If one is still enough, not uttering a word, it is easy to call up visions in the mind. Barely breathing at all, I drag a mental paintbrush across the cracked wall seeing clear turquoise sky, sharp and big, contrasted against the massive sea that roils at my feet, its waters deep cerulean. Far below the blue, black brackish waters cloak everything and I cannot discern what is beneath. As I stare, an outline sings in the deep, shifting its massive weight as it swims to the surface, breaking free to release a gust of air out of it’s blowhole. One great eye flickers at me before it sinks out of sight, gliding along, leaving me to wonder what this creature feels as I catch a glimpse. Did the beast know there were men in pursuit, our eyes reflecting each other’s? I gazed at it until the whale and I became one as though stitched together, fabric and gore all one…all one. If my meaning is opaque, dear reader, let me set it out for you plain. I have been accustomed to the stay—the corset— most of my life as a Lady of some stature. The best (and mine are made of the most hardy of materials) are made of bone. Well, not bone exactly, but baleen. The jawbone of a whale. I can almost picture the gritty whalers tramping about at sea, dragging these behemoths out of the depths to cut them to ribbons for their fat and oil and their…jaws, cutting off whale songs.
I sit before my vanity, my curling raven-hair trailing behind me as I contemplate the men sliding along the deck, slathered in fat as they dissect whales for their use. Sitting in my tightened stay, I picture their loose slacks and greasy boots. And all that blood. It must smell rank, my stomach roils just thinking about it. I can almost feel the globs of iron-bright flesh sliding down my throat as I squeeze my eyes shut, but the taste grips me, crunching my waist as it slides down to my stomach. Hunched as I write by candlelight, which is all that I am afforded now, I cannot breathe while I think. My fingers are smudged with ink at the tips. Here and there I have spotted this old gown. I could change, switch to the purple one or the red, but they are all stained with ink. Every stay is blackened with ink as I rush to pull them tight. Everyday I come and write about the mountains and hills I find in the bitter fabric, the plains of my cot, and the towers of light, thick as tree trunks. In silence, I plot the soil of my chamber row by row.
How long I have been in this room, I know not. There is but one circular window that I can barely reach. I must stack the books and stand on the bed, peering out of the pane to catch the last wisps of sunlight as they spin towards their end. I care not for the sunrise. It reeks of hope and beginnings and in it I have found nothing but another day in this room. I thought I might tally them, but I arrived at three hundred and ninety-two tallies and felt my wits fray at the edges, spinning like cursive on this page. Letter after letter looping in on itself as I struggled to find them again. To see them. I nearly forgot how to read. I wandered the room in my nightdress, the bottom of it gray-black with grime as I shuffled around, muttering to myself, pressing my ears to the wall. I fancied I could hear things. I could hear the fae. I could hear the devil. Most awful, most awful indeed… I could hear God. With words so coarse and cold he has left me here, and would not answer me when I cried out, but all the while I could hear him speak. It was a horrid time. When I did bother with the scraps thrown to me, I found no pleasure in eating, no sustenance.
I cannot say I am truly myself again. Sometimes my mind goes white like a sail flapping in the wind without a North star. It might be glorious to behold if it weren’t so humiliating. To be gripped in the stagnation of this big bright white mold flashing in my empty head…I…wish for death. My name is Bertha Mason. Even now, as I utter the name, it constricts me like the walls I sit inside. My name crawls up my back to rip at my scalp. I would give anything for a walk, even if it was in fog and rain and mist. With the cold whipping my dress into a frenzy and death clamoring for me, surely anything could be better than this.
I have stopped with the tallies. I do not count the days. My blood rises and falls with the ever marching sun and sinks into the underworld below. As I stare at the wooden floor, the baby mouse has bravely scampers returned, scampering about. I wonder. There must be something. Some goings-on. For though I cannot hear, my spirit is stirred as though God’s great big hand stokes my soul.
I crept to the big wide wall and for once I do not press in. I press out, feeling inch by inch, stepping to the door to peek through the key hole to find only darkness. I have tried the knob many times. It is always locked except when the servants come up to change my bedpan, offer me food, sometimes water, sometimes milk. Bread and meat. And on my birthday…scones. I have begged for cake and was only met with blank stares. Empty sockets that see me not and hear me little. I fall still when the maid enters, careful not to scare the poor girl. The last time I lost myself, my husband sent for the doctor.
