by Sara Seale
THE DARK STRANGER
Sara Seale
“I see a dark stranger entering your life violently,” the gipsy fortune-teller bad told Tina — but it seemed unlikely that her words would ever come true, for Tina was kept decidedly in the background by her stepmother, Belle, to whom the combination of straitened circumstances and an unwanted step-daughter did not appeal.
When, however, Belle’s rich cousin Craig Pentreath offered them a share in his Cornish home, it looked as if the prediction might after all be right. But the gipsy had not said that the coming of the dark stranger would bring Tina any happiness...
CHAPTER ONE
I
AT noon each day the sea front emptied of its visitors with a regular precision which left behind a minor desolation between the hours of one and two.
Tina liked people; you could make up stories about them and, if they were friendly, get into conversation with loiterers on the promenade benches. She felt a little sad when they began to go home for lunch; nursemaids with prams, women with dogs, retired colonels abandoning solitary constitutionals, but there was satisfaction too. It was too early in the year for holiday makers and the seaside litter of summer, and the empty front had a clean freshness in the late May sunshine, and, for a brief hour, it was a solitary kingdom.
Tina idled in the clear sunlight, enjoying the wind in her face and the cries of the gulls at the water’s edge. She walked towards the pier which had a kiosk at its entrance which sold the usual light snacks, feeling the loose money in her pocket; a shilling and six coppers. She thought of Belle in their little hotel which almost faced the sea. At this moment she would be having a martini and a lettuce sandwich on the veranda. Belle liked her to be out for lunch and then the complication of the midday meal did not arise, and Belle with her drink and her sandwich and her endless cigarettes could save the extras on the weekly bill. Good for the figure if nothing else, Belle said, shrugging, but Tina was not so sure. At sixteen, one’s figure produced few problems. She was hungry and she instinctively pressed her hollow stomach, estimating how many doughnuts a shilling would buy.
A stray scent of seaweed assailed her, reminding her of her father and the long past holidays in fishing villages which had no esplanade or cheap hotels. She could think of her father with nostalgia, still, but without pain. Since he had married Belle, their relationship had been quite different, and even his death, a year ago, had left her with a grief which was tempered by the knowledge that for him and for Belle she had been an awkward third best tucked away in the school which had been so much too expensive.
At the pier she paused irresolutely. She was hungry with the suddenly urgent pangs of adolescence, but the thought of the slot machines and the fortune-teller’s booth created the usual struggle. What, after all, did food matter? For a shilling the pier held endless delights, and at dinner time, especially if Belle was out, she could make up on vegetables and bread. Stoically averting her eyes from the kiosk and doughnuts, she paid her sixpence at the turnstiles and went through.
She walked to the end of the pier, her solitary footsteps ringing on the wooden boards, and between the cracks she could see the moving green of the sea. Had she possessed a little more money, she reflected regretfully, she could have hired a dinghy and rowed herself far out beyond the pier. She paused in front of the long, cracked mirror outside the empty bandstand and sighed as she regarded her reflection. Too thin, Belle’s acquaintances always remarked, and shook their heads at the briefness of outgrown hemlines which could not hide gawkiness. Tina peered closer, observing with distaste the high, childish forehead which so often looked worried, the wide-set eyes which gave her face too much delicacy, the mouth which curved too easily into a betrayal of her innermost thoughts. An unsatisfactory face, she decided, thinking of Belle’s ripe, dark beauty, and jumped when a voice behind her remarked:
“Admiring that pretty face and no young gentleman to see?”
Tina turned with the quick, coltish grace of startled unconsciousness. The fortune teller had come out of her booth and was standing watching her with tired, knowing eyes.
“I was criticizing, not admiring,” Tina said, glad of someone to talk to. “And no one could call me pretty.”
“No? Well, for some tastes you’d not be flashy enough, but those eyes and that mouth will take you far, my dear. Come inside and let old Gypsy Lee read the crystal for you.”
Tina’s mouth curled up in expectation, then out of the corner of her eye she saw the notice in the gipsy’s booth.
Crystal reading, 2s. 6d.
“I—I only have a shilling,” she faltered.
The woman’s eyes under the traditional bright handkerchief surveyed her dispassionately, observing the faded frock so obviously outgrown, the cheap shoes which already needed heeling.
“Never mind,” she said. “Few come so early in the season, anyway. Come inside, dear, and cross the gipsy’s hand with silver—even if it’s only a bob.”
Tina followed her into the dark little booth and sat on a rickety camp stool, gazing with faint trepidation at the lighted crystal.
“How long since you left school, dear?” the woman asked, taking the opposite stool.
“Six months, but I should have been there at least another year.”
“Money troubles?”
“Well, yes. My stepmother hasn’t got very much.”
“And your father died—six months ago?”
“A year. Does the crystal show that?”
The woman smiled. This self-revealing child was easy money.
“You are strange to these parts, you will not stay long, I think. You have the fair skin and the soft hair of those born to luck and love. Your Christian name begins with a C.”
Tina’s eyes became pools of wonder.
“Yes, it does. It’s Clementina, though nobody calls me that. Please go on.”
