The House Between Tides Read online

  She had hacked off enough of both for two mugs when the door opened again, and he came in clutching the potato sacks now plump with hay, and glanced at the steaming mugs. “Good girl,” he said and went back for more, arranging them on the floor in front of the range. “A couple more should do it,” he said, and disappeared into the narrow hallway where they had seen sacks in the under stair cupboard.

  A few moments later he returned, walking slowly, the sacks tucked under his arm and carrying a large rectangle covered in hessian.

  “Maybe now I can show you this.” She looked up at his tone. “I wasn’t going to tell you, things being as they were, but now—” He crouched down beside her, pulling a package from its sacking cover and removing a layer of corrugated cardboard. He held it for her to see.

  It was a painting, a watercolour, and in the flickering light she could see it was the foreshore on a misty morning when the light filtered softly through the grey veil. And out on the strand there were two faint figures, disappearing into the mist. The light from the hurricane lamp fell on the corner and lit that confident, well-known signature.

  Theodore Blake 1897. Muirlan Strand.

  Jasper Banks’s catalogue exhibit number 372, the painting that couldn’t be traced.

  James was watching her face. “I was so annoyed with you about the second survey that I forgot about the painting, but later I remembered and described what you said to Aonghas. He thought he did remember something like that, hanging here when he was a lad. So I came a-looking.”

  She could not peel her eyes away from it. “Where was it?”

  “Under the stairs with a load of old frames and potato sacks. Must have been there for decades, thought to be just another empty frame. Thank God the place is dry.”

  “And you left it here? It’s worth a fortune.”

  “It had been safe there for years. I hadn’t told anyone, and I was going away. And frankly, since I got back, I’d forgotten. It belongs to Aonghas anyway, so what happens to it is up to him. Emily gave it to Donald, and that gift at least is documented.”

  He turned the picture round, and she saw that a piece of card had been stuck on the back with words written in faded ink: To Donald. Hang it in the farmhouse, yours now, in memory of our lost beloved ones, and to keep alive a childhood shared, and vanished times. From Emily, with love, 21 June 1945.

  She lifted glistening eyes to him. “So she did mean this house to be his.” James nodded slowly, his eyes still on the painting. The hurricane lantern cast a diffused light, giving the painting a soft sheen, and in the flickering firelight the two figures seemed to come alive. “Lost beloved ones . . .” he said softly.

  “Those figures, they’re almost spiritlike.” And Jasper Banks was right, the painting was extraordinary. His best, I reckon. So much was conveyed with a subtle wash and a few brush-strokes, a stillness, a moment held and cherished. They sat in silence, drawn into the painting, and then he went and set it on a chair.

  She watched him as he built up the fire again, and the pungent smell of peat filled the room. Outside, the gale raged, hurling rain against the windows, but the old farmhouse felt solid and safe, and she dropped down to the hay sacks, hugging the sweater to her like an overlarge skin and looked across at the painting. The wind blew back down the chimney, causing the fire to glow, and he came and sat close, slipping an arm behind her, his face lit by the low flames. Then she remembered. “Who’s Agnes McNeil?”

  He pulled away in surprise. “I thought you got on rather well.” He looked amused and gave her his slow smile. “Ruairidh’s wife? Her name’s Agnes but everyone calls her Ùna, and you don’t think she’d give up McNeil for Forbes, do you?” He pulled her close again. A mighty crack of thunder told them the storm was still circling overhead, and it was followed by a long low rumble which seemed to go on forever, echoing round the courtyard. He got to his feet. “I’d better move the Land Rover into the barn, your car too. And I’ve got some old blankets in the back.”

  He was gone a long time. He returned with them tucked under the oilskin and dropped them wordlessly onto the table and then stood looking across at her. “I think you’d better come.” He reached for another oilskin, draped it round her, and steered her out into the courtyard.

  There was a false, theatrical quality to the light as he led her up the ridge, and they could see waves breaking against the headland, sending spouts of spray high into the air, while above them the darkness still hung low and heavy. She followed him, buffeted by the wind, then stopped at the top of the ridge and looked ahead in disbelief.

