If someone had asked Eleanora Black what she wanted in life, she would have said something along the lines of:
"Nothing much. Just a well-built house in a scenic countryside, far away from people with good relations with the neighbors."
If someone had asked, "what about children?" she would have answered, quite snappishly,
"What about children?"
If someone had mentioned a husband, she would have said,
"Husbands are worse than children. A kid's not going to lie to you and cheat on you and take your money and then run off with some whore three months after the wedding."
Eleanora Black did not have an optimistic view on people.
But it didn't matter anyway, because nobody really asked Eleanora anything, let alone what she wanted. She didn't mind so much; she was usually too busy to bother with silly questions anyway. If someone had asked her the above questions just out of the blue, she would probably have looked at them and said,
"…Wut?"
Then she would have said something telling them to back off and stop asking her stupid questions.
Eleanora did not have much of an optimistic view on people, but one could forgive her that, because she didn't have much of an optimistic life.
Her parents had died shortly after she was born, forcing her to jump around orphanages in the most destitute parts of town, where she learned several valuable life lessons that she had never forgotten:
1. Life sucks.
2. Then you die.
There were others, of course, but the first two were the ones that Eleanora constantly remembered. When she was about ten, she had been able to sneak into a Barnardo's home, where she learned how to cook and clean and sew and shut up—all the essentials for becoming a maid. She graduated at eleven and was promptly snapped up by an old prosperous French lady—the one who had really named her Eleanora.
"Ma chère dame," she would say, "vous êtes plus belle que les étoiles et un jour vous allez rencontrer un bel homme qui vous aime tendrement et puis vous marier et vivre heureux pour toujours."*
Then Eleanora would nod and curtsey and offer more tea.
The old French lady was the only one who had ever been really kind to Eleanora. She was the one who had taught her how to speak other languages, cultivated her artistic skills, applauded her singing. She was the one who gave her the name "Eleanora." She could still remember the day so well...
"Dame," she had said. "Dame" was "lady" in French; the only nickname that Eleanora tolerated. "Vous êtes trop belle pour ce joli visage nécessite un joli nom. Vous aimez Eleanora? Oui. J'aime le nom Eleanora. Vous êtes maintenant Eleanora."**
And Eleanora had nodded and curtseyed and obliged the lady with a French song.
It was a bitter blow to Eleanora the day that the lady's son came from France to take her back home.
"Ma belle dame," the lady had said. "Vous êtes trop belle pour ce monde. Un jour, un bel homme vous aimera et vous serez marié et être aimé et vivre heureux. N'oublie jamais cela."***
Eleanora had nodded and curtseyed and tried not to cry when the lady left.
She jumped around jobs for a time. No one really wanted her because she was too educated for a servant. She could speak French better than her masters; she read Shakespeare; she could polish the silver and open bottles of wine.
The French lady had written for her a letter to her future employers, describing how good and hard-working and competent she was, praising her drawings and her voice and her vast amounts of intelligence. The letter was very flattering, but Eleanora learned to hide it. It scared off the employers; they preferred having a stupid ugly maid to a clever ugly maid.
What really got Eleanora hired was her physical beauty—or rather, lack thereof. She was too thin, with huge blue eyes and black hair. She looked like a skeleton—a creepy, living, maid skeleton. And the employers loved that. The best maid of all was the dumb ugly one, so that she would never show up her bosses.
Eleanora jumped around less now, slowly crawling her way to the top. She was now in the employment of a middle-class family as a maid. Middle-class families were odd—most of them were fairly kind, but they were also fairly stupid. They were so desperate to prove themselves as higher than the lower-class, vainly trying to mimic the upper-class, that they did anything and everything and listened to all the garbage the magazines and books told them.
But Eleanora had no right to complain. She knew very well that most people that came from her place of birth didn't have the same luxuries that she had. They didn't have three meals a day and a roof over their heads and a regular salary. So she tried not to complain.
"Ma belle Eleanora, rappelez-vous qu'un jour vous sera aimé."****
"Yeah, right."
*My dear lady, you are more beautiful than the stars and one day you'll meet a handsome man who will love you and then you'll get married and live happily ever after."
**You are too beautiful for this world. A pretty face requires a pretty name. Do you like Eleanora? Yes. I like the name Eleanora. You are now Eleanora.
***My beautiful lady, you are too good for this world. And one day, a handsome man will fall in love with you and you shall be loved and get married and will live happily ever after. Never forget that.
****My beautiful Eleanora, remember that one day you will be loved.