The Dark Stranger

by Sara Seale

  The wide-set eyes were suddenly bright.

  “I’ve never tried to make mischief, Belle. I’ve hardly spoken to Cousin Craig since that first day when he came to fetch me in to tea. I had to explain about the lunches, because he asked me, as a joke, if I’d been starved. He was joking all the time—at least, I imagine he must have been.”

  “Really? What else did he say?”

  “I don’t remember. It was weeks ago.”

  Belle smiled without mirth.

  “All right, my dear, but be careful in future. If you blacken my name too much, you know, we may find ourselves back in those cheap hotels by the end of the summer.”

  Tina’s eyes were clear and grave.

  “But Cousin Craig can’t be expected to keep us here indefinitely,” she said.

  Belle yawned. She had satisfied her desire to wound and now felt ready for bed.

  “Can’t he?” she said provocatively. “Perhaps I have other plans, Tina. Take care you don’t upset them.”

  II

  July was a hot month. The bracken grew breast high, strong and luxuriant like tropical vegetation, and the stream on Tudy Down was little more than a trickle of water. In the groves of flowering shrubs which dwelt in perpetual shadow giant blooms sprang up in lavish abundance, but the petals of the magnolia by the little ruined temple were already turning brown. Only in the house was there coolness, and the flagged floors were delectable to bare feet as Tina discovered, kicking off her shoes when no one was about.

  It was Brownie who showed her the old albums and she would turn the stiff cardboard pages with their faded photographs until she felt she knew all the Pentreaths; Zion as a young man, with his wife and Belle’s mother before she married, family groups which included Brownie as a plain young woman, Keverne in his last year of public school, Craig in his working clothes on his first day at the mine.

  “He looks terribly young,” Tina exclaimed and Brownie turned the page with dispassionate care.

  “Much your age,” she replied. “He had to take Keverne’s place while he was abroad.”

  “But Keverne had finished his education. Surely there was no need to cut short Cousin Craig’s?”

  “Do you think, then, miss, that Craig is lacking in education?” Brownie’s voice was as dry as withered leaves.

  “Of course not, but—”

  “Then there’s naught to regret, is there? If Keverne had lived you’d have found Craig the better man for having to stand on his own feet early.” Brownie sighed and shut the album. “Keverne was a disappointment to his father. He hadn’t his brother’s guts, and if Belle had married him she’d have had him out of the cannery and into something more genteel before you could look round and Zion knew it.”

  “Belle?” Tina’s high forehead creased in perplexity. “Do you mean Keverne wanted to marry her?”

  Brownie’s expression was a trifle sour.

  “Didn’t she tell you that? Oh, yes, Keverne wanted to marry her, but he wasn’t good enough for her, even with the Pentreath fortune.”

  Tina fished under the chair for her shoes.

  “That’s surely to her credit,” she said gently. “Why do you dislike her so much, Brownie?”

  “It might have been to her credit if she hadn’t thought part of the money would come to her anyhow,” Brownie replied, then meeting the clear, troubled eyes, she added gruffly; “Well, I suppose I’ve no business to be discussing your stepmother’s private affairs with a child like you. Mind and finish that darning I set you, Tina. I had to unpick the last lot, so badly did you do it.”

  Tina wandered thoughtfully down to the ruined temple. If Belle had once turned the elder brother down, she reflected, that would explain the Pentreath hostility in the past. They were a clannish lot from all accounts and Belle made a mistake if she thought that her cousin Craig was making anything but a courteous gesture for old time’s sake in inviting them to Tremawvan. She remembered her stepmother’s expression when she had stood beside her bed that night and said: “Perhaps I have other plans ... take care you don’t spoil them.”

  “No!” she said aloud, violently and absurdly, and did not know why the possibility that Belle might be scheming to marry her cousin should disquiet her.

  She was surprised and a little nonplussed to find upon reaching the temple that Craig was there, smoking a pipe and contemplating the little flower bed she had dug in the shade of the magnolia tree.

