The Dark Stranger

by Sara Seale

  Adwen’s manner was still insolent, but his eyes shifted.

  “How do you think you can prevent the girl marrying who she pleases?” he said. “She’s under age, it’s true, but you aren’t her guardian, and I can assure you her stepmother has no objection to me.”

  Craig’s jaw tightened and his head lifted in deliberate arrogance.

  “I can prevent it very simply,” he said with autocratic assurance. “Tina apparently omitted to inform you that she was already engaged to me. Until I release her from that promise she’s not free to make another choice, and I think you know, my dear cousin, that the Pentreaths don’t relinquish what they’ve fairly won.”

  Tina opened her mouth to deny such a preposterous statement, but as Craig’s blue eyes met hers with fierce intensity, she shut it again.

  For the first time Adwen looked shaken. It was one thing to score off his rich cousin but quite another to steal from him in a district where Tremawvan rights had been upheld for three generations.

  “Is that why you ran away?” he said disgustedly to Tina.

  Craig’s eyes were on her again.

  “Was that why you ran away, Tina?” he asked sardonically.

  She moistened her dry lips.

  “Yes,” she said and he gave her a brief, satisfied smile.

  “Young girls are often foolish at such times, aren’t they, Rocky?” he said suavely to the landlord. “A quarrel, a misunderstanding, and they fly to the nearest rival. You will kindly acquaint your customers of my engagement so that there need be no further misapprehension in the district. And you, Adwen, can tell your father to retract any unlikely stories he may have put about. The announcement will be sent to the papers tomorrow so there can be no mistake. Come, Tina. If you don’t soon get out of those wet things you’ll have a cold.”

  He picked up her suitcase, and under the watchful scrutiny of Adwen and the landlord, there was nothing left for Tina to do but to follow him out to the car.

  They drove in silence away from the inn. It was now all so much like a nightmare that Tina was no longer surprised at anything. She was too tired then to realize what Craig had committed her to. She only knew that again she owed him a debt it would be hard to repay.

  “You shouldn’t have told the landlord that story,” she said.

  “It was the only way, I’m afraid, to avoid a scandal,” he replied curtly. “You won’t have any trouble from Polrame now, or Rock’s gossiping clients.”

  “But you’ll have to deny it tomorrow,” she said wearily. “Won’t that make things worse?”

  “We’re not going to deny it, either of us,” he said calmly. “Tomorrow, as I said before, the notice will go to the papers.”

  She tried to see his face in the darkness.

  “But you can’t—I mean it was all a lie,” she protested.

  “It’s a lie you’ll have to put up with for the time being, I’m afraid,” he said, quietly.

  The long day had caught up with her at last, the scenes, the shock, the hours without food, and now the sharp, sudden knowledge that had things been different she could have given gladly what Craig could scarcely want from her. Without warning she bowed her face in her cold hands and wept the first tears of the day.

  The brakes screamed as he pulled the car into the side of the road and stopped. He sat beside her, waiting patiently for the storm to pass, but he said nothing and made no move to touch her. The wind lashed at the car, making it rock and a squall of rain beat on the windows.

  With gentle fingers, he turned her face towards him in the darkness and wiped the tears away with his handkerchief.

  “Is it going to be so difficult?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said, thinking of Belle and the things she had said and the knowledge that she herself had forced upon him a situation which could not be welcome.

  He was silent for a moment, then he said with deliberation:

  “I won’t make things any harder for you than I have to, Tina. You won’t find I shall take any—unfair advantages of our new status.”

  His gentleness after his ruthless anger was bewildering, and she turned to him wearily.

  “It isn’t that,” she said. “It’s—you don’t even know why I ran away.”

  “That can wait. Brownie gave me a clue, as it happened.”

  “Brownie?” She sounded vague. “Oh, yes, she came in at the end of that scene with Belle.”

  “I’ll hear it all tomorrow. You’ve had a shock, haven’t you? You’re worn out.”

  “I didn’t,” she said in a small voice, “really want to marry Adwen.”

  “I hope not,” he replied grimly. “Loot is no very good motive for marriage. That’s all he had in mind, you know.”

  “I suppose so,” she said humbly. “He used to remind me of you, that’s why he first attracted me, but you’re not a bit alike, really.”

  He regarded her with a strange expression but it was too dark for her to see his face.

  “So you do like me?” he said. “Do you remember telling me that liking was not a negative word, that you could learn to love a person through liking, but never the other way round?”

  She was too tired to catch the unfamiliar note in his voice, and repeated obediently, thinking of Adwen:

  “Yes, never the other way round.”

  “I’ll take you home,” he said with his usual abruptness, “Belle will probably have gone to bed, but you’d better leave me to break the news. I don’t fancy she’s going to like it.”

  He restarted his engine and swung the car out into the middle of the road, and as they finally turned between the high gateposts of Tremawvan, Tina thought, without surprise, he’s bringing me home for the third time, but now I’m Pentreath property...

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  I

  TINA never knew exactly what passed between Craig and her stepmother, but when she met Belle the next day she was surprised and a little embarrassed, when, after the expected recriminations had passed, Belle humbled herself to seek favors.

