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Pride of Jennico

[201] <h2 class="p4">CHAPTER IV</h2> Narrative of an episode at White’s Club, in which Captain Jennico was concerned, set forth from contemporary accounts The tenth hour of an October night had rung out over a fog-swathed London; yet, despite the time of year, unfashionable for town life, despite the unpropitious weather, the long card-room at White’s was rapidly filling. The tables, each lit by its own set of candles, shone dimly like a little green archipelago in a sea of mist. Groups were gathering round sundry of these boards; the dice had begun to rattle, voices to ring out. The nightly scene was being repeated, wherein all were actors, down to the waiters, who had their private bets, and lost and won with their patrons. Somewhat apart in the seclusion of a window-recess, cosily ensconced so as to profit of the warmth of the great yellow fire, sat three gentlemen. A fourth chair remained vacant at their table; and from the impatient glances which two of the party now and again turned upon the different doors, it was evident that the arrival of its[202] expected occupant was overdue. The third gentleman, who bore the stamp of a distinctly foreign race,—although his hair, which he wore but slightly powdered, was of a fair hue, and his face rather sanguine than dark,—seemed to endure the delay with complete indifference. His attention was wholly given to the shuffling of a pack of cards, which he manipulated with extreme dexterity, while he listened to his companions’ remarks with impassive countenance. He was a handsome man, despite a bulk of frame and feature which almost amounted to coarseness; hardly yet in the prime of life, with full blue eyes and full red lips, which took, when he spoke or smiled, a curious curve, baring the canine in almost sinister fashion. The Chevalier de Ville-Rouge, introduced at White’s by the Prussian Ambassador, as a distinguished officer of the great Frederick visiting England for his pleasure, had shown himself so daring a player as to be welcomed among the most noted gamblers. He had lost and won large sums with great breeding, and had in his six weeks’ stay contrived to improve an imperfect knowledge of an alien tongue in such fashion as to make intercourse with his English companions quite sufficiently easy. The youngest of the trio at the table in the[203] corner, this foggy night, was naturally the one to display his feelings most openly. A clean-faced, square-built English lad, fresh it would seem from the playing fields of school, yet master of his title and fortune, and cornet in the Life Guards, Sir John Beddoes was already a familiar figure in the club, as indeed his finances could bear doleful testimony. The green cuff-guards adjusted over his delicate ruffles, the tablets and pencil ready at his elbow, it was clear he was itching to put another slice of his patrimony to the hazard. His opposite neighbour, Beau Carew (as he dearly loved to hear himself dubbed), was a man of another kidney, and fifteen years of nights, systematically turned into days, had left their stamp upon features once noted for their beauty. Though ready now with a sneer or jest for his companion’s youthful eagerness, his eyes wandering restlessly from the clock to the doors betrayed an almost equal anxiety to begin the business of the evening. “Devil take Jennico!” cried the Baronet at last, striking the table so that the dice leaped in their box; “‘pon my soul it’s too bad! He gave me an appointment here at ten to-night, and it wants now but six minutes to eleven.” “Bet he comes before the clock strikes,” interposed Mr. Carew; “ten guineas?” [204] “Done with you, Dick,” said Sir John promptly. The bet was registered, and five minutes passed in watching the timepiece on the mantel-shelf: all the young Baronet’s eagerness being now against the event he had been burning to hasten. The strokes rang out. With a smile he held out his broad palm, into which Carew duly dropped ten pieces. “‘Tis the first bit of luck the fellow has brought me yet. Gad, I believe my luck has turned! Why the devil don’t he come, that I may ease him of a little of that superfluous wealth of his? I swear he gets more swollen day by day, while we grow lean—eh, Carew?—like the kine in the Bible. D—— him!” “The water goes to the river, as the French say, in spite of all our dams,” sniggered Carew; “but as for me I am content that you should go on playing with Jennico so that I may back him; my purse has not been in such good condition for many a long day. Poor devil! How monstrous unfortunate his amours must still be! I only wish,” with a conscious wriggle, “he could give me the recipe.” “Yet you have lost on him now,” retorted Beddoes, tapping his breast pocket, “and if you back him to-night, you lose on him again, I warn[205] you. I am in the vein, I tell ye! But there is the quarter! Rot him, I believe he is going to rat after all! Bet you he don’t come till half-past, Carew. Fifty?” “Done,” said Carew quietly, noting down the entry. “He is erratic, I grant you—he, he, he!