# Uncle Silas — Character guide

> Key figures in Uncle Silas by J. Sheridan Le Fanu.

- [Maud Ruthyn](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/uncle_silas_se/characters/maud_ruthyn.md): A sheltered heiress who narrates her own slow descent into her uncle's shadowed world, torn between family duty and creeping dread.
- [Uncle Silas](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/uncle_silas_se/characters/uncle_silas.md): A ruined aesthete and suspected murderer who receives his orphaned niece at Bartram-Haugh with exquisite manners and a will that leaves her utterly in his power.
- [Madame de la Rougierre](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/uncle_silas_se/characters/madame_de_la_rougierre.md): A coarse, watchful French governess whose obsequious charm and prying habits mark her as something far more dangerous than a mere tutor.
- [Lady Knollys](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/uncle_silas_se/characters/lady_knollys.md): Maud's blunt, warm-hearted cousin, whose gossipy candor and fierce loyalty make her the one voice daring to speak plainly against Silas.
- [Dudley Ruthyn](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/uncle_silas_se/characters/dudley_ruthyn.md): Silas's brutish, thick-booted son, whose swaggering insolence and predatory interest in Maud make every encounter feel like a threat.
- [Doctor Bryerly](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/uncle_silas_se/characters/doctor_bryerly.md): A sharp-eyed Swedenborgian physician whose probing questions about Maud's comfort at Bartram-Haugh betray suspicions he will not quite voice.
- [Milly Ruthyn](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/uncle_silas_se/characters/milly_ruthyn.md): Milly is Maud's cousin and only companion at the gloomy Bartram-Haugh estate, a girl whose loud laugh and blunt talk constantly collide with her father's nerve-wracked fastidiousness. Starved for kindness and terrified o
- [Mary Quince](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/uncle_silas_se/characters/mary_quince.md): Mary Quince has served Maud since childhood and follows her into her uncle's guardianship, hovering at the edges of scenes with news, doubts, and her trademark complaints about the household's stinginess. Superstitious a
- [Austin Ruthyn](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/uncle_silas_se/characters/austin_ruthyn.md): Austin Ruthyn of Knowl is a widower who has raised Maud in studious seclusion, a man of strict principles and old grievances whose will places his daughter under his brother Silas's care. His chilly, principled reserve h
- [Tom Brice](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/uncle_silas_se/characters/tom_brice.md): Tom Brice moves through the Bartram-Haugh household as one of its working men, caught between the orders of his masters and the ordinary decency he shows toward Maud. His position makes him useful and vulnerable at once,
- [Mrs. Rusk](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/uncle_silas_se/characters/mrs_rusk.md): Mrs. Rusk runs the household at Knowl with a plainspoken competence and a fierce, almost maternal attachment to Maud, grumbling freely about stingy allowances and dubious arrangements. She distrusts Silas and his people 
- [Captain Oakley](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/uncle_silas_se/characters/captain_oakley.md): Captain Oakley arrives at Bartram-Haugh as a visitor from the glittering world Maud has only read about, all soft hair, easy compliments, and worldly talk that flatters her inexperience. His attentions stir Milly's roman
- [Maggie Hawkes](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/uncle_silas_se/characters/maggie_hawkes.md): Meg Hawkes belongs to the rough servant clan that Uncle Silas shelters on his estate, a family Maud finds rude to the point of abuse. Her father Dickon dotes on her in his savage way, and that bond makes her both a witne
- [Mr. Charke](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/uncle_silas_se/characters/mr_charke.md): Charke was the kind of guest Bartram-Haugh should never have admitted—a gambler whose I.O.U.s against Silas Ruthyn became the talk of London sporting circles. His locked-room suicide, and the two letters published afterw
- [Dickon Hawkes](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/uncle_silas_se/characters/dickon_hawkes.md): Hawkes serves as Silas's enforcer on the estate, barring Maud and Milly from parts of the grounds and answering any complaint with insolence. Silas defends him as a thoroughly moral man, a claim that reveals more about t
- [Lord Ilbury](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/uncle_silas_se/characters/ilbury.md): Ilbury moves in the same genteel circles as Lady Knollys and represents, for Maud, the possibility of a life untouched by her uncle's shadow. His attentions are honorable and unhurried, standing in stark contrast to the 
- [Old Lucy Wyat](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/uncle_silas_se/characters/old_lucy_wyat.md): Wyat is the gaunt, unfriendly presence who summons Maud to her uncle's rooms and shuts the door behind her with grim satisfaction. Her bitterness seems personal, rooted in some old injury connected to the household, and 
- [Doctor Jolks](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/uncle_silas_se/characters/doctor_jolks.md): A local doctor and his family who attend to the Bartram household.
- [Mr. Carysbroke](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/uncle_silas_se/characters/mr_carysbroke.md): A gentleman with a romantic history involving Lady Mary.
- [Branston](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/uncle_silas_se/characters/branston.md): A local tradesman or farmer who appears in the narrative.
- [Sarah Matilda](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/uncle_silas_se/characters/sarah_matilda.md): A mysterious woman whose identity is revealed later in the story.
- [L'Amour](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/uncle_silas_se/characters/lamour.md): A Frenchman or servant with a minor role at Bartram-Haugh.

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