The Pride of Jennico 8

The Pride of Jennico 8

Another girl passed me close by, sobbing aloud, as she returned to her

labour. She rubbed her shoulder sorely, and the tears hopped off the

rim of her fat cheeks, contorted like those of a blubbering child. In

half-ashamed and sneaking fashion, yet unable to resist the urging of

my heart, I followed her behind the next row of vines and touched her

on the arm.

 

She recognised me with a start, and I, all fearful of being noticed by

the others, in haste and without a word—as what word could I find in

which to communicate with a Slovack?—hastily dropped a consolatory

coin, the first that met my touch, into her palm.

 

It was a poor plain creature with dull eyes, coarse lips, and matted

hair, and she gazed at me a moment stupidly bewildered. But the next

instant, reading I know not what of sympathy and benevolence in my

face, as a dog may read in his master’s eyes, she fell at my feet,

letting the gold slip out of her grasp that she might the better seize

my hand in hers and cover it with kisses, pouring forth the while a

litany of gratitude, as unintelligible to me as if she had been indeed

a dog whining at my feet.

 

To put an end to the absurd situation, distasteful to my British

free-born pride for all my foreign training, I pushed her from me and

turned away, to find the lady-in-waiting at my elbow.

 

Instead, however, of making my weakness a mark for her wit, this

latter, to my great relief, and likewise to my astonishment, looked

wistfully from the ugly besmeared face to the coin lying on the black

soil, then at my countenance, which at that moment was, I felt, that of

a detected schoolboy. And then, without a word, she followed me back to

her mistress’s side.

 

My august visitor had not yet regained her wonted serenity. Still

fluttered, she showed me something of a pouting visage. I thought to

discern in her not only satisfaction at the punishment she had seen

administered, but some resentment at my passive attitude. And this, I

confess, surprised me in her, who seemed so gentle and womanly. But I

told myself then that it was but natural in one born as she was to a

throne.

 

On the other hand, while I confounded myself in excuses and

explanations, blaming myself for having (through my inexperience of

this country) neglected to prevent the possibility of so untoward an

incident, I heard behind me the voice of the young Court lady, rating

Schultz in most explicit German for the heaviness of his hand upon my

folk. And, as the Princess gradually became mollified towards me and

showed me once again her own smiling graciousness, I contrasted her

little show of haughtiness with the unreserve of her companion, and

convinced myself that it did but become her (being what she was). The

while I watched Mademoiselle Ottilie, mingling with peasants as if she

had been born among them, with an ever renewed wonder that she should

have been chosen for the high position she occupied.

 

Later on my guest, according to her promise, condescended to rest and

refresh herself in the castle. This was the culminating moment of a

golden afternoon. I felt the full pride of possession when I led her

in through the old halls that bore the mark of so many centuries of

noble masters; although indeed, as a Jennico, I had no inherited right

to peacock in the glories of the House of Tollendhal. But, at each

portrait before which she was gracious enough to halt, I took care to

speak of some notable contemporary among the men and women of my own

old line, in that distant enchanted island of the North, where the men

are so brave and strong and the women so fair. And, without stretching

any point, I am sure the line of Jennico lost nothing in the comparison.

 

She was, I saw, beyond mistake impressed. I rejoiced to note that I

was rapidly becoming a person of importance in her eyes. Even the

lady-in-waiting continued to measure me with an altered and thoughtful

look.

 

Between the eating of our meal together—which, as I said, was quite

a delicate little feast, and did honour to my barefooted kitchen

retinue—and the departure of my visitors, I took them through many

of the chambers, and showed them some of the treasures, quaint

antiquities, and relics that my great-uncle had inherited or himself

collected. On a little table under his picture—yonder on that wall

it hangs before me—I had spread forth in a glass case, with a sort

of tender and pious memory of the rigid old hero, his own personal

decorations and honours, from the first cross he had won in comparative

youth to the last blazing order that a royal hand had pinned over the

shrunken chest of the field-marshal. In this portrait, painted some

five years before his death, my uncle had insisted on appearing full

face, with a fine scorn of any palliation of the black patch or the

broken jaw. It is a grim enough presentment in consequence,—the artist

having evidently rather relished his task,—and sometimes, indeed, when

I am alone here in this great room at night, and it seems as if the

candle-light does but serve to heighten the gloom of the shadows, I

find my uncle’s one eye following me with so living a sternness that I

can scarce endure it.

