# Did Mrs. Fairfax know about Bertha Mason Rochester? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 10, 2011, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-mrs-fairfax-know-about-bertha-mason-rochester/584921 "2011-06-10T00:35:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![StGermain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stgermain/32/2868_2.png) [@StGermain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StGermain)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2011, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-mrs-fairfax-know-about-bertha-mason-rochester/584921/1 "2011-06-10T00:35:20Z")
The title says it all. Mrs. Fairfax doesn’t say anything to Jane before the wedding, but what housekeeper doesn’t know everything that goes on in the house she manages? StG ---
**Author:** ![PeskiPiksi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e495f1/32.png) [@PeskiPiksi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PeskiPiksi)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2011, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-mrs-fairfax-know-about-bertha-mason-rochester/584921/2 "2011-06-10T00:51:11Z")
It’s been years since I read the book, but I seem to remember a scene where she tries to dissuade Jane from marrying Mr. Rochester, and it was hinted that she knew something about him that Jane didn’t know. Of course, I could have made this up in my head, or it might be a scene from one of the movie versions that wasn’t actually in the book. I’m sure someone more knowledgeable will be along to correct me shortly. ---
**Author:** ![HazelNutCoffee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@HazelNutCoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HazelNutCoffee)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2011, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-mrs-fairfax-know-about-bertha-mason-rochester/584921/3 "2011-06-10T00:56:39Z")
I’m pretty sure she knew. She was running the household - Rochester would have been foolish not to let her in on the secret. I haven’t read the book in ages either, but I thought it was pretty strongly implied. ---
**Author:** ![StGermain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stgermain/32/2868_2.png) [@StGermain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StGermain)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2011, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-mrs-fairfax-know-about-bertha-mason-rochester/584921/4 "2011-06-10T01:02:50Z")
I always thought Mrs. Fairfax’s disagreement to the wedding was for class reasons. Rochester was obviously marrying below him. Mrs. Fairfax was some sort of shirttail relative to Mr. Rochester, but she saw herself as his servant and inferior. It seems likely she’d think the same of Jane. BUt she had to know Grace Poole wasn’t up there sewing, as she told Jane. StG ---
**Author:** ![Cunctator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/43a26b/32.png) [@Cunctator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cunctator)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2011, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-mrs-fairfax-know-about-bertha-mason-rochester/584921/5 "2011-06-10T01:48:25Z")
> [@HazelNutCoffee](#): > > I’m pretty sure she knew. She was running the household - Rochester would have been foolish not to let her in on the secret. > > I haven’t read the book in ages either, but I thought it was pretty strongly implied. I agree. I always thought it was strongly implied. ---
**Author:** ![teela\_brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d9b06d/32.png) [@teela\_brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teela_brown)\ **Post date:** [June 10, 2011, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-mrs-fairfax-know-about-bertha-mason-rochester/584921/6 "2011-06-10T23:43:44Z")
Good question. I asked it a few years ago, and a link to that thread might provide some more insights: [Link](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=488219&highlight=Fairfax) But it’s a zombie so I remind folks not to post there but here. ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2011, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-mrs-fairfax-know-about-bertha-mason-rochester/584921/7 "2011-06-11T00:04:59Z")
Yes, she knew. She lied about Grace Poole. ---
**Author:** ![Myrnalene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@Myrnalene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Myrnalene)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2011, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-mrs-fairfax-know-about-bertha-mason-rochester/584921/8 "2011-06-11T00:38:26Z")
> [@teela\_brown](#): > > Good question. I asked it a few years ago, and a link to that thread might provide some more insights: > > [Link](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=488219&highlight=Fairfax) > > But it’s a zombie so I remind folks not to post there but here. I was coming in to say what many of the posters in that thread believe - that she knew there was a madwoman in the house but did not know that the woman was Rochester’s wife. ---
