As Siobhan said, Eleanor has a real gothic story all to herself going on in the background. In the standard Gothic novel, Alice would be the useful correspondent to whom the heroine reveals all her sorrows and adventures. Maybe Alice is a close relation of the Charming Young Man: perhaps, indeed, the viscountcy that he inherits is Lord Longtown's. Oh, there's a grand open field for wild speculation and imagination here! But I shall refrain from indulging in it, and leave it as a thought for a BoI writer.