—did you note me, Chevalier? But he has a taste for the table, though I believe he’d as soon lose as win, were it only for the sake of change. ’Tis about all he cares for—the dullest dog! Bet you there is not a man in the room has heard him laugh.” “You won’t find any fool to take up that bet, Carew. Heigh-ho! I’d willingly accommodate myself with a little of his melancholy at the price.” “Better look up a princess for yourself then, Jack,” said Carew; “perhaps the Chevalier here can give you an introduction to some other fascinating German Highness.” “Won’t it do over here?” asked Beddoes, with a grin. “D’ye think I’d have a chance with Augusta? Twenty past! Let him keep away till the half-hour now. Zounds! ’twould be a mean trick if he failed me on my lucky night; though I don’t want him for ten minutes yet. He has fairly cleared me out; the team will have to go next if I don’t get back some of my I O U’s.” [206] “Why, it would be a very good thing for thee, Jack, if he played thee false. I say so though I should lose most damnably by it. Thy team will go, thy coaches will go, thy carts, thy grooms, thy dog, thy cat. Why, man, thou must lose—’tis as plain as the nose on Lady Maria’s face. And he must win, poor wretch, and I too, since I back him. Ask the Chevalier if it is not a text of truth all the world over: lucky at cards, unlucky in love. Never look so sulky, boy; ’tis providential compensation.” “You surprise me, gentlemen,” said the Chevalier, with a strong guttural accent, lifting as he spoke his heavy lids for the first time. “I was not aware that Captain Jennico was so afflicted in his affections.” “You surprise me, Chevalier,” returned Carew gaily. “I deemed you and he such friends. Why, I won a hundred from my Lord Ullswater but yestereven by wagering him that you would be the only man in the room to whom Jennico would speak more than ten words within the hour. The counting was not difficult. He said sixty-four to you and five to Jack.” “Mr. Jennico has certainly shown me both kindness and sympathy,” said the Chevalier, who had now folded his strong white hands over the pack[207] of cards, and sat the very embodiment of repose. “Doubtless our having both served in the same part of the world, though under different standards, has somewhat drawn us together: but he has not made me his confidant.” “And so you don’t know the tale of Jennico and the Princess? ’Tis a dashed fine tale. Carew, you are a wit, or think you are—it comes to much the same thing: tune up, man, give your version; for,” turning to the Chevalier again, “there are now as many versions current as days in the month. ’Tis twenty-five minutes past; you had better get your I O U ready, Master Carew.” “I have three hundred chances yet,” said Carew. Then turning to the foreigner, “Would you really, sir, care to hear the true story of our friend’s discomfiture? I am about the only man in town that knows the true one; but all that’s old scandal now—town talk of last year, as stale as Lady Villiers’s nine virgin daughters. There are a dozen new ones since. Would you not rather hear the last of his Royal Highness the Duke of C. and Lady W.? That is choice if you like, and as fresh as Rosalinda’s last admirer—eh, John?” “I am not fond,” said the Chevalier drily, “of hearing those discussed who, being High Born,[208] have the right to claim respect and homage. But I confess to some interest in my friend Mr. Jennico.” “Begad, then,” responded Mr. Carew, flicking a grain of snuff from the ruffles of his pouting bosom, “I cannot promise to spare your scruples concerning scandal in high quarters, for the heroine of the romance is, it would appear, one of your own German royalties; but since you wish the story, you shall have it. There is then a certain Dorothea Maria Augusta Carolina Sophia, etc., etc., daughter of some Duke of Alsatia, Swabia, Dalmatia—no, stay, Lusatia, wherever that may be; ay, that’s the name—one of your two hundred odd principalities—you know all about it, I don’t—and Jennico, who, as you are aware, was in the Imperial service, met this wondrously beautiful Princess at some Court function somewhere. They danced, they conversed, she was fair and he was fond—fill it in for yourself. He thought himself a tremendous cock of the walk; to be brief, he aspired to act King Cophetua and the beggar maid, turned the other way, with the exception that he is as rich as Crœsus. He made so sure of the lady’s favour that he wrote over to his mother to announce the marriage as a settled thing. A royal alliance, with the prospect of[209] speedily mounting to the throne on the strength of his wife’s pretensions! Ha, ha!” “‘Tis a droll story,” said the Chevalier gravely; “and then?” “Oh, then!