# Lady Macmaster — A Man Could Stand Up— character guide

> Lady Macmaster in A Man Could Stand Up— by Ford Madox Ford.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Macmaster

**First appearance:** 0001-a-man-could-stand-up

## Snapshot

Edith Ethel, now Lady Macmaster, a social climber and hostess whose whispered version of Valentine's private life travels from drawing room to schoolroom with quiet destructive force.

## Who they are

Lady Macmaster moves through the novel's drawing rooms and corridors as a woman who has married her way up and intends to keep climbing, trading in the currency of other people's reputations. It is she who tells Miss Wanostrocht that Tietjens and Valentine have had a liaison for years and that Valentine means to live with him 'maritally,' a report that reaches Mrs. Wannop and shapes how the world reads the lovers. Her gossip is not idle decoration; it is the mechanism by which private feeling becomes public judgment, and it shadows Valentine's every step.

## Relationships

### [Valentine Wannop](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_man_could_stand_up_se/characters/valentine_wannop)

_social_

Lady Macmaster is a social acquaintance of Valentine, interacting with her through literary and upper-class circles.

### [Edith Ethel Duchemin](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_man_could_stand_up_se/characters/edith_ethel_duchemin)

_friendship_

Edith Ethel Duchemin and Lady Macmaster are friends and fellow literary hostesses, though their relationship involves social rivalry.

### [Valentine Wannop](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_man_could_stand_up_se/characters/valentine_wannop)

_social_

Lady Macmaster is a social acquaintance of Valentine, interacting with her through literary and upper-class circles.

### [Valentine Wannop](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_man_could_stand_up_se/characters/valentine_wannop)

_social_

Lady Macmaster is a social acquaintance of Valentine, interacting with her through literary and upper-class circles.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_man_could_stand_up_se/characters/lady_macmaster
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_man_could_stand_up_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/a_man_could_stand_up_se/characters