The House Between Tides

by Sarah Maine

  Ernest Baird, meanwhile, was endorsing the sentiments. “It’s everywhere you turn. Unrest. Dissent. Even the women, God bless them.” He raised a glass towards Beatrice, then to his wife. “No longer content with your fine plumage, eh?”

  “Oh, those women. Mad. Quite mad.” Diana waved them aside with a twist of her hand and turned to Beatrice. “Aren’t they, my dear?” Theo saw that Beatrice had been caught off guard as all eyes turned towards her, and it was his turn to send a warning look. For God’s sake, no! Not down that route too. Beatrice and her mother had both surprised him with their vehemence on the subject of female emancipation. A reaction to the profligate father, no doubt, playing fast and loose with his family’s security. Understandable, perhaps, but even so.

  And sure enough, he saw Beatrice’s colour rise and her chin lift. “Some of their tactics are extreme, of course,” she replied, looking steadily across at him, resenting the warning, “but their desire to be heard is only reasonable.”

  “If they’d anything sensible to say, perhaps so,” grunted Campbell, and Baird guffawed. Theo felt a stab of sympathetic anger as Beatrice flushed.

  “What a goose you are, darling,” Gertrude chided. “They only want to see their names in the newspapers.”

  “Many are from good families, you know,” spluttered Baird, his mouth half-full. “Well-to-do. They could stay at home and be quite comfortable! If you ask me, they’ve run out of ways to fill their time.”

  Theo watched Beatrice survey the table coolly, her annoyance betrayed only by patches of pink on her cheeks. “Surely the fact that they could stay at home but choose to put their freedom at risk shows how passionate they feel.” Silence followed, and Theo groaned inwardly as looks were exchanged around the table.

  “Plucky too.”

  Cameron’s even tones broke the silence, and Theo found himself torn between cursing and cheering. “Misguided nonetheless,” he said, stepping in hastily, determined to close the topic. “No matter how much individual acts of misplaced heroism are reported in the press.” He gave Beatrice another quelling look.

  “That phalarope of yours, Blake,” said Charles Farquarson, and Theo turned to him gratefully. “The only other bird I know of where it is the male which rears the young is the dotterel. I saw them once in Norway. Quite devoted, I’m told.”

  Beatrice

  Throughout the meal, Beatrice had been aware of Cameron, darkly handsome in Theo’s old suit, and watched him making polite conversation with amused indignation. If only they could have heard him yesterday! But the fact that Theo had asked him to dinner disturbed her, compounded by the matter of the suit, and she had watched the two of them throughout the meal, conscious again of an undercurrent of tension, conscious too of the signals the factor was sending to his son, and of Theo’s watchfulness. But Cameron had kept himself well in hand, and no one had noticed his quiet refusal to continue to break bread with Campbell. Except Theo, perhaps. And then he had come to her defence in that surprising way. Plucky too.

  She looked up and saw that Theo was signalling to her, and she rose, inviting the ladies to join her. John Forbes and Cameron got to their feet too, making their excuses. Cameron held the door as the ladies swept through, smiling over their shoulders at him. His father turned back to answer a question and Cameron stood waiting for Beatrice, and then he leant forward slightly as she passed him. “Some women, mind you, would be better strangled at birth.” It was no more than a murmur and he was gone, disappearing down the servants’ passage while she looked after him in astonishment.

  Chapter 19

  1910, Beatrice

  “Thank God that’s over,” said Theo, throwing himself into an armchair with a groan. The guests and their conveyances were now mere specks on the far side of the strand, disappearing fast. “I hope Charles manages to fleece the pair of them—then I’ll feel it was worth the effort.” He rose to fetch himself a drink. “I’d no idea they had such ghastly wives. I apologise for inflicting them on you, my dear. I’d have cheerfully drowned all three of them.”

  They were sitting in the morning room, as the piano tuner had arrived during the chaos of departure and was now hard at work in the drawing room. “Better strangled at birth,” murmured Beatrice, recalled from a daydream which had been distracting her from her letter.

  “What? Oh, I see. Yes, much better.”

  “But they’ll have a lovely journey home pitying us for our remoteness,” she said, pulling herself together, “and our primitive plumbing.”

  “Won’t they just!” He took a long drink and put his head back. “Thank God for a bit of peace before the next visitors. Is that Emily you’re writing to? Don’t encourage them to stay too long, will you.”

  “We’ve got almost two weeks before they come,” she said, and he smiled briefly, picking up a newspaper left by one of the guests, one she knew he had already read. “Perhaps you can show me more of the island before then. I never got out to the seals, if you remember.”

  “Yes, we must do that,” he said from behind the paper. But a moment later he tossed it aside and took his glass to the window and stood looking out, one hand thrust deep into his pocket. In the background, the piano tuner plunked away doggedly, coaxing the keys back to tunefulness. Would she be able to coax Theo back in the same way, she wondered, looking at his stiff back, or would these bewildering tensions bring further discord?

  Theo swallowed the rest of his drink and set aside his glass. “The man makes an infernal noise,” he said. “I’ll go over to the estate office, I think, until he’s finished.” A moment later the front door banged behind him, and through the glass of the morning room window, she watched him go.

