I was actually thrown by Mrs. Cholmondeley's change of heart. I would have like to have seen her as a more multifaceted character and the interest she held for Sam's well-being develop into a little bit more believable territory.
Especially with how rude she was to him at the beginning in the radium baths.
Her character won me over in the Radium Baths. I was very glad to see her return as a judge. I will say, I was very disappointed that she never got a chance to drink the hootch she was accidentally given by Adrianne. I would have liked to have witnessed a drunk Cholmondeley.
She'll have her heart broken in 6 years' time when Prohibition gets repealed. I imagine Mrs Cholmondeley in the future as someone whose dreams have evaporated around her, but whose determination still hasn't flagged. I honestly believe she'll get to the moon some day.
I imagine her as someone that drinks in secret and then publicly shames anyone who professes the "love of drink." I think she has a bottle stashed away somewhere on a mini-golf course in central park. She goes there late at night, drinks and then stares wild-eyed at her moon, dreaming of the day when she and Clive can be alone there.
I also think that when she was just a girl, she got pregnant and her family sent he to a nunnery to bring the baby to term. She was forced to give the child up for adoption and return home to her friends and family and pretend like she was "away at camp." Clive was the father, though even he never knew that she really wasn't at camp. What?
That would explain why she's got that odd maternal streak towards the Radium Babies. Damn it, man, you should be writing the next one! Or at least doing "Mrs Cholmondeley: The Album". That said, I have a mixtape somewhere I made for the novel. Mrs Cholmondeley's song is Ginger Geezer by Vivian Stanshall — a great, overblown, eccentric bombast of a song. Perfect.