I asked what her father was like.
"He was very selfish, violent-tempered, and rather original. When he dined out he always took his champagne with him in a pail and in a four-wheeler. He lived in an old house in the south of Ireland. He was not really Irish. He had been a soldier. He played picquet with Jean every evening. He went up to London two months every year—not in the summer. He liked seeing the Christmas pantomime. He was devoted to Jean, but tyrannized over her. He never let her out of his sight.
"When he died he left nothing. The house in Ireland was sold, and the house in London, a house in Bedford Square. I think there were illegitimate children. In Ireland he entertained the neighbours, talked politics, and shouted at his guests, and quarrelled with everyone."
I presumed he was not a Radical. I was right.
I said I supposed Miss Brandon could never escape.
She had been engaged to be married once, but money—the want of it—made the marriage impossible. Even if there had been money she doubted.
"Because of the father?" I said.
"Yes, she would never have left him. She couldn't have left him."
"Did the father like the young man?"
"Yes, he liked him, but regarded him as quite impossible, quite out of the question as a husband."