The Dark Stranger

by Sara Seale

  “How many rooms has Tremawvan?” Tina asked Brownie at lunch.

  “More than you need ever see the inside of,” was the uncompromising reply.

  “Brownie means,” observed Belle with a hint of malice, “that you mustn’t go poking your inquisitive nose into the secrets of Tremawvan as though you belonged here.”

  “Tremawvan has no secrets,” said Brownie. “Tina is welcome to the run of the house so long as she respects the privacy of certain rooms.”

  “I don’t think even Tina would go bursting unannounced into Craig’s bedroom,” said Belle with her twisted little smile.

  Brownie glimpsed the discomfort in Tina’s face, and, ignoring Belle, said unexpectedly:

  “Come, Tina, I’ll show you the house.”

  They went from room to room, the elderly woman and the young girl. The house was very silent save for the ticking of a multitude of clocks and the sound of their own footsteps on the flags. Brownie opened doors saying briefly: “This is the book-room—library you’d call it if the classics were complete ... here’s the parlor, though no doubt Belle would say morning-room; we take breakfast here in the winter for warmth ... the gun-room used to be the boys’ den and Craig still likes to smoke a pipe there ... the living-room you saw last night—no doubt it should be the drawing-room but this is a man’s house ... here’s Craig’s study in the new wing, but you’ll keep clear of that and Belle, too. A man must have a place of his own...”

  Upstairs there were a number of guest rooms, sheeted and clearly seldom used, Brownie’s own little suite which she had occupied for thirty years, and at the end of a corridor away from all the others, Craig’s large bedroom which had once been his father’s.

  The kitchen quarters, Brownie said, need be no concern of Tina’s, but should she wish to speak to any of the servants she had only to ring the brass bell by the baize door at the back of the hall and someone would come.

  “Belle said I should make myself useful,” Tina ventured when they had returned to the hall. “What could I do, Miss Brownie?”

  “Just call me Brownie like everyone else. Can you darn linen neatly?”

  “I—I’m afraid not. You see we’ve lived in hotels for so long.”

  “H’m. Can you do patchwork, or embroidery, or make butter? Jessie Pentreath, Craig’s mother, did beautiful tapestry work, but young girls today aren’t taught the graces. Well, we’ll think of something to occupy you, but today get out in the sunshine and find your way about. Craig said this morning he thought you needed to play, so go and do it.”

  Tina looked surprised.

  “Cousin Craig said that?”

  “Why not? He’s not so old.”

  “Oh, I didn’t mean—”

  Brownie’s face twitched with the beginnings of a smile. “Take yourself off and stop wasting my time,” she said. “Tea at five o’clock. No one will wait for you.”

  Left alone, Tina stood in the hall with closed eyes, listening to the clocks ticking and memorizing the different rooms, remembering their salient features; the masculine severity of the book-room with its ugly pitch pine shelves and faded rows of volumes, the tapestry seats of the stiff little chairs in the living room, worked perhaps by Jessie Pentreath, the old prints in the gunroom and the ancient weapons hanging over the fireplace, the Chinese carpet of surprising beauty which covered the parlor floor. Belle had described the house as a hopeless mixture of good and bad taste, but Tina did not think so. She had too little knowledge to discriminate, but she liked the old-fashioned solidity of well-waxed furniture and tapestry hangings, the flagged floors and high, bare walls and the lamplight which cast such unfamiliar shadows. Clocks all over the house began to strike the hour and with a quick sense of trespass, Tina ran out into the garden.

  She walked as far as the road down the straight, treeless drive, its grass verge marked by whitewashed stones, and climbed on to the high bank bordering the grounds to get a better view of the country. No other house was visible even from this village, but away in the distance over the brow of the next hill, Tina could glimpse the sea, a shimmering streak of horizon looking very far away. Rough tracts of moorland lay above the sloping fields which were divided one from the other by low stone walls and no life seemed to stir in the quiet afternoon.

