Did Mrs. Fairfax know about Bertha Mason Rochester?

[Zsofia]

The descriptions of her in the book (I just reread it a few weeks ago) were that sort of thing from the time period where you can’t really tell what the person is supposed to look like - all about her dark and swollen countenance suffused with blood and suchlike. Here, I’ll post the bits in that scene where Rochester takes them all up to see Bertha that discuss her appearance (it’s public domain, of course.)

In the deep shade, at the farther end of the room, a figure ran backward and forward. What it was, whether beast or human being, one could not, at first sight, tell: it groveled, seemingly, on all fours: it snatched and growled like some strange wild animal: but it was covered with clothing; and a quantity of dark, grizzled hair, wild as a mane, hid its head and face.
…
The maniac bellowed: she parted her shaggy locks from her visage, and gazed wildly at her visitors. I recognized well that purple face—those bloated features. Mrs. Poole advanced.
…
She was a big woman, in stature almost equalling her husband, and corpulent besides: she showed virile force in the contest—more than once she almost throttled him, athletic as he was. He could have settled her with a well-planted blow; but he would not strike: he would only wrestle.

[Waenara]

@The_Devil_s_Grandmother

I can’t recall the book saying any specific about what Bertha looks like in the “now” of the story. We only know that she was beautiful when she and Rochester were young. She may well appear to be aged beyond her years after 20 years of indifferent care from women like Grace Pool.

I’m just re-reading the book right now, and when Mr. Rochester finally gives his long explanation to Jane after his secret is exposed, he says that Bertha is actually five years older than he his.

…I knew that while she lived I could never be the husband of another and better wife; and, though five years my senior (her family and her father had lied to me even in the particular of her age), she was likely to live as long as I, being as robust in frame as she was infirm in mind. Thus, at the age of twenty-six, I was hopeless.

The book says he lived with Bertha for four years, at which point to had confirmed that she was mad. Then the above quote - so I figure he was 22 and she was 27 when they were married. After living together for four years, he brought her back to England and installed her at Thornfield, and she would have been about 31 years old.

To England, then, I conveyed her; a fearful voyage I had with such a monster in the vessel. Glad was I when I at last got her to Thornfield, and saw her safely lodged in that third story room, of whose secret inner cabinet she has now for ten years made a wild beast’s den.

So at the time of the novel, Bertha is about 41 years old. After living crazily in a small room for ten years, I wouldn’t be surprised if she looked at least 5 or 10 years older than her real age.

[Johanna]

I like Jean Rhys’s take on the story from Bertha’s perspective in Wide Sargasso Sea.

[Zsofia]

Yeah, but looking 50 still doesn’t make her old enough to be a mad nanny or spinster aunt. Seriously, Mrs. Fairfax has GOT to have suspected. Especially since I imagine everybody knew Edward spent some time in the tropics and that’s surely obviously where Bertha’s from (she doesn’t seem to speak in her appearances in the book as far as I can remember, but that doesn’t mean she never does).

So he comes home to his ancestral manse with a madwoman in tow that Mrs. Fairfax (remember, she’s distantly related) knows damned well isn’t a spinster aunt. Maybe nobody says anything, but she’s got to be thinking it’s a mistress or a wife.

[cheriashlee]

Mrs. Fairfax does not know that Bertha is Rochester’s wife. There is nothing written as to the explanation he gave her or the others, but we know that Rochester has said “At last I hired Grace Poole from the Grimbsy Retreat. She and the surgeon, Carter (who dressed Mason’s wounds that night he was stabbed and worried), are the only two I have ever admitted to my confidence. Mrs. Fairfax may indeed have suspected something, but she could have gained no precise knowledge as to facts.” Of course everyone knew “someone” was in the attic room with Grace Poole. If Bronte had intended for Mrs. Fairfax to know Rochester was married, we would have known that. I have read and re-read this book many times. I never got the impression Mrs. Fairfax knew. We have no idea who she thought Bertha was, but in my opinion, if she knew she was Bertha Antoinetta Mason Rochester, it would not have been implied, it would have been written. Besides, why would Mr. Rochester say “Mrs. Fairfax may indeed have suspected something, but she could have gained no precise knowledge as to facts” if she knew?