MBTI Type: ESTP

Lydia makes things happen in the story and is something of the driving force behind all of the character’s decisions—she came to Australia where she established a series of brothels and gambling dens. When she meets Anna and sees that she could be out of her reach forever, since she has fallen for a young men and intends to have dinner with him tonight, Lydia sends her to the wrong hotel and steals her purse, so Anna will be forced to come to her and work for her room and board. She marries Crosbie Wells just to avoid having to pay out a jackpot at her gambling establishment, and then steals his gold to help out her lover, Francis, with his revenge scheme. She’s immoral and driven by greed, able to twist any situation to her advantage—she makes a sport out of tricking young girls into becoming indebted to her, and then grooming them to become prostitutes. She pretends to offer them a prepaid room only to lure them into becoming her hookers. She isn’t above promising men affairs, luring them into relationships, or flattering them to get what she wants. Though she has an interest in astrology, she also tells Anna that it’s all nonsense, that there is “no right or wrong, and things are meant to happen,” inferring that she uses the stars and planets mostly to draw clientele into her establishments. Though a schemer, she cannot foresee how Anna will fully play into her plans or thwart some of her intentions.

Enneagram: 3w2 sp/so

Lydia appears differently to everyone who meets her, as she adjusts her approach into whatever will most appeal to them—from flattering and charming men fresh off the gold field with lots of money to lose to her rigged gambling establishment to pretending to be a compassionate mentor to Anna while really being a “madam.” She convinces various people she is on their side and has their interests in heart, but in truth she is a relentless social climber, a fraud, and obsessed with how she looks to other people. She’s quite vain and ambitious and unafraid to use others to get what she wants. Her 2 wing is persuasive and can seem earnest in her desire to “help.”