Perhaps I should now address what I painfully avoid. I have been married for some time. I do not speak his name. There is great pain wrapped up in it, the one becoming the other until there is only one. I will call him Whalebone. It is rare that he comes to visit me in the darkness of my affliction. Gloating, freshly shaven, his cologne dripping down the walls as he oozes about, flicking my dark hair in his fingers. Once he walked in and threw a brush on the floor, muttered something about caring for myself and left. Once he stayed long and slept in my bed. Once I woke with him atop of me, paralyzed in terror as his face contorted like a demon until he rolled off, grabbed my escaped bosom and inhaled my long faded perfume.
I did not speak in his presence. I never do. Whalebone thinks I have become mute, that the confinement has nailed my jaw shut and I have no thoughts. It has tricked him into believing that I am an animal, far below him on the Great Chain. That I am no longer a woman. When I look into his dark eyes, I sometimes wonder if he always believed this. If he saw my tanned skin, decadent curls, elaborate gowns and always pictured a peacock glittering in the Caribbean sun. It never occurred to me to ask my love if I was human to him. But now I have my answer. When he paces the room, glaring at me from above, whether I sit at my vanity, upon the bed, or crawl across the floor—it is always the same look. Disgust and beneath that…desire. As though he is sickened by how much he lusts after me. He took me on the floor once, bruising my knees and hips in his fury. I soon lost myself after that. My stomach grew. Despite the changes Whalebone made to my diet, I grew sick, coughing up bile and what else until I grew so pale I scarcely recognized myself. The big bright eyes in my sunken face glittered like dying stars. I did not bleed as I should. And then I did, like a red waterfall opened up inside of me, thick and warm, more than ever. And the pain. I twisted up in the bed and screamed and all he did was stand and watch, his face crusted with disappointment.
I caught slivers of the words the doctor whispered to Whalebone. Miscarried. Unfortunate, but perhaps for the best given my condition. I thought about that for a long time. What was my condition? Was it of the mind or of the body? I couldn’t say. I touched myself all over and never found anything. I cradled my head, thinking hard until I made my head hurt, but there were no bumps. No lumps. My skull met my neck in a delicate line, like the lean of a lily. My finger found my once luscious lips, tracing them, yearning for his touch. Or the phantom of how he used to love me. It was gentle once. Passionate. Walking beside him, waking beneath him, his chest hair close to my face and his smell all around me. I left my girlish ways and would be a mother, a wife. To lead a life…I dared not call myself a fool, but felt nonetheless that I had been foolish. There was a wolf just behind his gaze, but I did not see it. Even now. I struggle to glance in his direction and see clearly the ravenous thing that ravished me and picked my skeleton clean. Leaving me hollow in this upper attic with the tiny window I can barely reach.
I am dead. Yes, that is it. That is the reason I have been left in this room for so long. With pale, pale skin all white, and hair dark as pitch, darker than overturned earth. I crawl atop the bed, squatting with my knees in my chest, balanced perfectly as I chortle to myself. I thought myself a phantom of blood and bone, slinking around the room. I scuttled under the bed and scared the dear mouse, catching it by its tail, the tiny legs spinning in terror. Why it spoke to me, funny little words. The mouse told me to eat it, and I would have too had Whalebone not walked in and had the hole sealed. Tittering to myself I stared at the dips in the sinking wall, tracing the large crack down its middle. Somewhere in my cavern of a brain it occurred to me— I could come and go as the mouse did.
Here I am pressing the walls until I discover a loose panel and shimmy it free, coughing as dust falls on my head. The yawning darkness is quiet, and yet loud enough to draw me in as I press into the tight crawl space, flinching as I knock spiders free of their cobwebs one at a time. I might have screeched in terror before. Left this place and never determined to go looking for the sun beneath my feet, but as it stands, my soul has been all mixed up and I must know. The fabric of my gown is oppressive here. I nearly dash myself to pieces shrugging it off, left in my stays and stockings, ripped at the toes. But I continue. The wood panels are nailed at intervals, sinking far below and out of my sight. I might retrieve the candle, but carrying it as I climb would be impossible, surely I’d lose my grip and tumble Lord knows where. Maybe the cellar. It is a grim thought. Then an idea creeps into my brain and I hurry back for the wick. Upon tossing my gown into the bedroom, I stuff it beneath the blanket, rumple the cover and pillows to appear as though I am asleep and set the candle down inside the walls.
