Nicknames: Es, Essie
Birthdate: November 3rd, 1860
Current Age: 27 Years
Occupation: Housewife
Reputation: 9 — she married her husband after only a month's engagement and no courtship, and while the latter might be overlooked because of their close familial relation, anyone who can do math might be a touch suspicious about the timing of her oldest daughter's birth. That was years ago, however, and Esther has been entirely respectable since (and truth be told, no one much seemed to care at the time, either).
Residence: Bartonburg
Hogwarts House: Slytherin
Wand: 12” Hazel and Unicorn Hair, Swishy
Blood Status: Halfblood
Social Class: Middle Class
Family:
-- Diggory, Father [1815]Appearance:
Violet Diggory nee Browne, Mother [1825]
Clara Ross née Diggory, Sister [1861] and family
Sampson Browne, Husband [1858]
Chastity Grace Browne, Daughter [1884] — nicknamed “Gracie”
Verity Faith Browne, Daughter [1886]
Augustus Browne, Father-in-law [1822]
Aurelia Browne née Hebb, Mother-in-law [1837]
Chastity Pettigrew née Browne, Sister-in-law [1860-1884] and family
Calliope Riley née Browne, Sister-in-law [1863] and family
Gideon Browne, Brother-in-law [1865]
Odira Potter née Browne, Sister-in-law [1865] and family
Loretta Browne, Sister-in-law [1867]
Prudence Browne, Sister-in-law [1872]
Justin Ross, Brother-in-law [1846] and family
Elizabeth -- née Ross | Sister-in-law [1854] and family
Harold Ross | Brother-in-law [1861]
Esther has always considered herself an average woman — or perhaps a little less than average, in some respects. She stands five foot, four inches tall and has skin just a touch too dark for the Victorian ideal, but not nearly dark enough to begin to look exotic. Her hair is thick, dark brown, and straight, unless she uses a potion or spell to make it otherwise. She does take a good deal of time with her appearance every day, which only feeds in to her insecurity issues; she tends to imagine that everyone else who looks similarly when out and about simply rolled out of bed that way, while she had to work for it. She has a generously large smile, but seldom graces strangers with it.
Essie has always been a bit on the curvaceous side, and privately considers her cleavage to be her best asset; as such, she tends to choose dresses and corsets which display it to her best advantage, though this is for no one’s benefit but Sampson’s as she would frankly be both surprised and alarmed at any attention from another man. She prefers neutral colors and simple cuts that she can easily alter herself at home for maximum use. Esther is right handed.
History:Before she was even properly conscious of the world Esther was gifted with a younger sister, who became her closest friend and companion during childhood. Although from a rather small family themselves, the girls also had an extensive extended family and frequently found themselves shuffled around to the houses of cousins, aunts, and uncles for holidays and play-dates. Chatty and energetic children, Esther and Clara would stay up late and night in their shared bedroom and pretend to be diviners and read each other’s futures, particularly in regards to romance. The most frequent figure in these early childhood fancies was cousin Sampson Browne, mostly because he was rather convenient, but also because even at that young age he was handsomer in the opinion of the girls than their Weasley cousins were.
Esther goes off to Hogwarts the same year as her cousin Chastity, though she would have much preferred to have gone with Clara the following year. The two girls are both placed in Slytherin, much to Essie’s relief — she would wonder later whether she really ought to have been in Slytherin or whether it was only her fervent desire not to be all alone in a strange house without Chastity that had persuaded the Hat, but there was no way of knowing. Her first year of Hogwarts also features a few random instances of cousin Sampson being not-an-outright-ass to her, and although the gestures are small (helping her find her way when she gets lost in the halls, for instance) they mean a good deal more than they should to Essie, who develops quite the crush on him — something she never admits to his sister Chastity, of course. The habit of silence persists when Clara joins her at Hogwarts the next year and she carries her torch in secret for the rest of her school days.
She adds Divination, Arithmancy, and Ancient Studies her third year and excels at each in a way she had never done with her core classes. Following her fifth year, she continues with her three electives, as well as Charms, Herbology, and History of Magic. Although she has a good deal of academic talent Esther is destined for the life of a debutante — and while she is dreading that, having always been a bit slow to warm to new people at social events, she has some warm and fuzzy feelings about her eventual life as a wife, provided she can make it through to that point. As the day approaches, she and Clara lapse back into their old childhood habits of gossiping about boys and pretending to divine each other’s futures, though Esther continues to keep her feelings towards their cousin close to her chest.
Essie had never exactly been expecting to be swept off her feet by romance the night of her debut, but finds Coming Out Ball and the weeks following it disappointing all the same. Cousin Chastity is no help at all, as she is almost immediately caught up in a romance with the exceptionally rich and charming Mr. Pettigrew, leaving Esther to her own devices. Fielding social events without her sister quickly grows exhausting and Es takes comfort where she can in more familiar relationships, preferring the company of family (even distant family) to that of strangers when out at events. This does nothing to help her crush on cousin Sampson, and in fact only makes it run much deeper — which becomes painful the next year when her sister has her coming out, and it becomes clear to everyone that while Sampson may have been affable with Esther, he seems to actually like Clara.
Not that this is surprising in the grand scheme of things; everyone likes Clara. Compared to Essie, she makes flirting and finding potential beaus look effortless. After a second season spent (in Esther’s opinion) largely in her younger sister’s shadow, Esther takes a part-time job that winter as a companion and secretarial assistant to an ancient authoress. She does some melodramatically pessimistic tea-leaf readings and believes she has the future entirely figured out. Sampson will eventually propose to Clara — probably once he can afford one of those nice Bartonburg houses — and Esther will be left to wither away in the shadows until she’s as old and irritable as the authoress she works with.
