Maurice Allard

‘A little dusky molly fellow’: cousin to Sophy and Seraphine. There is a long-standing breach between his family and Seraphine’s: the respectable Pyecrofts spurning the Allards, the quarrel exacerbated by Jacques Allard’s racist remarks about his Black brother-in-law. Allard became a violent and abusive drunkard, and the family was increasingly supported by Maurice’s involvement in the criminal underworld of Seven Dials, and his and his sister Marie’s sex-work. His mother’s cousin’s husband Tom Lacey obtained Maurice respectable work as a tailor’s apprentice, but he also got into a safer line of renting by way of the very discreet certain club for gentlemen of the disposition.

Mentions, unnamed, in Above Rubies and The Chatelaine - family members concerned to find him a respectable place in service.

Books Maurice Allard appears in: