Becky Pickwell

Becky Pickwell

Portrayed by Tuppence Middleton
Full Name	Rebecca Louise Pickwell
Associated Noble House(s)	None
Date of Birth	12th November 1795
Father	John Bernard Pickwell
Father's Rank	Mr Pickwell
Mother	Louise Pickwell
Mother's Rank	Mrs Pickwell
Town Residence	{{{residence}}}
Year of Debut	1811
Dowry	£23,000

Becky Pickwell is a new arrival to London, the dearest friend of Eleanor Clare. Becky is played by Micaela.

Family

• John Bernard Pickwell, b. 1752
• Louise Pickwell, née Cooper, b. 1765
• John Pickwell, b. 1785, d. 1785
• John ‘Jack’ Pickwell, b. 1787
• Allan Pickwell, b. 1789
• Thomas Pickwell, b. 1791, d. 1792
• Timothy Pickwell, b. 1793

Background

1795 - 1811: Early Years

Born the last after three living sons and two dead ones, Rebecca was a welcomed end to her parents’ fine brace of children. It was a family on the rise: John Pickwell had just opened his second textile mill in Lincolnshire, and would soon have enough capital for a third. Having been born the son of a respectable shop-owner, he had sold the business upon his father’s death and, after marrying pretty shopgirl Louise Cooper, speculated in a mill. With some canny business moves, his initial investment soon grew until John was majority shareholder, and can now proudly put his name to Pickwell Mills, an enterprise of several factories valued at quite a princely sum.

Becky thus grew up in a fine new house in the best part of Lincoln, wanting very little. Louise Pickwell hardly knew what to do with her good fortune, and is of a somewhat complacent nature. Her rabble of sons attended school locally, as John wished them to go into the business with him, and felt a high-flown society education would be of less use to them than practical experience. John is entirely satisfied with his accomplishments, and will speak proudly of them, particularly among men of business; nonetheless, he sold his father’s shop with an eye towards advancement in the world, and is keen the Pickwell name should garner respect wherever it is mentioned.

The Pickwells are, in brief and indelicate terms, new money.

With her brothers brought up near home, Becky grew up surrounded by them. While no parent could be ashamed of three well-formed and capable sons, they all inherited more of their mother’s easy temperament than their little sister. In the first years of life John remained uninterested in this last of his children, considering her a nice comfort for her mother, but as she grew it was she who was most interested in the mills, and especially the money they brought the family. Crowed over with pride when she could rattle off such details as the current price of cotton or that quarter’s profits, her greatest delight was to be allowed to sit in her father’s office and be chucked under the chin. Jack, Allan, and Tim saw this as a novelty, and were too busy pursuing the amusements of boyhood to feel any sort of resentment; rather, their relation to their little sister was the usual affectionate ribbing and teasing.

This changed when Jack was reckoned old enough to require he take a serious interest in the running of his father’s business, which he would one day inherit. John could hardly take the time to indulge his ten-year-old daughter when he had an eighteen-year-old son to shape into a businessman, and it was high time for her to look to feminine things. The least clever and ambitious of all the Pickwell children, Jack’s limitations became clear to his father, who thenceforth included Allan in this instruction; Jack, being quite conscious and even vain of his heightened position as the eldest, is happy to let the grasping and shrewder Allan do the work. Timothy took an unexpectedly academic bent, and was admitted to the university at Edinburgh, in response to which John proclaimed her was “that glad, to ‘ave a son pursuing such genteel education.” Becky nonetheless remained first in her father’s affections, which Allan especially resented. Jack was and remains too good-natured to resent any body, but Allan’s talents and ambitions were greater, as was his insight. Becky soon learned how to outmaneuver her brothers and get whatever she wished from them, despite this breach; on that front, her father has never presented a challenge.

In growing up, Becky was thus thrust back into the world of women. Her lessons in the feminine arts were increased, and she was to gain all the accomplishments her mother lacked under the formidable eye of Miss Ruth Forbes-Campbell. Under the genteel influence of her “right quality” governess and her own quick insight, she began to grow conscious of her family’s position in the world. Here was her foolish mother, unaware of jibes made right behind her back! Even in the largely industrial circles of Lincoln, the Pickwells were, Miss Forbes-Campbell told her, decried as having the smell of the shop about them, and that John fellow too ambitious by half.

