Adelaide Thorne

Adelaide Thorne

Portrayed by Miriam Stein
Full Name	Adelaide Thorne
Associated Noble House(s)	Marquessate of Eastborough
Date of Birth	7th October 1783
Father	Alfred Thorne
Father's Rank	Gentleman farmer
Mother	Rose Thorne (nee Montgomery)
Mother's Rank	Gentry
Town Residence	15 Cavendish Square, London
Year of Debut	N/A
Dowry	sadness and inexperience

Miss Thorne, also known as 'Delly' or 'Ada' is the eldest daughter of Alfred and Rose Thorne. She is twenty-seven years old and has arrived in London to spend time as a companion of Miss Dorinda Montgomery after a trip to Philadelphia failed to bring about her desired marriage. She has no fortune and is unused to society. She was brought up on the estate of Handforth Dean near Morven Castle.

Adelaide was played by Rose.

Family

• Alfred Thorne - father
• Rose Thorne - mother
• Alexander Thorne - brother
• Kate Thorne - sister-in-law
• Horace Thorne - brother
• Ellena Babcott - sister (married to Eustace Babcott)
• Clarissa Thorne - sister
• Edgar Thorne - brother
• Camilla Thorne - sister
• Walter Thorne - brother
• Clara Thorne - sister

• Ralph Montgomery - maternal uncle
• Luciana Montgomery - maternal aunt
• Godric Montgomery, Dorinda Montgomery - cousins

• John Read - distant paternal cousin
• Ellen Read - his wife
• Bessie Read, Sarah Read - their daughters

• John Archer - a cousin of Ellen Read

Background

Childhood

Adelaide was the first of nine surviving children of Alfred and Rose Thorne. She was born on the small estate of Handforth Dean near the village of Lower Bramlington near the Dorset coast. Her mother not being at all cut out for country life, Adelaide swiftly found herself involved in a very practical way in the running of the estate. By seven she was leading the horses round the fields, by eleven she was a tolerable support to Cook who had an increasing number of mouths to feed and by fourteen she was accompanying her father and brother Alexander to livestock markets. As to her more formal education, her mother taught her the basics of reading, arithmetic and smatterings of history and geography. Sewing was acquired as a necessity and she learned to play the piano from the old vicar’s wife, though she never cared to do much practice. As she grew older, however, she was needed more and more frequently to help educate her younger siblings and there was little time left over to polish her own very limited accomplishments. A governess was at times suggested but with a growing family of nine, it was an expense they could little afford. Besides, there was little room in the house for an extra person.

Adolescence

Adelaide grew up, not that there was much difference in her behaviour, attitude or the way others looked at her as she did so. She began to attend local assemblies and enjoyed a country dance well enough with her friends among the neighbouring farmers and local tradesmen. She even developed curious, exciting crushes on some which she hardly understood herself. They were never requited or if they were she never noticed. Just the kind of young men who could have benefited from a practical, straight-forward, economical wife who knew her way around a sheep pen such as Adelaide would have made them, were far more interested in the pretty, fluttery kind of girls who would never have looked at them twice. Such is human nature.

Adelaide’s lack of marriage offers did not really start to concern anybody until she was about three-and-twenty. By this point, Ellena and even Clarissa were beginning to be interested in more ladylike pursuits and to be gathering more interest in the local community than their elder sister. The house, moreover, was cramped. Adelaide tried not to let the fact get to her that, useful as she was to the running of the estate and confident of her place in local society, she was nevertheless becoming increasingly in the way at home. Mostly she succeeded very well in deluding herself that this state could continue.

Adulthood

At the age of twenty-five, however, she finally had a suitor. Lord Morven’s new curate, an unprepossessing young man named Eustace Babcott who was three years younger than her and only recently ordained, took it into his head to marry and settled on Adelaide as a suitable wife. He brought her a bunch of flowers one day that looked suspiciously like the previous Sunday’s altar arrangements and asked pleadingly if she would be his. The declaration took Adelaide completely by surprise for she was unused to men expressing romantic interest in her and had failed to pick up on any of his subtle courtship. However, the prospect of living out her days in a confined vicarage and listening to Mr. Babcott’s uninspiring sermons even more than once a week was a depressing idea and she was obliged to tell him that, as it happened, she would not.

This did not go down well at home particularly since by this point Alexander Thorne had married his childhood sweetheart and the house had become even more cramped. They began to build a new wing for Mr. and Mrs. Alexander Thorne and their future family but it would take a good while for it to be completed. A year later, Mr. Babcott brought flowers and a similar declaration to Miss Ellena Thorne, where he found greater success.

Adelaide found she did not get on with her sister-in-law Kate so well now that she was Mrs. Alexander Thorne, as she had when she was still Miss Robbins. Too many cooks spoil the broth and certainly too many mistresses spoil the smooth running of a household. Between Adelaide, who knew what she was doing and was not afraid to defend her position, Kate, who thought she knew what she was doing and was very keen that everyone should recognise her new status and Mrs. Thorne, now fat and exhausted from child-bearing yet determined to maintain an illusion of gentility, the Thorne farm became a hive of dissension, with a small and poorly educated young Thorne offspring round every corner to trip up the unwary. Delly did what she could for them but with, it must be said, an increasing level of frustration.

