Page 35 of The Wordsworth Key (Regency Secrets #3)

Chapter Twenty

W hile Dora was occupied with Knotte, Jacob had many tasks to accomplish and he still had to search Barton’s cottage.

He did the quickest ones first, securing Mr Jackson’s word that he would write to Barton’s mother to tell her in the gentlest possible terms that his local friends were a little concerned about him and would be comforted to know if he had been in communication with his family.

He then asked Moss about Wright, but he claimed not to have seen him since bidding him goodnight the evening before.

‘Do we need to worry?’ Jacob asked. ‘The last time one of your number did not turn up where he was expected led to a pile of clothes at Esthwaite Water.’

Moss scratched his chin. ‘I think I should check on him before dinner. He’s renting a cottage at Town End. It shouldn’t take me long.’

Those errands done, Jacob caught up with Wordsworth as the family filed back to their vicarage.

‘An excellent sermon, I thought,’ said Jacob. He wasn’t lying. He had found it particularly moving having just lost his own father. He was reminded of his conversation with his godfather and the advice that he should remember the things he owed his parent, not the shortcomings in their dealings.

‘God forgive me, but it did us good to hear someone who has the gift for stringing more than two words together without stumbling. I think Mary is better for the outing, don’t you?’

‘Indeed, it has put some colour in her cheeks.’

‘Everyone has been so kind.’ Wordsworth invited Jacob to take a seat beside him in the garden.

The children were rapidly stripping out of their Sunday clothes, leaving jackets and boots heaped on Aunty Dorothy, and reverting to playtime in the sunshine.

Some parents would consider their games too boisterous for a Sabbath, but Wordsworth only looked on with a soft smile.

‘Ah, the children: But trailing clouds of glory do we come, From God who is our home! ’ he chanted.

‘I think that is one of my favourite poems of yours,’ said Jacob. ‘One of the best poems ever written, if I may be so bold.’

Some of the lines on the poet’s face smoothed, his spirits lightening. ‘That is very kind of you.’

‘I speak truly. I’m not given to false flattery.’

‘I suppose I should be thankful that my journey as a writer has meant I have never been surrounded by insincere puffers of my vanity but a small coterie of those who understand.’

‘I wish you would publish more. I’ve heard so many fine pieces by you that the world has not yet seen– the boat stealing, the ice skating, the passages in France with the hunger-bitten girl knitting as she walked with her cow.’

‘ ’Tis against that, Which we are fighting! ’ murmured Wordsworth. ‘Beaupuy, the French military officer who befriended me when I was in France, spoke those words to me. He was the best that gallant country had to offer and that terrible revolution cut him down!’

‘And is there not something about guardian shepherds and their crooks?’

‘You have that a little wrong. It is an image of the English lawmakers of that time, the ones who put plain-speakers on trial for treason because their writing did not slavishly support the government but dared to criticise them. They were the shepherds who Thirsted to make the guardian-crook of law, A tool of murder. Many of my friends only escaped with their lives because the English jury would not stand for it.’

The piece clicked into place– those were the very words Jacob had been trying to remember.

‘Perhaps I should revise that section? I might need to say more as I’m not sure that the current generation understands what it was like to be alive at that time– the fear that speaking truth could end your life.

Yes, I must read it over and have a tinker with it.

I shall send Barton a note– he has the manuscript. ’

Clearly, no one had wanted to worry the bereaved family with the possible drowning of one of their friends, nor did Jacob want to be the one to break the news.

Alarmed that he had triggered the very response he had wanted to avoid, Jacob now needed to steer Wordsworth away from further thoughts about the autobiographical poem in case he discovered the manuscript was missing.

‘And Mr Knotte is even now showing Miss Fitz-Pennington Michael’s sheepfold. Michael has always felt to me to be a fit subject for your philosophical poem, The Recluse . I hope you haven’t given up thought of that?’

Wordsworth grimaced. ‘It’s never far from my thoughts but a long way from completion. Luke Knotte is showing her, is he? He’s a good boy. I only wish his talent matched his enthusiasm.’

* * *

Having learned what he needed from Wordsworth, Jacob retrieved Nero from the inn and galloped for Barton’s cottage.

Last time he and Dora had visited they had not been able to enter.

He decided this time he would call at the Brathay Hall and get the spare key.

He had a readymade excuse. He had promised the vicar at Grasmere that he would find out the address of Barton’s family home.