  She retraced her steps, returning this time by way of the rough grass land which formed the boundary of the grounds. A sunk fence divided the fields from lawns and shrubberies, and quite suddenly, Tina came upon a little clearing with a stone summerhouse fashioned like a Greek temple and a magnolia tree of astonishing beauty growing beside it. She stood in the long grass wondering at the faint air of neglect the place bore. Clearly no one ever came here, for birds sang undisturbed by her intrusion. The little temple was moss-grown and some of its pillars were broken, and the clearing in which it stood had become a wilderness of fern and bracken. The branches of the tree, so heavily laden with blossom that they bowed to the ground, had already become entwined with plinth and column and fallen petals carpeted the broken steps.

  “Oh!” Tina cried aloud, and ran with outstretched hands to grasp the delicate blossom. This shall be my own place, she thought, touching the sunwarmed stone with loving fingers, then reaching up again and again to stroke the creamy petals so miraculously flushed with the warmth of living flesh.

  “Very charming,” said Craig’s voice on a dry note of amusement, and turning with startled swiftness, she saw him standing watching her at the edge of the clearing.

  “I—I never heard you,” she said lamely, still clinging to the stone column, uncertain now whether this was perhaps another place where he would not care for her to trespass.

  “Shouldn’t I be here?” she asked and he looked surprised.

  “I can’t think of any reason why you shouldn’t except that at this particular moment we’re half-way through tea. I came to look for you.”

  “Oh! I’m sorry,” she said, abashed. “You shouldn’t have troubled. Brownie told me that no one would wait.”

  “Well, no one has, but I expect you’d like some tea all the same.”

  “Yes,” she said and realized she was hungry. “How nice to be able to come in to all meals.”

  He came and stood beside her on the steps of the temple, leaning carelessly against a pillar while his eyes appraised her curiously.

  “You appreciate beauty?” he said, but it was a statement rather than a question and she made no reply. “My mother had the temple built because she loved the magnolia. She used to come here a lot when we were children but my father never cared for the place.”

  Her eyes were questioning.

  “Is that why it’s been neglected?” she asked shyly, and had he, she would like to have added, shared his father’s indifference?

  “Perhaps. You disapprove of neglect?”

  The vivid blue of his steady regard disconcerted her.

  “I—I don’t know. It depends on what sort of neglect, doesn’t it?”

  “Very true. Have you been neglected, Tina?”

  She looked puzzled and a little alarmed.

  “I don’t know,” she said again. “I don’t think so.”

  His smile was faintly sardonic.

  “What did you mean by that odd remark that it was nice to be able to come in to all meals? Did Belle starve you?”

  She laughed nervously.

  “Of course not, only—well, you see hotels are expensive if you’re on full board. We skipped lunch and sometimes tea. Belle had sandwiches and a drink. She said it was good for the figure.”

  “I see. And what did you have?”

  “Doughnuts—only sometimes I spent all my money on the pier—slot machines and things.”

  “And fortune tellers.” He smiled suddenly and the grimness of his expression vanished. “I gather from Belle that you had not expected to find your dark stranger in the person of rich Cousin Craig.”

  She flushed hearing the sudden dryness in his voice.

  “She hadn’t
seen you for years. Perhaps she had a wrong idea of you,” she said gently.

  “Very likely. I was never as quixotic as my brother,” he replied enigmatically. “You’d better come back to the house now and have that tea you look so much in need of.”

  They walked in silence, crossing patches of sunlight into fresh shadow until the house came into view beyond the last wide expanse of lawn, and the sense of loneliness returned to Tina.

  “Cousin Craig, may I—may I go to that little temple, whenever I like?” she asked.

  “You don’t have to ask permission,” he replied a trifle impatiently. “I’ll get Zachary to clean the place up for you, if you like.”

  “No,” she said quickly, adding at his glance of surprise: “I love it as it is—just as it is.”

  He did not reply and she glanced at his dark face with uncertainty. His silence might have held disapproval or merely indifference. She was conscious all at once of her untidy hair and the outgrown frock that was too short and awkwardness returned to her limbs as she joined her stepmother and Brownie at the tea-table.

