Kingston Lacy, snowdrops and Dorothy Wordsworth

Last February, I went for a walk in the gardens of Kingston Lacy - the story of William Bankes had long  intrigued me - I imagined him travelling back to his home incognito, riding across dark fields - an indiscretion with a guardsman had prompted his flight to Venice -

In the miniature by George Sandars, William is slender and epicene, light brown hair curled over his forehead - a fur stole is draped over his right shoulder - he looks at you with an intense, yet measured, gaze -

But it was not the house I had come to see - I had walked around it, with Anne, on another occasion - she had questioned the morality of the extravagance we saw - the Spanish Room was hung with gilded leather - there were glorious paintings by Titian, Brueghel, Velazquez and Van Dyke - marble stairs swept down from the upper apartments in frozen cataracts of gleaming stone - the library was lined with volumes bound in calf leather, with gold lettering upon their spines - portraits of fleshy beauties by Sir Peter Lely were set in elaborate frames -

I'll pass over the sharp exchange we had with one room guardian -

I had come to see the snowdrops - I love these tiny brave flowers - my spirits are lifted by the sight of their white petals -

I passed by the cedars, with their immense trunks and noble foliage - hedges had been cunningly shaped into the likenesses of faces - I thought they looked like the faces of archaic gods - I brushed past rhododendron bushes, with their red flowers and glossy dark green leaves -

There - there were the snowdrops - galaxies of them, scattered over the rough grass - I stood, stock still, looking at them - how wonderful they were - I thought of the words - surprised by joy -

I remembered reading Wordsworth - but it was his sister, Dorothy, I thought of then - I had a sudden wish to see this wild spirit - I imagined her, coming towards me, over the snowdrops -