The Key to the Bronte Works Part 11

The last of these had not been a week at the inst.i.tution. She was a girl of fourteen, very dark, ... with a fine tinge of the Creole in her face. How well I thought did Isabella Hutchinson, with her dark, West Indian head, look by the side of the fair Yorkshire girl, Sophia Leigh, whose pale, straw-coloured locks, looked paler still by the side of that dark heap of hair, blacker than a raven's wing...[!]

We have seen in the chapter on "The Rivers or Bronte Family in _Jane Eyre_" that Charlotte Bronte portrayed in the character Julia Severn, who is first mentioned in connection with the hair-cutting incident, her sister Elizabeth, and it is most significant that M. Sue made play upon the name Elizabeth in the connection. In regard to the mention of a West Indian girl at the Lowood school and her being coupled with a fair-haired Yorkshire girl, it is important to note that no reference is made in _Jane Eyre_ to a West Indian girl at this school. It is indeed astonishing how much M. Sue knew of Charlotte Bronte's private life.

Here we find him telling the world in 1850 of a West Indian girl being with Charlotte Bronte at the Clergy Daughters' School, and not till seven years later did Mrs. Gaskell learn of the Rev. Patrick Bronte--Charlotte Bronte was then dead--that a girl from the West Indies had been Charlotte's friend at this school. Her name, he thought, was Mellany Hane, so far as he could remember to p.r.o.nounce it. Mysteriously enough, the words "West Indies" or "West Indian" in this connection have been deleted from the later editions of Mrs. Gaskell's _Life of Charlotte Bronte_. See the Second Edition.

"Lagrange's Ma.n.u.script" is of considerable length and interest, and can be drawn upon in future editions of _The Key to the Bronte Works_.

Frequently it follows in parallel to _Jane Eyre_, but as parody interspersed with biographical details which must have been intended chiefly for Charlotte Bronte herself, as scarcely any one else could at that day have understood the pertinence of the references.[58] Take a Helen Burns incident whereby M. Sue shows he is aware she was a Bronte sister, older than Charlotte--Maria Bronte who died of consumption:--

But the inexorable hand ... was upon Agnes Jones [Helen Burns].

Day by day I saw her pretty cheeks growing thinner and thinner, her eyes sinking still more deeply into her head, her little mouth becoming more blue and ashy, her long, thin fingers more transparent. Her voice, at all times so meek and low, dwindled away to that thin and tiny sound to which we listen as to something absent--already gone--something that comes from above or below us--that is not living amongst us--not breathing as we breathe--a retreating echo, rather than a living voice--a sigh, and not a sound.... It was not much I had learned from Agnes [Helen] since I had been at the inst.i.tution; but never till then had I known her spirit so genial, her heart so lovingly persuasive; the beneficent lessons of those days, burning like candles within me, have since guided me well through life: _she spoke to me like a prophet, and I listened to her like a believer_. Oh, I could have lived for ever in that chamber, and Agnes [Helen] might have been to me the world! How often, as our cheeks lay against each other have I wished that I, too, had been ill, so that I also might have died, as she was dying, in my innocence!... One evening, ... just at that pleasant hour of twilight when two of G.o.d's wonders--night and day--cross each other like ships on the sea, Agnes [Helen] said:--'Life has its holiness as well as death, Catherine [Jane]; and you may live in the world as purely and justly as those who die in the cradle.'

"The world is full of temptation?"

"So it is, but there lies the merit, my dear; wrestle with temptation and do what is right, ... you must not allow my death to afflict you much, since I rejoice at it.... If you think of me, think of me living, not dead. Think of your playfellow in the garden; think of your elder sister who lived with you for six years."

Maria Bronte, Charlotte's eldest sister, and the original of Helen Burns, died when Charlotte was eight or nine. It is sensational indeed, that M. Sue thus identified Helen Burns seven years before the publication of Mrs. Gaskell's _Life of Charlotte Bronte_. The death of this character in "Lagrange's Ma.n.u.script" is in perfect agreement with that of Helen Burns. I will place the two side by side:--

_Jane Eyre._ "Kitty Bell, the Orphan."

Chapter IX. By the Mademoiselle Lagrange, of Eugene Sue's _Miss Mary ou By Currer Bell. L'Inst.i.tutrice_.

The death of Helen Burns. The death of Agnes Jones.

That forest dell, where Lowood The Master of the Kendall lay, was the cradle of ... Inst.i.tution ... had ... been fog-bred pestilence, which ... very much shocked by the ravages crept into the Orphan Asylum, of typhus fever, and since the breathed typhus through [it] ... reports of Agnes's health had and transformed the seminary become serious, had sent several into a hospital.... One evening times to ascertain how she ... Mr. Bates came out, and ... was.... "Miss Bell, I am come to a nurse.... I ran up to her. inquire after our friend, Miss Jones."

