by Sara Seale
She did not want to see him just then. Belle’s careless remarks still rankled and her stepmother had doubtless been very amusing at her expense that evening at the Spanish Inn. But it was difficult to shake him off without appearing rude, and she found herself accompanying him along the waterfront where he slipped a casual hand through her arm.
“A good sailing day,” he remarked, ignoring her reluctance. “Will you come out in the bay for a bit? It’ll soon be too late in the year.”
“Oh, I don’t think—” she began, finishing with childish curiosity, “Where’s the surprise?”
“There in front of you.”
He pointed to his boat tied up to the jetty and for a moment she looked puzzled, then with a small exclamation of pleasure, she went nearer to take a second look. The dinghy’s old name had been painted out, and her own replaced it in bold scarlet lettering.
“It’s a compliment, you know,” he told her, watching her surprised face. “You are now immortalized for all the world to see.”
“Clementina...” she said softly. “When did you do it, Adwen?”
“A few days ago. Are you pleased?”
Yes, she was pleased. The small compliment seemed to her a gesture of graciousness, a concrete reminder that to someone she was important.
“And you’ll come on the Clementina’s maiden voyage and wish her luck?” he said.
She yielded, laughing, wondering why she had ever been reluctant. There was sun and a stiff breeze and soon it would be autumn and the little boats beached for another year. She watched while he made sail, approving his deft hands and the lean grace of his body, and presently when the canvas filled and the dinghy, running freely with the wind, put out into the bay, she gave herself up to pure enjoyment. Did it matter that Belle made fun of her and Craig unwittingly taxed her uneasy conscience? Alone with Adwen there was nothing to trouble her but the pleasure of the moment and the look in his eyes which told her he found her desirable.
“There’s a motor boat coming up on us fast,” she said suddenly, “I believe she’s trying to head us off.”
His eyes followed the direction of hers without much interest then he stiffened.
“That’s no motor boat,” he said slowly. “It’s Cormorant, Craig’s sloop. She’s using her auxiliary engine. Now, I wonder—”
“Craig?” For a moment she looked dismayed. “Is he on board?”
“Can’t see—there are two of them. You’re right, Tina, they are after us and—yes, my redoubtable cousin is aboard, and looking as black as thunder. He’s coming to bawl me out.”
Tina sat up very straight and tense on the thwart. The sloop was fast overtaking them and even as she watched, she saw Craig swing himself on the half-deck and stand there, braced against the mast.
“Down sail!” he shouted as soon as they were within hailing distance.
“Get out of the way, you fool!” yelled Adwen, bringing the dinghy’s head up into the wind. “Your wash will have us over if you cross our bows!”
“I’m coming alongside,” Craig said. “If you don’t down sail immediately I shall ram.”
Tina sat on the thwart, looking up at the sloop. Craig stood, immovable on the half-deck, the wind whipping the black hair from the angry, arrogant face, the blue, vivid eyes narrowed against the runs. The face of a pirate, she thought again, adamant of intention, merciless of any refusal to obey. Adwen, suddenly white under his tan, hesitated for a split second then began to down sail without a word.
Zachary at the tiller, brought the sloop alongside and Craig addressed Tina.
“Get ready to come aboard when I give you a hand,” he said.
“No,” she shouted with childish rebellion.
“You’d better be warned by my cousin’s behavior,” he retorted. “I’m in no mood to argue with a silly child. Adwen, you’ll take that name off your dinghy, or I’ll come and break it up for firewood. Now, Tina, are you ready?” He jumped down into the cockpit and put out a steadying hand as the two boats touched.
“Better hurry if you don’t want to fall in the drink,” he rapped out, and she stood up unsteadily in the dinghy and took the outstretched hand he offered her. He swung her over the side with a jerk that was strong, but not gentle, and she fell into the cockpit breathless and a little frightened.
“Keep away from her in future, do you hear?” he shouted to Adwen. “If you see her again I’ll come and give you the hiding of your life, and remember—take her name off your blasted boat!”
Zachary had re-started the engine and Craig turned to take the tiller.
“All right, I’ll take over,” he said and in a few moments the sloop came about in a wide circle, and gathered speed, leaving a spume of foam behind her.
Tina sat huddled against Zachary in the stern.
“I warned you,” he said in her ear. “I said maister wouldn’t be pleased.”
Yes, he had warned her, but she had been unprepared for action of this kind. She had been unprepared for anger which could threaten violence regardless of the consequences. Had Adwen not given in they might both at this moment be struggling in the sea.
They went home in the Lancia, each as silent as the other, Craig and Zachary in front, Tina thrust into the back like a child in disgrace.
“Leave her in the drive,” Craig told Zachary when they’ got back to Tremawvan, “I’ll go back to the cannery later. Tina, come with me.”
She followed him into the house and the big empty living room where he wheeled round upon her, and she saw that his anger was still running high.
“Now, then, how long have you been seeing Adwen?” he demanded.
“A month—six weeks.”
“And why did you never mention the fact?”
“Belle knew,” she said defiantly. “She had no objection.”
His eyes looked very blue and hard.
“Belle knew and said nothing either. What are you trying to cook up between you?”
