Chapter II

THE ORIGIN OF THE CANDLE-BEARING BEDSIDE VISITANT AND THE UNCOUTH SERVANT IN "WUTHERING HEIGHTS" AND "JANE EYRE."

My evidence shows that between 1837 and 1847 Charlotte Brontë was perusing very attentively a little volume entitled _Gleanings in Craven, or the Tourist's Guide_, by one Frederic Montagu of Lincoln's Inn, son of Basil Montagu, second (natural) son of John Montagu, fourth Earl of Sandwich, whose ancestor brought Charles II. over from Holland on the Restoration in 1660 and therefor received his earldom.[11] The book, which had never been associated by any person with the name or works of Charlotte Brontë till I wrote my article, "The Key to _Jane Eyre_," upon it for _The Saturday Review_, was in the form of "Six letters to a friend in India," addressed as, "My dear Howard ... now at Bombay," and was dedicated by special permission to the Duke of Devonshire, a fact not mentioned save in the early editions. It was printed at Briggate, Leeds, by A. Pickard, and published at Skipton-in-Craven in 1838. Messrs. Simpkin, Marshall & Co. were the London publishers.

Frederick Montagu was a gentleman travelling in Yorkshire for his health's sake it seems, and it occurred to him to relate in epistolary form the story of his adventures. He had read the local writers, but it is most clear Charlotte Brontë was particularly influenced in the construction of her great masterpieces, _Wuthering Heights_ and _Jane Eyre_, by his purely personal contributions. It was not only as a gleaner of local hearsay that Montagu wrote the long panegyric upon Miss Currer which obviously resulted in Charlotte Brontë's choosing the name, but as one whose attention had been drawn to her literary eminence. Thomas Frognall Dibdin, who in his _Reminiscences of a Literary Life_ (1836) spoke so good a word for Basil Montagu, Frederic's father,[12] under whom he had studied for the bar, also devoted in those _Reminiscences_ many pages to Miss Currer and Eshton Hall. Thus we read in Montagu's _Gleanings in Craven_:--

And now as to literature ... Miss Currer is the head of all the
female bibliopolists (_sic_) in Europe, the library of Eshton Hall
fully bearing out this truth.... In taking my leave of Eshton
Hall, there is a subject upon which I must say a word: it is only
the repetition of the echo I have heard about Eshton.... There was
one name connected by every person with worth and excellence--one
who in the continual performance of charity, like a pure but
imbedded stream, silently pursues her kind course, nourishing all
within her sweet influence:--I believe it may be truly said no
person is more deservedly loved and respected than Miss Currer.

As to "Bell," which like "Currer," came to be chosen by Charlotte Brontë from Montagu's book for her pen-name in the poem publishing project of autumn 1845--only some months before _Wuthering Heights_ was supposed to have been written--Montagu says:--

Kirkby-Lonsdale is a neat, stone-built town, and has a free
Grammar School.... It was at this school that the celebrated
lawyer, and one of his late Majesty's Counsels, the late John
Bell, Esq., received his education.

And three lines before this Montagu has described the views of the Lune, "and the prospect from the churchyard, taking in Casterton Hall."[13] This is the very background of the early chapters of _Jane Eyre_. Indeed, Casterton Hall was the original of Brocklehurst Hall in _Jane Eyre_, and here resided the Rev. W. Carus-Wilson, the original of Mr. Brocklehurst, "the black marble clergyman" of the school at Lowood; while Kirkby-Lonsdale was the original of Lowton of _Jane Eyre_. These facts compel us to perceive that Charlotte Brontë would naturally be led by Montagu's words, to recall she too as regards her education had been associated with the locality mentioned. These references seem to have made Currer Bell relate in _Jane Eyre_ her experiences in that district. Neither Miss Brontë nor Mrs. Gaskell, her biographer, gave any information as to the origin of the "Currer" and "Bell" of Currer Bell, but it is known the "Bell" was not chosen from the name of the Rev. A. Bell Nicholls whom she afterwards married.[14]

A further personal contribution by Montagu, one he based on gossip rather than on tradition, was the story of a foundling who, he says, was discovered by a shepherd on a rocky elevation. This I find Charlotte Brontë evolved into "a cuckoo story." The circumstance that this male child was found on the craggy summit of a hill may have dictated to her the name of the foundling Heathcliffe of _Wuthering Heights_.

