Hero Beverley

Hero Beverley

Portrayed by Elle Fanning
Full Name	Hero Elizabeth Beverley
Associated Noble House(s)	Viscountcy of Stainmore
Date of Birth	30th June 1793
Father	Jack Beverley
Father's Rank	Mr. Beverley
Mother	Susannah Rawsthorne
Mother's Rank	Viscountess of Stainmore
Town Residence	Wilcox House
Year of Debut	1811
Dowry	£30,000

Miss Hero Beverley is the only daughter of Jack and Susannah Beverley. She was born in Antigua and had a happy childhood until the death of her father and her mother was forced off the island after her uncle came to take over. Soon after their return to England, Mrs. Beverley married Lionel Rawsthorne, Viscount Stainmore and Hero started a new life. Now she is having her first season under the chaperonage of Lady Lettice Rawsthorne. She is a reserved, perceptive young woman with a quiet kernel of romanticism about her.

Hero is written by Rose.

Family

Father: Mr. Jack Beverley (d. 1801)
Mother: Susannah Rawsthorne, Viscountess of Stainmore (b. 1775)
Step-father and legal guardian: Lionel Rawsthorne, Viscount of Stainmore (old)
Half-brother: The Honourable St John Rawsthorne (b. 1805)
Half-brother: The Honourable Rupert Rawsthorne (b. 1807)
Lord Stainmore's daughter-in-law and Hero's chaperone: Lady Lettice Rawsthorne
Various step-half-siblings and their children from Lord Stainmore’s two previous marriages

Maternal grand-mother: Mrs. Elizabeth Taylor
Several aunts and cousins all married and settled

Uncle and former legal guardian: Sir Thomas Beverley (d. 1809)
Cousin: Sir Thomas “Tom” Beverley (b. 1786)
Dowager Lady Beverley and various younger cousins based at the country seat in Somerset

Background

[CW: the slave trade]

Early Years in Antigua

Hero was born in Antigua to the wealthy owner of a sugar plantation. In his earliest youth Jack Beverley had volunteered to go out to the West Indies to manage his family’s plantation in lieu of any more active career and the decision had suited him well. Once away from immediate parental control, he had found he could make plenty of money for himself as well as feeding back a good amount into the family coffers. In the course of such negotiations on one particular visit back home, he had met Miss Susannah Taylor, the pretty and very young daughter of a successful Bristol merchant family. He persuaded Miss Taylor and her large dowry to be in love with him, painted Antigua as a paradise island, and shortly obtained her and her father’s consent to a marriage advantageous to status on her side and trade on his. A year later they were established in Antigua and Hero was born.

Eight years later, Hero lost her father after a period of ill-health, an event that sharply interrupted an idyllic childhood. This childhood life on Antigua had been filled with games and amusements, she was petted and cared for by an array of devoted nannies and nurses and with parents who appeared to love each other and certainly loved her, she was protected from any outside disturbances and all this in a sunny environment of astonishing beauty! At least, this is how she remembers it. For her mother, it had not been quite as perfect as Mr. Beverley had initially painted it. On Antigua, she was largely cut off from the kind of society she had been used to in England and she could not help but be horrified by the treatment of the slaves who worked on her husband’s plantation and those of his fellow plantation owners, some of whom were even more vicious than Mr. Beverley who at least was not a brute. It was one thing to know that her money came from the slave trade in a general way, quite another to see it first hand. Susannah had become increasingly discomfited by her situation, which only increased once she was widowed. She had no rights to property on the island so her situation was precarious indeed. Within six months of Jack’s death, a new threat emerged, from the arrival on the island of his elder brother, Sir Thomas Beverley. Sir Thomas had long wished to get his hands on the running of the very successful plantation and had set sail for the West Indies as soon as news of his brother’s death reached him. To him, a young and anxious widow and a young (fortunately female) child were nothing but unwelcome encumbrances and he made living conditions sufficiently unpleasant by his boorish conduct, that Susannah soon gave into what had long been her desire, and took Hero back to England.

Return to England

Once in England, Susannah sought out her family. She and Hero spent some time with her now married sisters, but they all had families of their own and did not particularly welcome any long time intrusion from the widow and her quiet, sulky little girl. Eventually, they ended up with Susannah’s mother, now widowed, who had removed from Bristol to nearby Bath. In this quiet and staid watering place, she met Lord Stainmore, an elderly gentleman already twice married, seeking relief from gout. Here was an opportunity to form her own establishment, give herself the status that her fortune deserved, and provide a respectable environment in which to bring up Hero. They were soon married.

Unfortunately, the situation was not ideal though Susannah made the best of it that she could. The Viscount was irascible and her intrusion into a family which already had two grown up sons with families of their own was unwelcome. If it weren’t for Lady Lettice Rawsthorne, who lived with her late-husband’s family, no doubt it would have been a melancholy situation indeed. And what of Hero? Thanks to the influence of her mother and Lettice, she received a proper English education at just such a time as it was needed. She read improving books, was taught to speak French, Italian and some German, practised diligently on the pianoforte (to reasonable success), learned to draw (to rather more) and became proficient in the neatest embroidery. In turn, she passed on her accomplishments to the little army of Lord Stainmore’s granddaughters, who were only a little younger than herself and whom she called her nieces. Soon enough, she also gained two half-brothers, who became her particular care, made interesting by the large age gap between her and them.

Lord Stainmore was her legal guardian since his marriage to her mother - her uncle in Antigua having shown no interest in taking any kind of responsibility for her - and as soon as it became apparent that she was going to be a pretty girl, as well as heiress to a fortune of £30,000, he wished to be rid of her. Eustace Grimsby, a business associate and a man closer to fifty than forty, had taken a shine to Hero from the moment she began putting her hair up and joining the adults for dinner. Before she turned seventeen, he made his intentions clear. Hero and her two female champions were suitably horrified by a match that must appear repugnant to anyone of any sensibility and the following months were unhappy, as Hero became caught in a battle of wills over the disposal of her person and fortune, in which she had no control whatsoever. The result was at least a temporary victory for the ladies: Lettice carried Hero off to Bath to stay with her grandmother once more and to experience the Little Season.

Visiting Bath and London

For the first time in many years, Hero could breathe. Bath was not as exciting as it had been for previous generations but it still held interest for a sheltered girl of seventeen. Under Lettice’s expert guidance, Hero learned how to behave in society. She played cards with dowagers, drank tea with retired admirals, and danced with their middle-aged doctors at assemblies, and invariably was found charming thanks to her youth and respectful good humour. She learned when to speak and when to hold her tongue and, best of all, she was able to enjoy her friendship with a woman she looked up to as her saviour quite uninterrupted.

At the end of the season, neither was willing to return to a place where neither felt truly at home and not-withstanding Hero’s affection and concern for her mother, she was easily persuaded to accompany Lettice to London for the far more glamorous season there.