A Dark and Distant Shore (120 page)
Read A Dark and Distant Shore Online
Authors: Reay Tannahill
Callum virtuously resolved that he would do better, and made a note to go through it all carefully – some day. But being the kind of person who chose his reading matter on the basis of the last page of a book rather than the first, before he put it aside he cast a brief glance at Gideon’s report of his last visit to Kinveil in 1880. The visit that had seen the final confrontation with Theo – who had died when Callum was six – and Great-grandmama Vilia. It was enough, more than enough, to arouse the liveliest interest in Callum. Soon, he was regretting very deeply that he had been too young and ill-informed to appreciate Vilia properly when he had the chance. What a woman!
In the years that followed, he had spent a good deal of his spare time on sorting out the papers, and the task had a curious effect on him. Most people, he reflected, scarcely even knew the names of their great-grandparents, or their laterals, collaterals, and descendants. But not Callum. By the time he had finished he knew them all personally, and had wept with them, and for them. He went up to Kinveil many times, trying to discover why it should have caused so much anguish and ruined so many lives, but by that day in August 1914 he still hadn’t discovered the answer and supposed that, now, he never would.
What he had discovered was that he could never bring himself to make the place his home. His very bones turned cold inside him as soon as he set foot on the causeway. It was as if the shades of Luke Telfer, and Juliana, and her baby son, and Lizzie, and Ian Barber, and all the rest of them, were waiting for him on the other side.
All that old heartbreak, all those old tears, he thought, as he sat in his rakish little two-seater and gazed back at the landscape he might never see again. None of it mattered any more. The world was at war, now, and he was going back to London to enlist.
He had made his Will years ago, when he came into his inheritance. Everything was to go to Gideon’s son, Steven, who was Callum’s uncle but near enough to him in age and outlook not to feel it. Callum wasn’t sure whether Steven would want Kinveil; it wasn’t something they’d ever had occasion to discuss. The assumption had always been that Callum would marry some day and bequeath the place to his children. But nothing was sure any more.
If Steven did want it, well and good. There would still be someone of Cameron blood to carry on the line, and Great-grandmother Vilia would have won in the end, as she died believing she had. And yet... It had been irony enough when, after her life-long obsession with bringing Kinveil back into her own family, her great-grandson Neil should have ignored it, though he had still been prepared to keep it. The supreme irony would be if her grandson Steven, knowing from Gideon the human cost of that obsession, chose to reject it completely.
Callum sat frowning at the bright scene, at the sea-girt little castle, that, on such a day, charmed both the eye and the imagination. He would add a codicil, he thought. Steven could sell the land, if he wanted to. But the castle... No. That, in justice, must be left to the sun, and the rain, and the ghosts it had created.
He pulled down his goggles, and cranked up the engine, and turned his back on Kinveil for the last time.
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An ancient brooding castle, a dispossessed child, a lifelong passion...
On a windswept spur of the West Highland coast stands the small and sturdy castle of Kinveil. On one side the horizon extends across the sea to the isle of Skye, on the other it sweeps over the bleak majesty of the moors to the mountains of Kintail.
But Kinveil, for all its remote and silent beauty, is a place beset by betrayal, secrets and passion. Spanning almost a hundred years during the height of the British Empire,
A Dark and Distant Shore
is the epic saga of one extraordinary woman, and a lifelong crusade to reclaim her birthright.
‘A bewitching blend of history and passion. A MUST.’
Daily Mail
‘An absorbing saga spanning a century of love, hatreds and history.’
Daily Express
‘Tannahill is a beautiful storyteller with a poetic appreciation of the Highlands.’
Washington Post
‘Enthralling. A marvellous blend of
Gone With The Wind
and
The Thorn Birds
. You will enjoy every page.’
Daily Mirror
N
ON
-F
ICTION
Regency England
Paris in the Revolution
The Fine Art of Food
Food in History
Flesh & Blood
Sex in History
F
ICTION
A Dark and Distant Shore
The World, the Flesh and the Devil
Passing Glory
In Still and Stormy Waters
Return of the Stranger
Fatal Majesty: A Novel of Mary, Queen of Scots
The Seventh Son
Dame Constance de Clair Series:
Having the Builders in
Having the Decorators in
Born and brought up in Scotland, Reay Tannahill (1929-2007) was an acclaimed non-fiction writer, historian, and novelist. Her work has been translated into more than a dozen languages.
A Dark and Distant Shore
was an instant bestseller.
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The story starts here.
First published in the UK in 1983 by Century Publishing Co. Ltd.
First paperback edition published in the UK in 1984 by Penguin Books.
This paperback edition published in the UK in 2014 by Head of Zeus Ltd.
Copyright © Reay Tannahill, 1983
The moral right of Reay Tannahill to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Paperback ISBN: 9781781859032
eBook ISBN: 9781781859025
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