The Long, Long Trail - Characters

 SPOILERS!!

These are the characters in the book for future reference:

• Edward Hunter (1869) (48 years old) is a banker in London and every day he commutes from his home at the Elms in Northcote to work. Edward has always proved to be loyal and steady. In this book he also works for the Food of Ministry. As part of his job as a banker Edward  met a French woman, Elise, who came to him for financial advice. Elise is a young widow, and she and Edward have a good friendly relationsip.  These regular visits become a fixture, especially when Edward feels pushed away by his wife. Edward decides to stop seeing Elise because he has realised that he has feelings for her and this is something that can't happen. In 1917 Edward receives a knighthood as a reward for his work in the Ministry of Food.  
• Beatrice (Beattie) Hunter (1872) (45 years old), nee Cazalet. She is Edward's wife and is involved in the community and volunteers for the war effort. Something that affected her terribly was when her son David enlisted. We discover that there is a reason why Beattie loves David most above her other children. David is the fruit of the relationship Beatrice had with an officer, Louis Plunkett, when she was still in Ireland. Louis, left without any notice, and she found herself pregnant. Edward was a young man who had been interested in her, so she managed to marry him without him learning that she was still pregnant, but she suspects he has always known. In 1916 Beattie and Louis get reacquainted and they start an affair. Beattie doesn't tell him about David, though. Louis wants her to go to South Africa with him, and Beattie knows that she will have to make a decision when the war ends. Yet, Louis gets injured and becomes blind in December 1917, and Beattie feels that she has to stick to him and leave her family. 
• David Hunter (1894) (23 years old) is the Hunters' oldest son. When war breaks out, he volunteers, causing his mother to feel upset. David is in love with his friend Oliphant's sister, Sophy. When he is on leave, he declares his love to her and asks her to marry him, and even though she seems not to have considered the idea before, she accepts his proposal. David has also befriended a woman during his time training as an officer, Antonia Weston, and they have a good relationship. When he goes to the front, they keep writing to each other.  David is not Edward's son, and during the Battle of Somme he is injured in the leg, and he returns a broken man. For months David is depressed after being wounded, and it is Antonia who comes to cheer him up. Then Sophy breaks off their engagement as she is to marry someone else, and that devastates David.  Beattie thinks that David could benefit from being with Antonia and her father in their home, and it is there that he realises that he loves Antonia. They marry and move to the Elms, where David teaches some private pupils. Now they are expecting their first child. 
• Antonia  Hunter (Weston) (28) is a young woman who David met when he was training to be an officer. Antonia is the only one who manages to cheer David up after he was wounded. When Sophy leaves David, David goes to spend some time with Antonia and her father in their home. David finally realises he wants to be with Antonia, and they marry and move to the Elms. Antonia is expecting a baby now. 
• Diana Wroughton (1895) (22  years old) is the Hunters' eldest daughter. She was engaged to Charles Wroughton, Lord Dene, the heir of an old aristocratic family in the area, but he died in action, which left Diana devastated. Charles's brother, Rupert, who was rude and unkind to her, starts to socialise with her, and he asks her to marry him. Diana doesn't love him, but she thinks he can be Lady Dene and do the things she and Charles planned. So she agrees to marry Rupert, and even at some point he tells her that he is marrying him because she won't marry anyone else after Charles, and he is already 'married' to Erskine, his friend, she thinks he is talking nonsense, and Rupert tells her that he was just joking. They marry and they have a child, George. Now Diana is Lady Wroughton as her father-in-law dies, and Rupert inherits the title. Now she is expecting her second child. 
• Rupert Wroughton (26) is Charles's brother. He is boisterous, sociable and shrirks responsibilities. When Diana and his brother got engaged, he was very nasty to her, calling her terrible names.  When Charles died, he was shattered and seemed to show Diana some kindness. Then he asked Diana to marry him. He didn't offer love, just all the things that should have been Diana's if she had married Charles. Diana surprisinly agreed to marry him. We discover that Rupert needed a wife and an heir, but the person he is in love with is his friend, Erskine. Rupert becomes Earl of Wroughton when his father dies, and in this time he reflects that he needs to do something for the war, and he decides to go to the front. He seems to be afraid of his behaviour affecting Diana and their son. Rupert is the only one who knows about Beattie and Louis, but he tells her that he will keep her secret. 
• George Wroughton is Diana and Rupert's baby son.
