Catherine had been homebound for two weeks now on doctor’s orders. She had fainted several times a day for days on end. The doctor had prescribed rest, plain but nutritious food, and had once again urged her to stop lacing her corset so tight. She was not to leave her confinement until the fainting spells had stopped for a week.
 
To make matters worse, the other girls in the Whitby Young Ladies Society for the Relief of Destitute Children had decided that Catherine was sick too often to be president and had demoted her. She was devastated. Her life had seemed unbearably dull as it was, while she was stuck in Whitby during the winter season. Now, homebound and with her main occupation taken away, she didn’t know what to do with herself.
 
She had started reading ‘Emma’, but it gave her migraines and she was forced to stop. What she had managed to read, however, had inspired her. Could she too take on a girl of lesser rank and mould and refine her enough to find her a good match? (All the sarcasm had escaped her.) Perhaps if she could improve a simple girl and raise her above those daughters of doctors and lawyers who had demoted her, they would feel ashamed of how they had treated her. Perhaps they’d be jealous.
 
She didn’t know many girls who would qualify. The girl couldn’t be completely unpolished. There had to be evidence of potential. And she would need to have time, of course. But she would have to be low enough in rank to teach the girls in the Society a lesson as she came up. It couldn’t be one of the maids. It had to be someone she didn’t interact with in any other context.
 
After another few hours of boredom, her mind turned to the shop girl who had assisted when she bought the Jane Austen collection. A fish lass who had worked herself up to a shop assistant. The girl had a pretty face and a pleasant smile and good manners, even if she was a little free. She’s be perfect!
 
And so like a true detective, Catherine set herself to finding out the name of the girl, by making a footman find it out for her (not creepy Matthew). A day later, Ellie Russell received the following invitation on fine and bleached, scented paper, the seal stamped with an elaborate flowery imprint around the letters C.A.E.:
 

Dear Miss Russell,
 
Three weeks ago, you assisted me in the purchase of that lovely blue leather bound set of Jane Austen novels. You told me then that you are practicing your reading, something I find admirable. You see, I am very passionate about education, especially for working girls.
 
I would very much like to assist you in your journey of self-improvement. If you would kindly visit us at Saltwick View Manor this Sunday at 3, we have a library you might want to browse. Also, I have several children’s books I wish to part with that may be of interest you. The address is enclosed. Please RSVP and when you come, report at the gate house. The servants will take you up to the house.
 
Yours sincerely,
Catherine A. Ennington

Ellie could count on one hand the number of letters she had received personally in her lifetime. One. This one. She read and reread the summons aloud, marvelling at the beauty of the script, the richness of the ink, the pureness of the paper on which it was scrawled. With each attempt, Ellie's voice became stronger as she understood the words. There was of course no question of not attending. The poor girl scurried into the back office with such vigour that she spooked the cat - oh who cares about him - approval was soon given with a dismissive hand wave and an airey comment that Ellie was not a prisoner in the shop. Could Miss Christine help her RSVP as instructed? RSVP, a fancy French way of saying reply.  Who knew?

A simple response was dictated by Miss Christine, with Ellie carefully and diligently writing out each letter on shop letterhead. Three sheets of paper gave their lives before a passable, unsmudged, response was written.

Dear Miss Ennington,

I should be delighted to come and see you this Sunday and at the time requested.

Yours sincerely,

Elenor Russell

The appointed day came and with duties to family, employer, and the Lord Almighty dispatched, Ellie appeared at the gate house in her dark brown, high collared, "Sunday best" dress. She'd scrubbed herself pink come bath time this week, cleaned hair plated neatly at her back.  This meeting had driven her to distraction the entire week, hermind turning like the cogs of a grain mill on what she should wear, what she should say, or not. Now at the moment of action, anticipation burned like acid in the centre of her chest and her pits felt clammy.  As the letter had indicated, a servant soon stomped into view in wellies

"I'm Ellie - I mean Miss Russell - Come to see Miss Ennington. She knows I'll be 'ere. She sent a letter."

The servant wasn’t much of a talker, it turned out, but he greeted her politely and told her Miss Catherine had informed him and that there was a trap waiting to take her up to the house. He helped her in before getting in on the other side and off they went. The barouche or any of the other fine carriages had not been taken out for her, but Catherine wouldn’t dream of being so inconsiderate as to let the girl walk the mile up to the house.

The house was situated outside of Whitby, on higher ground, and from the park, Ellie might catch glimpses of the town and harbour below. To her left lay the headland and the glimmering sea beyond. To her right rose the North York Moors in in the distance. Ahead of her, the mansion grew in size. From the front, it was a symmetrical grey building with four sets tall bay windows on both floors and a long porte-cochère in the middle where the main entrance was. As she got closer, Ellie would probably notice the top of the taller, square belltower around which the house had been built, and the little turrets, the balconies, the high chimneys and the colonnades that ran from both sides of the house, forming a crescent around the circle drive.

