Earnest Bliss

Chapter 3

Three weeks, two days, and eight hours later Eleanor arrives in England.

She is jet-lagged, excited, exhausted, and anxious and about a dozen other things all at once. She stumbles her way through the exit gate at Heathrow Airport amidst of sea of other travelers and finds her lone and worn bag of luggage in the baggage area. It's easy to spot - it's the the only duffle bag held together partially by duct tape.

Until today, the furthest she'd ever been from home was on a school trip to Niagara Falls. She's never even left Ontario before. Even the high-ceilinged, sleek airport interior feels novel and exciting. The constant motion of the crowd doesn't leave Eleanor much time to stop and stare, though.

And, of course, there's someone waiting for her.

She had called her grandmother a day after the night out with Kaitlyn and Ruth to deliver the good news. She'd learned something new in that phone call: her grandmother has money. Enough to cover the flight and any other needed expenses, at least. And, also, enough to have a driver on staff. She'd delivered that particular fact very casually, "Oh, my driver and I will pick you up at the airport", as if it was entirely normal to have a person dedicated to ferrying you around.

Of course, her grandmother failed to describe either herself or her driver, so Eleanor scans the arrivals area with no idea what to look for. There's a couple tearfully reuniting, and a gaggle of men in suits chatting hurriedly. A tired-looking family pushes through, and as the crowd parts Eleanor spots a surly looking man in a suit holding a white sign with her name on it.

Jackpot.

The man looks more like a bodyguard than a driver; he's at least a head taller than the rest of the crowd, with wide shoulders and a broad chest. In fact, he's such a towering presence that he basically obscures the woman standing behind him.

Eleanor had tried and failed to imagine her grandmother half a dozen times on the flight over. She'd tried googling Margaret Windemere the night before her flight, with middling results. A handful of old newspaper articles from social columns and little else.

The reality is simultaneously under and overwhelming.

The first thing Eleanor notices is that Margaret Windemere was truly impeccable posture, as if a ruler had been taped along her spine. Her hair, white as snow, is pulled up into a neat bun and she's dressed in a sensible skirt and sweater set. And she looks, more or less, like Eleanor's mother. There's some key differences; more wrinkles, for one, and her nose is set higher. Still, the similarities are striking. There's the same face shape, square and hardy, and the same mouth tilted into an inadvertent half smirk.

By most accounts Eleanor looked like her father, with her thick and unruly hair and round face, but the smile, that was one thing she shared with her mother. Seeing it now, again, on someone else's face makes Eleanor's eyes uncomfortably warm.

She heads towards them.

"It's me," Eleanor says, once she gets near enough to the man with the sign, "I'm Eleanor Martin."

The man nods, and Margaret steps forward with her arm outstretched. "It's a pleasure to meet you, dear. This is Cyrus, my driver."

Eleanor fumbles with her bag for an uncomfortably long moment before letting it fall to floor to shake Margaret's hand. Margaret's hands are soft, her grip firm, and her gaze steady on Eleanor's face. "You look just like her."

"I. Uh. Thank you." Eleanor reaches for her bag and finds that Cyrus has already slung it over his shoulder.

"The car is just outside, ma'am," he says, "If you'll follow me."