Chapter 21- Years

Thomas passes the time between Lizzie's visits reading. He has Popular Science Monthly, but he also requests other journals. Mr York sends money so he can subscribe to Science and he reads the weekly issues with intensity, keeping a journal of notes on subjects that interest him most deeply. And, as years pass, he reads all he can on the developments on engines, especially the diesel engines that are powering ships and trains and moving all manner of heavy equipment across the world. And then he studies circuitry and the electrical engineering that these great machines use to power their vessels. He is determined to keep abreast of his field, to make himself useful when he is released.

Lizzie's visits fall into the pattern. She always arrives with the new month, coming on the first Monday, leaving early in the day on the following Wednesday. She travels Sunday night, knocking on Mr Hayes' door in the early hours of the dark morning when he is doing his paperwork. He takes her to the jail and unlocks Thomas' cell while he is still sleeping and she slips into his bed for a few hours of rest. The first time she does this, Thomas wakes confused, the presence in his small bed entirely unexpected. He wonders, perhaps, if someone is in the wrong cell, but then he recognizes the châtelaine at her hip, her notebook resting against her skirt.

They wake together, take breakfast, and spend the day catching up. They stay close, their bodies always touching, their most intimate contact a kiss. Lizzie's letters, however, are far less distant. She does not allow her father to read what she writes to Thomas anymore . She often describes her daydreams to him in long, detailed prose that leaves him flushed and reading only in short segments. He learns to read after supper, before bed, when he can let her words become his dreams. The more intimate her descriptions, the more difficult he finds it to keep his hands from wandering when she visits. But he does, and she does as well, even though she often hints at the letters when they converse in the cell, knowing they have power over him, her words a tease he clearly enjoys. This is one of the reasons he likes to read to her from his journals and books. It is time that he can focus on words that do not inspire him to want to remove her clothing.

At home in the village, Lizzie spends her time going through the extensive inventory of Allerdale Hall. The first things she removes are the steam engines and machinery, following through on Thomas' wishes that everything be given to Ezra. He is ecstatic, the gift far more than he could have ever hoped for. Thomas' books on the subject are extensive and his notes made during his construction of the mining machine detailed and precise. He spends hours slowly reading Thomas handwriting, deciphering his shorthand, and studying the machines..

She catalogues the library and writes to the universities to see who wants which books. And when they reply, she mails them. There are a few she keeps for herself. Medical texts, an herbal, and a particularly explicit book that has its own locked case. She finds the key on a ring in a room she determines to be Lucille's.

Mr York offers empty cells in the jail as her storage space, as Allerdale Hall is anything but dry. She writes to dealers in London and Glasgow, describing the antiques in detail, sketching architectural detail and the rooms she finds things in. They are interested and she sells hundreds of pieces, often in large lots, and often, once they see the house, more than she wrote to them about. They always want to see the house, even if the furnishings and tapestries are stored in the jail. Some want woodwork, others want the doors, window frames, fireplace mantles, or kitchen appliances. One wants the stone floor from the basement. She does not tell him of the bodies in the clay vats, but they find the hollow under one of the tiles and he is suspicious. She shows him the newspaper clipping from Lady Sharpe's death. Wide-eyed, he asks for the cleaver, offering hundreds of pounds for it and the clipping. She declines. Thomas' tragedy, she explains, cannot be sold- it already haunts him enough.

There are other things in the house she finds that are more personal. Lucille's room is a treasure trove of old and fine fabrics, dresses so slender they will never fit her, but textiles so beautiful she cannot bear to sell them, nor does she want to. These, she keeps. She is a fair seamstress, her aunt Helga a better one, and she imagines making things out of the fabric. But she determines first to ask Thomas what he feels about her wearing the textiles that once belonged to his sister.

She finds other things in Lucille's rooms. Moths pinned under glass, little knives, scalpels, arranged in a drawer as though they were ready for dissection. A gold pen she knows does not belong to the house- it is marked E.C.. She packages it and mails it to Buffalo, hoping it will find its owner. The most disturbing find, though, is a drawer of human hair and shriveled fingers. She does not disturb these trophies. She knows who they belonged to, but again, she wants to ask Thomas what to do.

He does not seem to have a bedroom of his own, and she finds his personal effects tucked in the workshop. There are so few of them, but she sets aside a wool scarf and fingerless gloves, placing them in her wardrobe alongside a fine velvet jacket and a silk vest so smooth that it feels like liquid in her hands. She is careful with his clothes- with as little as he possesses after the dissolution of his family estate, she wants to make sure she does not leave him feeling without a foundation to stand on.

The portrait of his mother she takes from its frame and rolls carefully, tying it with a string and tucking it in the attic. Some things she does not want in her room. She asks Thaddeus to make a box for the cleaver and places it, and the newspaper clipping, beside the portrait. Thaddeus also builds her a lid for Lucille's drawer and it, too, is consigned to the attic.

