The Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle and Flying Club

Poppy is the next most important character in the novel. Her friendship with Constance is a catalyst for the protagonist’s growth through the narrative, and her role as a foil to Constance is a means through which she is exposed to dynamic forces, especially modernity. 

Like Constance, Poppy is presented as a likable and morally sound character. Although she enjoys significant financial privilege as a member of the landed gentry class, she has a social conscience that made her long to be useful in the war effort and continues to motivate her to assist other women who do not enjoy the privileges and security she does. Unlike most of her peers, she routinely wears trousers in public, and she is unafraid of criticism that suggests that she is “unfeminine” and seeks to empower other young women to gain financial and personal independence. When Constance first sees Poppy on her Wirrall’s Conveyance motorbike in front of the posh Meredith Hotel, a crowd of onlookers claims that Poppy is taking jobs from veterans and ought to be at home with her “husband.” When the doorman asks if she’d “be more comfortable” waiting on a side street—implying that being confronted in this way should be discomfiting to her—Poppy coolly replies, “No thank you, we must demonstrate the future if we are to win it” (42). She is not cowed by the criticism, but she also understands the need to assuage society’s concerns if her ladies chauffeur business if to be successful, and she recruits women like the misses Morris—despite their snobbery and elitism—to put a “pretty face” on the Hazelbourne Ladies Motorcycle Club. This renders the club more palatable to those who would condemn its members and existence and gives them greater opportunity to enact the changes they wish to see in society.

Poppy is a static character, relatively unchanging in her worldview throughout the novel; her role is to facilitate Constance’s character arc and provide her with a role model. The novel often compares Poppy to strong female figures of history and literature. When she first brings Constance to Penneston, Harris sees her “standing in the sidecar [of her motorbike], like Boadicea in her war chariot” (59). Boadicea was a first-century British warrior queen who led a rebellion against the Romans after they raided her home and violated her and her daughters. Ultimately, her forces killed some 80,000 Romans. Though Rome controlled Britain for centuries after her rebellion, Boadicea has become synonymous with the struggle for justice and independence. This is an appropriate allusion given Poppy’s willingness to take on the struggle against social injustice toward women. Sam also describes Poppy as “Quite the Valkyrie” (141). A Valkyrie is a female warrior figure from Norse mythology, often depicted riding a horse into battle. They also choose which fallen soldiers are worthy of being admitted to Valhalla. This is an apt comparison given Poppy’s power over the men in her life, as both Tom and Sam want to marry her, and Harris often defers to her overwhelming enthusiasm and personality.

Mrs. Fog is Lady Mercer’s elderly mother, and she’s in Hazelbourne-on-Sea to complete her recovery from the 1918 influenza virus. Her role in the novel is as a representative of the previous generation of female experience and as a benign foil and balance to the novel’s female antagonist, Lady Mercer. Though, for most of her life, Mrs. Fog capitulated to society’s classist, sexist standards, she has become unwilling to continue to do so. Unlike many other women of her age or status, Mrs. Fog is agreeable to the idea of social change and female independence. The first significant clue is her readiness to go for a ride on Poppy’s motorcycle and then her very eager endorsement of the experience to anyone who will listen. After this initial ride, she then hires Poppy to transport her to the de Champneys’ home whenever she visits. The next clue to Mrs. Fog’s developing progressive nature, a perspective she developed because of her experience with loss, is her preparedness to renew her relationship with the de Champneys, even hiding this from her daughter.

Mrs. Fog does change throughout the novel, and her surprising behavior is a key part of its exploration of changing opportunities and expectations for women. She becomes much more willing to criticize the society that insisted on her “respectability” and separated her from the man she loves. When she agrees to allow Constance to go to London with only Poppy to accompany her, she says, “[I]f we keep it to ourselves the question of propriety need not, perhaps, be addressed too closely” (172). In other words, she is happy to oppose the social pressure for Constance’s “respectability” as long as they can do it quietly (as this protects Constance from criticism). While Mrs. Fog is unwilling to jeopardize Rachel’s claims to respectability by ruining her wedding, once Rachel is married, Mrs. Fog is willing to risk society’s judgment of herself. When the de Champneys arrive at the Wirralls’ ball, upsetting Lady Mercer and Percival, Mrs. Fog reminds her daughter that she kept her word not to see Simon until after Rachel’s wedding and insists, “We can be gracious now, I think?” (382). Percival responds rudely, indicative of a potential wider social response to Mrs. Fog’s non-traditional values.