 

But that day of which I am writing, I thought there was benignity in

the fierce orb as it surveyed such honourable company, and even an

actual touch of geniality in the set of the black patch.

 

As I opened the case, both the ladies fell, women-like, to fingering

the rich jewels. There was a snuff-box set around with diamonds, upon

the lid of which was painted a portrait of the Dauphine. This, Maria

Theresa had herself given to my uncle on the occasion of her daughter’s

marriage, to which it was deemed my uncle’s firm attitude in council

over the Franco-Austrian difficulty had not a little contributed.

 

With a cry of admiration, the Princess took it up. “Ach, what

diamonds!” she said. I looked from the exquisite face on the ivory to

the no less exquisite countenance bending above it, and I was struck by

the resemblance which had no doubt unconsciously been haunting me ever

since I first met her. The arch of the dark eyebrow, the supercilious

droop of the eyelid, the curve of the short upper lip, and the pout of

the full under one, even the high poise of the head on the long throat,

were curiously similar. I exclaimed upon the coincidence, while the

Princess flushed with a sort of mingled pleasure and bashfulness.

 

Mademoiselle Ottilie took up the miniature in her turn, and, after

gravely comparing it with her own elfish, sunburnt visage in the glass,

gazed at her mistress; then, heaving a lugubrious sigh, she assented

to my remarks, adding, however, that there was no ground for surprise,

as the Princess Marie Ottilie was actually cousin to her Royal Highness

the Dauphine.

 

The Princess blushed again, and lifted up her hand as if to warn her

companion. But the latter, with her almost uncanny perspicacity,

continued, turning to me:

 

“Of course, M. de Jennico” (she had at last mastered my name)—“of

course, M. de Jennico has found out all about us by this time, and is

perfectly aware of her Highness’s identity.”

 

Then she added, and her eyes danced:

 

“Since M. de Jennico is so fond of genealogy” (among the curiosities of

the place I had naturally shown them my uncle’s monumental pedigree),

“he can amuse himself in tracing the connection and relationships—no

doubt he has the ’Almanach de Gotha’—between the houses of Hapsburg

and the Catholic house of Lausitz-Rothenburg.”

 

And indeed, although she meant this in sarcasm, when, after I had

escorted them home, I returned, through the mists and shades of

twilight, to my solitude (now peopled for me with delightful present,

and God knows what fantastic future, visions), I did produce that

excellent new book, the “Almanach de Gotha,” and found great interest

in tracing the blood-relation between the Dauphine and the fairest of

princesses. And afterwards, moved by some spirit of vainglory, I amused

myself by comparing on the map the relative sizes of the Duchy of

Lausitz and the lands of Tollendhal.

 

And next I was moved to unroll once again my uncle’s pedigree, and to

study the fine chain of noble links of which I stand the last worthy

Jennico, when something that had been lying unformed in my mind during

these last hours of strange excitement suddenly took audacious and

definite shape.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER V

 

 

WHAT first entered my brain as the wildest possibility grew rapidly

to a desire which possessed my whole being with absolute passion. The

situation was in itself so singular and tantalising, and the Princess

was so beautiful a woman, to be on these terms of delicious intimacy

with the daughter of one of Europe’s sovereigns (a little sovereign it

is true, but great by race and connection), to meet her constantly in

absolute defiance of all the laws of etiquette, yet to see her wear

through it all as unapproachable a dignity, as serene an aspect of

condescension, as though she were presiding at her father’s Court—it

was enough, surely, to have turned the head of a wiser man than myself!

 

It was not long before Mademoiselle Ottilie, the lady-in-waiting,

discovered the secret madness of my thoughts—in the light of what

has since occurred I can truly call it so. And she it was who, for

purposes of her own, shovelled coals on the fire and fanned the flame.

One way or another, generally on her initiative, but always by her

arrangement, we three met, and met daily.

 

On the evening of a day passed in their company, with the impression

strong upon me of the Princess’s farewell look, which had held, I

fancied, something different to its wont; with the knowledge that I

had, unrebuked, pressed and kissed that fair hand after a fashion more

daring than respectful, with my blood in a fever and my brain in a

whirl, now seeming sure of success, now coldly awake to my folly, I