By the end of three years, the house is an empty shell, stripped of most of its ornamentation. She finds builders and asks them to dismantle it. She makes a fair penny selling the timber. She then searches for a buyer for the mine itself with Thomas' blessing.

Years pass with three days of Lizzie in Carlisle every month, Thomas studying when she is not there, and Lizzie at home in Carlisle managing the disposal of the estate. She tells him most of what happens only after it is final, a blessing, he says, so he does not have time to protest or to cling to anything out of misplaced sentimentality. When she asks about the dresses, he hesitates. There are some reasons he does not want her to wear them, largely because he does not want to be reminded of Lucille's body when he dreams of touching Lizzie's, but at the same time, he yearns to see her in fabrics so elegant. He grants her permission to use the fabric, but asks that nothing look as it once did by the time she wears it.

The decade passes more quickly than either of them expect and, by its end, they are no less attached to one another than when they began. Thomas thinks they have grown closer, and Lizzie thoroughly considers him a member of the family. Nathaniel has often accompanied her on visits and has had time of his own with Thomas. While initially wary, Nathaniel has come to call him his brother, even if it is at first only because he considers Lizzie his sister and they are so clearly very close. Given time, they begin to become friends, and Thomas delights in hearing what Ezra is doing with his steam powered machinery. And Lizzie delights in time with her brother. They take their first electric trolley ride and visit the brand new cinema. She describes it in depth to Thomas and brings him anything she can to help him figure out how it works.

On a few visits, Mr York is able to accompany his daughter. When he does, he leaves the young folks, as he calls them, alone for most of the trip, insisting only that they take supper together at least once. Thomas comes to see Mr York as a mentor and friend, someone he can depend on in a way he has never before had. There is a question, though, that even after a decade nags in the back of his mind. How did he stay so calm in the execution chamber? Gerry he understood. Gerry walks men to their deaths even still. But Mr York seemed steady in the same way Mr Angel was steady and this has Thomas wondering just what prepared him for that moment. He has not, however, found the courage to ask.

They hear of the sinking of the great ocean liner in 1912, and while it is a tragedy, it does not effect life in Carlisle that greatly. Thomas, ever the engineer, makes sketches of the hull and tries to determine by what manner the ship struck the iceberg based on the reports of how long it took to sink. Lizzie loves watching him work, the walls of his cell covered in chalk drawings as he decides he needs space larger than the paper he is provided. She thinks it is a sort of madness, perhaps, to be so consumed by the figuring-out of something, but it is a madness he thoroughly enjoys and that fascinates her. She wanders from drawing to drawing, inspecting his notes, as he runs calculations on steel and ice, muttering numbers to himself as he works.

"The steel grade is all wrong- they can't have used what they were supposed to. It wouldn't have went down so fast. Someone took a shortcut and used lower quality materials. That would explain everything..."

She rubs his shoulders as he sits at his desk.

"I wonder if they will ever find the wreckage. Raise it up. I wonder what it looks like where it hit. Did the boilers explode with the rush of cold water? They would have to. Did the rivets hold or did the hull disintegrate with the force? Hot water, cold water- steam engines do not like the change in temperature. And if the steel was inferior..."

She wraps her arms around his shoulder and kisses his cheek.

"Of course, it's irrelevant that I know this. What good would it do? Every ship builder in the nation likely knows it, too."

She steps beside him, arm still around his shoulder, and pats his leg. He slides the chair out from the desk and she sits on his lap, drawing out her notebook.

"But you enjoy the work. You enjoy the mathematics, the thrill of calculation. And you are keeping your mind sharp while in here. That is the value of this knowledge. Have you ever considered working the shipyards?" She has not yet told him that he has a fair sum sitting in the vault of the bank in Carlisle. That is a surprise she wants to give him when he returns home, a gift for a new life.

"No. I have no experience with the practicalities of the new diesel engines. I am behind the times, dear Lizzie. My theoretical knowledge is vast, but I fear I could not compete with the younger workers. I am forty-five years old. I am not so strong- I never have been, but I am certainly not what I was when I was younger. Even when you met me."

"You have kept up on theory, though- that has to count for something. There is a place for you in this world, and it is not this place."

He smiles and kisses her chin, "No, it is not. It is wherever you are. And whether our great things are bigger than the village or merely within it, I will be happy."

"You could always be a witch." She smiles.

"I would have a delightful teacher."

"Rebecca says I am ready for an apprentice, if I wish one. She will be there to help me. And this is how witching works. We pass it on to those interested and hopefully, eventually, one of those people is younger so we can keep it going for the next generation. Rebecca had no children. So her family line of witches, which dates back centuries, ends with her. And I take it up."

"That is a prestigious honour. I will be glad to carry it with you, if you allow."

"I will. But you will have to learn some things that are not so pleasant to you. Dr McMichael brought us your sister's tea tins."

Thomas pales a little, "Oh."

