The Pride of Jennico 1

The Pride of Jennico 1

The Pride of Jennico

Being a Memoir of Captain Basil Jennico

 

CONTENTS

 

PART I

 

Page

 

CHAPTER I. MEMOIR OF CAPTAIN BASIL JENNICO (BEGUN,

APPARENTLY IN GREAT TROUBLE AND STRESS OF

MIND, AT THE CASTLE OF TOLLENDHAL, IN MORAVIA,

ON THE THIRD DAY OF THE GREAT STORM, LATE IN

THE YEAR 1771) 1

 

CHAPTER II. BASIL JENNICO’S MEMOIR CONTINUED 23

 

CHAPTER III. 45

 

CHAPTER IV. 59

 

CHAPTER V. 72

 

CHAPTER VI. 90

 

CHAPTER VII. 101

 

CHAPTER VIII. 113

 

CHAPTER IX. 124

 

 

PART II

 

CHAPTER I. MEMOIR OF CAPTAIN BASIL JENNICO (A PORTION,

WRITTEN EARLY IN THE YEAR 1772, IN HIS ROOMS

AT GRIFFIN’S, CUR ZON STREET) 143

 

CHAPTER II. CAPTAIN BASIL JENNICO’S MEMOIR CONTINUED 173

 

CHAPTER III. CAPTAIN BASIL JENNICO’S MEMOIR, RESUMED THREE

MONTHS LATER, AT FARRINGDON DANE 183

 

CHAPTER IV. NARRATIVE OF AN EPISODE AT WHITE’S CLUB, IN

WHICH CAPTAIN JENNICO WAS CONCERNED, SET FORTH

FROM CONTEMPORARY ACCOUNTS 201

 

CHAPTER V. NARRATIVE OF AN EPISODE AT WHITE’S CONTINUED 218

 

 

PART III

 

CHAPTER I. MEMOIR OF CAPTAIN BASIL JENNICO

(RESUMED IN THE SPRING OF THE YEAR 1773) 230

 

CHAPTER II. 252

 

CHAPTER III. 266

 

CHAPTER IV. 287

 

CHAPTER V. 306

 

CHAPTER VI. 319

 

CHAPTER VII. 332

 

 

 

 

THE PRIDE OF JENNICO

 

 

 

 

PART I

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER I

 

MEMOIR OF CAPTAIN BASIL JENNICO (BEGUN, APPARENTLY IN GREAT TROUBLE

AND STRESS OF MIND, AT THE CASTLE OF TOLLENDHAL, IN MORAVIA, ON THE

THIRD DAY OF THE GREAT STORM, LATE IN THE YEAR 1771)

 

 

AS the wind rattles the casements with impotent clutch, howls down

the stair-turret with the voice of a despairing soul, creeps in long

irregular waves between the tapestries and the granite walls of my

chamber and wantons with the flames of logs and candles; knowing, as I

do, that outside the snow is driven relentlessly by the gale, and that

I can hope for no relief from the company of my wretched self,—for

they who have learnt the temper of these wild mountain winds tell me

the storm must last at least three days more in its fury,—I have

bethought me, to keep from going melancholy crazed altogether, to set

me some regular task to do.

 

And what can more fitly occupy my poor mind than the setting forth,

as clearly as may be, the divers events that have brought me to this

strange plight in this strange place? although, I fear me, it may not

in the end be over-clear, for in sooth I cannot even yet see a way

through the confusion of my thoughts. Nay, I could at times howl in

unison with yonder dismal wind for mad regret; and at times again rage

and hiss and break myself, like the fitful gale, against the walls of

this desolate house for anger at my fate and my folly!

 

But since I can no more keep my thoughts from wandering to her and

wondering upon her than I can keep my hot blood from running—running

with such swiftness that here, alone in the wide vaulted room, with

blasts from the four corners of the earth playing a very demon’s dance

around me, I am yet all of a fever heat—I will try whether, by laying

bare to myself all I know of her and of myself, all I surmise and guess

of the parts we acted towards each other in this business, I may not

at least come to some understanding, some decision, concerning the

manner in which, as a man, I should comport myself in my most singular

position.

 

Having reached thus far in his writing, the scribe after shaking the

golden dust of the pounce box over his page paused, musing for a

moment, loosening with unconscious fingers the collar of his coat from

his neck and gazing with wide grey eyes at the dancing flames of the

logs, and the little clouds of ash that ever and anon burst from the

hearth with a spirt when particles of driven snow found their way down

the chimney. Presently the pen resumed its travels:

 

* * * * *

 

Everything began, of course, through my great-uncle Jennico’s

legacy. Do I regret it? I have sometimes cursed it. Nevertheless,

although tossed between conflicting regrets and yearnings, I cannot

in conscience wish it had not come to pass. Let me be frank. Bitter

and troubling is my lot in the midst of my lonely splendour; but

through the mist which seems in my memory to separate the old life

from the new, those days of yesteryear (for all their carelessness

and fancy-freedom) seem now strangely dull. Yes, it is almost a year

already that it came, this legacy, by which a young Englishman, serving

in his Royal and Imperial Majesty’s Chevau-Legers, was suddenly

transformed, from an obscure Rittmeister with little more worldly goods

than his pay, into one of the richest landowners in the broad Empire,

the master of an historic castle on the Bohemian Marches.

 

It was indeed an odd turn of fortune’s wheel. But doubtless there is a

predestination in such things, unknown to man.

 

My great-uncle had always taken a peculiar interest in me. Some fifty

years before my birth, precluded by the religion of our family from

any hope of advancement in the army of our own country, he had himself

entered the Imperial service; and when I had reached the age of

manhood, he insisted on my being sent to him in Vienna to enter upon

the same career. To him I owe my rapid promotion after the Turkish

campaign of 1769. But I question, for all his influence at Court,

whether I should have benefited otherwise than through his advice and

interest, had it not been for an unforeseen series of moves on the part

of my elder brother at home.

 

One fine day it was announced to us that this latter had been offered

and had accepted a barony in the peerage of Great Britain. At first

it did not transpire upon what grounds a Catholic gentleman should

be so honoured, and we were obliged, my uncle and I, to content

ourselves with the impossible explanation that “Dear Edmund’s value

and abilities and the great services he had rendered by his exertions

in the last Suffolk Elections had been brought to the notice of his

Majesty, who was thus graciously pleased to show his appreciation of

the same.”

 

Our good mother (who would not be the true woman she is did she not set

a value on the honours of this world), my excellent brother, and, of

course, his ambitious lady, all agreed that it was a mighty fine thing

for Sir Edmund Jennico to become My Lord Rainswick, and they sent us

many grandiloquent missives to that effect.

 

But with my great-uncle things were vastly different. To all appearance

he had grown, during the course of his sixty odd years in the Imperial

service, into a complete unmitigated foreigner, who spoke English like

a German, if, indeed, the extraordinary jargon he used (under the

impression that it was his mother tongue) could be so called. As a

matter of fact it would have been difficult to say what tongue was my

great-uncle’s own. It was not English nor French—not even the French

of German courts—nor true German, but the oddest compound of all

three, with a strong peppering of Slovack or Hungarian according as the

country in which he served suggested the adjunction. A very persuasive

compound it proved, however, when he took up his commanding voice,

poor man! But, foreigner as he was, covered as his broad chest might be

with foreign orders, freely as he had spent his life’s energy in the

pay of a foreign monarch, my great-uncle Jennico had too much English

pride of race, too much of the old Jennico blood (despite this same had