  The western wall of Muirlan House had split, torn apart along the crack by the force of the elements and, in falling, it had brought down most of the remaining roof, leaving only one corner with part of the little turret standing tall and jagged reaching out of the rubble. And where once there had been a rich man’s mansion, there was now a view beyond to the dunes in the west, to a line of brightness on the horizon, across a war-torn image, the aftermath of conflict.

  Chapter 46

  2010, Hetty

  They talked long into the night, freely now, without constraint, as if the destruction of Muirlan House had cleared away the last vestiges of discord between them, while outside the storm passed over, its violence spent.

  “It’s as if the house decided for itself,” she said. “It didn’t need me, after all.”

  “No. It’d had enough.”

  The hay bags took the coldness off the stone-flagged floor, and they sat resting against each other, sipping whisky, and she could feel her cheeks glowing in the firelight as she told him about her nomadic childhood, the paralysing shock of loss following the air crash, how Giles had helped her.

  “And where does Giles figure in your future plans?” he asked softly.

  She paused before replying, but there was only one answer. “He doesn’t. It’s been clear for a while now, but I lacked the courage to break it off. But don’t misjudge him, James, underneath the bluster he’s a good man.”

  “Of course.” He pulled her to him again, no longer tentative.

  Later he told her of the school and hostel he was involved with in Kenya, for a charity begun by his father. It had been that which gave him inspiration for what he planned for the island. “We’re just there to help now, mostly fund-raising, but they do the building, with youngsters learning the skills. There was some big funder interested, which was why I shot over there so suddenly.”

  “And you would do something similar here?”

  “If I could—”

  “You can.”

  And he bent to kiss her again, his eyes catching the firelight. “Can I?” he said, asking a different question as his hand slipped under the sweater, exploring the warmth of her. Then he lifted it over her head and pressed her gently back onto the hay bags. She raised her hands to his head, returning his kisses, running her fingers through his hair, finding sand grains in its thickness, and was filled again with that dawning sense of rightness.

  Later, he pulled the blankets over them, and eventually they slept, her form curled against his.

  When she woke some hours later, stiff and cold, he was crouched in front of the range, reviving the fire. He swivelled on his heels and bid her good morning, smiled at her, then rose to open the shutters. She sat up, quickly slipping into her dress, pulling his sweater over it and stretching it down to cover her knees. “Still blowing hard, but the rain has stopped,” he said, looking out. “I’ll make some coffee and then we’ll go back over. See if my cottage is still standing.” He reached into his back pocket for matches and had just lit the primus when they heard a vehicle in the courtyard and a car door slam. He looked up and grinned across at her. “The search party, I reckon,” he said as the door was flung open.

  “Thank God.” Ruairidh stood in the doorway, tousled and unshaven.

  “Close the door, you’re blowing out the primus.”

  His cousin came in, followed by his dog, and looked around the room, tak
ing in the half-empty whisky bottle and dirty plates, his eyes lingering on the hay bags by the hearth. “So I needn’t have worried,” he said, as the dog settled in front of the fire and began scratching.

  When James had not turned up, he explained, he’d phoned his cottage, then the hotel, and the bartender had told him what had happened, how Hetty had left the dining room, how Giles had come looking for her, and how James and Giles had quarrelled. “Said you were both spoiling for a fight.”

  “A fight? With Giles?”

  “His idea, not mine.” James grinned at her astonished face, and Ruairidh looked from one to another.

  “And then Giles mentioned that Hetty had a car—” Ruairidh paused and turned to his cousin. “Tam says to tell you you’ve left nasty skid marks on his car park.” James laughed. “The airport will reopen later this afternoon, the ferry’s on its way back, and the tide’s low enough to cross now. Back to the hotel,” he added blandly.

  “Or you can skulk at my cottage,” said James.

