CHARLOTTE BRONTË'S FRIEND, TABITHA AYKROYD, THE BRONTËS' 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 Brontë's
home circle the one to whom, excepting herself, she gave most prominence
in her works was Tabitha Aykroyd, the Brontës' servant or housekeeper.
For I find this good woman was portrayed by Charlotte Brontë as Mrs.
Dean of _Wuthering Heights_, Bessie and Hannah of _Jane Eyre_, and, on
occasion, as Mrs. Pryor of _Shirley_. 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
Brontë was its heroine and its author. In a word, we see by this
discovery that _Wuthering Heights_ is book the first of Charlotte
Brontë'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 Yorkshire keenness of perception into
character, and it was not everybody she liked." That Tabitha Aykroyd
would readily appeal to Charlotte Brontë as fitted for the narrator of
the histories in _Wuthering Heights_ we may easily perceive by reading
Mrs. Gaskell's further words on this Brontë 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 Yorkshire woman of her
class, 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
superstitious 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 Yorkshire 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 class; ... 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 destitute 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 Brontë:--
"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 Brontë 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 sunshine." And in
_Wuthering Heights_, Chap. XXII., Ellen Dean says of Miss Catherine
Linton (see my reference to this character as a phase of Charlotte
Brontë, 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 Brontë'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 passed into
another ballad.
Tabby Aykroyd going to the Parsonage when the motherless Charlotte
Brontë was but nine, Charlotte seems to have been drawn to look upon
her as a new-found friend, and afterwards she idealized those memories
associated 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 Brontë) with a a love for a Scottish song.
With Tabitha Aykroyd she loved to associate 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
Brontë 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 Brontë 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
Brontë Family."[25]
Of "Dean" or Tabitha Aykroyd in the rôle of Hannah of the family "Jane"
says:--"I had a feeling that she did not understand me, ... that she was
prejudiced against me." Nevertheless she says to her: "You ... have been
an honest and faithful servant, I will say so much for you."
Much stress is placed by Tabitha Aykroyd, as Nelly Dean, and Bessie, on
Charlotte Brontë's passionateness. Says Mrs. Dean of Catherine in
_Wuthering Heights_:
"The doctor had said that she would not bear crossing much, she
ought to have her own way; and it was nothing less than murder in
his eyes, for any one to presume to stand up and contradict her,
... serious threats of a fit ... often attended her rages."
Thus I find there is a connection between Catherine's "fit of frenzy"
and delirium in _Wuthering Heights_, Chapters XI. and XII., and the
scenes attendant upon Jane's fit of frenzy in _Jane Eyre_, Chapters I.,
II., III. The one is told by Charlotte as from Tabitha Aykroyd's
(Bessie's) standpoint, the other from Catherine's (Charlotte Brontë's),
an inversion of attitude which proves Charlotte Brontë to be the author
and heroine of _Wuthering Heights_.
_Wuthering Heights._ _Jane Eyre._
Charlotte Brontë in the locked Charlotte Brontë in the locked
chamber, and Tabitha Aykroyd, chamber, and Tabitha Aykroyd,
the Brontë servant, told by the Brontë servant, told by
Tabitha, as it were. Charlotte.
-------- --------
She [Catherine--Charlotte I [Jane--Charlotte Brontë] sat
Brontë] rang the bell till it looking at the white bed, ...
broke.... I [Tabitha--Nelly occasionally turning a
Dean] entered leisurely. It was fascinated eye towards the ...
enough to try the temper of a mirror ... I hushed my sobs,
saint, such senseless, wicked fearful lest ... signs of grief
rages! There she lay dashing her might waken a preternatural
head against the ... sofa and voice ... or elicit from the
grinding her teeth.... I brought gloom some haloed face.... This
a glass of water; and as she ... I felt would be terrible....
would not drink, I sprinkled it At this moment a light gleamed
on her face. In a few seconds on the wall; ... shaken as my
she stretched herself out stiff, nerves were by agitation, I
and ... assumed the aspect of thought the swift-darting beam
death. was a herald of some coming
vision from another world. My
Linton [? Mr. Brontë] looked heart beat thick, my head grew
terrified. "There is nothing the hot; a sound filled my ears
matter," ... and I which I deemed the rushing of
[Tabitha--Mrs. Dean] told him wings: something seemed near me;
how she had resolved ... on I was oppressed, suffocated;
exhibiting a fit of frenzy. I endurance broke down; I rushed
incautiously gave the account to the door and shook the lock
aloud, ... she [Charlotte in desperate effort. Steps came
Brontë] started up ... and then running along the ... passage,
rushed from the room. The master ... Bessie and Abbot entered.
directed me to follow; I did to
her chamber door; she ... "Miss Eyre, are you ill?" said
secured it against me.... On the Bessie [Tabitha Aykroyd].
third day Catherine [Charlotte
Brontë] un-barred her door, ... "What a dreadful noise! It went
desired a basin of gruel, for through me!" exclaimed Abbot.
she believed she was dying.
