The House Between Tides Page 9

  She had taken to sitting and watching the pulsing of the waves as they filled the rock pools below the ruined chapel, reawakening the crimson anemones and stirring the bright green fronds. And as the tide pulled back, she would watch the anemones retreat inside their glistening sheaths, the barnacles closing their hatches as the strand once more became an ebb flat of worm casts and ripples in the sand.

  She had been sitting there one day, staring into the miniature tide-pool world, reaching in to catch a darting fish, when she had heard a laugh behind her. “I must find you a net, madam.” She had spun round to see Cameron Forbes standing at the edge of the field watching her, and had flushed, wondering how long he had been there. But he had come down and sat opposite her, his reflection darkening the surface of the pool, accepting her pastime as quite natural. “I used to spend hours down here with my mother and Donald, lying on the rocks looking down into the pools, with their own order and sense.” And he had shown her how the anemones would close around a probing finger and how hard the limpets gripped the surface of their stony territory, while a periwinkle slowly grazed its way across the rock pool floor.

  . . . I think I told you that the factor’s elder son has returned from Canada. Theo was surprised to see him but seems glad of his help in the study, though I wonder that the young man doesn’t prefer to be outdoors. She tapped the pen against her lips, remembering what Emily had told her, how she and her younger brother, Kit, had spent their childhood days with the Forbes children, Theo already a grown man.

  A noise in the hall disturbed her, a child’s voice, and she went to investigate, pausing at the open door of the study. Theo looked up and beckoned her in. “See what Tam has brought me,” he said, gesturing to a basket held by a boy she had seen around the estate. Cameron stood beside him, yesterday’s quarrel apparently put aside. “Red-throat’s eggs, a whole clutch of them, from the small loch just across the bay. They’ve never nested there before.”

  Three speckled eggs lay in the fleece-lined basket. “Won’t it discourage them if you take the eggs?”

  She spoke without thinking, and Theo frowned slightly, handing the boy a coin. “Remember what I said, there’s a guinea in it for you.” He waved a hand in dismissal as the boy pocketed the coin and left.

  “A guinea, Theo!” Beatrice looked at her husband with astonishment. “You’ll have small boys robbing every nest on the island for that. A guinea for three eggs . . .”

  He looked down his nose at her. “That was thruppence, but I’ve promised him a guinea if he can find me a nesting Great Northern diver, like the one in the dining room. I need a good specimen of a sea eagle too; the moths have got at the one my father took.” He turned back to examine the eggs. “But I think your guineas are safe, my dear, divers haven’t nested here for over a century.”

  “And that’s only hearsay, sir,” said Cameron. “There’s no proof.”

  Theo swung round to him, his face brightening. “Yes, but they’re here again! I saw two of them off Torrann Bay the other morning. Immature, probably both males. But if one of them finds a mate, they might breed.” He disappeared behind one of the bookcases to replace his book.

  “And if they do, will you take their eggs too?” she asked indignantly, directing her remark to Cameron, who looked taken aback, then glanced towards Theo.

  “I wouldn’t.”

  “Cameron disapproves too, my dear.” Theo spoke from behind the bookcases. “He says if we find a nest we should just record it, see if they’re successful and return.”

  “Isn’t that a good idea?”

  “Up to a point,” Theo replied, stepping back towards the desk. “Photographs are all very well, but there’s a limit to their usefulness.” He gave Cameron a stern look. “We’ve no proof they’ve ever nested here because no one gathered proof. Eh, Cameron?” Cameron looked down at the basket of eggs, saying nothing, and Theo, his point made, seemed to relent. “Go and see for yourself—they were off the headland towards the Bràigh. And take Mrs. Blake, she’s not seen Torrann Bay yet.” He turned to Beatrice. “It’s about a mile or so, my dear, but you like a walk.”

  “Can you not come too, Theo?”

  “Another time. I’m still catching up.” He gave her a tight smile and turned back to Cameron. “Join us for lunch, and then go this afternoon. This weather won’t hold forever.”