—Zounds! you can conceive the flutter in the dovecot over him. My Lady Jennico, his mother, was blown out with pride, swimming in the higher regions, a perfect balloon! Gad, she would no longer bow to any one less than a Duke! She ran hither and thither cackling the news like the hen that has laid an egg. She sent—I was told on the best authority—to the Lord Chamberlain to know what precedence the young couple would be given at the next Birthday. She called at the College of Arms to inquire about the exact marshalling of the coat of Lusatia with that of Jennico. He, he! And whether the resultant monstrosity would comport a royal crown!” “Faith, that’s a good one,” said Sir John, with a guffaw; “I had not heard that, Carew.” “Fact, fact, I assure you,” smiled the wit. “Very droll,” repeated M. de Ville-Rouge, with impassive muscles. “When,” continued Carew, “lo and behold, what a falling off was there, as young Roscius says! What a come down! Humpty-Dumpty was nothing to it—poor Lady Jennico’s egg![210] Ah! well, we all know pride must have a fall. Your fair compatriot, sir, had but amused herself with the fine Englishman, for which I would be loath to blame her. She gave him, it is said, indeed, every pledge of her affection. But when he began to prate of rings and marriage lines, and pressed her to become Mrs. Jennico, she found him a little too presumptuous—at least, I take it so; and being, it would seem, of a merry turn of mind, devised a little joke to play upon him. Pretending to yield at last to his urgency, she gave her consent to a secret marriage, and in the dark chapel palmed off her chambermaid upon him! Ha, ha! So the poor devil, carrying off his bride by night in high glee, thinking himself a very fine fellow indeed, never discovered till he had brought her home that he had given his hand and name to a squinting, sausage-nosed, carroty maid, daughter of the Court confectioner, called in baptism by the Princess’s names, like half the girls in the town. The story goes that the Princess with all the Court were waiting at his house to see the happy pair arrive, and I have had secret, but absolutely incontestable, information that the Princess laughed till she had to be bled.” M. de Ville-Rouge smiled at last in evident appreciation of the humour of the situation. [211] “It is, on my honour, a most comic story,” he said. “But how come you so well acquainted with the matter? Surely my poor friend Jennico has ill-chosen his confidant.” “Devil a word have I heard from Jennico,” said Carew. “Faith, he has ever been the same cheerful, conversational fellow you wot of, and it would take a bold man to question him. But truth, you know, will out—truth will out in time.” “Ay,” said the Chevalier, and was shaken with silent merriment. “Half-past eleven,” roared the Baronet, suddenly, stretching out a great paw and snapping his fingers under the beau’s face. “Zounds!” cried the wit, turning to look at the clock with some discomposure; “no, Jack, no, there is still a fraction of a minute—the half-hour has not struck. And, by Heaven, here’s our man! Had you not better sup with Rosalinda to-night?” Sir John, in the act of looking round pettishly—he had not yet reached that enviable state of mind in which a gambler declares that the greatest delight after winning is that of losing—found his attention unexpectedly arrested by the countenance of the Chevalier de Ville-Rouge, which presented at that moment such an extraordinary appearance that the young man forgot his irritation,[212] and remained gazing at it in open-mouthed astonishment. The features, usually remarkable for their set, rather heavy composure, were perturbed to the verge of distortion. The whole face was stained with angry purple, the veins of the forehead swollen like whipcord. Sir John Beddoes’s wits were none of the sharpest, but it was clear even to him that the emotion thus expressed was one of furious disappointment. But while he cudgelled his brains for an explanation of this sudden humour in a man who was neither winner nor loser by Basil Jennico’s appearance, the face of the Chevalier resumed its wonted indifferent expression and dulness of hue with a rapidity that altogether confounded the observer. By this time the tall figure of the new-comer had wended its way down the room and was close upon them. All turned to greet him, and poor Sir John found his feelings once more subjected to a shock. The acquaintances of Basil Jennico were accustomed to find his brow charged with gloom, to see his cheek wear the pallor of one who sleeps little and thinks much. But in his demeanour to-night was more than the usual sombreness, on his countenance[213] other than natural pallor. As he stood for a moment responding absently to the Chevalier’s hearty greeting, and Carew’s bantering salutation of “All hail!” it became further apparent that his dress was disordered, that his ruffles were torn and blood-stained, that his brocade jacket was jaggedly rent upon the left side, and also ominously stained here and there. “Gadzooks, man!” exclaimed Carew, his bleared grey eyes lighting at the prospect of a new wholesale scandal for his little retail shop. “What has happened thee? Wounded? How? Ah, best not inquire perhaps! Beddoes, lad, see you he has got reasons for his delay. Who knows but that you may have a chance to-night after all. A deadly dig, well aimed under the fifth rib, a true Benedick’s pinking; or shall we say goring?