There is a tide

A young woman, Miss Durrance, steps off a steam‑train into the mist‑shrouded English countryside, her sharp grey eyes taking in the patchwork of farms, hedgerows and church towers as if watching a stage set. The journey is anything but a pleasure cruise; she is a stranger in a strange land, clutching a battered grip and a mackintosh, already wary of the damp and the unfamiliar. When a striking, impeccably dressed New Yorker slides into the opposite seat, his confident grin and uncanny familiarity set her nerves on edge.

He insists he remembers her, calling her by name with a tone that mixes charm and menace, while she fights the urge to dismiss him outright. Their banter crackles with tension, each trying to assert dominance in the cramped carriage, as the fog outside seems to close in on their uneasy truce. The listener is drawn into this charged first act, waiting to see whether Miss Durrance will unravel the mystery of this enigmatic stranger or be swept further into an unfamiliar tide.