The Black Patch. Fergus Hume

Durban resumed work, Beatrice received a surprise which rather pleased her. This was none other than an invitation to enter the counting-house. She had always desired to do so, being filled with that curiosity which led her grandmother Eve to eat apples, but hitherto Alpenny had declined to admit her. Now the door of the dungeon was open, and Alpenny, standing before it, beckoned that she should come in. In the bright sunshine he looked more decrepit and wicked than usual. He could not have been less than eighty years of age, and his spare figure was bowed with Time. That same Time had also robbed him of every hair on his head, and had even taken away eyebrows and eyelashes. As the old man was clean shaven, his gleaming head and hairless yellow wrinkled face looked rather repulsive. Nor did his dress tend to improve his appearance, for it was a shepherd's-plaid suit cut in the style of the early fifties, when he had been young, and presumably something of a dandy. In spite of the antiquity of the clothes, there was a suggestion of juvenility about them which matched badly with his Methuselah looks. Like an aged ghost he beckoned in the sunshine, and the white-painted erection behind him assumed, in the eyes of Beatrice, the look of a tomb.

      Wondering that she should be invited into Mammon's Shrine, the girl walked across the lawn. In her white dress, with her beautiful face shaded by a coarse straw hat, she appeared the embodiment of youth and grace, contrasting markedly with the senile old villain, who croaked out his orders.

      "Come in," said Alpenny testily, and with the screech of a peacock, as he pointed to the open door. "I wish to speak to you seriously."

      Beatrice, ever sparing of words with crabbed age, nodded and entered the counting-house, glancing comprehensively around to take in her surroundings--as a woman always does--with a single look. The space naturally was limited. All the windows had been boarded up save one, which opened immediately over a rather large desk of mahogany which was piled with papers. The walls were hung with faded red rep. In one corner stood a large green-painted safe; in another stood a pile of tin boxes which reached quite to the roof. A paraffin lamp dangled by brass chains from a somewhat smoky ceiling; and at the far end of the carriage, in front of a dilapidated bookcase, was an oil stove, crudely set on a sheet of galvanised tin. A ragged carpet, disorderly in colour and much faded, covered the floor; and there were only two chairs, one before the desk, and another beside it, probably for the use of clients. The one window was barred, but not covered with any curtain; the others were sheathed in iron and barred strongly outside. From without, as has been said, the carriage looked like a dungeon: within, its appearance suggested the home of a recluse, who cared very little for the pomps and vanities of civilisation. This barren room represented very fairly the bare mind of the miser, who cared more for money itself, than for what money could do.

      Motioning Beatrice to the client's chair, Alpenny seated himself before his desk, and from habit presumably, began to fiddle with some legal looking documents. Apparently he had got over the shock caused by Vivian's strange speech, and looked much the same as he always did--cold, unsympathetic, and cunning as an old monkey. In the dungeon Beatrice bloomed like a rose, while Alpenny resembled a cold, clammy toad, uncanny and repulsive. He began to speak almost immediately, and his first words amazed the girl. They were the last she expected to hear from the lips of one who had always treated her with indifference, and almost with hostility.

      "Have you ever thought of marriage?" asked the usurer, examining his visitor's face with two small sharp eyes, chilly and grey.

      "Marriage!" she gasped, doubting if she had heard aright.

      "Yes, marriage. Young girls think of such things, do they not?"

      Wishing to find out what he meant, Beatrice fenced. "I have no chance of marrying, father," she observed, regaining her composure.

      "I grant that, unless you have fallen in love with Jerry Snow; and I credit you with too much sense, to think you could love a fool."

      "Mr. Snow is to marry Miss Paslow," announced Beatrice coldly, and kept her eyes on the wizen face before her.

      "Oh," sneered Alpenny, "Hunger wedding Thirst. And how do they intend to live, may I ask?"

      "That is their business, and not ours."

      "Paslow hasn't a penny to give to his giggling sister, and very soon he won't have a roof over his head."

      "What do you mean by that, father?"

      "Mean!" The usurer stretched out a skinny hand, which resembled the claw of a bird of preys as he looked like. "Why, I mean, my girl, that I hold Vivian Paslow there," and he tapped his palm.

      "Still I don't understand," said Beatrice, her blood running cold at the malignant look on his face.

      "There is no need you should," rejoined her stepfather coolly. "He is not for you, and you are not for him. Do you understand that?"

      It was unwise for Alpenny to meddle with a maiden's fancies, for the girl's outraged womanhood revolted. "I understand that you mean to be impertinent, Mr. Alpenny," she said, with a flaming colour.

      "'Mr. Alpenny'? Why not 'father,' as usual?"

      "Because you are no father of mine, and I thank God for it."

      He gave her a vindictive look, and rubbed his hands together, with the croak of a hungry raven. "I brought you up, I educated you, I fed you, I housed you, I----"

      Beatrice waved her hand impatiently. "I know well what you have done," said she; "as little as you could."

      "Here's gratitude!"

      "And common sense, Mr. Alpenny. I know nothing, save that you married my mother and promised to look after me when she died."

      "I promised nothing," snapped Alpenny.

      "Durban says that you did."

      "Durban is, what he always was, a fool. I promised nothing to your mother--at all events, concerning you. Why should I? You are not my own flesh and blood."

      "Anyone can tell that," said Beatrice disdainfully.

      "No impertinence, miss. I have fed and clothed you, and educated you, and housed you----"

      "You said that before."

      "All at my own expense," went on the miser imperturbably, "and out of the kindness of my heart. This is the return you make, by giving me sauce! But you had better take care," he went on menacingly, and shaking a lean yellow finger, "I am not to be trifled with."

      "Neither am I," retorted Beatrice, who felt in a fighting humour. "I am sorry to have been a burden to you, and for what you have done I thank you; but I am weary of stopping here. Give me a small sum of money and let me go."

      "Money!" screeched the miser, touched on his tenderest point. "Money to waste?"

      "Money to keep me in London until I can obtain a situation as a governess or as a companion. Come, father," she went on coaxingly, "you must be sick of seeing me about here. And I am so tired of this life!"

      "It's the wickedness in your blood, Beatrice. Just like your mother--oh, dear me, how very like your mother!"

      "Leave my mother's character alone!" said Beatrice impatiently, "she is dead and buried."

      "She is--in Hurstable churchyard, under a beautiful tomb I got second-hand at a bargain. See how I loved her."

      "You never loved anyone in your life, Mr. Alpenny," said the girl, freezing again.

      Alpenny's brow grew black, and he looked at her with glittering eyes. "You are mistaken, child," he said, quietly. "I have loved and lost."

      "My mother----?"

      "Perhaps," said he enigmatically, and passed his hand over his bald head in a weary manner. Then he burst out unexpectedly: "I wish I had never set eyes on your mother. I wish she had been dead and buried before she crossed my path!"

      "She is dead, so----"

      "Yes, she is dead, stone dead," he snarled, rising, much agitated, "and don't think you'll ever see her again. If I----" He was about to speak further; then seeing from the wondering