Miranda Chant

She had huge lustrous eyes, a perfect figure, and piles of glossy brown curls. She put a great deal of effort into her appearance, with the assistance of numerous bottles and jars and things for bulking out her hair.

She wore wide silk skirts and a multitude of frills and draperies.

She had money, but sought social position, and it was partly for this reason that she married Cosimo, a member of the highly respectable Chant family. He did not share his wife's enthusiasm for socialising, and did his best to avoid her dinner parties and suchlike; she often managed to anticipate his excuses and force him to attend anyway, sometimes by threatening to stop financing his business.

She and her husband did not get on: she objected to his smoking and his uncooperative disinterest in her socialising, he to her socialising, what he considered to be her self-indulgence, and her choice in servants. By the time Christopher was old enough to take notice, they had stopped speaking directly to each other; by the time he was old enough for his first governess, they had stopped speaking at all, and communicated entirely by notes carried between them by servants, even when they were in the same room.

There was a rapid turnover of servants in their house, with no servant lasting more than three months; even the ones he approved of eventually had to get away from the atmosphere, which was all the stronger for Cosimo and Miranda both being powerfully magical (an enchanter and a sorceress, respectively).

Miranda greatly respected her brother Ralph, and turned to him for help when her husband lost his money (which was her money) on the stock market. He arranges for Christopher to be sent to boarding school, and for Miranda to go and live abroad.

For her eventual fate, see The Lives of Christopher Chant (spoilers).