• Sadie Hunter (1898) (19 years old) is the Hunters' other daughter, and she is very fond of horses. She helps in Highcleare, the stables close to her homeo chosen for the army to prepare horses for war. Sadie also starts volunteering in the hospital set for the war, keeping company to the injured soldiers. In this book two men grown fond of her, Private Sanhill and Christophere Bereford. Sadie walks out with them, but she only sees them as friends. Hugh Sanhill tells her how he feels, and she has to tell him that she doesn't feel the same, and with Christopher, she thinks that he sees her as a friend too. The man Sadie is in love with is John Courcy, who used to be the vet at Highclere.
• William Hunter (1900) (17 years old) is another son. In this book he tells his father that he doesn't want to go to the sixth-form college or university, but he wants to learn how to build planes. So he starts an apprenticeship in a plane factory.
• Peter Hunter (1906) (11 years old) is the Hunters' youngest child.
• Nails is the Hunters' dog. 
• Lieutenant Colonel Louis David Rathvilly Plunkett was Beattie's first love, and he got her pregnant and then left. He never knew she was pregnant, and Beattie has never forgotten him. When he gets back into her life, Beattie does not hesitate to become his lover. Louis wants her to leave Edward and live with him in South Africa. Louis gets injured in battle and loses his sight, and now Beattie feels that she needs to make a decision and go with Louis. 
• Ethel Lusby is the Hunters' underhouse parlour maid. Ethel is sassy and flirtatious. She used to flirt with many men, hoping to find the man who would give her a home, but at the same time she did not take them seriously. Ethel's family history is quite complex. She was born to a widowed mother, who didn't give her much love. She had two much older siblings: Edie ran away with a tinker, but her brother, Cyril was kind to her, and it was thanks to his advice that Ethel went into service, but Cyril died shortly afterwards. At the beginning of the war Ethel went to visit her mother, who was bedridden and sick, and she kept saying that she was not her mother. Then she revealed that her real mother was Edie.  Annie died. Something that affected Ethel greatly was when she and Eric, a good man she was walking out with, were bombed, and Eric died.  Ethel then went off the rails when she got pregnant by a married man she had previously seen.  Ethel left the Elms to discover the truth about her origins, and she got to see Edie, who told her that her real father was Cyril.  Ethel then returned to the Elms, heavily pregnant and despearte, and Beattie helped her. a Frank, the young gardener, then asked her to marry him, and she agreed, but when she lost the baby, she broke off the engagement. Frank keeps pursuing her, but she is certain that she won't marry because of her shameful origins.  
• Joan Dunkley is the Hunters' cook. She is usually called Cook, and she is in charge of the servants. She is very strict in her views about decency. Joan goes to look after her sister after an operation in Folkestone and there is an air aid, and she ends up injured. It is during her stay at the hospital Joan meets Fred, an Australian serviceman, who falls for her and wants to marry her. 
• Nula Wilkes is the sewing maid who used to be the children's nanny. Nula is the only one who knows about Beattie's past as she was a servant in her family's home when Beattie was young. Nula helped her when she got pregnant. 
• Ada Cole (42) is the Hunters' head house parlour maid.  After meeting Corporal Armstrong, she is now in a arelationship with him. 
• Emily Conaghan is the kitchen maid. She is quite naive and romatic at heart. Cook often tells her off. Emily decides to leave the Elms to work in a munitions factory, but the experience proves to be terrible. She is injured and becomes weak and sick, so she decides to return to the Elms, and Cook and the others look after her. 
• Munt is the gardener and is a man of old-fashioned, strict views. Munt is upset when Edward tells him that he needs to get rid of his flowers and turn the fields for farming. Yet, he eventually feels proud of his crops. 
• Ginger is the new bootboy working for the Hunters. He is quite vocal in his opinions. Now he becomes a helper for Munt, when the gardener has to turn his garden into a farming field. 
• Mrs Chaplin is the charwoman who comes to the Hunters' a few times a week.
• Frank Hussey used to work for Munt and now he is a gardener in a neighbouring property. He looks up to Munt despite the man's difficult personality. He is friendly to Ethel, and when she returns pregnant and desperate, he proposes to her. Yet, when she loses the child, she refuses to marry him. Yet, Frank pursues and in the end she agrees to see him on her days off. Frank also beats up Andy Wood because he thinks he deserves to have a good lesson after what she did to Ethel. 
• Lillian is the maid who replaced Ethel when she went away. At first, Lillian felt like a fish out of water but Ada helped her. Lillian leaves the Elms alongside Emily to go to work in a munitions factory.
