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Illustrated portrait of Waddington

A character in The Painted Veil

Waddington

A wry deputy commissioner who becomes Kitty's friend and gives her more honest information about Walter, Charlie, and China.

What they want

To live freely and observe honestly, while quietly helping the people and institutions he respects.

The book

Cover of The Painted Veil by W. Somerset Maugham
The Painted VeilW. Somerset Maugham, 1925

After an affair destroys her marriage, a young Englishwoman enters a cholera epidemic and begins the harder work of understanding herself.

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At a glance

Occupation
Deputy commissioner
Residence
Mei-tan-fu
Time in China
About twenty years
Partner
An unnamed Manchu woman

Who they are in the book

Spoiler-free

Waddington is a British deputy commissioner who has spent about twenty years in China. He speaks Chinese, knows local history and stories, and mocks both the colonial community and Chinese officials. His jokes can sound cynical, but Kitty gradually recognizes the kindness beneath them.

He tells Kitty that Charlie's behavior is a pattern rather than a unique romance. He also introduces her to the convent, praises Walter's work without idealizing the marriage, and brings her to Walter's deathbed. His friendship is valuable because he sees through Kitty without using that knowledge to humiliate her.

Waddington lives with an unnamed Manchu woman who left her family to remain with him. Their relationship complicates his joking distance from everything: whatever he says about being unattached, another person has made a serious choice for him.

How the book draws them

Appearance, manner, and tone — as the book sketches them, in our words.

  • Small and baldThe novel gives him a bald skull, a funny boyish face, and merry little blue eyes.
  • A face made for laughterHis features pucker when he laughs, making dry remarks feel playful even when their truth is uncomfortable.
  • Often holding whiskyHe drinks heavily and jokes that whisky keeps cholera away. The habit is part of his eccentricity, not medical advice.
  • Kindness beneath ironyHis bright appraising eyes can make Kitty uneasy, but she also sees singular kindness in them when she is frightened.
  • Younger than his baldness suggestsOnce Kitty sees him in full light, his unlined, fresh-colored face makes clear that he is still under forty.
  • A high rounded foreheadHis small face sits beneath a high forehead. Kitty finds the combination odd rather than conventionally handsome, but also lively and charming.
Waddington's help during Walter's deathHow the book leaves them, what happened after, and what the record says. Open when you're ready.

Waddington brings Kitty to the yamen when Walter contracts cholera, stays with her through the death and burial, and arranges her return journey. He cannot reconcile the couple, but he ensures that Kitty does not face the crisis alone.

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