Thornfield Hall Read online

  ‘Perhaps. For a wonderful moment when she went for me I thought she might say something.’

  ‘That would be a great step forward.’

  ‘Depends. I warn you her first words may be a disappointment to you. You wouldn’t believe the words some of these ladies know. They can cuss and swear like sailors.’

  We soon had a set of plain white nightgowns ready for the lady. She was quite overcome when we laid the finished garments out to show her. Tears trickled down her grimy face. She looked up at Grace with a question on her face and pointed at her own bosom. ‘Yes. For you,’ Grace assured her. ‘Your very own. To wear.’

  To our amazement a sound came from her lips. From the mouth that we had only ever seen opened to eat or to scream in anguish came a sound that might have been a word. None of us was sure what exactly the sound was. There was a B and TH and we each made our own interpretation of it. I was torn between Bath and Berthe, the French version of Bertha. I had once met a governess who was so named.

  ‘Just my luck,’ said Grace. ‘I get her to say a word and it’s in French.’

  After supper that night there was much excitement. John and Leah ran up the stairs with hot water. Never have I seen servants lug the heavy pails with such enthusiasm. The lady had agreed to take a bath.

  Grace came to give me a late-night report. The lady had indeed bathed. The operation had been accomplished smoothly and without distress.

  ‘I look forward to visiting her in the morning.’

  ‘Don’t expect too much. The hair is still a problem but the rest of her is clean. She is not exactly pink and white. I kept scrubbing. I thought it was dirt until I realized it was the colour of her skin.’

  ‘She came from Jamaica. It is hot there. The sun makes people darker.’

  ‘Right enough. The sailors who come to Grimsby are all different colours. Anyway that is not the most important thing. Not only is she clean, she said some more words, quite a few more. We were both right. She wanted a bath and her name is that French one you said. She doesn’t sound French, but she’s not quite English, if you know what I mean. She definitely doesn’t come from these parts. I’ve started to call her Bertha.’

  By the next morning word had gone round the servants’ hall. Bertha she became to all of us.

  Although the late Mrs Rochester had contributed little to the lady’s wardrobe, she had left a dressing set that we dusted off. A prudent Grace removed the scissors and anything else with a sharp point. She set out the silver-backed brushes and the hand mirror in the bedroom in the hope of persuading Bertha to co-operate in dealing with her hair. ‘It’s a nits’ nest,’ Grace complained. ‘She’ll have to have it cut. You can’t get a comb through it and it’s going to need weeks of fine-combing to clear out all those pesky little visitors.’ Grace tried persuading Bertha that her hair would grow back smooth and glossy after it was cut but to no avail. She tried to keep the shaggy black mop restrained in a cap, skewering it on tight with hairpins. A battle then ensued between cap and hair. The hair always won, somehow contriving to throw off all restraint and send hairpins in every direction.

  This did not stop us from furnishing the rooms on the third floor with the small comforts of life. Some of the more cheerful-looking books were brought up from the library to occupy the bookshelf in the sitting room and a couple of watercolours of landscapes decorated the walls. With the addition of some colourful cushions the room became a pleasant place in which to spend time.

  In the afternoons we ladies took refuge there when the winter wind blew outside. We sat by the fire and drank tea while we sewed garments for the lady. As women will we gossiped and talked and we laughed. At first the lady hovered in her bedroom, watching through the open door. Soon she began to creep into the room and would lurk on the outside of our sewing circle.

  Our next project was to make her a respectable dress; she was still wearing the skimpy muslin dresses that must have come with her from Jamaica. Not only were they inadequate for our Yorkshire climate, they were also hopelessly old-fashioned. To be seen in them would cause public comment – something I was keen to avoid.

  We had bought samples of grey cloth, thinking that would be the most suitable colour for her status. They were not a success; the fabrics lost their lustre and looked dingy against her coffee-coloured skin. In the end we decided on black; it flattered her, making her complexion glow. It was also a practical choice. You can go anywhere in black and not be noticed; it is the colour of mourning and of domestic service.

