The House Between Tides (30 page)

Two days later, Beatrice came downstairs for breakfast to hear a shout of laughter from Rupert in the dining room. “Straight over the side,” Kit was saying as she crossed the hall. “Head-first into six foot of icy black water. Shark bait.” She hated to think of them leaving, but in just two days they would be gone. “Then they half killed me getting me back on board. I'll show you the bruises if you like.” The house would feel so empty, filled only by Theo's silences, left prey to a creeping belief that something was fundamentally wrong.

“Utter madness,” Rupert was remarking as she entered the dining room, “and nothing to show for it.”

“Except pneumonia and chilblains.” Emily smiled as Beatrice pulled out a chair beside her. “Have you heard about this silly caper, Bea?
Night
fishing with Donald and Cameron.” Beatrice shook her head and half listened as Kit repeated his story. And prey now to another sort of danger; these past few nights she had slept badly.

“I'd have thought Cameron Forbes had more sense,” said Rupert, pushing the marmalade towards Beatrice.

“Cameron?” Kit scoffed. “Reckless to a fault.”

Was he? Beatrice had not seen him since the picnic. Theo had not recalled him to the study, so he had not come to the house, but she found she was looking out for him. Yet surely the danger he spoke of was just a frisson, a temptation to be resisted, spawned by a sunlit day, a fine wine, and a shimmering heat haze rising from the sand—and a look that had been held between them.

“Got to make the most of the last few days,” said Kit, attacking a pair of kippers with gusto. Various schemes were suggested until Emily proposed that they invite the whole Forbes family for a meal before their visit came to an end, and she shot off to put the plan to Theo before Beatrice could express her half-formed reservations. She returned triumphant.

“He said no at first but finally agreed as long as it was a midday meal. So I'll fix it with Mrs. Henderson for Sunday, the day before we go? That's alright, isn't it, Bea?”

Despite Theo's instructions that the meal be informal, Emily had taken matters into her own hands and insisted that the table be set as if for a party. “It's hideous, I know, but we always used it,” she said, tweaking the yellow iris she had placed in an old-fashioned silver epergne. “Goodness only knows when we will all be together again, so the occasion must be marked.”

Beatrice wondered anxiously what Rupert had told Theo of the day on the seal island as she checked the table settings. Cameron had overstepped the mark with careless bravado, and if Theo learned even half of it— She paused and straightened a serviette, acknowledging that another boundary had been approached that day, approached but retreated from, not crossed.

Theo ushered the guests into the dining room, and Cameron greeted her quietly before turning to study the elaborate arrangements. She saw him exchange a grimace with Kit and regretted again that Theo had given in to Emily's entreaties. The sentiment was compounded as she watched Theo's eyes following Cameron as he took his seat at the far side of the table; she felt her face flush and a prickle of heat in her armpits, and sent one of the girls to open a window.

The younger Blakes' store of reminiscences, however, provided easy conversation. “Your thrashings were always worse than my father's,” Kit remarked, glancing affectionately at the benign face of the
factor. “And I'd have put up with a daily dose if it meant I could have stayed here. I loathed Edinburgh, school was purgatory, and I spent hours planning how I would run off and come back.” He grinned at Ephie. “It was the lure of your mother's kitchen, you know. Food and warmth, the essentials of life. And she always made us welcome.”

At the end of the table, Theo signalled for more wine, cutting across Emily's next remark. He had been silent during these reminiscences but now turned to Rupert. “I read the army could be put on standby. Will that affect your plans, Major?”

“I very much hope not.”

“Oh, Rupert,
no
! Not a war. Not now!”

“If there's a
strike
, my love. The troops will have to make sure the country can keep functioning.”

“If the situation worsens, Asquith will have no choice.”

“I'd far rather confront the Hun.”

“The folly of it all is quite breathtaking, given the situation.” Theo cut vigorously at his meat, glancing briefly down the table at Cameron, and Beatrice sensed a deliberate intention to provoke. She saw Kit raise his eyebrows challengingly at Cameron, who ignored the invitation and continued chewing.

