Character guide

Lord Dawlish

major

Also known as Bill, Bill Chalmers, William FitzWilliam Delamere Chalmers, William Chalmers, plain Bill Chalmers, old Bill, Dawlish, Bill Dawlish

Bill Chalmers is the poorest man of his rank in Britain, happily installed as secretary of Brown's until his fiancée Claire refuses to marry him on four hundred a year. He is generous to a fault—handing shillings to strangers while Claire scolds—and cheerfully unambitious, content with golf and friends. When fortune abruptly reverses, his easygoing decency collides with Claire's calculations, setting the novel's romantic and moral machinery in motion.

Elizabeth Boyd

major

Also known as Miss Elizabeth Boyd, Miss Boyd, Boyd

Elizabeth runs the Boyd bee farm at Flack's, managing finances, a wayward brother, and a household with brisk maternal pragmatism. She is practical but not above a strategic half-truth—she lets Nutty believe in a hallucinated monkey to scare him sober. Her grounded competence and quiet humor make her the emotional counterweight to Bill's drifting English charm, and the farm becomes the stage where their worlds collide.

Dudley Pickering

major

Also known as Mr. Dudley Pickering, Mr. Pickering, Pickering, Dudley

Pickering built a fortune from the Little Pick to the Pickering Giant, and everyone—papers, Bradstreet, and Pickering himself—speaks well of him. He is a colossal bore on the single subject of automobiles, yet beneath the shy, monosyllabic exterior lurks a man capable of sudden geysers of eloquence when love taps the vein. His thirty millions tempt Claire even as his dullness repels her, making him both rival and comic engine of the plot.

Nutty Boyd

supporting

Also known as Nutty, darling Nutty, the infatuated Nutty, the appalled Nutty, the repentant Nutty

Nutty has been living it up in New York on money that was never really his, playing host to horse leeches until his Uncle Ira's will played him false. His drinking has produced a vivid imaginary monkey that climbs wardrobes and crosses carpets, and his repentance is as theatrical as his extravagance. He is the prodigal whose return—and whose terror of Eustace the monkey—anchors the Boyd household's comic and financial stakes.

Claire Fenwick

supporting

Also known as Claire, dear old Claire, Miss Fenwick, Darling Claire

Claire is engaged to Bill but has quietly omitted that fact during the voyage, letting Dudley Pickering fall in love with her while she weighs thirty millions against her self-respect. She wants to keep her good opinion of herself, which means she needs an ostensible cause—however trivial—to break the engagement. Her cool manipulation of both men, and her talent for pathos-laden scenes, drives the romantic complications of the early and middle chapters.

Lady Pauline Wetherby

supporting

Also known as Pauline, Lady Wetherby, Lady Pauline Wetherby, Pauline Wetherby

Lady Wetherby arranges for Claire and Dudley Pickering to share a ship, then works the drawing-room piano and moonlight to push them together. She is frank about the appeal of thirty millions and cheerfully admits to scheming, treating matchmaking as a practical art. Her rented summer home near Flack's—and her escaped monkey Eustace—draws the English and American strands of the plot into the same neighborhood.

Lord Wetherby

supporting

Also known as Wetherby, Only Lord Wetherby

Lord Wetherby belongs to the small circle of Bill Dawlish's titled but cash-poor acquaintances, a nobleman whose breezy disregard for money is a family tradition rather than a personal failing. His finances are so hopeless that Bill, himself a moneyless peer, is reckoned the second poorest man of his rank in the British Isles. He matters to the early arc as a mirror and caution: living proof of where the Dawlish habit of cheerful improvidence leads, and a quiet pressure on Bill's engagement to Claire.

Algie Wetherby

supporting

Also known as Algie

Algie hovers at the edge of Claire Fenwick's calculations as she and Lady Wetherby dissect her romantic options over lunch, invoked as the type of husband who must never be allowed to think he can boss a wife. He is the kind of young man who, given an inch, takes a what-d'you-call-it — a warning Claire files away while Lady Wetherby pushes the wealthy Dudley Pickering at her. His offstage presence sharpens the story's central question of what Claire will trade for money and self-respect.

Gerald Nichols

minor

Also known as Mr. Gerald Nichols, Jerry Nichols, Nichols, Jerry, Mr. Nichols

A friend of Lord Dawlish and a fellow club member.

Eustace

minor

Also known as The Eustace

A mysterious and somewhat sinister figure who appears at the club.

Gates

minor

Lord Dawlish's loyal butler.

Ira J. Nutcombe

minor

Also known as Ira J., Nutcombe, old Nutcombe, Ira Nutcombe, Mr. Ira Nutcombe, old Mr. Nutcombe, old Ira Nutcombe, Uncle Ira

A wealthy American uncle whose death sets the plot in motion.

Roscoe Sherriff

minor

Also known as Sherriff, Mr. Sherriff, Mr. Roscoe Sherriff, Hang Roscoe Sherriff, Roscoe Sheriff

A lawyer involved in the Nutcombe estate.

Brown

minor

A servant or minor functionary.

Polly Davis

minor

Also known as poor Polly Davis, Polly

A former acquaintance of Lord Dawlish with a complicated past.

Daisy Leonard

minor

Also known as a Miss Leonard, Miss Daisy Leonard, Miss Leonard, Leonard

A young woman who becomes involved with Nutty Boyd.

Mr. Breitstein

minor

Also known as Breitstein, Planting Breitstein

A businessman with interests in the Nutcombe fortune.

James

minor

A servant in the Wetherby household.

Clarence

minor

A friend of Algie Wetherby.

Flack

minor

Also known as old Flack, Mr. Flack

An older gentleman who appears at the club.

Percy

minor

Also known as little Percy

A young boy briefly mentioned in the story.

Heinrich Joerg

minor

Also known as Heinrich

A German acquaintance of the characters.

Polly Wetherby

minor

Also known as Polly

A relative of the Wetherby family.

Claude Nutcombe Boyd

minor

Also known as Claude Nutcombe

A relative of the Nutcombe family.

John Prescott

minor

Also known as John, Mr. John Prescott, Mr. Prescott

A friend of the main characters.

Maginnis

minor

Also known as Mr. Maginnis

A minor character in the story.

Riegelheimer

minor

A businessman associated with the Nutcombe estate.

Perkins

minor

Also known as The boy Perkins

A young servant.

Miss Devenish

minor

Also known as Devenish

A minor female character.

Captain Delaney

minor

Also known as Delaney

A military acquaintance.

Luella Delia Philpotts

minor

A name mentioned in passing.