Finding Mr Rochester

by Trisha Ashley

  The tearoom was in an attached outbuilding, with the entrance in the cobbled courtyard. The door had been given a coat of the same emerald green paint as the one at the cottage, and was flanked by two tubs of slightly blasted daffodils.

  Inside was a roaring stove and a happy fug of warm hikers, sitting round orange-varnished pine tables. At a counter at the back, Martha was loading a tray with scones, cream and jam.

  ‘It’s you, is it?’ she said, by way of greeting.

  ‘It was the last time I looked in the mirror,’ I agreed. ‘I’ve come for the broadband password, but I don’t think I can resist the smell of those hot scones.’

  ‘These are the last till the next batch comes out of the oven and Henry’s only just come back and put them in, though he had a face on him that probably sent them sinking to the bottom of the pan.’

  I could imagine.

  Martha stuck her head through a doorway that presumably led to the kitchen of the house, from where faint crashing noises and a little swearing had been faintly audible, and shouted, ‘Scones ready yet?’

  ‘Five minutes,’ a now familiar deep voice growled.

  ‘They’re for the lass from the cottage and she wants the internet password too.’

  ‘She’ll have to wait, I’ll be out when I’ve a minute,’ he snapped.

  ‘That’s fine,’ I said quickly to Martha as she closed the door again. ‘I’ll wait – but could I have a cup of coffee now?’

  ‘As soon as I’ve finished with this lot,’ she said, picking up the tray and heading off to the last unfed and famished hikers.

  I found a free table in the corner and started to make a few notes, for that dark finger of ancient stone up on the hill had stirred my imagination and I was sure I could squeeze a tiny bit more detail into the edits before they went off.

  A little later, I became aware that a man had planted himself silently in front of me. I looked up – at Mr Rochester personified!

  I blinked, wondering if I had dreamt up this vision: but no, he was still there – sturdy and broad-shouldered, with sardonic dark eyes set in a sallow, strongly-featured face under a thick thatch of spiky black hair. He was wearing the kind of expression that tells you a man is mad and, if not precisely bad, certainly dangerous to know: an almost irresistible combination … especially when the said man was holding a plate of hot cheese scones.

  I shut my mouth and stopped doing guppy impersonations.

  ‘Henry Godet,’ he introduced himself. ‘You want the broadband password, I hear?’

  ‘Oh yes, please,’ I said, as he put the plate down. ‘Are those scones for me?’

  ‘Martha said you’d ordered them.’

  ‘I did, and do please sit down for a minute – if you have time, that is?’

  He looked at me for a moment, as if I’d asked him to perform some difficult feat, then silently pulled out a chair and sat opposite.

  I studied him surreptitiously, taking mental notes. He still seemed to be filled with a simmering anger from his earlier encounter with his cousin, unless he was always like that? It was a bit like taking tea with a tiger.

  ‘The scones smell delicious,’ I began, as a conversational opener.

  ‘Light as a feather, because he’s got a better hand with the pastry than I have,’ Martha assured me, setting down my coffee and another for Henry.

  ‘Get that down you, Henry, you must be parched.’

  She went back to her counter and Henry sat sipping his coffee, and brooding, while I buttered a scone. Then he absent-mindedly helped himself to half.

  I hoped he wasn’t going to charge me for that.

  ‘I was surprised you had broadband put in,’ I said. ‘Surely it must have cost a huge amount?’

  Henry looked down at the half-eaten scone he was holding, as if surprised to find it there, and then seemed to fully focus on my face for the first time.

  ‘The pub at the crossroads has been bought out by a motel chain, so they were getting it and asked me if I’d be interested in paying a bit and having it here, too, so it wasn’t so much as you might think. And I’ll need it … or I will if things go according to plan.’

  ‘Oh?’ I said encouragingly, taking a hearty bite of my scone in case he decided to snatch that half too.

  Despite his natural taciturnity, Henry was obviously suffering intensely from a need to unburden himself, for he said, ‘I’ll hear today if planning permission has been granted to convert the old barn next door into a restaurant.’

