The House Between Tides (47 page)

Did Dr. Johnson think him merely drunk? How shaming! But she was certain it was more. She went back to find Theo sleeping, the curtains half drawn, and sat quietly in the corner of the room watching him. He looked peaceful now, but how much he had changed! These were not the urbane features of the man she had watched across the room in Edinburgh, watched and felt drawn to. The skin around his eyes was puffy, the lines exaggerated by the redness of his face.

Guilt flooded her again. Had he guessed? Was that why the whisky decanter was no sooner full than empty again? But surely Theo was not the sort of man to tolerate infidelity in silence. She turned her face to the window, pressing the back of her hand to her mouth. But what if he suspected, and had no proof? She shut her eyes and leant her head against the wall. And if he was ill, seriously ill, she couldn't leave him. Cameron had become ever more persistent in his demands that she must go with him, but leaving Theo ill and alone was much more reprehensible than leaving Theo angry, and so she was caught, snared by her own treachery.

Gradually, she sensed that he was watching her, but when she turned to him, his eyelids fluttered shut. She spoke his name, softly, and again, a little louder. “Theo?” No response. But he was too still, too tense. Feigning sleep. And then he stirred and turned his back to her. She stayed a few minutes longer, then left.

Theo

Beatrice. When he was sure she had gone, he turned onto his back and opened his eyes. He moved his head slightly, looking around at the unfamiliar room. Why was he here? Slowly the confused memory took shape—the sound of breaking glass and Beatrice's shocked face looking up at him from the floor. Had
he
done that?
He raised a hand to his brow and awoke little pinpricks of pain, and he lay still as his brain began to piece it together. An ugly scene.

And yet he had dreamed of Màili. So clearly, as if she were there. He had opened his eyes to find her dark ones looking down at him, her cool fingers on his face, and had felt a profound but fleeting joy. And he had spoken to her, an endearment:
God bless.
But she had gone, and then there was Cameron. Or was it Cameron all along? Not Màili.

And then it had been Beatrice. He'd watched her through slit eyes as she sat there beside the window, her hand pressed to her mouth and speculated, in a detached way, what she might be thinking. But he could no longer guess— She was different, changed in some incomprehensible way, slipping away from him. He was losing her, as he had lost Màili— And again it was his own fault; he was driving her away. He had left her pale and thin, nervous and fretful, but returned to find her restored, shining with health and beauty, and with an enigmatic glow. Dear God, how he had wanted to go to her that first evening, a supplicant, begging forgiveness. And he could have gone to her, but for— He screwed his eyes shut and clenched his teeth, wincing with pain from his scarred face.

If only she had come with him to Glasgow, the whole wretched business would never have happened. Shame welled up in him again, and he groaned as his mind replayed the wild excesses of that night. Sanders and his cronies drinking madly, not permitting him to be moderate, that vile show, and then the overblown women. Good God,
how
did he let it happen? And next day, the humiliation, and the appalled, fragmented recollection.

In Glasgow, he had managed to put the episode behind him, kept busy by the events of the opening, but towards the end of the visit there had been cause for concern. He had slipped away and found a discreet doctor who had done little to allay his fears. “Early
days, my dear sir, early days. It will probably clear up in no time.” The doctor had handed him a bottle. “This might be beneficial and will help you sleep. Married man, sir? You must stay away from your wife, you know. Until you're sure.”

And now Beatrice's eyes sent him the same clear message.
Stay away, stay away . . .

1911, Beatrice

“Make an excuse, any excuse, and meet me. In an hour.” Cameron spoke in a low voice from the door of the morning room the next day, fetching rent books from the study as an excuse to come across.

He was waiting at the threshold of the croft house, tense and furious, when she arrived. “So this is the man I must leave you with?” he demanded, pulling her in. “
Now
he offers you violence!” He gripped her shoulders, deaf to her protests. “Leave it now, and listen. Yesterday, before all this happened, he and my father discussed my leaving.” She tried to pull away to look at him, but he held her tight. “
Listen.
They've agreed on the day after the celebration for the King's coronation, midsummer day. I've no reason to stay, and my father smells trouble.”

“He can't know!”

“He suspects. He's said nothing, but he wants me away.” Beatrice's face crumpled as he released her, but he shook his head, and his grip tightened on her shoulders. “
Listen.
” And he outlined a plan. He would work the summer on the docks in Halifax or Montreal, hard work but good money, then return in the autumn, not to the island but to Glasgow, in secret, and send word to her in Edinburgh. He paused, drawing in breath. “And if you come to me there, we will head out back to Canada on the first ship next spring.”

Behind him a spider dropped down from the old rafters, spinning a long thread behind it as it fell. He caressed her bruised
cheek with his thumb. “The decision is yours,
ghraidh mo chridhe.
It won't be easy living, but no one will find us there.” He moved back, fracturing the silken thread as he pulled her down beside him.

Later that day she tried hard to listen as Theo discussed the arrangements for the midsummer celebrations, but her mind was in tatters, unable to focus. He had insisted on getting up and seemed much recovered, back in control, the fever almost gone, his eyes less manic but his temper only slightly less volatile. “More tea, Mr. Forbes?” she asked, inadvertently cutting across him.

“Beatrice, I—” Theo frowned at her. “Perhaps I will leave the matter to you, Mrs. Henderson, after all.”

The factor and the housekeeper both refused more tea, and Beatrice tried again to pay attention. There had long been plans for a party to celebrate both midsummer and the coronation, which would involve a gathering across the strand on the main island, and a huge bonfire would be lit on the top of Bheinn Mhor, a beacon for the surrounding islands. And they would have music, fiddlers and accordions, dancing and pipes. The estate would provide food and drink.

And by the end of it, Cameron would be gone—

Theo became exasperated. “I want you to make sure there is ample food, Beatrice,” he said, after the others had left the morning room and it was clear that she had paid scant attention. “Mrs. Henderson has done all the planning so far, so it's now your turn to take a little responsibility. I'll have enough to do overseeing the rest, as well as the workmen.”

Theo's fever might have left him, and he was drinking less, but over the next days he was restless, pushing everyone hard, abruptly giving and withdrawing instructions, calmed only by the steady hand of John Forbes and the tolerance of Mrs. Henderson, who
adeptly covered Beatrice's frequent oversights. Work on the extension to the morning room had hardly started but was now accelerated. Theo wanted it completed, finished before the summer was gone, and he drove the men hard. Beatrice stood and watched as the men wrestled with a large frost-damaged boulder, leaving one end embedded deep in the foundations, filling the remaining hollow with quantities of bone-white sand to level the uneven ground.

Midsummer Day 1911, Beatrice