# Suspense — Character guide

> Key figures in Suspense by Joseph Conrad.

- [Cosmo Latham](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/suspense_se/characters/cosmo_latham.md): Cosmo arrives in Genoa well-connected, well-looked-after, and quietly at loose ends, attended by his father's trusted servant Spire and armed with pistols he has no intention of needing. He seeks men's company and solitu
- [Madame de Montevesso](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/suspense_se/characters/madame_de_montevesso.md): Once a shy refugee girl sheltered in the Latham household, Adèle d'Armand has become a woman whose glow Cosmo finds almost unbearable to look at. She speaks of her girlhood blushes with mockery and bitterness, and of her
- [Count de Montevesso](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/suspense_se/characters/count_de_montevesso.md): Cosmo first encounters him as a name attached to a woman he is already half in love with, a husband whose arrival is always imminent and never quite welcome. The Count's presence structures the social world of the novel:
- [Sir Charles Latham](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/suspense_se/characters/sir_charles_latham.md): Sir Charles runs Latham Hall with the same firm hand he once used on Tuscan roads, lending his servant Spire to Cosmo with instructions to keep the pistols loaded and to stay out of the way. His own youthful journey to I
- [Attilio](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/suspense_se/characters/attilio.md): Attilio belongs to the underground world of Italian conspirators, bound by oath and answerable to men like Cantelucci for the conduct of those he has initiated. His disappearance—perhaps by assassination, perhaps by his 
- [Signor Cantelucci](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/suspense_se/characters/signor_cantelucci.md): Cantelucci runs his wine-shop as a cover for conspiracy, initiating his own niece into the women's branch of the Carbonari and holding her responsible for conduct that might compromise them all. When she comes to him in 
- [Bernard](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/suspense_se/characters/bernard.md): Bernard belongs to the household world of Sir Charles Latham, one of those unobtrusive presences whose affection is only fully discovered at the moment it feels lost forever. His master's grief over Adèle d'Armand — the 
- [Spire](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/suspense_se/characters/spire.md): Spire serves Cosmo Latham in a Genoa inn he plainly distrusts, sleeping on a pallet in the corridor with the carriage fur rug and keeping the primed pistols within reach. His loyalty is practical rather than sentimental:
- [The Doctor](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/suspense_se/characters/the_doctor.md): The doctor moves easily between the innkeeper Cantelucci's anxious confidences and the naval officers at his dining table, taking snuff and turning over the puzzle of a guest who went out for air and never came back. He 
- [Aglae](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/suspense_se/characters/aglae.md): Aglae attends the young woman who will become Madame de Montevesso, the one sent with a message when her mistress locks herself away, and the one who follows when she escapes the house to summon a wealthy general and off
- [Father Paul](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/suspense_se/characters/father_paul.md): Father Carpi has been content merely to exist through hard times for the clergy, but the fall of the Empire has stirred his first ambitions, fixed on the chaplaincy to Count of Montevesso's charitable foundations. He see
- [Countess de Montevesso](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/suspense_se/characters/countess_de_montevesso.md): Cosmo knew her only as a fair head hovering near his father's armchair, one of the two girls glimpsed in the Park during school holidays, and he cannot picture her grown, married for years, the daughter of an ambassador.
- [Clelia](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/suspense_se/characters/clelia.md): Clelia lies in a grand, half-furnished room where a priest, a gaunt woman, and Count Helion circle her bed, her flushed cheek and tangled black hair the only signs of life beneath the pulled-up blanket. She answers the C
- [Adèle](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/suspense_se/characters/adele.md): Adèle d'Armand spent years in Cosmo's Yorkshire home as a quiet presence near his father's armchair, so woven into the family picture that he took her almost for granted. Now, married into the Montevesso name and seasone
- [Checca](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/suspense_se/characters/checca.md): A local woman, possibly a servant or villager, who interacts with the main cast.
- [Henrietta Latham](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/suspense_se/characters/henrietta_latham.md): A member of the Latham family, possibly Cosmo's sister or relative.
- [Lady Latham](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/suspense_se/characters/lady_latham.md): Cosmo's mother or a senior female Latham, concerned with family matters.
- [Barbone](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/suspense_se/characters/barbone.md): A villainous or disreputable character who causes trouble.
- [Napoleon](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/suspense_se/characters/napoleon.md): The Emperor of the French, referenced as a historical figure influencing events.
- [Signore](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/suspense_se/characters/signore.md): A generic Italian gentleman, possibly a local authority or host.
- [Monsieur le Marquis](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/suspense_se/characters/marquis.md): A French nobleman who appears in the social milieu.

HTML index: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/suspense_se/characters