  But that night he came to her. There was a tap on her door as she was undressing, and he stood there, hesitant, as if unsure of his welcome, then wordlessly he stepped forward and took her in his arms, moving her towards the bed, and it had been almost as before between them. It was too fragile a connection to burden with questions, so she had said nothing, banishing her confusion, trusting to the honesty of his attentions, and responded without constraint, as far as she was able. And he had slept all night beside her, his back warm against hers, and she felt the knot of hurt more profoundly even as it began to ease.

  But he slipped away before she stirred next morning. She rose, pushing disappointment aside, noting instead how the sun shafted onto her dressing table, making arrow darts of light on the mirror as she willed herself back into optimism. The shadows under her eyes were less marked today, she decided, as she raised a hand to tie her hair in a simple knot. She looked about for her hat, thinking that perhaps they could spend the day together, as last night he had half promised that they would. Maybe they could go along the shore where the terns had lifted their blockade, or just walk together, as they used to when they first arrived. Or perhaps he would sketch? But she wouldn’t suggest it. Since the episode at the rock pool, he had never brought a sketch-book with him but preferred his field glasses or his camera.

  As she went downstairs she could hear him in the study, opening and closing the drawers of his specimen cabinets. If the tides were right, perhaps there would be time to go out to the seals. She tossed her hat onto a chair in the hall and swept into the room. “Theo, do we have time to get as far—” But she stopped at the threshold.

  Cameron. Not Theo.

  He was bent over the cabinets but straightened as she appeared. “Good morning, madam. Mr. Blake has gone over to the estate office.”

  “Will he be long?”

  “There was a message from the manse. He spoke of riding over there, to talk to the minister.” She stared at him, optimism crumbling. “Shall I fetch him for you?” Cameron put aside the ledger, his eyes on her face.

  “No, no.” She shook her head. “I only thought we might walk. No matter.” She turned to go but paused at the door, looking back over her shoulder. “How does the catalogue progress, Cameron?”

  “It’s going well, but it’s a slow busin
ess,” he replied, “preparing each illustration.”

  “What is it you are doing?”

  He came out from behind the desk. “I’m sorting through the material old Mr. Blake collected years ago to see what we can use. Some of it’s too far gone.” He pointed to the open drawers. “But I’m recording the rest while Mr. Blake writes and prepares the illustrations.”

  She came slowly back into the room and began leafing through the paintings on Theo’s desk. All neatly labelled and numbered, each specimen set against a miniature backdrop of landscape or coast. A ringed plover at the edge of the rocky shore, a tern hovering above the sea’s surface, a lapwing guarding a chick. Realistic and convincing. Exquisite. And yet . . . She lifted her head to look at the same ringed plover, frozen on the shelf, the tern beside it with raised wings, impaled on a pedestal, the faded lapwing and chick. The life in the paintings was illusory. Convincing . . . but counterfeit.

  Cameron watched her as she turned the sheets of paper. “He’s a very talented man,” he said after a moment.

  “Yes.” She walked over to the cabinets and stood looking at the dried skins laid out in the open drawers, suppressing a shudder. “There must be every sort of bird on the island here.”

  “Almost, but not quite.”

  She looked back at him, pulling aside her skirts as she picked her way through the dusty bookcases and cabinets towards the window, drawn by the view. “What’s missing?”

  “The wanderers, the vagrants, the unusual—”

  “Like a nesting diver?”

  “Just so.” He gave her a wry smile but was not to be provoked into further indiscretion, and she turned back to the window.

  “If it were up to me, the whole collection could go to Edinburgh to gather dust in some fusty museum, and our visitors could see the wild birds outdoors where they belong.” Her exasperation bubbled to the surface. “I’d like to clear them all away, give the house a thorough spring clean and . . . and paint every room yellow.” She looked out across the bay, swallowing hard and biting her lip, not caring what Cameron thought. But after a moment she cleared her throat. “Just ignore me, Cameron. I’ll wait here awhile and see if my husband returns.”

  She sensed him still contemplating her, then he returned to his desk and carried on writing in the ledgers in a silence broken only by the scratching of his pen. She glanced at him and then turned back to the window. There was no real urgency to this book of Theo’s, no compulsion. It was an excuse—this room had become his fortress, and he had enlisted these dried creatures as his bodyguards, charged with keeping her at arm’s length. But what part did Cameron play?

  She felt the tension stretch across her head again and raised a hand to rub her brow.

  “Why yellow?”

  Cameron’s quiet voice interrupted her thoughts, and she looked swiftly across at him. He was still bent to his task, still writing. She turned back to the view and considered her answer. “Because it’s joyful and bright . . . And it reflects the sunlight. The house is too dark and brooding. It needs light.”

  Cameron’s pen continued to scratch. “But you’ve made such a difference,” he said, still not lifting his head.

  “To the house? No! I’ve hardly touched it.”

  “Not to the structure, but to its . . . its aura. Mr. Blake was too much alone before.”

