The House Between Tides Read online

  Amidst a thin spattering of applause, Theo had helped her to her feet. “Damnable. Outrageous!” he had muttered as he propelled her, stumbling, to the door, his face dark with fury. She was still dazed when they reached the three small steps which led to the main gallery, and she had stepped onto the first one, turning as someone called Theo’s name.

  It had happened so quickly, a heel caught in a hem, a stumble, and then that sickening sense of falling. Blackness, and then an all-consuming pain. Theo had carried her to the carriage, rushed her home, ordering the doctor to be sent for, blankets, a tonic, something, anything! But by the time the doctor arrived, there was nothing to be done.

  She woke to birdsong next morning, but unrefreshed, having lain awake much of the night. Somehow she must bestir herself. At least she should rise and go and assess the damage the winter gales had wrought on her infant garden. And so, after breakfast, she went out and stood looking in dismay at where the trelliswork of the bower had come away, and at the shrubs sheltering under the wall, which showed no signs of life at all, blighted by the elements. She lifted her hand to smooth her hair and then went back indoors, donned boots and an old drab coat, and returned with a hand fork. Perhaps here, at least, there was something she could mend.

  Keeping busy, in fact, seemed to be her only option, and being outdoors was better than being inside the house, falling prey to despair. Since they had arrived back, Theo had maintained a chilly distance, never speaking of their loss nor venturing close. Was this how it would always be? She found a little clutch of buttery primroses nestling under the wall and took heart, but discovered that her yellow climbing rose had been reduced to a single wiry thread clinging to the wrecked trelliswork.

  But still it felt good to be outdoors, the wind fresh on her cheeks, and gardening was better than walking, for she could not outpace her thoughts. She’d gone a few times to the ruined chapel and sat with her arms locked around bent knees, thinking of St. Ultan’s tiny orphans and grieving for her lost child while watching the seals coming in on the tide. One of them, darker than the others, seemed always to be there, lying on the half-submerged reef, looking back at her as the tide rose around it.

  She tugged ineffectually at the briar. In Edinburgh, Theo had been devastated by the loss of the child, apparently too distraught to wonder why she sat tight-lipped and silent, with tears unshed in his presence, not seeing that her grief was augmented by the corroding bitterness of blame. Perhaps blame was unwarranted, but if he had not brought down the eagle . . . Lawless arrogance, the young man had called it, echoing Cameron’s fury and contempt. She straightened, brushed an arm across her eyes, and stared out beyond the boundary wall to where primroses and daisies were dotted amongst the bog cotton, and where nesting birds flew sentinels, guarding eggs from thieving gulls, then bent to her task again. Even a small display of regret, of remorse, or at least a recognition of shared sadness would be enough to begin the healing. But he neither sought her comfort, nor offered her his, and it was as if the whole tragic incident must be put aside, not spoken of. He passed the evenings reading or staring into the hearth, oblivious to the dark thoughts which consumed her, while the days he seemed to spend poring over estate books in the study. With Cameron.

  She crouched down, coat-tails dragging in the soil, and examined the stem of the rose more closely and found that in fact there were tiny buds of green along its length. She straightened and began wrestling again with the broken trelliswork, disentangling it from the encroaching brambles, fired with a new determination. Then, from the corner of her eye, she saw Cameron standing at the study window, watching her. They both turned away. He was avoiding her, she knew he was— His shuttered expression conveyed a clear message to stay away, and yesterday, when she was out walking, Bess had appeared from nowhere, her tail thumping a greeting, only to disappear as rapidly in obedience to a sharp whistle from the adjacent field. She had turned just in time to see the top of Cameron’s head disappear behind a rise in the land.

  Then she heard the front door close and looked up to see that he was coming down the steps towards her. “If you tell me what you want doing, madam, I’ll see to it.” His eyes held her at a distance. “It’s too much for you, on your own.”

  “The rose.” She gestured to the collapsed trellis and tangled briars. “It’s still alive.”

  He crouched to examine it, then glanced up at her, and she glimpsed his old warm smile. “Aye, it is. One moment.” And he disappeared, returning with tools and a bucket of stable straw, and rolled up his sleeves. She stood back as he cut away the remaining briars, digging in the straw, hammering the trelliswork back onto the upright posts, holding the nails between his teeth. He said nothing more, working with the same concentration and neatness she had seen him use to rig a boat or fillet a silver mackerel . . . and she felt a hard lump rise up in her throat. How absurd it was that she and her husband both loved this same young man.

  “There, let’s hope—” He broke off when he saw the twisted expression on her face. He stood, resting his elbow on the handle of his garden fork, and gave her a long, grave look. “I’m very sorry, Mrs. Blake, about the babe,” he said at last.

  “You know?”

  “Servants’ gossip, madam,” he said, with something of his old irony.

