Brief Overview
Peneleope Penny
Whitaker (née Hawthorne) is a well-bred but lonely white Englishwoman who has a more than passing interest in archaeology. She moved from York, England to Berlin with her late German-British husband, Lawrence Whitaker, in 1919, but was widowed when her husband sickened and passed from a mysterious wasting illness. Penny lives as an expatriate in her adoptive city and has quietly re-married to the American-born smuggler Josef Vlasák. In addition to her relationship with her second husband, she is also romantically involved with Moira O'Farrell-Havelock and (platonically) Farley Havelock. She is sterile and knows it, but dotes on Moira's three children.
History & Family
Penelope Hawthorne grew up on her family's estate in the Yorkshire Dales, living with the company of her epileptic mother in addition to various servants and staff as her father took care of business matters
in London and across the Continent. Penny's father, Lionel Hawthorne, was very flagrant about keeping a mistress and only marrying Penny's mother, Honoria, for her societal connections. Penny has no siblings.
Penny hated her father with a passion, and was raised primary by a governess (Miss Leary) and the estate's gamekeeper (Mister Cowen). The two servants were engaged in a mild tug-of-war over Penny's upbringing, as Miss Leary fought to turn Penny into a lady of gentle breeding and Mister Cowen was more than happy to let Penny run wild through the woods and fields in the company of horses and hounds. She developed a voracious appetite for nonfiction and had a keen interest in the natural world as well as ancient history.
Leaving Yorkshire and attending finishing school was very difficult for Penny, as she was bullied for her height, her weight, and her country mannerisms. She developed a reputation for being extremely bright, but also a bit shy and rather withdrawn. However, she always excelled on the sporting fields, and took a special shine to sport shooting with pistols. Although dueling was outlawed from the Olympics after 1908, Penny trained as a pistol markswoman for the thrill of it.
Marriage, Moving to Berlin & Widowhood
Penny married Lawrence Whitaker in 1918, after he finished his service on the Western Front and returned to London. Lawrence was an asexual scholar who preferred the company of his books over romantic endeavors; his relationship with Penny was more a meeting of minds than an affair of the heart. They were a formidable scholarly team, however, and Penny genuinely loved her husband even if she was frustrated with his lack of sexual interest in her.
Penny already spoke fluent German by the time she moved to Berlin, and she found the so-called Wicked City
to be an exciting place to reinvent herself as a woman and scholar of the postwar world. Lawrence, however, suffered; he had breathed mustard gas during his service, and his lungs never truly recovered. Berlin's prior existence as a swamp contributed to his poor health as he took up a position as an adjunct professor of anthropology at Friedrich Wilhelm University.
Penny had a passing interest in the occult and various bits of esoterica that she encountered during the courses of her studies, but this interest became a nigh-obsession after Lawrence's health began to seriously deteriorate. He wasted away at an incredible rate. The best doctors in Germany couldn't offer a cure or medicine that seemed even remotely sufficient to treat him, and so Penny turned to the realms of the unseen in order to save him. However, it wasn't enough. When Lawrence passed away in January of 1921 at the age of 27, he weighed 98 pounds (44.5 kilograms). Penny suspects that Lawrence, too, dabbled in the occult, and that his meddling contributed to his rapid decline… but she can prove nothing, and was left alone with her grief and her indifferent books.
Involvement with the Polycule
In spite of her clear competence, Penny was never admitted into Berlin's historical societies or universities, partially because of her sex and partially because of her clear English roots. This is a point of continual frustration for her. Although wealthy to the point of not needing to work and in possession of Lawrence's large townhome in Schöneburg, Berlin, Penny sought something to occupy her time. She worked as a librarian in Friedrich Wilhelm University, and eventually met Josef Vlasák when he was seeking help identifying a stolen artifact.
Although Penny suspected Josef's illegal proclivities, she couldn't bring herself to report the charming smuggler and was intrigued with his various findings. Eventually, the two became romantically and sexually involved, and Penny also became Joe's consulting archaeologist. When Moira O'Farrell and Farley Havelock arrive in Berlin, Penny offers them accommodations in her townhome. After she becomes part of the polycule proper, the four of them sell the townhome and buy a building in another part of the city to turn into a family-run inn known as The Captain's Chair.
Appearance
Penny stands five feet and ten inches (178 centimeters) tall, with wavy red hair that she keeps in an austere low bun. She dresses in a rather antiquated, Gibson Girl-esque style with flat-heeled shoes. She avoids using makeup due to her cosmetic allergies, and wears rounded, steel-rimmed spectacles for her myopia. She has a lot of freckles.