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THE PRIDE OF JENNICO


[Illustration: logo]


THE PRIDE OF JENNICO

Being a Memoir of Captain Basil Jennico

by

AGNES AND EGERTON CASTLE







New York
The Macmillan Company
London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd.
1899

All rights reserved

Copyright, 1897, 1898,
By The Macmillan Company.

Set up and electrotyped February, 1898. Reprinted February, April, June
three times, July, September, October, December, twice, 1898.

Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing & Co.—Berwick & Smith
Norwood, Mass. U.S.A.




                               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