Finding Mr Rochester

by Trisha Ashley

  ‘As long as I don’t have to dress up too,’ he said cautiously.

  ‘Of course you will – as Mr Rochester! They’ll be expecting it.’

  ‘I’ll be too busy baking for their tea for all that,’ he pointed out.

  ‘You can bake in the morning and get everything ready, and then all you have to do is gloom about looking romantic.’

  He scowled blackly.

  ‘Yes, just like that,’ I said, and the scowl turned into the devastating grin again. I wished he’d stop doing that; it was making my knees go weak.

  ‘So, who will you be coming as?’ he asked. ‘Jane Eyre?’

  ‘No, I think I’ll come as Charlotte Brontë – goodness knows, I’m small enough. Martha would probably describe me as a little snirp.’

  ‘I don’t think she would,’ he said, looking amused. ‘But I think you ought to wear a crinoline. I don’t see why I have to be the only one to suffer in restrictive clothing.’

  ‘You could wear riding dress – a cutaway coat, breeches and long leather boots. That would suit you and be comfortable,’ I suggested, then returned to the contemplation of my wonderful idea. ‘My publishers will send publicity material up, and I bet both my agent and editor come up here for the launch – it’ll be mega!’

  ‘It had better be, if I’ve got to get dressed up,’ he said ungratefully.

  ‘It’s for your own good and you can advertise the restaurant. In fact, you could call it Mr Rochester’s!’

  Henry groaned, but started to look a little more hopeful as he turned the idea over in his head.

  ‘You know, it might just do the trick,’ he said at last.

  5

  My publisher and agent being keenly enthusiastic about my idea, Henry and I got on with the planning and a kind of friendship slowly evolved.

  The book went to press and after we posted news of the event on both my website and Henry’s new Godesend Farm one, we were amazed at the response. The opportunity to dress as your favourite Brontë or Brontë character, meet Mr Rochester in person, and the promise of a new Brontë revelation clearly proved irresistible, for the news spread like wildfire and even attracted Brontë fans from abroad. The event was an almost instant sell-out and pre-orders of my book were amazing.

  I had to return to London for a week in late August, mainly because the cottage was booked by someone else, and I found myself resenting these interlopers! Henry and I emailed each other every day, discussing plans and how the restaurant was coming along, but I couldn’t wait to get back, and Missy seemed to feel the same way. Somehow, Godesend Farm had turned into home.

  I returned to discover that the boxes of my new book for the launch had arrived and were stacked in the kitchen. The darkly glowering hero on the cover looked remarkably like Henry in a strop, and I was just admiring it when the man himself walked in the back door to an ecstatic welcome from Missy.

  I felt quite pleased to see him, too.

  ‘You’re back,’ he said unnecessarily. ‘Those people who had the cottage last week were a total pain. I was glad to see the back of them.’

  I suspected the feeling had been mutual, but at least he seemed to prefer my presence, which was something. I thought he might even have missed me, because he wasted no time in telling me that the workmen were now fitting out the interior of the restaurant, way ahead of schedule. Things had moved extremely fast: but then, they would, with Henry hovering darkly over the proceedings.

  Then his eye fell on the book I was still holding.

  ‘The copies of Finding Mr Rochester have arrived, Martha must have put them in here,’ I said, slightly nervously handing him a copy. But luckily he didn’t seem to recognise himself in the illustration on the cover.

  ‘I’ve got some lovely stills taken from old Jane Eyre films to go on the teashop walls, and I’ve had the Brontë bit of the memoirs photocopied and laminated, too,’ I told him. ‘And did I tell you that a couple of the daily papers are sending reporters and photographers up the day before the launch, to take pictures of us – isn’t that wonderful?’

  ‘I suppose I’ll have to dress up for that, too,’ he said gloomily.

  ‘Yes, but it will all be worth it. Did your costume arrive?’

  ‘It did and it fits. Actually, I quite like the riding boots,’ he admitted. ‘What about you? All Charlotted up?’

