The House Between Tides Read online

  Ruairidh looked from one to the other. “Why fraudsters?” he asked, to fill the silence.

  “Those letters from Canada. Cold-blooded forgeries.”

  “I suppose they were. But by then Blake had to see it through. He must have known the noose was hanging over him.”

  James took another drink, more slowly this time. “And yet I imagine he suffered more living on.”

  “The day Blake drowned—” Ruairidh began, then stopped, glancing towards Hetty.

  “I told her.”

  Ruairidh nodded approval. “Aonghas had just come back on leave. Remember? Bringing news—”

  James caught his thought. “—that Johnnie was dead. Yes! And by then John Forbes would have told Blake about Cameron, and he would have known that Johnnie was his grandson and his last link with Cameron and with Màili.”

  “And with Beatrice.”

  “Christ, the poor bastard,” said James. “The tidal race across the strand must have been a release from hell.”

  Epilogue

  Between Beatrice’s unmarked grave and the grave of Theodore Blake, there had been a space in the family burial ground, and it was there that they buried Cameron, with his father on one side and Beatrice on the other. Beyond Beatrice lay Màili Cameron Forbes.

  “What a mess they made of it all,” James said, standing back to look at the graves. “A right old tangle.” He and Ruairidh had made a coffin from timbers salvaged from Muirlan House, and the minister had carried out a short ceremony when the bones were buried, together with the lock of hair and the decaying feather—James had placed the empty locket around Hetty’s neck. The two men had carried the coffin between them. It weighed little, and James had insisted that the burial be done as soon as the bones were released, to draw a line under the tragedy. Then, he said, building works could start on the factor’s house and they would be free to plan for the future.

  There was a slight haze and barely the whisper of a breeze as Hetty and James crossed back over Muirlan Strand to James’s cottage that evening. The low sun shafted briefly through the clouds, flooding the drained sand with light, turning the pools left by the retreating tide to quicksilver, and their two figures, walking close, hand in hand, became silhouettes etched sharply against the sand.

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks are due to many people for their support in writing this book. The writer Kathy Page sent invaluable and heartening comments on early drafts from the Pacific west coast of Canada, and author Pamela Hartshorne has been unfailingly supportive and generous with her time as the story developed. Rosemary Ward at The Gaelic Books Council kindly provided the Gaelic phrases and encouragement. I am hugely indebted to my wonderful agent, Jenny Brown (Jenny Brown Associates), and to Fiona Brownlee (Brownlee Donald Associates) for all their invaluable guidance and hard work, and I am also very grateful to Adrian Searle and all at Freight Books for their belief in the book from the outset. The great team at Atria/Simon & Schuster, under the leadership of their editor, Jhanteigh Kupihea, helped to develop the book, and I am very appreciative of their commitment to it.

  The House Between Tides is a work of fiction, inspired by the beauty, and the history, of the Western Isles. Part of my family’s lineage reaches back to Skye and perhaps that, and annual holidays first as a child and then with my own children, helped formed a lasting bond with that very special part of the world. I owe my love of wild places to my father and my love of books to my mother, for which I will always be grateful.

  The book is dedicated to Richard, my rock, and to A and G, and to memories of glorious times in the Hebrides.

  About the Author

  SUSIE MCDONALD AT BRICK LANE STUDIO

  Sarah Maine was born in England but grew up partly in Canada before returning to the United Kingdom, where she now lives. The House Between Tides is her first novel.

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  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2014 by Sarah Maine

  Originally published as Bhalla Strand in 2014 in Great Britain by Freight Books

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Atria Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

  First Atria Paperback edition August 2016

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  Interior design by Paul J. Dippolito

  Cover design by Yang Kim

  Cover Art © Latitudestock — David Williams/Getty Images

  (Ardkinglas Estate); © Mark Taylor/Millennium Images, UK (Sky);

  © Jefferson Hayman/Corbis (Ocean)

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Maine, Sarah, author.

  Title: The house between tides / by Sarah Maine.

  Description: First Atria Paperback edition. | New York : Atria Paperback, 2016.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2015045892 (print) | LCCN 2016000305 (ebook)

  Subjects: LCSH: Family secrets—Fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Contemporary Women. | FICTION / Literary. | FICTION / General. | GSAFD: Mystery fiction.

  Classification: LCC PR6113.A347 H68 2016 (print) | LCC PR6113.A347 (ebook) | DDC 823/.92—dc23

  LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015045892

  ISBN: 978-1-5011-2691-8

  ISBN: 978-1-5011-2693-2 (ebook)