"I fear him. He has never been a violent man but, were he to discover my secrets I fear his anger would know no bounds. His manhood threatened would be intolerable to him. We must remain cautious until I return to the Capital and to you, my love. S delivered your letter to me. You cannot know how it lifted my spirits."
"Oh, George. Were you a bit of a kinkster?" Leather straps dangled from the bed's frame.
"I don't think so." Polly looked at me with a question in her eyes. "It was not uncommon for an insane relative to be held captive, hidden from public gaze. I reckon that's what this could be."
"Of course. Clever you. I wonder who it was. I like my version better though."
"That is going to make this story special if I can find out."
I'd done a fair bit of genealogical work over the years researching different subjects and so I got to work on Gurnard, my attention somewhat distracted from the house and tunnel. They could wait. If this was as it might seem, then the story could be something very special indeed.
Back in the office, I changed out of my work clothes and back into my dress, cursing that I had chosen a long one that buttoned down the back to the waist. Who designs these things? They must have arms five feet long. It looked good though, so I put up with it.
Polly had reached a critical stage in the restoration of her beloved Amati violin so I didn't see her again that day, except for a brief cup of coffee late in the afternoon. I went through the notes that I'd made while I'd been waiting for Erin, my publisher, to confirm the commission. Part of the natural preparation for a biographical history is the subject's background and family.
Harry Gurnard was born in 1803, in the reign of George III. His father, also Harry, was a blacksmith, his mother, Dahlia, a seamstress. Harry was the last of seven children of whom only two reached adulthood. Infant and child mortality was exceedingly high in those times. His surviving brother, George (named, in all probability after the King) was the first born. Both brothers had, it appeared, worked in the family business but there had been early evidence of precocity in Harry. At the age of 11, with no formal schooling, he had built a clock from the metals that abounded in his father's forge. At 13 he'd designed and built a small bridge to span the mill stream that supplied some power to the forge. He went on at incredible speed to develop his skills, studying at one time, with one of the Georgians' most famous engineers. The railway madness that followed the first viable steam locomotive's development meant that engineers were in great demand and Harry became a much respected if not always easy man. His arrogance enraged investors but his skills were beyond doubt and he turned his hand, like so many of his contemporaries to a variety of engineering projects, including canals, railways, bridges and tunnels. By 1826 he was a wealthy man, with a residence in London and, in 1828 he married Isabella Larkin, the daughter of a minor diplomat. So, the farrier's son had certainly moved up in the world.
He was commissioned to build the canal that is the subject of this story in 1837, the year Queen Victoria ascended to the throne. In 1840 he went about the construction of the tunnel that was to become the Victoria Tunnel and that year the construction of Polly's house began. I'd recorded that he and Isabella had no offspring. Infertility in both men and women was far from uncommon so it could have been that either of them was unable to produce children. It certainly would never have been a matter of discussion in those prudish, repressed days.
I'd never bothered up to this point to locate Isabella's death certificate so I made a note to find it if I could. I knew she had died in 1846, shortly before the tunnel was opened, so they had probably been living in this house at the time. The local Parish Church might have some information I made more and more notes as potential avenues of enquiry opened up. I'd got lost in the research, excited by having found the anomalous cellar room so early in the project. I was in a sort of heaven of discovery and hadn't heard Polly come into the office. It was when I felt her undoing the buttons on the back of my dress that I became aware she was there.
"Do you realise it's 9 o'clock?" Her hands parted the back of my dress and her hand ran down my spine. Her lips followed. "Are you hungry?"
The thought of food had not entered my head. The touch of her fingers and lips aroused another type of hunger though and I allowed myself to savour the sensations as they gently caressed my skin.
Polly was naked. She sat on my desk, directly in front of me and opened her legs. "Take your dress down." I pulled it down to reveal my breasts and she put a finger directly above her cunt. "Hungry?" she asked again.
"I am now." I leaned to her, taking her in with my eyes then moving closer and barely touching her with the tip of my tongue. I let it lie there, motionless, for a while before licking her, my hands resolutely in my lap. I kissed her wild thicket of hair, loved the luxurious nature of it as my tongue parted it to expose her. She flowered as my tongue became firmer, more urgent. Her fingers scraped my scalp and she emitted little mewling sounds as my ministrations became ever more intimate, ever more intrusive. Then I moved my hands to her knees and stroked up her long thighs as my tongue discovered and uncovered her clitoris. I flicked it, caressed it and, as my finger curled into her, she started to tighten her grip in my hair. I eased off a bit, slowing, and letting my finger just rest inside her until her fingers loosened then I got back to work in earnest and, with a bellow, she came. Technique is everything .
I stayed the night so she could feed me then fuck me. I never did get to sleep in the bedroom she had prepared for me. Joy.
Over the next few weeks a picture of Harry and Isabella began to develop. I found her death certificate - heart failure. Well, I thought, heart failure covers a lot of things. I found the name of the Doctor who had signed it. Doctor Horace Martin had practiced in Blackorchard, the village nearest to the house. I found a number of references to his having treated some of the tunnel workers in their frequent accidents. He was always paid by the canal company and,I imagine, it was lucrative work.
I traced his family. The sole surviving member was a woman who lived in Oxford so I decided to pay her a visit. Mrs Emily Tufnell was a childless widow living in a rather grand house on the banks of the Thames. She was happy to meet me. I asked her if she knew anything of her thrice-great grandfather.
"For a practitioner in small country village he became unusually wealthy. It may have been inheritance but I don't know. He earned a lot, apparently, from the canal company, there were so many accidents and he treated most of them."
She knew this, apparently, because her father, also a Doctor, Reginald Tufnell, had done some research into his forbears and had amassed quite a lot of information. Dr Martin had become a magistrate, an MP and governor of a local school so he was a man of substance and influence. Did her father's research still exist?
"Yes, dear. It's all held by the Royal College of General Practitioners." I had tea with her, served as it might have been in the 1920s. Small cakes, cucumber sandwiches, the works. She was a lovely but lonely woman who talked as if she hadn't had a conversation for twenty years. But, while I was there, she wrote me a letter of introduction to the college authorising me to view her father's work.
I finally got away late that evening and drove home, my mind buzzing.
The following morning I called the college and made an appointment to see the archivist, Dr Ruth Beckett. She couldn't fit me in quickly, so I agree to a meeting in a few weeks and sent her a copy of Mrs Tufnell's letter and a brief note about what I was researching.
While waiting, I reverted to my daily routine of going to Polly's house and working there. I was doing all I could to find out more about Isabella. I'd always been surprised how little of Harry's paperwork had survived. He'd died suddenly and somewhat ironically. One of his last commissions had been the design of a large station not that far away from the house. It served a part of the Somerset coal fields as well as providing for passengers and livestock. Now a visitor centre and relating mainly to the mining and farming of the area it had a huge archive and, with a bit of calling and emailing, I managed to get in to have a look through the material.
Jonathan Porter, the curator, was a delight. He was about 75 but sprightly and hugely enthusiastic. He told me that he knew a bit about Gurnard, including that he'd had an office in the station during its development. Nobody had ever had a chance to do much with it, let alone catalogue it, but I'd be welcome to have a trawl through all he had. Despite his age, Jonathan was still a ladies man and rather flirtatious. I confess to having shamelessly exploited that.
The documents were in a large store, covered in dust and cobwebs and other detritus that, I strongly suspected, included bat shit and worse. Nonetheless, latex-gloved, booted and boiler-suited, I had a determined search through it.
