Kelly
|
Kelly |
|
|---|---|
|
Dorley girl, deceased |
|
| Gender | Female |
| Date of birth | unknown |
| First appearance | Chapter 37 of The Sisters of Dorley |
Kelly was a Dorley girl from Grandmother's tenure at Dorley Hall. She was owned by Elle Lambert's grandparents and was employed as a serving woman in their wing of the Lambert estate. [SD 28]
Kelly was over six feet tall [SD 28] with auburn hair. Elle remembers her as "confident, beautiful and with a mischievous smile". [SD 34]
At Dorley Hall
Kelly was at Dorley Hall the same time as Aunt Bea. [SD 28] Frankie took a liking to her, but with tightened security following Beatrice's escape, was unable to free her. [SD 43]
Kelly confided to Frankie that she picked her name because it would have been her sister's. [SD 43]
Frankie describes her to Ollie:
[...] a girl who came from violence, who hurt people in her former life, who flowered right here under Dorley. Who helped the other girls with their makeup and coached them on how to behave just right so the visitors wouldn’t punish them so readily. Who asked Frankie for books and read them cover to cover, because they were the books she read when she was a child, before she grew up, before she grew violent. Who found in herself something complex, something new, something real, and very different from her life before.
and adds:
She was a right bastard kid, Ollie, but in here, in this fucking place, she became a perfect, innocent, beautiful flower.
With Elle
As a child, Elle befriended the serving women in her grandparent's wing of her family's estate. Over time she noticed that they were were miserable, "to a woman", and that they would occasionally disappear. Her questions regarding these women went unanswered until after she returned home from completing her education and spoke with the latest girl, Kelly, who revealed the truth of her origins. [SD 28]
The two grew to have a romantic and sexual relationship and Elle began making plans to help her escape. [SD 34]
Death
Kelly was killed at the order of Elle's grandfather. [SD 34]
Afterward, Elle was confronted by her grandfather, who revealed that he had been spying on the two young women the entire time via hidden cameras. [SD 34] He described Kelly's death to her and then, fearing for her own life, Elle convinced him that she found the force feminization process arousing and lied that she had been stringing Kelly along with false promises to hear more stories about her time at the Hall. [SD 34] Convinced, her grandfather promised not to tell her grandmother that they had spoken. Elle kept up the charade until she was able to "have his heart stopped" [SD 28]
Legacy
“She was taken away, and Elladine Lambert fell in love with her. For that crime, for being someone who could be loved, she was murdered, and Lambert, she rose up against this place. This new Dorley? If there is a grave on which it is built, Ollie, it is hers.” - Frankie [SD 43]
Elle's rage and grief following Kelly's murder fuel her appetite for vengeance; she began her campaign of retribution by arranging the deaths of everyone involved in Kelly's murder.
Having kept her knowledge of the Hall a secret from her grandmother, Elle was able begin her plot to take control of the Hall following her grandfather's death, eventually making contact with Beatrice in 2002 and executing a hostile takeover of the Hall two years later. [SD 28]
Elle wears a locket containing two photos of Kelly: one of her resting beneath a tree in the garden and another of Elle kissing her on the cheek, taken the day she was killed. [SD 34]
Notes
Gender identity: Kelly's gender was coercively reassigned, but the text refers to her with feminine pronouns throughout. Elle describes her as "Proud of her womanhood, no matter that it had been forced upon her." [SD 34]
| Dorley girls (and a few non-girls) | |
|---|---|
| Grandmother's (killed) | Carol, Imran, Kelly, Kieron, Lou, Molly, Neve, Owen, Paul, Wallace Mount, plus 11 unnamed girls killed by Crispin Smyth-Farrow |