‘Oh, I shall never unravel them!’ exclaimed Eleanor, spreading out her hands in bewilderment.
Lady Drummond laughed, having come to the time of life when ladies enjoy genealogies.
‘It will be enough,’ she said, ‘to remember that almost all are, like yourselves, grandchildren or great-grandchildren to King Edward of Windsor.’
Jean, however, wanted to know which were nearest to herself, and which were noblest. The first question Lady Drummond said she could hardly answer; perhaps the Earl of Salisbury and the Duchess, but the Duke was certainly noblest by birth, having a double descent from King Edward, and in the male line.
‘Was not his father put to death by this King’s father?’ asked Eleanor.
‘Ay, the Earl of Cambridge, for a foul plot. I have heard my Lord of Salisbury speak of it; but this young man was of tender years, and King Harry of Monmouth did not bear malice, but let him succeed to the dukedom when his uncle was killed in the Battle of Agincourt.’
‘They have not spirit here to keep up a feud,’ said Jean.
‘My good brother—ay, and your father, Jeanie—were wont to say they were too Christian to hand on a feud,’ observed Dame Lilias, at which Jean tossed her head, and said—
‘That may suit such a carpet-knight as yonder Duke. He is not so tall as Elleen there, nor as his own Duchess.’
‘I do not like the Duchess,’ said Annis; ‘she looks as if she scorned the very ground she walks on.’