The fortune teller pushed the crystal to one side with a gesture of finality. She could hear the kettle for her afternoon cup of tea coming to the boil.
“Your fortune will change,” she chanted glibly. “I see a long journey and a dark stranger...”
“A dark stranger—a man?”
“The crystal doesn’t reveal, but I see a dark stranger entering your life violently, and that for a bob, dear, is more than you’d get from most. Good afternoon.”
Tina blinked in the sunlight after the stuffy dimness of the booth and stood for a moment staring out to sea contemplating the possibilities of her meagre fortune. A journey and a dark stranger was not much to look forward to for the price of a shilling, and there was now nothing left for even one doughnut. It was ten minutes past two by the pier clock. She could safely return to the hotel and perhaps if Belle was in a good mood and not committed to an afternoon of bridge she could be persuaded to come out for tea at one of the little cafes which sold buns that were plentiful and satisfactorily stodgy.
Tina walked back along the esplanade thinking how alike most seaside towns were. Since her father had died she and Belle had lived in many cheap hotels in such places. Tina was not yet aware that she missed a settled home, but since she had been taken away from school she sometimes thought with nostalgia of those dull days of security, living by rule and routine and knowing with reasonable certainty what the morrow would bring. She had never known her own mother, and when Clement Linden had married again so unexpectedly she had looked forward with pleasure to the advent of a stepmother. She still admired Belle, whose dark good looks were so unlike her own, but she had learned not to expect too much from the relationship. Belle was not cosy, or, indeed, at all maternal. She did not care for thoughtless demonstrations of affection and Tina suspected that she found an adolescent stepdaughter something of a nuisance.
> Well, she supposed with a sigh, she must be a needless expense to Belle who did not like to do without her comforts or her good clothes, and although her father had left sufficient to cover the rest of her education she had quite understood Belle’s decision that such extravagance in their altered circumstances was unnecessary. When she was a little older, Belle told her, she must find some suitable work, but what, asked Tina anxiously, could one expect to find with no G.C.E. and mathematics hardly more than a hazy grasp of simple addition and subtraction?”
“Nonsense!” Belle had laughed. “You are not going to be a careerist, my dear. There’s always typing, or domestic work of some sort—even marriage. We’ll think of something.”
It did not sound exhilarating, and the fortune teller had been scarcely more helpful. The Lindens were always taking journeys from one hotel to another, and as for the dark stranger, he or she was a nebulous sounding being despite the promised violence.
II
Tina turned into the hotel and went to look for her stepmother. Belle was still in her usual sheltered corner of the veranda, staring indolently at the dull little garden, cigarette smoke trickling lazily between her lips.
“Hullo...” Tina said, wonderingly uncertainly whether she had come back too early.
But Belle was in a good mood.
“Old Miss Ambrose had a set-to with the management because the coffee was cold,” she said. “It was most entertaining listening to them all chipping in with their complaints. Where have you been?”
“On the pier.”
“Slot machines again? I can’t think how you find the enthusiasm. I suppose you’ve filled yourself up with doughnuts as usual.”
Aware that she momentarily held her stepmother s interest, Tina experienced the old desire to command her attention.
“There was a fortune teller,” she said, flopping down on the coconut matting and clasping her thin arms round her knees. “You have to cross their palms with silver, you know, and I only had a shilling, so of course, as she said, you couldn’t expect much for that.”
“Good heavens, child, will you never learn sense? A shilling would at least have bought you some coffee and a bun. What did you expect to learn from a phoney gipsy on the pier?”
“She wasn’t phoney. She knew my past. She knew about Father dying and not having much money and she even told me my Christian name began with C. She couldn’t have known that by guessing. Everyone calls me Tina.”
Belle puffed a cloud of tobacco smoke into the air and regarded her stepdaughter with impatient amusement.
“Really, Tina! The initial you embroidered so badly on your cardigan is plain enough for anyone to see; and your clothes hardly look expensive.”
“Oh!” The young face was crestfallen for a moment then Tina’s wide mouth curved up in a smile. “Well, anyway, I’m going a long journey and a dark stranger is going to enter my life violently. What do you think that could mean?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea,” said Belle, stifling a yawn, “but at the risk of encouraging your superstition I can tell you here and now that the long journey at any rate is decided on.”
“Are we moving again?” asked Tina with a sigh.
“Very far afield this time and with more permanency, I hope. We’re going to Cornwall.”
Tina looked startled.
“Cornwall! That will be a terribly expensive journey, Belle.”
“Undoubtedly,” said her stepmother dryly. “But as we shall have no board to pay when we get there I think the exchequer will have to stand it.”
Tina’s eyes seemed to grow enormous.
“Do you mean the rich Pentreaths?” she asked disbelievingly.
Belle smiled a little cynically.
“The rich Pentreaths—at least one of them. My cousin, Craig, has written to suggest I go down to Tremawvan and keep house for him for a time. In return we both get a home. Does the idea appeal to you?”
“I don’t know.” Tina sat hugging her knees and frowning and a little breeze blew the soft, straight brown hair across her face.
