‘I will do all I can to help. Let’s start by going over when you last saw the poem.’
ChapterFive
Leaving 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 hisLyrical 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.’