  “The tea’s stone cold but there’s fresh coming,” Brownie remarked crossly.

  “Oh, please, you shouldn’t have bothered,” Tina began but Brownie gave her a discouraging look.

  “Don’t flatter yourself, miss,” she replied tartly, “the fresh is for Craig since he hadn’t the sense to leave you to find your own way home. Ring the bell, Craig, so Nellie will know you’re in.”

  “You shall,” observed Craig gravely to Tina, “be allowed exactly one cup of tea out of my fresh pot.”

  Her mouth curved up in an uncertain smile and quite suddenly he smiled back at her then rang the bell for Nellie.

  CHAPTER THREE

  I

  IT was a long summer and, for Tina, a period marked by much uncertainty. She could not feel as Belle did that they belonged to Tremawvan, nor could she escape the conviction that, in his own time, Craig Pentreath would politely send them both packing. Belle had slipped easily enough into her nominal position as mistress of the house, but Tina did not share her belief that in time Craig would find her indispensable. Brownie had relinquished very little of the housekeeping and Belle was obliged to ask her for any stores which were kept locked in mysterious cupboards in the still-room. Belle took her place at the head of the table, but it was Brownie who gave orders to the servants in the dining-room, resisting the innovation of polished mahogany instead of a cloth, or candles on the table in place of a lamp.

  “New-fangled nonsense!” she would grumble scornfully. “Decent table-cloths have been used at Tremawvan ever since I’ve been here, and Craig likes a light he can see what he’s doing by at meal times.”

  “Really!” Belle would exclaim angrily to Tina. “Brownie with her bourgeoise ideas! There’s no need for Craig to care so little for elegance because his father probably ate in the kitchen.”

  But Tina did not think that Craig cared nothing for elegance. His table, though old-fashioned, was well appointed, his servants admirably trained, and although his way of living lacked some of the more graceful elaborations which money would allow, there was nevertheless a pattern of formality at Tremawvan which permitted few changes and little slackness.

  Tina saw little of Craig except in the evenings. He paid small attention to her except to accord her common courtesy in his position of host, but sometimes she would find his eyes on her when she least expected it, and for all his apparent lack of interest in her activities throughout the day he must have been more conversant with what went on in his absence than she had supposed.

  “I shouldn’t stop for lemonade at the Spanish Inn if I were you, Tina, he would remark with disconcerting abruptness. “Cornish people don’t understand the pub habit and you’re a little young anyhow.”

  There seemed to be many things he would prefer her not to do such as walking on the moors alone, speaking to tinkers in the road, and rowing herself without escort in a hired boat in Merrynporth Cove.

  “And if you must bathe in the stream on Tudy Down,” he observed on one occasion, “either buy a swimming suit or make sure that no one can see you.”

  “Really, Craig! The poor child isn’t used to all this supervision,” laughed Belle, “I should have thought, buried out here in the wilds, one could pretty well please oneself.”

  “Sixteen is hardly an age at which it is safe to please oneself regardless,” he retorted.

  She shrugged but when Tina had gone to bed she said with a faintly malicious smile:

  “You don’t have to take quite such a cousinly interest in my unfortunate stepchild, Craig. You embarrass the poor girl dreadfully. She went quite pink at the thought you might have seen her in her skin. Did you?”

  His eyes were very blue.

  “You don’t seem to have taken your own responsibility very seriously,” he replied, evading her question. “How, for instance, did you know who she might be picking up with on the pier when she ought to have been eating a square meal at home?”

  Belle looked annoyed.

  “So Tina’s been telling tales, has she?” she drawled. “Perhaps she also told you that we couldn’t afford to eat when we felt like it.”

  “Oh, yes, she told me. Your lack of funds doesn’t seem to have affected your wardrobe. You’re very smart, Belle, which is more than I can say for Tina.”

  “There’s time enough for Tina. What does a schoolgirl want with pretty clothes?”

