. The building of the child-phantom in the plot of _Wuthering Heights_ created a peculiar state of affairs; but as we have seen by Charlotte Bronte's reference to it in the extract from _The Professor_, she was impressed by its possibilities of giving a weird spiritual atmosphere, and she did not extend the idea in _The Professor_. The substance of Charlotte Bronte's two versions of the child-phantom wailing outside a house for admittance is identical:--

_The Professor._ _Wuthering Heights._

Scene: An isolated homestead on a Scene: An isolated homestead on a winter's night, snow-wind blowing, winter's night, snow-wind blowing, storm threatening. Young stranger storm threatening. Young stranger admonished by the good housewife admonished by the good housewife that there are queer goings-on that there are queer goings-on thereabouts. thereabouts.

Subjunctive Mood. Indicative Mood.

Something might brush against Something brushes against the the lattice, and a phantom-child lattice, and a phantom-child might wail outside for succour. wails outside for succour.

On opening to admit it an awful, On opening to admit it an awful, supernatural incident might occur. supernatural incident occurs.

Thus we perceive the famous child-phantom incident in Chapter III. of _Wuthering Heights_ had its origin (1) in Montagu's lonely-house incident; (2) in Charlotte Bronte's awe of a child-apparition; (3) in Charlotte Bronte's Method II., alteration of age of character portrayed, by which Catherine the woman becomes a child again; and (4) in Charlotte Bronte's notion, as evidenced in _s.h.i.+rley_, Chapter XXIV., that a loved dead one can "revisit those they leave"; can "come in the elements"; that "wind" could give "a path to Moor(e)"--Heath(cliffe), "pa.s.sing the cas.e.m.e.nt sobbing"; that the loved dead one could "haunt" the wind.

These, then, we see were the notions in Charlotte Bronte's head responsible for Catherine's returning so sensationally to the abode of her lover as a child-spectre. For Catherine's love for Wuthering Heights was not simply because of the place and its moors, as so many writers have wrongly contended, but because it was a.s.sociated with Heathcliffe.[29] Let my reader peruse again the "wailing child" pa.s.sages I quote from _Wuthering Heights_ and _Jane Eyre_ in Chapter II. of _The Key to the Bronte Works_.

Truly the testimony of Charlotte Bronte's child-phantom were alone the sign-manual that she and none other wrote _Wuthering Heights_.

CHAPTER VII.

THE ORIGINALS OF GIMMERTON, GIMMERDEN, GIMMERTON KIRK AND CHAPEL, p.e.n.i.sTON CRAGS, THE FAIRY CAVE, ETC., IN "WUTHERING HEIGHTS," AND OF THE FAIRY CAVE AND THE FAIRY JANET IN "JANE EYRE."

The uncommon stress Charlotte Bronte has laid upon the outlandishness of the _Wuthering Heights_ country and its solitudes a.s.suredly would have been absent from that work had she drawn her background from the comparatively characterless Haworth moors on the skirts of manufacturing towns, and not from impressions created in her mind by Montagu's description in his _Gleanings in Craven_ of the wildest and weirdest scenery in Yorks.h.i.+re. There has been a noticeable tendency on the part of town-bred, and also of romantic, biographers to be awed by the ordinary moorland surroundings of Haworth, and to a.s.sociate with them all the wildness of the Craven or Scottish Highlands, though Miss Mary Robinson, whose work ent.i.tled _Emily Bronte_ is in effect an "appreciation" of _Wuthering Heights_, says frankly regarding the house standing beyond the street on the summit of Haworth Hill, shown as the original of _Wuthering Heights_, that to her thinking "this fine old farm of the Sowdens is far too near the mills of Haworth to represent the G.o.d-forsaken, lonely house." But of course an author can place a given abode against any background. Wuthering Heights has been connected by some people with a locality called Withins--how wrongly a reference to the origin of Gimmerton and Gimmerden alone shows. The primary origin of the name and t.i.tle of "Wuthering Heights" I reveal in the final chapter on "The Recoil."

The following pa.s.sage from _Wuthering Heights_ tells that Charlotte Bronte's imagination was enjoying the lat.i.tude of a half-realized, suggested background. It reads just like the traveller Montagu with his horse, attendant servant on horseback, roadside inns, hostlers, and description of country. But the connection of Montagu with Lockwood of _Wuthering Heights_ we have already seen in the early chapters of _The Key to the Bronte Works_:--

1802--This September I was invited to devastate the moors of a friend in the North, and on my journey ... I unexpectedly came within fifteen miles of Gimmerton. The hostler at a roadside public-house was holding a pail of water to refresh my horses when a cart of very green oats ... pa.s.sed by, and he remarked--

"Yon's frough Gimmerton, nah! They're allus three wick after other folk wi' ther harvest."

