'She was beautiful. I'd never seen anything so beautiful. Her hair was black, like a rook's feathers and cascaded down her back almost to her waist. Her eyes were black too and seemed to flash. Her costume was exotic, the finest, shimmering silk of blues and golds and whites. She took my breath away. I felt that we were destined, intended.'
"I think, Polly, we have a murder."
"What makes you think that?" So, I told her. The secret messages I'd found in that little, locked book. "Well, it still doesn't mean it's murder. It could be that she was truly mad."
"Yes," I conceded, "it could. But suppose, just suppose, AF, whoever he is, and Isabella were lovers. Maybe, if Harry found out and feared a right royal scandal, not forgetting his being the laughing stock of friends and business people alike, maybe he decided to protect his reputation and business. Don't forget how he coerced and threatened Dr Martin.
"Then there's 'Truth - buried - under - cot,' and I find a loose flagstone."
"Which you still haven't managed to get up yet. Let me have a go, weakling." She kissed me as she took my place.
I guided the light as she dropped to her knees and began levering the stone. Eventually, it seemed to yield to her, and I leant in to help her. Together we finally managed to lift the stone. Dust, nothing but dust. No! It cant let me down like this. I reached down and scooped out handfuls of dust until, oh my God, I felt something.
I retrieved the something. It was a filthy, oilskin packet, like the one my grandfather used to keep his pipe tobacco in. Shaking, I stood up and opened the packet on the bedstead. More papers, some with jagged edges as if they had been torn from a book, THE book. With the papers were two small pencils, chewed at their ends, and a knife, like the sort used for peeling apples all those years ago. My heart lurched.
I sat down on the bedstead, unaware of the harsh bare springs and tried to sort the papers into order, easy, since they were all numbered. It wasn't a journal, it was a story. I began to read out loud.
"Harry discovered my affaire. I feel no shame. If someone finds this when I am gone, then let this be a testament of the truth and love between two human beings."
"My name is Isabella Gurnard. I was born Isabella Louisa Larkin. My father was a mid-ranking diplomat, my mother Italian, the daughter of a similarly ranked Italian diplomat, resident when they met, at Italy's London embassy. She passed away when I was six years old and my father, a dear, kind man, raised me alone although I had a governess called Miss Percy who was also kind. I never felt unloved or unwanted but I know in my heart that I held my father's career back.
"Miss Percy educated me to some extent but my true education came from my father's library, in which I discovered countries about which I knew nothing, literature that opened my eyes. That would never have been, but for Percy's teaching me to read and I am forever grateful.
"My father was a very liberal man who did not conform, privately, to all the establishment's rules and customs. He despised the church. He thought it scandalous that women were undervalued, treated as brood mares and denied education and, consequently, the opportunity to contribute to society. He paid, though how he managed I know not, for me to be educated further in France and Italy, where I met and lived with some of my poor mother's family. Those two years were, perhaps, the happiest of my life."
Polly gently placed a hand on my shoulder. "Let's go upstairs and you can continue to read it to me while we have a drink?"
"What? Oh. Okay."
"Come on, Indiana Jones, let's go."
I was trembling. I had no idea what her story was going to be but this felt like a momentous discovery. I followed Polly up the stairs and we went into the kitchen where I sat at the table while she opened a bottle.
"While I was in Italy, I met a woman who taught at my college there. She taught me Italian language and history. Her name was Maria Giovanna and she was the most beautiful thing, human or otherwise, I had ever seen. She had alabaster skin, a neck like a swan's.. Her figure could not be concealed by the dresses she wore. If it sounds as if I were in love, that is because I was. I was totally enamoured. She made me laugh, made me see, made me feel things in literature that I'd never felt before.
"She was beautiful. I'd never seen anything so beautiful. Her hair was black, like a rook's feathers, and cascaded down her back almost to her waist. Her eyes were black too and seemed to flash. Her costume was exotic, the finest, shimmering silk of blues and golds and whites. She took my breath away. I felt that we were destined, intended.
