I found myself happy to be back at the cottage and reluctant to go home at the end of the week.
In fact, there was something about Godesend Farm that drew me back, and I rented the cottage again from early spring for a few weeks, intending to finish off the final editorial changes to Finding Mr Rochester and then have a brief break before the proofs arrived.
My agent and editor loved the novel and were planning a major publicity campaign leading up to the publication day, and until then, Hephzibah’s memoirs were being kept firmly under wraps – now literally, because I’d sealed the book in a plastic bag and locked it into my suitcase.
‘So you’re back,’ Martha said by way of greeting, meeting me at the cottage just as she had the last time.
But that was the only thing that was the same, for the door behind her had been painted a fresh, deep, emerald green and weak sunshine revealed the nearby extensive stone farmhouse, with a theatrical backdrop of endless moors topped by a single, stark monolithic stone. I’d had no idea that was even there!
‘That’s right,’ I agreed. ‘I was lucky the cottage was free for a few weeks.’
‘We don’t get that many takers and you got in first,’ she said. ‘Though it beats me why you want to be up here on your own again.’
‘I’m a writer, didn’t I say? Last time I needed a little inspiration for my new novel, but now it’s written I thought it would be the perfect place to do the edits and have a bit of a holiday.’
‘Oh, aye?’ she said, with little curiosity. ‘Do you write as someone famous, like, that I’d know?’
‘I use my own name, Eleri Groves, but you’ve probably never heard of me.’
‘No. But I don’t read much, because I’m too busy with the house and the teashop.’
‘Is anyone living at the farm now? Didn’t you say it had been left to Mr Godet’s nephew?’
‘Only the land went to George – all of it bar these two fields behind the cottage. Henry, Mr Godet’s son, inherited the house and buildings.’
This was as gossipy as I’d ever known her, so I said encouragingly, ‘That seems very unfair!’
‘Henry fell out with his father over him wanting to be a chef, instead of a sheep farmer, but I knew he’d come home to stay one day. And so he has – and underfoot in my kitchen all the time, too.’
She gave her grim smile, so I deduced that she was quite pleased, in her way, to have him there, but then she said she had to go, because she’d be opening the tearoom at two o’clock and a rambling club was expected.
While Missy reacquainted herself with the small paved yard behind the cottage, I settled in.
The inside hadn’t changed much, though it did all look and feel much cosier now the weather was brighter. This time there was a stack of local visitor attraction leaflets – mostly Brontë – on the end of the kitchen table, together with a laminated information sheet telling me that broadband was available for a small charge and to ask at the teashop if required. This seemed unlikely, for it would surely cost a fortune to have such a remote spot connected?
Once I’d unpacked, I took Missy for a walk, heading for the path on to the moors behind the farmhouse and thinking how lovely it was to be able to see where we were going this time!
I discovered that the wide gateway through the drystone wall had been blocked with new, paler stones, leaving only a high stile to get over.
I tucked Missy under my arm and negotiated it with some difficulty, since I’m on the short side, then walked in the direction of the standing stone, before turning back just as a party of distant hikers came into view. They were heading towards us, presumably eagerly anticipating their tea at the farmhouse.
I was keen to get back over the high stile without an audience, but when I turned the last bend in the track, I discovered a large tractor parked right in front of it, from the seat of which a thin, dark-haired man, with the sort of nose and chin that were destined to meet each other in old age, was having a shouted argument with an unseen person on the other side of the wall.
‘What’s to stop me knocking it down again?’ the man yelled.
‘The letter from my solicitor threatening legal proceedings?’ shouted a deep, gravelly voice back.
‘I’ve a right to come through here – a right of way,’ shouted Tractor Man, whom I assumed to be George – and actually, I felt deeply disappointed by the sight of my first Godet, because he was not at all Mr Rochester.
‘Rubbish! My father put in that gateway, there was only the stile to the path before,’ shouted the other voice, which had to be his cousin Henry. ‘And you’ve no need for a gate there anyway, because the wall and everything this side is my property.’
‘I’ve been coming and going as I like and there’s nothing to stop me knocking your bit of wall down again,’ rejoined George, practically bouncing on his seat with rage.
‘You can – if you’re prepared to pay for it to be repaired. You’d better read that solicitors’ letter.’
‘You know you won’t be able to keep the farm without the land! What would you do with yourself up here? You might as well sell the place to me and get back to your pots and pans.’
‘You may have put my father against me and got him to leave you the land, but you’ll never get your hands on the farm. And I’ve got plans for it, too.’
‘Aye – I’ve seen the planning notice for a restaurant, pinned to the fence at the top of the lane, but I’m opposing it. And anyway,’ he sneered, ‘who’d come all the way up here to eat their dinner?’
The other voice said something unprintable and then George laughed and started his tractor, roaring off back up the track towards where, presumably, his own home lay.
The hikers had almost caught me up now, so I let them climb the stile before me, and by the time I’d followed suit, there was no one in sight at all.
When I’d taken Missy back to the cottage, I tidied my windswept hair and decided I’d go and have tea at the farmhouse. I admit this was mainly motivated by curiosity to see if I could catch a glimpse of Henry Godet, but also I wanted the password for the internet … if it really did exist.
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