  ‘Oh yes, Martha said you were a chef – but will you manage to get enough people up here to make a go of it?’

  ‘If the food’s good enough, people will travel for it, and mine is,’ he said arrogantly. ‘The winter weather could be a problem, though.’

  ‘Yes … and it could take a while for word to spread about the outstanding excellence of the cuisine,’ I said slightly dryly, and he gave me a suspicious look, followed by a slight and disarming grin.

  ‘I’ve lost most of my land, so I’ll have to do something to make the place pay. I can’t keep it going on the rental from one cottage and a seasonal teashop.’

  ‘The house looks big enough for a bed and breakfast?’

  ‘Not enough bathrooms and it would need loads of updating,’ he said. ‘I’d rather spend what money I’ve got from the sale of my own house on getting the restaurant up and going. Anyway, I don’t want a houseful of ever-changing strangers.’

  ‘Quite right: I don’t think you’re the type. How much land have you got left?’

  ‘Just the small fields behind the cottage and the ground around the house and buildings – my cousin got the rest.’ His face darkened. ‘He’s hoping I’ll sell out to him cheaply, so he’ll throw any spanners into the works he can think of.’

  ‘I saw the gate behind the farm had been walled off,’ I said. ‘And I’m afraid I overheard some of your argument earlier when I was coming back from a walk.’

  ‘Good,’ he said, to my surprise. ‘Then you’re a witness to him threatening to knock it down.’

  ‘I suppose I am,’ I said, though didn’t mention that I was also a witness to his own threat to inflict severe violence on his cousin!

  ‘My solicitor’s written to him, because there’s no right of way through there, just a public footpath, and I’ve put the stile back where it was before my father built the gate. George was driving his tractor through it and down the drive to the road several times a day, just to get my back up.’

  War seemed to have been declared.

  ‘I’ve got the wallers coming back to fill in another gateway opposite your cottage,’ he said. ‘That’ll keep him out.’

  ‘Right,’ I said. ‘But won’t it block your access, too?’

  ‘I sold the tractor at a good price and got a big quad bike, and I can still get that up on to the moors from one of my own fields.’

  ‘Did you actually need a quad bike, or is it a boy’s toy?’

  He gave me one of his dark looks. ‘It’s handy, especially when I have to go and pull a rambler out of the bog below the stones.’

  ‘Does that happen a lot?’

  He nodded. ‘They never seem to read the warning signs to stay on the path, and my place is the only one they can see from the Stone. George’s farm is hidden over the hill.’

  I shuddered at the thought of getting caught in the clinging, treacherous bog. ‘I won’t be going off the path at all. Martha warned me about it last time I came, but actually it was too misty to see anything anyway, so we didn’t get that far.’

  ‘We?’ he queried quickly. ‘I thought Martha said you were here on your own.’

  ‘I’ve got my little dog with me,’ I explained. ‘But she’s always on a lead, so she isn’t going to need rescuing from the bog, either.’

  ‘I should start charging hikers for the rescue service,’ he said morosely and got up. ‘I’d best get back.’

  ‘Good luck with the planning permission,’ I called after him, but I was talki
ng to his broad-shouldered, retreating back.

  Oh, he was so my type – surly, clever, devious and dark! But I was determined not to fall into that trap again … and anyway, for all I knew, he was keeping the modern equivalent of a madwoman in his attic, just like all my exes had.

  When Martha called in the next day with some of her very expensive eggs, which I was too afraid of her to refuse to buy, I casually asked if there was a Mrs Henry and she said, ‘Nay, no one daft enough, for he’s got a devil of a temper when he’s cooking. Anyway, who’d marry a man who’d take over her kitchen?’

  She had a point, but I bet there had been more than a few who’d tried.

  Then she told me planning permission had been passed for the barn restaurant and Henry wasn’t letting the grass grow under his feet, because the place would be awash with workmen by dawn tomorrow.

  4

  I soon settled into a routine of working all morning, taking Missy for a run on the moors (though never straying from the marked track), and then having afternoon tea at the farm, admiring the speedy progress of the restaurant as I passed by.