It is not much light, but it is more than what I had. Grunting in my petticoat, I scale the innards of this great house, catching splinters on my way down until I could hear things! Voices. Whalebone’s. A child. A girl I think…and a woman. She is measured and self-assured. Patient with her ward. Demure in her pauses. Why, she is nothing like me. I follow that voice as she walks, listening hard for when she stops and she does. He calls her name. Jane. I have followed her into the bowels, hardly breathing. I can hear the sweet pitter-patter of her feet. Rustling fabric as she undresses. A maid comes and she dismisses her. Her name is funny tasting between my teeth. I whisper it behind the wall, stepping over rolling mothballs. Crouching in the refuse of dead insects, hundreds perhaps. I wait until the softest of snores escapes her lips in her bedchamber. For hours, I cling to that spot, listening. By morning the maid will arrive in the attic to bathe and feed me. She will enter, eyeing the chain that has left a permanent scar upon my wrist. She glances at it ever since I bit and stabbed Richard. But that was when I lost myself.
Chewing off my nails leads me no closer to a decision. I could scamper up to my room, duck under the covers and wait for another day to smudge my fingers in ink as I write or I could stay here and confound Whalebone…No he must never know that I can escape. Shall I find a way out? My hand presses, pushes, testing…I nearly cheer with delight as I find a loose board. The nails are much too firm to pry free here without waking her. This is the end of my journey, I cover my mouth to stifle a sob, then remember…the stay. The bone. I rush to untie it, grunting in the dust, holding in a sneeze until it rips free and I freeze in place, listening. The bed creaks, but Jane continues to snore. Finally, I got the thing loose and could not see much at all, but I could feel. The ends and the edges. I bent down, rubbing the worn fabric like a madwoman. That got a chortle out of me. I rubbed my corset ragged on the jagged wood beneath my feet until I heard the tell-tale tear. Then with teeth and claws I strained like a beast in the dark, splitting the stay. It came apart. I fell back against the wall and nearly gave a victorious shout as I bent to examine the baleen pieces I wrestled free in my once frail hands. They have knowledge now. I know how to tear and climb and create…
The baleen flexed as I applied pressure to it. I thought I might be able to fashion a wedge of some sort and began my work tying together my savage tools to get at the clapboards in the wall. One nail at a time, I pulled them free and was careful to pile the wood quietly. The moonlight was pale and cold as silver on my skin as I shimmied out of the hole and into the room. She lay beneath the canopy, the covers pulled up to her chin. Without a word, my feet whispered to her bedside and I could not stop myself from lying beside her, peering into that pale strange face with the heart-shaped widow’s peak and large eyes. She was neither pleasing nor ugly, altogether unremarkable. Perhaps that is why he wanted her…Because there was nothing in her to crush. She was already as flexible as whalebone. She would bend. I touched one finger to her lips and tasted it. All night I moved not one muscle as I watched her, enamored, mesmerized. Bewitched by the possibility of another woman in the house. She had no rings and did not reek of infatuation. A glance at her things revealed her to be a governess and a rather firm one at that. As the sun came out again I slithered back through the hole, stacking the wood to hide my entrance. Now, to climb.
The candle had long been extinguished as I crept back to my room, falling senseless on the bed. When my eyes found the slow procession of sunlight crossing the ceiling, a tray with some bread and a sliver of meat, beef by the taste, appeared. I ate. I did not bother with gowns today. Instead I piled on my ratty nightdresses for warmth, loosed my hair, not caring if it stuck out every which way, and went into the walls. Perhaps in an afternoon, I’d mapped the entire house. It was tiresome work, but if I was to get the lay of the land, I must be able to navigate.
I was there when she rose and dressed. I was there when she bathed. At intervals, I fashioned peep holes throughout the halls and rooms, winking as he arranged a ball and invited ladies who looked more like me than her. I half expected him to dote on the most elegant of these women, but she was not pliable. She would not bend. And his attic was already full of me. He could not afford to shut up another woman.
