Character Sheet

Note: This character has Secrets, and is More Than They Appear.

Name/Title: Miss Essie Bishop

Occupation: Spinster of the parish (middle class)

First Impression: All pop-eyes and prominent veins and feeble, clutching hands.

Sex/Gender: Female

Age: 45

Appearance: Dishwater blonde hair, turning grey, very pale blue eyes and almost colourless skin. Drab, respectable clothing, with very old lace that was her grandmother's.

What they Carry: A reticule containing a purse, a sewing kit, her glasses, a pocket Bible and a box of pills.

Relationships: Lives with her senile and incontinent mother, whose chief caretaker she is. Active in the church Ladies' Aid society, among whom she is noted as a particularly vindictive spreader of gossip - in the firm belief that she is performing a moral duty by warning others of what not to do, offering object examples of people they know.

Personality: Essie is a tightly-wound clockwork of resentment, duty, frustration, piety, judgement and self-abnegation. If only people knew what she has to suffer. And how dare they carry on the way that they do!

The neighbourhood children say that mice live under the skirts of her dress, little brown biting mice, and if you make her cross she'll send them after you.

Strengths: An extremely practical and competent housekeeper. Quick with her needle.

Shortcomings: It is getting increasingly difficult to ignore the voices in her head. They have talked to her since she was a child. At first they were comforting. Now they are angry, and demand that she avenge them.

History: Educated at home and groomed to remain with her parents as housekeeper and helper, as it was obvious from an early age that she was not marriageable. Essie has been taught at all times that she must make herself useful to others.

Motivations/Goals: To stop the voices. Especially her mother's nagging, croaking, unending VOICE.