—ahem! Have a care, Jennico, these wounds from horned beasts are reputed ill to heal. Ah, sad dog, sad dog! I will warrant thou hast had the balance nevertheless to thy credit. Now do I remember a little lady was casting very curious looks at you at Almack’s last night.” Basil had flung himself into the chair that had so long awaited him, and seemed to lend but a half-apprehending ear to the prattler on his left, who, as he leant towards him, was hardly able to[214] restrain his eager hand from fingering the hurt so unmistakably evidenced. On the right the Chevalier as unsuccessfully pressed him with earnest queries, manifesting, it would seem, a genuine anxiety. “Great God, my friend! what has happened?” The stentorian tones of Sir John Beddoes, who saw an opportunity of retrieving his fortunes, here broke in hastily upon Carew’s flow of words: “Bet you double or quits it was not Lady Sue,” and aroused Mr. Jennico’s attention. “I should be loath to spoil sport,” he said, “but I advise no one to bet on my bonnes fortunes. This scratch—for it is nothing more, Mr. Carew, and I would show it to you with pleasure in reward for your flattering interest, but the surgeon has just bound it up very neatly, and it would be a pity to disturb his handiwork—is but the sixth of a series of attempts on my life, made within the last six weeks, by persons unknown, for purposes likewise unknown.” “Dash it, Jennico, you might have let me enter the bet,” said the Baronet sulkily, while Carew, sniffing a choicer titbit of gossip than he had expected, wriggled with pleasure, and the Chevalier expressed unbounded amazement that such a state of things could exist, above all in England. [215] “It is even so,” resumed Basil, turning to the last speaker as if glad to give vent to some of his pent-up irritation. “I confess that when I returned to my native land I did expect to find at least a quiet life. Why, in my house at Tollendhal, where those who surrounded me were half savages, ruled by the stick and the halter, where it was deemed imprudent for the master to walk the roads without his body-guard, there was never so much as a stone thrown after me. But here, in old England, my life, I believe, would not be worth backing for a week.” He looked round with a smile in which melancholy and disdain were blended. “Now, d—— me!” cried Sir John, struck in his easy good nature into sudden warmth and sympathy, “nay, now d—— me, Jennico! I will take any man a hundred guineas that you are alive this day month.” “Done!” said the Chevalier, with such unexpected energy that all three turned round to look at him with surprise; perceiving which he went on, laughing to conceal an evident embarrassment: “Your betting habits here are infectious, but while I will not withdraw, I am prepared to be glad to lose rather than gain for once.” He fixed Basil across the table with his brooding eye[216] as he spoke, and bowed to him, then turned to the Baronet. “No, Sir Beddoes, I am not going to recede from the wager.” This, as a wager worth recording, was forthwith entered into the club book. Basil looked on, half in amusement, half in bitterness. “‘Tis likely, after all,” he said, addressing Sir John, “that you may win and that the Chevalier may be afforded the pleasure of losing, for I seem to bear a charmed life. Perhaps,” he added with a sigh, “because I care so little for it. Though to be sure there is something galling to a man in being shot at from behind a hedge and set on in the dark; in not knowing where the murderer may be lying in wait for him, at what street corner, at what turn of the road, behind what hayrick. If I have not kept my appointment over punctually to-night, it is because a rogue has had me by the Park gateway in Piccadilly. There is more here than mere accidental villainy. The next will be that I shall see murder in my own servant’s eyes. Or, who knows, find it lying at the bottom of my cup. Pah! I am as bold as most men; I would welcome death more readily than most; but, by Heaven! it is unfair treatment, and I have had more than my share of it.” “Why, Jennico,” said Carew, “you never spoke[217] a word of this before. A fellow has no right to keep such doings dark. Tell us the details.” “Ay, tell us all about it,” said Sir John, with round eyes ready to start from their orbits. “True,” said Basil, “you have now an interest, Jack, in knowing what sort of odds are against you. Well, you shall learn all you wish; but let us to supper, gentlemen, meanwhile, that we may lose no further time and start better fortified upon the evening’s business, if Beddoes is still anxious for his revenge.” <hr class="chap" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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