# The Conscious Lovers — Character guide

> Key figures in The Conscious Lovers by Richard Steele.

- [Bevil Jr.](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_conscious_lovers_se/characters/bevil_jr.md): 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 an
- [Indiana](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_conscious_lovers_se/characters/indiana.md): 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 p
- [Mr. Sealand](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_conscious_lovers_se/characters/mr_sealand.md): 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'
- [Sir John Bevil](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_conscious_lovers_se/characters/sir_john_bevil.md): 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 discover
- [Myrtle](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_conscious_lovers_se/characters/myrtle.md): 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 behin
- [Lucinda](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_conscious_lovers_se/characters/lucinda.md): 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 shoul
- [Phillis](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_conscious_lovers_se/characters/phillis.md): 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 
- [Tom](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_conscious_lovers_se/characters/tom.md): 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 se
- [Humphry](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_conscious_lovers_se/characters/humphry.md): 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
- [Cimberton](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_conscious_lovers_se/characters/cimberton.md): 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 cha
- [Mrs. Sealand](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_conscious_lovers_se/characters/mrs_sealand.md): 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 m
- [Isabella](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_conscious_lovers_se/characters/isabella.md): Indiana's devoted servant and confidante.

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