"Gimmerton?" I repeated; my residence in that locality had already grown dim and dreamy. "Ah, I know. How far is it from this?"

"Happen fourteen mile o'er th' hills; and a rough road." A sudden impulse seized me to visit Thrushcross Grange. It was scarcely noon, and I conceived that I might as well pa.s.s the night under my own roof as in an inn.... Having rested a while, I directed my servant to inquire the way to the village; and, with great fatigue to our beasts, we managed the distance in some three hours. I left him there, and proceeded ... down the valley alone. The grey church looked greyer, and the churchyard lonelier. I distinguished a moor sheep cropping the short turf on the graves.... The heat did not hinder me from enjoying the delightful scenery above and below; had I seen it nearer August, I'm sure it would have tempted me to waste a month among its solitudes. [Be it observed he would rather have done so than have gone to "the moors" of his friend.] In winter nothing more dreary than those glens shut in by hills,[30] and those bluff, bold swells of heath.

So we too would imagine, judging by Montagu's description of the district in his little work.

Throughout _Wuthering Heights_ we hear mention of Gimmerton, but it is apparent the village was "dim and dreamy" to Charlotte Bronte--somewhere about the little valley we should imagine, to conclude by general observations. However, clear it is that Gimmerton and Gimmerden were drawn by Charlotte Bronte merely from impressions created in her mind by other than a personal acquaintance with the district. Where then, and in what peculiar circ.u.mstances, did Charlotte receive these suggestions--suggestions that must have appealed to her at a time immediately coincident with her commencing this foundling story with the house of mystery, the inhospitable host, the uncouth man-servant, and the candle-bearing bedside visitant--all from Montagu's book? My evidence declares these suggestions also came from Montagu's little work, and that the originals of Gimmerton in _Wuthering Heights_, and Gimmerden, or the valley of Gimmerton, were Malham and Malhamdale, or the valley of Malham. This district Montagu describes as being "most interesting ... in its own variety of wildness."

I believe Kilnsey Crags, which Montagu describes on the last page of the letter next to that written from Malham, figured in Charlotte Bronte's mind as the originals of p.e.n.i.ston Crags ("p.e.n.i.ston" may have been suggested by Montagu's mention of Pennigent). Montagu's description of Kilnsey Crags I will place side by side with the reference to p.e.n.i.ston Crags in _Wuthering Heights_:--

MONTAGU. _Wuthering Heights._ Chapter XVIII.

KILNSEY CRAGS. p.e.n.i.sTON CRAGS.

A lofty range of limestone rocks The abrupt descent of p.e.n.i.ston ... stretching nearly half a Crags particularly attracted her mile along the valley, and notice; especially when the rendered perhaps, more striking setting sun shone on it and the by contrasting with the vale topmost heights, and the whole immediately at its base. extent of the landscape, besides [by contrasting] lay in shadow.

Clearly Joseph's "leading of lime" from p.e.n.i.ston Crags in _Wuthering Heights_ was suggested to Charlotte Bronte by the "Kiln" of Kilnsea Crags, and Montagu's reference to the crags being limestone. Dean describes them to Cathy, and her words are simply Montagu's description--treated ant.i.thetically--of Gordale Scar in the Malham letter:--

MONTAGU. _Wuthering Heights._ Chapter XVIII.

In the clefts in the rocks' They were bare ma.s.ses of stone, sides, or wherever a lodgement with hardly enough earth in of earth appears [is] the ... their clefts to nourish ... a yew. tree.... One of the maids mentioning the Fairy Cave, quite turned her head....

In his Malham letter Montagu describes a Fairy Cave, and of course Gimmerton has the Fairy Cave in its neighbourhood. It is placed under the Crags, but we have no description in _Wuthering Heights_:--

MONTAGU. _Wuthering Heights._ Chapter XVIII.

Montagu has a boy-guide "adapted Says Catherine Linton to the boy to show the prominent features Hareton:--"I want ... to hear to strangers." He takes Montagu about the _fairishes_, as you on to Malham, where Montagu sees call them.".... Hareton opened the Fairy Cave. This boy-guide the mysteries of the Fairy Cave was called Robert Airton, and he and twenty other queer places.

was aged twelve.[31] But ... I was not favoured with a description of the interesting objects she saw. I could gather, however, that her guide had been a favourite.