"How is Helen Burns?"

"... Agnes is always calm and "Very poorly," was the easy-minded.... This is very answer.... Two hours later ... I kind of you."

reached ... Miss Temple's room, ... I looked in. My eye sought ... As I was preparing to lie Helen, and feared to find down in the room, Agnes called death.... "Helen!" I whispered to me:-- softly; "are you awake?"

"Catherine, my dear, I feel ... I got on to her crib and rather cold to-night; will you kissed her: her forehead was sleep with me?"

cold, and her cheek both cold and thin, and so were her hand Of course I complied, and we lay and wrist, but she smiled as of talking in each other's arms old. until the sweet dove fell asleep. Poor Agnes, she was "Jane, ... lie down and cover indeed cold; a strange chill yourself with the quilt." came through me as I lay by her side.... I still heard my sister I did so: she put her arm over orphan breathe and pant.... Why me, and I nestled close to her. did I listen ... so greedily?

Why--when the poor thing turned ... I clasped my arms closer round once in the night, and round Helen; she seemed dearer said: "Another kiss, to me than ever; I felt as if I Catherine!"--why did I feel in could not let her go; I lay with giving it her, as if a hundred my face hidden on her neck. steel arrows had gone through my Presently she said:--"... Don't heart? How long I lay awake and leave me, Jane; I like to have thinking--wondering at the cold you near me." emerging from the pure body at my side, I know not! I must have "I'll stay with you, _dear_ slept, too; for I remember Helen; no one shall take me opening my eyes with the first away."... She kissed me, and I dawn, before the bells rang.

her; and we soon slumbered. When I awoke it was day; an unusual "Agnes!" said I, softly; "are movement roused me. you awake?"

A day or two afterwards, I But there was no answer!... I learned that Miss Temple, on called again--then a third, and returning to her own room at a fourth time! But still ... no dawn, had found me laid in a reply! Wondering at this little crib; my face against silence, ... I listened for that Helen Burn's shoulder, my arms hard breathing I knew so well.

round her neck. I was asleep, But nothing--not a sound could I and Helen was--dead. hear! Alarmed, but unwilling to trust my fears, I felt for her hand. Oh, G.o.d! it was cold as ice, and rigid as stone! Wild with affright, ... I started up ... and rushed out to call the Superintendent [Miss Temple]. I found her preparing to come to us.... When we entered the chamber, we found no Agnes there! No; her spirit had fled, and all we saw was the lifeless body of a poor houseless girl.

Another biographical pa.s.sage occurs where Catherine Bell first sees the Miss Temple of "Lagrange's Ma.n.u.script," who herself, under the name of Ashton (Eshton),[59] is at times Miss Bronte, who took the name of the original of Miss Temple (Evans) for herself in the phase of Frances Evans Henri in _The Professor_, a work not published, we must note, till after Charlotte Bronte's death:--

"I love you, madam," I said.

"Your name, I believe, is Catherine Bell, is it not?"

"Kitty Bell, if you please, madam," I answered.

"Kitty Bell at home, my dear, but here we must call you Catherine; for a school, you know, is where many forms must be observed. How old are you?"

"I shall be ten next birthday, madam."

"And when will that be?"

"On the 23rd of April."

"Shakespeare's Day, I declare!"

The above is, of course, not in _Jane Eyre_. There is a stroke of sarcasm in the last sentence. It would appear that Currer Bell playfully had moved her birthday forward two days, in her private conversation with one from whom M. Sue had gleaned information--and this could be only M. Heger himself. Charlotte Bronte, as Lucy Snowe, in _Villette_, Chapter XLI., tells us that M. Paul Emanuel (M. Heger) said:--

"I wanted to prove to Miss Lucy that I _could_ keep a secret. How often has she taunted me with lack of dignified reserve and needful caution!

How many times has she saucily insinuated that all my affairs are the secret of Polichinelle!" And this had doubtless a reference to some such indiscretions as resulted in M. Sue whilst at Brussels (and he was publishing _L'Orgueil_ from Brussels in 1844, in the January of which year Charlotte Bronte arrived home from the Belgian capital), learning the literary secrets of _Jane Eyre_, and perhaps _Wuthering Heights_.