In 1882, however, the path that seemed so clearly laid out begins to diverge. Clara receives a ring for her birthday from a mysterious admirer, whom Esther convinces her could only be the latest and most persistent in her line of potential suitors, Mr. Benjamin Ross. While not exactly Chastity’s Mr. Pettigrew, Mr. Ross is quite comfortable and could easily afford to send Clara a ring — and, as Esther points out to her sister, must have had a great deal of affection for her to send her a secret present! Whether it is the show of devotion or the show of affluence that persuades her, Clara begins to pay her social attentions almost exclusively to Mr. Ross, and the two are soon courting. As is rather typical of courtships, they eventually continue on to marriage.
Poor Sampson is rather put out. Esther can’t help but step in to console him, and in time the *ahem* consoling gets a bit out of hand and Esther ends up doing something her mother wouldn’t be entirely proud of. Roughly a month later, she confesses to Sampson that she suspects there might be more lasting consequences from their liaison than either of them had intended. She doesn’t know enough about these matters to be sure, but it’s not as though she has anyone that she can ask — excepting, perhaps, Clara, who has already had The Marriage Talk from their mother, but Sampson is for obvious reasons rather opposed to that.
Sampson offers to marry her, which she immediately accepts. Although the circumstances could certainly have been better, and it is hardly a romantic proposal, Esther does manage to later convince herself that Sampson might have eventually proposed even without the crisis, since it’s hardly as though the two were strangers. They had always been friends, and if he hadn’t been so focused on Clara, who everyone had always loved more, perhaps it would have been her that everyone assumed he would eventually marry. At the very least he clearly liked her enough to steal her virtue, in the heat of the moment! Speaking of which, she offers herself to him again immediately following his offer of marriage; since she suspects herself to already be pregnant and she is now technically engaged, it’s not as though she can do any more damage, after all, and she did not find the experience wholly unpleasant the first time around.
The introduction of a physical aspect to their relationship changes the dynamic entirely, in a way that Esther had never anticipated. However he might have treated her as a person when he was still busy flirting with Clara, she now knows how to command his full attention, and she relishes the small degree of power this gives her. Their engagement lasts only a month (just enough time to plan a very modest, family-only wedding), but Esther thoroughly enjoys exploring the limits of this newfound source of strength and teasing him with small gestures of affection whenever possible — though she makes him wait until their wedding night to actual get under her skirts again.
That summer sees the death of Esther’s cousin (or rather, sister-in-law) Chastity at the hands of the Laughing Plague, which saddens her, but only distantly. The two had grown apart in the years since Chastity’s marriage and rise to the wealthier echelons of society, and so she mourns her as she would a long lost school friend rather than a sister. She does decide it would be best to mend her fences with Clara, as the two had grown a bit distant since she had become engaged to Mr. Ross — not that Esther minded Mr. Ross in the slightest, but having spent so much time with Sampson during the ordeal, it was difficult not to adopt his attitude that Clara choosing to pursue a wealthier and more established gentleman was something of a betrayal to the family (by which, of course, everyone knew Sampson meant a betrayal to him).
Esther announces her pregnancy that autumn and gives birth late in the year to a daughter named Chastity Grace Browne, after the babe’s late aunt. The irony of the name choice is not lost on Esther but is never acknowledged. The arrival of the infant comes eight months after her marriage, which is not wholly suspicious. This is also ten months after the first time she and Sampson did the deed, and nine months after the second, either of which as she had learned by then was a perfectly normal and respectable length for a pregnancy — so there really wasn’t any way of knowing which did it. Not that it matters now, since the two are married and blissfully happy. Or, at least, Esther is, and she assumes that if Sampson didn’t feel the same way he would say so (or at the very least seem less keen on continuing to share her bed).
Her younger sister-in-law has the misfortune to be kidnapped the following year, but returns later with a new baby after giving birth with a stranger in a cemetery, and if no one questions the situation surrounding that mess, Esther feels that the circumstances of her own daughter’s birth are relatively safe from speculation.
Esther fills her time for the next year or so finding ways to pamper her daughter and spoil her husband, on their rather modest household budget. She particularly enjoys finding little things that she can do to make his day brighter — and failing that, of course, she can always come up with a way to make his nights a bit more interesting. She also cultivates a small garden and a few close friendships — though mostly with her extended family and old friends from school, as she has never been one to particularly shine in large social situations. She is saved from the majority of the social events in the 1886 season by another pregnancy (this time one she doesn't have to be secretive about!) and delivers a second daughter late in the year.
Her next year of marriage is spent much the same as the first, but with two children to dote on instead of one. Esther couldn't wish for anything more, although her life may not be exciting — she is happy. Everyone is happy. For the moment.
Personality: A cordial and amiable air mask deeply held insecurities about her appearance, personality, and general worth as a person. Esther has a habit of comparing herself to others privately (almost exclusively to her own detriment) and can fall quite easily into bouts of fatalistic pessimism if the mood strikes her. Luckily, it hasn't had cause to do so in quite a while. She is loyal and devoted to those she loves and enjoys finding ways to make them happy, even if her efforts are never acknowledged. She has an avid academic interest in mathematics and history, though this manifests itself almost exclusively in what she chooses to read as she wouldn't be bold enough to contribute to a conversation with strangers about those subjects. Truth be told, she seldom contributes to conversations with strangers at all, beyond lurking at the edges of conversations and smiling politely, which is why she has always had such difficulty making friends in group settings. She has a very modest talent for divination and gardening, and a passable knowledge of other household skills and womanly crafts. She attends church regularly, less due to any deeply held belief and more because seeing acquaintances once a week and exchanging ten minutes of conversation with them is about her level of social confidence.