  My edits were quickly finished, though I added a few extra touches to the description of the farmer Charlotte had seen, who must surely have looked just like Henry!

  I didn’t always see Henry during my afternoon visits to the teashop, but I did bump into him outside the barn one day and he was so full of enthusiasm for his project that he made me put on a hard hat and go inside to see what was being done.

  Already, it was divided up into a kitchen and dining area and looked very little like a barn. Henry sketched out his plans for the interior with such glowing enthusiasm in his eyes that I sort of wished he’d start to look at me like that …

  The day after he’d shown me the restaurant, Henry had another argument with his cousin on the track right outside my cottage and I’m ashamed to say I opened the parlour window and listened.

  George had brought his tractor up the drive again and was clearly livid to find another gateway had been blocked off. The two men had a full and frank exchange of views and then, since Henry was clearly not going to move from in front of him, George executed a difficult turn on the narrow, storm-drain-edged track and roared off back down to the road.

  I don’t know why he was even trying it on, except to wind Henry up, because he surely must have access to the land on that side from his own. I said as much to Martha when she brought me more of her overpriced eggs, and she said they’d never got on from being boys and that George was a miserable little snirp.

  What a lovely word snirp is! It was a pity my edits had gone and it was too late to add it.

  I had a little holiday while I waited for the book proofs to come and, since the weather continued briskly spring-like, Missy and I daringly explored the moors a little further beyond the standing stone. There was a map in the cottage and the main pathways were well-trodden and signposted, so it seemed safe enough.

  But then one day the mist unexpectedly rolled in and, with amazing speed, enveloped us in a damp, whitish, muffling world. Still, I’d managed to find the way down past the standing stone easily enough and I was just thinking we’d be back in the cottage in no time, when a sheep sprang up practically under my feet, bleating loudly. Missy gave a yelp of alarm, jerked back her head, which slid out of the collar, and bolted.

  I called her name and then heard her yelp again – but a different, shrill, panic-stricken sound this time. Without a second thought I ran in the direction it came from, and the mist, rolling back as speedily as it had arrived, showed me the small white face of Missy, stuck fast in a bog.

  I stopped dead, but too late, for my legs were suddenly sucked down into the mud right to the thighs, which was the scariest sensation ever.

  I couldn’t climb out either, but I could reach Missy and tucked the muddy little dog inside my zipped anorak. Then I took a good grip on the clumps of tough marsh grass on either side and called, waveringly, ‘Heeelp!’

  The wind seemed to whip my voice away … but it was lucky the path was so well frequented, for my cries were soon heard by a small man with spectacles, a rucksack and binoculars, who observed me from a distance, told me to hang on (which I was doing for dear life) and went to get help …

  Which of course was Henry, roaring up the track on a big quad bike, with a bad-tempered expression and a coil of rope with an old inner tube tied on one end coiled over his shoulder.

  After surveying me and saying scathingly that he thought I’d have had more sense, he threw me the rope and I pushed the inner tube down under my arms so he could drag me out.

  I emerged from the reluctant grip of the bog with a gloopy pop and got up from the tussocky grass on trembling legs, my clothes from the waist down black and cold with mud. Missy was shivering inside my anorak and so was I.

  ‘What on earth were you thinking of?’ Henry demanded.

  ‘A sheep startled Missy and she ran off and got into the bog … and when she sounded so distressed I ran after her. I didn’t think—’

  ‘They never do,’ he sighed wearily. ‘Come on, there’s a cold wind.’

  I got on the back of the bike, took a firm grip on Henry’s waist, and we roared off down the hill to the cottage, where he positively commanded me to go and have a hot shower while he saw to Missy.

  He was bossy, but I was happy to do as I was told at that moment, and when I came down he’d washed Missy in the big stone sink and was drying her off with a towel, while she tried to lick his face. I think it was love.

  He’d lit the wood-burning stove too, so the kitchen was warm, and since he was still clearly in bossy mode he insisted on heating up some soup and making coffee.

