by Sarah Maine
Then he crouched beside her chair, showing her how to drip the tepid liquid onto the lamb’s nose and mouth from a soft rag. She became absorbed by the task, forgetting Cameron, watching as the orphan gradually woke to the smell and taste of the milk, its tiny tongue first licking, then tasting, and eventually settling down to suck. Beatrice looked up in delight to find that Cameron was watching her. “Well done,” he said.
That evening, Theo did not retreat to the study but sat beside the fire in the drawing room, a brandy beside him, leafing through a book. Once she had enjoyed the quiet intimacy of these evenings. She would write her journal or letters, while Theo sat opposite reading, the lamps filling the room with a soft glow. If the weather was fine, he might light a cigar and wander onto the terrace or down to the foreshore, and sometimes she would fetch a shawl and join him, tucking her arm in his, and he would smile at her. But lately, when the business of the day was finished and they were alone together, a glass wall seemed to descend between them, and the silence was no longer companionable.
“We talked of doing things to the house, Theo,” she began tentatively, exploring how things now stood between them. “To brighten it up.”
He barely lifted his eyes from his book. “There’s really little point, my dear. I’m not sure we’ll come here every year.”
“Will we not?” She stared at him; they had talked of coming every summer.
“Besides, I’ve got used to it this way.”
“But you had plans, Theo. To finish your catalogue. To paint—”
He smiled briefly. “And you wanted to see Venice and Rome.” He sat with his long legs crossed, wearing a comfortable old jacket, outwardly relaxed, but she sensed a tension in him.
After a moment she tried again. “How does the catalogue progress, Theo?”
“Am I neglecting you?” This time he lowered the book and looked over the top at her.
His directness stalled her. “I thought perhaps there was something I could help you with.”
“Thank you, my dear, I’ll bear it in mind.”
It was a masterly deflection, but she would not leave the matter there. “I’m sure I could do whatever it is Cameron Forbes does, checking lists and marking up illustrations.” He acknowledged her words with a nod, implying that he would consider it. “And then he’d be free to go back to Canada.” At that he raised his eyes. “He must be keen to be off, now his father is well again.” She clamped her teeth together awaiting his response.
Theo lowered his book, staring past her to the window. “He’s agreed to assist me for the summer,” he said after a moment. “Then get a passage in the spring.”
“But surely he’s more useful to John out on the estate now, while the weather holds. I could help—”
Theo switched his gaze to her. “Do you dislike having Cameron in the house, my dear?”
“No, not at all. By no means.” Again his directness wrong-footed her.
“I hope not, because I’m trying to persuade him to stay on. Having helped educate the blighter, I’d like to reap the rewards.”
The throbbing in her temples started again. “But if we’re only here for a few weeks—”
“There’s a role for him in Edinburgh too.”
Her heart lurched violently. “Is there?”
“I believe so.” And with that he returned to his book, reading doggedly. But after a moment he rose, selected a cigar from the ebony box on the sideboard and trimmed it briefly, before making for the door. “I’ll take the air a moment, my dear, before retiring.” And she watched him walk onto the terrace, shoulders hunched as he lit the cigar, and then, one hand in his pocket, and his collar turned up against the wind, he strolled down the drive and disappeared through the gateposts, out onto the strand.
Chapter 16
2010, Hetty
Hetty emerged from the cottage next morning to see the red Saab pulling onto the grass verge. “Were you away out?” Ruairidh Forbes asked, opening the car door.
“I’m going over to the island again. I forgot my camera last time.”
He looked across the strand and then at his watch. “You’ll be alright for a couple of hours or so. I just dropped by to let you know they came and took the bones away early this morning. But I won’t keep you.”
“So they’ve gone.” She looked towards the house, glad that she had not known.
“There’ll probably be something in the papers, but let me know if anyone bothers you.” She nodded gratefully. “And I’ve had a word with Aonghas, my granddad.”
