The Dark Stranger

by Sara Seale

  Craig was very silent and looked grimmer than usual and when he rose to go she ran out with him as far as the car.

  “Craig, give it up, please,” she urged. “It’s all so—so childish and unnecessary. If it was Adwen, it’s far more dignified to take no notice. Don’t you see he’ll be expecting retaliation. It’s probably what he’s hoping for.”

  He stood looking down at her thoughtfully before he got into the car. “My behavior’s an example of the family lack of breeding, you think?” he asked wryly.

  “Of course not,” she said quickly. “It’s just that—”

  “You’re probably right,” he cut in, “but perhaps you don’t altogether understand. To you it’s just a matter of some unimportant and not very handsome statues, but to me it goes very much deeper. If it wasn’t for you I’d most likely adopt your counsel once my temper had cooled down.”

  Her chin lifted and her clear eyes met his firmly.

  “Craig, I refuse to be a bone of contention. You took me from Adwen in a sense so can’t that satisfy your—your pride? His retaliation is just a little boy’s—the sort of wanton destruction people do who don’t know any better. It really doesn’t warrant this desire for—for bloodletting.”

  He smiled reluctantly.

  “You’re very persuasive, Tina,” he said. “In fact I’m not at all sure you aren’t trying to put me in the same category as Adwen.”

  “If you shoot him in the pants to pay him out, you will be,” she said and he laughed outright.

  “Well, if he doesn’t come tonight, we’ll see,” he said and got into the Lancia and switched on the engine.

  She put a pleading hand on his shoulder through the open window.

  “No,” she said, “that’s not a real promise. If he doesn’t come tonight you’ll leave it alone—please, Craig. I don’t think I have ever asked you for anything before.”

  He looked at her quickly and his eyes were surprised.

  “No, I don’t believe you have,” he said. “Very well, Tina, I’ll give you that promise. We’ll ignore the whole thing and be dignified.”

  “Including tonight?”

  But he would not commit himself any further.

  “We’ll leave tonight until it comes, if you don’t mind, and I’m warning you now, if more damage is done tonight or any other night, I’m taking back that promise. Now you must let me go, I’m late as it is.”

  She was obliged to be content with that much. One could not, she supposed, blame Craig for wanting to take action, but she hoped with great intensity that Adwen would keep away from Tremawvan. She told Brownie and her stepmother of Craig’s decision, expecting approval for her intervention, but Brownie pursed her lips and observed as Zachary had done that a man was entitled to defend his property as he saw fit, and Belle lifted an eyebrow and drawled:

  “Quite the little helpmeet, aren’t you, darling? But don’t run away with the idea that any Pentreath will listen to you for long. Even a man who’s in love can be taxed too highly.”

  Her implication was plain to Tina and she avoided Brownie’s eyes hoping that she would misunderstand.

  “Well, I only hope he doesn’t come back tonight,” she said, and Brownie remarked with a sidelong look at Belle: “You’d best send him a message to keep him away, since you’re still on terms with Polrame.”

  But Belle was quite undisturbed, though she caught a puzzled glance from Tina and wondered how soon Craig would get to hear of her dealings with Polrame.

  “Certainly not,” she replied. “That would just be a challenge for him to come and possibly bring a gun himself. Do you want a slaughter of Pentreaths in the garden, Brownie?”

  Brownie snorted and left the room and Tina, after a doubtful look at her stepmother, wandered off to find some occupation that would keep her unruly thoughts busy. As the day wore on she found herself becoming childishly convinced that Adwen would come because it was the third night. Didn’t most superstitions go in threes, she argued? You bowed three times to the new moon, counted three magpies as lucky, had three wishes and three guesses to a riddle. Had she not herself as a child turned round three times for luck at a wishing well, repeated a magic formula three times to ensure success, knocked on wood three times because once did not seem enough? Cornishmen were superstitious, Craig had said. Might not Adwen regard the third night as propitious for his purpose, and, having left three cupids undefaced, return tonight to finish the job?