  I nodded. I’d spent an awful lot on my dress, which was based on one in the Brontë museum. It was in cream striped muslin, with a pretty deep pink paisley pattern and small frills on the bodice and sleeves.

  ‘So, we’re almost ready,’ he said. ‘I’ll lose a bit of custom in the teashop, closing for the day, but it should be worth it in the long run. Someone from the Brontë society turned up while you were away,’ he added.

  ‘Really? That’s great! You’ll soon be firmly on the tourist trail. Have you had those restaurant flyers printed?’

  ‘I’m picking them up later today. I wanted to wait as long as possible before putting an opening date on them, in case there were any last minute glitches. But touch wood, it’s all ahead of plan.’

  He frowned, ‘The only fly in the ointment is George.’

  ‘What’s he been doing now?’

  ‘Driving his tractor up and down the farm track a couple of times a day, which he seems to think gives him some kind of legal right of access. He’s threatening to block it altogether on the day of the event – I think he’s realised if it’s a success it means he’s never going to get his hands on Godesend, and it’s sent him slightly mad.’

  ‘Can you stop him?’

  ‘The day before yesterday I warned him that if he carried on, I’d have the police out and sue him for loss of custom and trespass and anything else I could think of, and he hasn’t tried it again since. I hope he’s seen sense.’

  I hoped so, too!

  The morning of the event dawned as fair and calm as it had the previous day when we’d both dressed up for our photo shoot – and, as it turned out, regional TV coverage – and although I’d been nervous, my first sight of Henry’s broad-shouldered and muscular form attired in a close-fitting outfit of jacket, breeches and boots had distracted me.

  And he said, after a thoughtful scrutiny of my dress, that I made a very pretty Charlotte and the short ringlets I’d arranged on either side of my forehead were cute. This was secretly gratifying, even though I’d never heard of Charlotte ever being described in quite those terms!

  Now I put my costume on again and went over to help Martha, though she had it all well in hand. The tables were covered in snowy cloths and set for tea, with a small gift bag at each place, containing a copy of my book and a cardboard fan printed with Jane Eyre quotes, inspired by Hephzibah’s biblical one. The memoirs themselves were on a shelf behind the counter, open at the relevant page.

  ‘Where’s Henry?’ I asked and she said he’d been in a furious frenzy of baking all morning and had only just gone up to change.

  ‘I hope he behaves himself when the guests arrive,’ she added.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ I assured her. ‘Bad temper is in the Mr Rochester part, so people will think he’s just acting.’

  My agent and editor arrived first; Senga clad as a martial and scary Emily Brontë and my editor as Cathy from Wuthering Heights, though the Kate Bush version, rather than the original. They were quickly followed by the guests and the press, and after that the event passed by in a kind of excited blur.

  I think the most memorable bit was when Senga told them about my discovery – and that Henry Godet was a direct descendant of the man who had so inspired Charlotte’s writing. He’d bowed, looking surly but resigned … and also very, very attractive. It was no surprise that he was mobbed afterwards.

  It was all a huge success. Senga and my editor departed early by taxi, still wearing their costumes, but everyone else seemed inclined to linger on, until Henry announced that he wanted to say a few final words.

  Then he thanked everyone for coming and said he
hoped to make it an annual event – an even bigger one, in his new restaurant. There were loud hurrahs and several people even put their name down for next year before they left.

  But no sooner had they gone, than the first couple to leave (a Cathy and Heathcliff) returned to say that there was a tractor blocking the track and the driver refused to move it.

  ‘George!’ exclaimed Henry with a face of thunder, and strode out.

  ‘Oh, he’s so rugged and manly!’ sighed the Cathy, and her husband gave her a dirty look.

  ‘Henry – wait!’ I cried, running after him, half-afraid that he and his cousin might come to blows – because this surely was the final straw!

  6

  By the time I caught up with Henry, he was already having words with George and they were squaring up to each other.

  ‘Get that tractor off my land! This is my final warning, or I’m calling the police,’ Henry threatened.

