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Pride of Jennico

[183] <h2 class="p4">CHAPTER III</h2> Captain Basil Jennico’s Memoir, resumed three months later, at Farringdon Dane Suffolk, 14th April, 1772. I had thought upon that day when, in my ill temper, I irreparably insulted my wife, that I could never bring myself to face the exposure which a return to England would necessarily bring about. But when I found the desolation and the haunting memories of Tollendhal like to rob me of all I had left of reason and manliness; when, to my restless spirit, the thought of home seemed to promise some chance of diversion and relief, I did not hesitate. Without delay I set to work to put matters at Tollendhal upon a sufficiently regular scale, also to have realised and transferred to my London bankers a sum of money large enough to meet any reasonable demand. This business accomplished, in less than a month from the date of the ill-fated Rothenburg expedition I found myself breathing my native air again. Before my departure I charged Schultz—and I[184] know I can rely upon his faithfulness—to be perpetually on the look-out for any communication from Lausitz, and to be ready to give any one immediate cognisance of my whereabouts. It is a forlorn hope. Although the humour had come upon me to go back to my own land—after the fashion, I fancy, that a sick man deems he will be better anywhere than where he is—and although I did not hesitate to gratify that humour, I was, nevertheless, not blind to the peculiar position I must occupy among my people. I had no desire to lay claim to the honours I had so prematurely announced, no desire to present myself under false colours, even were such an imposture likely to succeed; but neither did I see why I should lay bare to the jeers of the fashionable world, to the sneers of dear relatives and friends, or, more intolerable still, to their compassion, the whole pitiful plot of that comedy which has turned to such tragedy for me. So, when I wrote to my mother to announce my arrival, I adopted a purposely evasive tone. “It is deeply unfortunate,” I wrote, “that you should have broken the bond of secrecy which I enjoined upon you when I informed you of my intended marriage. You know too much of the world, my dear mother, not to understand that when a commoner like myself, however well born and dowered,[185] would contract an alliance with the heiress of a reigning house, it is more than likely that there may be a ’slip ’twixt the cup and the lip.’ My cup has been spilt. I come home, a broken-hearted man, to find myself, I fear, owing to your breach of confidence, the laughing-stock of our society. But the yearning for home is too strong upon me to be resisted; I am returning to England at once. If you would not add yet more to the bitterness of my lot you will strenuously deny the report you indiscreetly spread, and warn curiosity-mongers from daring to probe a wound which I could not bear even your hand to touch.” These words, by which I intended to spare myself at least the humiliation of personal explanation, have produced an unexpected effect. My poor mother performed her task so well that I find myself quite as much the hero of the hour over here as if I had brought back my exalted bride. The mystery in which I am shrouded, the obvious melancholy of my demeanour, the very indifference with which I receive all notice, added, of course, to my wealth, and possibly to the belief that I am still a prize in the matrimonial market, my extraordinary luck at cards, when I can be induced to play, my carelessness to loss or gain—all this has placed me upon a pinnacle which is as gratifying to my mother as (or, so I hear, for I have declined all reconciliation with the renegade) it is galling to my brother and his family. [186] But the best yet, so far as I am concerned, is that no one has dared to put to me an indiscreet question, and that even my mother, although her wistful eyes implore my confidence, respects my silence. Now, having tried in vain to find a solace in the pleasures of town, I have betaken myself to that part of the island which is the cradle of our race, to try whether a taste of good old English sport may not revive some interest in my life. Often in that last month at Tollendhal, when the whole land was locked in ice and the grey sky looked down pitilessly upon the white earth, day by day, with never a change and scarcely a shadow, I thought of the green winters of my youth in the old country; of rousing gallops, with the west wind in my face, across wide fields all verdant still and homely; of honest English faces, English voices, the tongue of the hounds, the blast of the cracked horn, with almost a passion of desire. It seemed to me that, if I could be back in the midst of it all again, I might feel as the boy Basil had felt, and be rid, were it but for the space of a good cross-country run, of that present Basil Jennico whose brain was so weary of working upon the same useless round, whose heart was so sore within him. [187] So soon therefore as the weather broke—for the winter has been hard even in this milder climate—I accepted my mother’s offer of her dower-house, set up a goodly stable of hunters, and established myself at the Manor of Farringdon Dane. I have actually derived some satisfaction from a couple of days’ sport, to which a sight of my lord brother’s discomfiture, each time I cut him deliberately in the face