'Overruled!' shouted the King, adding: 'Or do I mean "sustained"? I always get the two mixed up – it's a bit like "feed a cold and starve a fever" or "starve a cold and feed a fever". I never know which is right. At any rate, you may call the first witness.'

The White Rabbit blew three more blasts on the trumpet, and called out:

'First witness!'

The first witness was Mrs Fairfax, the housekeeper at Thornfield Hall, Rochester's home. She blinked and looked around the court slowly, smiling at Hopkins and glaring at me. She was assisted into the witness box by an usher who was in reality a large guinea pig.

'Do you promise to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth?' asked the White Rabbit.

'I do.'

'Write that down,' the King said to the jury, and the jury eagerly all wrote "write that down" on their slates.

'Mrs Fairfax,' began Hopkins, rising to his feet, 'I want you to tell me in your own words the events surrounding Miss Next's intrusion into Jane Eyre, starting at the beginning and not stopping until you get to the end …'

'And then what?' asked the King.

'Then she may stop,' said Hopkins with a trace of annoyance.

'Ah,' said the King in the voice of someone who thinks they understand a great deal but are sadly mistaken, 'proceed.'

For the next two hours we listened not only to Mrs Fairfax but also Grace Poole, Blanche Ingram and St John Rivers, all giving evidence to explain the old ending and how by calling 'Jane, Jane, Jane!' at Jane's bedroom I had changed the narrative completely. The jury tried to keep up with the proceedings, and they wrote as and when directed by the King until there was no more room on their slates, whereupon they tried to write on the benches in front of them, and failing that, on each other.

After every witness the smallest dormouse in the jury was excused for a trip to the bathroom, which gave the Gryphon time to explain to the King – who probably wouldn't have been able to touch his head with his eyes shut – the procedure of the law. When the dormouse returned the witness was given to the Gryphon for cross-examination, and every time he called: 'No further questions.' The afternoon wore on and it became hotter in the courtroom. The Queen grew more and more bored, and seemed to demand the verdict on a more and more frequent basis, once even asking during a witness's testimony.

And throughout this tedious performance, as the characters from Jane Eyre came and repeated the truth in front of me, a seemingly endless parade of guinea pigs interrupted the proceedings. Each one was immediately set upon and placed head first into a large canvas bag, then ejected from the court. Each time this happened there followed a quite inordinate amount of confusion, cries and noise. As the din grew to fever pitch the Queen would scream, 'Off with his head! Off with his head!' as though she were somehow in direct competition with the tumult. By the time the latest guinea pig had been thrown from the court, Grace Poole had vanished in a cloud of alcoholic vapours, and no one knew where she was.