**Author:** ![Romeo\_and\_Whatsherface](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@Romeo\_and\_Whatsherface](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Romeo_and_Whatsherface)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2011, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-mrs-fairfax-know-about-bertha-mason-rochester/584921/9 "2011-06-11T14:33:50Z")
No, she did not know, at least not definitively. The night of what was to have been their wedding day (Remember they were in the church having the ceremony when that idiot Mason sand his solicitor stopped the ceremony.), Mr. Rochester explains to Jane that he secretly and alone brought his wife, Bertha, to Thornfield Hall. He then engaged Grace Poole, whom he could trust to keep her yap shut because he paid her a handsome salary to do so (and kept her in porter, her favorite tipple). According to Rochester, Fairfax did not know his secret. Here’s the quotation, from Mr. Rochester’s explanation to Jane the night of the day of the aborted wedding: “Mrs. Fairfax may, indeed, have suspected something; but she could have gained no precise knowledge as to facts.” And on another matter related to this thread, Mrs. Fairfax does not warn Jane not to marry Mr. Rochester. She only instills in her a fear that since Jane doesn’t have wealth or social status (or looks, for that matter), Rochester may be toying with her and might try to seduce her (before the wedding). R. is about to take Jane into town, and she insists on bringing little Adele with them as a sort of safeguard. Jane then uses her wiles to keep Rochester from having any opportunity to tempt her into, um, any reindeer games. Hope this helps! ---
**Author:** ![Miss\_Mapp](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miss_mapp/32/369_2.png) [@Miss\_Mapp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Mapp)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2011, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-mrs-fairfax-know-about-bertha-mason-rochester/584921/10 "2011-06-11T17:35:10Z")
She certainly knew about the madwoman Grace Poole was looking after upstairs–all the servants did (see their conversation after Bertha sets her first fire to Mr. Rochester’s bed), but kept it from the new governess to avoid scaring her off. I don’t believe any of them were aware of who the woman was. I’m not sure if it’s in the book itself, or was only in one of the innumerable film/TV adaptations I’ve seen, but I remember Mr. Rochester saying just after the interrupted wedding that there were rumors in the village about a mad, illegitimate half-sister or cast-off mistress he was keeping at Thornfield. I assume that’s what the servants, including Mrs. Fairfax, thought. ---
**Author:** ![lisacurl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/41988e/32.png) [@lisacurl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lisacurl)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2011, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-mrs-fairfax-know-about-bertha-mason-rochester/584921/11 "2011-06-11T17:54:07Z")
> [@Myrnalene](#): > > I was coming in to say what many of the posters in that thread believe - that she knew there was a madwoman in the house but did not know that the woman was Rochester’s wife. This is correct. She thought the madwoman in the attic might be Adele’s mother, with the implication that Adele was Rochester’s illegitimate child and so the madwoman was his past lover. ---
**Author:** ![Miss\_Mapp](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miss_mapp/32/369_2.png) [@Miss\_Mapp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Mapp)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2011, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-mrs-fairfax-know-about-bertha-mason-rochester/584921/12 "2011-06-11T18:40:13Z")
> [@lisacurl](#): > > This is correct. She thought the madwoman in the attic might be Adele’s mother, with the implication that Adele was Rochester’s illegitimate child and so the madwoman was his past lover. I’m sure she thought that Adele was Rochester’s child, but I don’t think she thought the woman upstairs was Adele’s mother. Adele has only just come from France after her mother’s death, while Bertha has been in the house for some years. ---
**Author:** ![lisacurl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/41988e/32.png) [@lisacurl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lisacurl)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2011, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-mrs-fairfax-know-about-bertha-mason-rochester/584921/13 "2011-06-11T20:08:38Z")
It’s possible I was conflating some characterization from one of the many tv or movie versions of Mrs. Fairfax with the actual book character. I’ll look around and see if I have a copy of Jane Eyre on the shelf or the Kindle. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2011, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-mrs-fairfax-know-about-bertha-mason-rochester/584921/14 "2011-08-29T19:40:27Z")
For those trying to find a copy: > **[Jane Eyre: An Autobiography by Charlotte Brontë](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1260)** > > Free kindle book and epub digitized and proofread by volunteers. > [@](#): > > “I acted precisely on this suggestion. My father and brother had not made my marriage known to their acquaintance; because, in the very first letter I wrote to apprise them of the union—having already begun to experience extreme disgust of its consequences, and, from the family character and constitution, seeing a hideous future opening to me—I added an urgent charge to keep it secret: and very soon the infamous conduct of the wife my father had selected for me was such as to make him blush to own her as his daughter-in-law. Far from desiring to publish the connection, he became as anxious to conceal it as myself. > > “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-storey room, of whose secret inner cabinet she has now for ten years made a wild beast’s den—a goblin’s cell. I had some trouble in finding an attendant for her, as it was necessary to select one on whose fidelity dependence could be placed; for her ravings would inevitably betray my secret: besides, she had lucid intervals of days—sometimes weeks—which she filled up with abuse of me. **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.