  “Hullo,” she said uncertainly, “I didn’t know you would be back so early.”

  “Too hot for work,” he replied calmly. “Am I trespassing?”

  “Oh, no!” she cried, the color staining her cheeks. “It—it all belongs to you anyway.”

  He smiled faintly.

  “Still, no one ever comes here but you. You like to think it’s your own domain, don’t you, Tina?”

  “I like to pretend it is,” she answered. “When you live in hotels, you see, you have nothing of your own.”

  “I suppose not. I see you’ve started a garden.”

  “Yes. I hope you don’t mind. Zachary says it’s too late to sow much, but next year—” She stopped, aghast at what she had said. Was it possible that already she had accepted the illusion of permanency which Tremawvan offered so unthinkingly that she had forgotten she was only a guest?

  “Yes? Next year?” asked Craig gently and she turned away.

  “I wasn’t thinking,” she said. “Of course next year no one will want to sow seeds here. It—I—Belle always says I take too much for granted.”

  “Does she, indeed?”

  “It comes, I expect, from always moving around. She doesn’t understand that if one didn’t take things for granted perpetual change would be very disturbing.”

  She turned then and found that vivid blue gaze directly upon her.

  “Your mind is really extraordinarily mature, isn’t it?” he said. “Come and sit down, Tina, and tell me why you avoid me when you can.”

  “But I don’t,” she replied, embarrassed.

  “I think you do. Does Belle still tell you to keep out of my way?”

  “N-no, not exactly, but—well, I think I once said something you misunderstood and she thought I’d been telling tales.”

  “H’m ... well, in future I must be careful not to betray confidences, musn’t I? Now, forget the Pentreath awkwardness of approach and come and talk to me.”

  She sat down on the steps of the temple with a little sigh, wondering whether he, too, was sometimes lonely for companionship.

  “Brownie’s been showing me the albums,” she said, “I didn’t know Belle might have married your brother.”

  “Didn’t you? I shouldn’t pay too much attention to Brownie’s gossip, if I were you.”

  “She doesn’t like Belle, does she? But you wouldn’t hold anything against her, would you, Cousin Craig?”

  “It depends,” he answered, observing her with speculative eyes. “But Pentreath should understand Pentreath. We’re all very much alike, you know.”

  “I don’t think you are,” she said shyly. “Cousin Craig—did you mind leaving school before it was time?”

  “Well, did you?”

  She pulled her short skirt carefully over her knees and pressing her chin in her hands stared frowning at the magnolia tree.

  “Yes, I suppose so. It isn’t the book-learning side that matters—anyone can make that up later. It’s being part of something traditional, being—guarded and secure while your ideas are still unformed. It sounds silly, doesn’t it? But one’s mind is incomplete, somehow—a kind of inequality with others. There’s nothing to fall back on.”

  “Did you ever talk to Belle like this?”

  “I don’t think she would understand. Anyway, as it was a question of money, it didn’t really arise.”

  “But your father had money set aside for your education.”

  “Yes, but there was very little else, and as Belle said, it seemed silly to spend it on an expensive school when if
we didn’t we could both live in a little more comfort. Father, I’m afraid, had a very poor business head.”

  “He had,” said Craig a little grimly. “He should have tied the money up.”

  She turned to look at him, observing the sunlight on his bare throat and arms and how deeply his dark skin had tanned with the summer days. Belle, she knew, was at this moment on the terrace, acquiring the same rich color with oil and careful exposure.

  “I never seem to brown,” she said irrelevantly and a little plaintively. “I only catch and burn.”

  “Your skin’s too fair,” he replied absently. “Tell me, Tina, do you like Tremawvan?”

  “Yes ... yes, I think I do.”

  “You don’t sound very sure.”

  She did not answer for how could she explain that it was not safe to abandon oneself to places because all too soon one was uprooted and had to begin all over again.

  “Well,” he said, glancing at his watch, “it’s nearly teatime. Later I think I’ll drive into Merrynporth for a swim. Would you like to come?”