"Maria Giovanna was the first woman with whom I made love. It began one evening, in her apartment. We'd been talking over a simple supper and the conversation turned to my family. For the first time, and it must have been 15 years after the event, I cried over my mother's death. She comforted me, held me, and kissed me. That kiss turned from comforting to passionate. I can still feel her lips on mine, her hand holding mine. Until then, I had never felt lust. I had never so much as touched my private parts, nor had anyone else except perhaps my mother when bathing me. I'd never felt aroused. I had no idea what was happening to my body. My nipples became engorged, and rubbed against my chemise. Between my legs, unfamiliar, alarming sensations developed and at one point I felt I might have wet myself.
"I was shocked, somewhat ashamed and embarrassed. I broke away from Maria and stood.
"She was gentle. Standing, she took me back into her arms. 'Don't be alarmed or ashamed. I know what you're feeling.' She then described precisely how my body had reacted to her touch. "I feel the same. There is no shame in physical love, only joy.'
"She did not take me to her bed that night. Nor the next. It was perhaps a week after that, during which we had clandestinely embraced and kissed at every opportunity, that she finally took me to her bed. Those evenings we spent together, she explained physical love to me. She told me that for some, it was a feeling that could only be shared between a man and a woman, but for some, like her and like me, the love of two women could be expressed that way too. Dear God, how I wanted her. I was aching, burning to feel her skin against mine. And so I did. Clothing felt like a prison and it was Maria who released me from it. She explored my body and allowed me, encouraged me to explore hers and my own. It is hard to express the liberation of touching myself without feeling shame or self-disgust.
"I felt her hands on my naked flesh, on my back, on my breasts and my legs. Her touch between my legs made the fire of lust burn ever brighter. I was uncertain when I felt her hair on my stomach, her lips in my hair. When her mouth covered my vagina, which she pronounced in the Italian way, I nearly died. The thought of her being prepared to lick where I pissed seemed both appalling and exciting. The thought was nowhere as moving as the feeling. Any reservation I might have had evaporated in the warm Italian night air.
"She warned me it might hurt. Her finger pushed inside me, gently, slowly, the wet lubricating me, while her tongue swirled around me. She asked if I would give her my virginity. I knew enough to know what that meant. I'd have given her my life. I felt a second finger enter me and then, suddenly, a sharp feeling, like a knife's tip had been pushed into me and I gave a small cry. She didn't stop, she continued to lick me and work her fingers into me and then I felt a sudden surge of physical pleasure, such as I had never felt before. I believe I screamed but that may simply have been an illusion, I cannot know now.
"When we had finished, I told her that I had never before felt anything so passionate, had never known such feelings. She told me the French call it the 'petit mort,' and I confessed that I had felt as if i were dying.
"For more than a year I stayed in that small Italian city and loved my Maria to distraction. An epidemic of influenza took her from me. I nursed her, willed her not to leave me, tended her, washed her sweating body but to no avail. I closed her dead eyes and sobbed. I sobbed for days. My family were distraught, unaware of the passionate nature of our relationship, although I suspect my aunt had an inkling.
"I returned to England, to my father's house in London. A grown woman, I began, when he needed me, to accompany him on official engagements, receptions, dinners and the like. My languages helped and I had learned manners and behaviour and conversation. He was very proud of me.
"In May, 1827, we attended a foreign trade dinner. Many great industrialists were there, attempting to sell British manufacturing and engineering to foreign countries. A man approached me, Harry, and conversed with me. He was, I thought, slightly arrogant, full of himself but he was, I could tell, the sort of man that other women would find attractive. I did not. At least not physically although, I confess, his achievements were impressive and his self-confidence manifest.
"With my father's consent, he invited me to dine with him and a few days later we did. He was attentive, thoughtful. After only a few weeks, he asked me to marry him. God forgive me, but I agreed. I knew my father wanted me to marry, perhaps needed me to. Father was not a rich man and, although I'd inherit some assets, they would not keep me as I knew my father wished. To be single and rich was one thing, to be a spinster and poor, quite another."
Occasionally, it was obvious that the light had failed as Isabella wrote. Her writing conveyed to me that she had written quickly, as if afraid she'd be discovered or interrupted. I sensed that the quality of her hand diminished when she could not see properly.
Polly placed her hand on mine. "You haven't touched your wine."
I looked up into her eyes and felt the tears running down my cheeks. "It's a tragedy, isn't it? I can feel it."
She nodded. "Yes, I fear it is, but it's your tragedy, you found it. You will be her voice, wont you? You'll tell her story and people will know Isabella Gurnard was not mad, had never been mad. Come to bed."