of the whole field, has added perhaps a grain. April 29th. I am this day like the man in the Gospel who, having driven out the devil from his heart and swept and garnished it, finds himself presently possessed of seven devils worse than the first! The demon of wrath I had exorcised, I believed, long ago; the fiend of unrest and longing I had thought these days to have laid too. In spite of her too obdurate resentment, I had no feeling for my wife, wherever she might be, but tenderness. Now, oh, Ottilie, Ottilie! do I most hate thee or love thee? I know not, by my soul! Yet this at least I do know: mine thou art, and mine thou shalt remain, though we never meet again on earth: mine, as I am thine, though the true, good race of Jennico wither and die on my barren stock. [188] But what serves it to rant in this fashion to myself when I have not even the satisfaction of hearing a contradiction—not even an excuse to shake my fury? Small satisfaction likewise has that puling, mincing messenger to carry back to you, my wife. Poor old man! I am fain to laugh even in my anger when I recall his panic-stricken countenance of an hour ago. The hounds were to meet at ten this morning at Sir Percy Spalding’s, not three miles from here, and so I was taking the day easy. I had but just finished breakfast, and was standing on the steps of the porch quaffing a draught of ale, as I awaited my horse, sniffing the while the moist southern wind; and my thoughts for once were pleasantly occupied—for once the gnawing canker was at rest within me. Presently my attention was awakened by the rumbling sound of wheels; and, looking towards the avenue, yet so sparsely be-leaved as to afford a clear view down its whole length, I saw coming along it, at slow pace, a heavy vehicle, which in time disclosed itself as a shabby, hired travelling chaise, drawn by an ancient horse, and driven by that drunken scoundrel Bateman from Yarmouth, once a familiar figure to my childish eyes. My heart leaped. I expected no one—my mother was at Cheltenham for the waters—no[189] one, save, indeed, her whom I ever unconsciously await! It was perhaps the unreasonable disappointment that fell upon me, when, gazing eagerly for a glimpse of the occupant, as the carriage lumbered through the inner gate, I saw that it contained but the single figure of an old man (huddled, despite the spring warmth of the day, in furs to the very chin) that turned me into so bitter and black a temper. Even as the chaise drove up before the steps, and as I stood staring down at it, motionless, although within me there was turmoil enough, the fellows came round with my horses. Bess, the Irish mare, took umbrage at the little grotesque figure that, with an alertness one would scarcely have given it credit for, skipped from the chaise, looking more like one of those images I have seen on Saxon clocks than anything human. How she plunged and how the fool that held her stared, and how I cursed him for not minding his business—it was a vast relief to my feelings—and how the old gentleman regarded us as one newly come among savages, and how he finally advanced upon me mincing—I laugh again to think back upon it! But I had no mind to laughter then. ’Twas plain, before he opened his mouth to speak, that my[190] visitor hailed from foreign parts. And at closer acquaintance the reason why, even from a distance, he had appeared to me as something less than human, became evident. His countenance was shrivelled and seared by recent smallpox; scarred in a manner perfectly fantastic to behold. That curse of my life, that persistent hope—I believe I could get along well enough, but ’tis the hope that kills me—began to stir within me. “Have I the honour of speaking to Captain Basil de Jennico?” said the puppet in French; and before the question was well out of his mouth, I had capped it with another, breathless: “Come you not from Rothenburg?” He bowed and scraped: each saw he had his answer. I was all civility now, Heaven help me! and cordial enough to make up for a more discourteous reception. I ordered my horses back to the stables, dismissed the chaise, in spite of the newcomer’s protestations, and led him within the house, calling for refreshments for him; all the while a thousand questions, to which I yet dreaded the answers, burning on my tongue. I had installed him in the deepest armchair in the apartment I habitually used; I had kindled a fire with my own hands, for he was shivering[191] in his furs, whether from fear, embarrassment, or cold, I know not—maybe all three together; I had placed a glass of wine at his elbow, which he sipped nervously when I pressed him; and then, when I knew that I should hear what had brought him, from very cowardliness I was mute. It seemed to me as if my courtesies embarrassed him, and that this augured ill, although (I reasoned with myself) if she should send me a messenger at all, I ought to anticipate good tidings. “I am fortunate, sir,” began the old man in quavering tones, “to find you at home. Sir, I have come a long way to seek you. I went first to your castle at Tollendhal, where your steward, a countryman of my own, to whose politeness I am much indebted, gave me very careful instructions as to the road to your English domicile. A most worthy and amiable person! I should not so soon have had the advantage of making your acquaintance had it not been for the help he gave me. I have come by Yarmouth, sir: the wind