Chapter 24- Laid to Rest

In 1918, conscription is extended to all men under the age of 51. Thomas panics, no longer safe from recruitment. He is still 50, his birthday a few months away. Nathaniel has been home for over a year and he tires to calm his brother by telling him the front can't be so bad now, they must have learned from the mistakes they made when he was shot, but it does little to comfort, especially given the scars on his face that remind Thomas what he has been through. Every time Mr York picks up the post, Thomas dreads what might be in it.

On his 51st birthday, he celebrates more than just another year of survival and one more year that he is free and happy, living with his dear Lizzie in the cottage he has built for her at the edge of the village. They often visit the great steam house not far away behind Nathaniel's home. Whenever he does, whenever he takes Lizzie there to teach her the wonders of what can be created by tools driven by the lineshaft that runs the length of the building, they stay for supper, helping Nathaniel feel a part of the family even though his house is too empty.

Victoria occasionally visits, too. She is quieter since Ezra's death, and she does not play the piano as often as she used to. With news of the influenza outbreak claiming lives on the front and at home, she takes her nursing credentials to the Army and finds herself on a battlefield in France treating soldiers stricken with disease. Every one of them reminds her of Ezra and when she writes home, her letters are despondent and only get worse as the war, and the outbreak, continue. She works tirelessly, on long shifts with little time for sleep, until she is ill, languishing in her own hospital. Within a few weeks, she has stopped writing. Helga is worried about her daughter and writes a letter to the hospital. The news she gets in return breaks her heart- in the time between when her letter arrived and when the response was sent, Victoria has died. She will be buried with the others that have died of the outbreak. They cannot risk sending her home and spreading the disease if the infection has not died. Because of how isolated they are, the village has not yet seen the epidemic. They make a conscious effort to keep it that way.

The war ends. There is no big parade in the village. There are few young men still abroad who will be coming home. But they do build a victory arch to welcome them home and they hold a memorial for those who will never return.

Mr York stands at the front of the village church with Brother Morton, his head bowed as the monk offers a prayer. When the prayer is finished, he looks out over the assembled crowd. Nearly the entire village has turned up, and the church is packed from wall to wall, people standing in the back, on the narrow balcony that wraps around three walls, and even some in the aisles.

"I don't think I see a single face in this room that has not been saddened by this war. We've all held our breath when the mail has come for the past four years. And I know Mr Kittering's hated seeing the postal stamp from the War Department when those letters and telegrams have come into his depot. Delivering heartbreak is a soul-sucking job. And now it's over. But the holes in our community aren't ever going to fill. We're never going to get them back. We won't ever forget these boys...or the young women who went to help and were lost alongside them." He pauses, thinking of what to say next, "We're going to do right by our lost. I've talked to a few people who have skills and time, but we're going to need to pay them- we're going to have a granite memorial in our graveyard. Every name etched on it. A commitment to never forget. If you can help, please do. Even if that's planting a few flowers around the graveyard to make it a little easier for everyone to visit. Those who are coming home will be here in a few days. We'll celebrate that they are home, and we'll let them mourn their losses, too."

Brother Morton offers up a prayer for safe travel for the returning soldiers, a prayer of thanksgiving that the war is over. And then they step down and others come up to talk about the people they have lost. And others, such as Helga, stay quietly mourning in their seats. When all who have spoken wish to, they drag the old wooden chairs from the church rows to the side of the room. Long boards and sawhorses arrive from various sheds and cellars around the village. Baked goods, stews, soups, and vegetables stored from the not-to-distant harvest appear from the village kitchens and grace the communal tables.