  Lunch was a simple affair of soup and rolls with cold meat left from last night’s dinner, and Cameron pulled out a chair for Beatrice before taking his place opposite. “I was working for a mining company north of Lake Superior,” he said in answer to her question, as she ladled soup into a dish. “They’d struck gold and we were set to make our fortunes.” He pulled a wry face, taking it from her. “Maybe next time.”

  “Fool’s gold,” Theo remarked from the head of the table. “I tell you, you’d be better staying here.” Cameron dropped his eyes to his soup, giving an evasive response, and Beatrice looked across at her husband, intrigued again. He had told her of his previous attempts to secure Cameron as an assistant, how he had lent John Forbes money to help pay for his education, and of his subsequent disappointment when Cameron had left for Canada. “He turned me down. Very grateful and all that. Tiresome, after all I’d done for him.” And now Theo seemed to be renewing his efforts to persuade Cameron to stay but appeared to be meeting resistance.

  “Did you see much wildlife there?” she asked, to fill the silence.

  “A great deal, madam.” Cameron looked up again. “It’s still mostly wilderness where I was, teeming with birds and animals, and it made me think what we have already lost, or are losing, here. Osprey, sea eagles . . .” He glanced towards Theo. “Which makes places like this so vital, they offer sanctuary.”

  “Exactly. So you don’t have to go traipsing halfway round the world to study them.” Theo reached across for the butter. “I learned that for myself.” And they were soon engrossed in amicable discussions about the naming of variant subspecies on the two sides of the Atlantic, and Beatrice watched them as she lifted her spoon to her lips, all trace of animosity between them gone, leaving only the familiarity of a long association.

  Lunch finished, Theo threw down his napkin and pushed back his chair. “Enough,” he said. “I’ve work to do. You must excuse me, my dear. Enjoy your walk.” From the door he called back over his shoulder, “And find me my divers, Cameron.”

  There was a sharp, almost astringent, quality to the air as they set off across open land, leaving the track behind them, and Beatrice drew deep breaths, revelling in the warm, heady smell which rose from the clover. Bess ran ahead of them across the pasture, a pale green wash spattered with the vibrant colours of wild flowers. Lambs ran from them, calling to their mothers, while lapwings and gulls competed for the skies, their cries blown by a breeze which sent ripples over the rough silk of the machair. She looked across at Cameron as he strode beside her with an athletic grace borne from long practise walking across this windswept terrain, and she tried to match her steps to his.

  As they came alongside a long narrow inlet from the sea, he stopped suddenly and clipped an order to Bess, who dropped to her haunches in obedience. “Look! Amongst the rocks, in the weeds. Otter. Come in on the tide.” He stood close beside her, pointing, and she saw the curve of a sleek back rise amongst the seaweed on the opposite bank, then the creature rolled over, lifting a whiskery face, and began to tear at something held between front paws. They watched until it drifted too far away to be seen, then moved on, climbing up the leeward side of the dunes, stopping just below the crest, and Cameron parted the coarse grasses.

  Before them lay a great white sweep of beach, bordered at both ends by low, rocky headlands. Waves which had broken further out at sea came in layer upon creamy layer, their rhythmic sound muted by the heavy burden of weed which had built up against the rocks. A lighthouse stood etched against the clear horizon, and in the distance lay the grey shapes of small islands and skerries trailing away like the fraying hems of a loo
sely woven shawl. She recognised the view from his painting and stood mesmerized by the dazzling light on pools along the sand. Cameron stopped beside her. “It has a pull,” he said softly, “even over three thousand miles.”

  The dog settled herself in one of the hollows and began grooming, while Beatrice and Cameron sat resting against the wall of an old ruin, and Cameron scanned the shoreline through field glasses. “He’s right,” he said after a while. “Look. There!” He pointed beyond the breaking waves. “No. Gone. Wait and it’ll be up again. Keep watching just beyond the weed, you’ll see a neck and a body low in the water.” She waited and watched. “There, now!” He handed her the glasses, and she followed the line of his pointing finger and saw a large bird with a short thick neck thrown back, its head held alert, questing.

  “But it’s plain and grey,” she said. “Not like the smart fellow in the dining room at all.”

