The House Between Tides Page 29

  “And he stayed with her.”

  They looked at each other. “Aye.” Then he reached over and pulled her to her feet. The fishing bird surfaced close by and gave a shrill warning cry to its mate, who rose and staggered down to the water’s edge, where it too dived.

  “The eggs! They’ve abandoned them—”

  “They’ll be back.” He took her hand again, leading her away from the lochan, then he stopped. “Wait.” He disappeared around the boulder, reappearing a moment later crouched low along the promontory. She watched him reach into the nest and then retreat rapidly as the birds surfaced, only to dive again. “Two eggs, big speckled ones,” he said as he rejoined her and the birds came up again, some way distant, very low in the water and silent now. “Let’s leave them to settle.”

  Nearby, a grassy knoll was screened from the loch by reeds and iris, and he led her there, spreading out his jacket, and pulled her down beside him. He held out his hand, fist clenched, and then turned it, uncurling his fingers to reveal a soft black feather tipped with white. “A memento.” She took it, held it, and stroked it slowly along the line of her chin, her eyes on his, and then she pulled a gold chain and locket from the neck of her blouse. His hand closed over hers. “Let me.” And his fingers brushed her neck as he took it, still warm from her skin, opening it to reveal a small blank picture frame. “Empty?” he asked, his face close to hers.

  “Empty.”

  He nodded, then curled the feather into it, closed it, and touched it to his lips. “A keepsake,” he said, letting it fall back between her breasts, and she reached up to pull him down with her. And all the while, above them, unseeing and uncaring, the gulls gave their wild cries, swooping and wheeling on the strengthening breeze.

  That night Beatrice lay in her bed in Muirlan House, her hands locked behind her head, staring up at the ceiling, eyes wide, aghast at what had taken place, yet glad with every fibre of her being that it had. She could still feel his hands discovering her, the lovely warmth of him, his skin next to hers.

  And somehow the rightness of it outweighing the wrong.

  They had lain, spent and wordless, on the flattened grasses until at last he had raised himself up to look out over the reedy curtain to the water. “You see, all well again,” he said, and she had rolled over, brushing aside her cascading hair, lifting her head to see. One bird was on the nest, the other fishing calmly nearby, and she smiled, sinking back to gaze up at the sky while he lay beside her, his head propped on one elbow, watching her, stroking away an errant strand of hair from her lips. “And on the Sabbath too. Every rule broken, Beatrice.” A bleak expression had crossed his face, quickly gone, as he bent to kiss her.

  Eventually they had drawn apart again, and a thin haze had begun to form over the sky, a prelude to the next change in the ever-changing weather. He looked up, sensing the wind shift, then turned back to her and began pulling together the lacy edges of her blouse, twisting the buttons, straightening her tumbled skirts. “We must go.” His face was sober for a moment, then he had reached out and plucked the head from a yellow iris and tucked it between the roundness of her breasts. “Yellow, madam. For joy.” And out on the headland, the divers exchanged low sounds of reassurance as they met at the edge of the loch, then the male disappeared beneath the surface and the female returned to her vigil.

  But now, in her bed, Beatrice rolled onto her side, drawing her knees up under the sheets, clasping her arms around them, screwing her eyes shut as the image of Theo hammered into her mind. Fear and remorse swamped the joy, and she lay flat again, her eyes fixed on the ceiling, where the crack had been filled and where fresh paint now covered the rainwater stain.

  Theo must never know.

  Chapter 38

  1911, Beatrice

  “How could you ever think it?”

  “I see it every day, in his eyes, in his manner whenever you’re around. And everything I learn confirms it.”

  “No.” Cameron had cleared a space for them inside one of the ruined crofts to the west, on estate land where few ventured, well hidden, down by the shore with clear views in both directions. He had filled hay bags for them and they lay there now, under the rotting thatch, passion spent for the moment, reflective. “What there is between us goes back a long way, but it was never that. Not ever.”