She had forgotten about the old man. “Could he help?”
“Not a lot, I’m afraid. Blake’s wife was called Beatrice, he’s certain of that much. And as far as he knows she left the island with her husband, but it was years before he was born, of course, so it’s all hearsay.” He ran his hand through his hair, scratching the back of his head. “And he’s certain that when Blake came back, years later, he came alone, and he never saw a woman up there. Blake was in a poor way, he said, by the time he died. Hardly ever came out of the house, leaving matters to Aonghas’s grandfather and latterly to his dad, though he remembers the bird reserve being set up because he helped drive in the boundary markers.” He glanced across the strand again. “Anyway, I mustn’t hold you up, these westerlies bring the tide in fast, so keep an eye on the time.” He lowered himself into the car, giving a friendly wave as he drove off.
So the bones had gone, she thought, as she crossed the strand, conscious of spots of rain on the wind. Torn from their sandy grave to be transported to some impersonal laboratory hundreds of miles away, labelled and packaged, another job number. Perhaps it would have been better if they’d been left in peace, their story untold.
She didn’t linger in the burial ground this time, and having taken her photographs she set off to explore in the other direction, away from the house to where the wind and tides had sculpted the shoreline into small coves and headlands linking wide expanses of sand. She saw more ruins as she walked, almost a small hamlet, and was reminded again of the sepia photograph on James’s wall. Had Blake’s father cleared these people off their land too, or had they left to find an easier life? Past wrongs had a lasting potency, if James’s attitude was anything to go by, a bitterness which lingered. Did he, and her sullen landlord, cast her in the same mould? Despoiler. Oppressor. The idea was ludicrous.
She walked for perhaps a mile, then stopped when she rounded the next headland, puzzled by the sight of another old black house, tucked into the shelter of the cove. But this one was no ruin. It had been carefully restored, the roof recently thatched, weighted down by ropes and large stones, and glass shone from the deep-set windows. A pair of sturdy boots stood beside a peat stack near the door, and beyond the house she could see a patch of turned ground where a leafy crop was coming through. There were no cables, no propane tank, only a tin water butt, and two pairs of socks leaping energetically on a washing line. It needed only a few hens scratching at the threshold or a black-and-white collie chained near the door to be the subject of one of Blake’s paintings.
She stood and stared, her brow puckered. She’d been told that the island was uninhabited, and as far as she could recall from the map Emma Dawson had sent her, this part of the island was estate land. Yet someone was clearly living here. Should she go and knock on the door? She shrank from the thought of another confrontation. Then the cry of a gull overhead recalled her to the present, and she glanced at her watch and saw that it was time to turn back. She’d ask Ruairidh and take the matter from there.
Distracted by this new concern, she must have mistaken her route, and found herself on a track which brought her not to the bottom of Muirlan House drive but down the slope to the farm buildings behind the factor’s house. And there, in the middle of the farmyard, stood the battered Land Rover.
As she hesitated, considering whether to slip away unseen, the back door of the old farmhouse opened and the Land Rover’s owner emerged, a toolbox in his hand. �
�Hallo there,” he said, banging the door closed with his foot and locking it. “Been up for another look?” He tossed the tools into the vehicle, wiping his hands as he came towards her.
“I came to see the burial ground, then had a walk.”
He glanced back up the ridge. “Aye. They’re all up there, saints and sinners.” He opened another door, took out a shovel and a small pickaxe, and carried them to the Land Rover. “By the way, the boys in blue have been.” And he nodded towards the tools.
“I know. Ruairidh called by.” Had James been there when the bones were lifted? She hoped so; it made the business somehow less impersonal.
“Where did you walk to?” he asked.
She remembered the occupied house. “Just along the shore for a mile or so”—she hesitated—“and in one of the little bays I saw a house.”
“A house,” he repeated.
“A restored croft house, with people living there.”
He bent to scrape mortar off the shovel blade. “And did you see anyone?”
