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."

It is mid-day, the sun covered by clouds and a slight chill in the air. It's still infinitely milder than any winter Eleanor's experienced in Toronto. A fleet of taxis line up along the road near the arrivals gate, and there, near the door, is a large black SUV. Cyrus opens one of the rear passenger doors for Margaret, and then the other for Eleanor, before loading Eleanor's luggage into the trunk of the car.

"I hope you don't mind, dear," Margaret says, buckling herself in, "But I've taken the liberty of having Whitmore set up for your arrival. Consider it a homecoming gift."

Cyrus guides the car deftly out of the airport and onto a busy road.

Objectively, Eleanor knows that cars drive on the other side of the road in England. Experiencing it is another experience altogether. Each time she looks out through the windshield she feels as if they've veered into the wrong lane. She focuses on the view from the passenger window instead. Outside, they pass long concrete parking lots, which soon turn into rows of tightly packed town homes topped with red shingles, and then into rolling countryside speckled with off-ramps and small towns.

As they drive, Margaret talks. Evidently she's not expecting Eleanor to contribute much to the conversation, which is a huge relief. Eleanor was one of the unlucky few who hadn't been able to sleep on the eight hour flight, and exhaustion is beginning to set in.

"We've had Whitmore prepared for your arrival," Margaret is saying. "The place is in surprisingly good condition, considering it's been all but abandoned for years. No one has lived there since dear Albert, my husband, passed; he was the one who loved the place. Well, him and your mother. They both found it's datedness 'quaint', though mercifully Albert had the good sense to install a modern heating system. Old homes like Whitmore can get quite drafty in the winter. I suspect you're used to the cold, however." Margaret smiles at Eleanor, who manages a faint nod.

"I've also taken the liberty of hiring a housekeeper. There's quite a lot to manage at the present, and he'll be able to handle the more mundane aspects of managing an estate. It will give us time to catch up."

For most of the drive, the radio hums softly. It's classical music, mostly, interspersed with a smooth voiced narrator giving weather updates. As the car passes a small town with a faded sign, a frenetic and familiar piano piece begins. Eleanor can't remember the name of the piece but she knows the composer.

"My father loved Rachmaninoff," Eleanor says softly.

Margaret hums noncommittally.

Distracted by the concerto on the radio, and by the increasingly scenic views, Eleanor loses track of time until Margaret is patting her lightly on the knee.

"There, dear, Whitmore is just up ahead."

Eleanor rubs her eyes, tries to force herself into an alertness she doesn't feel, and shifts to peer over Cyrus's shoulder.

The car rumbles up the gravel road, past the remnants of a crumbling stone wall. They're made of a tall, sturdy bricks capped with smooth beige stone. Past the walls, untended flowerbeds and overgrown hedges cover the grounds. It's clearly been unattended for years; weeds and and roots spill out the pathways leading across the lawn. Her mother would have a fit to see a garden looking like this. Even the light dusting of snow can't hide the state of disrepair.

The driveway continues, gravel crunching and rattling beneath the tires. Ahead, at the end of the drive, is Whitmore.

Stately would describe it, in a word.

It stands two-storeys tall, squat and wide. Browned ivy creeps it's way up the red bricked walls, hanging onto the nooks and crannies of the white-framed windows. The door stands squarely in the center of the building face, capped with a simple white entablature. White paint, covering the door and window frames, peels with age. Outside the house, near the doorway, stands a prim and polished looking man.

That, Eleanor thinks, would be the housekeeper.

Eleanor can imagine this place in it's heyday, before the sun had faded the bricks and the paint had begun to peel, when the ivy was just beginning it's climb up Whitmore's walls. It's the sort of place you'd set an Agatha Christie period-drama, Eleanor thinks, where people in expensive outfits and big hats wander the lawn and stumble across a corpse in the shrubbery.

The thought is so unexpectedly morbid that Eleanor giggles.

Margaret gives her a look, just a wry arched eyebrow, and Eleanor covers the giggle with a weak cough.

Cyrus pulls the car to a stop at the end of the drive, near the doorway to the house, and quickly hops out. Eleanor reaches for the door handle, only to have Margaret place a hand on her knee. Before Eleanor can question the move, Cyrus is outside and sliding her door open.

"Oh, thank you," Eleanor manages faintly. She can't remember the last time someone's opened a car door for her; it feels strange. As she clambers out of the car, Cyrus rushes round to do the same for Margaret. The sun is breaking through the grey winter clouds and Eleanor squints in the sunlight. Margaret says something softly to the housekeeper that Eleanor can't pick up as Cyrus gathers her bags from the cars trunk.

"Dear," Margaret says, beckoning Eleanor closer. "This is Will Cabot, the housekeeper. If you need anything, you're simply to ask him."

Will inclines his head politely; it looks to Eleanor like a modern take on a bow. He's younger than Eleanor had imagined a housekeeper would be, probably only a few years older than her, and dressed simply in a white button-down with a soft blue tie and dark slacks.

"Cyrus will bring your bags inside, and Mr. Cabot can give you a tour of the property. I'll come by for tea in a few days, once you've had the chance to settle, and we'll talk." Margaret smiles. "Welcome to Whitmore."