  “Not on your part, perhaps, but I’m certain he feels otherwise.”

  Cameron sat up, frowning down at her. “No,” he repeated, and reached out, turning her face to him. “No! He enjoyed showing me things, explaining things. We shared the same interests, and I—I admired him hugely.” Beatrice saw that same bleak expression cross his face, and he told her how, when he was a boy, he had been sent with a message and was told to wait in the study. Theo had come back to find him sitting at his desk, engrossed in one of his books, struggling with the unfamiliar words and, far from punishing him, he had spent the rest of the afternoon with Cameron studying the stuffed birds and animals, discussing their habits. Cameron had described his own observations, and Theo had listened, encouraging him. From there it had grown. “I was so pleased to be given the run of the study I never questioned why, and then, bit by bit, I began assisting him and learning more. When the suggestion of an education came up, I suppose I just took it all for granted.” He dropped his eyes back to her. “But he never laid a finger on me. No hint of it. Then he began travelling again and was hardly ever here. Restless. And lonely, I believe. And whenever he came back, he sought my assistance.”

  “Why only you and not Donald?”

  “Donald reads the land, not books, and he was always my father’s shadow.”

  She lay back, staring up at the dense mass of cobwebs which hung like a tangled mist from the roof above them, remembering how Theo’s eyes seemed to follow Cameron, unsettled by his presence. Despite Cameron’s denials, those looks held longing.

  “But he’s changed.” Cameron’s tone was grim, and Beatrice turned back to him. “There’s a hardness to him now. A bitterness. Since he returned here last year.”

  “With me.”

  “But not because of you.” Cameron pulled her to him. “That I cannot understand.” He held her tight. “But he’d stayed away too long, visited too briefly, and over the years he has lost touch. All he wants now is for time to stand still or, better still, wind it back. He can’t see beyond himself, can’t see that there’s a new restlessness up here, a refusal to conform.”

  After a long silence, Beatrice spoke again. “Are we so very wicked, Cameron, to steal these few days for ourselves?”

  His head lay close to hers. “Do anarchists acknowledge right and wrong?” He smiled, and after a moment added, “But I wonder if, in the end, we’ll regret it.” And he pulled her to him again, smothering her question.

  Later she remembered. “You meant if we get found out?”

  He shook his head. “That mustn’t happen. But do you expect just to walk away from this unscathed?” He had brought a blanket from the house, and she pulled it close, chilled suddenly.

  They became artful in their deception, meeting in different places, at different times to allay suspicion. Beatrice was already a familiar figure out on the estate, known for her long walks, and they would arrange to meet as if by accident so then they could stay and talk together in the open. Reality was put aside as they lost themselves in the delight of each other. It seemed to Beatrice that everyone must know, must sense the joy radiating from her. Perversely, she chose to believe that that same joy was also a shield, protecting them. “These are stolen days, Cameron,” she said. “Ours alone. And then you will go and build a life for yourself, remembering, perhaps . . . And Theo and I will learn to rub the sharp edges away.” But they were careful, avoiding risks, knowing that the consequences of discovery would reach beyond themselves—the position of Cameron’s father would become untenable, the family cast adrift. And as the days passed, the future began to loom more darkly until one afternoon, as they lay together in the old croft house, Came
ron raised his head and looked down at her, his face set and serious.

  “If I had gone this spring as planned, if my father hadn’t fallen, I’d have left and not come back. Feeling as I did about you.” He threaded his fingers between hers. “But not now. It’s all changed now. You must come with me when I go.”

  She had been plucking straw from her skirts, and stayed her hand. Go with him? Her breath caught in her throat. “You know I cannot.” He rose and went to stand at the threshold, his back to her, and said no more.

