The Dark Stranger

by Sara Seale

  A small elderly woman was carrying a laden tray across the room and Tina sprang to her feet and ran to take the tray from her.

  “How do you do?” she said shyly. “It was so kind of you to get my supper.”

  “Leave the tray be,” said Brownie severely. “I’ll put it where I want it.”

  She was well named, Tina thought, and a little alarming. She had the Pentreath dark skin, her eyes were brown and snapping and her small slightly bent body had the look of a gnome. She placed the tray on a table, selected the exact chair she wanted then told Tina she might sit down and eat.

  “It’s all cold save for the soup but that’s no fault of mine. You should have come at the right time and sat down to a proper meal with us all,” she said.

  “Don’t take any notice of Brownie,” Craig told her with a grin. “She loves an excuse to put us in our places, don’t you, Brownie?”

  Miss Maud Sennen gave him a disapproving look.

  “It’s a pity you don’t listen to me, then,” she said and sat down in a straight-backed chair. “Well, Belle Linden, does it please you to come back to Tremawvan after all these years?”

  “It hasn’t changed,” replied Belle easily. “I wonder you haven’t made improvements, Craig. Oil lamps, for instance. Why don’t you have your own power plant?”

  “We’re used to lamps. Plants can go wrong and they cost money,” he answered.

  “But you could well afford it,” said Belle demurely.

  He gave her a speculative, level look but it was Brownie who replied bluntly:

  “Those that has money should spend it how they please. You’ll find there’s no unnecessary waste at Tremawvan, Belle.”

  Tina ate her supper in silence, made a little uncomfortable by the cross-currents of the conversation. No one took any notice of her until Brownie remarked suddenly:

  “Has this child no folks of her own?”

  “Only me,” said Belle equably. “You don’t grudge her hospitality, do you, Brownie?”

  “The hospitality is Craig’s. I accept it myself,” Brownie replied with unexpected dignity, and Tina, choking suddenly over a piece of chicken, said quickly:

  It was very kind of Mr. Pentreath to invite me as well as Belle, but I suppose there was no help for it.”

  Craig had been watching her, observing the sensitive delicacy of her face while she ate and the fairness of her skin in the lamplight, a fairness that colored too easily.

  “Mr. Pentreath sounds very formal for a new relation,” he said with unexpected gentleness. “We’ll have to think of something better.”

  “Behind your back you are referred to as rich Cousin Craig,” said Belle, and instantly the hardness was back in his face and his shrewd eyes challenged hers.

  “An admirable title,” he said suavely. “You shall call me Cousin Craig until you grow up, Tina, and I will address you as Clementina on special occasions.”

  “Oh, please,” she said, her high forehead looking worried—not Clementina. “It’s such a horrid name.”

  “Horrid? I think it’s charming,” he told her gravely, then suddenly smiled. “Brownie shall take you upstairs, now. It’s time we were all in bed. Good night.”

  “Good night—Cousin Craig,” she said, rising obediently. She stooped to kiss her stepmother, but Belle turned away her face.

  “I’ll come along and say good night later,” she said.

  “All right,” said Tina and followed Brownie’s bent figure out of the room.

  II

  Rooms had been allotted to the Lindens in a small wing added to the main corridor.

  “You’ll be out of the way here and not interfere with the rest of the household,” Brownie said, peering fiercely at Tina over the small lamp she carried. “There’s a little room next door you can have for a schoolroom and not be littering the living rooms with clutter.”

  “But I don’t need a schoolroom,” protested Tina, “I’m sixteen and left school six months ago.”

  “Hm,” said Brownie non-committally and opened the door of Tina’s bedroom.

  It was a big room like all the rooms at Tremawvan, but here the walls were papered with an old-fashioned sprig design which was rather charming. There seemed to be a mass of furniture and the bed was a half-tester with faded brocade hangings.

  “Are you used to lamps?” Brownie inquired, turning up the wick of one of the three which stood in the room. “No?” I didn’t suppose so. Well, be careful. If it smitches turn it down. You’ll not need the other two. No point in wasting oil. I’ll bid you good night, now. Don’t read in bed and set the house afire.”