“We can only hope that things settle.” Rupert reached for the water jug. “Theo, I've been meaning to ask, do you intend to exhibit next year, in Glasgow?” He leant over to replenish Beatrice's glass before filling his own, and smiled across at her, and she knew then that Cameron's indiscretions had not been discussed.

“Exhibit what?” Theo scowled, studying his plate. “I've done nothing new. And from what I hear, Fry's exhibition at the Grafton is setting London on its heels. It won't be long before I'm a quaint footnote to posterity.” He took up his knife and fork again. “Not before time, I daresay.”

“No!” said Emily. “Your paintings are as popular as ever, and I read that the prices are rising steadily.”

Theo sat back, wiping his lips with his napkin, and gave her a sardonic look. “Financially sound, am I? Ever your father's daughter, my dear.” He overrode Emily's indignant protest. “If I'm becoming a good investment, you'd better have that one in the hall you go on about, call it part of your wedding present.”
Torrann Bay
, thought Beatrice, suppressing a pang, but she smiled at Emily's obvious delight.

“You
know
I didn't mean it like that,” she said, after Theo had held up his hand to stem her thanks. “And you should start painting landscapes again, Theo, now you're back here. No one else comes close. When the bird book's finished, you really should. Don't you think so, Beatrice?”

“Of course.” Beatrice looked across at Theo, who grunted dismissively.

Kit speared another roast potato and rolled it in gravy. “But surely your days
are
numbered, Theo, like all your cronies. Isn't that why painters have gone all strange and avant-garde? They just can't compete. Who'll buy landscape paintings if you can have photographs at a fraction of the cost?”

Theo gave him a sour look. “And there speaks a
mother's
son.”

Kit and Emily exchanged amused glances, but Kit was not to be silenced. “No, quite seriously. Colour photography will soon do a better job at the close of a shutter. And anyone can do it.”

“Dear God.” Theo rolled his eyes and proceeded to refute Kit's challenge. Beatrice, anxious that their guests were being ignored, urged them to second helpings while Rupert, taking her cue, began discussing likely stock prices at the forthcoming cattle fair, consulting Donald's views in a frank man-to-man tone. She herself chatted to Ephie Forbes, who had sat quietly in her own calm little world, unmoved by the shifting tensions around her. Seeing her sitting beside Cameron, Beatrice was aware of their physical similarities, both darker and more gracile than their
brother and father, favouring their mother, Mrs. Henderson had told her.

At the other end of the table, Emily was still defending Theo against her brother's mischief. “But a photograph couldn't capture Torrann Bay as Theo's painting does—”

“It's only a matter of being lucky with timing and light. Catching a wave or two.”

“Idiot. There's no movement or depth or texture to a photograph. It could never catch the mood, the subtleties, the play of light on the water . . . There'd be nothing of the passion of Theo's—”

“So eloquent in my defence, Emily! I must make you gifts more often,” Theo remarked, signalling for another slice of roast duck. “But some painters do use photographs instead of a sketch-book these days, if only to help them with the tonal quality of—”

“Worse and worse, brother!” Kit was enjoying himself. “Are you saying that painters now just
copy
photographs?”

“Certainly not.”

“And why would they bother? Photographs are so much more realistic.”

“Perhaps that's the reason.” Cameron suddenly joined the discussion, and his father looked up, breaking off from his description of swimming cattle across from off-shore summer pasture to listen.

“Meaning what?” asked Theo in the ensuing silence.

“In a painting, the artist can select from a scene to suit his ideas, choosing what mood to convey, while a photograph must show what's really there. Unless the photographer has tidied it up first, of course.”

“And that's what you imagine painters do, is it? Tidy things up?” Theo asked, and Beatrice grew tense again.

“No, but in a painting there's scope to interpret. A photograph of the kelp harvest, for example, would show hard-pressed people wrestling with the filthy wet tangle, while an artist could romanticise
the scene, depicting the nobility of labour, the honest peasantry, and so forth. Realism doesn't mean
reality.
”

Theo contemplated him dryly. “How slow of me, Cameron. For a moment I thought you were talking about art.”