  Sometimes she watched him from her bedroom window, remembering how she had once mistaken him for Theo crossing the strand towards her. And when she saw him now, Bess running beside him, her heart would lift and she would find some excuse to leave the house to encounter him as he came up from the foreshore. Through Mrs. Henderson she asked if he would complete the repairs to the bower, and she worked beside him, delighting in his close company. Mrs. Henderson brought them tea each day, and they spun the job out for as long as they could, and he smiled, conceding defeat, when her first rose opened tentative yellow petals in the sunshine.

  There followed a progression of glorious days, and it seemed to Beatrice that the elements conspired in her celebration of this stolen time. For surely the machair had never before blazed with wild flowers in such profusion, reckless and abandoned, and the air was clearer, sharper, the breeze more caressing, while the cries of the wild birds found an echo within her. Only at night, when she lay in bed, did the sense of betrayal return to overwhelm her. She fought it, argued against it, for Theo was guilty too in his betrayal of her. He had brought her here to his dreamworld, and she had been enchanted, eager to share it with him, but his passion had turned aside, turned inward, excluding her, darkening to something she could not understand, and she had become lost. But no longer! She felt willful, as unrestrained as the elements themselves, for a different sort of morality operated here, where the skies were wide and open, and the island recognised only rules of its own devising. And she refused to consider the future.

  Yet, through the maelstrom of delight, she would glimpse a strained look on Cameron’s face, troubled shadows in his eyes. But her questions brought no answers, only an increase in the intensity and urgency of his love, and at night she would banish her unquiet thoughts, and the guilt. For in these few precious days, there was room only for joy. So pure and profound a feeling that none other could survive beside it.

  But wispy clouds, mares’ tails, crept unnoticed across the skies, and one day she woke to clouds and a strengthening wind. Defiantly, she pulled a shawl around her and set off to walk across the island. She looked back and saw that Mrs. Henderson was standing at the morning room window, watching her go.

  They had agreed to meet that morning at Torrann Bay, where the tenants were once again bringing the tangle ashore, and she stood beside him watching from the top of the dunes. “Last year we met here and you reproved me for bemoaning my lot,” she said. “Called it a benign slavery.”

  “Last year you were a whey-faced doll in city clothes.” He turned and glinted at her in the way she had grown to love. “Eyes as wide as dinner plates, as if you’d landed among the heathen of Africa. Donald and I laid bets on how soon you’d demand to be taken home.”

  “But you were wrong.”

  “So very wrong.” He spoke slowly and then gave her an odd, angry look as she gazed out over the ocean, remembering the feeling that had welled up in her last year. Limitless horizons. But now the horizon was blurred, grey and undefined. Beside her he spoke again, his tone hard. “And now you tell me to go, and leave you.”

  “Cameron—”

  “Steal a few days, you said. Fool that I was. And that’s to be the end to it? We just walk away?” He half turned to hide his face from the shore. “You must leave with me, Beatrice.”

  “You know I cannot. Theo—”

  “He had his chance. He held a precious thing in his hand and was crushing it.”

  “Your father, your family—”

  He was still. Silenced again. “Then we should stop now,” he said. “Better that we had never begun.” And he strode off towards the kelp workers, calling sharply to one of them.

  She waited until it was clear that he would not return, then walked back to the house, and she was almost at the top of the rise when she heard the sound of hooves on the grass behind her.

  He slid from the pony in front of her. “Sometimes it’s too much to bear.” Her eyes filled and she dropped her chin. “I’ll be at the old house as soon as I have toured the lambing in the morning. Will you come?” She nodded and he remounted, riding off towards the strand.

  As she walked up the drive, past the veronica and escallonia bushes, alive with the chattering of buntings and sparrows, she felt the house looking down at her, grave and reproachful, and felt the chill as she entered the hall. For it was a betrayal, when all was said and done. You can always take a lover in a year or two, the pert young woman had told her when her engagement to Theo had been announced, and she had been affronted. But this was not the ritual adultery of her own class where infidelity was a game, the rules clear and known to all, tolerated provided that care was taken to avoid a scandal. This was something different, more primitive, more honest. More dangerous— And for all that she drew confidence from the wild landscape, she knew that the consequences of discovery would go far beyond mere scandal. And she knew that it was this which brought the shadows into Cameron’s eyes. This, and thoughts of the future.

