Chastity Hardman is the youngest daughter of Silvia Higgins, a Quaker mother of three who meets Jamie while he's with the Continental army. She and her family later come to Fraser's Ridge, assisted by Rachel and Ian Fraser Murray.
Personal History[]
Chastity lived for the first few years of her life with her mother Silvia, and her sister Patience 5 miles outside of Philadelphia, on Mulberry road.[3]. Their home is very rural, at least a mile from any other dwelling.[4] She and her family were practicing Quakers who attended the yearly meeting and used plain speech.
Chastity was born after her mother Silvia's husband disappeared. During this time, her mother was selling herself in exchange for food and money for her two older daughters, Chasity's half-sisters, Prudence and Patience. Chasity was born after one such encounter, though her biological father is unknown.
Events of the Novels[]
Written in My Own Heart's Blood[]
In June 1777, a group of Continental generals use her house for a strategic meeting. She fusses in her mother's arms during the meeting. After the meeting, one of the men, Jamie Fraser, suffers a sudden back spasm and collapses onto a nearby bed. Chastity's mother and sisters care for Jamie for several days.[5] Jamie plays with Chastity, amusing her and changing her diaper.
Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone[]
By 1779, Chastity is still living with her mother and her sisters. Their house is even more dilapidated, and her mother is still reliant on sex work for food and money to feed their family. Chasity's sisters are instructed to keep her quiet during these visits.
Chastity, along with her sisters and mother, leave Philadelphia with the Murrays.[6] Her mother unintentionally reunites with her first husband, Gabriel Hardman. Gabriel is interested in reuniting with Prudence and Patience, but has little interest in Chastity, who is not his biological daughter. He offers to take the older two girls while Silvia remains with Chastity, but Silvia refuses and proceeds with all three girls to Fraser's Ridge.
Prudence and her mother and sisters arrive at the Ridge in March 1780, where they live in the Big House. Prudence and Patience begin making friends with Frances Pocock, Jamie and Claire Fraser's adopted daughter.[7] Six months later in September 1780, they are present for the birth of Davy Mackenzie, Brianna Mackenzie and Roger Mackenzie's third child.[8]
In the spring of 1781, Chastity, now walking and talking, is present for her mother's marriage to Bobby Higgins. She gains three new stepbrothers and a stepfather, and appears enthusiastic about the marriage and her new stepbrothers, even calling Bobby "Daddy." At the ceremony, she imitates her mother and sisters by kissing her youngest stepbrother on the cheek and saying "I mawwy thee!", which amuses the wedding attendees.[9]
Personality[]
Physical Appearance[]
Name[]
Trivia[]
References[]
- ↑ Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone, chapter 84. There is a discrepancy here, in that Jamie first met Chastity in June 1777 and described her as "three or four months old," which would place her birthday in early 1777. But in Bees, Sylvia gives her birth date as "February the fourth, in ’78". Perhaps Sylvia meant February 1777 instead.
- ↑ Age as of the end of Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone.
- ↑ Written in My Own Heart's Blood, chapter 59.
- ↑ Written in My Own Heart's Blood, chapter 59.
- ↑ Written in My Own Heart's Blood, chapter 19.
- ↑ Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone, chapter 77.
- ↑ Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone, chapter 115.
- ↑ Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone, chapter 140.
- ↑ Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone, chapter 155.