  The choice of fabric was therefore comparatively easy. The calculations that followed were not. Bertha was tall but still very thin and undernourished. It seemed prudent to allow extra fabric in the seams so that the garment could be let out if she gained flesh. There was much brandishing of the tape measure and counting on fingers as we calculated how much material we would need. In the end we decided that five yards and eight inches would be sufficient.

  We sat back and had a cup of tea to revive us after our mental effort. Worse lay ahead. We needed to calculate the cost. Could we afford to pay for a good-quality material? Bertha would need at least one more dress, a pelisse, a cape, bonnets and shoes and boots. Grace and I found scraps of paper and pencils to work out the cost of five and one quarter yards of the dress material at eight shillings and four pence a yard. We hoped that if we worked it out separately we might reach the same answer. It did not happen.

  After several attempts Grace threw her pencil and paper aside in disgust. ‘It’s no use,’ she declared. ‘It comes out different every time.’

  I persevered; I was the one responsible for the accounts. I was still muttering ‘twelve pennies make a shilling and twenty shillings make one pound’ while counting on my fingers when Bertha slid Grace’s slip of paper in front of me. I had been so busy concentrating on my own efforts I had not noticed that Bertha had taken over Grace’s piece of paper. On it was written in neat figures the working out of the sum that had pestered us for the best part of an hour. The answer was two pounds, three shillings and seven pence. I checked through each step of the calculation. It was all correct. Our poor mad lady, who could scarcely speak, could do sums as neat as you please.

  We stared at her, dumbstruck. Leah was particularly impressed that Bertha’s poor addled brain had succeeded where Grace and I had struggled. ‘Well, I never,’ she kept saying and peered at Bertha as if to root out the thread of clarity that ran through the confused fabric of her mind. Bertha seemed not to mind her scrutiny. Calmly she handed Leah the needle she had threaded for her.

  Bertha’s black dress grew quickly. I always feel an everyday sort of wonder at the way a flat length of cloth can be transformed into a garment in the shape of a woman.

  ‘How shall we make the neckline?’ Grace demanded. She held the bodice up for inspection. ‘You’ll want it to look right with your locket,’ she told Bertha as she approached and held the garment against her to check the fit. Bertha looked slightly overwhelmed but did not run away. ‘Fetch the mirror, Leah, so she can see.’

  Leah did as she was bid and held the mirror up. I cannot say that Bertha was rendered speechless by seeing herself for the first time; she and speech were still comparative strangers to each other. She was certainly shocked by what she saw in the mirror. She fled into her bedroom. No appeals from us could persuade her to come out. As she sobbed quietly behind the closed door we whispered gently to each other and at Grace’s suggestion carried on sewing.

  Half an hour later a red-eyed Bertha appeared from her bedroom. She went to pick up the large shears we used to cut out the pieces of the dress. A quiver went through all of us. Would she run amok amongst us, slashing and cutting at our clothes and flesh? We all knew she was capable of turning violent. No. Bertha held the scissors out to Grace, carefully offering her the handles rather than the sharp blades.

  ‘Cut my hair, please. Cut my hair.’

  MONSIEUR ALPHONSE

  1824–5

  OUR PATIENT MADE SLOW B
UT STEADY PROGRESS. A clean Bertha was very different from a dirty Bertha. Now when she circled round us as we sewed in the third-floor sitting room we made room for her to join us. Someone would pat a chair and invite her to sit. Soon we had her threading needles. Then we gave her leftover squares of fabric to practise on and were delighted to discover she could make neat small stitches.

  Gradually a few more words came from her lips. To our relief they were not French words, though sometimes the way she said them was a little unexpected. She did not speak of anything complicated or personal, just everyday matters. She was cold, she was hungry. She liked the jelly I had made. When would her dress be ready? What were our names? It took her weeks to learn them. She would master them one day and then forget them overnight.