“Belle is the person responsible for how I behave,” she said, raising her chin.
“And I am the person to whom both of you are responsible—while you remain in my house,” he replied with hauteur. “You know my wishes perfectly well. Are you driven to having an affair behind my back with my own cousin?”
“It wasn’t an affair,” she faltered, unsure whether he might not shake her violently if she continued to argue with him.
“Do you realize that Adwen’s name stinks in Cornwall?” he said. “Will you understand that his reputation with women has been a by-word since he was eighteen, like his father’s before him? Do you think I’ve no regard for my own good name as well as yours that I’ll permit gossip of that kind? I have to hear from my own works that your name is blazoned on that boat of his as he’s blazoned the names of all his other girls to boast his conquests in the town.”
Her mouth trembled. He had stripped her of all her new-found confidence and turned Adwen’s small compliment into an insult. She should have known, she supposed, that the young man was just amusing himself, that he was equally content, as Belle had said, to exploit her riper charms.
“I’m sorry,” she said in a whisper, “I didn’t know.”
For a moment his face softened.
“No, Tina, I don’t think you did,” he said, but she did not wait to hear any more and ran blindly out of the room, pushing past Belle in the doorway.
“The tables seem to be turned, and it’s you who are having a little trouble now, and not me,” Belle drawled, coming into the room.
“A little trouble that you, apparently, have been at some pains to foster!” he retorted. “You, at least, understood the type of man Adwen Pentreath is.”
“Oh, that,” she said indifferently. “Have you just found out? My dear Craig, all young girls have to learn the facts of life for themselves. I don’t suppose Adwen is worse than any other young man with an eye for the girls. Besides, I understand he’s thinking of settling down. You said yourself Tina needed a husband.�
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The darker color rose under his skin.
“You don’t imagine I’d let her marry Adwen, even if that were true, do you?” he asked.
She shrugged.
“I don’t see how you could prevent it. You’re not legally responsible for either of them.”
“I’m responsible for Pentreath behavior and Tina’s under age.”
“But I, my dear cousin, am responsible for Tina, or have you forgotten? It will be my consent that is required, not yours.”
His eyes narrowed.
“And are you telling me you’d let her marry any young bounder just to get rid of her?” he demanded.
Belle smiled.
“How heartless you make me sound. I don’t want to get rid of her, but after all she is a liability, and she’ll have to marry one day.”
His jaw tightened ominously.
“Heartless is the word,” he said with cold contempt. “It’s what you’ve always been, Belle, heartless and vulgarly mercenary.”
She looked away, aware that whatever hopes of him she may have cherished, she had never really stood a chance.
“You hate me, don’t you, Craig? You class me with the Polrame lot,” she said bitterly.
“No, I don’t hate you, Belle. Sometimes I think I’m sorry for you. Your approach to life can hardly make for happiness.”
“Do you want us to go?”
He considered her thoughtfully, the indolent figure, still fine, despite the increasing slackening of softness, the handsome face declaring a heritage they both shared! He could not deny her blood any more than he could deny Adwen’s.
“No,” he said slowly. “You have some claim on me, Belle, and Tina has some claim on you.”
She gave him a quick look.
“It’s Tina you don’t want to lose, isn’t it?” she said sharply. “Well, my dear, Tina or me—it’s all one.”
His head went up.
“You’ll stay on my own terms—both of you,” he countered brusquely. “I’ll have no more interference, Belle, and no more scheming, either, so rid yourself of any idea that you can assist Adwen to score off me by making a marriage out of spite like his father before him. I’ve had about as much as I’ll stand of Pentreath trickery. Tell Brownie, please, I won’t be in for tea. I’m going back to the cannery.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
I
IT seemed to Tina afterwards that the day marked the end of summer. The phenomenally warm weather which had lasted right into October seemed to change overnight to the sharp winds of autumn, rain which fell for days without a break and everywhere the gentle decay of the dying summer. The last tripper left Merrynporth, the small yachts were beached, and at Tremawvan, Zachary made bonfires of the falling leaves and stacked a great wood pile against the coming winter.
“Young girls should not be idle,” Brownie would say with a disapproving look at Tina’s still hands. “In my young days we hadn’t the freedom to wander where we pleased and get into mischief, and a good thing, too.”
Sometimes Tina would ask Brownie about the old Cornish legends and customs as they worked together, darning sheets or checking stores in the still-room. Then Brownie’s own hands would lie idle while she told of the mermaid who came to hear the squire’s son sing and lured him back to the sea with her, the Pipers who piped for the Merry Maidens who were turned into stones for enjoying themselves on the Sabbath, the saint who visited Ireland and cured a fellow saint of leprosy, thus removing his chief claim to sainthood. There were endless tales of the saints with the strange names, tales of smuggling and tales of wrecking.
“It was the tinners gave Cornishmen their bad reputation,” Brownie said. “It was the tinners who would desert their mines and rush down and destroy a ship which the fishermen had saved with much trouble. Seamen wreckers were different.”
Tina thought of Craig, threatening to break up Adwen’s boat for firewood, and smiled doubtfully.