The name of Linton appears in Montagu in the letter next that in which he describes the Fairy Cave. We may understand that Charlotte Bronte's romantic imagination was entranced, as she says Catherine Linton's was, with the mention of the Fairy Cave; and _Jane Eyre_ is testimony that after writing _Wuthering Heights_ she turned again to consider its possibilities of suggestion.

In fact, I find that Charlotte Bronte when she chose the name of Janet Eyre for herself was also calling herself the Fairy Janet. And where, then, read Charlotte Bronte of the fairy Janet Eyre? The evidence of Montagu's work proves that when she wrote the name Eyre, she was implying by this Derbys.h.i.+re variant the name Aire or Ayre, meaning the river Ayre. Where acquired Charlotte Bronte so intimate an acquaintance with the history of the Fairy Janet of the Aire as to take upon herself poetically, the role of that Craven elf and her name?

Mr. Harry Speight recently, in _The Craven Highlands_, told us "the Fairy Jennet or Janet was queen of the Malhamdale elves" who frequented the enchanted ground round the source of the Aire. But prior to Montagu's dealing with Janet's Cave, the home of the Malhamdale fays, the queen-elf had been referred to as Gennet. Montagu spelt the name Jannet, and later writers having referred to him, the fairy cave now bears the name Janet's Cave. A Malham writer prior to Montagu referred only briefly to the Fairy Cave, and quite prosily. In his Malham letter Montagu says:--

"Leaving a farmhouse at the entrance of the vale to the left, we [he and his boy-guide] proceeded over two fields, then ascended about twenty yards, suddenly turned an acute angle, and penetrating some bushes we stood at the entrance of a deep and narrow glen, before a perpendicular fall of water. At the foot of this cascade is

JANNET'S CAVE.

It is so called from the queen or governess of a numerous tribe of faeries, which tradition a.s.sures us anciently held their court here; and as there may be some of my readers who may like at the moonlit hour to be entertained at one of Jannet's banquets, I will give an idea as to the mode of obtaining admission into such society.... On the evening when I first learned the mystic lore, the golden sun had kissed every flower, even unto the retiring lily, and was gliding westward when, from the heart's couch of a moss rose, there came the eldest daughter of faeryland, probably the self-same Jannet's daughter, saying:--

'I have come from whence Peace with white sceptre wafting to and fro, Smooths the wide bosom of the Elysian world,'

and who, upon being informed that I was desirous of swearing allegiance to her sweet mother, said that she would bring intelligence whether I might be admitted to her pretty va.s.salage; she then bade her attendants bring her car, which was a leaf of a favourite hyacinth, drawn by two lady-birds who were guided by reins of gossamer; the mellow horn of the herald bee summoned her attendants, who, to the number of twenty, obeyed the call; and taking the coronets from off their brows, made low obeisance to their young princess, which she pleasingly acknowledged.

Then they each captured a sphere of thistle-down, and seating themselves thereon, followed their princess; who, attended by her guards, each armed with a maiden's eye-lash, journeyed onwards towards the realms of enchanted ground. I should think that not many minutes elapsed when the cavalcade returned, and the charter written upon the leaf of a 'forget-me-not,' with the gold from a b.u.t.terfly's wing, was placed into my hand by 'a fay,' with injunctions not to divulge the secrets of the order. I would have promised but awoke from this pleasant dream."

We will now read Montagu's description of the Fairy Janet, and a fairy coming to him at sundown when adapted by Charlotte Bronte in _Jane Eyre_.

Adele asks Rochester whether she is to go to school without her governess, Jane Eyre:--

"Yes," he replied; ... "for I am to take mademoiselle to the moon, and there I shall seek a cave in one of the white valleys among the volcano tops, and mademoiselle shall live with me there, and only me."

"... But you can't get her there...."

"Adele ... late one evening ... I sat down to rest me on a stile ... when something came up the path.... Our speechless colloquy was to this effect--

"It was a fairy, and come from Elf-land, it said.... It told me of the alabaster cave and silver vale.... I said I should like to go.... 'Oh,' returned the fairy.... 'Here is a talisman which will remove all difficulties' and she held out a pretty gold ring...."

"But what has mademoiselle [Jane Eyre] to do with it? I don't care for the fairy...."

"Mademoiselle [Jane Eyre] is a fairy," he said, whispering mysteriously.

But Adele a.s.sures him she made no account of his "_contes de fee_."

For the present it is enough to know that in the main and ostensibly the Fairy Janet Eyre was Charlotte Bronte's adaptation of Montagu's Fairy Janet, the queen-elf of the Malhamdale fairies, said to frequent the enchanted land round the source of the Aire.