was all in our favour. I am informed we had a good passage.” Here he shivered, and a yet greener shade underspread the scars upon his brow. “But I am not accustomed to the sea, and I have been ill, sir, lately, very ill.” He coughed awkwardly, reached out his trembling[192] hand for the wine, but put down the glass again untasted. “Surely I am right in believing,” said I, “that you come from some one very dear to me—from one from whom I am parted by a series of unfortunate misunderstandings?” I felt my lips grow cold as I spoke, and I know that I panted. “If you have a letter,” said I, “give it to me.” I reached out my hand, and saw, with a strange sort of self-pity, that it shook no less than had the old man’s withered claw. “Or if you have a message,” cried I, breaking out at last, “speak, for God’s sake!” He drew back from my impetuosity. There was fear of me in his eye; at the same time, I thought, with a chill about my heart, compassion. “My good sir,” he said, between “hums” and “ha’s” which well-nigh drove me distracted, “I believe I may say—in fact, I will venture to assert that I have come from the—ahem, ahem!—young lady I apprehend you speak of. I have been made aware of the—ah, hum!—unfortunate circumstances. The young lady——.” Here he hitched himself up in his chair and began to fumble in the skirts of his floating coat. Between his furs and his feebleness this was a sufficiently lengthy operation to give time for my hopes to kindle[193] stronger again and my small stock of patience to fail. “You are doubtless prepared to hear,” he went on at length, “that the young lady, being now fully alive to the consequence of her—her—ill-considered conduct—a girlish freak, sir, a child’s, I may say!—believes that she will be meeting your wishes, nay, your express desire, by joining with you in an application to his Holiness for the immediate annulment of so irregular a marriage.” “What?” cried I with a roar, leaping from my chair. So occupied had I been in watching the movements of his hands as he fingered a great pocket-book, expecting him every instant to produce a letter from her to me, that I had scarce heeded the drift of his babble till the last words struck upon my ear. “Annul our marriage!” I thundered, “at my desire! In the devil’s name, who are you, and whence come you, for it could not be my wife who has sent you with such a message to me?” The little man had jumped, too, at my violence—like a grasshopper. But my question evidently touched his pride in a sensitive quarter, and roused him to a sense of offence in which he forgot his tremors. “Truly, sir, truly, you remind me,” he said[194] tartly. “If you will have but a little patience, I was in the very act of seeking my credentials when you so—ahem!—impetuously interrupted me.” As he spoke, with a skip and a bow, which recalled I know not what vague memory of a bygone merry hour, he drew forth a folded sheet, and, unfolding it, presented it to me. I knew the handwriting too well to doubt its authenticity. How often had I conned and kissed the few poor lines she had ever written to me; ay, although they had been penned in her assumed character! “To M. de Jennico— “I empower M. de Schreckendorf to act for me in the affair M. de Jennico wots of, and I agree beforehand to all his arrangements.” (Thereto the signature.) Not a word more; not a word of regret, even of anger! The same implacable, unbending resentment. I stood staring at the lines, reading them and re-reading them, and each letter seemed to print itself like fire upon my soul. I heard, as in a dream, my visitor pour forth further explanations, still in that tone of injury my roughness had evoked. [195] “I am myself, sir, a friend. Yes, I may say a friend, an old friend, of the young lady. Her parents—ahem!—have always reposed confidence in me. I, sir, am M. de Schreckendorf. The very fact, I should think, of my being in possession of this letter, of this document”—here there was a great rattling of stiff parchment—“will assure you, I should hope, of my identity. Nevertheless, if you wish further proof, I have a letter to our ambassador in London, and I am willing to accompany you to his house, or meet you there at your convenience. Indeed, it would perhaps be more proper and correct, in every way, that the whole matter should be settled and the documents duly attested at the residence of the accredited representative of Lusatia. I will not disguise to you that his Serene Highness, the Duke himself, takes—takes an interest in the lady, and is desirous of having this business, which so nearly affects the welfare and credit of a well-known member of his Court, settled in the promptest and most efficacious manner. A sad escapade, you must admit yourself!” And all the while my heart was crying out within me in an agony, “Oh, Ottilie, how could you, how could you? Was the memory of those days nothing to you? Is the knowledge of my[196] love and sorrow nothing to you? Are you a woman, and have you no forgiveness?” Taking perhaps my silence for acquiescence (for this messenger of my wife, albeit entrusted with so delicate a mission, was no shrewd diplomatist), M. de Schreckendorf here spread out with an agreeable flourish an amazing-looking Latin document with rubrics ready filled up, it seemed, but for certain spaces left blank, for the names, I suppose, of the appealing parties. “I have been led to understand,” pursued he then in tones of greatly increased