I watched and watched, returning to my rooms so that Whalebone never became suspicious, wandering the house freely at night. I walked the balustrade in my musty nightdress and matted hair, turning my head like a fly. Thinking and thinking about her face. One night I returned to Jane’s room and raised one of her stale dresses to my body. It barely had the suggestion of color as though all the passion had been stamped out. I wondered, did she ever dream? Did she ever peel back wood and creep along the house? I must know. So, I returned and watched her day and night. I didn’t even notice that they were falling in love. It occurred to me that maybe I should warn this naive babe of his brutality, but what could I say? So I lingered at the foot of her bed with my ink stained fingers, more ghost than woman, haunting her dreams and her waking moments. As her eyelids fluttered she saw me, an afterimage burned on her retina.
I was there.
When she ate.
I was there.
When she slept.
I was there.
When she touched her soft skin.
I was there.
When she blushed.
I was there.
When she loved him.
I was there.
I had stamped myself onto her subconscious, scuttling through her thoughts and causing unrest. There was a thing creeping about the house. She knew. At the most base level, in her most animalistic of instincts…she knew I was there and began to cry out in her sleep, whimpering as though she were running from an animal. She woke in the morning, restless But I lingered, lingered, lingered, licking her displeasure. She was disquieted and I was there. I did not delight in her torment. I simply craved to know it. To know her. And I set about doing just that. I wore her gowns and read her books. I read her letters. I read the scattered notes she left to herself. Pieces of memory, sparks of events. I studied her gait and the way she held her chin, slightly tucked in as though she were constantly deferring to her peers’ better reason. She was almost pathetic, but beneath it all was a life. A love. A still affection that made her heart beat and believe in gentleness. I wanted to take my teeth to it and pull her bones out. Get a better look at them. I stumbled into her room and fell still in the moonlight.
Purest white. Veil and fabric. Thick and full. A wedding dress. In my fascination with her, I’d nearly forgotten him. That louse would marry her. My teeth rattled with fury. She slept there in the midst of my rage. I bent to bring my harpy nails to her pale, smooth skin and stopped myself before drawing blood. If I lifted her face she would scream and bring him to her side. And this perfect thing would whimper and curl up and weep. His secret would be out and my written words would find the sun. But would I? I stopped then…I cooled my fury and scuttled back to my room to breathe and think. At the vanity, the brush still discarded on the floor where he threw it, I raised the brush looking into the single shard of mirror I had left. The rest of the glass had been removed. This was my only sliver of existence. I tilted my head, this way and that, trying to see my features, but I could only see them one at a time. My face was made up of fractured jigsaw pieces I struggled to put together.
“Bertha.” There. I did have words.
“Jane.”
“Bertha. Jane. Jane. Bertha. Bertha. Bertha. Jane…” I found my eye, the light had gone out of it. The cheeks somewhat drawn and in need of rouge. I came to my forehead. It was sallow from my sickness. I spent quite some time on the lips. They had a pout that she did not. If I pressed my lips together, draining them of blood, I could mimic her hesitant smile. The next day I stole her books and read aloud, holding my body erect, my bearing straight, my head aloft. I controlled my movements, forcing myself to be the very picture of grace. I replaced my stays. Then I brushed my hair after washing it, practicing to weave her braids and pinned it up. I would look into that sliver again and again, checking for her face until I found it. I talked to myself until I heard her. I paced the room in circles until I perfected her stride. And perhaps the hardest of all, I tucked my chin, pretending to look up at Whalebone through my lashes.
“Jane.” I said. Then I waited until the dead of night to crawl from my room and sneak into the kitchen for the house keys, unlocking my door from the outside. With the door wide open I walked to his bed chamber. He slept in the great big bed we shared. One hand draped over his chest, on his back, the side of his face pressed into the pillow. A bit of hair peeked out from beneath his gown. I might have nuzzled that patch of hair once.