  To our surprise she had been well-trained in politeness. Someone had instilled good manners in her – to say please and thank you and wait to be offered things and to speak only when spoken to. With her short hair and her simple ways she seemed like an obedient child, one who by mistake inhabited the body of a giantess.

  And it was definitely a woman’s body according to Grace, who confided to me that she was sure that Bertha had had a child. The famous bath had revealed what Grace described as unmistakeable signs. I assume she meant stretch marks. We speculated as to what had happened to it and wondered if or where it – the child – lived. According to Grace, who was witness to Bertha’s wildest ravings, she had never talked of a child. We wondered if it had died.

  ‘That’s enough to send you mad,’ I told Grace with feeling. ‘For a time at least.’

  Bertha’s dress was finished. As she had proved such a skilled needlewoman, better than any of us, we asked her to sew the buttons on and make the buttonholes. Badly worked buttonholes can ruin a garment. When she first put it on she pranced round the sitting room, twirling her skirt like a child on her birthday. I will admit I felt a lump in my throat at witnessing the transformation from manacled madwoman to walking, talking human being.

  Once the dress was finished our thoughts turned to further garments we should make. We were keen to continue our afternoons of sewing; they were a pleasant distraction for us. Often I would ask Leah to climb on the big bed and read a chapter or two of a novel to us. This became a popular task. Even Old John would come up sometimes and read the newspaper to us. Grace was very keen on the newspaper; she liked to keep up to date and to know what was happening in the world.

  As there was still money to spend on her clothes Leah suggested that we make Bertha some more undergarments. ‘Not such plain ones this time. She should have some decoration on them. Hers are not good enough for gentry,’ she insisted.

  This raised the interesting question of Bertha’s status. Because Mr Rochester had brought her to the house we assumed she was gentry. Her manners were good enough. With her new clothes she might almost pass in the drawing room as long as she sat quiet and no one was unkind enough to ask what she had been reading or what she thought on a matter of current interest. It was not likely that anyone would do such a thing. The ladies only ever talked about their children and their servants – mostly to abuse them. We knew what was said in the drawing rooms of all the county families; we had a network of spies. The footman carried the gossip with the dirty cups down the back stairs to the cook and the kitchen maids. They told the scullery maids who told the delivery boys who spread it faster than the measles. The gossip arrived at our back door more quickly than the newspaper. I was proud that the one topic not talked about by the gentry was the mysterious new resident at Thornfield Hall; she was a servants’ secret.

  ‘She should have a nice nightgown.’ Leah was still thinking about underwear. ‘She doesn’t have any stays but then she doesn’t need them. She’s still so thin.’

  ‘O but she must have stays.’ The words came from my lips with unexpected vehemence. I was shocked to hear that I sounded exactly like my own mother. She regarded stays as an essential item in a woman’s wardrobe. ‘Women always wear stays,’ I found myself informing Leah as if it was an article of faith. ‘She cannot go out without stays. We do want her to go out, don’t we?’

  ‘Indeed we do,’ said Grace. ‘Getting her back to the world is the whole idea. At the moment she isn’t even curious about the rest of the house. She is not in such pain as she was. I’d be surprised if she wanted to risk exploring beyond this safe haven, but if we are ever to say that she is better, she must go out into the world.’

  ‘If she is going out into society, she must have stays.’ I was adamant on the subject.

  Stays were duly procured for Bertha. They were a garment she found very puzzling at first. It was clear that the ladies of the West Indies did not go in much for corsetry. No doubt their climate is too warm for them to feel comfortable when constricted.

  Over the next months Bertha’s world and her figure gradually expanded. With Grace’s care and Mary’s food she grew quite buxom. The stays were no longer just a nod to the conventions; they were a necessity. Once she was laced up and dressed with a cap to conceal her shorn locks we thought her suitably attired to venture beyond the rooms on the third floor. How this should be accomplished was the subject of much heart-searching on the part of Grace and me. We rejected the idea of going up to the roof for her first taste of fresh air. Too dangerous, Grace thought. Her dreadful unhappiness was too recent; she might have a sudden fit and try to hurl herself from the roof and fall to her death on the stones below.

