The Black Patch. Fergus Hume

grange; and his only sister, confessing to the biblical name of Dinah, was the decidedly plain girl who had just whispered to Beatrice how she had become engaged, on the previous day, to Gerald Snow. That Gerald was the son of a somewhat needy vicar, and possessed an objectionable mother, made no difference to Dinah, who was very much in love and very voluble on the subject.

      "Of course," resumed Miss Paslow, after a pause in the conversation, "I and Jerry will be horribly poor. Vivian has no money and I have less. Mr. Snow the vicar has only a fifth-rate living, and Mrs. Snow is a screw like your father."

      "Dinah!" Beatrice winced and coloured at these plain words.

      "Well, Mr. Alpenny is a screw, and only your stepfather after all. As to Mrs. Snow--oh, my gracious"--with expressive pantomime--"I'm glad Jerry and I won't have to depend upon her for food. Whenever the poor famished darling comes to Convent Grange, I simply rush to make him a glass of egg and milk in case he tumbles off his chair."

      "That may be emotion, caused by the sight of you Dinah."

      "How nasty, how untrue! No! I did the tumbling when he proposed yesterday. He proposed so beautifully that I think he must have been reading up. I was in the parlour and Jerry came in. He looked at me like that, and I looked at him in this way, and afterwards----" Here Dinah, who was at the silly boring stage of love, told the wonderful story for the fifth time, ending with the original remark that for quite three hours after Jerry left her, Jerry's kisses were warm on her maiden lips.

      "Why didn't you bring Mr. Snow in, Dinah?" asked Beatrice, who had listened most patiently to these rhapsodies.

      "Oh, my dear!" fanning a red and freckled face with a flimsy handkerchief, "he's much better in the lane, minding the horses. You see he will make me blush with his looks and smiles and hand-squeezings, when he thinks that no one is looking--which they usually are," finished Miss Paslow ungrammatically.

      "And you came over to tell me. That is sweet of you."

      "Well, I did and I didn't, dear, to be perfectly candid. You see, Jerry and I were going for a ride this morning, just to see if we entirely understood how serious marriage is; but Vivian is such a prig----"

      "He isn't!" contradicted Beatrice indignantly.

      "Oh yes, he is," insisted Dinah obstinately; "he doesn't think it quite the thing that I and Jerry should be too much alone--as though we could make love in company! He wouldn't like it himself, though he did insist on my coming here with him, and rode in the middle, so as to part Jerry and me. So poor, dear, darling Jerry is holding the horses in the lane, while Vivian is doing business with your father in there," and Miss Paslow pointed a gloved finger at a distant railway carriage, which was so bolted and barred and locked and clamped that it looked like a small dungeon.

      A grave expression appeared on the face of Beatrice. "Do you know what kind of business Mr. Paslow is seeing my father about?"

      "Oh, my dear, as though your father--which he isn't--ever did any sort of business save lend money to people who haven't got any, as I'm sure we Paslows haven't. We've got birth and blood and a genuine Grange with a ghost, and Vivian has good looks even if I haven't, in spite of Jerry's nonsense; but there isn't a sixpence between us. How Mrs. Lilly manages to feed us, I really don't know, unless she steals the food. Our ancestors had the Paslow money and spent it, the mean pigs!--just as though our days weren't more expensive than their days, with their feathers and lace and port wine."

      "Then Mr. Paslow is borrowing money?" remarked Beatrice, when she could get in a word, which was not easy.

      "Mr. Paslow!--how cold you are, Beatrice, when you know Vivian worships the ground you tread on, though he doesn't say much. Borrowing money, do you say? I expect he is, although he never tells me his business. So different to Jerry, who lets me know every time he has a rise in his salary on the Morning Planet, which isn't often. I think the editor must be a kind of Mrs. Snow, and she--well----" Dinah again expressed herself in pantomime.

