# Lady Ardagh — Short Fiction character guide

> Lady Ardagh in Short Fiction by J. Sheridan Le Fanu.

**Role:** supporting

**First appearance:** 0001-the-fortunes-of-sir-robert-ardagh

## Snapshot

The dumpy, potato-faced heiress whose fortune and heart were spent by a handsome captain, and who now prays in a locked room.

## Who they are

Once a convent girl who climbed a garden wall into a handsome Captain's arms, Lady Ardagh has been worn down by his oaths, his threats, and his spending of her income until she keeps almost entirely to her room. Her only companion is a grim old Irish servant-woman the Captain loathes, and her only comfort the Roman Catholic cleric who glides through the passages. Her decline and her piety are the still centre of the household's unease, and the candle she lights in her last days becomes the story's quiet, terrible emblem.

## In the story

### [The Fortunes of Sir Robert Ardagh](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_31_se/chapters/the-fortunes-of-sir-robert-ardagh)

Sir Robert's wife, who feels an intense antipathy toward Jacque and is devastated by her husband's prediction of his imminent death.

### [The Last Heir of Castle Connor](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_31_se/chapters/the-last-heir-of-castle-connor)

The widowed mother of young O'Connor, whose intense love for her son is central to the chapter's emotional arc.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_31_se/characters/lady_ardagh
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_31_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_31_se/characters