The House Between Tides (7 page)

He was on her doorstep early.

“We've only got a couple of hours because of the tide,” he explained as the Land Rover rocked over the rough track and then sped across the pristine sand. He steered carelessly with one hand, glancing occasionally at her but saying nothing more, and she turned her head to look out of the window, matching his silence with her own.

White sand, shallow water, and clear blue skies created a spectrum of shades, dark turquoise and aqua blue blending with chalky pastels. To the west she could see open ocean, while to the east the curve of the shoreline masked the other entrance to the bay, set against a backdrop of misty hills rising from neighbouring islands, and she twisted in her seat to encompass the scale of her surroundings, awed by its beauty. “Have you been up here before?” he asked, breaking the silence, and she shook her head. “It's got a special magic on days like this,” he said.

And he was right.

As they swept around the last rocky seaweed-clad mound, the house was directly in front of them. It was a tribute to unapologetic mid Victorian self-confidence, built to impress by its scale with a vigorous appreciation of the romantic, redolent of Abbotsford, or Waverley, with stepped gables and a little roof turret above the front porch. Built, she had read, to celebrate a very Victorian type of success in the textile mills of Paisley where Theodore Blake's
father had woven thread into cloth of gold. But the gaunt shell looked so bleak now, like an abandoned film set without purpose or meaning.

“Rather dominates the landscape, doesn't it?” he said, and she felt his eyes on her again as the Land Rover left the sand and bumped up the sloping track to the house. “Closing up the place had a bigger impact around here than the end of the war.” He swung in between the entrance pillars, the wheels skidding on mud. “The bonfires burned into the night with stuff left after the auction. It was said they could be seen for miles. Armageddon, Hebridean style.” She nodded, then pushed the image aside and indulged in a moment's fantasy, seeing the house restored, alive again, the windows free of boarding, open to the peerless view. “There've been rumours of all sorts of buyers over the years,” he continued, “rock stars, hippies, religious groups . . . But nothing ever happened, and then the November gales started to take the roof off.”

The fantasy vanished and she looked away. “And now you say it's too late.”

He pulled on the hand brake, reaching back for hard hats and a large torch. “ 'Fraid so.”

When he had come to pick her up that morning, he had pocketed the keys which lay where she had left them the day before, and he used them now to unlock the padlock on the front door, slipping them automatically into his pocket as he cautioned her to tread warily. Would he remember to give them back? she wondered.

They crossed the hall in front of the main staircase once again, and he pointed out where part of the landing was collapsing, leaving the front bedrooms marooned and unreachable, their fireplaces hanging above vanished floors. Splintered wood panelling and a few shreds of wallpaper, leached of colour, still clung to upper
walls. But at least today she was prepared, resolute against disappointment.

“This was the drawing room.” He stood in the doorway of a well-proportioned room at the front of the house and played the torch beam around the void. “There're some old photographs at the museum which show what it was like. You should take a look.” The light rested on a gaping hole in one wall. “There was a splendid granite fireplace there once, a beauty, but it went with the others. And a grand piano stood over there in the corner, a chaise longue against that wall next to an old gramophone with a great morning-glory horn. And that's all that's left of a window seat.” The light lingered on a rusty rod of iron hanging loose beneath the window. “Not a bad sort of life, was it, curled up beside the window with a Scotch, the gramophone crackling away, and one of the best views in the country.” She glanced sideways at him. The enthusiasm seemed out of character, and his tone had lost its laconic edginess. He sounded almost proprietorial.

He guided her into the next room. “Dining room,” he said. “There's a photo showing a great long table in here laid for some classy meal—white linen, some great silver exuberance in the middle, crystal, fine china, the whole bit.”

“Quite an achievement out here.”

“Which you intend to match,” he remarked. The edge was back, but she decided to let it pass. What exactly was his problem? When she made no reply, he shrugged and led her into the next room, the one she had broken into. “Blake's study,” he said, stooping to pick up the splintered remains of the old window boarding. “Probably where he did his bird catalogue.” And she thought of the exquisite illustrations in Ruairidh's book, imagining the painter bent to his task, lifting his head to watch the birds circling out over the strand. “I suppose it filled the man's time. He'd nothing else to do, of course, not being troubled by making a living.”

He propped the broken boarding against the wall and tested the strength of his handiwork from the day before.

“I wonder why he didn't go back to his landscape paintings,” Hetty said.

He shrugged. “Maybe he became as obsessed by birds as his father. That was why old man Blake bought the estate in the first place, you know. He'd made his fortune, so he built this pile to indulge his interests in comfort. First wife died, and he did a bit of social climbing and pulled number two wife from the impoverished gentry, then he built this place and indulged his fancies.” He turned back to the doorway, lighting her route with the torch beam. “A man of his time, was Duncan Blake, same as his son.”

They went next to stand at the door of what he told her had been the morning room. “Although Aonghas said in his day it was used to store lumber—and turnips.” He shrugged at her puzzled expression. “And the bit added on to it, where the bones are, had been intended as a conservatory but was never really finished. Whoever built it were complete cowboys, unskilled tenants probably, and what they did compromised the original wall. Come outside and I'll show you.” And he took her round to the side and pointed out a great crack, which spread up the wall above the sloping roof of the conservatory, fissuring and branching under windows and eaves. “It's my guess the foundations shifted after they levelled the ground.” He gave her a long look. “They broke its back, you see, and if that wall goes now, it'll bring the rest with it.”

