Character guide

Wolf Solent

major

Also known as Wolf, Solent, Mr. Solent, Mr. Wolf Solent, Father, Yellow Bracken Wolf, The old Wolf

Wolf arrives at King's Barton expecting a quiet post and finds instead a limping squire who listens at doors and counts place settings like omens. His thick eyebrows, wry smile, and instinct for other people's hidden agitation make him both a superb observer and an uneasy guest. His early days braid him tightly to Urquhart, to Jason Otter's poems, and to two women whose claims on him pull in opposite directions.

Mrs. Solent

major

Also known as Wolf, But Wolf, Solent, Hurriedly Wolf, Wolf Solent, Dear Wolf, little Wolf

She descends on Blackslope society with radiant exultation, poking rhubarb leaves under Jason Otter's hat and demanding to be shown Mr. Redfern's grave as if it were a party trick. Her audacity both amuses and mortifies Wolf, who cannot decide whether she is protecting him or performing for him. Her presence sharpens the novel's central question of how much of a parent a grown son can ever escape.

Jason Otter

major

Also known as Mr. Otter, Jason Otter, Otter, Mr. Jason Otter, Mister Otter

Jason employs Wolf, writes verse about pond-elves and teasing tadpoles, and submits to Mrs. Solent's liberties with a face that mixes physical repulsion and pleasurable surrender. His grey eyes hold a look Wolf calls that of a disguised, persecuted god among savages. His rivalry with Urquhart and his strange tenderness toward his brother Darnley make him the novel's most volatile emotional weather.

Christie Malakite

major

Also known as Christie, Malakite, Miss Christie, Chris, little Chris, old Malakite

Christie moves through Blackslope with a sophistication that sits oddly beside her friendship with the stonecutter's daughter, Gerda Torp. She reads Hegel and Spinoza not for logic but for atmosphere, letting abstractions melt into mood. Her precision, her claret, and her faintly querulous smile pull Wolf toward a version of himself he has not yet met, and set up the novel's deepest contest of loyalties.

Gerda Torp

major

Also known as Gerda, Mr. Torp, Torp, the good Torp, the torpid Torp, Lob, Lob Torp, Little Gerda, young Torp

Gerda pours tea, jerks her mother's bonnet straight, and deflects Mrs. Torp's talk of blasphemous miracle-plays with a ringing question about cake. Her lightness is a form of competence, and her loyalty to Wolf is tangled with her family's rough, superstitious world. She anchors the novel's domestic and village life, and her claim on Wolf is the one he keeps testing against Christie's.

Darnley Otter

supporting

Also known as Mr. Darnley Otter, Darnley Otter, Mr. Otter, Darnley, Otter, Master Darnley

Darnley is the name Urquhart keeps invoking when Wolf arrives unattended, as if the younger Otter were a missing piece of the evening's ritual. Wolf calls him his best friend, and Gerda's preference for Jason over Darnley stings him into defending the bond. His quiet presence steadies Wolf against the Otters' turbulence and gives the early chapters their measure of ordinary human warmth.

John Urquhart

supporting

Also known as Mr. Urquhart, John, Mr. John Urquhart, old Urquhart, Urquhart, the sardonic Mr. Urquhart, the great John Urquhart

Urquhart is the squire of King's Barton, a man of massive head and stomach propped on feeble legs, whose silken voice and nervous, hunted glances make him impossible to read. He lays three places at dinner expecting guests who never arrive, and his querulous suspicion of Wolf's solitary walk hints at secrets he guards obsessively. As Wolf's employer, he draws the younger man into a project whose true stakes remain murky, setting the novel's central tension between scholarly work and buried family intrigue.

Selena Gault

supporting

Also known as Miss Gault, Miss Selena Gault, Selena, Gault, the great Gault, The Gault

Miss Gault occupies a strange, almost fetishistic place in Wolf's inner life, a figure he contemplates with the same exultant, self-forgetting sympathy he gives to mossy tree roots and old paintings. Her devotion to the Solent family dead, and her habit of tending graves, marks her as a keeper of the past that Wolf has come to Ramsgard to excavate. Her presence in the novel's early pages plants the question of what she knows about Wolf's father and why she guards it so fiercely.

Mattie Smith

supporting

Also known as Mattie, the new Mattie

Mattie Smith works in the domestic background of the Solent world, one of the servants whose labor keeps the household running while the principals pursue their obsessions. Her loyalty and attentiveness make her a silent witness to the tensions that pass between Wolf, his mother, and their neighbors. As the sister of the delicate Olwen, she also ties the servant class to the novel's broader web of village relationships, where gossip and observation carry real weight.

Bob Weevil

supporting

Also known as Weevil, Bob, Mr. Weevil, old Bob, young Bob Weevil, old man Weevil, Mr. Bob Weevil

Weevil belongs to the chorus of Ramsgard's tradesmen and talkers, the kind of man who picks up news at the counter and passes it along with interest. His involvement in village affairs makes him a conduit for the rumors and half-truths that swirl around the Urquhart household and the Solent name. In a novel where everyone watches everyone, Weevil represents the ordinary social machinery through which private lives become public property.