  Whatever George was about to reply remained unsaid, because he suddenly looked up and his mouth dropped open as he caught sight of the horde of people in Victorian garb who’d streamed down the track after me and were now avid spectators.

  Faced with camera phones, the photographer from the local paper and the focus of every eye, he became flustered.

  ‘I’ve a right to use this track,’ he began belligerently, but in a more uncertain tone than I’d ever heard from him before.

  ‘You’ve no right – and you’ve no real right to the rest of the land that you conned out of my father either, so if you weren’t so stupid you’d just keep out of my way.’

  ‘Your father thought me the better man, that’s why he left it to me,’ George said unwisely, and Henry took a hasty step forward, clenching his fists.

  I grabbed one arm and Martha the other, but we hardly seemed to slow him down. But George quickly jumped back into his tractor and started the engine.

  ‘I’ll go this time, but I’ll be back!’

  ‘I wouldn’t, if I were you,’ Henry called out. Now he seemed to have ceased contemplating homicide, Martha and I released our grip on his arms. He folded them over his broad chest and watched critically as George began to turn his tractor in the narrow track.

  I’d seen him do it easily before, but this time being the centre of so many eyes must have affected his concentration, because he misjudged it and one of the huge tyres slid down into the deep ditch. Then, slowly but inevitably, the whole thing rolled over, trapping George beneath it in the cold, dirty mud at the bottom.

  The engine continued to roar until Henry turned it off and then, without seeming to pause for a second to consider his own safety, jumped into the ditch and crawled right under the precariously tilted tractor.

  ‘Someone call 999!’ I yelled, hoicking up my expensive skirts before sliding down into the ditch after him and instantly sinking up to my ankles in cold mud.

  ‘Is he all right?’ I asked, peering under the tractor.

  ‘Trapped his leg and I can’t get him out,’ Henry said and then the tractor shifted a bit and he swore and told me to get well back.

  ‘You’d better leave me, too,’ George said. ‘It’s going to come down on us any minute.’

  ‘Don’t be daft,’ Henry said shortly. ‘I wouldn’t leave a dog in this situation.’

  Then he asked me to pass him something he could use to stem the bleeding from George’s head, so I took off one of my many petticoats and gave him that.

  I stayed in the ditch anxiously watching for any further movement from the tractor until the fire engine and police came, which was surprisingly quickly.

  Then someone helped me out and the tractor was soon winched up and George, with a broken leg and a head into which I hoped a bit of sense had been knocked, was removed to hospital.

  Henry, also slightly bloodied and battered around the head and covered in wet mud, emerged from the ditch to huge applause, and sheepishly bowed.

  ‘You’re my hero – again,’ I told him. ‘But I was so terrified you’d be killed!’

  ‘Were you?’ he asked softly, looking down at me with an inscrutable expression. Then our eyes met and held for a long moment and he kissed me – or perhaps I kissed him.

  The sound of applause broke the spell by reminding us that we had an audience, and then the local reporter bobbed up between us like a cork, exclaiming, ‘You’re the hero of the hour! The others will be kicking themselves for leaving early when they see my exclusive.’

  Then he rushed off again with the photographer in tow, and I told Henry he’d better go and change into something dry. ‘I’ll come and put antiseptic on those grazes.’

  ‘Martha will do it,’ he said. ‘You’d better change too, because you’re all muddy and you’ve ruined your pretty dress.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter – we’re safe, that’s the main thing.’

  ‘You’d both better stop standing about in this chilly breeze and go and change, you daft ha’porths,’ Martha said severely, then got into the tractor and drove it up the track out of the way as if she’d been doing it all her life, which she probably had.

  Everyone cheered that, too, before following her up to where their cars were parked; then, as they left, they all honked their car horns, though by then I was inside changing back to jeans and t-shirt.

  I tossed the sad ruin of my dress into a sink full of cold water, in the probably vain hope the stains would soak out, before heading back up to the farm, leaving Missy still cosily slumbering in her basket.

  7

  I found Henry in the farmhouse kitchen, back in his everyday garb of jeans and sweatshirt. Martha must have dressed his battle scars before leaving, because he now looked even more like a romantic hero – bruised, battered and bandaged.

