Page 9 of The Wordsworth Key (Regency Secrets #3)

Chapter Five

L eaving Ruby to rest in a guest room, Dora laced her boots and set off with Mr Barton to visit his summer home, the place where the vanished manuscript was last seen. Dorothy parted ways from them at Clappersgate, inviting Dora to call into the Grasmere vicarage when she was next in the village.

‘I apologise in advance for how you will find us. It’s a terrible house– smoking chimneys, so many faults– but it was all we could find when we had to give up the last house,’ said Dorothy glumly.

‘I do wonder what it is doing to the little ones’ health.

’ She tied on her bonnet with grim resignation. ‘Back to it, I suppose.’

Dora got the distinct impression Dorothy would very much rather be on this search with her, but if Miss Wordsworth stayed away too long, it might prompt her brother to ask what she was up to and the very secret they were trying to keep from him would spill out.

Turning south at the stone bridge, Mr Barton and Dora crossed the Brathay and followed a track up into the wooded hills on the west side of Windermere.

‘Is your house far, sir?’ she asked. This was pleasant countryside to walk in, the hills not too steep, the trees providing shade, but she did question how much of her day this search would occupy. She had hopes she could solve the mystery quickly and return to sort out Ruby’s tangled affairs.

‘Dear lady, do you need an arm?’ He gallantly offered his elbow.

‘No need, sir. Is it far?’

‘Another ten minutes’ walk. I’ve taken a picturesque little cottage with a boathouse on the Brathay Hall estate, right on the water. One rapturous letter to London and my friends have been flocking to visit me. The Lakes are very à la mode.’

‘So I’ve heard.’ Dora didn’t like to consider herself to be one of the tourists who had travelled to enjoy the inspiring sights much spoken of by the arbiters of taste, but perhaps she was no different to them? ‘And how do you know Mr Wordsworth?’

Barton patted his chest. ‘Oh, I felt I knew him from the moment I read his Lyrical Ballads . I simply had to come and adore him– and Mr Coleridge too, though, sadly, he is in town at present.’ He opened a gate into a private woodland.

Oaks and ash trees arched over the trail as the path led steeply down to the water glinting in the distance.

The ground smelled damp and fertile after the recent rain.

‘Which poet do you prefer– Coleridge or Wordsworth?’ Her eye was caught by a squirrel scampering up a tree trunk, red fluffy tail wafting like a feather boa behind it.

‘That is a cruel question, Miss Fitz-Pennington. It is like choosing between the country or town– both have their attractions.’

Under his manner she was beginning to see Barton wasn’t as much of a fool as she had first thought. He had fashionable manners, to be sure, which made it easy to dismiss him as a flibbertigibbet, but perhaps there was more depth to his character?

‘But if I pressed you?’

His expression became serious. ‘Then I would say that there is something more substantial, more lasting in Wordsworth’s poems. He prompts thoughts that feed my heart and soul long after I’ve read his words; whereas with Coleridge, I’m entertained, even mesmerised, but the impression is more like a dream that passes. Is that answer enough?’

‘You have my thanks. I haven’t been able to put my finger on what it is about the two that is worthy of attention, but I believe you have summarised it very well.’

He laughed happily, serious manner falling away as quickly as the squirrel disappeared into the foliage. ‘That might be the first compliment I’ve ever had for my intellectual grasp of a subject. People rarely think I have an opinion worth hearing.’

‘Better to be underestimated than over-praised.’

‘I’ll have to remember that next time my mother criticises me for my gad-about-town ways.’

They emerged from the trees to come upon a stone cottage built on a spur of land jutting into the lake.

‘And there she is: Windermere, England’s greatest lake,’ said Barton, gesturing to the stretch of rippling water.

Sailing boats tacked in the middle distance.

It looked a fine day for going out on the water, sun shining and wind blowing just enough to give the sailors good sport.

The lake was narrow enough at this point that the opposite bank was clearly visible, but the water stretched far to the south and out of sight.

‘Ten miles long! Isn’t that marvellous?’

Dora agreed that it was. She ventured to the shore.

There was a boathouse built into the bank to her left, roof at the same height as the turf.

Fishing and sporting gear– ice skates, bows and arrows, cricket bats, balls– were heaped on rough shelves against the wall, ready for the next adventure in all seasons.