“No, but there was washing on the line.” He carried on scraping, saying nothing. “I thought you said no one lived over here?”
He glanced up, giving her an odd look. “Then you’ve yet to encounter your one remaining tenant, Miss Deveraux.”
“No one mentioned a tenant.”
“No? Well, you’ll meet him soon enough.” And there was a glint in his eye as he turned away. “Have you been to see the photographs in the museum yet?”
“No.” Was James Cameron playing games?
“And you’re away soon?” he added, as the shovel joined the other tools in the back.
“Yes. But I’ll find time to look,” she said, “so I can see what the interiors were like. And get some inspiration.”
He looked round then. “So you’re going ahead?” The glint had sharpened, but she held his look.
“I haven’t discussed your report with my agents yet,” she replied, and he leant against the Land Rover, his arms folded. “And they might have other ideas.”
“Such as?”
“Getting a second opinion, perhaps.”
He nodded, still watching her.
“And you said I need capital. My— I have a friend who’s an accountant. He understands finance.”
“Does he.” He straightened, evidently unimpressed, and went round to the driver’s door. “Hop in, I’ll take you back over.”
“Thanks, but I’ll walk.”
His head came up, and he looked across at her, eyes narrowing. Then he glanced over the bay and seemed about to insist, but he gave his maddening shrug instead. “Suit yourself. But get a move on. The tide moves fast with a westerly behind it.”
She regretted her refusal of his offer almost as soon as she left the shelter of the courtyard, for the wind across the strand was biting, studded with rain. Damn the man, with his silences and evasions, she thought as he passed her on the track a moment later with a toot on the horn. He confused her.
The tracks of his Land Rover had disappeared under shallow water by the time she was halfway across, and she realised that he was right—the tide did come in quickly! By the time she reached the last channel, it was deep and filling fast, so there was nothing for it but to roll up her jeans and get wet. She waded across, emerging wet above the knees and her feet numbed by the icy cold. As she sat on a rock, drying them as best she could on her socks, she heard a familiar engine roar and looked up to see the Land Rover move off from where it was parked fifty yards down the road. She watched it drive away, and annoyance reignited. So he’d sat there and watched her, the wretched man! And he now had another story to entertain the bar with, about the stupid English woman who was, quite literally, out of her depth.
She got back to the cottage to find that the storage heaters had cooperated this time, and the place was warm, so she heated some soup and drank it from a mug, looking out at driving rain which slanted past the window. There was no sign of it slackening, so this afternoon seemed as good a time as any to go and see the photographs that James had described.
Half an hour later she drove past bedraggled sheep which stood chewing beside the road or huddled in groups under the protection of low walls. She retraced her route from the day she had arrived, climbing to the high point and then dropping down on the eastern side of the island. A mile or so from the small town, she recognised the single-lane causeway she had crossed over a tongue of water, and slowed as she approached it—and then, with a jolt, slammed on the brakes.
There was a man standing in the middle of it madly waving his arms at her, and she skidded to a halt, straining to see through the wet windscreen. Behind her another car stopped, and the driver got out and joined the arm-waving man, both of them running erratically as if herding invisible sheep. What on earth?— Then she saw. A family of shelduck were scattered across the causeway, hemmed in by walls which cut them off from the sea, the two parent birds and seven or eight half-grown ducklings, panicked and running in all directions. It was an absurd scene, and she smiled, watching as the birds led the two men in a merry dance before they got the ducks all heading in the same direction, towards safety. Then, at the last moment, one duckling doubled back towards her, and there was nothing for it but to leap from the car and do her bit. She headed off the maverick and sent it back again as breathless, but laughing, the first man came towards her.
“Thanks! Neat job.” He was an elderly man with a craggy face and grey hair, and he was panting, the accent somewhere mid Atlantic. “That one was the wild child.” Then he threw back his head and gave a tremendous laugh. “But where else on earth would a bunch of ducks bring all the traffic to a halt?” His laughter was infectious, and then she saw that two more cars had pulled up behind her. “Better move on, I guess, but thanks again,” he said, and in her rear-view mirror she saw him continuing slowly on foot.