  ‘Are you all right?’ I asked anxiously, going close to search his face for signs of concussion. ‘You’re not seeing double or anything, are you?’

  ‘Luckily no, because I don’t think I could handle more than one of you.’ He touched the bandage. ‘I’m fine, it’s only a bump and a graze that I got crawling back out, but Martha went a bit over the top with the first aid stuff.’

  ‘You were very brave – especially considering it was George under that tractor!’

  He shrugged. ‘I suppose it was instinctive, like when you ran into the bog after Missy … and our kiss.’

  ‘That was just relief, because you were safe,’ I said quickly, my face going hot.

  ‘Was it?’ Henry slid his arms around my waist, but still gazed down at me with one of his serious, brooding looks. Then he said, ‘I’m no Mr Rochester you know, Eleri?’

  ‘Of course not, no more than I’m remotely like Jane Eyre, or even Charlotte Brontë, though I do love the moors as much as she did – and especially Godesend Farm. It’s got under my skin and I never want to leave.’

  ‘You don’t have to – there’s a job vacancy,’ he said, then gave me a long, slow-burning kiss that I returned with some enthusiasm.

  ‘Let me guess,’ I said, when I was able to draw breath. ‘Madwoman in the attic?’

  ‘Got it in one,’ he replied, accompanied by that totally irresistible grin and then he kissed me again before I could ask about my terms of employment.

  I thought I could guess.

  MR ROCHESTER’S

  AFTERNOON TEA RECIPES

  1) HENRY’S SPECIAL CHEESE SCONES

  Ingredients.

  200g/8oz self-raising flour

  1 level teaspoon baking powder

  Quarter teaspoon salt

  Level teaspoon dry mustard

  Pinch of cayenne pepper

  55g/2oz butter

  100g/4oz finely grated cheese

  150ml/5oz milk

  1 egg, beaten

  Method.

  1) Preheat the oven to gas mark7/220C/425F.

  2) Grease a baking sheet, or line it with baking paper.

  3) Sift together the flour, salt and baking powder.

  4) Rub in the butter and then stir in the cayenne pep
per, mustard and grated cheese.

  5) Mix the milk and beaten egg together, then gradually stir in enough to make a firm dough.

  6) Turn on to a floured surface and roll out, until about three-quarters of an inch/2cm thick.

  7) Cut out circles, using a cutter about 2inches/5cm or slightly bigger in diameter.

  8) Put them on the baking sheet and brush with a little milk, or any leftover milk and egg mixture, to glaze.

  9) Bake near the top of the oven for about ten minutes, until well-risen and the tops are a pale golden brown.

  10) Turn on to a wire rack to cool, or serve hot, with butter.

  *

  2) YORKSHIRE FAT RASCALS

  Fat Rascals are a Yorkshire delicacy somewhat akin to rock cakes and no one can come close to those baked to a secret recipe by Betty’s Café in Harrogate. However, this is author Angela Dracup’s quick, easy and delicious version, with one or two tweaks of my own.

  Ingredients.

  200g/8oz self-raising flour

  Pinch of salt

  A quarter teaspoon each of ground cinnamon, grated nutmeg and mixed spice

  75g/3oz margarine or butter

  75g/3oz castor sugar

  75g/3oz mixed dried fruit with peel

  50g/2oz currants

  One large egg, lightly beaten with two tablespoons of milk

  Method.

  1) Preheat the oven to gas mark 6/200C/400F and cover an oven tray with baking paper.

  2) Put the butter, flour, salt and spices into a large bowl and mix together using the rubbing-in method, until it looks like very fine breadcrumbs.

  3) Add the dried fruit and sugar and mix well.

  4) Start to stir in the egg/milk mix a spoonful at a time, until you have stiff dough.

  5) Divide into either two big rounds or four smaller ones and place on the baking tray. (You can decorate the top with glacé cherries for eyes and slivered almonds for teeth to make smiley faces if the fancy takes you.)