The Dark Stranger by Sara Seale

return. “ I would like to have seen you on your Speech Day ! ”
    She wore the frock for dinner and Craig fetched wine from the cellar and made a little celebration of the occasion. Belle rather mockingly drank the toast he proposed, her eyes hard as she observed the delicate color in the girl ’ s shy face.
    “ Such a fuss! ” she said lightly. “ You musn ’ t give Tina the idea that she ’ s now the daughter of the house. She will soon have to be thinking of a job of work. ”
    Craig made no comment but his own eyes were suddenly shrewd and a little contemptuous, and Belle said quickly: “ I must own you made the frock very nicely, Brownie. White is trying to wear, I always think. ”
    “ Not to the young, ” Brownie replied ungraciously. “ Tina looks very well in it—very well indeed. ”
    “ You made it beautifully, Brownie, ” said Tina warmly. “ No other girl had anything as nice. They were all envious. ”
    “ Well, I hope your shopping week was as successful, ” remarked Craig, his eyes appraising her thoughtfully.
    “ I have some lovely things, but I ’ m afraid poor Belle must have spent a lot of money, ” she answered with a grateful smile for her stepmother.
    “ No doubt she did, ” said Craig dryly, wondering how soon Belle would present him with the bills.
    “ I haven ’ t thanked you yet for paying for our hotel and all the theatres and things, Cousin Craig, ” Tina said and his chin lifted autocratically.
    “ I told you to drop the courtesy title when you came home for good, ” he said. “ You aren ’ t a little girl any longer. ”
    She lowered her lashes in silence, feeling rebuked, and Belle asked with her crooked smile:
    “ Does it make you feel elderly, darling? ”
    “ Craig ’ s younger than you are, Belle, and the child calls you by your Christian name,” said Brownie.
    S oon after dinner was over Belle announced rather crossly that she was going to bed, and Tina went out on to the terrace alone. Craig had been kind, trying to give her a special welcome, but it had not been a comfortable evening. Belle had lost the easy tolerance of the past week and Tina could see that she did not like her cousin ’ s small attentions.
    It was growing dark and every so often a bat swooped across the lawn. The stillness after the noise of city traffic was very marked and the old loneliness came back and the familiar sense of not belonging, so that she jumped when Craig spoke her name behind her. He had a habit, she thought nervously, of watching her unobserved, and she turned to meet him, aware for the first time that his influence in the past year of her life had been important.
    “ Hullo, ” she said a little lamely. He came and sat on the stone balustrade which divided the terrace from the garden, and the scent of his pipe was pleasant and familiar on the night air.
    “ It ’ s nice to be back, ” she said.
    “ It ’ s always nice to be home, ” he replied. “ But you were looking a little lost. ”
    “ I think I feel a little lost, ” she said. “ School over and a new life beginning. It ’ s all rather insecure, somehow. ”
    He looked at her leaning against one of the pillars, the stiff folds of her white organdie skirt ethereal in the dim light.
    “ Yes, I can understand that, ” he said quietly. “ But you ’ ve no need to feel insecure, Tina. ”
    “ Haven ’ t I? ” She sounded surprised. “ But you have roots, Cousin Craig. ” She laughed and apologized. “ I ’ m afraid I shall forget quite often. It ’ s become a habit to call you cousin. ”
    “ Can ’ t you yet think of Tremawvan as home? ”
    She looked down and away from him and with the slight movement the soft hair fell forward on to her bare shoulders.
    “ Home is where you belong, ” she said gently.
    “ And you don ’ t feel you belong here? ”
    “ It isn ’ t what I feel that counts. It ’ s what I am. ”
    He smiled faintly.
    “ And what are you? ”
    “ I don ’ t know,