The Key to the Brontë Works / The Key to Charlotte Brontë's 'Wuthering Heights,' 'Jane Eyre,' and her other works.

by John Malham-Dembleby

"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 pass 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 Brontë—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 Brontë merely from impressions created in her mind by other than a personal acquaintance with the district. Where then, and in what peculiar circumstances, 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 Brontë's mind as the originals of Peniston Crags ("Peniston" 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 Peniston Crags in Wuthering Heights:—

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

Clearly Joseph's "leading of lime" from Peniston Crags in Wuthering Heights was suggested to Charlotte Brontë 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 antithetically—of Gordale Scar in the Malham letter:—

Montagu.	Wuthering Heights. Chapter XVIII.
In the clefts in the rocks' sides, or wherever a lodgement of earth appears [is] the ... yew.	They were bare masses of stone, with hardly enough earth in their clefts to nourish ... a 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 to show the prominent features to strangers." He takes Montagu on to Malham, where Montagu sees the Fairy Cave. This boy-guide was called Robert Airton, and he was aged twelve.[31]	Says Catherine Linton to the boy Hareton:—"I want ... to hear about the fairishes, as you call them.".... Hareton opened the mysteries of the Fairy Cave and twenty other queer places. 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.