"I know what was in them. I know how it worked. She mixed more than just the berries of the firethorn in the tea. I was suspicious when I read the confessions and she said that was what she used. Firethorn will make one sick, for certain, but the timing was off. There was cuckoo pint in it, and also hemlock. Secondary ingredients, yes, but enough to elicit the effects she was hoping for. It would have been something she had to perfect. I have her notes. Was your sister a witch?"

"No. She would have never been allowed. But she was fascinated by poisons. By death, by nature. She would have been a brilliant chemist."

"Based on the precise proportions in her tea, I think she already was a brilliant chemist, even if unschooled in it. She was self-taught, and had a natural inclination. This is part of what witches do, too. Can you handle learning this?" She is serious in her question, unsure if it will help him to understand it or if it will bring back memories that would haunt him until his guilt stops him from functioning.

"I think I can. And if it becomes too much, I will tell you. Where you lead me, my dearest Lizzie, I will follow and I will seek understanding, even in the darkest arts you can teach. Perhaps it will help me understand her. Perhaps, too, I could build things for the village- machinery for wells, pumps, and possibly electric lights." She smiles and leans into him and he relaxes his head against her chest, "The future is so vast. Things are changing so quickly."

During his twelfth year imprisoned, things change even more dramatically. The world is at war, and England prepares to send her sons to the continent to their death. Many sign up to fight, and Lizzie reports that the boys in the village go joyfully off for god and country. But she is worried that it will be far more devastating than they can imagine. In 1915, Zeppelins appear over England and the war comes home. The Germans blockade with submarines and the great shipyards push their production as fast as it will go so England, too, can fight his underwater war. Technology speeds forward, and soon war becomes even more terrifying when the Germans use chlorine gas on the Canadian and French troops at Ypres. Lizzie worries for the young men who have gone off so happily into hell. They will come home burned and scarred if they come home at all.

Then the Germans sink the Lusitania and it is brought home that this is a very different kind of war, where civilians might find themselves dead from the German submarines just for traveling, and it all seems to come home that they are very close to being invaded. That the Germans could make landfall in Great Britain terrifies many. Lizzie, however, keeps visiting Carlisle with little heed paid to the few people who ask her, when they see her on the trolley, how she is brave enough to make the trip when there could be German soldiers along the path.

She is more afraid of trains that criss-cross the countryside after the Quintinshill Train Disaster. A train of Scottish troops ploughs into a local train and the entire mess is then rammed by other oncoming trains. Over 200 people die, many of them soldiers. The hospitals in Carlisle fill and the civic response is great. Lizzie offers her services to the hospital, writing to them that the people of her village will send their canned vegetables and she will cook for them if they need it. When she and Nathaniel ride for Carlisle, they bring produce, greens, and what the villagers had put up from the last season. When she is not with Thomas, she is cooking late into the night.

News comes from the front that there is an ammunition shortage and the news in Carlisle is that there will be a new factory opening on the border between England and Scotland. Men are needed for the war, but so are women, and the factory will need every worker they can recruit from across the Commonwealth. While they wait for it to be finished, the war demands more soldiers, and in February of 1916, men are conscripted- every man, between age eighteen and forty-one, is eligible for the front. Nathaniel and Ezra decide that to avoid being separated, they will join the army together, excited, at least, by the promise that they will serve together.

Lizzie sits up late nights with Nathaniel as he tells her his fears. She knows she is the only one who will ever hear this. In public, the boys are playful, excited to be serving their king, and ready to do their part for the war. And after she returns to her father's house, the rooms dark, he long in bed, she sits at the piano and plays her music for an audience of none.

Lizzie makes her first visit to Carlisle alone in April. The new factory, making gun cotton, cordite, has opened. It is the longest factory in the world, stretching for miles, the buildings spaced to avoid a chain reaction if one of them explodes. An entire city has grown up around the factory to house the workers and take care of their needs. Many of them live in Carlisle as well.

When Thomas wakes with her beside him, he finds her laying awake, her arm over her forehead as she stares at the ceiling. She is never awake when he rouses and he is immediately worried. He turns toward her and slips his arm around her waist.

"What are you thinking?"

"Nathaniel and Ezra have gone to war."

"Oh god, Lizzie..."

She is crying, her eyes locked on the stone above, "I am going to work."

"Oh?"

"The cordite factory. They need women. I must-" she coughs "-must do my part, too. For them." And she starts coughing again, hard enough that her back lifts from the bed.

Thomas turns her sideways and pulls her close, rubbing her back until the coughing subsides, "That is dangerous work. And caustic. It may agitate your cough. Please, reconsider this." She opens her mouth to speak and he gently rests a hand against her lips, "Rest. Write. I don't want you to hurt yourself. It isn't that I don't love that you gift me your voice, but..."

She nods, curls against him, and closes her eyes. He strokes her hair and she falls asleep. Thomas cannot, though, so he holds her and hopes that she feels warm and safe. She won't be allowed her notebook in the cordite factory. It's metal spine is too great a risk- any metal is forbidden out of fear of a spark. He has read how it is made, and the process is dangerous, the acidic air enough to damage skin and flesh. He watches her sleep and hopes that it will not harm her.