  Slowly, carefully, she threaded the stem of the rose back through the trelliswork, not looking at him. “Perhaps the spring will mark a change,” she said, when she found she could speak. Then: “Does your father continue to improve?”

  “Aye, but slowly.” Cameron glanced towards the factor’s house. “He’s a strong man, but he’s not young.”

  Now that he was here beside her, she wanted him to stay. “Tell me?”

  He seemed to hesitate, then went and leant against the wall a little way from her. “There’s not much to tell,” he said, scraping the soil off his boot with a prong of the garden fork. “We didn’t think to look for him until after dark.” And he described how they had searched through the night using storm lanterns, their calls snatched away by the wind. A hopeless task, and by dawn they feared the worst. “In the end Bess found him, a little south of the Bràigh, unconscious in one of the drainage dykes. Half in and half out of the icy water. Half dead.” His face grew strained as he told her about the weeks of uncertainty that followed, the night when they were sure he would die. “If he had, and I’d been gone, I wouldn’t have known, not for months.” The muscles in his face tightened. “God knows what Donald and Ephie would have done.”

  “My husband would have taken care of them.”

  He gave her a crooked smile. “Aye, he’d no quarrel with them.” He stamped the soil firm around the rose again before gathering up his tools. “And, as you say, perhaps the spring will mark a change.” He gestured to the rose. “You, at least, remain hopeful.” He gave her a slanting smile, then his eyes came suddenly alive. “And you aren’t the only one. The divers are back. Out on Oronsy Beagh.”

  “The divers!” He nodded, watching her face. “Are they nesting?”

  “They’re thinking about it.” He smiled into her eyes at last just as the drumming of hooves sounded on the track, and they turned to see Theo riding up the drive towards them. Cameron set aside his tools and went to take the reins.

  Chapter 34

  1911, Beatrice

  Spring brought the island fully to life, and the doctor declared John Forbes to be out of danger although not fit yet to leave his bed. Ephie Forbes’s footfall was lighter as she went about her work, and Beatrice heard Donald whistling as he passed in front of her window, and the darkness of foreboding seemed to lift from the house.

  Between Theo and Cameron, the management of the estate continued without evidence of further discord. In unspoken defiance of Theo, Beatrice resumed the philanthropic work she had begun the year before and sent food to those tenants in need after the hard winter, and extra things for Duncan MacPhail’s family. She ordered books for one of the older boys who was keen to pursue his studie
s and gave sewing materials for the girls, instructing Mrs. Henderson to send household linen to Eilidh MacPhail for repair. The woman had learned to do neat work in Glasgow, and Beatrice paid her generously. If Theo knew of these activities, he made no remark. And she doubted that he noticed, for he was painting again— He had not spoken of it, keeping this, like everything else, clutched close to himself. She knew of this renewed activity only because she saw him leave the house early, sometimes mounted, often on foot, with his bag and easel slung over his shoulder, and his paints were spread about in the study. And he became even more distant, distracted, barely speaking when they were alone, and yet she sensed in him a suppressed excitement, a new zeal. How fine it must be, she thought as she watched him go, to be able to lose oneself in that way, to become absorbed in some private world and so escape. With no thought to those left on the outside.

  She saw little of Cameron either, except once when she was emerging from the repaired croft house after visiting Eilidh, when she came across him on the track locked in animated discussion with the MacPhail brothers. Aonghas pulled off his cap, greeting her respectfully, but Duncan had stood his ground, scowling until Cameron spoke curtly to him, and then he too had bared his head. “A fine morning, Mrs. Blake,” Cameron had said, glancing towards Eilidh, who stood at the doorway clutching the basket Beatrice had brought, and she read approval in his eyes.

  But this spell of calm was not to last.

  Next day a letter came from George Sanders with an invitation to come and stay with him for the opening of the Exhibition in Glasgow. Theo brought it across to the morning room, his face animated for once.

  “It’s to be a grand affair. You’ll enjoy it, my dear. The Duke and Duchess of Connaught will be there to open it. And there’s nothing to stop us going now, so I’ll write straight back and accept. You know this letter’s taken over a week to reach us!” He dropped into one of the chairs by the fire, skimming the pages again.

  Nothing to stop us going now. The words stung, and the proposal horrified her. “But we’d agreed to attend the closing ceremonies in October.”

  “Cameron will see to matters here; the responsibility has done him good. And John’s well enough to advise if necessary.” He continued reading the letter, quite unaware. “And it’s time I showed my face to the world again.”

  “But we’ve only just arrived.” She lifted a hand to her head. A stifling city full of people!

  He looked up at her tone and smiled encouragingly. “We can make the journey in easy stages, my dear, and you can rest in the Sanders house when we get there.”

  “But I’m just starting to feel well again. I want to stay here.” She swallowed to stop her voice from cracking. “You go, Theo. I feel sure that George Sanders doesn’t want to see me any more than I do him.”

