The Lady in the Attic

This story contains sensitive content: antiquated discussion of mental health, confinement, emotional abuse and allusions to self harm.

Dear friend,

I have been given a treasure. Grace left a stub of pencil for me. I admit it may have fallen from her pocket, but I am not one to look a gift horse in the mouth. It has been so long since I have written that I’m half surprised I remember how. You may wonder at this, a gentlewoman who has almost forgotten to write, but I promise I am not such a poor correspondent intentionally. It is a matter of access. And a matter of will. 

They say my mind is going. That it’s been going. So I wonder, shouldn’t it then be gone? How can something that was not so terribly big to begin with have been going for this many years, and not yet be completely absent? 

I have asked Grace this, but she can not answer me. She says that the question itself is a sign of my madness. I have asked her to ask my husband, but I know she will not. She’s afraid of him, as am I. 

As are we all.

I am tired now. I think I will rest, and look forward to writing again tomorrow.

Faithfully yours, 

B.

Dear friend,

On one thing I wish to be perfectly clear: I loved my husband. 

No, that’s not quite right, is it?

I love my husband. But it takes two to sustain a marriage, and my husband has never loved me. Our fathers conspired together to marry us - I would bring money, and he would bring a name. No matter that I was afraid of him from the first moment I met him. No matter that he did not want a wife. He liked me a little, once. He liked that I was young, and biddable, and had a good fortune. He did not like that I aged, that I grew sad and strange during his long absences. In the beginning, I wept when he left. Later, I wept when he returned. 

I watch him come and go, sometimes bringing people back with him. Sometimes women. Once, a little girl. She never left, and I hear her sometimes, scampering around the floors below. The delight of everyone in the house except him. 

I would have liked a daughter, I think. Someone to love, who might love me in return. Someone to lavish my attention on, to have tea parties and picnics with, to teach to read and to write. Of course, she would leave me eventually, through death, or marriage (which are really the same thing). Perhaps I would have convinced her to join a convent, though her father never would have approved. He does not approve of religion. Even more, he does not believe in relinquishing those things he believes are his.

But I am well past my child-bearing years, and there is no point dwelling on what might have been. 

The light is failing, I will write more tomorrow.

Faithfully yours, 

B.

Dear friend,

I spoke last about how different my life could have been. The first rule I live by is to be content with my lot. If I start thinking about how different my life could have been, well. That is a dark road that I do not wish to travel. 

My second rule is to appreciate what I have: I have a roof, if not a home. The attic is cold in winter and hot in summer, but it has a window through which I can see the grounds almost to the road. I can watch the birds flying into the forest, and the changing of seasons in the leaves of the trees. I can feel the sun on my face, even if I can’t feel the wind against my skin.

I have company, if not friends. Grace looks after me well enough, and it is not her job to be my friend. Besides, it’s hardly appropriate to befriend one’s servants. Though I admit to being lonely enough to consider bending this rule. 

I have safety, if not freedom. He could have had me committed, so I suppose this is a kindness, in its way. He has always surprised me with his capacity for kindnesses, small though they may be. He could also have given me a house in the country where I wouldn’t bother anyone, but that does not bear thinking on. He is kind, in his way.

But I know that I will never be happy. Happiness is a green country reserved for other people, and I gave up any dreams of travelling there long ago.

I find that this writing tires me in a way I have not been tired in a long time. I think that I will sleep soundly tonight.

Yours, etc.

B.

Dear friend,

Something has happened. I had just put down my pencil when, to my astonishment, I saw my husband coming out of the woods that separate the grounds from the road. He was leaning heavily over the saddle horn and his head was bandaged. A young woman walked alongside him. This is not extraordinary, as I have said, my husband has entertained women at this house before. But those have always ridden in carriages, and come dressed in finery. They would never deign to walk while he rides. 

I must find out more. I will ask Grace when she comes for my nightly dosage.

Until then.

Yours, 

B.

Dear friend,

Grace was unusually forthcoming. She says that the young woman has come to stay and that she is to be a governess to the little girl. I am glad for her; I know how lonely it is to come up with no female relations in a house of men.

Grace says that the woman, Jane, is an orphan, and poor, with no family. My heart pities her, though perhaps it is best that she knows how to live without familial affection. Perhaps Mrs. Fairfax will be kind to her. She was kind to me when I first came to live here. I had expected her to be a natural ally, as a housekeeper should be to a young wife, but it was soon evident that she, too, found me disappointing.

Perhaps this Jane will be more to her liking.

Yours,

B.

Dear friend,

I have not had the heart to write. It seems that the new governess is nothing more than a homewrecker. I would have believed that it was merely Grace trying to torment me had I not seen it for myself. 

