The Key to the Bronte Works Part 6

The fairy idea, Charlotte discovered, served well to give a certain gallantry to Rochester's bestowing of epithets. These the reader may have interest in finding in _Jane Eyre_. For instance, when Jane, returning from her visit to a dead relative, informs Rochester, he says:--

"A true _Janian_ reply! [italics mine]. Good angels be my guard!

She comes from the other world--from the abode of people who are dead, and tells me so when she meets me alone here in the gloaming! If I dared, I'd touch you, to see if you are substance or shadow, you elf!--but I'd as soon offer to take hold of a blue _ignis-fatuus_ light in the marsh."

A few lines lower Rochester asks:--

"Tell me, now, fairy as you are--can't you give a charm?"

And then farther down:

"Pa.s.s, Janet: go up home and stay your weary little wandering feet at a friend's threshold."

When Rochester's bed is in flames, and he awakes to find Janet has thrown water upon it, he demands:--

"In the name of all the elves in Christendom, is that Jane Eyre?"

And so I might continue. It is observable Charlotte Bronte never allows Rochester to call Jane Eyre "Janet" and "fairy" in the same breath. She permits the use of Janet, however, when the fairy notion is concealed, as when Rochester says:

"Just put your hand in mine, Janet, that I may have the evidence of touch as well as sight, to prove you are near me."

Certain it is that in Charlotte Bronte's inmost heart her autobiographical self was called Janet Aire.[32]

Charlotte Bronte's conceptions, when she let her imagination have play and forgot the world of readers were, like Jane Eyre's thoughts, "elfish." See the fairy tale, _The Adventures of Ernest Alembert_ (attributed by Charlotte Bronte to her pen in her fifteenth year). It has been remarked this story is not in the handwriting Charlotte Bronte affected at this period, and that the ma.n.u.script has not Charlotte's customary t.i.tle-page.[33] In view of the evidence of _The Key to the Bronte Works_, it is of interest to make a comparison between _Alembert_ and Montagu's _Gleanings in Craven_, published eight years later than the date Charlotte Bronte ascribed to its completion. The a.s.sociation of the family of Lambert with hypothetical high treason and with being extinct; with the Malham country as described by Montagu--the references, so frequent in his pages, to the awe inspired by the wildness of the scenery, to the underground torrent, the contrasting range of crags, the lake, the fairy cave, the fairy and the admittance into faerydom; to "the mellow hum of the bee," etc., are interesting in the extreme, seeing by aid of Montagu that Malham as presented by him became Gimmerton of _Wuthering Heights_. Whether "coincidence" has to do with this matter of _Alembert_ and Montagu, or Charlotte Bronte has for some reason ante-dated _Alembert_, I leave to the reader to decide.

MONTAGU. _The Adventures of Ernest Alembert._

Montagu, speaking of the church Charlotte Bronte begins by of Kirkby-Malham, "in the ... relating that there once lived vale of Malham," says:--"Some of an Ernest Alembert. One of the the Lamberts are buried Alemberts having been "beheaded"

here--here is a monument to ... for "high treason,"[34] "the John Lambert, who aided Cromwell family had decayed" until the in his murder of Charles the only survivor was Ernest First (as all did who were Alembert. We are told that he implicated in Cromwell's beside a valley; and the river rebellion)[34]--after the became a lake. A stranger Restoration lived he died putting him under a spell, banished and forgotten at [A]lembert accepts him for a Guernsey. The family is now guide, and they wend their way extinct." up the valley.

In the chapter on Malham, [A]lembert finds himself at a Montagu accepts a guide who place where the torrent goes takes him up the vale of Malham. underground.

He mentions Malham Lake, or Tarn, and says of the River Aire in the connection that the water "delves into the mountain, and does not appear again until it reaches the village of Airton, below Malham."

We have descriptions of wild We have descriptions of wild moor, "tremendous" precipices, moors and precipices, and and "grand and terrific foaming cataracts. When they cataracts":--"At last we stopped to rest after a climb attained the summit of the "the scene was grand and awful mountain, when, looking down in in the extreme.... The mellow the chasm beneath, horror and hum of the bee was no longer immensity were defined with heard.... Above rose tremendous thrilling truth." precipices, whose vast shadows blackened all that portion of the moor [see "p.e.n.i.ston Crags,"

page 59], and deepened the frown on the face of unpropitious nature."

