“But I don’t know anything!” protested Mrs. Darracott. “Only that he was the next brother to poor Granville, and quite your grandfather’s favourite son. Your papa was used to say that that was what enraged Grandpapa so particularly, though for my part I can’t believe that he held him in the slightest affection! Never, never could I bring myself to disown my son! Not though he married a dozen weaver’s daughters!”

“Oh, I think we should be obliged to disown him if he married a dozen of them, Mama!” Anthea said, laughing. “It would be quite excessive, and so embarrassing! Oh, no, don’t frown at me! It don’t become you, and I won’t fun any more, I promise you! Is that what my uncle did? Married a weaver’s daughter?”

“Well, that’s what I was told,” replied Mrs. Darracott cautiously. “It all happened before I was married to your papa, so I am not perfectly sure. Papa wouldn’t have spoken of it, only that there was a notice of Hugh’s death published in the Gazette, and he was afraid I might see it, and make some remark.”

“When did he die, Mama?”

“Now that I can tell you, for it was the very year I was married, and had just come back from my honeymoon to live here. It was in 1793. He was killed, poor man. I can’t remember the name of the place, but I do know it was in Holland. I daresay we were engaged in a war there, for he was a military man. And I shouldn’t be at all astonished, Anthea, if that is what makes your grandfather so determined Richmond shan’t enter the army. I don’t mean Hugh’s being killed, but if he had not been a military man he would never have been stationed in Yorkshire, and, of course, if he had not been stationed there he would never have met that female, let alone have become so disastrously entangled. I believe she was a very low, vulgar creature, and lived in Huddersfield. I must own that it is not at all what one would wish for one’s son.”