  I passed on to Grace Mr Rochester’s insistence that Bertha would not be going into society. ‘He was determined that she be kept away from his neighbours. Didn’t even want her to go out in the carriage.’ Bertha might be qualified as gentry by birth but she was obviously never going to be acceptable in the drawing room at Thornfield Hall.

  ‘She might be a high-class lady’s maid,’ Grace suggested. ‘She sews beautifully.’

  ‘She’s had a baby. Could be the master of the house had something to do with that.’

  ‘You old cynic,’ Grace taunted me. ‘As if that ever happens in this world.’

  ‘Well it didn’t happen in this house. Maybe the master is doing a favour for a friend.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Grace, who had no high opinion of the gentry. ‘The men would stick together to conceal their little misdeeds from their wives.’

  We decided that when Bertha ventured out of the third floor we would teach her to use the back stairs. For all the so-called weakness of her mind she could be trained, much as you would train a child or a puppy. Her first destination was to be my housekeeper’s room. It would provide a safe haven that was close to the outside world. Gradually we would introduce her to the idea of going outside whilst keeping her out of the way of society.

  ‘Mr Rochester has warned that he will visit at short notice. He expects to find the house ship-shape. I do not think he wants to meet Bertha on the stairs.’

  Grace started her campaign by putting crumbs for the birds on the windowsill. As the sparrows and blue tits found them and landed there Bertha sat and watched the birds pecking happily. When the birds flew away she’d stay at the window and direct her attention to the world outside. The window gave onto the main drive up to the house. There were few visitors to the front door and few calls for the carriage to entertain her. Old John liked to keep the horses in practice so he’d drive round with the gig most days. The butcher’s boy would come whistling up the main drive and give a cheery wave to the figure on the third floor. His sharp young eyes were the only ones to spot her. He’d come round to the tradesmen’s entrance and ask when we were letting our prisoner out. Did we feed her bread and water?

  ‘Only on Fridays,’ I’d tell him. ‘Don’t you be so cheeky.’

  The first trip down the back stairs was a tense affair. Bertha, kept confined on one level for so long, had to concentrate on where to put her feet and to keep her balance on the narrow twisting steps. She obviously found them strange and troublesome. So much for Grace’s theory that she might have been
a lady’s maid. A lady’s maid would be accustomed to using the back stairs. I was sure that Bertha was more familiar with the wide sweeping staircases of the main house.

  After the first flight we had to cross the corridor to take the next flight down. She showed no curiosity about the lofty bedrooms that lined the corridors stretching to the right and left of us. The ground-floor rooms were easier to pass by as the stairs gave no more than a glimpse of the breakfast room. In the safety of my room she took a quick glance through the window and then spent a happy half hour examining the contents of the room. She flicked open the books as if looking for pictures. She did not read them. My knitting seemed to interest her more than anything else.

  ‘I like your house, Mrs Fairfax,’ she informed me in all seriousness.

  ‘It is not my house. It belongs to my master.’

  I thought she might enquire about my master but her attention was caught by the embroidery on the fire screen and she said no more on the subject. Soon it was time for her to climb back into her eyrie. Grace said that her charge was as tired that night as if she had tramped five miles.

  For some months we made this discreet secretive visit two or three times a week. Bertha still showed no desire to explore further or find out about the owner of the house. One Thursday Leah came flying towards us as we were clambering down the back stairs to bring Bertha to spend an hour in my room.

  ‘Mrs Fairfax, Mrs Fairfax! Go back. Go back. There’s a stranger in your room. A foreigner. I didn’t get his name. Says he’s the master’s man.’

  I told Leah to calm down and to help Grace get Bertha back upstairs. Bertha took some persuading. Changing plans at short notice was not one of her strong points; she tended to get into one of her states if asked to do something unexpected. Then I hastened down the stairs. Outside my room I smoothed my hair and wiped the panic off my face. After a couple of deep breaths I was able to open the door and confront my visitor.