The trap didn’t go that far however, but turned right, onto a smaller road that led them around the back of the colonnade to the side of the house. There, Ellie was handed over to a maid, already waiting by a servant’s entrance, who showed her up.

Catherine had been looking forward to this visit far more than she cared to admit. However, a little solitary reflection in the days leading up to it had caused her some anxiety that, if she was not careful, the interaction might be misconstrued by the uneducated fisher girl or by some of Whitby’s gossip mongers. Any formal acquaintance was out of the question. The notion that the Enningtons from Saltwick View Manor and the Russells from Tate Hill or the Crag or Boulby Bank were calling on another was preposterous. But she could not assume that a girl like Ellie Russell would understand the intricate rules of morning calls that placed this visit well outside of that category of interactions. And with Miss Pearl Carrington recent elopement with a bricklayer or what-was-he, who knew what the working classes presumed about their connections to their superiors. No, she should take care that there was no possibility of misconstruing this interaction. And so Ellie was received via one of the servant’s entrances and led up via the back stairs, not to the parlour where they received callers, but to Catherine’s own sitting room.

Catherine sat waiting in a cushioned bay window seat. She had seen her guest being driven up to the house until the colonnade had hidden her from view. Ellie Russell was on her way. Catherine picked up her copy of Emma, which lay ready by her side, and opened it where she thought she had left.

She looked up from the very same page when Ellie entered. The servant announced her. Catherine closed the book. “Miss Russell. You must excuse my not rising to greet you. I’ve been suffering with vertigo. Thank you, Maeve,” she dismissed the maid. “Please have a seat.” She gestured to the other side of the window seat. “That is a lovely dress.” She wouldn’t be caught gardening in a dress like that, but she appreciated that the girl had made an effort to look nice. And though Ellie Russell’s clothes weren’t exactly the latest from Liberty’s, there was loveliness about the girl, a freshness or innocence, which her simple but proper costume and hairstyle only accentuated.

The subtle differences in class hidden within the bricks of the Ennington manor were lost on Ellie as the house grew larger in her vision. The carriage ride from the gate only amplified her nerves, and deepened her unease. Why couldn't she just enjoy the dream of being a rich lady visiting her rich friend? Because she wasn't rich in reality obviously.

Shown round the back, even the plain servants area and stairs were cleaner and more impressive than anywhere Ellie had been before. The girl was led not into the main parlour but upstairs to the private rooms of the family. Her senses were overloaded with detail: art, flowers, paintings. Ellie was quickly ushered into a room with a large bay window and the trappings of relaxation.

Her host was the only one in the room, a girl who with her palid skin might have been mistaken for a much poorer girl if it weren't for the fine cloth that covered her feeble frame. Still, Ellie knew her social better.

"Thank you Miss," she answered with a curtsey "You 'ave a lovely 'ouse."

Catherine was pleased with the girl. She curtsied. She showed appreciation without gushing. There was something to work with. The common small talk that was to commence would give her a better impression of the young girl's manners.

"How kind you are. Thank you," Catherine replied with a smile. "Did you have a good journey here? You've brought good weather."

Did sunshine and blue skies follow Ellie about, perhaps? It was a lovely thought that the girl cheered up the world simply by passing through it.

"My trip up wasn't bad. I caught a ride part way on a coal cart worked by a Cragg boy I know. George. 'is cap is always too small for him. 'e looks right silly with it balanced up there he does."

That sort of conversation would need to be curbed, but really, Catherine was too ashamed of her own negligence to mind it. A little colour appeared on her pale cheeks. It had never once occurred to her that the girl had no transport to the estate. Only a coal cart - Heaven forbid! - had prevented her from walking all of what had to be at least a twenty-five minute walk. "I shall ask Jared to drive you back into town when he comes up to the house," she quickly offered.

Ellie's went wide at the suggestion. She couldn't ride back to town like a lady of means. In her best dress and riding a carriage, surely the wagging tongues of Whitby would say Ellie thought too highly of her station. "Oh no, Miss. I wouldn't want to be an imposition. I'm happy walkin' back."

"Not at all, I insist," Catherine pressed. She was eager to compensate for her earlier lack of consideration. "I wouldn't like to think that I had sent a young woman like yourself walking back to town alone. There's all sort of bad folk about. Vagrants and beggars and worse. We had a strange man trespassing the other day. We were all quite distressed. Really, you mustn't walk alone. Jared can drop you off on the edge of town."

Ellie nodded and her resistance crumbled quickly. "If ye insist, Miss. Thank you." She answered with a shy smile.