I moreover find that, influenced by Montagu's quaint descriptions of the wild and remote neighbourhood, Charlotte Brontë made Malham and the valley of Malham the background of her story, _Wuthering Heights_. With Malham, Montagu associated the names of Linton and Airton (Hareton); the Fairy Cave, the Crags, glens, mists; a grey old church in the valley, the "Kirk" by Malham, Kirkby Malham Church, which Charlotte Brontë calls in _Wuthering Heights_ Gimmerton Kirk; a rapid stream and a Methodist chapel. And he draws attention to Malham, being at the foot of a range of steep mountains--"the Heights," and having an annual sheep fair, when over one hundred thousand sheep are shown at one time, the which observation was, we now discover, responsible for Charlotte Brontë's choice of "Gimmerton" and "Gimmerden," from "gimmer," a female sheep, and meaning respectively the village of sheep and the valley of sheep, a characteristic of hers being that she often chose her names on what she termed the _lucus a non lucendo_ principle.[15]

Having in _Wuthering Heights_ made so pointed a reference to the Fairy Cave in the neighbourhood of Gimmerton, and having therein associated with it the names of Airton (Hareton) and Linton, which Montagu connected with Gimmerton or Malham, Charlotte Brontë had not openly mentioned in that work the Fairy Janet referred to by Montagu, though she hinted at "the mysteries of the Fairy Cave." But I find that her "elfish" imagination induced her later, in _Jane Eyre_, to appropriate for herself the rôle of the Fairy Janet, the Queen of the Malhamdale or Gimmerden elves, who ruled in the neighbourhood of Gimmerton and of Wuthering Heights, the home of Catherine Earnshaw. Thus we see Charlotte Brontë primarily associated both Catherine Earnshaw, the heroine of _Wuthering Heights_, and Jane Eyre, the heroine of _Jane Eyre_, with Malham. And discovering the impetuosity of her imaginative nature and its romantic turn, I doubt not she was impatient to begin the tale of the "fairy-born and human-bred" heroine whose surname she took from the River Aire or Ayre, which sprang, as Montagu carefully indicates, from Malham, or Gimmerton, as Charlotte Brontë would say in her _Wuthering Heights_. From this came the suggestion of the "Rivers" family, with which I deal later, the names employed by Charlotte Brontë being River(s), Burn(s), Aire or Eyre, Severn, Reed, and Keeldar.

Another of Montagu's personal contributions which greatly influenced Charlotte Brontë was on the leaf before the mention of John Bell, Esq., and on the same leaf as the mention of Casterton Hall, headed "A Night's Repose." This was the narration of a night's adventure, Montagu telling how he went to a lonely hostelry and found an unwillingness in the hostess to give him bed and shelter. He also discovered a mystery surrounded the hostess and a peculiar, harsh-voiced country-bred man-servant--who came to be the original of Joseph of _Wuthering Heights_. At night the apparition of the hostess appears at Montagu's bedside, white-faced and lighted candle in hand. It is plain the peculiar man-servant appealed very strongly to Charlotte Brontë, and thus in both her _Wuthering Heights_ and _Jane Eyre_ transcriptions of the midnight incident this characteristic is marked and recognizable: in Joseph; and in Grace Poole, by what I have termed Charlotte Brontë's Method I., interchange of the sexes of characters. In _Wuthering Heights_, by her same Method I., Montagu's inhospitable hostess became the inhospitable host Heathcliffe; but in each of Charlotte Brontë's versions--_Wuthering Heights_ or _Jane Eyre_--a central figure of the incidents she based upon Montagu's story of "A Night's Repose" was the uncouth, coarse-voiced country-bred servant.

We also shall see that Montagu's reference to lunacy being an exception to his objection against the separation of husband and wife, and the use he made of a verse in his Malham letter, likening the moon to

"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,"

were responsible for the "plot" of _Jane Eyre_ including an insane lady who wanders out of her chamber at night and dons a vapoury veil.

And evidence of the enthusiasm with which Charlotte Brontë applied herself to _Jane Eyre_ is the fact that she at once took from Montagu's little volume for this her second story based upon the book's suggestions, the names of

Broughton, Poole (from Pooley), Eshton, Georgiana, Lynn (from
Linton), Lowood (from Low-wood), Mason, Ingram, Helen,[16] and
possibly Millcote (from Weathercote).

Thus far we see Charlotte Brontë drew _Wuthering Heights_ and _Jane Eyre_ from the same source; that in a word, _Jane Eyre_, was Charlotte's second attempt to utilize and amplify the suggestions in Montagu's work which had appealed to her when she began _Wuthering Heights_, and we see the suggestions she utilized in _Jane Eyre_ always bear unmistakable relationship to those she had utilized in her _Wuthering Heights_. But the use Charlotte Brontë made of Montagu's book was not in the nature of literary theft; that volume simply afforded suggestions which she enlarged upon.