The supper is solemn, but also filled with stories of those lost, and from those who are returning. It is not a quiet affair. When the sun starts to set, alcohol appears around the hall. Beer, wine, brandy, even vodka- whatever people have hidden in their cellars or in their kitchens. Someone brings a guitar, another someone an accordion, and a set of bagpipes drones in the corner. They sing. Thomas excuses himself and retreats from the crowd. It is too much, too many voices, and too much of death. He shivers in the late fall air, his shirtsleeves no longer sufficient against the cold. But he can't go home, he has something he is compelled to do. This is the time of year he always saw the change in his wives- the vibrant young women who he brought to Allerdale Hall at the end of the work season, September or October, and saw start to fade after a month or two. Pamela had died early in December. So had Margaret. Enola lasted a little longer into January. His son had died just before Christmas. Shivering, he walks through the graveyard to his sister's plot. He rests his hand on the tombstone made from foundation stone from Allerdale Hall. It was a lovely gesture for Lizzie to save this stone for her. She had reasoned that Lucille felt so bound to the hall that she would be lost without at least a little of it to anchor her, even in death. Rebecca has left a wreath of bay laurel on her grave. She does this for everyone interred in the cemetery- she lays a wreath on their deathday. But it is a kindness he especially appreciates for his sister. There are scattered dried flowers at the base of the headstone, too, flowers Lizzie carefully dried earlier in the season so he could lay them on her grave late in the fall.

All his deaths have come this time of year. His sister. His wives. His son. It is for this reason that he cannot bring himself, even after all this time, to take part in the Christmas festivities beyond the supper at Mr York's house and the gift exchange he hosts. It is a simple gathering, and it reminds him of that first kind invitation when he was a prisoner in the jail.

He leaves Lucille's grave without a word and finds the graves of his wives and son. Their monument is a small exedra with a lamb resting on the back, their names carved in the base. It sits at their heads and he feels a little odd walking across their graves to get to it, but he does, stepping slowly. He still does not feel right sitting on the bench, so he sits in front of it, leaning back against the marker. He is cold, but he can only think of how cold they were in the end. How cold his son was. He kept the child swaddled in blankets, in his own scarf, tucked close, and yet he remembers how cold his little nose was whenever he pressed it close to his face.

He leans an arm against the granite and rests his cheek against it, "I'm so sorry, my friends. This was not what I wanted. But you all knew that. You all knew something was wrong. And you know I am repentant. Bless your souls, dear women. And my little one...I am so sorry I did not know. I have said this so many times, but I still mean it. I love you, child. I wish I had known well enough to keep you and that I had been able to get to know you." He pauses, "And happy birthday."

He is so caught up in his thoughts that he does not hear her approach; a hand rests on his shoulder. He does not need to turn to face his guest to know who crouches beside him. He knows from the hand itself. He reaches up and wraps her chilly fingers in his own.

"Thank you."

Lizzie huddles close, the warmth of her body a welcome relief from the cold. She wraps her arms around him, still holding his hand, and rests her chin against his shoulder.

"I'm so very cold, but I'm not ready..."

She kisses his cheek, "Wait, then. Take time."

"Last year it was snowing on his birthday." He falls silent. It is the one day he allows himself to break during light hours and he cries for everything lost, from his own tortured childhood to the innocence Lucille was never allowed to keep to his son and the women they killed. He feels guilt other times, yes, but he keeps it carefully tucked away, only mentioned late at night when he is bare and vulnerable in Lizzie's bed. Their bed. She continually corrects him on this point.

There is a question Lizzie has kept to herself since 1901. Seventeen years.

"What was his name?" Thomas buries his face in his arm and sobs.

She wonders if, perhaps, she should not have asked, but after a few long, heartbroken minutes, he raises his eyes and turns to her, "Noah. She never used his name. I should have known something was wrong then... The day after she birthed him, she padded her undergarments and had me cinch her tight into her corset. What mother refuses to name her child? I was so blind..."

The lamb serves as the baby's marker, the year of his birth and death inscribed below it, along with the number of days the child survived. But there is space above it. She determines to see a stonemason as soon as she can.

