Character guide

Bevil Jr.

major

Also known as Mr. Bevil, young Bevil, Bevil

Bevil Jr. moves through fashionable London as the model son: heir to a great estate, engaged by arrangement to Lucinda, and never once boasting of his independence. Yet he keeps a second life — an unknown woman lodged and supported at his own expense — and when his friend Myrtle accuses him of hiding behind cool philosophy, Bevil's temper nearly breaks his principles. His struggle between filial obedience and private inclination sets the play's central question: can virtue survive a world that mocks it?

Indiana

major

Indiana lives surrounded by finery — dressing-plate, bank notes, a house of quality — yet no one will tell her plainly who provides it, and her aunt Isabella insists the whole arrangement is a seducer's art. In Bevil's presence she is mute with shame and longing; in his absence she must defend his image against Isabella's relentless suspicion. Her uncertainty about her own origins and her benefactor's intentions makes her the emotional centre of the play's inquiry into generosity, reputation, and what a woman may safely feel.

Mr. Sealand

major

Also known as Sealand, old Sealand

Sealand has built a vast fortune by trade and means to marry his only daughter into Sir John Bevil's family — until rumours of an unknown woman in Bevil's life force him to investigate for himself. He arrives at Indiana's lodgings with a table-book and an air of authority, ready to be abrupt, and finds himself in a household whose mysteries unsettle his businesslike confidence. His willingness to look into uncomfortable facts, rather than simply insist on the match, makes him the play's unlikely engine of discovery.

Sir John Bevil

major

Also known as John Bevil, Sir John, Bevil

Sir John has spent forty years with Humphry at his side and a reputation for generous living, and he prides himself on having let his son grow up unconstrained so he could judge the boy's true character. What he discovered was a son so obedient, so free of any claim on his mother's estate, that Sir John can hardly complain — except that Bevil's private life now threatens the wealthy match with Sealand's daughter. His genial pragmatism, and his willingness to let Humphry in on the truth, make him both a comic and a quietly anxious father.

Myrtle

supporting

Also known as Mr. Myrtle, Charles Myrtle, Charles

Myrtle loves Lucinda with a heat that makes him read betrayal into every cool word from Bevil, and he comes close to trading friendship for a sword-point. His temper is his defining flaw: he accuses Bevil of hiding behind conscience while hoarding a mistress abroad, and only Bevil's refusal to fight shames him back into reason. His eventual disguise as old Sir Geoffry, scheming to outwit the Cimberton match, shows how far a hot-headed lover will go when patience fails him.

Lucinda

supporting

Also known as Mrs. Lucinda

Lucinda has already ended Bevil's pretensions by letter, given her affections to Myrtle, and now watches her mother parade Cimberton through the house as if the wedding were done. She mocks the doctrine that a maid should not even look at her husband until the minister hands her over, and trades barbs with her maid Phillis about love, obedience, and what servants seal with their lips. Her wit and her resistance to being traded like stock make her the play's sharpest comment on marriage as a family transaction.

Phillis

supporting

Also known as Mrs. Phillis, Madam Phillis

Phillis serves Lucinda but reads her mistress's romantic predicament with a servant's unsentimental clarity, defending the vulgar custom of sealing vows with lips rather than parchment. Her courtship with Tom unfolds in stolen asides and errands, each of them angling for a tenement and a wedding out of their masters' tangled affairs. Her running commentary on love, obedience, and marriage makes her the play's sharpest mirror of the gentry she waits on.

Tom

supporting

Tom carries his master's letters and his own ambitions with equal energy, breaking china cups in his passion for Phillis and arguing that servants must strike a livelihood for themselves while their betters dither. He sees the lovers' negotiations as a game whose winnings might include a small tenement for two. His blend of cheek, devotion, and self-interest keeps the play's lower plot humming beneath the genteel one.

Humphry

supporting

Also known as Honest Humphry, Master Humphry, Mr. Humphry

Humphry has served the Bevil household long enough to speak his mind and be heard, and he moves between Sir John, Mr. Sealand, and the younger generation as a kind of moral courier. He teases Tom about Phillis's fondness even as he worries over the family's tangled marriage plans. His loyalty is not blind obedience but a steady insistence that nothing in the family ought to be concealed, which makes him quietly pivotal when the plot needs a truth-teller.

Cimberton

supporting

Also known as Sir Geoffry Cimberton, old Cimberton, Mr. Cimberton

Cimberton arrives as the wealthy suitor Mrs. Sealand favors, a man whose avarice and vanity make him examine a prospective bride the way a jockey examines a horse. His absurd erudition and cold appraisal of Lucinda's charms turn courtship into a transaction, and his presence forces Myrtle and Bevil into ever more elaborate stratagems. He is the play's comic embodiment of marriage-as-bargain, the obstacle that makes the lovers' sincerity legible.

Mrs. Sealand

supporting

Mrs. Sealand treats her daughter's marriage as a contest of wills with her husband and an occasion to secure the Cimberton name, complaining that Lucinda's beauty dims her own in assemblies. When she learns Mr. Sealand means to investigate Bevil's mysterious lady, she resolves to drag the whole family along and end the disputed disposal of her daughter at once. Her vanity and need for control make her a comic antagonist whose interference keeps the marriage plot churning.

Isabella

minor

Indiana's devoted servant and confidante.

Danvers

minor

A servant of Mr. Sealand.

Bramble

minor

Also known as Mr. Bramble

A lawyer associated with Cimberton's family.

Mr. Serjeant

minor

A legal officer who appears in a scene.

Target

minor

Also known as old Target

A minor character mentioned in dialogue.

Mrs. Judy

minor

Also known as Judy

A servant in the Sealand household.