From the careless way the tackle had been left, she guessed Barton and his friends were hobbyists rather than serious anglers.

She turned back to the house, revising her opinion that the manuscript could be lost amidst the clutter.

It was a tiny place– just a holiday cottage, nothing more.

‘If you would be so kind as to show me where you kept the manuscript?’

Barton didn’t use a latch key. He simply opened the door.

‘You don’t keep it locked?’

‘No one locks their doors around here,’ he said. ‘I didn’t realise I had anything worth stealing. Besides, you’d have to be a very determined thief to come all the way out to this cottage. You could sail over from Waterhead, but why do so?’

He was making good points. ‘Do you have any theories what happened to it?’

‘I really don’t– wild surmises, nothing more.’

‘I might have to ask you for those if my search turns up no clues.’

The cottage had two rooms: to the right, a kitchen that doubled as a sitting room, to the left, a bedroom.

‘I hope you do not mind the impropriety?’ He opened the door to his sleeping quarters.

‘We are here on business, sir. There is no impropriety.’

‘Quite so.’ He didn’t sound convinced and stood well back to let her pass. ‘I’ll remain out here.’

Suppressing a smile, Dora went inside and searched the room. It didn’t take long as it only contained a bed, chest of drawers, valise and desk. The contents of the valise were already scattered on the floor.

‘You kept the manuscript in your luggage?’

‘Yes, it was on the top– it’s a bundle of notebooks containing the fair copy of the poem.’

‘When did you last see the bundle?’ She began picking up the clothes he had tossed about, shaking them out then replacing them neatly in the valise.

‘Miss Wordsworth asked me the very same question. I don’t open that often as it contains my town clothes, but I did so on the night I dressed for the Rydal Hall ball.

I wanted a silk cravat. That was when I noticed the Wordsworth notebooks were gone, but I was late, and I thought I’d wait until daylight to make a proper search. ’

‘When did the ball take place?’

‘Three nights ago.’

‘Then you first noticed they were gone three days ago?’

‘Just so. As you might imagine I spent the following day searching, feeling terribly cut up about it, then the day after that I walked to Grasmere to confess to Miss Wordsworth. Last night she sent a note suggesting that we should ask for Dr Sandys’ help, which brought us to your door this morning. ’

Dora checked for any hidden pockets but found none. ‘How long had the manuscript been in there?’

He grimaced. ‘Three weeks.’

‘I thought you loved Wordsworth’s poetry?’

‘I do– I really do, but there was a lot of it, and I wasn’t in the mood to give it serious attention. I was saving it for a rainy day with no company.’

A three-week window of opportunity was unhelpful. Many people could have come and gone from the cottage in that time.

It wasn’t among the clothes, but she hadn’t really expected that to be the outcome of her search. She moved to the chest of drawers. The everyday clothes were neatly pressed and folded.

‘Do you have a servant?’

‘Not at the cottage– there’s not much to do. I send my laundry to the big house and it comes back in a basket.’

‘And you put it away?’

‘Correct.’ He watched her closely as she felt around the drawers, even taking them out to check nothing had fallen down the back. ‘I really don’t think I would’ve put the manuscript in there. I’d worry I’d crease the notebooks when I took things in and out.’

‘I realise that, sir, but it’s wise to be thorough. Even the best of us can have our absent-minded moments.’ Her search did not reveal a bundle of papers anywhere in the room. ‘What about your guests? Might they have picked it up and forgotten to return it?’

‘But it was inside my valise, not out for any Tom, Dick or Harry to paw. That was the point of putting it away. I’d promised on my honour to look after it and not share it with anyone.’ He paled at the reminder of how much he stood personally to lose.

‘Did any of them know you had it?’

He rubbed his chin, thinking. ‘I really don’t think it came up and I wouldn’t have ventured the subject in conversation.

Some would be jealous, and the others tease me unmercifully for my unfashionable enthusiasm for Mr Wordsworth’s verse.

Half of them side with the majority and are admirers of Byron and Scott. ’

‘Still, you’ve had people in and out of your cottage. I’m going to have to follow up with them.’

He groaned. ‘Will you be discreet?’

‘I will,’ she promised.

‘No accusing anyone of anything?’

‘This isn’t the first time either Dr Sandys or I have been involved in a sensitive investigation.’

‘Come through then and I’ll make you a list.’