      It was quite useless speaking to Miss Paslow, who was only nineteen and a feather-head. Besides, she was too deeply in love to bother about commonplace things. Beatrice felt nervous to hear that Vivian contemplated borrowing money, as she knew how dangerous it was for anyone to become entangled in the nets of her stepfather. She would have liked to question Dinah still further, but thinking she would get little information from so lovelorn a damsel, it occurred to her that Jerry Snow should be brought on the scene. Then the lovers could chatter nonsense, and Beatrice could think her own thoughts, which were greatly concerned with Mr. Alpenny's client. The means of obliging Dinah and gaining time for reflection suggested themselves, when a bulky man showed himself at the door of the carriage which served as a kitchen. He wore, as he invariably did, summer and winter, a suit of white linen, and on this occasion an apron, to keep the steaming saucepan he held from soiling his clothes.

      "There's Durban," said Beatrice, rising and crossing over; "he can hold the horses and Mr. Snow can come in."

      Dinah gave a faint squeal of delight, and shook the dust from her shabby riding-habit while Beatrice explained what she wanted.

      Durban was of no great height, and so extremely stout that he looked even less than he really was. His lips were somewhat thick, his nose was a trifle flat, and his hair had that frizzy kink which betrays black blood. Even a casual observer could have told that Durban had a considerable touch of the tar-brush--was a mulatto, or perhaps one remove from a mulatto. Apparently he possessed the inherent good-humour of the negro, for while listening to his young mistress he smiled expansively, and displayed a set of very strong white teeth. Nor was he young, for his hair was touched at the temples with grey, and his body was stout with that stoutness which comes late in life from a good digestion and an easy conscience. He aped youth, however, for he carried himself very erect, and walked--as he now did to the gate--in an alert and springy manner surprising in one who could not be less than fifty years of age. It seemed remarkable that so kindly a creature as the half-caste should serve a sour-faced old usurer; but, in truth, Beatrice was his goddess, and her presence alone reconciled him to an ill-paid post where he was overworked, and received more kicks than halfpence. He would have died willingly for the girl, and showed his devotion even in trifles.

      Before returning to Dinah, whose eyes were fixed in an hypnotic way on the gate through which her beloved would shortly pass, Beatrice cast an anxious glance at the dungeon which did duty as Mr. Alpenny's counting-house. The girl had never been within, as Jarvis was not agreeable that she should enter his Bluebeard chamber. For the rest he allowed her considerable freedom, and she could indulge in any fancy so long as the fancy was cheap. But she was forbidden to set foot in Mammon's shrine, and whether the priest was without, or within, the door was kept locked. It was locked now, and Vivian Paslow was closeted with the usurer, doubtless handing over to Alpenny the few acres that remained to him for a sum of money at exorbitant interest. That the man she loved should be a fly in the parlour of the money-lending spider annoyed Beatrice not a little. Her attention was distracted by another squeal from Dinah, whose emotions were apt to be noisy.

      "Jerry! oh Jerry!" sighed the damsel, clasping her hands, and in came Mr. Snow, walking swiftly across the grass, apparently as frantic for Dinah as Dinah was for him. At the moment neither lunatic took notice of the amused hostess.

      "My Dinah! my own!" gasped Jerry, devouring his Dulcinea with two ardent eyes, the light of which was hidden by pince-nez.

      Jerry assuredly was no beauty, save that his proportions were good, and he dressed very smartly. He possessed a brown skin which matched well with brown hair and moustache, and had about him the freshness of twenty-two years, which is so charming and lasts so short a time. Dinah with her freckles, her drab hair, and nose "tip-tilted like the petal of a flower"--to mercifully quote Tennyson--suited him very well in looks. And then love made both of them look quite interesting, although not even the all-transforming passion could render them anything but homely. Beside the engaged damsel, Beatrice, tall, slender, dark-locked and dark-eyed, looked like a goddess, but Jerry the devoted had no eye for her while Dinah was present. Had he been Paris, Miss Paslow decidedly would have been awarded the apple. Not having one, he stared at Dinah and she at him as though they were meeting for