The Dark Stranger

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 final
i
ty. 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
j
ourneys 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 phon
ey
gips
y
on the pier?
”