“Edward. Rochester.” My throat trembled, but I said his name. I got it out. Then I smiled as a wolf might. My next task was hard and arduous and would take some time, but I was rigid and she was pliable. I dressed and wound my hair, nailing it in place. Once that was done, I took my time matting her hair and covering it with dust. I switched her nightdress to my old one, and put on her clean one, being careful with the soft ribbons at my shoulders. Then I took the dropper of laudanum, parted her lips and fed her my teardrops. After wrapping her in a sheet for convenience, I hauled her up the stairs, trying my best to be careful of her sleepy head. Finally back in the attic, I stuffed the filthy sheet in the wall and sat. It was still night when she stirred. Rising from the bed, the chain rattled around her wrist.
“What?” Her chest heaved once as she looked all around the room with the one faraway window. The one I could barely reach. Her eyes fell on me and she meant to scream, but I shoved my stockings into her mouth. Her eyes widened.
“Bertha, please calm down.” I tucked my chin and folded my hands, sitting on the edge of the chair with my shoulders back. She froze, staring at me then shook her head. I understood that well enough.
“Your name is Bertha.” She denied it. I went to the wall and started counting. “You have been locked up for more than three hundred and ninety-two days. You’ve been here for ten years.” She gagged on the fabric. I pulled the chair up to the bed talking to her calmly, ignoring the mouse.
“You’re name is Bertha Mason and you are married to Edward Rochester. Darling, have you forgotten yourself?” I touched her face gently, lovingly. Like she would. That sent her flying back, reeling. She sobbed.
“My name is Jane Eyre and I am distressed to find you like this.” I wet a rag and mopped her head. Her eyes darted from side to side. I brought her my papers, holding up her own ink smudged fingers.
“Page after page. All written by you. Did you know that you had a child? That you lost it?” I clucked my tongue, cupping her chin. I removed the gag and she spluttered, her mouth dry, her eyes wild.
“Rochester!” She screamed. Meaning to break her wrist and free herself, she twisted.
“No one can hear your cries, it is why he chose this room for you. Far, remote, and detached from the rest of the house.” I answered.
“I know not who you are, but you will release me!” She begged. I tilted my head.
“You’ve tried to set fire to Rochester’s bed, we cannot let you be free. The light from that window is all you get to see.” I explained. She railed.
“Bertha. Bertha. Bertha. Bertha. Bertha.” I held her face still, staring into her eyes whispering my name to her. She choked, snot dribbling down her lips as she wailed, but I did not stop.
“I don’t know who you are…” She whimpered.
“You don’t know who you are.” I answered. And for the first time, she wavered. Her determination faltered and her eyes flitted to the tally marks carved into the gray, gray wall. I bent to kiss her head.
“Sleep well.” Then I returned to her room, dressing for her wedding. For my wedding.
…
Rochester unlocked the door, sweeping into the attic with his brows furrowed and a grimace nailed to his face. His dark hair combed while his shirt sleeves remained untamed. Her head sprang up at the sight of him.
“Rochester, please! Help me! Remove these chains! It is I, Jane! Your Jane!” She cried. His mouth twisted.
“What do you know of Jane? Has someone spoken to you?!” He towered over the bed. She shook her porcupine spiked head, willing him to believe her, but he only clasped her jaw in one hand, tearing the fabric of her gown out of his way.
“Never speak of Jane!” he threatened. He cradled her head, breathing in her smell, enraptured with his own power. She belonged to him and him alone. He reveled in her imprisonment, swiping one finger along the tear that spilled down her cheek.
“Cry not Bertha, death will do us part eventually. Until then our love shall sail across the seas till the world ceases to spin.” She could not tell if he mocked her or if he meant it and that was the horror. There was just as much poison in his torture as their was in his affection. And she had swallowed all of it, his scum trailing her lips. Rochester gathered himself up and locked the door.When I met him at the altar, peeking up between thick lashes, my chin tucked into my chest, Whalebone smiled from ear to ear.
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About
Delphi Spiderwood grew up in Detroit, MI where she began her story-telling career, rambling in the backseat, telling outlandish yarns. As she pursued academia, Delphi’s love for creative writing grew, inspiring her to pursue a Ph.D. at Boston University in Gothic Literature. Spiderwood now spends her time exploring the occult, the Gothic, and the sordid web that is American heritage in her bodies of work which include novels, poetry, and short stories.
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