Montagu and his guide go to a [A]lembert and his guide go to a cave--the cave of the Fairy cave. Farther on the guide Janet. Montagu falling asleep as vanishes, but [A]lembert wakes it were, a fairy comes to his to find him by his side as a side and tells him he is in the fairy [Charlotte Bronte, Method realm of fairies. She promises I., interchange of the s.e.xes], to induct him into the wonders who addresses [A]lembert as of faeryland, and "the mellow follows:-- horn of the herald bee" summoned her attendants. And so on. See "I am a fairy. You have been, Charlotte Bronte's mention in and still are, in the land of _Alembert_ of "the mellow hum of fairies. Some wonders you have the bee." seen; many more you shall see if you choose to follow me." And so on in extension.

I have often wondered why no one has ever observed before that the hand which wrote _The Adventures of Ernest Alembert_ must a.s.suredly have written every line of _Wuthering Heights_. We may well understand why Charlotte Bronte in _Wuthering Heights_ wrote of Catherine Linton that "the mentioning the Fairy Cave quite turned her head" with interest. And that the original of the Fairy Cave in _Wuthering Heights_ was the Fairy Cave of Malhamdale Montagu mentions at such length in his Malham letter, the use of the names Linton and Airton in the connection irrefutably proves without other appeal: Hareton--that variant of Aire, cannot be a.s.sociated with Derbys.h.i.+re like "Eyre"; and despite the use of "Eyre," Aire was the name in Charlotte Bronte's mind, just as "Airton"

was when she wrote "Hareton."

Both the "boy-guide" and "Gimmerton's mist" were obviously suggested to Charlotte Bronte for _Wuthering Heights_ by Montagu, the original, as I have shown, of Lockwood:--

MONTAGU. _Wuthering Heights._

I ... took leave of my host and Says Heathcliffe:--"People followed the youthful steps of familiar with these moors often my guide whose services I had miss their road on such an accepted.... Upon the summit of evening."

the mountain is Kilnsea Moor, over which it is impossible to "Perhaps I can get a guide among find a route to Malham Water your lads, ... could you spare without a guide, more one?" asks Lockwood of his host.

particularly as a mist creates a difficulty, even to a person well acquainted with the locality.

Montagu's frequent references to the mountainous character of the Malham country were doubtless responsible for Charlotte Bronte's choice of the word "heights" used in her t.i.tle. Why the name of Gimmer, from "gimmer"

a female sheep, and signifying with "ton" the place of sheep, was chosen by her for Gimmerton, is clear when we read the etymology Montagu gives of Skipton. He mentions Skibden and Skipton, proceeding to explain that "Skipton, or Sceptown (from the Saxon word 'scep,' a sheep)" meant "the town of sheep"; and Montagu tells us a native spoke of the village as "the town of Malham." Hence we perceive why Charlotte Bronte coined "Gimmerton," the village of sheep, and "Gimmerden," the valley of sheep, for Malham and Malhamdale with the source of the Aire, the Fairy Cave, the Sough, the adjacent crags, the heights, the glens, the rising mists, the Methodist chapel and kirk in the lonely vale, when in the light of all the foregoing we read in Montagu's work that:--

"Here [at Malham] there is an annual fair held on the 15th of October, appropriated entirely for the sale of sheep.[35] I am within the limit of fact when I say that upwards of one hundred thousand [sheep] have been shown at one time. [Joseph takes cattle to "Gimmerton Fair," of course not in October.] The houses are mostly built of limestone, and covered with grit slates, and irregularly situated at the base of a range of steep mountains"--"the Heights."

Malham he describes as "a small towns.h.i.+p, divided into east and west portions by a rapid stream"--"the beck down Gimmerton." "There is a Methodist chapel at Malham," he states, and says that the old church of Kirkby-Malham "is in the very bosom of the vale of Malham." Thus Gimmerton Kirk, in the lonely valley of Gimmerton,[36] was Charlotte Bronte's name in _Wuthering Heights_ for the kirk by Malham, in the lonely vale of Malham. This insight into the origin of the name of "kirk" for a Yorks.h.i.+re church excuses what, without it, would have been an anachronistic misnomer. As for the Nonconformists' place of wors.h.i.+p, Dean is made to remark:--"They call the Methodists' or Baptists'

place--I can't say which it is at Gimmerton--a chapel."