  Again Ruairidh looked speculatively from one to the other. “Things are different this morning,” he remarked to James, and Hetty saw their eyes meet in understanding, but he gestured innocently towards the door. “Muirlan House.”

  “Very different,” James agreed. “Let’s take a look?”

  There was a sweet rain-drenched smell as they walked up the ridge together. Every blade of grass, every cobweb and wisp of sheep’s wool held droplets which sparkled in the low morning sun, shaking in the slackening breeze.

  They stood together and looked across at the tumbled ruin. “I’m sorry,” Ruairidh spoke softly beside her.

  Hetty shook her head. “I think I’m glad. The storm took matters into its own hand, which somehow makes it alright.”

  They stood a moment longer, and returned to the kitchen. Then Ruairidh saw the painting propped against the chair in the corner. “Good gracious. Where did that come from?”

  “The cupboard under the stairs.” James went and fetched it into the light. “Wrapped in an old potato sack. I was going to tell you—” Ruairidh gave him an incredulous look as James handed it to him. As he did, the card came off the back and fell to the floor. He bent to retrieve it. “It’s a note from Emily Blake to Donald Forbes.”

  Ruairidh read it, glanced at Hetty, and then turned the painting over. “But it was stuck over something else,” he said, and read: “ ‘To the future, Beatrice, and all that it holds for us, Your loving husband, Theo. March 1910.’ Good God. Poor devils.”

  James stared at it, and then went back to the sink and poured boiling water into three mugs. “Was the package from Inverness, then?” he asked abruptly.

  “It was.” Ruairidh pulled out a chair and sat.

  “And?”

  “It takes a bit of telling.” He hooked another chair out with his foot. “So sit down.” James sat, his eyes fixed on his cousin’s face, and Ruairidh looked back at him. “There can be little doubt, James. Taking the DNA evidence and the bones, there can be only one answer.”

  Chapter 47

  Midsummer Day 1911, Cameron

  Cameron Forbes walked along the path which linked the two houses. The light was fading, that slow creeping change of midsummer as the long, soft evening gave way to a fleeting night. He lifted his head, turning it slightly to feel the breeze on his face, and drank in its sweet familiarity. A day to live for, his mother would have said.

  The clouds were piling high on the horizon, but the weather would hold for the bonfire. Good. Everyone had worked hard for the celebration, and they deserved their holiday. Once all was in readiness there, he had crossed back over the strand and waited until he saw from the window of his room that the trap bearing Blake and Beatrice was halfway across the sand. Then he had picked up his travelling bag and gone down into the empty kitchen, giving it a last fond farewell. He had gone up the track to Muirlan House, where he would leave his letter and cross back over the strand to the bonfire. See Beatrice, then go. Morning would find him on his way; he would catch a lift with one of the fishermen, cross on the early mail boat, then to the port of Glasgow and his passage to Halifax. Leaving all this behind.

  For now.

  He paused on the ridge between the two houses, dropping his hand instinctively to fondle Bess’s ear. But she was with Donald on Bheinn Mhor, forging a new alliance, and the thought made him sad. It was so very hard to go, leaving Beatrice here, and he felt again the now familiar stab of pain and anxiety.

  Leaving would be very different this time. From the backwoods of Ontario, the island had pulled him back here, tugging at a bond, reeling him back. But this time when he left, it might well be forever. If his plan worked and if Beatrice did find the courage to leave and join him, he knew he’d never come back. He could never sustain the necessary lies to his all-knowing father, nor look Blake in the face. And if Beatrice’s courage failed, and she stayed, he couldn’t come back to see her still bound to the man, faded and diminished; it would be more than he could bear.

  He looked at the letter clutched in his hand and wondered again if it were better not written. There had been several drafts as he struggled with the dreadful hypocrisy of the task. But some form of farewell would be expected, and his father had more or less ordered him to try and make amends before he left. Not knowing what he asked.

  He looked up at the walls of the great house in front of him, and it seemed that the house looked back, affronted by what he had done and appalled by what he was planning. Muirlan House and those hours spent beside Blake in the study had made it almost a home to him, and yet he had abused it.