America

Sending her to London or even Bath for a season was a laughable idea at her age and with her lack of fortune and accomplishments, even if Rose did have a host of Montgomery relations she might have called upon for help. But Mrs. Thorne hesitated from contacting her grand relations. Any suggestion that her life had turned out anything less than utterly perfectly after her rash marriage to Alfred Thorne would be too great a blow to her pride. They looked to Alfred’s side of the family. His relations were mostly close to home at Dorset – except for a branch of cousins who had emigrated to the New World some seventy years previously. The Thornes had maintained a loose correspondence with the Reads of Philadelphia and upon mentioning Adelaide’s situation in a general way in a letter from Mrs. Thorne to Ellen Read, a reply came with an intriguing suggestion. Mrs. Read had a cousin of her own, an active, young man named John Archer who had had some success with pioneering a farm out in Ohio and would, she thought, definitely make something of himself. What he needed now as surely as any man did was a suitable wife – and who would suit him better for those long bleak winters on the prairie keeping crops alive than a woman of Miss Thorne’s talents? The suggestion was seized on keenly by all – perhaps too keenly in some quarters. Miss Thorne must absolutely cross the Atlantic and marry Mr. Archer!

Even Adelaide could not help feeling that this might be an adventure and a situation that would suit her. A farm in the United States of America! Far, far away from the chaos of home! An honest, straight-forward man who shared her interests! Space to manage her affairs and her children as she pleased without interference! What a luxury this would be compared to life in Dorset! She was in love with Mr. Archer without having seen his picture and without knowing more than three sentences worth of description of his character.

Preparations moved rapidly. Adelaide and two large trunks were bundled onto a ship in late August of 1810 on a one-way passage with a letter of introduction to Mrs. Read, who had promised to take charge of the whole affair. Finally, Adelaide had true independence and she loved every minute of it. She enjoyed the voyage and looked forward to her future life with even more pleasure, albeit tempered with natural nervousness and a fear she tried not to think about – what if the wonderful Mr. Archer did not like her after all? The Mr. Archer of her imagination, of course, would love her. How could he not? They were made for each other!

Unfortunately, fortune did not take Delly’s side. The Reads met her in Philadelphia in a state of embarrassment. Cousin John had not taken kindly to the news of his impending marriage to an unwanted spinster from England. He did not wish to be married, he did not want his wife chosen by interfering relations and he certainly did not care for an English bride. (Wasn’t she even related to a lord of some kind?) What had they had the Revolution for if not to avoid this kind of imposition? He had taken himself off back to Ohio and had flatly refused to even meet Miss Thorne.

This was all very awkward. Without a Mr. Archer to marry her off to, Adelaide really had no place in Philadelphia. While the Reads’ ancestors had kept as quiet as possible during the War of Independence due to their connections to England, they had not been opposed to Independence in general and the current generation did not find it altogether convenient to have an English cousin staying with them for the whole winter. Mr. Archer resolutely did not return. Delly felt humiliated as her castles in the sky came crashing down and she found herself simply an unwanted guest in a very strange city. She had never been socially adept among ladies of quality, had minimal experience of society in any form, and the Philadelphia ladies certainly had their pride. In other circumstances, Adelaide could have made a better impression and indeed she did try, but she had started badly and struggled to recover.

It was a long winter and despite being expected back in the city for Christmas, it seemed John Archer preferred a solitary Christmas in Ohio to meeting his planned bride on any terms. It was clear there was no chance that the marriage would come off. The Reads did not particularly want to continue supporting Adelaide indefinitely, no other man in Philadelphia seemed inclined to marry her and when the crunch came, Adelaide lacked the courage to strike out completely on her own, though there was a part of her that wished she could. So they booked her a passage back to England and wrote to John that he might return to Philadelphia if he liked, for Miss Thorne was leaving on the 2nd of March.

In one of those unpredictable twists of fate, Adelaide’s ship was delayed from leaving for four days due to bad weather. Mr. Archer, who had timed things to perfection to make sure he missed Miss Thorne, arrived the evening before she finally left. It was not a happy occasion. Mr. Archer, astonished to meet at the end of a long and arduous journey the woman he had gone to such incredible lengths to avoid seeing under any circumstances, did not recommend himself well, and Adelaide was not shy when her pride was threatened and she had nothing to lose. She embarked the following day for England, still enraged.

Present Day

Within a week of her being home, Mrs. Thorne put aside her shame and contacted her brother Ralph and secured an invitation from him for Adelaide to spend some time in London with the vague hope that she might find herself a position as a ladies’ companion, not that anyone really feels she would be suited to the task, or as a governess, though what she would teach remains an equal mystery. At least she and her bad temper would not get in the way on the farm any more for now. And so Adelaide and her two trunks, barely unpacked, have arrived in London. She is now staying with Dorinda Montgomery until a more permanent situation presents itself.

Relationships

Enemies

Kate Thorne: Once a friend, Kate and Delly have clashed continually since Kate's marriage to Adelaide's brother.

Thread Tracking

Wednesday 15th May

• It's raining on prom night[1]: Adelaide arrives in London

Friday 17th May

• Brave Faces[2]: Meeting Rebecca in the modiste