Free The House Between Tides by Sarah Maine Page A

connections to thrust her daughter forward before her husband burned through her remaining inheritance.
    Beatrice had tried to play by the rules, hating the whole business,and had a number of admirers, but when her first close association was found to have considerable debts of his own, and a rather unsavoury past, she had been whisked away, narrowly avoiding a personal disaster.
    And it was then that she had met Theo Blake.
    She knew his name, of course, as well as his reputation, and had been pleased to be invited to a private viewing of his recent work, completed during a long stay in Europe. He had been pointed out to her upon arrival, a strikingly handsome man, bronzed and healthy-looking among the pale city dwellers, moving amongst them with an assured nonchalance. But as she wandered through the exhibition, examining his paintings, she was conscious of disappointment. They were mostly rural scenes, goat herds amongst sage scrub on parched hillsides, ochre buildings decaying in golden sunlight, a dog asleep in the shadows. Beautifully executed but unremarkable.
    And then she had been drawn to a painting which hung in a corner, away from the others, a painting she now recognised as the view from the foreshore in front of the house. It showed two ill-defined figures walking across the strand, through contrasting patches of light, shadow, and mist, walking in parallel, slightly apart from each other, and somehow clearly a man and a woman. But were they coming together or drifting apart? The painting left it unresolved, and she had been arrested by a sense of deep poignancy. She stood looking at it for a long time, then spoke to the companion she imagined stood behind her. “Why, this is quite ethereal. A mirage—”
    â€œA mirage, you say?” A deep voice spoke across her shoulder. “Something you’re compelled to reach for”—she had turned to find the painter himself looking at it over her head, his eyes sharp and intense—“knowing you can never grasp it.”
    Introductions were swiftly made, and he had explored her facewith an unsettling directness, then others had stolen his attention and she watched him accepting congratulations with urbane dismissal, his manners easy and smooth. And she had detected a hint of disdain, as if he held neither their flattery nor the paintings in any great esteem. His single state, his established reputation and, more particularly, his controlling interest in his deceased father’s textile mills had made him the subject of considerable interest in Edinburgh society, and she watched predatory mamas calculating their chances.
    And then he was beside her again. “I sense indifference, Miss Somersgill.”
    She looked up guiltily to find that he was smiling. “Not indifference, no. Only . . . only these are so very different from the other one.”
    â€œThat’s because these, you see, are exercises in technique designed to”—he opened the exhibition catalogue—“ ‘demonstrate complete mastery of brushwork and perspective, an eye for the charm of the commonplace, a superior understanding of tonal quality.’  ” He lowered the catalogue and smiled over the top of it. “And to remind people that I’m still alive.”
    â€œAnd the other?” She smiled back at him. “To remind yourself that that’s the case?” She had spoken without thinking and was startled by his changed expression. “There’s a greater . . . a greater sensitivity, a depth of feeling—” she added, faltering and confused. “I like it better.”
    â€œSo do I.” Again that searching, unsettling intensity. “Let me help you to the refreshments. You’ve spoken the first sensible word I’ve heard tonight.”
    And so it had begun.

Chapter 8
1910, Theo
    He stood motionless on the top of the dunes and stared out to the horizon, and the world