• Laura Hunter (1872) (45 years old) is Edward's sister. She is single and for years she worked as a secretary much to Edward's dismay. In 1914 she lost her job as her boss couldn't keep her as he was going through financial problems. Laura is sympthetic to the suffragetts' cause, and in one of the gatherings she met Louise, who becomes a good friend to her. Laura and Louise learnt to drive, and they started driving to help in the war. Then they became aware of the new Police Women Service, and they decided to become policewomen. Then Laura became bored, so she started helping in France as an ambulance driver with a group of women. Louisa joined them later after she and Laura made up after they fell out. Laura decides on a new venture when she decides to create a club for the women in the front after the ambulance just can't go on. Louisa follows her, but Louisa is now difficult, especially as she seems to be jealous of Major Ramsley, who is helping Laura, and who Laura seems to be sweet on. t
• Louisa Cotton is Laura's friend. She also sympathesid with the suffragettes and has been a secretary in the association. She is single and used to live with her aunt until she decided to move in with Laura.  She and Laura joined the Police Women Service. When her brother died, she and Laura fell out when the latter decided to go to France and work as an ambulance driver. They made up when Laura went to find her and discovered that Louisa's aunt had died. Louisa went with Laura to France, but she was not happy. Now that Laura is running the club for women in the front, Louisa is also part of the project, but she is not too happy with the relationship between Laura and Major Ramsley.  
• Major Ramsley helps Laura to set the club for women in Pop, Belgium. It is obvious that he and Laura are attracted to each other, and Louisa seems to be jealous of him
• Madame Elise de Rouveroy is a French refugee, whose husband and stepson were killed in the war. She goes to Edward for financial advice, and when Edward tells her that there is no money, he offers to sell her jewels. Elise and Edward become friendly, and they  meet and have dinner regularly. Elise finds a job as a dance teacher, and she starts hanging out with a Bohemian crowd that Edward finds in her flat one day. When Edward tells her that they cannot see each other again because it is not right as he feels drawn to her, Elise feels hurt and tells him that if he changes his mind, he knows where to find him. 
• Sonia Palfrey, nee Hunter (1874) (43 years old) is Edward's sister. She is worried when her eldest son is called up. 
• Aeneas Palfrey  is Sonia's husband and has a biscuit factory.
• Donald Palfrey (1893) (26 years old) is Sonia and Aeneas's oldest son. He worked in the factory with his father, but he has been called up and goes to war. In 1917 he is seriously wounded and sent home. 
• Mary Palfrey (1895) (22 years old) is Sonia and Aeneas's daughter. She and Audrey are twins.
• Audrey Palfrey (1895) (22 years old) is Sonia and Aeneas's daughter . She and Mary are twins. When Donald is called up, she tells her father that she can take Donald's place in the factory. At first, Aeneas doesn't take her seriously, but he eventually gives her the opportunity to prove her worth. It seems that Aeneas is very happy with her work now. 
• Douglas Palfrey (Duck) (1901) (16 years old) is Sonia and Aeneas's son.
• Jack Hunter (1872) (45 years old) is Edward's cousin, and he is now at war.  In 1915 Jack is injured in Ypres, but he recovers. When he goes home on leave, Beth feels that her husband has changed. 
• Beth Hunter (1876), nee Cargill (39 years old) is Jack's wife.
• Lady Violet Wroughton is Charles and Rupert's mother, and she  has always disapproved of Diana. Even now married to Rupert, she looks down on her. 
• Earl Wroughton is Rupert's father and dies in 1917, so Rupert becomes the new earl.
• John Courcy is the vet working for the army. Sadie first met him when he incidentally ran Nails over. Sadie and he worked together in Mrs Cuthbert's stables until he had to join the army. John is the man Sadie is in love with. 
• Private  Hugh Stanhill  started working at HIghclere and he and Sadie became friendly. They go out to the pictures from time to time, and when he tells Sadie that he has feelings for her, she refuses him as she doesn't feel the same. At the end of this book he is tranferred from Highclere to some other army post. 
• Christopher Bereford is a young man working with Edward for the Ministry of Food. Christopher finds Sadie intelligent and good to talk to, so he and Sadie go out together a few times. Sadie thinks that their relationship is just friendly. 
• Fred McAusland is the Australian serviceman who saves Cook's life. Then he goes to find her in the hospital and tells her that he likes her. Cook agrees to go for walks with him, and Fred thinks that after the war they can marry and go to live in Australia.