"Take me out!" was my cry.
"These ... awful nights; I've
never closed my lids--and oh!... "... Are you hurt? Have you seen
I've been ... haunted, Nelly! something?" demanded Bessie
[Tabitha]. But I begin to fancy [Tabitha].
you don't like me.... They have
all turned to enemies; ... "Oh! I ... thought a ghost would
_they_ have, the people _here_." come."
Tossing about, she increased her "She has screamed on purpose,"
feverish bewilderment of declared Abbot [?].... "And what
madness.... "Don't you see that a scream! If she had been in
face?" she inquired, gazing pain one would have excused it,
nervously at the mirror.... "Oh! but she only wanted to bring us
Nelly [Tabitha], the room is all here: I know her naughty
haunted! I'm afraid of being tricks."
left alone...."
... Mrs. Reed [Aunt Branwell]
I [Nelly Dean--Tabitha] came.... "Silence!" she
attempted to steal to the door exclaimed; "this scene is
... but I was summoned back by a repulsive." I was a precocious
piercing scream. actor in her eyes. She sincerely
looked upon me [Charlotte] as a
... "As soon as ever I barred compound of virulent passions,
the door," proceeded Catherine mean spirit, and dangerous
[Charlotte Brontë], "utter duplicity.... I suppose I had a
darkness overwhelmed me, and I species of fit: unconsciousness
fell on the floor. I couldn't closed the scene.... The next
explain ... how certain I felt thing I remembered is waking ...
of having a fit, or going mad." with a feeling as if I had had a
frightful nightmare ...
"A sound sleep would do you agitation, uncertainty, and a
good," said Nelly Dean--Tabitha predominant sense of terror
Aykroyd. confused my faculties.... Bessie
[Tabby] stood at the bed-foot
with a basin in her hand.
"Do you feel as if you could
sleep, Miss?" asked Bessie
[Tabitha Aykroyd] rather softly.
For me [Charlotte] the watches
of that long night passed in
ghostly watchfulness; ear, eye,
and mind were alike strained by
dread, such dread as children
only can feel.
By her Method II.: altering the age of a character portrayed, Charlotte
Brontë gives us Tabitha Aykroyd as a young woman in Bessie; and by the
same Method II, in the scene just read from _Wuthering Heights_, we have
an instance of her presenting, as an incident in womanhood, an incident
which the testimony of _Jane Eyre_ and other evidences show occurred
really in Charlotte's own childhood. As she relates in _Jane Eyre_, her
dread was "such dread as children only can feel"; and she goes on to say
"this incident [of the locked room] gave my nerves a shock of which I
feel the reverberation to this day." Thus in both _Wuthering Heights_
and _Jane Eyre_ Charlotte paints an excellent picture of the
matter-of-fact but good-hearted Tabitha Aykroyd going to the room in
response to her, Charlotte Brontë's, frantic appeal, sceptical and
certainly unsympathetic.
The part played by the wild summoning of Tabitha to the room, the
references to "a fit," the ghost and haunted chamber, the dread of the
mirror, the suggestion that the frenzy of fear was wilfully assumed, the
piercing scream, Tabitha Aykroyd with her basin and her final suggestion
of sleep, are in themselves ample evidence that Charlotte Brontë in both
_Wuthering Heights_ and _Jane Eyre_ drew this scene from an experience
of the kind in her own childhood. In each work stress is laid by her
upon her own hypersensitiveness, and we learn how the Brontë household
misunderstood her excessive passionateness and misread it as wicked
acting[26].
We see Tabitha best in Mrs. Dean of _Wuthering Heights_, as Hannah of
the Rivers family of _Jane Eyre_, and by Currer Bell's Method II.,
alteration of age of the character portrayed, as Bessie of that work.
Tabitha Aykroyd lives and breathes her life through the pages of
Charlotte Brontë's _Wuthering Heights_ and _Jane Eyre_ to-day, and ever
will she remain in literature, a real Yorkshire woman amazingly
translated from the wide Yorkshire hearth with its great, wind-whitened
fire and smell of hot cakes, to the pages of two of the finest examples
of the English novel. Her portrayal I declare to be one of the most
admirable achievements in the works of Charlotte Brontë.