# The Dead Secret — Character guide

> Key figures in The Dead Secret by Wilkie Collins.

- [Rosamond Frankland](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_dead_secret_se/characters/rosamond_frankland.md): Rosamond Frankland returns to the Cornish house she left at five, now mistress of it, with a blind husband she adores and a curiosity that will not be quieted. A dying nurse's whispered warning — keep out of the Myrtle R
- [Sarah Leeson](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_dead_secret_se/characters/sarah_leeson.md): Sarah Leeson stood at her mistress's deathbed and came away with a secret she was never meant to carry, a letter still hidden in her own hands. Fearing and failing is the whole history of her life, as she herself admits,
- [Uncle Joseph](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_dead_secret_se/characters/joseph.md): Uncle Joseph is the one person Sarah trusts with the truth, a white-haired man whose little son died in her arms long ago and who now offers to bear the risk of telling what she cannot. He curses Porthgenna Tower as a du
- [Leonard Frankland](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_dead_secret_se/characters/leonard_frankland.md): Leonard Frankland cannot see Porthgenna Tower, but he can hear the urgency in Rosamond's voice when she repeats the nurse's whispered words, and he does not dismiss them as a dream. His blindness makes him dependent on o
- [Mrs. Jazeph](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_dead_secret_se/characters/mrs_jazeph.md): Mrs. Jazeph keeps her veil down and her voice carefully restrained, and Dr. Orridge notices at once that she seems to be hiding something. She asks too many questions about Porthgenna for a stranger, then whispers her wa
- [Andrew Treverton](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_dead_secret_se/characters/andrew_treverton.md): Andrew Treverton lives shut away in London with only his servant for company, a man whose wealth and grudges have outlasted his willingness to be seen. He is the family's uncomfortable remainder — the relative no one qui
- [Mr. Orridge](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_dead_secret_se/characters/mr_orridge.md): Orridge has just bought the West Winston practice and is still learning the neighborhood's tangled loyalties when a lady is taken ill at the Tiger's Head and her hired nurse collapses. Earnest, slightly bumbling, and qui
- [Mr. Munder](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_dead_secret_se/characters/mr_munder.md): Munder presides over the shuttered house with the fussy authority of a man who mistakes obstruction for competence, sparring with the nervous housekeeper Mrs. Pentreath over who must escort visitors through the forbidden
- [Shrowl](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_dead_secret_se/characters/shrowl.md): Shrowl tends the oven, bakes the bread, and digs the garden for a miserly master who tears up a doctor's plea and tells him to light the fire with it. Instead he pockets the pieces, studies them in private, and decides a
- [Mr. Phippen](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_dead_secret_se/characters/mr_phippen.md): A lawyer involved in the sale of Porthgenna Tower and the Treverton family affairs.
- [Mrs. Norbury](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_dead_secret_se/characters/mrs_norbury.md): Mrs. Norbury speaks the plainest English and means every kind word of it, opening her house and her sympathy to a stranger delivered of a child at the Tiger's Head. When Dr. Orridge needs a nurse, she summons her own hou
- [Reverend Doctor Chennery](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_dead_secret_se/characters/doctor_chennery.md): A clergyman and relative of the Franklands who helps with family matters.
- [Mrs. Treverton](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_dead_secret_se/characters/mrs_treverton.md): Lying in the great curtained bed with the sea thundering beyond the window, Mrs. Treverton calls not for the nurse but for Sarah Leeson, and speaks with a strength that shames her maid's trembling hesitation. Even in her
- [Betsey](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_dead_secret_se/characters/betsey.md): A young servant at Porthgenna Tower who assists Rosamond.
- [Mrs. Pentreath](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_dead_secret_se/characters/mrs_pentreath.md): The housekeeper at Porthgenna Tower who knows old secrets.
- [Captain Treverton](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_dead_secret_se/characters/captain_treverton.md): Rosamond's deceased father, a sea captain whose death set events in motion.
- [Miss Sturch](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_dead_secret_se/characters/miss_sturch.md): A friend of the Franklands who provides companionship to Rosamond.
- [Mr. Nixon](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_dead_secret_se/characters/mr_nixon.md): A lawyer consulted by the Franklands regarding the secret.
- [Robert Chennery](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_dead_secret_se/characters/robert_chennery.md): Doctor Chennery's son, a young man who assists Leonard.

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