Bertha gazed at the waning moon through the locked window, wishing she could feel the chill autumn breeze on her face. Years ago, she was permitted to spend evenings alone on the veranda when the risk of visitors seeing her was unlikely. This thin slice of freedom was stripped away approximately seven years ago when her audible hallucinations became more frequent. Her paranoia caused her to attack one of the servants on duty. From that point, she began spending her nights staring at the sky, imagining she was back in the land of her people and not manacled to a life of sexual repression and isolation. In this place, she could immerse herself in the highs of her mania. Fortune and free will were her own.
Ever since Edward’s preferred wife, the governess, fled in the middle of the night, he had been more distraught than the night Bertha set fire to his bed. She found it poetic to watch a rich white man sleep peacefully while the flames of the world burned around him. Bertha knew what she did was wicked but felt no remorse. Merely delight. She certainly did not expect the governess to save him. Trapped in a wall of flames, and yet he still could never feel the isolation he induced upon her: a decade of captivity in a loft with no companion but a drunken nurse to stabilize her every episode. A prisoner in her mind and home. A ghost in the attic haunting the life she never had. If only there had been a way to extinguish the flames of anger inside her. So often, the ones who call us mad are the ones who drive us to it.
Hearing Edward cry out again, Bertha picked up a shoe and threw it across the room, shoving her face into her pillow to scream. Seeing that she was disturbed, Grace attempted to calm Bertha by telling her to pace about the room, count the floorboards, and breathe in and out. With each ambulating step, she’s propelled into madness almost as inescapable as this room.
“Twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-…”
“Jane!” he sobbed, and she couldn’t take it anymore. Chest on fire, Bertha screamed until her ears were hot and her throat was hoarse.
“I will kill you!” she screamed towards the locked door, throwing a shoe at the wall and knocking off the tapestry.
“Bertha, my dear,” Grace pleaded, “Sit here. Have a glass of brandy with me. It’s time for your medication”. Using her tongue to push the pill between her cheek and gums, she swallowed the brandy and sighed in relief to convince Grace she was assuaged. She would usually give in to the sedation of her pills, but the voices had been telling her to remain vigilant. No one can be trusted. Within the hour, Grace had drunk herself to sleep. This would be Bertha’s last night wandering Thornfield’s dark, eerie halls.
Quiet as a feline, she grabbed a glass of brandy and toed down the attic steps, snickering with glee at her successful escape. Over the last decade, Bertha had taken every opportunity to sneak around the manor and collect tiny treasures to keep stowed under a floorboard like her own personal bank account: jewels, money, little trinkets, anything of value.
Interested to learn what the beloved Jane left in her chamber, she decided to go there first. She hadn’t been there in a while. The last time she visited her, taking the jewel-embroidered veil on her vanity was tempting but not nearly as alluring as haunting her bed before vanishing upstairs. It was as if Jane had seen a ghost, the way her face blanched when their gazes met. Something inside Bertha was delighted at the terror in her eyes and the power she felt over Jane.
The wedding gown draped against the armoire, and the starlight glistened against the jewels and intricately ornate fabric. The dress lay on the ottoman of the bed where Jane had left it before she ran off. Running her fingers along the silk, she decided to try it on. The size was close enough, and zipping the back was not a priority. Bertha walked up to the mirror and stared, not recognizing herself. Withering away body and soul, she gazed into the black void in her eyes. In that nothingness, she began dissociating, dreaming of a time when warmth filled her soul and love filled her heart: her wedding day. Friends and family, plates of voluptuous fruit and decadent pastries, lively music, and passionate dancing surrounded her in this memory. She grabbed the glass of brandy she had sat down to try on the dress and raised a toast to freedom. The ambivalent state that usurped her body was interrupted by approaching footsteps in the hall.
“Jane, is that you? Please tell me you have returned to me!” he shouted, rushing down the hall.
Startled, Bertha started towards the door to shut and lock it before he could enter but tripped over the bottom of the wedding gown, spilling the brandy everywhere and bringing down the vanity and its contents with her. She stood up and faced the doorway to escape, but Edward was already standing there, his eyes filled with confusion and anger. He started towards her, but she pushed past him and darted through the door. It was moments before fire consumed the furniture in the chamber, and smoke eddied in the halls. The flames on her dress tail crept higher and higher, but Bertha had to keep running. She could have fled to the lower level and run out the door, but without her stolen treasures, she had no hope of surviving once she escaped. She needed to get back to the attic, so she fled.
When she entered her room, Grace was awake and coughing from the smoke stuffing the hall. Grace dumped a wash bucket on Bertha and tamed the flames just enough to help her escape the dress. She darted to her secret floorboard to retrieve her hidden bag of fortune and journal, then rushed to the window in nothing but her undergarments. The window was usually locked, but Grace had opened it to let out some smoke before she returned. The roof below the attic window was narrow but still allowed enough room for her to perch on. Her best chance of escaping safely was crawling to the veranda and maneuvering toward the staircase.
“Where are you going?!” Grace shouted.
Bertha turned back to look at her through the window and held her gaze for a moment. Grace’s face conveyed a mixture of grief, terror, and understanding, filling the void where words failed. Turning away, Bertha began to crawl. She became hopeless about reaching the staircase as her balance diminished with every crawling step. She could hear Edward and Grace’s voices in the background, and within a moment, she noticed all the servants were evacuating. Minutes later, Edward peered his head out the window and reached out his hand, calling Bertha’s name and urging her to come back so he could help her to the courtyard before it was too late. Bertha looked toward Edward and his outstretched arm and did not need to decipher the disingenuous concern in his eyes. After a decade of being dehumanized by him, there was little belief that he cared whether she lived or died. Even if he did save her from the flames or from falling to her death, she already knew what her “life” would go back to. Looking down at the bushes, Bertha decided to jump.
If he cried out, she didn’t hear him. She bent her knees and braced herself for impact like she was ten years old again, jumping into the water with her brother Mason. The shock of her fall was comparable to the jolt of landing into shallow water, only worse. The bushes eased her fall’s force but mostly helped conceal her fate. As far as Edward was concerned, she had fallen to her death. After rolling into the hedges, she stayed there until she felt confident all her scavenged belongings were secure.
After waiting as long as possible to ensure Edward and all the servants had made their way to the courtyard, adrenaline rushed through her as she ran to the tree line, escaping the smoke and flames that swiftly engulfed the manor. Bertha didn’t notice the cuts and bleeding on her arms and legs from the fall until she caught her breath, leaning against a moss-covered tree. Presumed dead, she fled towards her new life, whatever it may be. ’til “death” do us part.
Inspiration: Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë
Taylor is an Air Force linguist turned homeschooling mom of four young children, venturing from her studies in clinical psychology to revisit her love of literature. Inspired by classics and fantasy, she is pivoting from mental health academia towards honing new skills on the therapeutic journey of creative writing.
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