  He crossed the drive to the front door. He rarely used this entrance unless he was with Blake or Beatrice, but today it seemed important that he did. It lent a little dignity to the undignified act of slipping in to leave a letter of gratitude and peacemaking to a man he had wronged—and intended to wrong more grievously. A man who had supported and encouraged him, treated him for many years almost as a son. He shook his head, dispelling Beatrice’s conviction that it had ever been more.

  It was hard to justify his actions, even to himself. Conventional morality would be outraged, his father mortified. Both would damn him unconditionally. But there was another morality that he now believed in, a deeper judgement which would exonerate him, vindicate him for releasing Beatrice from a loveless marriage to a man who was incapable of love.

  His footsteps crunched on the gravel of the drive. Blake had changed, and Cameron had watched it happen. Where once he had been questioning, talented, and creative, he had turned in on himself to the point where he was capable only of grasping and holding, controlling and possessing on terms of his own devising. He had brought Beatrice here, then neglected her shamefully—and he had wanted to control Cameron. He looked down at the letter again, turning it in his hands. There was a time when, as a boy, he had worshipped Blake, grateful for the unexplained attention, the world he had opened up. But now . . . To leave Beatrice with Blake would be as great a wrong as taking her from him. And it served no purpose. Blake would be no more content with her there beside him than with her gone, and Beatrice would droop and fade like the rusty brown buds on her yellow rose.

  And besides, he thought savagely as he mounted the steps, she wanted him as much as he wanted her. The memory of her as she lay in his arms yesterday brought renewed conviction. From the beginning she had loved without reserve, her cool demeanour cast aside. This was the woman that Blake had rejected! And in so doing he had forfeited both her love and Cameron’s remorse, and his own actions became justified by a code more sacred than cold convention. He clamped his jaw tight, opened the door, and entered the hall.

  He was met by a great stillness. The stillness of an empty house, vacant of life. Only the long case clock ticked on, indifferent to the passing hour, and he stood a moment in the hall, looking about him, watched warily by the stag and fox. This house was as familiar as his own, known intimately since childhood. He shook his head. There was no room for
sentimentality; he would leave the letter and then go. Cross back over the strand to the bonfire. Then there would be time for only formal farewells, not the wrenching pain of parting yesterday, accompanied as it had been by the exchange of keepsakes and promises. A pain which was compounded by the ache of leaving his family and by the sharp stab of deceit. He crossed the hall to the study, pushed open the door . . . and froze.

  Blake sat at his desk like a stone effigy, staring into the empty hearth. As Cameron halted at the doorway, he lifted his head and looked across at him.

  Cameron looked back, thrown off-balance, his mind racing. Blake. Here? So who had been beside Beatrice in the trap? Had Blake come back across? But why?

  And only then did he see what lay between them on the desk, its head fallen to one side beside the basket with its blue-grey plunder.

  He came slowly into the room, dropping his bag in front of the fireplace, and went to the desk, running a finger along the black-and-white feathered necklace of the dead bird, turning his wrist to feel the chill of the eggs on his skin. He lifted his eyes to connect with Blake’s, and the air between them crackled, charged with something more complicated than anger and much more dangerous. Neither spoke, then Cameron turned abruptly to leave, his letter still in his pocket.

  “These trophies are no surprise to you, of course.” Blake’s words followed him. Cameron’s head went up then, and he turned. Slowly. Wary now. What did he mean? Blake regarded him steadily, then gestured to the dead bird. “Am I not to receive another lecture?” he asked, letting the silence deepen. “No? Is it, perhaps, that you no longer have the moral high ground?” Cameron held his look, his heart hammering hard, saying nothing, as Blake’s face grew darker, beads of sweat erupting on his brow, and the air tightened between them.

  He knew. Dear God, he knew! Cameron’s mind roared. Where was Beatrice? It had been her in the trap for certain, even though he had mistaken Blake. Fear jagged through him, and he turned to leave, knowing he must find her.