  “Immature. They don their fine colours to go looking for a mate, and when they find one they mate for life.” The bird dived. “They’ve a wild, haunting cry which echoes through the woods like a weird spirit. I stayed awake all night once north of Lake Superior, listening to a pair calling to each other. Some Indians say they’re omens of death, and you can well believe it when you lie there in the dark with your hair standing on end.”

  “But they don’t nest here?”

  “Occasionally, perhaps . . . We don’t really know.”

  Because Theo shot the one who might have tried, she thought as she passed the glasses back to Cameron. She studied his profile as he followed the bird’s progress up the beach, thinking of the conversation in the study that morning and the quarrel the preceding day, and decided to quiz him a little. “If you disapprove, as my husband said, I wonder if you would tell him if you saw one all decked out in his fine feathers.” She kept her tone light, but he made no reply. “Would you?” she persisted.

  He continued watching the bird through the glasses, saying nothing, but the crooked line beside his mouth suggested he was smiling. After a moment he murmured, “Mr. Blake has a collector’s instinct, madam, and a collector’s—” He broke off, as if choosing his word.

  “Ruthlessness?” she suggested, and waited for his reaction. He smiled briefly, scanning the ocean in the other direction, making no response. “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “Didn’t I?” He lowered the glasses. “Mr. Blake takes the view that what happens on his estate is his own business, madam, and that includes the birds.” His voice had taken a different tone. A fulmar swooped low beside them, and he watched it lift on the breeze. Further probing began to seem unwise, so she turned back to the white sands of the bay and changed the subject.

  “Tell me what else is out there now. My husband has been trying to teach me, but I fear I’m something of a disappointment to him.”

  “Surely not,” he murmured, scanning the beach. “Tell me what you see, and then we can decide what it is.”

  She looked out over the glinting darts of light. “I can recognise the gannets. Theo . . . Mr. Blake took me once to Bass Rock. But the gulls are impossible.”

  “No more difficult than periwinkles and limpets,” he said, with his usual smile. “You just need to learn what to look for.” And so they sat there, sharing the field glasses, while he pointed out the differences which distinguished the species, and she nodded, watching his face, amused by his determination to instruct her. “And there are your tormentors, fishing this time,” he said, pointing to the flashes of white where the terns were diving just beyond the rocks.

  They left the dunes and dropped down onto the beach, sending up a cloud of shore waders which rose only to settle again a few yards further on. And he guided her past a shallow scoop in the sand where three eggs lay camouflaged among the small stones, drawing her away as the parent bird appeared from nowhere, piping stridently, feinting an attack. “Not again!” she protested, and he laughed. Then he saw that the diver too had made its way back along the beach, and they sat again, while the sun sank low over the sea.

  Eventually he rose and looked over his shoulder to where they had left Bess in the dunes. “Perhaps we should turn back,” he said.

  She stood and took a last look at the wide bay, regretting again that Theo had not brought her here himself, for he had often spoken of Torrann Bay. “You know, Cameron,” she said slowly, “I think if you do see a diver looking for a mate perhaps you need not tell my husband. If they are lucky enough to find each other out here on the edge of the world, they deserve to be left alone, don’t you think?” He raised his eyebrows in mock astonishment, saying nothing. “Though you could tell me, of course,” she added lightly, dusting the sand off her skirt and looking around for her hat.

  He retrieved it from behind a clump of dune grass. “And you’d say nothing?” he asked, handing it to her.

  She was conscious suddenly of disloyalty, off guard after a delightful afternoon; Theo would not thank her for inciting Cameron to further rebellion. But he did not press her for an answer, turning to whistle for Bess instead, and as the dog came bounding joyously towards them, they dropped down from the dunes to rejoin the clear track back to the house.

  Chapter 12

  2010, Hetty

  “I hadn’t realised who you were.” Hetty had been on the point of going back across the strand when her landlord appeared on the doorstep and introduced himself, following up with what felt like an accusation. “Have you everything you want?” he asked, stepping into the kitchen. “If you don’t like the peat, there’s coal to buy at the co-op.” The peat was fine, she told him, now she’d got the hang of it. “And there’s extra bedding in the bedroom cupboard.” A thin blanket reeking of mothballs. She’d already rejected it, preferring a hot-water bottle. “I’ll be back to read the meter for the electric before you go.”

