‘My father died a few days ago– after a long illness.’ The man was clearly in need of distraction from his own grief. ‘Would you care for a stroll?’
Wordsworth glanced at the window, longing in his expression. ‘But Mary… she’s not well.’
‘Your sister is here, and my friend is with Dorothy, able to help if Mary needs anything. I believe you can be spared for a short walk to the lakeshore.’
The poet did not need more persuasion. Taking a walking stick from the stand next to the front door, he led the way across the paddock that separated the house from the shoreline. They skirted the churchyard wall. Wordsworth looked that way only once.
‘She lies near the gravestone we raised for my brother,’ he said. ‘I find some comfort in that. She’ll always be near us. We’ll all be there eventually.’
‘That is a comfort. We put my father to rest in the family crypt at Levens, alongside my brother and sister. My parents lost them in early childhood too.’
‘Ah. What a sadness that was for them.’
‘It doesn’t help with the first bitter pangs, but in time it may be consoling to know that you are not alone in your grief.’
Wordsworth swung his stick at a nettle, clearing the path. ‘When someone you love dies, there is something cut out of your life that cannot be restored. And yet, as we discovered with my brother John, you must go on for those that are still living.’
‘There is no choice, is there?’
‘Thank goodness for Willy. He is the only one of us too young to understand. His prattle keeps us going. I hope he will say “we are five” when someone asks him about his brothers and sisters, and never forget Catherine.’
Jacob recognised the reference to one of Wordsworth’s poems in theLyrical Ballads. The man’s thoughts always ended back at his poetry. ‘No doubt, he will.’
‘Did you know that I was visiting Christopher, my brother in Essex, when it happened?’
Jacob shook his head. ‘I did not.’
‘It took a week for news to reach me– a week when I thought her still alive and happy when in truth she was gone. It has been a terrible year– for us, and for the country. I wonder how it will all end.’
Wordsworth was not alone to feel the march of Napoleon east, crushing the Prussians, taking on the Russians, the war with America so recently declared, the death of Spencer Perceval, all were sapping the strength from Britain. Jacob would’ve succumbed to gloom himself if the same period had not brought Dora into his life. The prospects were bleak, but he would be doing the mourner no favours by encouraging despair.
‘There are signs of hope,’ countered Jacob. ‘Wellington is changing the fortunes of the army in the Peninsula. Our navy will doubtless beat the Americans.’
Wordsworth didn’t appear to be listening. ‘And my quarrel with Coleridge is only patched up not mended. I fear the break will be permanent.’ He swiped at a bramble. ‘In truth, it’s not my quarrel– it’s his.’
‘What happened, if I may ask?’
‘Typical Coleridge.’ Wordsworth sounded resigned rather than angry, the tone of a man who had seen an addict go around the same cycle of guilt and blame of others. ‘He took offence on the words of a gossiping friend that I was sending word ahead to London that he was not to be trusted.’ He stooped and selected a flat stone from the shore. ‘Coleridge accuses me of saying he is too often drunk, runs up bills he can’t pay and makes himself an absolute nuisance when he’s here. All I could do was deny saying it, but I have thought it– all of us have. He went from that to persuading himself I was his bitterest calumniator when all I’ve ever done is admire his intellect and wish that he could apply himself so that he could share it with the world.’ He threw the pebble and they watched it bounce three times. ‘He was– for my partis– my friend.’
Jacob saw a way out of these gloomy thoughts. ‘My companion, Miss Fitz-Pennington, met Hartley and Derwent Coleridge in the woods yesterday.’
Wordsworth looked wary. ‘She did? I hope their manners were up to scratch?’
‘She found them delightful. They’re camping and playing at being Indians. They all have been indulging in a little boat stealing, like their Uncle William.’
Wordsworth let out a creaky chuckle, a man who hadn’t laughed for some months. ‘Have they now? Did I ever read you that part of my poem?’
Jacob saw his mistake. He had referred to the autobiographical work, the one the poet was not to know had gone missing. ‘You did. Are you working on anything new?’
‘I’ve ceded the field to my critics for the moment. I have made too many enemies.’
That was interesting– Jacob hadn’t considered the virulent world of the literary critics. ‘Anyone in particular?’
‘Oh, they are legion. Francis Jeffrey in theEdinburgh Review, Leigh Hunt in theExaminer, Lord Byron– they all have their knives out.’
‘A formidable array.’
‘These wits and witlings have no feel for poetry– they have no love for human nature and no reverence for God. The voice of my poetry cannot be heard without imagination– they lack that too.’