The museum, when she found it, was housed in an old manse, to which had been added an extension for the archives and a café. Two women sat behind a desk in the hall, deep in low conversation, but they broke off as she approached, nodding enthusiastically when she explained what she wanted. Yes, they had photographs of Muirlan House, in digital form, and they could be viewed anytime, although just now one screen was broken and the other one was in use. The woman gestured to the room on the right where an A4 sheet of paper was stuck over a screen. And at the other sat James Cameron, regarding her thoughtfully.
Hetty nodded briefly and turned to leave, but he rose and came towards her, cutting off her retreat. “I wondered if you’d come.”
“It was raining, so—”
“That’s what I thought.” He pulled over a second chair. “Have a seat.” She wasn’t pleased to be so predictable, but she could hardly refuse, so she sat down beside him and smiled her thanks to the woman who hovered a moment and then withdrew to whisper to her colleague. James flicked back to the title page, making no further comment, and began to scroll through the images.
She’d always loved old photographs, those little imprints of the past, and was soon drawn in. And she forgot James beside her as a century dissolved before her eyes and the stark ruin of Muirlan House became whole again, peopled and furnished in muted half-tones: a lost world. Rugs appeared on polished floors, a carpet covered the stairs, held in place by brass stair rods, and a great stag’s head peered down from the landing. A housemaid stood stiffly in the morning room, a woman’s hat lay cast aside on a hall table, a fishing rod slipped sideways on the porch, and a bowl of wild flowers drooped on a window-sill. The emotive trivia of life—how strange it was! And how impossible that the simple passage of time had blown it all away.
“Bit of a house of horror if you don’t like stuffed birds.” James’s words broke the spell.
He was right. There were birds everywhere, on shelves and bookcases, under glass domes and on plinths, reminiscent of old museum displays. “Some of them are through there.” He gestured behind her to the museum. “Bought at the auction and later dona
ted. Probably the last Hebridean sea eagle amongst them, a bit bedraggled now, poor beast.” Then the photograph he had told her about appeared on the screen, the dining table draped with white linen, a fluted silver centrepiece, fine crystal and silver, and the windows thrown open to an unchanged view. That at least was constant, but everything else had gone, and she felt again a deep sense of regret.
She must have sighed aloud. “It’s no good, you know,” he murmured beside her. “It can’t be done, not without millions,” and he scrolled on, stopping at a photograph of a shooting party posed at the front entrance. Two of the men had struck jaunty poses with feet on the lower step and guns over their shoulders. “That’s Theo Blake there.” He pointed to a tall, rather imperious figure on the top step looking over the heads of his guests with a self-confident, patrician air. The image was small and the figure distant, but it was enough to see a well-made man, with a large, flat pancake-like hat, in the style of the times, covering most of his features. “And that big fella there is John Forbes, the old factor.” He was a broad-shouldered man who stood to one side, and she could see the resemblance to Ruairidh in his build, although his face was obscured by a full beard and moustache. An island patriarch, Ruairidh had said, and she thought of the ring-headed cross in the graveyard.
Then came the photograph of a young woman wearing a pale silk blouse with a wide lace-edged collar and loose sleeves. She was seated on the window seat in the drawing room looking out of the open window, her face in profile, her chin resting on her hand, a picture of gentle femininity. Around her neck were two long strands of beads, unevenly spaced, and her fair hair had been swept back, held in place by combs from which a few wisps had escaped. Pearl drops hung from her ears, and her lips were slightly parted. Mrs. Theo Blake at Muirlan House c. 1910 read the caption.
“Beatrice!” said Hetty. “She’s lovely.” And then the terrible thought—the pale bones, the sandy grave, and a locket shining amongst the rubble. “Do you think it is her?”