  “I’m here until Sunday.” At least. But if she stayed away much longer, her few remaining clients would be wondering if she had emigrated.

  “Aye, well. I’ll come Saturday teatime, and we’ll settle up.” He looked around at her meagre supplies and seemed reluctant to leave. “I’ve croft land on the island, you know?” he said abruptly, like another assault. “My grandfather’s.”

  “Have you?”

  She waited for him to continue, but he kicked at the split lino instead and looked up at the water-stained ceiling, a pugnacious bottom lip thrust forward. “I’d been thinking of doing this place up.” His red-rimmed eyes gave her a baleful look. “But a big hotel’ll take the business from me.” Really? She held the look and he dropped his gaze. “And I’ve a closed-season license for the geese.”

  He nodded curtly, leaving her mystified by that one, and she stared at the closed door in consternation. Back in London, Giles had convinced her that her proposals would be greeted with enthusiasm by the locals, bringing jobs and prosperity to the area. “You’ll need professional hotel managers, of course, but there’ll be jobs for chambermaids, kitchen staff, and the like, as well as groundsmen and ghillies, if they still call them that.”

  But neither James Cameron nor her landlord came anywhere close to enthusiastic.

  After he had gone, she set off, intending to go across to the island and visit the painter’s grave, but as she approached the place where the track led down onto the strand, she found it occupied by a huddle of noisy children, jostling each other and running around in circles. Then she spotted Ùna Forbes amongst them, who raised a hand in greeting.

  “Hello there!” A friendly face, thank goodness. “Are you going across? We’ll go with you.” The children gathered around, staring like curious calves, and Ùna smiled. “Art and Nature, once a week, weather permitting, to suit the tides. Better than a stuffy classroom, don’t you think?” She introduced her teaching assistant, a girl in her late teens, and then turned back to her flock. Whatever she said to them triggered a cheer, and they shot off as if she had drawn a cork, fanning out and zigzagging their way across the strand, her assistant following gamely. �
��We use one of the old outbuildings as our studio, where we can make as much mess as we like, splash paints and clay around to our hearts’ content, and then just rake over the floor.” She paused, adding cheerfully, “I suppose we ought to ask your permission now, I hadn’t thought of that. Do you mind?”

  “Not at all.” At least, not yet.

  “Good. The children love it. We collect stuff as we walk across and then make collages to sell at the school fete. You know, matchboxes with gluey shells all over them, that sort of thing.” Ùna caught at her hair and stuffed it into her hood as she scanned the open beach ahead of her, counting heads. “And what about you? How are things coming along, after such a poor start?”

  She gave a brief laugh. They hadn’t improved. “James Cameron says I should pull the house down and build a cottage, and my landlord’s complaining that a hotel’ll ruin his business.”

  Ùna gave a whoop of mirth. “What business? Propping up the bar? Dùghall will be just fine.”

  “But James was serious about the house. He says it’s past saving.” She watched her companion’s face carefully.

  “Aye, he said as much to us.” Ùna looked back at her. “So what will you do?”

  She hesitated. “Get a second opinion, I think,” she said, realising that this might offend.

  They walked on. Ùna called out to one child who was spinning in circles holding a long band of wet green seaweed and causing squeals of delighted anguish from his companions. “Fionnlagh, sguir dheth!” Hetty smiled and reached for her camera, then realised she had left it on the table, distracted by her landlord’s sudden arrival.

  Order restored, Ùna glanced at her from under her hood. “James knows his stuff, though.”

  “I’m sure he does, but I sense that he’s against the whole idea.” Her companion walked on, head down. Would no one explain? “He seems to think it would inflame ancient grievances.”

  At that Ùna looked up. “Grievances? From before, way back?” She shook her head vigorously. “No, no, it’s not that. It’s more a worry about what a hotel would do to the island now, today.” She gave Hetty a lopsided smile. “I suppose no one likes change.”