It was one of these houses, called 'The Elms,' which Lord Arthur Skelmerton had rented for the summer.
"Lady Arthur came down some little time before the racing week with her servants--she had no children; but she had many relatives and friends in York, since she was the daughter of old Sir John Etty, the cocoa manufacturer, a rigid Quaker, who, it was generally said, kept the tightest possible hold on his own purse-strings and looked with marked disfavour upon his aristocratic son-in-law's fondness for gaming tables and betting books.
"As a matter of fact, Maud Etty had married the handsome young lieutenant in the Hussars, quite against her father's wishes.

But she was an only child, and after a good deal of demur and grumbling, Sir John, who idolized his daughter, gave way to her whim, and a reluctant consent to the marriage was wrung from him.
"But, as a Yorkshireman, he was far too shrewd a man of the world not to know that love played but a very small part in persuading a Duke's son to marry the daughter of a cocoa manufacturer, and as long as he lived he determined that since his daughter was being wed because of her wealth, that wealth should at least secure her own happiness.

He refused to give Lady Arthur any capital, which, in spite of the most carefully worded settlements, would inevitably, sooner or later, have found its way into the pockets of Lord Arthur's racing friends.

But he made his daughter a very handsome allowance, amounting to over L3000 a year, which enabled her to keep up an establishment befitting her new rank.
"A great many of these facts, intimate enough as they are, leaked out, you see, during that period of intense excitement which followed the murder of Charles Lavender, and when the public eye was fixed searchingly upon Lord Arthur Skelmerton, probing all the inner details of his idle, useless life.
"It soon became a matter of common gossip that poor little Lady Arthur continued to worship her handsome husband in spite of his obvious neglect, and not having as yet presented him with an heir, she settled herself down into a life of humble apology for her plebeian existence, atoning for it by condoning all his faults and forgiving all his vices, even to the extent of cloaking them before the prying eyes of Sir John, who was persuaded to look upon his son-in-law as a paragon of all the domestic virtues and a perfect model of a husband.
"Among Lord Arthur Skelmerton's many expensive tastes there was certainly that for horseflesh and cards.

After some successful betting at the beginning of his married life, he had started a racing-stable which it was generally believed--as he was very lucky--was a regular source of income to him.
"Peppercorn, however, after his brilliant performances at Newmarket did not continue to fulfil his master's expectations.