  “I won’t,” Tina, so much taller, looked down on the neat grizzled head and smiled shyly. “Good night, Miss Brownie, and thank you very much for your trouble over my lovely supper.”

  Brownie’s bright eyes quizzed her for the first time directly.

  “There was little trouble. You had the leavings as you would expect,” she said brusquely, then a fleeting, difficult smile passed over her face. “I’ll say one thing for you, Tina, you’ve nice manners and you didn’t learn them from your stepma, I’ll bound.”

  She went out of the room without another word and shut the door.

  Downstairs, Belle was saying lazily:

  “Do we have to go to bed at once? I’ve hardly had a word with you alone, Craig.”

  He kicked a log aflame on the heap of white ash.

  “You’ll have the whole summer for talking,” he said and she put her head on one side.

  “So you expect to keep us for the summer?” she said with a smile.

  “That was the arrangement, wasn’t it?”

  “The arrangement was indefinite, according to your letter. You know, Craig, you need never have been bothered with us at all if you would have—given a little concrete help. Hotels, even the cheap ones, are ruinous these days.”

  “The child is best off here. Hotel life is bad for adolescents. I wonder you don’t make a home for her, Belle.”

  She lifted her hands in a small gesture of negation. “I have no money with which to buy a house my dear.”

  “But Linden left a little capital.”

  “Very little. Not enough to pay for Tina’s schooling and live in reasonable comfort too.”

  “You have your mother’s money.”

  “Five or six hundred a year. You forget she left her share in the mine to Keverne.”

  “Because, if you remember, she thought you were going to marry him.”

  Belle shrugged.

  “That was a long time ago. I suppose the shares passed to Uncle Zion when Keverne was killed.”

  “Yes.”

  “And now you have the lot.” Belle smiled her indolent, bitter little smile, and added softly: “Do you really think it’s fair, Craig?”

  “If you’d married my brother your position would have been very different,” he said gravely. “Would you expect the family to do anything for you in the circumstances?”

  Her mouth was hard.

  “I was a Pentreath on my mother’s side. We have blood ties, Craig.”

  “Yes, I recognize that. Well, as I’ve said, you have a home for as long as it is convenient, you and the girl.”

  “Convenient,” she repeated slowly, “to me or to you?”

  “Shall we discuss that when it arises?” He moved away from the fire and held out a hand. “Come. It’s time we were in bed. At least let me rid you of one of your unflattering ideas of me by welcoming you to my home. I hope you’ll be happy here.”

  She put a hand in his, and allowed him to pull her out of her chair.

  “Brownie has become very difficult,” she said with a little laugh. “I’m afraid she likes me no better now than she did when I was a girl.”

  “Brownie’s bark was always worse than her bite,” he replied. “She’s a very loyal soul under that prickly exterior.”

  “Well, she’s cause to be. Pentreath charity has kept her for her best part of thirty years. She’
s like everything else in the house, a fixture.”

  For a moment the piercing blue of his steady regard held a glint of steel.

  “Was it Aunt Ruth who taught you to despise the Pentreaths so much, or the man no one wanted her to marry?”

  Her eyes fell before his.

  “How hard feuds die in this family,” she said, trying to speak lightly. “Mother was surely entitled to marry whom she wished, and I don’t despise you, Craig. Indeed I can only be grateful that Tremawvan is open to me again. You must forgive my apparent discontent. Life hasn’t been easy for me since I married.”

  He touched her lightly on the shoulder.

  “We’ll forget feuds for the summer, shall we? Tomorrow Brownie can hand over the housekeeping to you, though you’ll have to be tactful and allow her to keep a few offices for herself or she will be very hurt.”

  “Just as you say,” said Belle, making a face. “Well, good night, Craig. I’d better go up to Tina before she’s asleep.”

  “Tell her”—a faint smile touched his lips—“no, I’ll tell her myself in the morning.”

