# The Law and the Lady — Character guide

> Key figures in The Law and the Lady by Wilkie Collins.

- [Valeria](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_law_and_the_lady_se/characters/valeria.md): Valeria marries Eustace Macallan only to learn, through his own confession, that he was tried for poisoning his first wife and never honorably acquitted. Rather than accept his self-imposed exile, she resolves to clear h
- [Eustace Macallan](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_law_and_the_lady_se/characters/eustace_macallan.md): Eustace Macallan lives under the shadow of a Scottish verdict of not proven, a legal limbo that leaves him neither condemned nor cleared of poisoning his first wife. His farewell letter to Valeria is at once tender and e
- [Miserrimus Dexter](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_law_and_the_lady_se/characters/miserrimus_dexter.md): Miserrimus Dexter receives Valeria in a room of mirrors and gas-stoves, quoting Latin, dressing for dinner in paper caps, and treating his servant Ariel as a cross between a dog and a daughter. His mind is cast in a Roma
- [Major Fitz-David](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_law_and_the_lady_se/characters/major_fitz_david.md): Major Fitz-David is the kind of friend who opens other people's letters when asked and delivers his verdict without flinching: there is but one excuse for Eustace, and it is madness. He moves easily between Valeria's con
- [Mr. Playmore](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_law_and_the_lady_se/characters/mr_playmore.md): Mr. Playmore serves as Eustace's confidential adviser and, later, as Valeria's cautious ally in the legal machinery surrounding the case. He is acutely aware that any document vindicating Eustace must be handled with car
- [Mrs. Macallan](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_law_and_the_lady_se/characters/mrs_macallan_elder.md): Mrs. Macallan the elder appears at the trial as a formidable defender of her son, insisting that his rash diary entries misrepresent a husband who was invariably considerate. She admits the marriage was unhappy but denie
- [Mrs. Beauly](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_law_and_the_lady_se/characters/mrs_beauly.md): Mrs. Beauly drifts through the trial testimony as the woman Eustace Macallan was rumored to admire, a suspicion the servants and the prosecution nurse without ever proving. Her beauty makes her useful to scandal and usel
- [Benjamin](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_law_and_the_lady_se/characters/benjamin.md): Benjamin is the quiet, devoted old man who raised Valeria and now watches her marry a stranger with a shadowed past. Where Major Fitz-David counsels caution, Benjamin counsels surrender — he sides with his daughter when 
- [Ariel](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_law_and_the_lady_se/characters/ariel.md): Ariel haunts the shadowy hall and dark garden walk of Dexter's house, half asleep, half awake, leading visitors in and locking gates behind them without a word. She is dull to strangers, deaf to courtesy, alive only when
- [Mr. Dexter](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_law_and_the_lady_se/characters/mr_dexter.md): Miserrimus Dexter's more conventional brother.
- [Lady Clarinda](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_law_and_the_lady_se/characters/lady_clarinda.md): A noblewoman who befriends Valeria during her investigations.
- [Doctor Starkweather](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_law_and_the_lady_se/characters/doctor_starkweather.md): The clergyman who marries Valeria and Eustace.
- [Sarah](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_law_and_the_lady_se/characters/sarah.md): Eustace's first wife who died under suspicious circumstances.
- [Christina Ormsay](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_law_and_the_lady_se/characters/christina_ormsay.md): A witness connected to the poisoning case.
- [Mirliflore](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_law_and_the_lady_se/characters/mirliflore.md): A Frenchwoman involved in the Beauly affair.
- [Lord Advocate](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_law_and_the_lady_se/characters/lord_advocate.md): The prosecutor in Eustace Macallan's trial.
- [Lady Brydehaven](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_law_and_the_lady_se/characters/lady_brydehaven.md): A society figure mentioned in connection with Mrs. Beauly.

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