My Home From Home (ManxMan)

Chapter 7

"Yes, come in." Henry glanced up from his diary as he heard one of the first class carriage staff knocked on the door to his cabin, his eyes fixated on the door as one of the young carriage attendants gently creaked it open with a polite smile

"Mr Dunmurry, We'll be arriving in Calgary shortly. I can have your cases put onto the platform and from there one of the railway porters will help you with them." Said the handsome young waiter with a polite nod. "Is there anything else I can get for you Mr Dunmurry?"

"No that'll be all for now, but thank you very much." Henry smiled at the young man, fishing through his waistcoat pocket for a tip for the young waiter.

    As Henry gathered his things together and slipped his tweed coat back on, he felt this strange restlessness deep within the pits of his stomach; a feeling as though something was about to happen though he knew not what. He sat back down onto the plush seat in his first class cabin, resting his elbows on his knees as he rubbed his hands over his tired eyes; he'd been on the train two days and one night. Two days and one night of this cripplingly restless torture and uncertainty deep within his gut that he couldn't seem to overcome. All his life Henry had thrown caution to the wind, but never had he ventured so truly far out of his comfort zone as he found himself in that moment; a large bleak ocean separating him from his old life of privilege.

    Henry was drawn out of deep thought as he felt the train's breaks come to a gradual screeching halt, the whistle sounding as the train pulled up to the platform. Henry glanced out the train window onto the platform just across the glass pane. At first glance it looked just like any other railway station platform, though it seemed a lot newer than some of the others he'd encountered. He'd noticed that about a lot of the stops they'd made in the west but perhaps that was to do with some of the prairies being more recently settled than other more established Canadian cities. Nonetheless he couldn't help but take this as a sign; a new looking railway station like the new beginning that he was embarking on. A clean start.

    With a huff, Henry stood up from his seat; closing his eyes and taking a deep breath to collect himself as best he could. Here he was half a world away from everything he knew; halfway across the country away from the only person he knew. Yet just as he always had, Henry tried his very best to simply carry on as though everything was fine; though beneath his cool and unfeeling English exterior, which he was always raised to display to the world, Henry was very much the opposite of calm.

    Henry straightened out his cufflinks and waistcoat as he walked towards the carriage exit, grabbing onto the metal bar on the outside of the train as he scanned the relatively empty platform before stepping down the metal steps and unto the platform.

"Blimey." Henry cursed as his breath hitched in the back of his throat; feeling the cold sting of the crisp late autumn gale hit him like a tonne of bricks. The blustery prairie wind leaving his hair swept into his face as he felt a chill go right through the fibres of his tweed coats and trousers, penetrating straight through to his bones. For a second there he felt as though this was all a terrible idea. Surely jail couldn't've been nearly as bad as whatever frozen hell he'd landed himself in; and if autumn was that chilly, he shuddered at the mere thought of what the dead of winter would be like.

    He ran his hand through his messy black hair as he glanced around the platform for someone who looked like they'd be from a small mining town; Henry didn't know whom it was who was meant to retrieve him from the railway station, though the Alberta Ministry of Health had assured him somebody would be there.

    Henry couldn't help but find it all to be terribly amusing; his Papa always found his younger son rather peculiar of a character with his purposeful will to associate with and understand working class people. Though when it truly came down to it Henry might've had more interactions with working class people than most of his family, but it would soon come to light that he didn't truly know them.  Most of the other members of the Aldringham family never truly associated with working class people who weren't paid downstairs staff; and even then the interactions were minute at best. The Duke and Duchess had a valet and ladies maid, and other than the butlers and head housekeeper, most of the other staff existed in a state of being visibly invisible for lack of a batter term.