Lizzie's Song

Chapter 30- Something Borrowed, Something Blue

Lizzie tells Helga of her news and earns a smile from her aunt, the first she has seen in some months. But it is soon met with a sadness and the bequeathing of a trunk that Lizzie is not to open until Helga is dead. She does not have to wait long. Her aunt dies in her sleep that night. As her only living relation, Lizzie arranges for the funeral and burial. It is small, just the few village men who knew her best, Rebecca, Nathaniel, Thomas, and herself. There are no friends from afar or condolences sent from high posts of government. Just a silent graveyard on a drizzling grey day.

Thomas keeps close to Lizzie throughout, his hand often resting between her shoulders or in the small of her back. She handles this grief with silence and numbness. In bed the night after Helga's memorial and burial, Thomas massages Lizzie's back while she cries, easing tension from her muscles. And then he finishes and kisses her neck. She turns onto her back and finds his lips, her cheeks damp with tears.

He wipes her face and eases himself over her, "I want to know what you're feeling, Lizzie. What you are thinking. Gift me a few words."

"I'm tired, Thomas."

"Tired in body, heart, or head?" He kisses cheek.

"All."

"Oh, Lizzie...I'm so sorry. This has been a difficult winter. What can I do for you tonight?"

She shakes her head and gently pushes him. He takes the hint and rolls off her. She curls against his chest, tucking her legs around his.

"May I make love to you, Lizzie York? Gentle, slow, and patient?"

She nods and he pulls her leg up to his hip. She closes her eyes and helps him enter her. Their movements stay small; she is tucked close to his chest, her fingers digging into his shoulders. The rhythm calms her and she lets her thoughts go, fully present in this intensely intimate moment. They rarely climax together, but this time they do and she falls asleep still pressed to his chest shortly after. Thomas gently withdraws and shifts to a more comfortable position beside her before joining her in a deep, dreamless sleep.

It is March by the time Lizzie thinks about the trunk. She has kept herself busy with sewing, her blue silk from Carlisle, delivered in mid February. Not only blue silk, but fine black velvet scavenged from Lucille's gown. She has lived though so many different fashions and periods, but her dress is firmly planted in the long elegant lines of the earliest years of the century, an off the shoulder piece with a bodice made to go over the new corset she has ordered. She knows it is over a decade out of date and clothes are now more loose, relaxed, and draping, but she loves the shape of this time and so she has built her gown from it.

They have decided that their wedding will take place in Carlisle, Nathaniel, Rebecca, and Brother Morton travelling with them. The monk has connections to a church there, and they will let him use their space without charge. So she stitches and dreams of a beautiful sunny spring day with Rebecca's silk flowers in her bouquet, Thomas by her side.

She has also been writing vows, practising what she wants over and over again in a battered old notebook, whispering the words to herself late at night after he is asleep. Thomas has bought her a slim volume bound in dark blue leather, their names pressed in silver on the front. Thomas and Lizzie York. It sits in a box with her slippers and the shawl she is sure will upset Thomas. It was her mother's, made of tartan cloth. Lizzie knows his second wife wore tartan cloth to their Edinburgh wedding. But it is one of the only things she has of her mother's, tucked in her cradle when she was inconsolable after her death. She doesn't know when to talk to him about it, though, so instead, she simply takes it from her box and sets it on the foot of the bed while she works on stitching lace in place with tiny delicate threads, lace she found in Helga's estate.