Belle’s Cornish cousins had sounded so remote and unreal that she had scarcely believed in them. She tried to remember the stories. There was old Zion Pentreath who had made a small fortune from one of the few mines left working in Cornwall, and shrewdly added a cannery to supplement the original venture, his sons whose lives had been dedicated to the mine even before they were out of school, and the other branch of the family who were neighbors but enemies because long ago someone had made a marriage which was not approved of. Belle had always spoken of the Pentreaths with a mixture of bitterness and contempt, bitterness because they had never helped her and old Pentreath had not seen fit to remember her in his will, and contempt because the making of money had been of far more importance in his eyes than educating his sons to be gentlemen.
“Craig Pentreath,” Tina said slowly. “Which one is he?”
“The only one of any consequence left now,” Belle replied. “The brother was killed a few years ago. Of course there’s Brownie, but she hardly counts—just an elderly connection who’s always lived with them, too rheumaticky now to be of much use I gather.”
“What’s he like?”
“I haven’t seen him for years. He used to be rather overbearing and impossible like his father, but age may have improved him. At least he seems prepared to admit that I have some sort of claim to Pentreath consideration.”
Tina frowned again. She did not believe that people improved with age. Belle’s elderly-sounding Cousin Craig might very well have grown more like his horrid old father.
“What made Mr. Pentreath suggest that we went to live with him?” she asked.
Belle lighted another cigarette.
“Well, to tell you the truth, Tina, I wrote myself and suggested that the rich Pentreaths might think fit to help a little. I might have known that Craig, like his father, would be loth to part with money, but free board and lodging for a time will at least help us to catch up and I must own I’m sick to death of these cheap hotels.”
“Then I needn’t have left school,” said Tina and all at once knew a surprising regret for her unfinished education.
Belle glanced at her sharply, and, for not the first time the unconscious criticism in the clear, hazel eyes irritated her.
“The fees were ridiculous for a man in Clement’s position,” she said quickly. “Had I known, of course, that Tremawvan would be open to us things might have been different.”
“I don’t think I want to go there,” said Tina slowly.
“Why on earth not? At least you’ll be well fed and housed.”
“I have no claim on your cousin. I should feel embarrassed—besides, he mightn’t like me.”
Belle smiled.
“My dear child, he won’t even notice you. He’s away at the cannery all day and doesn’t entertain. Tremawvan is a big house and you can easily keep out of his way.”
“Oh ... do you think you are going to like it, Belle?”
Her stepmother shrugged.
“Beggars can’t be choosers,” she replied indifferently. “But if I’m to have the running of the place I shall change what I don’t like in due course.”
Tina looked doubtful.
“Mr. Pentreath doesn’t sound as if he would take kindly to change,” she observed.
Belle threw away her cigarette and stretched.
“When you’re a little older, Tina, you’ll learn that a clever woman can influence most men—no, perhaps you won’t. You haven’t enough personal ambition to alter what you don’t like. Your father over again.”
Tina was silent, regarding under her lashes the hard, handsome face and the dark eyes which sometimes watched her with such impatience. She was aware that in Belle’s view the Lindens, both father and daughter, somehow fell short of satisfaction, and her stepdaughter could still hurt her with a careless phrase. After a long pause, she said shyly:
“Father used to say that if you put u
p with what you didn’t like sometimes you—sort of changed your ideas.” Belle made a face.
“Your father coming of generations of Lindens who were taught good taste in their cradles, didn’t have to put up with very much. Well, apply it to yourself, my dear, and forget your embarrassment at accepting mere hospitality from my magnanimous cousin.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean to suggest—“ stammered Tina.
“I’m sure you didn’t. Now, I really think I can afford that new frock and various other little things as well. I shall go up to London tomorrow and arrange for fittings. You can have the regular lunch here for once.”
“Won’t I need any clothes? My dresses are awfully short.”
“You won’t need clothes that matter, buried in the country, and at your age it’s a little early to be thinking of your looks.”
“It isn’t my looks,” said Tina earnestly. “But my legs are so long.”
“Well, perhaps we can let down some hems. Now, what would you like to do this afternoon?”
It was so unusual for Belle to offer her a choice of occupation that for a moment Tina looked surprised, then her whole face lit up.
“Oh, Belle, could we go to one of those little cafes and have a really slap-up tea?” she asked breathlessly, aware again of the void in her stomach.
Belle sighed sharply. Really, the young were very unimaginative.
“Oh, all right,” she said indifferently. “But for heaven’s sake don’t go without a handkerchief as usual and expect to wipe your sticky fingers on mine.”
III
They did not leave until the middle of June. It seemed to Tina that her stepmother required a great many new clothes for an isolated country house where no one entertained. She did not understand that freed at last from the weekly hotel bills, Belle’s natural extravagance was having its head.
Tina enjoyed watching her stepmother try on her new clothes when they were sent back to the hotel. She would sit curled on Belle’s bed, whole-heartedly admiring and once when Belle tossed her one of her old dresses which had shrunk at the cleaner’s, she so forgot herself as to fling her arms round her stepmother and nuzzle a flushed face into her shoulder.