The Bridesmaids

In A Loveliness of Ladybirds, one of Lucy Greenwood's old school friends is getting married and she's invited Lucy, and two of their other comrades in mischief, to act as her bridesmaids. Although they have all grown up considerably since their school days, the four young ladies once referred to themselves as 'The Yorkshire Puddings'. A nickname granted, at first, by another spiteful girl at school, who looked down on them for their Yorkshire accents, it was soon seized upon and worn with pride by the girls she meant to mock.

While Lucy and Edie (the bride) are from working class stock, and were fortunate to have their education paid for by charitable, wealthy ladies, their two friends come from the upper class of society and have known greater material advantages and privileges throughout their lives. But, as Lucy observes at the wedding, it seems as if she and Edie (the poor girls at their school) have managed to find happiness and contentment in life, while their friends still struggle.

Matilda (Mattie) Cloyce is the only daughter in a family of seven sons. She -- as in the case of most young women of her age-- is expected to look after her brothers and any other needy family members, until she finds a man to marry. But Matilda dislikes men as a whole (perhaps the consequence of having so many brothers?) and has never yet found one she can tolerate for more than three minutes. Her family are wealthy and well-known in academic circles. Their idea of an evening's entertainment is to sit about solving mathematical conundrums. Yet Mattie's intelligence is never allowed to shine. As a woman, she is continually pushed aside and stepped over in her family, her own accomplishments overlooked.

Yes, one of her brothers is a famous scientist who wrote an award-winning book, but Mattie is heartily sick of being referred to as "Randolph Cloyce's sister". So I suggest you never mention it to her.

At the wedding of Edie to Sir Buxton Hardwicke, Mattie is trying to hold her tongue and not look as if she would like to strike somebody about the head. However, she has been forced, not only into a yellow gown, but into polite conversation with some of the dullest people on earth. And the bridesmaid's bouquet is making her itch. Her temper is not likely to outlast the day and her opinions about this hasty marriage will have to come out sooner or later. Just like a sneeze.

Clara Boothby-Hamm concludes the little group of old friends gathered beside the wedding cake. She is the romantic optimist among them and refuses to see anything amiss with their friend's choice of husband. Clara comes from a very old, grand family and she too is expected to marry well. But the Boothby-Hamms are not so wealthy as they used to be and although Clara holds out hope for love, it is becoming steadily more obvious that she will have to choose for practical reasons first. Rather than make her depressed, this fact seems to make her more desperate to put on a happy face. To avoid the unpleasant reality, perhaps? After all, time flies, and as the ever-morbid Mattie points out,  "A woman’s value on the marriage mart severely depreciates with every passing year.”


Clara is dressed in pink for her friend's wedding and it suits her blushing, girlish mood. If she has any doubts about Edie's future happiness as Lady Hardwicke, she certainly hides it well. Better than Mattie hides her disdain.

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A LOVELINESS OF LADYBIRDS arrives at all online bookstores on July 5th.

(Images used here: Charles Perugini's Lady in Yellow and James McNeill Whistler's portrait of Lady Meux 1881)