  He looked at her in astonishment. “For goodness’ sake, Beatrice, just because you were upset over some damned otter.”

  “Can’t you just tell him that I’m unwell? It needn’t stop you going.”

  “And I’m to say I left you here alone? Unwell?” He scowled at her and then rose and went to the fireplace, staring for a while into the empty hearth before turning back to her. “Life goes on, Beatrice,” he said at last.

  Would they now speak of it? Was this their chance, and would he respond if she reached out to him? “It does, Theo, but perhaps we need—”

  “This’ll take you out of yourself.”

  “We need time together, quietly, to come to terms with—” She broke off, discouraged by his expression. “I prefer to be here.”

  “And play the invalid?”

  “Play!” she gasped. He might as well have struck her.

  He dropped into the chair and tried a more conciliatory tone. “You were well enough to make the journey up here, my dear, and since then you’ve had nothing to do. You look so much better.”

  “Because I’m here. Where I can please myself.”

  “And now I’m asking you to please me,” he said. And then added, “Is that unreasonable, do you think? On this occasion?”

  “Theo, you make no effort to understand.”

  He gave her a long, hooded look, and his tone hardened. “The child was mine too, or have you forgotten that?” Then he threw back his head against the chair and closed his eyes. “Learn acceptance, Beatrice,” he said heavily. “Try a little. You’ve done nothing since we got back but begin again your fey wandering. It’s unhealthy, brooding like this.”

  “Can you not see—?”

  But he shook his head, refusing to listen. “It’s self-indulgent, Beatrice.”

  “To want a little peace?”

  He made a dismissive sound and got to his feet. “You need to be amongst people, Beatrice. And so do I. There’s no stimulation here, no discourse, and this mawkish clinging to what is lost is no good, you know, no good at all. Believe me.”

  “Theo—”

  “I begin to think we should leave altogether once John is up and about. So we will go to Glasgow, my dear, because a change will do us both good. I will write tonight and accept.” He left the room abruptly. A few moments later she heard the front door bang, and from the window she watched him walking rapidly down to the foreshore, his painting bag over his shoulder, and she knew he would now be gone for hours.

  She sat back, defeated by the row, and stretched out the toe of her shoe to cover the place where a rogue spark had landed on the hearth rug, leaving a blackened hole. So that was it, was it? She must bend to his will. In Glasgow she would be on show, touring the exhibition halls on his arm, the envy of other women whose husbands were less lauded, less rich. And she would nod and smile, suffering Sanders’s advances, playing the role in a world from which last year Theo too had sought escape. He had come to the island to rediscover inspiration, but it was she who had fallen under its spell.

  And now he spoke of leaving.

  She heard a sound and looked up to see Cameron standing just inside the doorway. He was looking across the room at her, his face rigid. “You heard us?” He must have been working in the study and they had forgotten. “You should not have done.” The expression in his eyes alarmed her, and he took a step forward, but she turned her head. “Cameron, it’s no concern of yours. Go. Please, just go.” And when she looked back, he was gone.

  Next day, just before lunch, she passed the study door and saw that Theo was on the library ladder, replacing a book. “I understand you’ve enlisted the support of Dr. Johnson,” his voice followed her.

  She halted and then took a step back. She had spent the morning stretched out on her bed, watching the weak sun making patterns on her crumpled bedclothes, and had been on the point of getting up when one of the girls had come to tell her that Dr. Johnson was below, asking to see her.

  Theo looked across at her, awaiting a response. “I only told him what I told you,” she replied. “That I wish to stay here and get well.”

  She had found herself confiding her misgivings to Dr. Johnson, an elderly, kindly man, and he had listened sympathetically, then agreed that rest and calm were what was needed. “I will talk to your husband,” he had said, snapping the buckle of his bag into place. “Cameron Forbes said you were looking poorly when I visited his father just now. I’m glad he mentioned it.”

  “You seem to have convinced him of your frailty.” Theo’s expression was chilling as he descended the ladder. “But then, he hasn’t seen you traipsing all over the island.”

  She clasped her wrist behind her back and lifted her chin. “He said fresh air and exercise will do me good. I will get neither in Glasgow.”

  Theo made a derisive sound and went over to his desk, where he took up another letter and handed it to her. “You need not have troubled yourself. This arrived this morning.” She skimmed the pages quickly. It too was from George Sanders, and he now wrote of unrest in Glasgow following the dismissal of striking workers. By all means come, my dear fellow, but I thought I should warn you. They are advising people to keep off t
he streets and there’s a feeling that anything might happen. What is the country coming to! “But for this letter, I would insist that you join me.” Theo’s face remained forbidding. “As it is, you shall remain here and have your rest and your quiet. Dr. Johnson will visit you regularly, so stay close to the house. And when I get back, we will close up the house again and spend the rest of the summer in Europe.”

  Chapter 35