I shall presently show how I find _Jane Eyre_ is the second attempt of Currer Bell to enlarge upon suggestions that had appealed to her when she first read Montagu. For a commencement I will refer to the early construction of her _Wuthering Heights_ and _Jane Eyre_. As simple stories they both are based upon the description Montagu gives of an isolated hostelry with an inhospitable hostess, a midnight apparition, and an air of mystery that surrounds the hostess and a peculiar, uncouth servant, to whom I have already alluded. The stage properties of this narrative, the characters, and the "action" or plot, I will give side by side, as they appear severally, first in Montagu, next in _Wuthering Heights_, and finally in _Jane Eyre_. Herewith the reader will have excellent examples of the two chief methods I find Charlotte Brontë employed often when she drew from a character in more than one work or instance, or when she desired to veil the identity of her originals. Charlotte Brontë's Methods I. and II., being discovered equally in _Wuthering Heights_ and _Jane Eyre_ show, as conclusively as any other evidence, that she was the author of both works. No consideration whatsoever can alter the iron fact or depreciate from its significance, that it was absolutely my discovery of Charlotte Brontë's Methods I. and II., which revealed to me the sensational verbal and other parallels between _Wuthering Heights_ and _Jane Eyre_ I give in _The Key to the Brontë Works_:--

Read carefully:--

Charlotte Brontë's Method I.--The interchange of sexes. Thus the original of A may be a woman, and the original of B a man; but A may be represented as a man, and B as a woman.

Charlotte Brontë's Method II.--Altering the age of a character portrayed. Thus the original of C may be young, and the original of D old; but C may be represented as old, and D as young.

The literal extracts to which I have referred I print as occurring in the three works:--Montagu the original, _Wuthering Heights_, and _Jane Eyre_. I will first give the substance, or subject matter, side by side:--

MONTAGU. _Wuthering Heights._ _Jane Eyre._

Montagu goes on Lockwood, of whom Jane (Method I.,
horseback to a Montagu was palpably interchange of the
solitary house at a the original, goes sexes) goes to a
distance from any on horseback to a solitary house,
habitable dwelling, solitary house at a alone. Comfort is all
alone, and seeks a distance from any around, but an air of
night's repose. But habitable dwelling, mystery surrounds
though comfort is all alone, and seeks a the master's wife and
around, he finds an night's repose. But a peculiar
air of mystery he finds an air of harsh-voiced female
surrounds the mystery surrounds the servant (Method I.,
inhospitable hostess inhospitable host interchange of the
and her deep-voiced, (Charlotte Brontë's sexes).
Yorkshire Method I.,
dialect-speaking, interchange of the
country-bred sexes) and his
man-servant. harsh-voiced,
Yorkshire
dialect-speaking,
country-bred
man-servant.

Montagu is shown to Lockwood is shown to Jane, in bed one
bed up a step-ladder bed, and sleeps only night, sleeps only
that leads through a fitfully, dreaming. fitfully, dreaming.
trap, and sleeps only He hears noises and She hears noises and
fitfully, dreaming. perceives a gleam of perceives a gleam of
He hears noises and light. He starts to light. She starts to
perceives a gleam of find the white-faced find the apparition
light He starts to apparition of his of her master's wife
find the white-faced host standing at his standing at her
apparition of his bedside, lighted bedside, lighted
hostess standing at candle in hand, his candle in hand, her
his bedside, lighted features convulsed features convulsed
candle in hand, her with diabolical rage. with diabolical rage.
features convulsed The harsh-voiced, The harsh-voiced,
with diabolical rage. Yorkshire peculiar female
The deep-voiced, dialect-speaking servant Jane first
Yorkshire man-servant, a sour encountered after
dialect-speaking old man (Charlotte having gone to the
peculiar man-servant Brontë's Method II., attics and through a
he sees by looking the altering of the trap-door to the
down the step-ladder age of a character roof.
through the trap. portrayed), comes
down a step-ladder
that vanished through
a trap.

In the literal extracts I now give the reader will perceive that in the description of the bedside, candle-bearing apparition in _Jane Eyre_, Charlotte Brontë followed Montagu almost word for word, and in the whole staging of the midnight episode at the house of the inhospitable host in _Wuthering Heights_ followed him entirely in outlining the story. Both the _Wuthering Heights_ and _Jane Eyre_ versions give unequivocal evidence of being refractions from Montagu conveyed through one brain alone, the peculiar idiosyncrasy and elective sensitiveness of which are undeniably recognizable as Charlotte Brontë's:--

MONTAGU. _Wuthering Heights._ _Jane Eyre._

A Night's Repose. A Night's Repose. A Night's Repose.

