Excited and full of hopes she had left Whitby. Despondent and broken-hearted she now returned. But she’d be damned if she showed it. Though all she had wanted to do on her last day in Paris was to lie in bed and hate the world, she had gone out to buy presents for her brothers and for his brother’s new wife (in the morning, when she knew no one from Sophie’s circle was out). She was wearing a smart emerald dress that brought colour to her face, and she mentally practiced bragging about how wonderful Paris was, during the last leg of her journey, until she almost believed it.
 
Paris had been wonderful. But it could be burned to the ground for all she cared.
 
Her sullen expression returned just like that, while the train slowed and the thin tidal Esk turned into the Whitby harbour.
 
A few minutes later, her gloominess had tenfolded while she instructed an incompetent porter with a smashed up face to handle her belongings with care. She had forgotten how backward Whitby and its inhabitants were. How could she deal with this all over again!? Especially after Paris? But Paris held Sophie. To hell with Sophie! The illiterate Whitby fishwifes would make better company than Sophie!
 
She stepped out on the platform once the porter was finally stacking her things the way she wanted, and looked around. Now where was that other incompetent servant… Ruth? Ruby? Rose? She doubted Zech would come meet her in person…