Username: D i a r y (Di)
Who recruited you?: N / A
Name: Elizabeth "Ella" Wentworth
Age: 30
Gender: Female
Height: 5 ft 7 in
Weight: 130 lbs
Race: Caucasian
Social Class: Working class, indebted (formerly old hereditary aristocrat)
Appearance: She wears a stiff shirtwaist, her soft hair piled into a chignon, topped by a smart hat. Her flowing skirt is hiked up in back with just a hint of a bustle. Ella was blessed with a mess of chocolate colored hair and fine, dark eyes. She is a great deal too tan to be fashionable. She prefers to wear a tailored suit when she can get away with it (hoops and bustles are not very practical) and trousers for recreation. All her dresses are very plain and muted.
Personality: Ella feels that life has far more to offer and that there are still important things to be achieved--that life must be experienced to the fullest. As a result, she pursues her objectives with a fierce intensity that will not let go of things. She becomes deeply involved and runs the risk of being unable to view things with sufficient objectivity. She is egocentric and therefore quick to take offense. Ella clings to her belief that her hopes and ideas are realistic, but needs encouragement and reassurance. She applies very exacting standards to herself and others.
Character flaws: Ella has trouble backing down from an argument. She's over-opinionated and arrogant in an academic sense. She is seen as a social outcast, and she could only function well in a forward thinking academic society.
Background: Elizabeth Victoria Wentworth was born to the second wife of Sir Edward Thomas Wentworth, a fashionable baronet (and cousin to Lady Augusta Patricia, viscountess). She was the first of three sisters (herself, Marianne, Frances). Ella enjoyed the privileges of a baronet's daughter, including a governess (until she was fourteen). In that time she was instructed in matters of classic literature, geography, art, music, and French. When Ella was seventeen her father passed away, and (due to the terms of his estate) everything went to his son from his previous marriage, Frederick. The girls and their mother were practically penniless with only a small allowance for living and no dowry for the girls. However, this did not deter Lady Wentworth from trying to secure wealthy husbands for her daughters. The girls took up residence in a fashionable London neighborhood where they lived above their means for several years until they had incurred a rather large debt. During her years in London, Ella became involved with a gentleman by the name of Cunningham, but their romance was cut short when the state of her family’s finances was discovered. At the age of twenty four, Ella was considered a spinster. She set off into the workforce, taking jobs as a governess in order to pay her family's debts. Six years she served the wealthy families of London, but it took Ella far less time to realize how unjustly working class women were treated. Frustrated by the helplessness and isolation of her position in society (and its incompatibility with the Victorian perception of women), Ella sought to find a place where she could escape the role of a ‘superfluous woman.’ Enable only with the skills to teach, Ella sought positions at several universities throughout England only to be turned away. Finally, by recommendation of a loyal family friend, Ella was accepted by the University in London.
Skills: Reading, writing, teaching, argument, music, art, wit
Classes: Fine Arts
Character secrets: Ella has begun writing pamphlets advocating Marx's communism (the 'original' meaning of the word), and feminism. She has assumed the pen name Thomas Eliot in order to prevent discovery (and to promote sales and earnest interest in the works).
Anything else? The years of shaky class transition have left Ella's aristocratic manners a little unwound. She often runs when no one is watching and takes too much pleasure in study subjects viewed as inappropriate for women (politics, class, philosophy, etc. ). Slowly, but surely she is coming into her own, finding herself released from the Victorian ideal.
