Grace, who did not respond immediately, was studying Isabel carefully. She knew her employer well; rather better, in fact, than Isabel realised. And although she agreed with Isabel’s self-assessment of her tendency to conduct internal debates when others would simply make a decision and act, she was not sure that this was always a failing. Isabel talked about the good life and how we should try to lead it, and again Grace agreed with this. Isabel’s life was a good one; she was a kind woman, and she felt for people, which was more than one could say about a lot of people in her position, Grace thought. But there were certainly areas of Isabel’s life where what was required was a little less thought and a bit more action. Should she say something? Well, they had always spoken frankly to one another . . .
“Yes,” said Grace. “I know how you think about things. But there are some things that you shouldn’t think too much about.
You just need to say to yourself: Here goes, and get on with it.”
“Work, for instance,” said Isabel, pointing to the pile of papers on her table.
Grace made a dismissive gesture towards the papers: there was always the wastepaper bin for those. No, and here she pointed to her heart; no, it was not work she was thinking about.
“That boy,” she said.
Isabel was perfectly still, as one confronted in misdeed.
Only her eyes moved. “Jamie?”
“Yes, Jamie. You’re in love with one another, aren’t you?”
Isabel was at a loss as to what to say. It was not just her surprise at the fact that Grace had raised the subject; nor was it so much that Grace had detected feelings which she had no idea 1 4 0
A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h had been so obvious; it was the fact that she had said in love with one another. Her voice was small. “Do you think that he’s . . . that that’s how he feels?” And she added, in confirmation, because now there could be no concealing this from Grace, “Too?”
Grace did not hesitate. “Of course he does. He worships the ground you walk upon. It’s obvious.”
Isabel, who had been tense with anxiety, now relaxed. She felt gratitude to Grace, a warm feeling of having been told something that she really wanted to hear but had not dared hope for. Yet what did Grace think about it? She had not actually said that she approved, but neither had her attitude been one of manifest disapproval. “Do you think I should . . . do something?”
“He’ll never take the first step,” said Grace quickly. “He’s younger than you, remember.”
How could she forget that? That, after all, was the entire problem. But then, as if anticipating Isabel, Grace went on,
“Not that age matters. Not these days.”
“You don’t think it does?”
“No, it doesn’t,” said Grace. “There’s somebody who comes to the meetings—at the Psychic Institute—who has a much younger husband. At first, I thought he was her son. In fact, somebody said that at one of the meetings, but she simply laughed. No, that’s not the problem.”
Isabel waited for Grace to go on. If the age difference was not the barrier, what was?
“Cat,” said Grace, frowning. “That’s the problem.”
“But I think that he’s getting over her,” said Isabel. “I think he realises now that she’s never going to come back to him. It’s T H E R I G H T AT T I T U D E T O R A I N
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taken a long enough time, but I think that the penny has finally dropped. I’m sure it has.”
That was not what Grace had had in mind. “Oh, it’s not him that I’m worried about,” she said. “It’s her. If she finds out that you and Jamie are . . . are together, then she’s going to be furious.”
This struck Isabel as being, apart from anything else, unfair.
“But she’s rejected Jamie. She’s made it very clear that she’s not in love with him and never will be. I can’t understand that, of course, but that’s how she feels. Why should she have any interest in what he does now?”
Grace looked at Isabel and thought: You may be a philosopher, but you sometimes don’t understand at all. “Because you’re her aunt,” said Grace, chiselling out each word. “Her aunt. And I rather suspect that most women would feel jealous if an aunt took an old boyfriend of theirs. They just would.”
Grace waited for Isabel to say something, but Isabel had nothing to say. Elation had been replaced by despair. Here was another complication, weightier still than all the others. Cat was her niece, her closest relative. They had had their disagree-ments in the past, but had always patched them up. This might be different. This touched that dark, primeval area of the human psyche: sexual jealousy.
Grace now continued. “You see,” she said, “the reason we know Cat would feel that way is that people are human. That’s something you need to write about in that Review of yours.” She nodded to the pile of manuscripts. “People are human. Think about that.”
C H A P T E R T H I R T E E N
E
THE SUMMER SOLSTICE came two days later. Isabel had always thought that Scotland did badly with its solstices. Summer, it seemed, had hardly started by the third week of June; it was no time for the days to start getting shorter, even if the difference each day was barely noticeable. And as for the winter solstice, that also seemed a cruel trick played on Scotland, as the worst was still to come then, even if the days were meant to be drawing out.
“We’ve decided to do something about the summer solstice,” said Peter Stevenson over the telephone.
“To put it back a month? What a good idea. But can you? I know that you’re influential, but . . .”
Peter laughed. “No. To have a midsummer party,” he said.
“Spontaneously, as you can see from the timing of this invitation. Two days’ notice.”
“I’m never booked that far ahead,” said Isabel. “But I do have houseguests. A cousin and her husband.”
“They sound perfect,” said Peter. “And of course they’re welcome too.”
It was just the sort of invitation that Isabel liked to receive.
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She did not enjoy cocktail parties, unless she was in the very special mood that made them bearable or unless she was the hostess, in which case she could busy herself with duties and would never get stuck. Getting stuck was the problem, thought Isabel. You could not talk to the same people for the whole evening, but how did one get away? Saying “I must let you circulate” was the same as saying “Would you please move on,” and saying “I must circulate” was the equivalent of saying “I must move on; you stay here.” In an extreme situation, one might say,
“I think I’m going to faint,” which would immediately bring about suggestions that one sit down—elsewhere. That enabled movement, but the excuse had to be used sparingly. One could acquire a reputation for fainting too frequently.
“You get invited to cocktail parties in hell,” a friend of Isabel’s had once observed. “There’s one every evening. But I gather there’s nothing to drink. And you have to go.” He frowned and looked regretful. “I’m not looking forward to it,” he went on.
“Not one little bit!”
Isabel had asked him about how he dealt with the problem of being trapped, and he had thought for a moment before he gave his reply.
“You can mention your infectious diseases,” he said. “That sometimes gets people moving. The other possibility is to say: ‘Let’s talk about religion. Let’s really talk about it.’ That works too.”
But this was not a cocktail party. West Grange House, a Georgian house behind walls, stood in the middle of a large garden that had been transformed for the occasion. Long trestle tables, covered with white linen cloths, had been set up beneath the two large oak trees that stood mid-lawn. Along these tables were wooden chairs, at least forty of them, and 1 4 4