** Grace has, on the whole, proved a good keeper; though, owing partly to a fault of her own, of which it appears nothing can cure her, and which is incident to her harassing profession, her vigilance has been more than once lulled and baffled. The lunatic is both cunning and malignant; she has never failed to take advantage of her guardian’s temporary lapses; once to secrete the knife with which she stabbed her brother, and twice to possess herself of the key of her cell, and issue therefrom in the night-time. On the first of these occasions, she perpetrated the attempt to burn me in my bed; on the second, she paid that ghastly visit to you. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2011, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-mrs-fairfax-know-about-bertha-mason-rochester/584921/15 "2011-08-29T20:09:09Z")
Yeah, everybody who works at Thornfield knows but Jane. ETA - by which I mean that she knows there’s a dangerous madwoman in the attic, and she’s got to know that she’s Mr. Rochester’s wife, but not necessarily everything that went down in the Caribbean. ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2011, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-mrs-fairfax-know-about-bertha-mason-rochester/584921/16 "2011-08-29T20:25:29Z")
I disagree. The all important fact of her being his wife seems to have been withheld from all but Grace Poole and the Surgeon. (And of course, her brother.) ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2011, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-mrs-fairfax-know-about-bertha-mason-rochester/584921/17 "2011-08-29T20:31:27Z")
> [@TruCelt](#): > > I disagree. The all important fact of her being his wife seems to have been withheld from all but Grace Poole and the Surgeon. (And of course, her brother.) Well who on earth else would she be? They know she’s not family by blood, and people don’t tend to keep random crazy people in their attics. She could be a mistress, but why would he bother to keep her? ETA - in other words, he didn’t _tell_ her, but she had to have figured it out. That’s why she tried to warn Jane off. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Devil\_s\_Grandmother](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/74df32/32.png) [@The\_Devil\_s\_Grandmother](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Devil_s_Grandmother)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2011, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-mrs-fairfax-know-about-bertha-mason-rochester/584921/18 "2011-08-29T21:51:45Z")
> [@TruCelt](#): > > I disagree. The all important fact of her being his wife seems to have been withheld from all but Grace Poole and the Surgeon. (And of course, her brother.) It’s been a year since I read it, but I’m not sure even Grace Poole and the Surgeon knew the madwoman in the attic was Mrs Rochester. Unless the Edward Rochester’s father mentioned the marriage around the neighborhood, I don’t think anyone knew for sure. I can’t believe that anyone knew, or Rochester’s courting of Blanche would have been commented upon. Mrs. Fairfax was in favor of the master’s courting Blanche, so it’s hard to imagine she knew he was married already. As for “who else” brought up by **Zsofia** , the madwoman in the attic could have been anyone, in the time when even old servants might have been kept by the family. I can easily imagine people thought she was Edward’s old nanny, bastard sister, a spinster aunt or other distant relation. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2011, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-mrs-fairfax-know-about-bertha-mason-rochester/584921/19 "2011-08-29T23:55:04Z")
Well, she’s obviously not an old nanny or spinster aunt. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Devil\_s\_Grandmother](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/74df32/32.png) [@The\_Devil\_s\_Grandmother](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Devil_s_Grandmother)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2011, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-mrs-fairfax-know-about-bertha-mason-rochester/584921/20 "2011-08-30T19:35:57Z")
> [@Zsofia](#): > > Well, she’s obviously not an old nanny or spinster aunt. 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 agree people don’t keep random crazies, but perhaps Rochester said it was his brother’s secret wife? Some cousin who had no other kin? A ward, like Adele? It often seems in these old novels that children or women get dumped on any convenient (or inconvenienced) relation, as did the little girl in The Secret Garden. I do agree that Mrs Fairfax must have been a little dumb, and shockingly incurious about the madwoman in the attic. But she was ready to believe whatever lies/excuses Rochester told her, and if she had known he was married she would not have been approving of his courting Blanche and would have been far more remonstrative with Jane when Jane told her of the engagement. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-mrs-fairfax-know-about-bertha-mason-rochester/584921.md?page=2)