  “Don’t let her bother you,” Belle said carelessly, picking up her handbag and cigarettes, “I’ve told her to keep out of your way.”

  Craig turned down the lamp.

  “I wonder what else you told her,” he remarked. “I fancy we were a mutual surprise to each other.”

  “What had you expected? I’m afraid Tina’s at the awkward age, all legs and arms and girlish enthusiasm.”

  “Do you think so?” he said politely. “Good night, Belle.”

  Tina had been waiting a long time in her big, curtained bed, listening to the wind whistling round the house and trying to keep her eyes open. At the sight of Belle, the one person who was familiar at the end of this confusing long day, she sat up against the pillows and held out her arms.

  “I thought you’d forgotten,” she said. “Oh, Belle, I do feel rather lost and unlike myself.”

  Belle sat on the bed, avoiding the outstretched hands, and lighted a cigarette. She hoped the child was not going to be emotional. Tina very rarely treated her to a scene but when she did she was tiresomely thorough.

  “We were talking,” she said, “it must be quite late. That wallpaper’s rather charming. This house could be made very tolerable if someone took it in hand.”

  “I like it,” said Tina, clasping her hands behind her neck and gazing up at the ceiling. “It has space and queer things in it like statues downstairs. Father’s old home before I was born was like this. It had flagged floors, too.”

  “Cold to the feet,” said Belle, watching her and remembering Craig’s remark downstairs. Was it possible that this half-grown coltish grace could appeal to a man who was mature? In the softness of the lamplight she could see something of beauty in the slender lines of throat and breast and indefinite modelling of the facial bones, then Tina moved suddenly, rubbing the sleep from her eyes and the illusion was lost. Belle smiled with tolerant amusement at her own thoughts.

  “Is Brownie really a cousin?” Tina asked. “She seems more like a country woman or a—a nanny.”

  “Oh, yes. Not a very near relation, but still a connection. The Pentreaths were nothing to boast of originally, you know. Uncle Zion had quite a Cornish burr. Aunt Jessie, his wife, was a lot better than he was, and fortunately the sons took after her. By the same token, you haven’t said what you think of rich Cousin Craig.”

  “I don’t think he liked you saying we called him that,” said Tina slowly “He—he’s not what I expected him to be.”

  “Exactly what he said about you.”

  “Did he? I thought he’d be much older and more—well—commercial, if you know what I mean. How old is he?”

  “Thirty-three or four. I don’t remember exactly. He was the younger of the two brothers.”

  The pupils of Tina’s eyes dilated suddenly in the lamplight.

  “Belle—he never told you, but I got out at the wrong station and had to walk and he found me on the road and the fortune-teller was right.”

  Belle smoked impatiently.

  “What are you talking about?” she asked.

  “The dark stranger who was to enter my life violently,” said Tina. “It was him, you see. He stopped his car so suddenly because I jumped out at him that it ran into the bank and he used very violent language; so it seems like fate, doesn’t it? The long journey and the dark stranger both coming together.”

  Belle stubbed out her cigarette with fingers that itched to slap her.

  “For goodness’ sake, Tina, don’t go getting silly ideas about any of the Pentreaths because they happen to be dark,” she said, getting to her feet “Craig may look romantic with his buccaneer arrogance, but I can assure you he’s a very shrewd hard-headed business man at heart and not the sort to have patience with schoolgirl crushes.”

  Tina lay back in the bed, biting her lip, and pulled the sheet close up under her chin. Suddenly she hated Tremawvan and everything to do with the Pentreaths.

  “I’m not a schoolgirl any more,” she said in a voice which trembled a little “And as for rich Cousin Craig—I don’t think I even like him very much.”

  “I didn’t suppose you would,” said Belle blandly. “Good night, my dear.”

  She forgot, as often happened, the good night kiss, and turning out the lamp with a firm finger and thumb, went away, leaving Tina in the darkness.