“The Cornish character is very puzzling,” she said.
Brownie took up her work again.
“Contradictory,” she replied. “They’re a mixture of harshness and gentleness, cruelty and tenderness, but never you make any mistake, Tina, the right sort of Cornishman is a prize worth having. It’s fellows like the Polrame lot, women like Belle who have only the native softness and indolence and none of the sterner qualities, who get you confused.”
“They all get me confused,” said Tina, and indeed, when she thought of the Pentreaths, it was true. They were alike and yet so unalike, Craig, Adwen, even Belle, but at least in Craig she sensed that gentleness of which Brownie had spoken and if cruelty lay in his tongue at an unguarded moment it was, she thought, born of an honesty which was brutal because it knew no compromise.
To Belle’s questions she made guarded replies. She had the impression that her stepmother still saw Adwen. There were days when she returned from the Spanish Inn with an air of secrecy and a tolerance towards everyone. Then she would be expansive with Tina and throw out little hints and tell her she was not forgotten.
Tina did not want to talk about Adwen but she was grateful for those moments when Belle, warm from her martinis and the progression of her plans, would lounge on a sofa by the fire and talk for a while as if Tina was an equal. Lured by such manoeuvres back to the old admiration, Tina blinded herself to an intimacy she suspected to be false, and grasped with both hands the favors which were offered.
“Oh, Belle,” she said, when after a fortnight or more, these softer moods showed no signs of lessening, “this is how I’ve always wanted things—talking together, laughing over silly, feminine things.”
“Very likely,” said Belle a little dryly. “But you need more to amuse you than that. Why not come up to the pub with me one day and—make other acquaintances? Your young man misses you, you know.”
Tina shook her head. She was glad Adwen missed her but she did not want to see him, and she did not like the Spanish Inn.
“I suppose Craig made you promise never to see his cousin again,” Belle said, amusement, or perhaps derision, in her eyes for a moment.
“No, he didn’t ask for any promises,” Tina said then laughed. “Perhaps he thought it wasn’t necessary after shouting orders at Adwen from the sloop. He looked exactly like a pirate, Belle, threatening to ram and then saying if my name wasn’t taken off the boat he’d come and break it up for firewood.”
Belle’s smile was a little mechanical.
“So you admire the buccaneering spirit,” she observed. “It might have been better if your young man had shown a little more fight.”
“Yes,” said Tina, nodding her head thoughtfully, then added in all fairness. “Still, I don’t see what he could have done. Craig, with his superior sloop and no canvas to impede him, certainly had the upper hand.”
“Oh, well,” said Belle, stifling a yawn. “Better luck next time.”
“Next time?”
“There’s always a next time. No Pentreath gives up easily, you know.”
“So Craig says.”
“Craig?”
“Yes. The pirate, the wrecker, the dark stranger...” said Tina dreamily.
Belle frowned.
“Adwen could be your dark stranger, too,” she observed.
“Yes,” agreed Tina, “I thought once perhaps he was, but the fortune-teller said he entered my life violently and Craig did that.”
Belle plumped up the cushions and turned over on her side.
“How absurd you are! He might have been married with several children and then what would you have done?”
“Nothing,” said Tina simply. “The fortune-teller only said a dark stranger would, enter my life. She didn’t say if he was important or not.”
“I’m glad to hear it. I should hate you to get romantic ideas about someone totally unsuitable just because he was dark and looked like a pirate,” Belle said a trifle tartly, and Tina laughed.
“Cousin Craig would hardly consider me suitable if it comes to
that,” she said, and Belle sighed comfortably and settled among the cushions.
“A very sensible conclusion,” she remarked. “You’re more worldly wise than I took you for, Tina. Now run away and let me sleep. The right young man will come along when you least expect him—that’s what young girls like to hear, isn’t it?”
Made bold by her stepmother’s unusual tolerance, Tina bent to kiss her, and as Belle did not push her away, she laid her cheek for a moment against the crisp black hair. “Not me,” she said with a smile. “I’m very happy here.”
II
Early in November the gales started, lashing across the bleak countryside and making Tina think of the days of the wrecks and the tinners in their ragged bands fighting with the fishermen for possession of what the sea would yield. Log fires blazed in the big rooms with their cold flags and bare stone walls, and the lamps, lighted at teatime, flared in the draught from open doors, casting strange shadows on the high ceilings. Breakfast was served in the small parlor for greater warmth, and in the evening if the wind was in the wrong quarter, they sat in the book-room on the other side of the house in an intimacy which seemed suddenly close because the room was a quarter the size of the other.
Sometimes Tina thought Craig shared her notion, for he would leave them without explanation and go to his study, or sit in the gun-room smoking his pipe as Brownie had said he liked to do when Keverne was alive. Often she wondered if the purely feminine companionship which had been forced on him irked him, but he only smiled when she asked him and lifted an eyebrow.
“You’re getting on better with Belle, now, aren’t you?” he asked her once and frowned at the happiness which flooded her face like a light.
“She’s quite different,” she said. “Perhaps, now I’m older, she has more use for me as a companion, but—well, I can talk to her and she listens as if she’s really interested. She even gives me little things.”