  She had no means of judging from Craig’s manner in the evening what he meant to do, but his gun still lay in readiness on a chest in the hall, and Zachary, doubtless, was posted outside to give the signal should it be necessary. Tonight she determined she herself would watch. Her bedroom window commanded a good view of the gates and the sloping terrace of lawn where the cupids stood. Should she see Adwen in time, she would run out and warn him before the alarm was given and Craig committed to some hasty action.

  It was a lovely night. A moon hung bright and clear in the sky, bathing the lawns in light, and only in the alleyways and groves of rhododendrons could a man move unobserved. Too bright, thought Tina with a sigh of relief, but even as she sighed, she heard the sound of a sports car breasting the hill, and as she listened, it stopped a little way up the road and its lights went out.

  Before she had time to think she was out of her room and down the stairs, her feet bare so that she could not be heard, and in the hall, she stood for a moment, her heart thumping, listening for any sound to show that others in the house had heard the car. Craig’s gun still lay on the chest, and the hands of the grandfather clock stood at a quarter to midnight. The oil lamps were burning in their sconces, which meant that someone was still up, but not a sound came from any of the rooms and Tina let herself out of a small side door and ran across the moonlight lawns, the thin rime cold on her naked feet.

  II

  Both Craig and Belle were up. Belle had long since dropped to sleep on the sofa and Craig, because he was tired and more dispirited than he would allow people to see, sat on by the dying fire, too lazy to make the effort to go to bed.

  He had decided much earlier to give Tina her way and abandon his night’s vigil, and even when he heard the car and recognized the engine he did no more than cross the room to one of the long windows and draw aside the curtains. If he saw his cousin actually enter the grounds, he thought, his mouth tightening, he would go out and give him the dressing down of his life, but he would leave his gun behind.

  As he looked he could see Tina running across the lawn, her bare feet white in the moonlight, and at his quick exclamation, Belle woke and demanded sleepily if the marauder was in the garden. When he did not answer she struggled to her feet and went and stood behind him to look over his shoulder.

  “W-ell!” she said. “It looks more like an assignation to me. The sly little puss! No wonder she persuaded you to drop your plans for tonight.”

  A man’s figure carrying something was already in the drive, and as Tina came running across the grass, he put down his burden and went to meet her. It was clearly Adwen. In the brilliant moonlight his black head and lithe young body were unmistakable.

  “I’m putting an end to this once and for all,” said Craig harshly. “If Tina doesn’t want the young man to get hurt she’d better come straight back into the house.”

  Belle put a restraining hand on his shoulder.

  “No, wait,” she said softly. “Tina will probably persuade him far better than you would, besides, the poor sweet’s only doing her best to stop bloodshed. Give them another five minutes.”

  They stood there silently, while Adwen and Tina argued; he seemed to ask a question for she nodded her head in reply and the next moment he had caught her in his arms. It seemed a long time before they drew apart again and to Craig it did not look as if Tina was even struggling. They were etched on the moonlight, close in a long embrace.

  “Well!” said Belle with enjoyment. “That was quite a kiss. It’s a good thing Tina doesn’t kn
ow she’s being watched.”

  “By God! I’ll break that young Lothario’s neck!” exclaimed Craig, his voice hard and violent with anger, and he tried to push past her, but Belle held him firmly in a grip that was surprisingly strong.

  “Don’t be a fool, Craig,” she said. “The damage is done now. It’s the only damage that will be done tonight, I think. He’s going away, and by the time you get there it will be too late and you’ll only look a fool. Besides, Tina would be most embarrassed.”

  He looked furiously into her eyes.

  “Are you trying to cover up for them?” he demanded. “It’s unlike you to spare Tina’s feelings, or did you arrange this little assignation as you call it?”

  “Oh, don’t be ridiculous!” she replied. “Why blame me for something you’ve only got yourself to thank for? If you made love to the girl sometimes she wouldn’t have to get what she can from the only other man she knows.”