  “I haven’t got a bathing suit,” she said and found herself flushing scarlet as he replied with a twinkle:

  “No, so you haven’t. You’d better let Zachary drive you into Truro tomorrow and get one at my expense.”

  It was only when they were all half-way through tea that Tina realized that she still did not know whether Craig too had minded the curtailment of his education, and decided that he probably had not. He was very self-sufficient.

  III

  Belle seemed in the early days of August to offer less resistance to the matters which fretted her at Tremawvan. Tina knew by the sudden tightening of her jaw when she was controlling herself against her natural inclination, but she had come to remark the same indication in Craig so that sometimes she sat between them wondering which of them would give way to temper first, always surprised when neither of them did.

  Even the wordy battles over the housekeeping with Brownie became more a habit than a conviction since, one appealed to, Craig had said impatiently that the women of his household must settle their own affairs, and Belle, although Tina knew she was desperately bored, made no complaints to her cousin of the dullness of life at Tremawvan.

  “Soft soap comes ill from Belle Linden,” Brownie told Craig, her eyes snapping. “I told you at the time, Craig, that if you brought that woman into your house you’d be asking for trouble, but, as usual, you wouldn’t listen to me.”

  “She hasn’t caused any trouble as far as I’m aware,” replied Craig gently. “You must try to be charitable, Brownie.”

  Brownie snorted.

  “Well, how long do you propose to keep them here?” she demanded.

  “That’s surely my affair,” he said coldly.

  Brownie snorted again. She knew Craig in this mood. Keverne you could talk to, but Craig had inherited from his father that high-handed repudiation of anything he considered to be interference in her personal liberties.

  “You heed my warning, Craig Pentreath,” she said. “She meant to dig herself in here and it’s my belief she’d marry you sooner than lose her security.”

  “I’m quite aware of that,” he replied a little grimly. “The Pentreaths have never been very particular as to how they got what they wanted, and my handsome cousin, Belle, is still a Pentreath, however much she may despise us. You might run up a couple of frocks for Tina out of that stuff of mother’s which is still in the cedarwood chest.”

  She was not deceived by the sudden request. She knew he was not entirely disinterested in Belle’s unwanted stepchild, and if he liked to choose this method of reproaching his cousin’s neglect she was quite willing to help.

  “High time, too,” she retorted. “The girl’s too big to be going about in dresses up to her knees.”

  Brownie sewed beautifully and the frocks were charming, one blue and one green, with delicately goffered ruffles to hide the hollows at a young throat.

  “Now you look more like a young lady should,” Brownie told her, surveying her handiwork with satisfied eyes. She had done dress-making for Craig’s mother in the old days and was delighted to find she had not lost her skill.

  Tina admitted the improvement of longer skirts and a waistline in the right place, but she felt uncomfortable at meeting Cousin Craig’s critical eye, and Belle, who saw her first, did not seem very pleased.

  Tina was unnaturally quiet through dinner. Belle ignored her, and Craig seemed preoccupied with some problem of his own. She had been conscious of his eyes on her, thoughtful, appraising, but she had been thankful that he made no comment on her appearance.

  “I shall have to go to London sometime,” Belle said as they drank their coffee on the terrace. “Clement’s lawyer wants to discuss some point in his affairs.”

  “Maybe there’s a little more than you thought, Belle, to make a home with. The summer is nearly over,” said Brownie.

  Tina was suddenly conscious of panic. The summer is nearly over ... how sad it sounded, and how final. In that still moment between sundown and darkness, she became acutely aware of Tremawvan, the first home she had known for so long. With the passing of summer they must go and the cheap hotels would never be bearable again. She sat in her corner, isolated from the others in this unexpected rush of emotion, and it was with the greatest difficulty that she answered coherently when Craig suddenly asked:

  “Who was the young man Zachary saw you talking to yesterday outside the Spanish Inn?”

  “Young man?” She sounded vague, then the recollection of that brief, pleasant meeting lent her a forced animation.

  “Oh, he was very nice. He said he knew you and I must go one day to his farm and see the baby pigs.”

