# Miss Lacordère — If I Had a Father character guide

> Miss Lacordère in If I Had a Father by George MacDonald.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Mattie Miss Lacordère, Gervaise Miss Lacordère

**First appearance:** 0000-act-i

## Snapshot

A wary, sharp-tongued young woman scraping by in a shabby stairwell world, Miss Lacordère guards her friend Susan and herself against the smooth-tongued gentlemen who ruin girls.

## Who they are

Known to her intimates as Mattie, she lives by her wits in a tenement where the rent is always a week behind and every polished stranger is a threat. She is fiercely protective of Susan, warning her that fine speeches and gold chains hide the same careless cruelty, yet her own past is shadowed by a man she keeps running from. When a boy named Bill reports a gentleman asking after a 'Mattie,' her composure cracks, and the dread of being found begins to pull her toward the story's central question of who a father is and whether one is ever coming.

## Links

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