Shall Not Sleep [bxb]

Chapter Twenty-Four

Dear Max,

It is my twenty-fourth birthday, and today I finally stood on my own. Four long years of pain and anguish, all culminating in five minutes of standing at the library window, sweating from the effort.

I wish I had the talent to paint what I saw. Margaret in the garden with my two-year-old nephew, James. She turned, saw me, and waved. James ran towards me, so full of life...

"That's my grandfather," Wesley said. "I remember him saying he and his mother were very close with his uncle. They always lived near each other. I guess he always had her."

Serenity drifted over me like a calm breeze. Standing, finally. A sister who always loved him and cared for him. That made me happy.

Dear Max,

Thirty-two years old today. Last week, I became Lord Alastair Barrington-Stowsworth, Earl of Walsingham. This morning I heard two members of the staff talking about His Lordship and I thought they were speaking of my father at first, until I remembered.

My father passed away suddenly, a seizure of the heart. There was no time for any last words, but something he said to me the night he passed serves well enough:

"Alastair, the pain you endure will serve you someday."

He spoke those words to me when I was in my wheelchair, after the agonizing pain of Margaret moving me from bed to chair. I had tears on my face and Margaret was apologizing for hurting me, but Father spoke those words. At the time, I was just glad to hear an encouraging word. Proof that he hadn't seen me suffering all these years and remained unchanged by it. But now, I can't stop thinking about his use of the word "someday." He believed there would be a "someday" for me. He didn't think lying in bed on morphine would be my whole life. I hope he's right, but I am so afraid that he's wrong.

My father was a great man. What if the new Lord Walsingham only tarnishes his legacy?

"Wow," Wesley said quietly.

"What?"

"It's just...that resonates." His cheeks reddened. "Someday that will be me. Lord Walsingham. I've had the exact same fears as Alastair, that I won't be worthy."

It was bizarre to me, that Alastair's world of lords and ladies was still a reality. It seemed fake and silly, but the apprehension on Wesley's face was definitely real. I realized I was seeing the emotions in Alastair's letter playing out on Wesley's face in real time. It made him look older, more careworn. He really was worried about this.

"I can't see that being the case," I said. "You seem like an upstanding person."

"Really?"

"Just the fact that you're here, reading these letters with me says a lot."

"Says I'm a nosy bastard, anyway," he joked.

"No, I mean, it says a lot that you aren't uncomfortable about the whole situation."

"The time-travelling letters thing is a bit strange. A lot to get used to. But why would it make me uncomfortable?"

I waved my hand vaguely in my own direction. Trying to gesture at my gender without having to say it out loud.

Wesley tilted his head, reminding me of Douglas. "Oh. Because you're a bloke?"

I nodded.

"That doesn't... I mean, I'm not..." He was really blushing now. "It's fine. Loads of my friends at school are."

"Blokes?"

He laughed. "You know. Gay or bi or whatever. It's all cool with me."

The silence after that felt awkward, for some reason. I started stacking up some of the letters we'd already read, just to keep my hands busy, while Wesley opened the next letter. Good—I needed the distraction.

"This letter is from 1926," Wesley said. "He would have been thirty. And... oh my God."

"What?"

"Listen to this," he said, and he began to read.

Dear Max,

Last week my new secretary, a Mr. Edmond Barry, arrived at Lansing Hall. He is here to help me catalogue the estate's art and other valuable contents so they can be valued for insurance purposes, and generally curated and restored. I hired him based on the reference of a former army friend, who knew him from school. All I knew of him before that day was that he was newly graduated from Cambridge, the son of a doctor, who hopes to work in museum curation.

I swear I did not know he was handsome. God save me.

I watched from the window of my study as he alighted from the car. His head was bare—a head of sandy blond curls, almost absurd in their boyishness. He thanked my driver, which is something more aristocratic visitors would never do. You might say I was charmed from the start, before I even got to see his twinkling blue eyes and the dimples in his cheeks up close.

I had dinner sent to him in his chambers that night, but the next day, we met over breakfast. The aforementioned eyes and dimples fully captivated me, but I was terrified of his youth and vigour. I am embarrassed to even be in the room with someone so beautiful. I am pale, weak, and helpless. I walk very little and haltingly, mostly relying on my wheelchair. But he didn't treat me like a monster, like others had. He listened to me very closely at breakfast, even jotting notes in a little book he carries everywhere he goes.

He has already proven to be a very diligent worker as we begin to organize and tidy the estate's many artifacts. It's almost as shambling as I am. Perhaps by the end of the summer we might both be a little more shipshape.

Wesley looked up to gauge my reaction, but I didn't know what to display. Happiness? It was there, a bit, for sure. It was cute, how worked up Alastair clearly was over this Mr. Edmond Barry character.

"It must have been so scary for him," I said, thinking aloud. "How would he even try to connect with someone? I mean, homosexuality wasn't exactly cool."

"It was illegal," Wesley said.

Jeez. It was scary enough to open up to someone now. If the person you had feelings for could turn you in for it... if your whole life could be destroyed just because you tried to feel something with someone else... I couldn't even imagine it.

"I wonder if he got brave," I said.

Wesley glanced at the next few letters and smiled at me hopefully. "Let's find out."