  She was sitting at a desk in the parlor when Tina came downstairs after the rare luxury of breakfast in bed, and in the strong morning light she looked her age and more. The muscles of chin and jaw had started to blur and her skin was losing its warm, rich bloom and was beginning to look sallow.

  “Good morning,” said Tina tentatively, and Belle turned to look at her.

  For a long moment she observed dispassionately the slender body and fragile, immature face of her stepdaughter, trying to see her with a man’s eyes. Was Craig, she wondered, really moved by this ignorant young girl just fresh from school? Was it possible that youth alone could evoke a tenderness which she herself had never inspired in any man, or was her cousin, like most Pentreaths, merely desirous of something a little better than himself, the only emotion she had known for Tina’s father?

  Of the bitter words which had been said last night, when, late as it was, he had come to her room to speak his mind, she had only recollection of what affected her most.

  “You’d better leave here,” he had said when he had got something like the truth from her. The harsh furrows of barely controlled anger were still etched from his nostrils to his mouth. “You’ve repaid my generosity with malice and chicanery and I owe you no further consideration for the accident of blood between us.”

  “Your generosity was for Tina, not for me,” she said, striving still to put him in the wrong. “You wouldn’t take what I was willing to offer, even to assure her a home.”

  “Your implications are hardly flattering,” he said ,with hauteur. “I’m scarcely old enough to play parent to a girl of eighteen, neither would I marry a woman I could not respect.”

  “Thank you. You have the Pentreath cruelty under all that fine exterior, haven’t you, Craig?”

  “You should understand that quality,” he said suavely. “You have a good degree of it yourself.”

  She sighed.

  “Yes, I’ve been a bad stepmother, but
I wasn’t cut out for it. I find young girls irritating and needlessly demonstrative, and so, I think, will you if you persist with this unsuitable arrangement. Tina won’t stand up to Pentreath demands.”

  “I’m demanding nothing which is impossible to give, and as for the unsuitable arrangement as you choose to call my engagement, you have only yourself to thank for forcing it now. By being a little too subtle you brought about a situation for which there was no other course.”

  “If anything I’ve done has pushed you into this, Craig—” she began eagerly. “After all, I was only trying to help.”

  “By thrusting the girl on my cousin’s tender mercies!” he exclaimed derisively. “You over-reached yourself, Belle, and don’t make any mistake. From the time she was sixteen I had every intention of ultimately marrying Tina.”

  She was shocked into silence, then she said speculatively: “I wonder why.”

  “No reason you would understand,” he replied, “but you have that decision to thank for your own hospitality at Tremawvan. Now you can go. I have no further use for you, and am certainly not prepared to risk any interference in the rest of my plans. Please make your arrangements by the end of the week.”

  Now, looking at Tina standing just inside the doorway regarding her with the grave, unconscious criticism which always annoyed her, subtlety was forgotten for the moment and only bitterness remained.

  “Well ...” she drawled, observing with pleasure that the girl looked tired and almost plain after the events of yesterday, “so you’ve got landed with the older not the younger cousin. That wasn’t very clever of you, was it? Or have I underestimated you, Tina, and you were angling for a rich husband all the time?”

  Tina closed the door and stood with her back to it. With sudden surprise she knew that Belle could not hurt her any more. It was like meeting a stranger to realize after so long that Belle was not important and neither was the affection which had been so earnestly desired. “Does it matter?” she said and Belle looked surprised.

  “Well!” she exclaimed and laughed with no amusement, “I must own I hadn’t thought you so worldly! You’re a sly little puss, after all, but I’ll give you a word of warning all the same. You won’t find being married to one of the Tremawvan Pentreaths all jam, my dear. They’re a tough lot and Craig has impossible standards thrown in.”

  “He’s very different,” said Tina quietly and Belle laughed again.

  “Gracious! Do you imagine you’re in love with him all because of that silly fortune-teller on the pier? I thought you had rather a fondness for Adwen, so much nearer your own age.”

  “Did you, Belle?” said Tina. “What are you writing?”

  “The announcement of your engagement for the papers, darling! Isn’t that nice?”

  “Oh! Does it have to be announced publicly?”

  “Craig seems to think so. Aren’t you proud of it, then?” Tina did not answer but stood by the desk, reading what her stepmother had written, while the color rose faintly under her fair skin. Belle watched her curiously. There was a composure about her that was new and disconcerting. She seemed indifferent in an untypical fashion to the whole situation.

  “Well, you’re a queer couple,” Belle said a little tartly. “You neither of you give the impression of being greatly enamored with the other. Perhaps it’s just as well.”

  “I’ve never,” said Tina with dignity, “had illusions about Craig’s feeling for me. You won’t hurt me, Belle, by trying to imply he’s not in love with me. He had his reasons for this—this agreement.”

  “As long as you realize that you’ve rather forced this situation on him.”

  “It was not I who forced it,” said Tina, quietly, “but I don’t suppose it matters. You look tired, Belle, didn’t you sleep well?”