Two days ago, Jane was on the front lawn with little Adele. They were gathering flowers, or stones, or some such childish thing. And my husband came from the woods and saw them. I was sure he would admonish her for filling the child’s head with frivolities, for wasting the money (surely a pittance) that he pays her. But he stopped and watched them. And even from here, I could sense the change in him. 

Eventually, he approached them, and let the little girl place a flower behind his ear. A flower! 

Later, I did something that I have not done in years. I waited until Grace was asleep (she likes to follow her supper with spirits, and is hard to wake on the nights that she does). There is a hole in the wall of my room, behind the bureau. It leads into a space between the walls that allows me to move around the house undetected. 

Perhaps you wonder why I have not used this to leave? I have thought of it, but, dear reader, where would I go? Thornfield Hall is my home, after all.

I crept through the house, listening for voices. They were in his study, and I pressed my eye to a hole in the plaster of the wall. Through it, I saw them. They sat across from each other, knees almost touching. The look on his face! I have never seen him look at anyone so tenderly. I could not hear what was said, but I saw him reach out, and stroke her cheek. She leaned her face into his hand for a moment before she sprang away, and I knew she was lost. 

I wanted to weep, but instead, a deranged laugh bubbled up from my throat. I fled before they could ascertain where it came from, though I’m sure he will guess it was I. Who else but his wife would be creeping through the walls, laughing like a madwoman?

I thought that, at least if he was angry, he might come to see me. I laid awake all night in my clothes, but he did not come. I knew I was beneath his affection, I did not know that I was beneath his notice entirely. I would prefer he hate me, for then he would at least acknowledge me.

I still exist. I am here, whether he wills it or not.

Perhaps it is time I remind him of that.

B.

Dear friend,

I truly am mad.

I tried to kill my husband. At least, that’s what he’ll think. 

After my last letter, I again crept from my room. Before I left I filched a box of matches from Grace’s pocket. My husband used to keep many of his papers in his room. I wondered if he still did so.

It has been many years since last I gazed upon the face of my sleeping husband. I used to visit him nightly, even after I was locked away. There was a time when I could look at the face of my jailer and feel nothing but love and heartache, when I would struggle to keep the tenderness I felt towards him at bay. But tonight when I looked at him, I could only wonder that he is able to sleep at all, with the things he has on his conscience. The evidence of his untroubled rest sent me into a rage. Before I fully understood what I was doing, I was touching a lit match to one of the papers scattered upon his writing desk.

I waited, watching the fire spread. Looking into the flames was the first time I’ve felt truly alive in years. What has become of me? What tatters is my life that I am resigned to the fate of a madwoman locked in an attic? 

I will not be forgotten so easily, of that you can be sure.

Yours,

B.

Dear friend,

There is to be a wedding. And it is my own fault.

Am I a ghost? I have asked Grace, but she ignores the question. I feel alive; I feel hunger, pain, anger. I suppose once I felt other emotions but I have forgotten. Now I hide in the walls, haunting the house that should be mine.

I thought the fire would make my husband take notice of me. I thought it would remind him that I still exist. Instead, it drove him straight into the arms of the girl, this Jane. Grace told me she saved him from my fire, and in his bliss and gratitude, he asked her to be his wife.

There have been other women, but never one who he looked at like this. Never one who he wanted to make Mrs. Rochester. I wanted to see for myself what charms she could possibly offer, what would make him break his oaths not only to me, but to God. 

For the first time, I visited the small room where she sleeps. She is so young! Little more than a child. I left her a warning, but apparently a torn bridal veil wasn’t clear enough. The wedding is to go ahead as planned.

I think it is time I remind the people here who the mistress of this house truly is.

Yours,

B.

Dear friend,

It is done! She knows who I am. She knows he cannot marry while I live. 

I watched from my little window as the lawyer stopped the ceremony. I couldn’t see Jane’s face, but I could imagine her anguish at discovering her beloved was nothing more than a scoundrel and a philanderer. 

She’s gone. I saw her flee Thornfield Hall at dawn, her figure a dark arrow flying through the morning fog. 

I am wearing one of my better dresses, and asked Grace to help me with my hair. When did it become so wild? She rolled her eyes and said it was a lost cause. She will have to watch her tongue once I resume my rightful place.

I wait for my husband. Surely he’ll come to me now that there is no one else.

Yours,

B.

Dear friend,

It has been weeks since the failed wedding, and he has not come. It has occurred to me that he may never come. That this terrible waiting is to be my life from now on. I’m not sure I can stand it.

Yours,

B.

Dear friend,

This will be my last letter.  I would tell you not to weep, but you were never real to begin with, were you?

I am a ghost in my own home. If I am in hell, I will make sure that he is in hell with me. Let the flames take us both.

Yours,

Bertha Rochester