confidence, “that you entirely concur in the lady’s desire for the annulment of this contestable union, the actual legality of which, indeed, is too doubtful to be worth discussing. From the religious point of view, however, one of chief importance to my young friend (I think I may call her so), the matter is otherwise serious, for there was, no doubt, a sacrament administered by a priest, duly ordained, but unfortunately, through old age and natural infirmity, wanting in due prudence, and further misled as to the identity of one of the contracting persons. A sacrament, sir, there undoubtedly was; but I am glad to inform you that special leading divines have been already approached upon the subject, and they give good[197] hope, sir, good hope, that a properly drawn up petition, supported by the signatures of the two persons concerned, will meet at Rome with most favourable consideration. The ecclesiastical part of the difficulty once settled, the legal one goes of itself.” I was gradually becoming attentive to the run of his glib speech. I hardly know now how I contained myself so far, but I kept a rigid silence, and for yet another minute or two gave him all my ear. “Such being the case,” he continued, “I need hardly trouble you to disturb yourself by journeying all the way to London. We need proceed no farther than Yarmouth, indeed, and there in the presence of two competent witnesses—I would suggest a priest of our religion and some neighbouring gentleman of substance—all you will have to do is just to sign this document. I repeat, I understand that you are naturally anxious likewise to be delivered from a marriage in which you have considered yourself aggrieved: and not unnaturally.” Here the little monster threw a sly look at me, and added: “You were made the victim of a little deception, eh? Then in the course of a few months—Rome is always slow, you know—you will both be as free as air! With no more loss to[198] either of you than the loss of—ahem!—a little inexperience.” As free as air! Ottilie as free as air! Then it was that the violence of my wrath overflowed. That moment is a blank to my memory. I only know that I heard the sound of my own voice ringing with shattering violence in the room, and I came to myself again to find that, with a strength my fury alone could have lent, I was shredding the tough parchment between my fingers, so that the ground was strewn with its rags. What most restored me to something like composure was the abject terror of the unlucky messenger, who, huddled away from me in a corner of the room, was peeping round a chair at me, much as you might see a monkey caught in mischief. His teeth were chattering! Good anger was wasted on so miserable an object, and indeed the feelings that swayed me had had roots in ground such as he could never tread upon. “Come out, M. de Schreckendorf,” I said, with a calmness which surprised myself—but there are times when a man’s courage rises with the very magnitude of a calamity—“you have nothing to fear from me. You will want an answer to carry back to her that sent you. Take her this.” I stooped as I spoke, and gathered together the[199] shreds of the document, folded them in a great sheet of paper, and tied it with ribbon into a neat parcel. “Not a word,” I went on; “I will hear no more! When you have rested and partaken of refreshment, one of my carriages will be at your disposal for whatever point you may desire to reach to-day. Stay, you will want some evidence to show that you have fulfilled your embassy.” Sitting down to my writing-table, I hastily addressed the packet to “Madame Basil de Jennico,” adding thereafter her distinctive title as maid of honour. This done, I sealed it with my great seal, M. de Schreckendorf meanwhile uttering uncouth little groans. “Here, sir,” said I, holding out the packet with its bold inscription, “they will no longer, it is evident, deny the existence at the Court of Lusatia of the person I have here addressed. Here, sir. Take this to my wife, and tell her that her husband has more respect than she has for the holy sacrament he received with her. Here, sir!” At every “Here, sir,” I advanced a step upon him, holding out the bundle, and at every step I took he retreated, till impatiently I flung it on the table nearest him, and making him a low ironical bow of farewell, turned to leave him. I paused a moment on the threshold of the[200] room, however, and had the satisfaction of seeing him, after throwing his hands heavenwards, as if in despairing protest, bring them down again on the packet and proceed to stuff it into the recesses of his coat. I turned once more to go, when to my surprise he called after me in tones unexpectedly stern and loud: “Young man, young man, this is a grave mistake; have a care!” I shrugged my shoulders and slammed the door upon his warning cry. Nor, though he subsequently sent twice by my servants—first to demand, then to supplicate, a further interview—would I consent to parley with him again. I passed a couple of restless hours, until, at length, from an upper window I saw him depart from my house in far greater state and comfort than he had come. Now, as I write, I know that he is being whirled along the Yarmouth road at the best pace of my fine horses, speeding back to Lausitz to take my wife my eloquent answer. <hr class="chap" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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