• Freddie Oliphant (Jumbo) is David's best friend. He comes from Scotland, and he  also enlisted alonside David. Oliphant is killed in action in 1917
• Sophy Oliphant (19) is Freddie's sister. David has always been in love with her. They got engaged, and when David was injured, she refused to break off the engagement. Yet, Sophy eventually decides to marry the man who has always pursued her, Hunphrey, and writes to David to tell him. 
• Humphrey Hobart is the man who Sophy marries.
• Erskine Ballantine is Rupert's friend, and it seems he and Rupert are in a romantic relationship. 
• Hattie is Cook's sister who lives in Folkestone. Cook goes to look after her when she has a minor operation
• Horry is Hattie's nephew
• Jimmy Covington is Peter's friend.
• Dr Fleming delivers Diana's boy.
• Corporal Len Armstrong is the soldier who is Ada's beau.
• Veronica Mildmay (Ronnie) is a woman who turns up at Laura's club, saying that she wants to become her new assistant if she needs help. It seems that it was through Major Ramsley that she knew about Laura.
• Mr Weston is Antonia's father. He used to be the headmaster in a boarding school.
• Mrs Turnberry is the woman who Mr Weston tells his daughter is going to have dinner with on Christmas Day. Antonia is surprised, and Sadie thinks that maybe Mr Weston and Mrs Turnberry, who is a widow, may start a relationship.
• Olive Marlow, Obby, is a woman who Diana met when she and Charles were courting, and now they are good friends. 
• Lady Beningbrough helps Laura when she needs help to set the club for women in Pop. She gives her good contacts in England. She is Belgian but was married to an Englishman. When her husband died, she returned to her country
• Lady Overton is the woman who finances the club for women that Laura runs.
• Lord Arthur Forbesson is a friend of Edward's. He works for the war office and is married to Dorothy, and they have a son in the front. 
• Tony Lessiter seems to have had a relationship with Rupert. Rupert was with him when his father died.
•  Albert Waites is Louis's servant
• Annabel Cuthbert is the woman who owns the stables where Sadie gives a hand. Now the army has extended the stables and she houses some voluntary girls. 
• Mrs Honoria Fitzgerald is the rector's wife and tends to be bossy and determined in her views about how the ladies' committee need to help in the war and organise activities. 
• Dr Fitzgerald is the vicar. 
• Mrs Fanny Oliver is a parishioner and is the chairman in the Northcote branch of Red Cross.
• Annie (Lady Agnes Dauberey) is the woman who gets Laura interested in driving an ambulance in France. They work together for months, but they have to leave the adventure when the car stop working. Thanks to Laura's contact she is to join another team of women collecting injured soldiers in ambulances. 
• Peter Warren (29) was Edward's secretary until he was called up. Edward receives a letter from his father in 1917 to tell him that Warren was called in action. His death makes Edward very upset.  
• McDuff is a foreman in Aeneas's factory who is not ready to regard Audrey as the person in charge. Aeneas sees that he is disrespectful, so he decides to appoint a woman as foreman, and McDuff is given the job of driver.
• Aggie Sample is the woman working for Aeneas and Audrey who becomes the forewoman. 
• Flora Hazlitt is another woman in Laura's ambulance team. She is a trained nurse, so when their job in the ambulance can't go on, she decides to volunteer in a hospital. 
• Padmore is Diana's maid
• Mildred is Diana's nursery maid.
• Con Meyer is the delivery man who Emily is sweet on. 
• Lady Caroline Crosmore is Rupert's sister.
• Mrs Milly Dawson is a woman who offers Beattie voluntary work in a canteen for servicemen, and Beattie accepts. When Beattie keeps giving excuses to leave, Milly starts suspecting that Beattie may have a lover, but she thinks in war things are often different. 
• Solange is Elise de Rouveroy's maid. 
• Podrick is a groom at the stables where Sadie works.
• Lady Betty Frampton works with Beatty at the canteen. She has something against officers, because she never serves them.
• Mr Murchison is Edward's new secretary after Warren leaves for the war. He is older than Warren, and Edward misses Warren's efficiency.
• Catherine (16) is one of the new girls working for Mrs Cuthbert. She is quite shy.
• Jane (17)  is one of the new girls working for Mrs Cuthbert. She and Jennifer are chatty and keep giggling together. 
• Jennifer (17)  is one of the new girls working for Mrs Cuthbert. She and Jane are chatty and keep giggling together. 
