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“Good luck,” said Grace.
Isabel smiled. “Well,” she said, hesitantly. “Maybe. I don’t know.”
Grace opened the door fully and came into the room. “Don’t be defeatist. I don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t find somebody. You’re a very attractive woman. You’re kind. Men like you.
Yes, they do. They love talking to you. I’ve seen it.”
“They may like talking to me,” said Isabel. “But that’s about it. They’re frightened of me, I suspect. Men don’t like women who think too much. They want to do the thinking.”
Grace thought about this for a moment. “I’m not sure if you’re right about that,” she said. “Some men may be like that, but by no means all. Look at Jamie. Yes, look at him. He worships the ground you walk upon. I can tell that from a mile away.” She paused, and then added, “Pity that he’s still just a boy.”
Isabel moved over to the window and looked out into the garden. She felt slightly embarrassed by the direction in which the conversation was going. She could discuss men in general, but she could not discuss Jamie. That was too raw, too dangerous. “And what about you, Grace? What about the men in your life?”
She had never before spoken to Grace like that, and she was not sure what her housekeeper’s reaction would be. She looked round and saw that Grace had not taken offence at the question. She decided to be more specific. “You told me the other day that you had met somebody at the spiritualist meetings.
Remember?”
Grace picked up a pencil from the desk and examined its tip nonchalantly. “Did I? Well, perhaps I did.”
“Yes,” said Isabel. “You told me about him and then I think I F R I E N D S, L OV E R S, C H O C O L AT E
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saw him when I went there with you. That man sitting behind us—that good-looking man—the one who had lost his wife.
That was him, wasn’t it?”
The pencil became more interesting to Grace. “Could be.”
“Ah!” said Isabel. “Well, I must say that I thought him rather nice. And he obviously liked you. I could tell.”
“He’s easy to talk to,” said Grace. “He’s one of those men who listens to what you have to say. I always like that. A gentleman.”
“Yes,” agreed Isabel. “A gentleman. Now that’s a useful word, isn’t it? And yet everybody’s too embarrassed to use it these days, for some reason. Is it considered snobbish, do you think? Is that it?”
Grace put the pencil back on the desk. “Maybe,” she said.
“I wouldn’t think that, though. You get all sorts of gentlemen. It doesn’t matter where they’re from or who they are. They’re just gentlemen. You can trust them.”
Isabel thought, And then you get men like John Liamor. And you know, or you should know, that he’s not a gentleman. She had known that, of course, and had ignored it, because one of the effects of those who are not gentlemen is that one’s judgement is overcome. You don’t care. But she did not want to think about him now because she realised that time was doing its healing, and he seemed to have become more and more distant. And she liked the feeling of forgetting, of the slow conversion into the state of his being just another person, somebody whom she could think about, if he came to mind, without feeling a pang of loss and of longing.
She looked at Grace. If this conversation went too far, then Grace would simply remember that she had something to do and would go off and do it, leaving the exchange in midair. This 1 7 2
A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h sometimes happened when she had argued herself into a corner over some point and could not retract; the ironing would suddenly call, or something would be remembered upstairs. But now she was showing no signs of ending their conversation, and so Isabel continued.
“Of course, you may not be the only one to like him,” Isabel said. She tried to make the observation a casual one, but there was an edge to her voice, which Grace noticed. She looked up sharply.
“Why do you say that?”
Isabel swallowed hard. How would one put this? “I thought that the medium showed an interest,” she said. “She certainly kept her eyes on him. Over tea afterwards . . .”
“She often looks at people,” said Grace defensively. “That’s the way they communicate. They have to establish a rapport with the people there so that the other side can get in touch.”
Isabel thought for a moment. Grace was showing loyalty to the medium, which she should have expected. “But—and please correct me if I’m wrong—wasn’t that message she gave about somebody’s wife being concerned that somebody else was trying to get to know him better—wasn’t that directed at your friend? Didn’t you see his reaction?”
Grace pursed her lips. “I wasn’t watching very closely,”
she said.
“Well, I was,” said Isabel. “And I could tell that he thought the message was for him. It was as if somebody had hit him over the head with a rolled-up newspaper.”
Grace sniffed. “I don’t know. Some of these messages are rather general. That could have been for anybody there. Most of the men who go to these meetings have lost their wives, you know. That man isn’t the only one.”
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Isabel stared at Grace. Her housekeeper had many merits, she thought. She was direct in her manner, she was utterly truthful, and she had no time for hypocrisy. But when she chose to deny the obvious, she could do so with a tenacity that was infinitely frustrating.
“Grace,” she said. “I didn’t want to spell it out, but you force me to do so. I thought the medium had eyes just for that man.
She was devouring him. Now then, imagine that you are a medium and you notice that the man you’re after is getting a bit too friendly with another woman. What do you do? Suddenly you discover that the wife is coming through from the other side and, lo and behold, she tells him that the opposition is bad for him. And since he believes it’s his wife talking, he takes the warning seriously. End of romance for . . . well, sorry to put it this way, but, end of possible romance for you.”
While Isabel was talking, Grace had fixed her with an unblinking stare. Now, picking up the pencil again, she twirled it gently between her fingers. Then she laughed.
“But what if the wife has got it right? What if I’m not good for him? What then?”
Isabel thought quickly. Her analysis, which she was sure was true, was based on the assumption that the medium was inventing the message. It was inconceivable to her that there was any communication with the dead wife, and so she had to think this. But if, like Grace, one thought that the message could be genuine, then quite another conclusion might be reached.
“If you believe that,” she said, “then I suppose you might keep away from each other.”
“Exactly,” said Grace.
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A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h another woman without at least some attempt at a fight. And yet Grace seemed to be prepared to hand victory to the medium.
“I’m surprised that you’re giving up so easily,” she said. “In my view, that woman is resorting to a cheap trick. And you’re letting her get away with it.”
“I may not agree,” said Grace. “So there we are.” She looked at her watch and turned away. The conversation had come to an end. “There’s work to be done,” she said. “What about you? Is the Review up to date?”
Isabel rose to her feet. “It never is,” she said. “It’s a Sisyphean labour for me. I push a rock up a hill and then it rolls down again.”