  ‘This tinned soup is dreadful stuff,’ he said disparagingly, but I closed my hands gratefully round the hot mug.

  ‘My hero!’ I said and he grinned, which softened his usual sardonic expression in a way that had an unfortunate effect on me.

  ‘Martha said she’d seen you heading up the moors ages ago, so when the mist came up I’d already set out to look for you.’

  ‘That was kind,’ I said, touched.

  ‘It wouldn’t be good advertising, to lose a guest.’

  ‘No, I don’t suppose it would be!’

  ‘If you come up for tea later, I’ll put some proper soup in a container for you to bring back,’ he offered.

  ‘Thank you, but I don’t know if I will, because I feel a bit limp and trembly at the moment.’

  ‘It’s the shock, but it’s your own fault! The sensible thing to do when Missy got stuck was to fetch me.’

  ‘I wasn’t thinking straight, because she sounded so distressed.’

  ‘Great daft lump,’ he said, but he was looking at Missy, who gazed back with infatuated eyes.

  ‘If someone hadn’t come along then … if you hadn’t rescued me …’ I shuddered.

  ‘You were right at the edge, so you could have hung on to that grass for a good while – and at this time of year, there are always a few hikers or birdwatchers about.’

  ‘But still – thank you!’

  He gave me that unexpectedly endearing grin again. ‘Don’t mention it.’

  ‘I wish I could do something for you, in return.’

  ‘Well, unless you’re secretly a millionaire who’d like to invest in a restaurant, there’s nothing much you can do.’

  ‘It seems to be coming along amazingly quickly – you’ll soon have it up and running at this rate,’ I said encouragingly.

  ‘Well, I’m pushing it as hard as I can, but it’s going to take every penny I’ve got, and if I fail, I risk losing the farm. I could do with some more income coming in till it opens.’

  ‘The teashop seems to do a roaring trade. Couldn’t you get yourself put on one of those Brontë sightseeing trails so even more visitors come? I mean, they could drive up, you’ve got a car parking area.’

  ‘I’m a bit off the beaten track and the Brontës never came to Godesend that I ever heard of.’ />
  Filled with warmth and gratitude … and possibly some other emotion, I found myself blurting out, ‘But there is!’

  ‘Is what?’

  ‘A Brontë connection!’ And after swearing him to secrecy, I explained about Hephzibah’s memoirs, my research and my novel, Finding Mr Rochester.

  He seemed less than impressed.

  ‘So, this Victorian diary was written after Charlotte Brontë’s death and repeats hearsay from another person?’

  ‘Well … yes, but it must be true, because it actually named your farm. And Charlotte came up here to study your … great-great-grandfather? Something like that. And I expect he looked just like you, because you fit her description of Mr Rochester to a T.’

  He looked slightly revolted by this idea.

  ‘Have you even read Jane Eyre?’ I asked him.

  ‘No,’ he admitted, ‘but I saw a film of it once. And I’m sure this is all very fascinating, but what’s it got to do with me? I can’t tell anyone, because you just swore me to secrecy!’

  ‘Only temporarily. The book comes out at the start of September and my publisher wants to use the discovery of the memoir to promote it. There should be loads of media interest … and it seems to me that if we held the book launch here on publication day, with the memoirs on display, we’d get even more!’

  ‘A book launch?’ he said, looking slightly dazed.

  ‘Yes, in the teashop. A ticketed event, including a copy of my book and one of your lovely afternoon teas. In fact, we could call it “Tea with Mr Rochester” – an event to celebrate the launch of the latest Eleri Groves historical romance, with the revelation of a new and exciting discovery about Charlotte Brontë’s inspiration for Jane Eyre.’

  I looked across at him. ‘There, that would put the place on the tourist map in one fell swoop!’

  He thought about it. ‘Tea with Mr Rochester?’

  ‘There are so many fans of the Brontës that it would be a sell-out – trust me. Everyone could come dressed either as one of the Brontës or a character from their books, they’d love that.’