The temperature is falling quickly and Thomas' lips are starting to turn a little blue. Lizzie gently tugs on his arm and signs, with her fingers as legs, that he should stand up. He nods, rises, and then offers her assistance. They do not speak as they return to her cottage in the dark. When they enter, she lights the lamps while he builds a fire in the open fireplace in the middle of the house. It is a glorious thing made of fieldstone, its four sides open, the chimney supported by thick posts at the corners. He sits beside it, watching her pack root vegetables, smoked meet, and onions into a cast iron pot that she then hangs on a hook and swings over the fire.

"I still think you are remarkable, Lizzie. After all this time, you are still my quiet strength."

She draws out a notebook- she has shelves of them in her bedroom, "I have something for you. I know it has been seventeen years since Allerdale Hall, but there were things I did not or could not sell. Some of them are unpleasant, even horrifying. May I take you to them or bring them to you today?"

He takes a deep breath, then nods. She leads him into the attic of the little cottage and opens a trunk, drawing out a folded canvas, a lidded drawer, and a box. She places them each in front of him and stops him as he reaches for them, waiting a moment to make sure he is ready. He squeezes her hand, then opens the box. He stares at the cleaver.

"Where did you find this?"

"In the yard. The man who bought the cellar floor tiles wanted it, too, but I told him no. Your story was not going to be a sideshow. I don't think he was too happy. He offered me an exorbitant sum to sell it. To sell you. I said no."

"Are the other things just as bad?"

"Up here, one is worse. Downstairs, no. But these were the things I could not sell nor did I know what else to do with them. Their disposal was for you and you alone." He reaches for the drawer and she stops him, "This is Lucille's trophy drawer. Do you know what is in it?" He swallows hard and nods, "Take a deep breath. You don't have to open it if you don't want to. You can burn it as it is, or bury it."

He opens the drawer's lid and drops back from his knees when he sees the curls of hair and the dried fingers, landing hard on his heels. He covers his mouth and shakes his head, "Oh god, Lizzie...why did I open it?"

"Perhaps because you need to know you are repulsed by this, by what was done. Let us send it up to ash."

"Please. I feel ill."

She pulls the kitchen matches from her apron pocket, "Then let us take it outside so that we don't accidentally burn down the cottage and light it on fire, drawer and all."

He points to the canvas, "Is that what I think it is?"

"The portrait. You asked that I save it."

"Let's light it on fire, too."

"And the knife?"

"I don't know. I can't... I can't keep it here. She killed our mother with it. And while Mother was a terrible person..." He cannot express what he is feeling. Instead, Lizzie kisses his cheek.

"You don't need to use words. This all represents the darkest secrets in your life- the things you nearly died for."

"Does anyone else know this is here?"

"Father knows there are things I have that are from the worst of Allerdale Hall. He does not know what."

Thomas does not want to touch the drawer or the portrait. He closes lids and stands, leaving everything on the floor. Lizzie stacks the boxes and the portrait and follows him down the stairs. He does not get a coat; he steps out the back door into the bitter wind. There is no snow yet, but it is coming. He crosses to his steam shed- it is small compared to the one behind Nathaniel's house, but it serves their purposes well- to power a generator. He wants to harness the electric light, at least for a few places in town. But the fire box is large and Lizzie places everything in it as well as a shovel of coal . She then retrieves a small jar of kerosene from near the back door and trickles it over everything. She hands it to Thomas and gestures for him to stand back. She closes the door and pitches the lit match through the little slit in the steel and jumps away. Flames shoot out it only a moment later. It burns hot and fast, the old wood crackling, the paints in the portrait colouring the flames.

"You put the cleaver in there, too, didn't you?"

She nods.

"It won't burn away."

She shakes her head and stands with her arms crossed, watching the flames crackle and pop. The water will heat and the steam will rise, the generator ready to work if they will let it. She gestures to it and Thomas checks the machinery.

"We'll have lights tonight, at least for a little while."