In the light of the foregoing evidence it is impossible to ignore the reference Montagu makes to "the sinks," where the water from Malham Tarn sinks underground for a considerable distance. Whether Charlotte Bronte thought this would produce a quag in the neighbourhood I cannot tell; but if she has used the word "sough" (p.r.o.nounced _suff_) in its ordinary acceptance in Yorks.h.i.+re, she originally meant "a subterranean pa.s.sage or tunnel, draining water as from a sink," if I may quote a definition in Dr. Joseph Wright's _English Dialect Dictionary_. There is every sign in her writings of a loose, composite adaptation of Montagu's topography, etc., yet Charlotte Bronte was ever jealous of a.s.sociations, and under a guise or not she frequently preserved carefully recognizable characteristics necessary to locality and to personality; and we see Montagu had a.s.sociated a sough with Malham. We have mention of Gimmerton Sough in Chapter III. of _Wuthering Heights_, and in Chapter X.:--"...

the valley of Gimmerton, with a long list of mist winding nearly to its top (for very soon after you pa.s.s the chapel ... the sough that runs from the marshes joins a beck which follows the bend of the glen).

Wuthering Heights rose above this silvery vapour." And we have read what Montagu says about the mists of Malham.

The influence of Montagu's descriptions of this wild locality is likewise observable in the scenery and the background of _Jane Eyre_,[37] as I mentioned in the article "The Key to _Jane Eyre_" I wrote in _The Sat.u.r.day Review_. The yews and evergreens, mentioned by Montagu in connection with Malham, and introduced by Charlotte Bronte, with other trees of the fir-tribe, in descriptions of Morton in _Jane Eyre_, Chap. x.x.x., etc., and in _Wuthering Heights_, are not common to Haworth.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE RIVERS OR BRONTe FAMILY IN "JANE EYRE."

Charlotte Bronte, while she often portrayed the main characters of her stories from people in her own life, was quite at home with them in whatsoever condition or surroundings she placed them.[38] She loved the memory of Tabitha Aykroyd--that faithful servant, companion, and friend; hated the vices of her brother Branwell Bronte, and was obsessed by thoughts of M. Heger, her Brussels friend. So she placed the good old housekeeper of the parsonage--under an ecclesiastical cognomen truly--as Mrs. Dean at Wuthering Heights; set up her brother Branwell on the same premises as Hindley Earnshaw, and put her Brussels friend in the position of master of that abode.

In _Jane Eyre_ Tabitha Aykroyd is Bessie of Mrs. Reed's household, and Hannah of the Rivers family; Branwell is among better surroundings as John Reed, and M. Heger is portrayed more proportionately as the master of Thornfield; while in the same work Charlotte Bronte portrays her own sister Maria Bronte, and makes her say she is a native of Northumberland and describe the scenery round her birthplace there!

In _s.h.i.+rley_ Charlotte admits to having placed Emily Bronte as "s.h.i.+rley Keeldar," surrounded by the environment of a wealthy woman--a landed proprietress in the Dewsbury neighbourhood; and she gives us phases of M. Heger as a resident of Yorks.h.i.+re, in the two Moores.

_Villette_ contains in Dr. John, towards the close, a portrait of the Rev. Mr. Nicholls, who became her husband, as a resident of the foreign town Villette--for I find the character Dr. John was a portrait not wholly drawn, as is supposed, from Mr. Smith of Messrs. Smith & Elder, the Bronte publishers; and glimpses of Mr. Thackeray as a Villette lecturer appear in a flitting usurpation of M. Heger's rights as the original of M. Paul.

Charlotte Bronte's thus placing given characters against any background is doubtless responsible for the fact that when I wrote the _Fortnightly Review_ article, "The Lifting of the Bronte Veil: A New Study of the Bronte Family," in March, 1907, nigh on sixty years of readers of the Bronte works had failed to recognize Charlotte Bronte had portrayed in _Jane Eyre_ not only herself and her sister, Maria Bronte, as was commonly known, but also her brother, Branwell Bronte; her Aunt Branwell; her cousin, Eliza Branwell; her sister, Elizabeth Bronte; her sister, Emily Bronte; her sister, Anne Bronte; her father, the Rev.