• Winifred (18) is one of the new girls working for Mrs Cuthbert.
• Monica  is one of the new girls working for Mrs Cuthbert.
• Mary (19) is one of the new girls working for Mrs Cuthbert. She comes from a rich family who own horses, and her mother thinks that if she wants to have horses, she needs to learn how to work with them. 
• Dr Elsie Murray started in the ambulance that Laura drove but she left soon to work in a hospital
• Sergeant Cairns is the officer who is in charge of the horses brought to Mrs Cuthbert's stables.
• PC Whittle is the constable in Northcote 

Characters who have appeared in one of the books  (and may reappear)

• Bobby Hunter (1896) (20 years old) was the Hunter's second son. He decided to enlist following his brother's steps and became a pilot. He was killed in action in 1916,
• Adelaide Carbury (Addie), nee Cazalet (1870)(46 years old) is Beatty's sister and lives in Ireland with her husband. 
• Sir John Carbury is Adelaide's husband.
• Johnny Carbury (1896) (21 years old) is Adelaide and John's son. After the upring, his parents send him and his brother to America. 
• Fergus Carbury (1898) (19 years old) is Adelaide and John's second son.  After the upring, his parents send him and his brother to America.
• Charles Wroughton (28)  was of an aristocratic family in Northcote. He and Diana were engaged, but he died in action in 1915 just a few weeks before the wedding. Charles was always kind and loyal, and Diana still thinks about him quite often.
• Sergeant Andy Wood is a man who Ethel dated for a while but then he discovered he was married and had children. After Eric died, she succumbed to Andy's tireless pursuit, and she got pregnant. Frank, who is in love with Ethel, beat him up after he knew what he had done to Ethel. 
• Farringdon was one of Bobby's fellow pilots. 
• Horsey (Dobbin) (21) was Bobby's friend. He fails the physical and goes into the Intelligence Corps. 
• Mary Talbot was Dobbin's fiancée.
• Brigadier General Boom Trenchard was Bobby's superior.
• Sister Heaton was the nurse who Edward hired to help David when he first came home after the hospital.
• Jim Cotton was Louisa's brother, but he died when his ship sank after hitting a mine. 
• Mrs Oliphant is Freddie Oliphant's mother. She seems to be quite stiff in her views.
• Mr Oliphant is Freddie's father. He is in two minds about David as Sophy's future husband. He likes the young man, but he thinks his daughter could do better than him. 
• Bertha Dale is Antonia Weston's friend, who Oliphant liked
• Henry Binns (15) used to be the Hunters' boot boy. When Henry made a mistake, ringing the bells in the village  after dreaming of an attack, he was so ashamed that he left his job for the Hunters.
• Sister Ryman works in the war hospital in Northcote.
• Porteous (Porker) was Bobby's fellow cadet in the flying training centre, but in a practice he crashed the plane and died. 
• Henry Bowers (Hank) was Mrs Oliver's nephew's brother-in-law in America and ended up in England when the war caught up with him in Germany. He was also in love with Diana. He was killed in action during the Irish uprising.
• Eric Travers was the young man who Ethel had a relationship with and died when he and Ethel were in London and were bombed. . 
• Tom Piper was a young soldier who was convalescing in the war hospital and Sadie used to go andkeep him company. He lost an arm, and his condition worsened and he died. .
• Annie Lusby was Ethel's mother, but before she died she confessed that her real mother was  the person who she thought was her sister. 
• Edie Lusby is Ethel's real mother. Edie ran away with a tinker when Ethel was young. Ethel goes to find her and she discovers that Edie has had a long line of husbands and partners, none too good to her. She lives in squalor, and has several children of different relationships, and she even had two children who died. Edie tells her that Ethel's real father was the man she thought of as her brother, Cyril.
• Cyril Lusby was Edie's brother, and Ethel discovers that he is her real father. Cyril died years ago, and Ethel  can't deny that he was good to her, made her go to school, and made her go into service.
• Lady Helen Hale was the woman Charles's family wanted  him to marry.
• Mrs Lattery is a parishioner in the church committee
• Mrs Carruthers is a parishioner in the church committee.
• Mrs Ellison is a parishioner in the church committee.
• Alicia Harding is the local doctor's daughter and a friend of Diana's. 
• Captain Casimir is the requisitioner officer and supplies horses for the army.
• Saint Henry is Rupert's friend, who Rupert talked into seducing Diana, so that she would call off her engagement with Charles.