He always feels like a sorcerer when he snaps up the the switch to connect the house to the raw electric power generated in the shed. It will be a while before there is a full head of steam, but when there is, the house will flicker to life and, for a little while, they will bask in this magic.

He checks everything one more time and heads back to the house to wait. Lizzie is already by the back door. They return to the fireplace to warm up.

"What else did you bring?"

She takes his hand and leads him to her workshop. Books line the walls and she points a few out to him. Medical texts, herbals. Things befitting of a village witch. And then she takes him to her bedroom and opens the wardrobe. He has not asked about his clothes, and she has let him forget about what he wore so long ago. But she reveals what she has kept. White shirts. Dark trousers. A turquoise coat wearing thin at the seams. A black canvas coat. A black velvet jacket and soft silk vest. A scarf and fingerless gloves. An overcoat and top hat. He stares at each garment as she sets them on the bed. And then she taps the lid of a trunk beside the wardrobe and holds up one finger. They will wait to move on until he is ready.

"I had no idea you'd kept all this..."

"They were too beautiful to leave behind and I did not know what you might hold fondly and what you would want to symbolically add to the conflagration."

He puts on the turquoise jacket, "I don't know what I want. Some of this meant a great deal to me when I first acquired it. Others...nothing." He touches the black velvet, "I don't know that I want anything out, but I don't want to burn it, either."

Lizzie carefully packs everything back into her wardrobe. She rests her hand on his sleeve, a question about the turquoise jacket. He brushes the cuff and shakes his head. She will leave him with it. If he changes his mind, the wardrobe has a space for it. She tugs him from the bed and sits down in front of the trunk. He does the same, dreading what else she has kept from Allerdale Hall.

"This. is not something I want you to be hasty about. But I consider these textiles nothing but material and this is why they have been taken apart, save for one piece. I asked your permission once before I kept them. I will ask again before I sew." She opens the trunk and Thomas reaches a hand out to touch the black velvet on the top layer, the lace from its collar detached and folded neatly beside it.

"Lucille's clothing."

Lizzie bows her head.

"Which gowns?"

"Red. Turquoise. Black. And a cloak too beautiful to disassemble. Black. Billowing sleeves. The gowns are in pieces, ready to be built into something else. But I did not know how you felt about me wearing something of your sister's. She had beautiful things."

He gently touches the top piece. He did not think anything of hers could effect him still in this way. These things are supposed to fade, to disappear with time and the touch of a dear woman. But he was wrong and he feels both a draw to the textiles and a revulsion to them. He glances to Lizzie, who is very gently brushing the black velvet as though she has never seen something so fine. It dawns on him that she likely hasn't. That hoarding these garments for years is the closest she has ever come to having gowns of silk, taffeta, velvet. There is a longing in her eyes he has so rarely seen over material things.

"Make yourself something beautiful. And wear her cloak, if you can. It is stunning, and it seems fitting of a witch."

"Are you absolutely certain?"

He nods, "Yes. You deserve beautiful things, Lizzie. And no matter what she did, these fabrics are beyond beautiful. You will be stunning in them."

"And if I kiss you in a gown of red silk taffeta, you will not connect it too deeply to her?"

Thomas takes her hands and draws her close,"No. You will still smell, feel, and taste of my Lizzie. The curve of your hip, the swell of your breasts, the soft skin under your chin that my fingers brush as I lift your face...these things are you and only you. A dress cannot change that."

She is flushed and she writes quickly, "Go check your generator. I think I need to 'go to bed' sooner, rather than later."

Thomas laughs, kisses her forehead, and goes to check his system. It is working beautifully. He throws the switch and the house comes to light. The bedroom however, is dim, most of the lighting in the front sitting room and Lizzie's workshop. She sits across the bed, waiting. He crawls up her legs, slipping his hand under her skirts, kissing his way to her mouth. She giggles and he breaks into a wide grin.

The engine runs out of steam before they do, the generator slowing to a halt, the house going black. They do not notice.