A further reference to Currer Bell's literary aspirations--in the spirit of Mdlle. Reuter's sneers, in _The Professor_, at Mdlle. Henri's literary ambition--occurs in M. Sue's _feuilleton_ in another version of the fortune-telling incident of _Jane Eyre_:--

"Here," said I, to a brown, sunburnt damsel, ... "take this shilling and tell me when I shall be Empress of Morocco?"

I held out my hand.... The young girl looked at it, ... then shook her head doubtfully:--

"Your life, lady, will be a troubled one--full of hopes and fears!"

"So I suppose; most people's lives are pretty well divided in this manner."

"But not so much as yours will be.... First, you are without father or mother?... Without fortune, too?"

"True, what more?"

"You will be married and not married."

"That's impossible. What can you mean by married and not married?"

"That deserves another shilling!"

"No; I only want a shillingsworth, ... that will do for to-day."

"Mdlle. Lagrange's Ma.n.u.script" was bound in blue morocco leather, and the term "Empress of Morocco" may have a reference to a literary ambition, as has the "Shakspeare's Day, I declare!" pa.s.sage.

For constructive purposes the West Indian girl, or Creole, in "Lagrange's Ma.n.u.script," is made to take the place of the Mrs. Rochester of _Jane Eyre_, who is therein represented as a Creole:--

I did my best [continues Catherine Bell] to make a friend of her, but to no purpose. Whatever was the reason she disliked me from the first. ["I am convinced she does not like me," wrote Charlotte to Emily of Madame Heger.] I felt intuitively she was my enemy....

Had we been thrown together when I was a child [!] I should probably have suited her ... for at that time I was a little given to flattery myself. But that was before I had learned how many better things there are than mere beauty.... Perhaps ... I preferred more solid advantages, because my vanity a.s.sured me that I had them myself, whilst my personal appearance was insignificant compared with hers. I was certainly fond of talking of what I knew, which answered very well with those who knew as much, and was rather pleasing to those who knew more. [M. Heger seems to have found pleasure in his intellectual talks with Currer Bell], but to Isabella [this, as I have said, is the name of Catherine's rival in _Wuthering Heights_, who was married to Heathcliffe] it was hateful. She imagined I wanted to expose her ignorance.

I have given some of the biographical facts respecting Miss Bronte embodied in Mdlle. Lagrange's story, and before closing this chapter dealing with that extraordinary ma.n.u.script I will print a further extract or so from it. The opening is as follows:--

"KITTY BELL, THE ORPHAN."

I was not above four years old when my mother died, my father having gone to his grave two years before.... Oh, it is a sad, sad thing to be an orphan!... My little head has been cut with more than one fall, and blood has flowed down my neck. But n.o.body cared.... It was only Kitty Bell.... There was no loving heart to take me to itself and soothe me.... I had been taken home by some relation of my mother, ... a widow [Mrs. Burke], and though she treated me with great rigour, she melted on her death-bed.

She is locked in the room wherein Mrs. Burke died, after the manner of the same incident in _Jane Eyre_, and the writer takes an opportunity of inserting the most distinctive feature of _Jane Eyre_, the light-bearing apparition, the original of which I have shown Charlotte Bronte found in Montagu's _Gleanings in Craven_:--

Suddenly there came a gleam of light through the key-hole, ... and now I could hear a short, heavy tread upon the stairs--it was coming up.... The gleam shot through the key-hole a third time, with treble radiance. But what had I seen?... Was it a vision? was it a ghost? It was a tall figure in white, like a winding sheet, with a hideous face and b.a.l.l.s of gleaming fire where the eyes should be. The sight had stunned and levelled me almost like a blow on the temple.... I cannot say how long I continued in this swoon, but when I began to recover myself I was in my own bed.

She had received medical treatment, she learns as did Jane Eyre in the similar incident. The "ghost," however, had been only George Burke--the John Reed of _Jane Eyre_. Hence the choice of the name Burke by reason of its connection with the Hare of the Burke and Hare a.s.sociation, the writer by this choice showing his acquaintance with the fact that in real life the Reeds and Jane Eyre were relations. After this incident the story is for a while occupied with the petty happenings connected with this orphan who "was not yet nine years old." An aunt of the Burkes [? Aunt Branwell] comes to live with them, a "poor, quiet, elderly spinster who paid a small stipend in order to preserve her independence and keep up her dignity.... I must not attempt to describe her ... she was fully six feet high." This is palpably ant.i.thetical: Miss Branwell was not tall. And it is this aunt who provides the money for Catherine Bell to go to school. Under the guise of presenting the Lowood school in "Lagrange's Ma.n.u.script," M. Sue gives us often the Heger _pensionnat_.

Aunt Branwell provided Charlotte Bronte the money that enabled her to go to the Hegers'.