Where better to look than in the man’s writing desk?

Opening the door to the cottage, he noticed that it didn’t have the smell of a place that had been abandoned.

There was an ashy odour in the kitchen and signs that a fire had recently been lit.

Langhorne’s information that Knotte was using the place looked likely to be true.

The friends must know where Barton kept the key.

A pair of stuffed saddlebags were slung over a chair at the kitchen table.

Lifting the flap, he saw what looked like Knotte’s possessions: a clean shirt, stockings and neckerchiefs, all of humble quality.

The other side was filled with scraps of paper and a battered edition of Robinson Crusoe .

Checking the Ex Libris bookplate, he discovered it had been awarded as a prize to Luke Knotte for his excellent reading.

It felt rather poignant that the young man had chosen to carry this around with him.

Had it been cruel of those who had sponsored his education to take him away from the locality in which he had been raised and send him back ill equipped to rise in either his old world or the new?

Wordsworth’s opinion was rather damning of his chances of making his living as a writer.

Next, Jacob searched Barton’s writing desk.

He found a letter from home that gave his mother’s address.

He slipped this in his pocket. Leafing through the rest of the material, he could see nothing that would worry a man like Moss.

Barton had not seemed overly interested in politics.

His musings were of the poetic kind or notes on the books he was reading.

If there had been something incendiary there, either Moss already had it or Barton had hidden it in a less obvious place.

Jacob checked the chimney for loose bricks, the floor for flagstones that could be lifted, and concluded this part of the cottage held no secrets.

He went into the bedroom. Knotte’s clothes from the day before were lying on a chair.

He was in his Sunday best today so these must be his weekday clothes.

How long would it be before he raided his friend’s wardrobe?

Everyone had felt free to borrow from the easy-going Barton.

Jacob inspected the contents of the chest of drawers.

There were fewer clothes in it than he expected from a fashionable man who lived here for many months.

He paused for a moment. Think, Jacob . He reviewed all that they knew about the manuscript.

It had been entrusted to Barton, but he was now missing.

If you were a thief, or a careless borrower who only now realised how that would appear to others, would you want to be caught with the manuscript in your possession seeing how its custodian was missing under dubious circumstances?

It had become the proverbial hot potato.

So, what would you do with it? Throw it on the fire, but if you cared for it…

Jacob pulled out the valise which had been slid under the bed and opened the top.

The notebooks containing the autobiographical poem lay on the uppermost layer as if they had never been missing.

You put it back . Jacob sat back on his haunches.

A huge burden fell from his shoulders, a yoke he hadn’t been aware he was hauling around with him, which, if he could sum it up, was the fear that he would be counted partly responsible for the loss of a cultural treasure.

Happily, his hunch had been right. He drew it out and gently turned the top page to read the familiar words:

Oh there is blessing in this gentle breeze

That blows from the green fields and from the clouds

And from the sky…

Quintessential Wordsworth, the breeze both being real and a way of describing the inspiration the landscape brought him, a spiritual connection to place. Thank God the poem was safe!

But what did this mean? It was a welcome development, of course, but who had put the notebooks back in the valise?

A horrible suspicion slid into his mind. Had the manuscript ever really been missing? It wasn’t unthinkable that Barton had known all along where it was and was just covering for sending it away to be to read by another in contravention of the agreement for borrowing it.

No, that didn’t follow because it was Barton himself who alerted Miss Wordsworth that the manuscript was gone. She didn’t ask for it, which meant he had no reason to concoct a story.

Then had the person who borrowed it felt guilty when Barton vanished and silently replaced it?

They would be particularly desperate to be rid of it if they were using it as a key to their attacks.

Why keep the incriminating evidence on you?

Knotte was the most likely culprit in that case as he was using the cottage, but it couldn’t definitively be attributed to him.

He could deny knowing anything about it.

He could argue that many others might have come and gone, particularly if friends knew where the key was kept.

One thing was certain: Jacob wouldn’t be leaving the poem here only so it could go missing again.

It was far too valuable, not just for their case, but for posterity.

A world without this poem in it would be a much poorer place.

Bundling it up carefully in a towel, then inserting it in a spare canvas bag, from the smell more often used for fishing tackle, he slung it over his shoulder.

The poem was going back to the poet today and it would be as if it had never gone missing.

That only left them with a murder and two disappearances to solve.