  “Oh? Who was it?”

  “It was a queer name—Adwen. I don’t think he told me the rest, but the farm is called Polrame.”

  Craig’s face looked suddenly set and hard.

  “Adwen Pentreath!” he exclaimed and his eyes were vivid against his dark skin. “You will remember, please, Tina, that as long as you stay at Tremawvan you will not visit Polrame. Belle, perhaps, omitted to tell you that we have nothing to do with our cousins on the other side of the moor.”

  “She’s forgotten,” Belle said, smiling provocatively. “But Tina’s not a Pentreath, Craig. There’s no reason why she shouldn’t make friends with the young man if he attracts her.”

  “While she’s living under my roof there’s every reason,” he retorted and brought his hand down with sudden violence on the coffee table. “You will have nothing to do with the Pentreaths of Polrame as long as you’re here—understand, Tina?”

  “Yes,” said Tina in a whisper, and the tears which had not been far distant, threatened to overwhelm her, and she sprang to her feet and ran out into the garden.

  “Now you’ve thoroughly upset her,” said Belle in a bored voice. “I must say I do find these family feuds rather archaic and absurd. What’s wrong with young Adwen Pentreath, apart from his father’s unpopularity?”

  “A bad reputation, even at his age,” said Brownie severely. “He can’t forget that St. Adwen is the patron saint of lovers. Girls are all that young man thinks about.”

  “Quite a healthy preoccupation,” drawled Belle, and poured herself out some more coffee.

  Craig said nothing. His face was impassive again but his eyes watched Tina’s slender figure disappearing into one of the alleys. Twilight fell, merging the shadows on the lawn to a universal greyness, and presently Belle and Brownie went into the house. Craig sat for a little longer on the terrace, smoking his pipe, then he knocked it out and strolled across the lawn.

  He thought he would find her in the temple, and for a moment he stood watching her before he spoke, observing the drooping lines of the young figure, the brown hair falling forward leaving the smooth childish neck exposed.

  “The dew is falling,” he said quietly. “Hadn’t you better come in?”

  She lifted her face to look at him, and in
the dimness he could see she had been crying.

  “Yes,” she said indifferently, and began to come down the steps of the temple. In the uncertain light she missed her step and with a quick stride he had his hands under her elbows, supporting her.

  “You’re very foolish, aren’t you?” he said with the hint of a smile, and all at once she was weeping again, the unreasoning, driven tears of adolescence.

  He had not much experience of women, but he was aware that this grief arose from emotions which could only confuse the very young and perhaps too, because of the beauty of a summer’s night which could not be shared or understood.

  “I’m sorry if I upset you over young Pentreath,” he said and she pulled back from him, already ashamed of her outburst.

  “It wasn’t that,” she said. “It’s been a difficult evening. I can’t explain.”

  “Can’t you? Well, the young seldom can. The frock is very charming. Do you like it?”

  “It was kind of you to suggest it to Brownie,” she replied stiffly and he raised his eyebrows.

  “That means you don’t like it. I’m sorry.”

  “No—no, it doesn’t. It’s only—well, Brownie said my dresses were indecently short and I was sorry you had noticed.”

  His mouth was tender. How vulnerable they were, these young things ... how easily hurt.

  “Well I never said so,” he answered. “I assure you, my dear child, my only idea was to give you pleasure. Belle didn’t seem to be taking much interest.”

  “Was it? Was it, Cousin Craig?” Her head tilted back and the face she lifted to him held a joyous, childlike surprise. “Then thank you very much indeed. Brownie has made the frocks beautifully and Belle says you never see material like that these days.”

  “Is that all that was worrying you?” Tears still clung to her lashes and she blinked them away.

  “It was accumulative,” she said, thinking how strange it was that although he took such little notice of her, on these chance meetings she could talk to him so easily.

  “The frock, and Belle saying it was wasted on me, and Brownie saying the summer was nearly over. I felt that with the summer gone the pretence would be gone, too.”