My servant having Heathcliffe, when he Jane is shown the
lamed his steed ... saw my horse's breast bedrooms of the
I arrived alone at a fairly pushing the secluded Thornfield
small hostelry in a barrier, did put out Hall:--
secluded part of his hand to unchain
the country, and it ... calling as we "Do the servants
apparently at some entered the court, sleep in these
distance from any "Joseph, take Mr. rooms?"
habitable dwelling. Lockwood's horse; and
Having determined to bring some wine." "No ... no one sleeps
rest for the night, here. One would ...
I discovered in the Joseph was an say that if there
woman who seemed to elderly, nay an old were a ghost at
be the hostess an man, very old Thornfield Hall this
anxiety to get rid perhaps, though hale would be its haunt."
of me; but with the and sinewy. "The Lord
usual obstinacy of help us!" he ... I followed ... to
curiosity caused soliloquised in an the attics, and
by this apparent undertone of peevish thence by a trap-door
anxiety, I determined displeasure, while to the roof of the
not to be thwarted; relieving me of my hall ... a laugh
so, putting up my horse, looking ... in struck my ear ...
horse, I entered the my face so sourly "Who is it?"
house, and sat down that I charitably
to a humble but conjectured he must ... the laugh was as
substantial meal, have need of Divine preternatural ... as
prepared during aid to digest his any I ever heard....
my absence in the dinner, and his pious
stable; and though ejaculation had no The ... door opened,
comfort had sway with reference to my and a servant came
all around me, yet unexpected advent. out--a woman of
there was an evident between thirty and
air of profound "Guests are so forty; a set,
mystery between my exceedingly rare in square-made figure
hostess and her this house that I and ... and with a hard,
boy-of-all-work, a my dogs hardly know plain face....
thick-set son of the how to receive them,"
north, with a deep says Heathcliffe. One day Jane, out for
voice and a sturdy a walk, sees a
manner; whilst I, Resuming his horseman approaching
with all the narrative in Chapter who, in sympathy with
malignant pleasure of II., Lockwood tells Montagu's story of
counteracting any us he goes again to laming a horse, has
mystery, secretly Wuthering Heights and an accident.
enjoyed the hope of gains admittance with
discovering the difficulty, after "Did the horse fall
reason of wishing my muttering, "Wretched in Hay Lane?" Jane
absence.... I was not inmates, you deserve asks later of a
at all disconcerted, perpetual isolation servant.
but philosophically ... for your churlish
finished my meal ... inhospitality. I "Yes, it slipped."
and at an early hour don't care, I will
requested to be shown get in." Thus Jane learns the
where I was to rest horseman is the
for the night. "As to staying here," master of Thornfield
Refusing to listen cries Heathcliffe, "I Hall. She discovers
to any excuse, I was don't keep an air of mystery
shown up a ladder accommodations for surrounds the master
into a small room.... visitors: you must of the house; and a
I thanked my guide, share a bed with thick-set woman
and ... laid down Joseph [the servant is involved.
with the expectation country-bred servant]
of sleeping hard, an if you do."
expectation which was Chapter XV.
not realized, for
thoughts obtruded Chapter III. Though I had now
themselves upon me, extinguished my
wholly preventing Lockwood at last is candle and was laid
repose. Midnight had guided to bed by a down in bed, I could
scarcely fallen when servant. While not sleep for
I heard voices in the leading the way, she thinking of the
room below, and by a recommended ... "I [mystery that seemed
light which grew should hide the to surround Mr.
stronger every moment candle, ... for her Rochester].... I
I felt some person master had an odd hardly knew whether I
was about to ascend notion about the had slept or not
the ladder. chamber ... and never after this musing; at
let anybody lodge any rate I started
Before Charlotte there willingly."... wide awake on hearing
Brontë proceeds I sank back in bed a vague murmur.... I
with the dramatic and fell asleep.... wished I had kept my
experiences of this Alas! what could it candle burning; the
terrible night she be that made me pass night was drearily
provides entirely such a terrible dark.... I rose and
original matter night? I don't sat up in bed
independent of remember another that listening;... I was
Montagu, as a I can compare with it chilled with fear....
preface. I will give since I was capable I began to feel the
Montagu his space, of suffering. return of slumber.
however, for we But it was not fated
have here a duet in ... I began to ... I should sleep
unison, so to speak, dream.... I had set that night. A dream
between _Wuthering out on my way home, had scarcely
Heights_ and _Jane with Joseph for a approached my ear
Eyre_. The trio will guide. The snow lay when it fled
