Marmaduke's relentless tormentor ever since he had reached man's estate.
His father, Sir Jeremy de Chavasse, had been poor before him. The
younger son of that Earl of Northallerton who cut such a brilliant
figure at the Court of Queen Elizabeth, Jeremy had married Mistress
Spanton of Acol Court, who had brought him a few acres of land heavily
burdened with mortgage as her dowry. They were a simple-minded,
unostentatious couple who pinched and scraped and starved that their two
sons might keep up the appearances of gentlemen at the Court of King
Charles.

But both the young men seemed to have inherited from their brilliant
grandfather luxurious tastes and a love of gambling and of show--but
neither his wealth nor yet his personal charm of manner. The eldest,
Rowland, however, soon disappeared from the arena of life. He married
when scarce twenty years of age a girl who had been a play-actress. This
marriage nearly broke his doting mother's heart, and his own, too, for
the matter of that, for the union was a most unhappy one. Rowland de
Chavasse died very soon after, unreconciled to his father and mother,
who refused to see him or his family, even on his deathbed.

Jeremy de Chavasse's few hopes now centered on his younger son,
Marmaduke. In order to enable the young man to remain in London, to mix
freely and to hold his own in that set into which family traditions had
originally gained him admittance, the fond mother and indulgent father
denied themselves the very necessities of life.

Marmaduke took everything that was given him, whilst chafing at the
paucity of his allowance. Determined to cut a figure at Court, he spent
two years and most of his mother's dowry in a vain attempt to capture
the heart of one or the other of the rich heiresses who graced the