  The anger in his face gave place to arrogance.

  “Has Tina been complaining of lack of attention?” he asked, and she shrugged.

  “Well, after all, Adwen did pay her little pleasantries. She wouldn’t be female if she didn’t miss them.”

  “She’s complained I don’t make love to her, is that it?”

  “Well, you don’t, do you? I don’t blame you if she doesn’t attract you sufficiently, but you can’t expect her to understand that point of view, can you?”

  Craig drew the curtain again and regarded Belle with a mixture of dislike and weariness.

  “It never occurred to you that I might have hesitated to force matters out of consideration for Tina,” he said.

  She went back to the fire.

  “Well. I can’t say I think it would have occurred to her,” she said with amusement. “When a girl gets engaged she expects certain indications that she is desirable in the eyes of her fiancé, however obviously he is contemplating a marriage of convenience. I always did tell you, Craig, that there was a little fondness there for Adwen. If you’d left them alone, Tina could have gone on enjoying her little pleasures and excitements.”

  “Is that all she wants, little pleasures and excitements? In other words the casual passion of any practiced womanizer? Is that what all young girls want?”

  She yawned and looked at the dock.

  “I wouldn’t know, darling, it’s a long time since I’ve been a young girl, but I got the impression that my stepdaughter thinks you’re rather a dull, cold-blooded fish. I really must go to bed. Tina will have had time by now to slip in and sneak back to bed after her little pick-me-up. Goodnight.”

  By the next morning Craig was still so angry with Tina that he left for the cannery without his breakfast rather than meet her with Brownie putting a check on what he would like to say to her.

  He knew he had forced the engagement on her but he had thought she would understand that by making no demands, as he had promised, he was allowing her time to come naturally to intimacies which he had no intention of ignoring indefinitely. Small memories came back to torment him: Tina saying: “I will remain engaged to you as long as Belle stops here ... Tina telling him his mother had been unhappy because she was unloved; her avoidance of him at Christmas, her reluctance to give him the conventional kiss of politeness which he had asked for in return for his present. And she had dared to complain to Belle that he was lacking in ardor, to Belle who would enjoy her discomfiture and give doubtful advice. For once his cousin could not have been lying, for if Tina had not told her, how else could she be so sure? It never occurred to him that a woman of Belle’s type would know a thing like that by instinct. His pride was bitterly hurt to know that the two had discussed him, perhaps laughing as women will that he had observed so meticulously the conditions of his bargain with Tina.

  Tina got up that morning with the light-hearted knowledge of a danger put behind her. The mystic number of her childhood had not failed her, and had proved her right just like the fortune-teller on the pier. Solemnly she arranged her belongings in threes all over the room, three shoes, three stockings, three hair ribbons, three pins, as she had done in her childhood. Nellie will think I’m mad, she thought, but it was her own salute to Luck and a hostage for the future.

  She felt she had conducted the situation very efficiently last night. It was a pity Adwen had to dramatize things by making a kiss of renunciation a condition for his promise not to return, but Adwen was like that, and it was easier to give in than have an argument, and he really had been rather like a little boy with his pots of paint with which he was going to render the cupids red, white and blue. He had not, she had been glad to observe, been unimpressed by the fact that for the last three nights Craig had been waiting for him with a gun and she did not think that he would trouble them any more.

  She thought Belle looked at her with a speculative eye, but no one had heard the car but herself and she wanted to tell Craig about the night’s adventures before she told the others. Belle, too, was giving nothing away. She had successfully administered the jolting which she had decided would do Craig’s smugness no harm; Tina, she thought, could receive hers from him far more effectually. She had, she congratulated herself, cooked up quite a nice little bitter brew for them both.

  It was a fine afternoon and Tina decided to go for a walk after lunch. She cut across the fields, meaning to cross the road and explore the moor on the opposite side, but she had climbed the bank and was just going to jump down, when she heard, to her surprise, the Lancia roaring home unusually early, and she immediately waved and shouted, glad that she would get Craig to herself before the others could make a private conversation difficult.