In the awkward throes of early adolescence, Becky felt this keenly. When applied to for help in this quarter, as the greatest lady of Becky’s acquaintance, Miss Forbes-Campbell (who saw that her charge might just have it in her to move beyond her origins) suggested that a select ladies’ school was just the thing to expand her horizons and make good connexions, so it was off to a select ladies’ school that Becky went, at quite her own insistence. The first year saw the erasure of all traces of an accent and the honing of Becky’s sharp instinct for opportunity. By the second she had made herself quite the queen of that limited hive and, though not especially inclined toward academic achievement, maintained high enough performance to soon be called quite accomplished. It was always her social education that was the goal, and the polishing off of any of the dust of industry.

It was that same keen instinct that led Becky to befriend Miss Eleanor Clare, a quite meek girl of Becky’s own age. All of Becky’s relationships are, to some extent, considered in the light of what they might bring her, but long association has made her rather fond of Eleanor, and they exchange letters when they are not at school. It has always been Becky’s expectation that they will have their Season together and, though of course as sympathetic as one could possibly desire upon the death of Eleanor’s father, it did not escape Becky that her friend’s guardian being a marquess could only improve her own chances. Finally having convinced her fool of a mother to bring her to Town, Becky has little in the way of entrée (or even a plan) but expects that her friendship with Eleanor will be her ticket into Society. She will have 18,000 upon her marriage and benefits from a generous allowance already.

Personality

Despite his surfeit of fine sons, the lion’s share of John Pickwell’s canny intelligence went, quite unfortunately, to his only female child. Shut out of the masculine world of business, the shrewd Becky has found purpose in conquering the social world as her father has conquered the world of commerce, and has all the raw tools at her disposal to make that a reality. Though not inclined towards academics, she is extremely clever and socially-aware. Her keen insight has always allowed her to get what she wants out of those around her, whether that be her family or her schoolmates. There is an innate awareness of the dynamics of human interaction that Becky, though as thoroughly unaristocratic as a young woman can be, makes good use of.

Having spent her childhood making herself into just the young lady her father wanted to see, Becky is prone to being exactly what the situation calls for. In her subjects, she was just clever enough not to be a bluestocking or threaten the highest-achieving girls. In the social arena, she established her position at the top of the hierarchy early, when the distress of leaving home and living among strangers at the beginning of adolescence kept the other girls nervous and self-conscious. As they grew, she protected Eleanor from teasing because it gave Becky herself a reputation for being beyond the power of girlhood bullies, and wielded the weapons of feminine social dynamics with cutting accuracy.

It remains that Becky's powers of manipulation have only been tested in the waters of family and school, both very much limited and predictable. She is not a girl inclined towards self-consciousness and her comfortable upbringing has made her somewhat spoiled. Through strong will or manipulation, she has managed to get everything she has ever desired, to succeed in every endeavour she has undertaken. Having never failed or been rejected, she is blind to the possibility of failure or rejection.

As morals go she seems, as many ambitious people do, to separate the actions of society's expectations of her as a 'good girl' and the actual business of being a good person. Whether or not something is right or wrong rarely comes under consideration for Becky, who generally considers whether or not something will benefit her. She behaves herself because misbehavior would jeopardize her ambitions. She has a great deal of pride in her superiority and her looks, of which she takes great care with a barrage of creams and treatments, and is, as proud people usually are, susceptible to flattery. The quickest way to upset her is to insult that pride, whether by disparaging her appearance (particularly whether or not her toilette is fashionable or elegant) or by bringing up that one thing she cannot change or erase--her low origins.

None of this is to say she is an entirely immoral creature, incapable of real affection. In her way she truly does like Eleanor, as well as her family. It is only that her sentiments are all colored by the fact that she considers herself above or cleverer than nearly every other person she meets. If others are hurt by her actions, as they surely were during her schoolgirl reign, it is their own fault for not being strong or clever enough to withstand her. She is capable of caring for others, but cares for herself first and foremost, without exception, and if that caring coincides with some benefit for Becky, then all the better.

Having grown up with brothers, she is comfortable in the society of men and, from what she has seen in her limited pre-debut forays into Lincoln society (for she refused absolutely to be brought out from Lincoln), indeed enjoys their attention enormously. Her delight in exhibiting power over others comes to a whole new level with men, who are an unconquered territory and far easier to sway besides.

Taken all in all, she is a shrewd, vain, ambitious girl, with no small amount of facility in society. Whether or not London will see through her charms remains to be seen. In her mind, it is certain that she will have as much success there as she has had everywhere else.

Relationships

Friends

• Miss Eleanor Clare