The House Between Tides (21 page)

Beatrice barely recognised the girls who worked at the back of the house and was only vaguely aware that there were more of them since the guests arrived, but she answered quickly. “Oh yes, she's a very good girl.” Another smile spread across the woman's wrinkled face when this was translated, but Beatrice's eyes fell before Cameron's sceptical look. She bit her lip and watched as he went over to the doorway, looking out at the sky.

“It's clearing,” he said, turning back. “We should go before the next downpour.”

She rose, relieved to be going. The impoverished house and this new, hard-faced Cameron were both deeply unsettling. “I've no money to offer her—” she murmured, holding out her hand to the woman.

“Good thing. It would offend,” he said, and clasped the old lady's hand with both of his, thanking her. “
Dia leibh agus taing dhuibh.
” They took their leave, and when Beatrice looked back the old woman still stood in the doorway, a pathetic figure in a shapeless black dress clasping a shawl around her thin frame, the ginger cat winding itself around her legs. The poorest of your tenants, Cameron had said, and she was living like an animal little more than a mile from her door.

They rejoined the main track, leaving the collection of houses behind them, and after a moment Beatrice broke the deepening silence. “Do all the tenants live in such conditions?”

“Three or four families struggle. Others do better.”

There was still rain in the biting wind. “How does she make a living?”

“She barely does.”

Beatrice began to resent this treatment. “Explain to me, if you please. I should like to understand.”

He flicked a glance at her. “What shall I tell you, madam? Mrs. McLeod's life story or how such people put food on the table?” She pulled her jacket around her more closely. Muirlan House had disappeared into the mist and the rough track was now her only guide. “Makes little difference anyway, Euphemia McLeod's story or a hundred others.” He kicked aside a loose stone and fell into step beside her, but his closeness was not companionable. “She's poor because her man and her two other sons are dead. They're dead because their fishing boat was lost in a storm. They had to fish
because the croft was too small to support them, they'd have gone hungry otherwise.” Under this assault, Beatrice began to regret her persistence. Too late. “The family had better land once,” he continued, “but were evicted when the land was cleared to build Muirlan House. She'd just wed and had a bairn.” He stopped abruptly, then added, “Five houses were demolished then, but hers still stands. It's where your husband skins his birds.”

Beatrice was mortified. They walked on in silence, but after a few paces, Cameron turned to her again. “You asked me once about Anndra MacPhail, madam, after the burial. Well, he was evicted at the same time, and while the McLeods went quietly, Anndra MacPhail didn't. He was dragged from his house, fists flailing, curses flying, and it took four men to hold him down while they fired the roof. And his wife and children could only stand by and watch it burn.” Beatrice listened, appalled and exposed. “And when he threatened to burn the roof off Muirlan House in return, he was thrown in prison and only released when he'd undertaken never to set foot on the island again.” Three hooded crows rose suddenly in front of them, and Cameron's eyes followed their flight before turning back to her. “So what you saw that day was Anndra MacPhail reclaiming six foot of island land for his own, forever.”

Clouds rolled across the island, low and heavy, and they tramped on in silence.

Beatrice was deeply shocked but felt she couldn't leave matters there. “Things are different now, though, and the remaining tenants are treated well.” Although if this was so, how could there still be such poverty? Cameron said nothing, and his silence was a further rebuke. “I said my husband is a good landlord,” she repeated, demanding a response.

“He could do more, madam. If he chose to.”

They stopped walking, confronting each other, oblivious to the driving rain. “How?”

Cameron met her glare evenly, as if calculating how far he could go. “People need land, Mrs. Blake,” he replied, wiping the rain from his forehead. “It's as simple as that. And those who were evicted are owed it. Their descendants want to return, they feel
bound
to the land. It's all they have.” Now the fragments of heated conversation in the study, the tension at the kelp gathering began to make sense. Was it
this
which lay at the heart of the discord between Cameron and Theo? And only this? “A landless man like Duncan MacPhail wants to get his family out of the slums of Glasgow, to return here like his brother did, and have a croft of his own. Others too. But your husband won't have it.” He shook his head vigorously and began walking again, forcing her to follow. “For him the island is just a backdrop for his paintings and a source of specimen for his catalogue. Nothing more. The rent's of no consequence.” He looked back across the fields to more roofless houses by the shore. “But it could serve his needs
and
provide a livelihood for these families. Yet he chooses instead to entertain the likes of your present guests.” He did not trouble to conceal his contempt.

He had gone too far, much too far. She ought to rebuke him, adopt the haughty tone her mother used to address servants, and remind him of his position. And she should tell Theo— But the sour odour of Mrs. McLeod's poverty clung to her.

Then understanding came and she stopped abruptly. “You took me there on purpose.”

Cameron stopped too, then shrugged and continued walking. “We needed shelter, madam.”

“We did,” she conceded, not moving and forcing him to halt. “But you chose the poorest house.”

“It was close by, madam.”

“There were others closer.” He said nothing. “You took me there to make a point, to shame me.” She felt angry but confused, uncertain where to direct her anger. “And you call me
madam
in
that contemptuous tone to add a barb to that point.” He looked taken aback, arrested by her vehemence, then walked on, making no further reply, leaving her behind, and after a moment she followed him, humiliated and shaken. It felt as if Bess had suddenly turned on her, baring wolf's teeth.

