Lizzie's Song

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.