“You know Jacobson, do you? How is the boy doing? Very well, if he has come to know a duke.”
“He appears contented. He is still making boots,” Davina said.
“Makes the finest. It is why he left. No one to pay what his are worth here.” He pointedly looked down at a pair of boots owned by someone who could pay for good ones. “Don’t look like his, though.”
“I have not had the good fortune to meet him yet,” Brentworth said.
“I have, however,” Davina said. “He thought you might be able to help me. I am seeking information about my family.”
She received a strong scrutiny. Mr. Portman rubbed his chin. “I thought you looked a little familiar. So, you are of the MacCallums who used to live down south of the village, are you? You resemble the woman the son married.”
“I am their daughter. My father and I left some years ago.”
“Not too long after his father died, as I remember. I knew him, though.”
“Was he born in these parts?” Brentworth asked.
Mr. Portman shook his head. “He came as a lad. That was well known. Fostered he was, by the couple who had no children. Restless sort, as if he knew he was in the wrong place. I was told he was a bit of a troublemaker when he was a youth. Not what you want to hear, probably.”
“I want to hear anything at all that you can tell me. Did he have a nickname of some sort?”
“Not that I can remember.”
“Mr. Jacobson said he was at times called the baron.”
“Ah, well, that wasn’t a nickname. No one addressed him like that. But the older ones, like my parents, sometimes referred to him that way when speaking about him.”
“A reference to his bearing, perhaps,” Brentworth said. “A private criticism of airs he assumed?”
“I don’t remember it being like that either. No joking or criticism to it, seems to me. Just a word that was used among them at times. A simple thing, as if maybe when he was young that label was put on him and the old ones remembered.”
Mr. Portman was as vague as Mr. Jacobson. Davina decided to poke at the memories more sharply. “Did you ever hear anyone say he reallywasa baron?”
Instead of scoffing at the suggestion, Mr. Portman turned thoughtful. “No, but now that you mention it, he said it once. Was at the tavern one night. He’d been gone—just up and left, and we all thought he would never come back, that he had abandoned his family—there’s men who do that when they get older and are looking downhill in their years. Go off to grab a bit of life before it is too late.”
“What did he say? Were you there?” Brentworth pressed.
“I was there. He showed up late, drank two pints, then said to his mates something likeI should not be here. I was born to be a baron. More than his mates heard, and everyone made sport of him, and he even joined in. Well, a man in his cups says lots of stupid things.”
“Was there anything else similar?” Brentworth asked.
“Nah. He went home and that was that.” He looked at Davina. “Your father took it hard when he died. He insisted that had a physician come, he might have made it.”
“We left so he could study to become one,” she said. “We went to Edinburgh and he became a physician himself, so he could help others.”
“A noble calling. We still don’t have one here, just an old sawbones, but he’s no good for what ails you inside sometimes. Have to send to Newcastle for one, and there’s none who come all this way without the fee being paid. So mostly we make do with the old remedies.” He slapped his chest. “I was born with good blood, though, so I do fine. There was a bad fever late summer that lingered, but I was spared. Some still falling to it, it was that bad, but I’m still working with my friends.” He gestured to the garden.
“You’ve created a little paradise here,” Davina said.
“We will take our leave now, so you can continue,” Brentworth said. “You might help us in one other way, though.”
“I’d be glad to, though it is hard to refuse a duke who is twice your size.” He chortled at his own joke. “What do you be needing?”
“The name of a man who is very good at fixing slate roofs.”
* * *
“We will see this roofer, Mr. Bates, before we leave the village,” Brentworth said once they left the house.