  She studied the back of his head where his dark hair grew long over his collar and felt a sudden rush of relief. Had her suspicions simply misunderstood what was, despite the arguments, a real sympathy, a bond between the two men, forged only by long association? Cameron’s words had been spoken with an almost filial understanding, but as she cast about for a reply, she heard footsteps crossing the hall and raised her head hopefully.

  But it was Donald, and he paused at the door when he saw her. “Excuse me, madam, but my father has sent for Cameron, to help mend fences, while the weather holds.”

  “Is Mr. Blake still at the estate office, Donald?” she asked him.

  “He went to the stables.” And even as he spoke, she saw Theo, on horseback, crossing the foreshore down onto the sand. Cameron began packing away the skins, giving Beatrice a thoughtful look.

  “You’ll not get your walk, madam. Shall I ask Ephie to give you some company?”

  She shook her head. “It is of no matter. Ephie has enough to do.” Mrs. Henderson then appeared to confirm what Donald had said, adding that Mr. Blake had told her not to delay lunch for him. Cameron gave Beatrice another searching look, made his excuses, and followed Donald.

  When Beatrice returned from her solitary walk later that day, she went into the morning room and found primroses, marsh marigolds, and yellow bog iris buds trailed through with strands of bright yellow vetch arranged in a bowl on a window-sill. She paused, enchanted, touching the tip of the emerging iris buds with her fingers and turned to thank Mrs. Henderson as she came in bearing tea. But the housekeeper smiled and shook her head. “Cameron Forbes said you’d expressed a desire for the brightness of yellow and brought them in earlier. I told him wild flowers never do well indoors, but he said to put them in a bowl and see. And anyway, they’ll make a lovely splash of colour while they last.”

  Chapter 20

  2010, Hetty

  Hetty drove back to the cottage through the labyrinth of peat cuttings and lochans, slowing at the high point to watch the ferry pull away from the harbour, heading for Skye. Soon she would be on board, on her way back to the real world, with a fistful of problems.

  She was reluctant to leave. The place had got to her, and she could feel the threads which had drawn her here coiling around her, binding her close; the complex legacy of the past. Her original plans for the house now seemed astonishingly naïve, and James Cameron’s assessment of the amount of money needed was plain scary. Thick end of a million! If so, that signalled the end of the project and of her dreams of starting afresh. And that thought, at the moment, was unbearable.

  But need it be the end? Giles had already told her that it might be possible to raise capital if a sound business plan was put together, telling her that investors liked that sort of project. But large investors with an eye to profit were unlikely to be impressed by the likes of Dùghall and the effect on his “business,” or by schoolchildren gluing shells on matchboxes. Big money brings big problems, James had said.

  But James himself was something of an enigma, and she wondered again what his real objections to the project might be. Was he just resisting change, or was there more to it? She drove on down the slope towards her cottage, then slowed, seeing someone standing on her doorstep. A man, with a suitcase, but there was no car— She drove on, then drew to a halt and sat staring through the windscreen in disbelief as the figure strolled towards her.

  Giles. As if summoned by her thoughts.

  “Hello, darling,” he said as she opened the car door and stepped out. “I thought I’d surprise you.”

  Inside the cottage, he explained.

  “Emma heard about the bones being found, and she rang me. There was an item on the local radio and it referred to you being here.” He paused and gave her a rueful look. “I sort of thought you might be.” Hetty said nothing, and he gave a small shrug. “Anyway, she wondered why you’d not been in touch?” She got up and busied herself tidying away the breakfast dishes left from the morning. “And I must admit I felt the same . . .”

  He used that injured tone in situations like this, and it annoyed her. “Giles, I—”

  “Anyway, I spoke to the police in Inverness,” he continued hastily, “who put me in touch with a community police officer here. Forbes, a nice chap. Once I’d convinced him I wasn’t the press, he told me where you were.”

  Thinking he was being helpful, no doubt. “Giles—”

  He came over and laid his hands on her shoulders. “Look, I’m sorry if you think I’m intruding, darling, but I thought that dealing with the police might be unpleasant, and that you could use some support.”

  And that was al
ways the problem—he genuinely meant well.

  She let it ride until, over a scratch dinner of omelette and frozen peas, he dropped the next bombshell. “Emma was disappointed that you hadn’t been in touch, you know,” he said, filling her glass from a bottle of wine he’d produced as a peace offering. “They’ve had a very downbeat report from the local builder.”

  “I know. I’ve met him.”

  “What did you make of him?” He sampled the wine, studying the label. “Emma thinks she picked a wrong ’un.”

  “We went through his report together. It seemed very thorough.”

  “She thinks the job’s beyond him. We need to find—”

  “No. There are real problems.”

  Giles flicked at the rim of Dùghall’s cracked wine glass. It gave a flat, dull ring. “Sure, but . . . Now, don’t be angry, darling, but you see, I flew up to Glasgow, and then got the train and stayed last night with Emma and Andrew, and we talked things over.” She looked at him, wondering how he could be so obtuse. “And, long story short, they came across with me this morning and checked into the hotel—”

  She put down her knife and fork, and stared. “Giles!”

  “So now we can all go across to the island tomorrow and take a look. Andrew’s the man to know what needs doing. Bags of experience.”

  “You shouldn’t have done this.”