The Dark Stranger Read Online Free Page A

asked. Her thoughts were becoming hazy.
    “ So you ’ ve heard about the statues, too. Yes, they ’ re still there. ”
    “ Oh, I ’ m glad. Belle said you would have changed all that. ”
    “ Nothing is changed at Tremawvan, ” he replied a little grimly, then observed on a different note: “ And there ’ s one thing I should say to you, Miss Clementina Linden, it ’ s unwise to stop strange cars in isolated country lanes. Kindly remember in future. ”
    Her eyelids were already drooping.
    “ Yes, ” she said and fell asleep.
    She woke when they reached the house and followed Craig into a wide high hall with a roughly flagged floor and oil lamps set in alcoves round the bare stone walls. Two statues sculpted from granite flanked the staircase and a third held a lighted torch on the first landing.
    “ Inside, too ? ” said Tina, blinking with surprised delight.
    “ Inside too, ” replied Craig and opened a door on the right. “ Well, here ’ s your missing stepchild, Belle. Unlike you, she approves of the statues. ”
    “ Tina ’ s taste is naturally still a little unformed. ”
    Belle ’ s dry voice from the other end of a long, lofty room sounded small and brittle. She sat beside a great polished granite fireplace, and although it was mid-June, a wood fire burned in the hearth. You would, thought Tina, with interest, need fires all through the summer evenings in a house with floors and walls of stone. Rugs covered the flags sparsely, as if carelessly flung down, and rush matting ran between two doors which clearly marked a well-used passage through the room.
    “ Taste, my father always said, was a matter of personal preference, ” said Craig, answering his cousin as he shepherded Tina across the room.
    “ And education, too, ” replied Belle smoothly. “ But after all one is entitled to furnish one ’ s house as one likes, even down to statues, though I imagine you have probably allowed Uncle Zion ’ s taste to over-rule your own—or couldn ’ t you just be bothered? ”
    He did not appear to think the point worth arguing. “ You forget I was brought up here, ” he remarked indifferently. “ You will find the house quite comfortable, Belle, even if the decorations offend you. Where ’ s Brownie ? ”
    “ She ’ s gone to see to Tina ’ s supper, I think. ”
    “ Oh, but she mustn ’ t! I mean doesn ’ t she have rheumatism, Mr. Pentreath? ”
    “ Not badly enough to cripple her, ” said Craig. “ The servants are all in bed by now, I ’ m afraid. We keep early hours in the country. ”
    “ Did you get the cigarettes, Tina? ” asked Belle casually.
    “ Cigarettes? ” For a moment Tina looked blank.
    “ Well, my dear, you missed the train and put Craig to a lot of trouble on account of them. ”
    “ Oh, those. They hadn ’ t got any, I ’ m afraid, Belle, so it was all a waste, wasn ’ t it? ”
    “ Bother! ” said Belle crossly. “ I won ’ t last till the morning. You know I can only smoke Turks. ”
    “ Zachary can go into Merrynporth in the morning and bring you back some, ” said Craig, taking an ordinary cigarette for himself from a box on an old-fashioned occasional table.
    Tina sat on a long stool in front of the fire and held out her thin hands to the blaze. She wondered why Cousin Craig had not mentioned her further stupidity in getting out at the wrong station and his subsequent meeting with her. Belle must take it for granted that she had been met at Merrynporth, and it seemed easiest to leave it at that for tonight.
    She took surreptitious glances at Craig as he stood smoking and talking to her stepmother, and remembered Belle ’ s easy statement that a clever woman could influence any man. She did not think he looked the sort of man who would brook interference kindly. There was a hardness in the jaw line that betrayed a certain intolerance and his replies though always courteous held a crispness which might be a deliberate or merely his natural rather