  Self-pity and the sudden knowledge that she was dependent on Tina’s generosity rather than Craig’s lent unfamiliar softness to Belle’s face.

  “How could I sleep after Craig had stormed round my room for nearly an hour and ended up by turning me out of his house?” she demanded bitterly.

  Tina’s eyes widened.

  “Oh, no, Belle, he’d never do that,” she said quickly. “Not now when — when we should both need you here.”

  “You’ve forgotten that Brownie will be more than adequate as chaperon.”

  “But what will you do? Where will you go?”

  Suddenly Belle was crying, the difficult, unlovely tears of those who are seldom moved by emotion, and Tina stood looking down at the bent head with horrified dismay. In all the years she had known her she had never seen Belle weep and the sight filled her with helpless embarrassment. She had been rebuffed too often for heedless expressions of sympathy or affection to offer conventional comfort now. She stood there murmuring distressed phrases and stroking Belle’s shoulder with tentative fingers.

  Belle raised a face made old and a little pitiful by unaccustomed weeping and Tina knew once again and for the last time the old desire for an impossible union between them.

  Oh, Belle ... don’t ... don’t ...” she begged, the emotions which since yesterday had seemed so oddly numb, springing again to life with the desire to be important to just one of these strange Pentreaths. “I’m sure you’re mistaken. Craig was angry last night ... if you talk to him again ...”

  “I can’t, but you could, Tina.”

  “Me? But do you think he would listen?”

  Belle gave her little twisted smile.

  “What an odd remark for a newly engaged girl,” she said with some return to her old manner. “If he won’t listen to you, my dear, I may as well pack my trunks without further thought.”

  “But of course I’ll talk to him—this very evening,” said Tina. She owed Belle that at least. “I’m sure I can make him see he’s being unfair.”

  Belle’s tears had ceased and already her indolent composure was returning. She stretched out a persuasive hand to take one of Tina’s.

  ‘”Not that line,” she said quickly. “You must make him understand that it is you who want me to stay, that until you are married you will need me—mother stuff, in fact. Girls are supposed to need a woman’s advice at these times. Will you try, Tina?”

  “Of course,” said Tina. “You have no need to plead with me, Belle.”

  Belle smiled and withdrew her hand.

  “No, I don’t think I have,” she said. “You’re a good little thing, Tina. I’m afraid I’ve been an unsatisfactory stepmother, but I wasn’t cut out for it.”

  “No,” said Tina gently. “I don’t think you were.”

  But she did not altogether look forward to Craig’s return in the evening. She had no idea how he expected her to behave towards him and she felt shy of him now that she had had time to think about the implications of their relationship.

  II

  He was late home that evening and they sat down to dinner before there had been any opportunity for Tina to see him alone. He sat at the head of his table, his face dark and inscrutable in the lamplight, attending courteously to their needs, apparently unconscious of the long silences. Brownie seldom spoke until she had finished what was on her plate but Belle was unusually quiet and sometimes she sent Tina little meaning glances, reminding her that later she had a duty to perform. Tina, rather thankfully, thought there would be little opportunity to plead Belle’s case tonight, but as they all left the dining-room Craig said unexpectedly:

  “You’ll both excuse us, I hope, but Tina and I have things to discuss. We’ll be in my study.”

  Tina watched the two women cross the hall, Brownie with a nod of comprehension, Belle with a backward glance of reminder. They would not enjoy their solitary evening, each with their private thoughts and mutual dislike. Tina was aware suddenly that Craig was waiting for her, and she turned with misgiving to accompany him along the short corridor to his own room.

  She watched him turn up the lamp with careful precision, made awkward by the unfamiliarity of this room which she so seldom ent
ered. She had never noticed before that the flags were covered by a Chinese carpet which was almost a replica of the one in the parlor, and a little glass cabinet held a collection of sea shells so frail and delicately colored that they looked out of place in such masculine surroundings.

  “Have you never seen my shells before?” Craig asked and she became aware that he was at his old habit of watching her unobserved.

  “No,” she said, glad of a diversion, and bent over the cabinet, tracing on the glass the outlines of its contents. There were fan-shaped shells, thin and translucent, shells with spiral tracery and linings of mother-of-pearl, and tiny rosy petals of shells arranged in the shape of a flower.

  “How surprising,” said Tina, “to find them here.”

  “It is? Yes, I suppose so. They were my mother’s collection really, but I used to find them for her when I was a small boy,” he answered, and she looked up at him questioningly. Was it the same nostalgic desire to please which she had known herself that had made him collect shells for the mother who had preferred the elder son, and kept the collection ever since?

  His eyes were a little mocking.

  “My shells have shocked you, Tina, like your discovery that I could appreciate verse,” he said.

  She smiled uncertainly.

  “You told me only the other day that I didn’t know you very well,” she said.

  “Well, that’s a thing we hope to change, isn’t it? When you’ve been engaged to me for a little while you may alter some of your views of the Pentreath men,” he replied, then, as she made no answer, he added with raised eyebrows, “You hadn’t forgotten we were engaged, had you?”

  “Craig”—she began—“I—I don’t know what you expect of me.”