She nodded slowly. “So what do you suggest?”

“Unless you're prepared to spend a fortune, there's only one option.” He hesitated, watching her face. “Pull the whole thing down.” She looked up sharply, in disbelief, every part of her protesting. “Salvage what you can, build yourself a cottage on the site, and consign Muirlan House to history where it belongs.” And he walked on, round the back of the house, giving her space to absorb the blow.

She stood where he had left her, staring at the damaged wall, and saw her plans splintering into similar fractured pieces. And the house seemed to stare back at her, indifferent to its fate, past caring.

Eventually she followed him and stood, only half-listening, as he pointed out the various outbuildings—the scullery, the washhouse, and the stores—unwilling to be convinced by his verdict, and resisting. Then she waited as he secured the padlock on the front door, dully watching him pocket the keys, searching for the words to challenge him.

“I've seen places in a worse state on those restoration programmes,” she said, but even to her ears this sounded weak.

“Have you?” was all he said.

So she said nothing more as he drove her back across the sand but thought again of that first evening when she'd seen the house, lit by the evening sun, and been enthralled by the sight. She had only this man's opinion, after all, and she sensed there was something else driving that opinion. Some agenda of his own— She knew what Giles would say if she told him.
Get someone else, for Christ's sake! Get Emma onto it—or leave it to me. I'll find someone.

But she wasn't going to tell Giles.

She straightened her shoulders as they drew up outside her cottage. Not yet, anyway. She wasn't prepared to give up that easily.

First off, she needed to get the keys back and turned to ask him for them, but he forestalled her. “Let's look at the report, shall we, while it's all fresh in your mind.” And he reached into the back of the Land Rover and pulled out a briefcase.

“What report?”

He looked at her. “The one I sent to Emma Dawson.”

“When?”

“A week or so ago.” He raised an eyebrow at her expression,
then got out and came round to open her door. “You haven't seen it? I thought that was why you'd come.”

Damn Emma Dawson! She unlocked the cottage door, which stuck again, and watched, wrong-footed once more, as James shouldered it open and then stood aside to let her pass.

They were met by a chill dampness which suggested that the cottage's night storage heaters had defeated her as comprehensively as the peat. She apologised for the temperature and gestured him into the sitting room while she made tea. Why hadn't Emma told her she'd received a report? Or had she told Giles instead? She frowned as she selected the best of the cheap mugs, remembering other occasions when this had happened.

Reversing through the door with the laden tray five minutes later, she found James crouched by the fire, effortlessly coaxing the peat into life. He straightened as she entered and brought his briefcase over to the table, pulled out a chair for her, and sat down opposite, tossing his jacket aside. He accepted a mug of tea with a nod, rolled up his sleeves, and his whole demeanour seemed to change. He became serious and professional, waiting until she was settled and then going through the report page by page, explaining his points clearly and carefully, looking at her to check each time that she had understood, drawing neat, concise diagrams with a sharpened pencil if he thought she hadn't, demanding her full attention. By the end of an hour, she had to admit that his survey had been thorough—and it was damning.

He sat back at last, tapping his teeth with the pencil end, and looked at her. “So, there you have it,” he said after a moment, and gestured hopefully towards the teapot. “The problems go back a long way, and Blake let things slide badly in his later years.” He spooned sugar into the replenished mug, stirring it slowly. “And since then all the original features have either been nicked or relocated throughout the islands, though I imagine the fireplaces were
fenced through Glasgow.” He studied her face for a moment. “I'm not saying restoration
can't
be done, like the projects you've seen on the box, but what you're planning will cost you the thick end of a million. Minimum.” He sipped his tea, watching her absorb this, then asked more gently if she had considered the costs of running such a place. “No one lives out there now for a reason, you know, and providing even the basic services will be a huge expense. It never had electricity, and drinking water had to be piped across the strand from a pump house on the main island. They say it took eighty cartloads of peat to heat the place in the cold months, so translate that into oil at today's prices if you will.”

He sat back again, still watching her over the rim of his mug, and there was silence between them. Then the peat shifted in the fireplace and warmth began to spread through the room. “You must think me very naïve,” she said at last.

“You hadn't seen the place, had you?” He set down his mug. “And you got swept up with a dream. Nothing wrong with that, of course, we all need dreams, but even dreams need foundations.” He began gathering his papers together, giving her a twisted smile. “I'd an idea to try and save the house myself a few years ago.”

“
You
did?”

“Presumptuous, wasn't it?” His eyes glinted briefly as he took in her expression. “We didn't know there was any of the family left and thought we'd get it for a song.” So was this the problem? Had she somehow thwarted him? “But after the fireplaces went, Ruairidh managed to track down your grandmother's solicitors. And then, well, other matters intervened.” She waited for him to say more, but he didn't. “Even then a cursory inspection showed it would be impossible—or at least with the budget I could muster, and now the roof's going, it's quickening the end.” He paused. “So if you don't pull it down, nature'll soon do the job for you.”

Later that day she strolled along the shore and looked across
at the island, remembering his last words as he turned at the door. “Ruairidh and I spent our childhood playing around the two houses and it got into the blood, so to speak.” He paused. “And there's a sadness now, seeing it fall apart, like watching a great beast roll over and die.” Rolling over and revealing its secrets—and for a moment his eyes had held hers. “It's hard, I know, but when you think about it, it always was an aberration. A place like that, up here? Crazy. Just let it go.”