Patrick Bronte; and also Tabitha Aykroyd, the Bronte servant. Perhaps it was because readers believed Morton was Hathersage, Derbys.h.i.+re, that a suspicion of the Rivers family being the Bronte family at Haworth never had been entertained.

I found, however, that all the above-mentioned members of the Bronte family were placed in _Jane Eyre_ under a "Rivers" surname; and proceeding into the inquiry as to their ident.i.ty, I perceived this discovery of the Bronte family in _Jane Eyre_ numbered with the more important of my Bronte discoveries, and that despite her purposed and reasonable cross-scents--the spired church, the mention of knife-grinders, and the hinting at the proximity of Sheffield, all so necessary in her day to permit the portrayal of phases of the life at Haworth Parsonage--Morton to Charlotte Bronte was in the main Haworth.

What importance would attach to a discovery of an unknown portrait group of his family deliberately painted from life by an old master! Such is the importance of this discovery of the Bronte family drawn by the pen of Charlotte Bronte herself in _Jane Eyre_. Currer Bell portrayed with unvarying truth; and with cunning artistry she brought forward in her literary legacy to the English novel the sure characteristics--the very soul, the shallowness, the pretty affectionateness, the cooing "dove-like voice," the "blue steel glance," of those she had watched and loved and feared.

Now, in the selection of a Christian name for the heroine Jane Eyre, in whom she had portrayed herself, there was every reason why Charlotte Bronte would be unlikely to adopt the second name of her sister, Emily Jane. We have seen, however, that Charlotte Bronte had been led by Montagu's mention of the Fairy Jannet, or Janet, poetically to make her heroine a Fairy Janet. This evidence shows, therefore, that "Jane" was really only secondary. The Fairy Cave which this fairy was supposed to frequent is near Malham or Gimmerton, and, as I have said, the Fairy Janet is termed "the queen of the Malhamdale elves that frequent the enchanted land round the source of the Aire." Montagu mentions the fact that the river Ayre takes its rise at Malham--at Malham Tarn, and hence Charlotte Bronte seems to have named her heroine originally Janet Aire.

Obvious it is she would be led, naturally, to use later some variant of Aire or Ayre; and the fact that she visited in the summer of 1845 (evidence shows she had read Montagu at the time)[39] her friend Miss Nussey, then at Hathersage in Derbys.h.i.+re, where Eyre is a common name, would suggest she was led to adopt this variant through her visit there.

We already have seen Charlotte Bronte used the variant of "Hare" for "Air" in _Wuthering Heights_ for the boy Hareton from Montagu's boy-guide, Robert Airton. And that she wished in _Jane Eyre_ to break through the confines of the variant she had chosen for Aire, and give open expression to her original and poetic idea, is seen plainly enough where Adele asks:--

"And Mademoiselle--what is your name?"

"Eyre--Jane Eyre."

"Aire? bah, I cannot say it."

Having made this interesting discovery, I further found that, not satisfied with appropriating for herself the "stream" surname, she placed such a surname upon those who were related to her and whom she had portrayed in _Jane Eyre_. So she used Burns from "burn," a stream spelt with an "s," for Maria Bronte; Rivers, from a river also spelt with an "s," for Emily Bronte, Anne Bronte, and the Rev. Patrick Bronte, with Tabitha Aykroyd in attendance as Hannah; Reed, from the river of that name for Charlotte's Aunt Branwell, her cousin Eliza Branwell, and her brother, Branwell Bronte; Severn, from the river of that name for her sister Elizabeth Bronte--just as she used Aire from the river of that name for herself, as Janet Aire.

A reference to Mrs. Gaskell's Bronte _Life_ were sufficient to establish the identifications, when I say that by Charlotte Bronte's Method II.

(the alteration of the age of a character portrayed) the Rev. Patrick Bronte is represented as a young man in the Rev. St. John Eyre Rivers--certainly a very necessary obfuscation, for it is to be seen the home at Morton gives a most enlightening insight into the life at the Haworth Parsonage. A death is supposed to have occurred in the Rivers family; and when it is remembered Thornfield to Charlotte Bronte represented the Hegers' establishment at Brussels, and that she left Brussels the first time on account of the death of her aunt, Miss Elizabeth Branwell who, after being the female head of the parsonage some years, died there in the close of 1842, we may know for whom the Rivers family were really in mourning. Charlotte Bronte tells us that, looking through the window of Moor House--Haworth Parsonage:--