Olwen Smith

supporting

Also known as Olwen, Olwen dear, Little Olwen Smith, little Olwen, Princess Olwen, Miss Olwen, Olwen - bird

Olwen Smith moves through Ramsgard with the sensitivity of someone whose inner life is far richer than her circumstances allow, earning nicknames like 'Princess Olwen' that suggest both affection and her otherworldly quality. As Mattie's sister, she belongs to the servant class, yet her imagination and delicacy set her apart from the ordinary round of village life. Her presence in the early arc deepens the novel's attention to the hidden intensities of people whom the social order overlooks.

Lord Carfax

minor

Also known as Carfax, the good Carfax

A local aristocrat and friend of the Urquhart family.

Roger Monk

supporting

Also known as Roger, Redfern, Monk, young Redfern, another Redfern, poor young Redfern, our poor dear Redfern

Monk serves as Urquhart's man and messenger, a physically imposing figure who moves through the household with a servant's discretion and a fighter's stillness. His aliases link him to the Redfern who died in the very room Wolf now occupies, a coincidence that Wolf cannot stop turning over in his mind. As the novel's early chapters unfold, Monk becomes a quiet emblem of the buried histories and uneasy inheritances that Wolf has walked into at King's Barton.

Mr. Valley

minor

Also known as T. E. Valley, Valley, Mr. T. E. Valley, Stammeringly Mr. Valley

A nervous and eccentric schoolmaster in the village.

Mrs. Otter

minor

Also known as Otter

Jason Otter's wife, a quiet and long-suffering woman.

Lobbie Torp

minor

Also known as Lobbie, Lobbie Torp

Gerda's younger brother, a simple and good-natured lad.

Mr. Manley

minor

Also known as Willum, Mister Manley, Mr. Manley of Willum, The heavy - jowled Mr. Manley, This Manley, Manley

A local farmer and acquaintance of the Solent family.

Squire Urquhart

minor

Also known as Squire, old Urquhart, Urquhart, The Squire, the Squire

John Urquhart's father, the old-fashioned squire of the district.

Miss Malakite

minor

Also known as Malakite

Christie's aunt or older relative, living with the Malakites.

Mrs. Herbert

minor

Also known as the unknown Mrs. Herbert

A mysterious woman mentioned in local gossip.

William Solent

minor

Also known as Solent, William

Wolf's deceased father, a figure of memory and speculation.

Mrs. Torp

minor

Also known as Torp

Gerda's mother, a practical and sharp-tongued village woman.

Mr. Malakite

minor

Also known as Malakite, Mr. John Malakite, old Malakite

Christie's father, a reclusive and eccentric figure.

Mr. Smith

minor

Also known as Albert, Albert Smith, ancestral Mr. Smith, Mr. Albert Smith, Robert, old Smith, the Smith

Mattie and Olwen's father, a farmer with a troubled history.

Monk

minor

Also known as Mr. Monk, this Monk

A servant or retainer in the Urquhart household.

Mr. Round

minor

Also known as Round, Master Round

A local clergyman or schoolmaster.

Mr. Redfern

minor

Also known as Poor Mr. Redfern, the dead Mr. Redfern, Redfern, the young Redfern, young Mr. Redfern

A deceased local man, father of Roger Monk.

Miss Elizabeth Round

minor

Also known as Miss Round, Miss Elizabeth, Round

Mr. Round's daughter, a quiet young woman.

Matthew

minor

Also known as Aunt Mattie, Mattie

An elderly relative or servant of the Solents.

John Torp

minor

Also known as Mr. Torp, Mr. John Torp, Torp

Gerda's father, a hardworking but ineffectual man.

Dimity Stone

minor

Also known as Dimity, Dimity Stone, old Dimity Stone, old Dimity, the old Dimity

An old woman living in the village, known for her wisdom.

James Redfern

minor

Also known as Redfern, Jimmie Redfern, Jimmy Redfern, ostler Jim, young Redfern

A stable hand and son of the deceased Mr. Redfern.

Miss Mattie

minor

Also known as Mattie

A servant or companion in the Solent household.

Stalbridge

minor

Also known as Mr. Stalbridge, Not Mr. Stalbridge

A local businessman or tradesman.

Gaffer Barge

minor

Also known as Gaffer, Barge

An old boatman or river worker in the village.

Lorna Smith

minor

Also known as Lorna, Lorna Smith

Another sister of Mattie and Olwen.

Ann Haggard Solent

minor

Also known as Ann Haggard, Ann, Solent

Wolf's aunt, a figure from his family's past.

Josh Beard

minor

Also known as Mr. Beard, Mr. Joshua Beard, Josh

A local farmer or laborer.

Doctor Percy

minor

Also known as Percy

The local physician in the village.

Farmer Manley

minor

Also known as Farmer, Farmer Manley

A local farmer, possibly related to Mr. Manley.

Bess Round

minor

Also known as Bess Round, Bess

Mr. Round's other daughter.

Mrs. Martin

minor

A village woman, possibly a housekeeper.

Pimpernel

minor

Also known as old Ruth Pimpernel

An old woman in the village.

Jack Torp

minor

Also known as Jack, Old Jack Torp

An older relative of the Torp family.

Joan Torp

minor

A female member of the Torp family.