  III

  Breakfast was finished by the time Tina and her stepmother came down. Only Brownie sat at the big mahogany table, reading the morning paper and sipping a final cup of tea. Craig Pentreath had already left the house.

  “Breakfast’s at eight sharp,” Brownie remarked without troubling to inquire how Belle had slept. “Craig’s away to the cannery before nine so if you want your victuals hot you’d best be punctual.”

  “Good morning, Brownie, how fierce you sound,” said Belle lightly. “Breakfast is a movable feast, surely? One has it when one likes.”

  “In this house you have it when it’s ready or not at all,” Brownie retorted. “Please yourself.”

  Belle gave her an amused glance.

  “We’ll have to alter that,” she said. She helped herself with a grimace of distaste to some congealed bacon, then pushed away her plate and reached for the toast. “Tina can keep your uncivilized hours but I think I’ll have a tray brought up to my room.”

  “Making extra work already?” observed Brownie unpleasantly. “Tremawvan is a plain house. We don’t have trays sent to the bedrooms unless we are ill. You may pour the tea for Belle and yourself, Tina. When you’ve finished, Belle, perhaps you’ll be good enough to join me in the stillroom and I’ll show you your duties.”

  Belle’s eyebrows rose as the door closed behind her and she remarked tartly:

  “She’s more impossible than ever. If I have to put up with too much from Brownie I don’t see us remaining at Tremawvan very long.”

  “She probably resents you, Belle,” Tina said shyly. “If she’s kept house here for so many years, she’s bound to have—private feelings.”

  “Oh, well—she’ll learn. You’d better offer to make yourself useful, Tina. There’s nothing like creating a good impression to begin with.”

  She picked up the newspaper which Brownie had discarded and skimmed idly through it.

  Tina ate slowly, gazing dreamily out of the open window opposite her. The high wind of the night before had dropped and sunshine flooded the country. Tina wanted to explore the garden. It stretched away invitingly beyond the raised stone terrace and she could see great splashes of color where rhododendron and azalea grew in thick profusion. She was glad that Cousin Craig had already gone. She did not yet know whether she was going to like or dislike him, not, she reminded herself remembering Belle’s strictures, that it would make any difference which she did, but she fancied he might be an uncomfortable person to live with, seeing too much and possibly caring too little.

  “What shall I do?
” she asked as Belle threw down the newspaper and got to her feet, lighting a cigarette.

  “Do?” Belle frowned. “What you like, of course, only don’t expect me to amuse you.”

  “I didn’t mean that, but you said I should make myself useful and I wondered what I could do.”

  “Oh, Brownie will find you something. In the meantime you’d better get out of the way. I expect the maids want to clear and I must go along and have my chat with Brownie and find out what the so-called duties involve.”

  She left the room, flicking cigarette ash carelessly on the floor as she went, and Tina picked up her last piece of toast and marmalade and stepped out of the long window.

  It was a man’s garden, orderly and a little impersonal, she thought, surveying it with curious eyes. There were few flowers and the well-kept lawns were dissected by neat alley-ways of flowering shrubs and the tall thickets of giant rhododendrons which made perpetual groves of dimness in the sunlight. Every so often she came upon one of the statues which had so much offended Belle’s good taste. Tina had to admit that they were not beautiful and seemed to be a curious mixture of mythology and Victorian gentility. There was Thor with his hammer aimed at a simpering nymph with a broken nose, there was Venus turning a well-muscled back on a girlish looking shepherd. There were cupids and satyrs and female figures tactfully draped, and even amidst the tropical palms and ferns which grew in such abundance, stone fauns held Pan-pipes to their lips, half lost in the encroaching vegetation.

  Tina saw no one but an old man weeding a path who took no notice of her when she said good morning, and she walked back to the house, conscious suddenly of the isolation of the place. Beyond the exposed grassland, too rough and treeless to be called a park, the lonely road stretched like a narrow ribbon across country that was bare and windswept and bereft of habitation, and Tremawvan itself stood implacable and indifferent to the elements, a grey facade of slate and stone and supporting Corinthian pillars.