  He stopped with the same scream of brakes that she remembered from their first meeting and she did not think he looked particularly pleased to see her.

  “Were you on your way somewhere else?” she asked. “I thought you were going home.”

  “I was going home, for a talk with you as a matter of fact. Since we’ve met, we won’t go home at all, but have some fresh air instead. Get in.”

  She complied, but with the feeling that perhaps now was not the moment, after all, to make an amusing story out of last night’s happenings. He drove with the speed and rather grim concentration which he affected when he was upset by something and she wondered what had happened at the cannery to send him home early and in a mood.

  They passed the gates of Tremawvan, up the hill and on to the bleak bit of moor which ended in Tudy Down. The car was open as usual, and Tina knotted her scarf more warmly about her throat and let her hair stream backwards in the wind. Craig pulled up on Tudy Down and sat looking at her in silence for quite a long time.

  “Is anything wrong?” she asked.

  “Should anything be wrong?” he countered and she looked bewildered.

  “No, I don’t think so. I just wondered if something had happened at the cannery. You seem—well, sort of angry.”

  He continued to regard her with that strange speculative expression. She looked very young and very innocent and he wanted to slap her hard.

  “Anger is a misleading emotion. Other things can be mistaken for it,” he said.

  “Oh!” She sounded blank. This was going to be one of those times when he talked in riddles and made her feel very immature and stupid.

  She remembered then that he had not been the same since the statues had been discovered and she thought perhaps the affair went deeper than she had supposed. Like Brownie, he may have had pride and affection for the things because his father had loved them and they were part of his childhood.

  “I’m sorry about the statues, Craig,” she said impulsively, “I thought at first it was just your pride that was hurt, but they meant something, too, didn’t they? Part of your childhood, part of order and familiarity.”

  “The less said about the statues at this point, the better,” he replied. “You have a persuasive way with you, Tina. Why don’t you ask for what you really want, or at least make it plain in other ways if you’re
too shy to make demands?”

  Her eyes widened.

  “I don’t in the least know what you’re talking about,” she said trying not to sound nervous. “I—I—well, why should I make demands? You give me all I need and I’m grateful.”

  “But not enough, evidently, and I find your gratitude rather humiliating at times,” he said, a little roughly.

  As she sat there looking at him with those curiously spaced eyes which gave her face a look of naive innocence, his control snapped without warning. Her mouth was hurt and a little open, and he suddenly caught her in his arms and forcing her head back, kissed her passionately and without gentleness hard on the lips.

  “Is this all you want to content you—the careless passion of any man for any woman?” he asked when he released her. “That can easily be arranged so that you don’t have to run to the nearest casual man to gratify a desire I, in my mistaken chivalry, failed to satisfy.”

  She said nothing, but sat very still while the color rose in a great wave under her delicate skin. He watched her with sardonic amusement and as she still said nothing, he asked:

  “Well, would you like some more?”

  She shook her head, rubbing the back of her hand across her bruised lips.

  “Regard it then as the first instalment of a series for the future. Never misjudge a man so completely, Tina, that you don’t recognize the difference between self-control and lack of desire.”

  She forced herself to meet his vivid eyes.

  “I don’t see how I could have known,” she said. “I thought perhaps—well, Belle used to say that I wouldn’t know how to attract a mature man.”

  “Yet you complained to Belle of my shortcomings,” he rapped back harshly. “You gave her a very pretty little idea of our relations knowing full well she’d only laugh.”

  “I’ve never,” said Tina, going a little white, “discussed you with Belle. Once she told me that you weren’t in love with me and I said I knew, and that’s all that ever passed between us. Don’t you see, Craig, that Belle is the sort of woman who somehow knows these things without being told? She talks about girls looking as if they’d been kissed. I suppose when you’re in love you have some quality that gives you away. I don’t know.”