By the time they reached the house, the rain was falling steadily and she was still considering her response. She dared not admonish him, yet surely matters could not be left as they were. But he pre-empted her. “Excuse me, madam. I must find Donald and see about the boat,” he said and disappeared around the back of the house.

She crossed the hall and slowly mounted the curving stairs, thankful for Mrs. Henderson's news that the ladies had taken to their rooms. And as she trailed her hand up the banister, she had an image of the smoke trickling through a hole in the thatched roof, the sooty rain which fell from thinning patches, and she stopped to look out of the round window back towards the croft houses. It
was
shaming, there could be no question. But what of Cameron's recklessness? Had he assumed that she would not carry tales to Theo? Or did he consider himself immune to reprimand?

1910, Beatrice

“Beatrice, darling, is it the damp which puts the piano out of tune? I could have played for us otherwise.” Each scale produced a new discordant note, and Gertrude Campbell winced theatrically as she played.

There was more out of tune here than the piano, Beatrice thought, as she returned a bright smile. “That would have been delightful. Theo has sent word to a piano tuner on Skye, and we expect him any day.”

“Good heavens! All that way . . .”

Ernest yawned and suggested cards, but no one responded. As their visit drew to a close, the guests were finding island entertainment thin, and Beatrice dug her nails into her palm, willing the woman to close the piano lid, wondering resentfully when Theo would reappear. He had withdrawn to the study, his temper decidedly frayed, abandoning the guests to her. She looked out of the window again and prayed the weather would clear.

After lunch it did, and Theo, with John Forbes and Cameron in attendance, took the gentlemen out with their guns, while the ladies withdrew to their rooms, leaving Beatrice to spend a restless afternoon in the morning room, trying to reply to a letter from Emily.
Do come! We're by no means swamped with guests. Theo will be busy with his book again when they're gone, and I long to see you.
Last night she had watched the guests at dinner and seen them as Cameron might have done, overdressed and idle, and the rich food
had soured as her thoughts returned to the toothless old woman offering her simple hospitality on a cracked plate. Following dinner, she had summoned Mrs. Henderson and asked her to send an appropriate gift by way of thanks. “And can we not find work for Marie, even when the guests have gone?”

“There's always work, madam.”

“And if there are others who are in need, you must tell me,” she said, and the housekeeper had nodded in approval. She picked up her pen again.
I confess our current guests are tiresome, and seem no more content to be here than we are to entertain them. And there's so much I want to ask you . . .
But what could she possibly ask of her husband's sister? She sat looking out of the window, the pen idle in her hand, watching the gulls hanging in the air.

Later, the shooting party returned with their quarry, noisy and triumphant, and she went with the ladies out onto the drive to meet them. Cameron was just outside the front door when she stepped out, and he looked up quickly, but she ignored him and went to stand beside the others as they admired the hunters' bag.

“Oh, those colours! Such iridescence.” Gertrude's toe gestured to the blue-green neck of a fallen mallard laid out on the gravel. “But they seem to fade so once they're on a hat.”

Beatrice felt her legs nudged aside as Bess asserted herself in between the ladies, sniffing at the dead birds. A low whistle brought her back to heel, and Beatrice realised that Cameron was standing just behind her.

“. . . try sulphur fumes to brighten them.”

“But the smell!”

“Mrs. Blake, I owe you an apology.” Cameron spoke quietly, and she half turned her head to hear him. “I shouldn't have spoken as I did.”

“No.”

“. . . the silly girl
ruined
it. I said a
light
lather . . .”

“I wanted you to understand. It's important that you do.” Cameron pulled Bess back as she strained forward again.

“Understand?” She took a step back, away from the others.

“The realities behind all this.”

No one appeared to be paying them any attention. “So you
did
intend to shame me?”

“Yes. It was unpardonable.” He gave her a twisted smile as he bent again to Bess and spoke more loudly. “It's a cleg, I think, madam. That or a burr. She won't leave it alone.”

Diana Baird had moved to stand beside Beatrice and pointed to a delicate bird with striking plumage that lay beside the mallard. “Now consider
that
for a dash of colour in a hatband, Beatrice. Rust and grey, just the thing for autumn. Who is this smart fellow, Cameron?”

“A phalarope, madam,” Cameron replied evenly, looking down at it. “But that's the female, not the male. They were building a nest by the loch.” Beatrice remembered Theo's pleasure when Cameron had told him about the nest, and looked up quickly. Cameron responded with a slight shrug.

“Gaudy colours for a female, surely?” remarked Ernest Baird, who had strolled over to join them. “For a female
bird
, that is, not a woman.
Lord
, no!” His wife gave him an admonishing rap on the arm, and Beatrice let her eyes follow a butterfly which landed on a patch of yellow vetch at the side of the drive.

“From what I hear from Mrs. Henderson, you've been very generous,” Cameron murmured, as the guests continued their raillery. “So now I'm the one shamed for venting my foul temper.”