  Next day at the cottage, those shadows were darker. “Give me a little time out there, just enough to get established. Then I’ll come back for you.” He had been waiting at the doorway, looking out for her, and had grabbed her two hands, pulling her to him. “Leave him. When you’re in Edinburgh. Next winter. Leave him then. Before you return in the spring. And I’ll come back for you, and then we’ll return to Canada together. No one need ever know you left with me.” He gripped her hands, crushing them.

  “Disappear into Canada?”

  “I see no other way.” She looked aside as the image of Theo on the shore came back to her, that look of anguish, of grief, and she felt a rush of remorse. Cameron released her hands and his eyes narrowed at her silence. “What is it?”

  “Last winter I lost Theo’s baby. By next year there might be another. What then?”

  His fist smote the door-frame. “Then leave with me now and damn the consequences. I won’t leave without you.” He reached for her, but she pulled back, suddenly fearful.

  “Perhaps you’re right, my love. We should stop.”

  But he gripped her by the shoulders and kissed her fiercely. “Too late,” he said, and she felt the pressure of his legs against hers as he forced her backwards, pulling her down onto the hay bags, tugging aside her skirts to reach her. “No time for regrets, Beatrice. I warned you.”

  Chapter 39

  1911, Beatrice

  Beatrice stood at the door of the cottage next day, watching the gulls blown on the wind, waiting for him, the morning already shattered. The weather was changing, and far out at sea a dark smudge spread along the horizon, widening and darkening as it approached land, blowing a chilling wind before it. She had been unable to stay in the house once she had read the letter, but waiting here was worse, bringing forward the moment when she must tell him, and she almost willed him to stay away. Then she saw him, striding out, his head swivelling from side to side, half raising a hand in greeting as he approached.

  He stopped when he saw her face. “What is it?”

  “He’s on his way back. A letter came.”

  And her trials that morning were far from over, for later, as she walked back along the shore, the emotion of the past hour still churning within her, she saw the gaunt figure of John Forbes sitting on the stone bench in front of the old farmhouse.

  He looked down at her like an Old Testament prophet and raised a hand, and she was compelled to go to him. “Mr. Forbes, how good to see you out-of-doors!” sh
e said. His beard had grown long and grey, and his clothes hung from his diminished frame, but he was still a formidable figure, and she approached him with apprehension.

  “Will ye sit with me a moment, Mrs. Blake?” he said, calling to Ephie to bring a chair, rearranging his splinted leg on an old fish box and moving his crutch aside to make room. She could hardly refuse, so she smiled her acceptance and fell back on social convention.

  “You’ve had a terrible time of it this winter, Mr. Forbes, and we’re all so thankful you’re now out of danger.”

  A slight nod acknowledged her words, but his eyes searched her face, essaying her defences. “I need to get my strength back. And you’ve had troubles of your own, Mrs. Blake,” he added, his expression softening. “For which I’m deeply sorry. For you both.” He paused, searching again, more guarded. “But you’re looking well now.”

  She smiled in return, and a silence fell between them. “I’m sure my husband has told you how grateful we are to—” she began.

  “When does your husband return, Mrs. Blake?” And she knew then why he had summoned her.

  “I’ve had a letter just today telling me he’ll be back in two days, as long as he can make the crossing.”

  “Good.” He breathed his satisfaction and looked away at last.

  “He says that the opening went well.” And she described what Theo had told her, but the factor’s face conveyed his opinion that these were not good reasons for abandoning an ailing wife. Then his attention was caught by something over her shoulder, and she turned to see that Cameron was on the path, having swung round the back of the house to approach from the opposite direction.

  He called out as he approached, “Are you downstairs, then! However did you manage?” He turned and made a small bow to Beatrice. “Good morning, Mrs. Blake.”