be resumed in perfect yards deep in our affrighted.... There
sequence after road. We came to a was a demonia laugh
Montagu has rested a chapel.... Presently ... at my chamber
few bars in the the whole chapel door.... I thought
introduction. My resounded with the goblin laughter
reader will note with rappings and stood at my
sensational interest, counter-rappings; ... bedside.... Something
I am sure, that in at last, to my ... moaned. "Was that
both of Charlotte unspeakable relief, Grace Poole?" [the
Brontë's they awoke me.... thick-set servant]
introductions to the What ... had thought I.... There
appearance of the suggested the tumult? was a candle burning
candle-bearing, ... the branch of a outside.
frenzied, bedside fir-tree that touched
apparition, the my lattice as the
separate narrators blast wailed by.... Chapter XXV.
tell us that a gale
is blowing; that I dreamt again, if ... After I went to
they dreamed most possible still more bed I could not
disagreeably twice. disagreeably than sleep--a sense of
The first dream being before.... I heard anxious excitement
in each instance that the gusty wind, ... I depressed me. The
of journeying upon an thought I rose ... to gale still rising
unknown road, and the unhasp the casement. seemed to my ear to
second dream that of "I must stop [the fir muffle a ... doleful
an unknown ice-cold bough's teasing undersound.... During
little child (always sound]," I muttered, my first sleep I was
referred to in the knocking my hand following the
neuter "it"), which through the glass and windings of an
"wailed piteously" stretching an arm out unknown road; ...
and "clung" to the to seize the ... rain pelted me; I was
narrators in branch; instead of burdened with the
"terror," intense which my fingers charge of a little
horror being closed on the fingers child--a very small
accentuated by their of an ice-cold hand! creature, ... which
being unable to rid The intense horror of shivered in my cold
themselves of the nightmare came over arms and wailed
clinging, shivering me: I tried to draw piteously in my ear.
small "creature," as back my arm, but the
Charlotte Brontë hand clung to it, and I dreamt another
calls "it." The a most melancholy dream.... I still
"doleful" moaning and voice sobbed.... I carried the unknown
the "blast" play discerned ... a little child: I might
their part in each child's face looking not lay it down
version, and in both through the window. anywhere, however
a "branch" is duly Terror made me cruel, tired were my
grasped or seized by and finding it arms--however its
the dreamer. For the useless to attempt weight impeded my
origin of this shaking the creature progress, I must
wailing little off, I pulled its retain it.... I
creature see my wrist on to the climbed the thin
chapter, "Charlotte broken pane, ... wall [of the house]
Brontë's Child rubbing it to and fro with frantic,
Apparition." till the blood ran perilous haste, ...
down; ... still it the stones rolled
Further, the reader wailed ... and from under my feet,
will observe that in maintained its the ivy branches I
both _Wuthering tenacious gripe, grasped gave way, the
Heights_ and _Jane almost maddening me child clung round my
Eyre_ Montagu's with fear. neck in terror, and
bedside, almost strangled
candle-bearing I said, "Let me go!" me.... The blast blew
apparition is not a The fingers relaxed, so strong.... I sat
dream, but a I snatched mine ... down on the narrow
candlelit reality, and stopped my ledge; I hushed the
immediately sequent ears.... Yet the scared infant, ...
to the dream of the instant I listened the wall crumbled; I
tenacious child again, there was the was shaken; the child
phantom. doleful cry, rolled from my knee;
moaning;... I tried I lost my balance,
I will here resume to jump up, but could fell, and awoke.
Montagu's narrative: not stir a limb....
... By a light which
grew stronger every Hasty footsteps "Now, Jane, that is
moment, I felt some approached my chamber all," put in
person was about to door, ... a light Rochester. To which
ascend the ladder. At glimmered ... at the Jane Eyre replies,
this moment every top of the bed. I sat "All the preface; the
murder ... I had shuddering yet, and tale is yet to come."
heard of crowded upon wiping the On waking a gleam
my brain, and I perspiration from my dazzled my eyes; ...
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 shirt 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 passing 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 coarse-voiced, thick-set, country-bred servant, and his implication with the mystery of the lonely house had impressed Charlotte Brontë considerably. Whether she portrayed him as the Joseph of _Wuthering Heights_ or, by her Method I., as the Grace Poole of _Jane Eyre_, Charlotte Brontë respects the original associations 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 Brontë'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.