Magdalen Vaughan

In the short story Sing a Song of Sixpence, Magdalen Vaughan is a young woman in her late twenties.

Ten years before the events in the story, Magdalen, a girl of seventeen, had come back from America on board the Siluric. There she had met Sir Edward Palliser. Although he was much older than her, being almost sixty, he had been attracted to her and had made love to her. On parting, he promised that if she ever needed help, if there was ever anything he could do for her, he would do it.

Some three weeks before the events in the story, Lily Crabtree, Magdalen's great aunt and mistress of the house where she lived, was murdered. The police could not solve the case. It was thought that no one had come in from outside. And yet, of the occupants in the house, all seemed to have alibis or did not have the opportunity. After the death, the remaining occupants continued to eye one another with suspicion and this was getting to them. Magdalen approached Sir Edward for help and he, obligated by his old promise, agreed.

In answering Sir Edward's questions, Magdalen proved straight-forward and naive, not realising that she was incriminating herself. She told Sir Edward that on the morning of Miss Crabtree's death they had quarreled because her great aunt had objected to her wanting to become a mannequin (a tailor's model). On why she wanted to do that job, she had said "anything would be better than going on living here." And she agreed that with the death and the prospect of a comfortable income. "it is quite different now." To Sir Edward, her admissions were made "with the utmost simplicity" that perhaps pointed to her innocence.