“I was.” John Forbes cleared his throat and Cameron frowned. “And I simply make the point that photography is perhaps more . . . more truthful.”

Mrs. Henderson put her head around the door to ask if more potatoes would be required. “No, we do very well, thank you.” Theo waved a hand in dismissal, and Rupert stepped suavely into the brittle silence.

“I suppose photographing birds must be difficult, though, getting the blighters to stay still.”

“Quite. And photographs don't always capture the texture and colour of plumage, which is why I still need the models in front of me, despite Cameron's misgivings and the outright disapproval of my wife.” He raised his glass towards Beatrice, and she gave a slight smile.

“But painting stuffed dummies hardly counts as painting from
life
, Theo.” Kit was unstoppable. “They're corpses.”

“Well, it's the best I can manage.” The edge to Theo's tone gave warning that his brother's goading had gone too far, and Beatrice seized the moment to signal for the plates to be removed. When the dessert and fruit had been brought through, she released the serving girls from their duties and bid them close the door, glancing uneasily at the French ormolu clock on the mantelpiece, calculating when she might rise.

Rupert came to her rescue again. “I was leafing through one of your journals, Theo.
The Ibis
?” Theo nodded briefly. “There was an article about new work on bird migrations and the distances some species travel. Fascinating stuff.” And he described what he had read about ringing migrating birds to learn about their routes.

“They're doing the same now on Fair Isle,” added Theo, “where they get a lot of migrants, as well as unusual wanderers blown off course.”

“Trophy hunters flock there for the same reason to add to their private collections,” Cameron remarked, and Beatrice's hope for peace evaporated as Theo turned his attention back to him, eyeing him sourly. They were like two terriers growling at each other, offering provocation but no direct attack, and she wondered again if they would make it through the meal without a row.

“Private collections provide the backbone of current research.”

“But deliberately going there to catch rare species is surely not acceptable, Theo,” Emily protested, and Beatrice signalled to Kit, hoping to occupy him filling empty glasses.

“There'll always be a place for scientific collecting, and besides, the word ‘rare' can be misleading.” Theo gestured above the fireplace. “Take that diver, for example, ten a penny in Iceland or Canada, but unusual here, so it hardly threatens the species to take the odd wanderer for study. You saw a great many in Canada, I believe, Cameron.”

“They're common in the northern lakes but—”

“Thank you. You make my point for me,” said Theo smoothly before turning back to Rupert. “It's my great hope that one day they'll stay here and breed.”

“But there's an irony there, don't you think, sir?” Cameron remarked, twisting the stem of his glass. “While Canadian
birds
are welcome to settle here and breed”—too late, Beatrice saw where he was heading—“you give the islanders and their families little option but to do the opposite.”

The meal had finished abruptly. Beatrice learned later from Emily via Ephie that the factor had been furious, and that a tight-lipped apology had been offered and accepted—with ill grace on both sides—but she doubted that would be the end of it.

Next day the same party assembled uneasily at the front door to set the visitors on their journey. Donald and Cameron loaded the cart with trunks while Theo took photographs, thrusting the camera at Cameron and instructing him to take one of the family group, and then it was time to go.

“The place won't seem the same without you, Cameron,” she heard Kit say. “We'll hear of your doings, I expect, but I'll always think of you here.”

“Safe journey, Kit.” Cameron gripped his hand, and held on to it a moment.

As Kit turned to say farewell to the factor, she saw Rupert hold out a hand to Cameron, first checking that Theo's attention was elsewhere. “Good luck, Cameron. I detest your politics, but I daresay you'll thrive in Canada where there's more elbow space. But allow me to recommend that you learn restraint, my friend, or you'll land yourself in trouble.” He raised a quizzical eyebrow and released his hand.

Emily, meanwhile, was embracing everyone with equal gusto. “Goodbye, Donald. Ephie, darling. Goodbye, Cameron. I shall always remember this visit, especially the trip out to the selkies. The most
perfect
day of my life.”