– 2203 the Hon. Hasmita Joan Mundy-Chakravarthi, heir to Chatsworth estate and titles, born at Chatsworth House, to Baron Cornelius Horatio Mundy and his wife Isabelle Chakravarthi.
Hasmita was my older sister, named for our maternal and paternal grandmothers so they would both be happy. She had big dark eyes like our mother, and our mother’s sense of humour, and, with time, it turned out she had Mother’s interest in bio-chemistry, as well.
2207 Adele Sophie Mundy-Chakravarthi born at Chatsworth House, on Paragon.
And that’s me. Having run out of grandmothers to name me after, they called me after my great-aunt, and she actually came to Paragon to see me soon after I was born. Great-Aunt Adelaide had had quite a career by that time, she had risen through the ranks as one war followed another, had become an officer, and by the time I was born she had her own command. Over the years that followed, she would turn up on Paragon from time to time, when shore leave coincided with her presence in a near enough sector. Grandma Joan, who continued living in Chatsworth with us, was not that fond of Great-Aunt Adelaide, but the house was large enough that the two of them could easily avoid each other except at mealtimes. And mealtimes would then be particularly elaborate, “in honour of your Captain Aunt”, Grandma would say; to annoy our Captain Aunt, in reality, because Great-Aunt Adelaide grew bored over long-protracted meals, and looked at the array of silver and crystal as a nuisance best reserved for dinners at the Admiralty. And occasionally she resorted to recounting particularly involved naval engagements, which necessitated the employment of glasses, spoons and salt cellars to depict the ships involved, and even, horror of horrors, the scattering of bread crumbs from one glass to another to trace the path of missiles.
That was later, of course. I keep conflating memories of events that happened all through my childhood.
– 2210 Horatio Rajeev Mundy-Chakravarthi born at Chatsworth House, on Paragon.
I was three when my little brother was born. I didn’t pay much attention to him, he was a baby, and therefore boring, except when he was being noisy. Mother looked after him, with the assistance of Angie, who had looked after both Hasmita and me when we were babies; and then with the assistance of the rest of the staff, and the A.I. systems.
Little Horatio… Hasmita and I called him The Little Horror when he was beginning to crawl, because he would manage to break whatever he could reach, and he could throw the most monstrous tantrums if anyone attempted to remove whatever object he had grabbed. He continued to prove his destructive talent as he started to walk, and as his dexterity increased, so did his ability to inflict damage to his surroundings. I remember a number of nannies, tutors, and other staff, constantly following him around trying to prevent disasters. I may be exaggerating, merging episodes into a constant stream of events. There’s one person who can contradict me, and he’s not talking to me.