Prudence Featherington

Prudence is the eldest Featherington daughter, paraded through ballrooms by her ferociously ambitious mother in gowns of eye-watering colour and cut. She wants what she's told to want — a titled husband, her family's approval — and pursues it with an awkward, overeager sincerity that makes her an easy target for the room's laughter.

Carter plays the joke without ever mocking her: Prudence's gaucheness reads as a girl doing exactly what she's been trained to do, badly, in public. The comic timing is sharp, but there's a flicker of hurt underneath the silliness that keeps her from being disposable, and makes you watch for her rather than just at her.