  “But she’s not a schoolgirl any longer, is she? Her father, I always understood, had left money for her education.”

  “God, how smug you are when you talk about money!” Belle exclaimed bitingly. “You’re like all people who have it—you enjoy censuring others who haven’t. If you felt so strongly about it why couldn’t you have offered to pay the school fees when I wrote to you six months ago describing our position?”

  His face held a hint of her own anger but he replied dispassionately enough:

  “True, but at that time I scarcely expected to become involved in your private affairs. To tell you the truth I thought the threat of taking the girl away from school was simply made to enlist my sympathy.”

  “You’re very hard, aren’t you? And why should I have imagined it would have made any difference to you that I wasn’t left with sufficient money to educate a child you’d never met?”

  “Because,” said Craig, his mouth now as hard as hers, “you knew the same thing had happened to me.”

  She lowered her eyes.

  “Did you mind, then, being thrust into the mine when you were barely seventeen? Or was it jealousy because Keverne was allowed to finish his education and you were not?”

  “I didn’t resent anything good that came to Keverne,” he said steadily. “Only the things which hurt him, as you should remember, Belle.”

  “Oh, I know what blotted my copybook with the Pentreaths,” she said, then her irritation suddenly died. “And yet, you know, Craig, seeing you again after all this time, you’ve made a much better job of yourself than Keverne did, despite his education.”

  “Do you think so?” he replied with polite disinterest. “Well, Belle, don’t forget that you yourself carry Pentreath blood. Perhaps there’s not so much to choose between any of us.”

  “My father was not like Uncle Zion,” said Belle proudly.

  “He was no better for that, and your mother and my father were brother and sister.” His voice was stern, then he unexpectedly smiled. “Can’t you forget your more well-bred connections, Belle? The funny thing is that when people have natural breeding, they never think about it. Your little Tina’s a case in point.”

  She lowered her eyes again.

  “I didn’t think you noticed her,” she said colorlessly, and got to her feet. “I’m sorry if I’ve sounded scratchy and snobbish, Craig. As you say, we’re cousins, and I—well, I suppose I’m grateful for your hospitality at least, but like Tina, I suppose I’m embarrassed by charity. Good night.”

 
“Good night,” he replied and watched her out of the room with a curious expression.

  Because if she did not relieve her mind of some of its resentment she would not sleep, Belle took a lighted candle and went to Tina’s room. The girl was asleep and for a moment her stepmother stood beside the bed watching the unconscious face which in unawareness had a hint of defencelessness which was rather touching. One arm was flung above her head, the fingers confidingly curled, and the long throat looked very white in the candlelight. For an instant Belle saw her with Craig’s eyes and she put out a swift hand and shook her roughly by the shoulder.

  Tina woke with a small, startled cry.

  “What is it? What’s happened?” she asked, sitting up in bed.

  “Nothing’s happened. I just want a word with you,” said Belle smoothly.

  “Oh!”

  Tina blinked up at her, admiring the lines of the smart new house-coat and the way Belle s hair, released from its pins, fell in thick, shining waves on her shoulders. How handsome she was with her gypsy coloring and her fine dark eyes, Tina thought, but she knew the signs. Belle was not pleased.

  “Have you been telling tales to my autocratic cousin?” she asked.

  Tina blinked the sleep from her eyes.

  “To Cousin Craig?” she said, looking puzzled. “But he hardly ever speaks to me.”

  “Well, he didn’t get the idea from me that you were half-starved and hadn’t any decent clothes.

  Tina tried to remember.

  “I didn’t tell him I was half-starved. One day he said looked as if I needed my tea, and I suppose he notices my clothes because my frocks are all too short. He—he seems to notice quite a lot,” she added, wondering suddenly if it had been Craig who had seen her bathing naked in the stream.

  Belle looked at her, observing the quick color in her thin cheeks, and said deliberately:

  “Well, don’t try and ingratiate yourself with my wealthy cousin that way. I don’t like little girls who make mischief, and neither, if he finds you out, will he.”