Tom showed a polite interest in Angie’s purchases, but Isabel could see that they meant nothing to him.
“We’re going to ship a lot of things back at the end of the summer,” he said. “Angie’s going to redecorate the house.”
Angie stared at Isabel, as if expecting her to contradict this.
“I’m sure it will be very attractive,” said Isabel. “And you’re choosing the things yourself. Some people . . .” She almost said some rich people but stopped herself in time. “Some people get decorators to choose everything for them. Furniture, paintings—the lot.”
“I couldn’t live with that sort of thing,” said Angie. “Another person’s taste.”
Isabel wondered if she was going to get rid of all of Tom’s possessions when she moved in. And she thought that he might be thinking this, too, as he began to say something but was interrupted by Mimi, who started to talk about somebody in Dallas whom they both knew who had spent a year, and a fortune, searching for old possessions that had been mistakenly thrown out. He had tracked them down eventually and taken them back to the house. “Such loyalty,” she said. “It was like old friends being reunited.”
The conversation drifted off in other directions. They were all in the drawing room, drinking tea, which Mrs. Paterson had brought in from the kitchen and placed on a sideboard. As she 2 1 4
A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h did so, she turned to Isabel and whispered, “May I have a quick word with you, please?” She nodded briefly in the direction of the door and then left. Isabel, standing near the sideboard, took a few sips of her tea and then put down the cup and saucer and followed Mrs. Paterson.
The hall was empty, but the door that led off down the kitchen corridor was ajar. Isabel went through it and walked down the corridor. A child’s rocking horse and a small, old-fashioned pedal car had been stored in the passageway. The rocking horse, with tangled mane, was painted off-white and was scratched with use; the pedal car was British racing green, with red leather seats. Both looked dusty, as if abandoned a long time ago by the children who had once loved them. Children, like cats, made a house into a home, and the echoes of their presence lingered.
Mrs. Paterson was standing near the large kitchen window, wiping her hands on a dish towel. She turned round when Isabel came into the room.
“Thank you, Miss Dalhousie,” she said. “I couldn’t speak to you through there. And when I looked for you this morning, you had already gone.”
“Tom and I went for a walk,” she explained. “There’s a wonderful view from the top of that hill. We saw for miles and miles.”
Mrs. Paterson nodded. “Willy liked that,” she said. “My late husband. He was the factor here when this place was run as a proper estate. Though calling him the factor sounds a bit grand.
There was only one other man working here, who looked after the sheep. Willy did the forester’s job, too, because everything was so run down. Then when he died they stopped doing anyT H E R I G H T AT T I T U D E T O R A I N
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thing and just let out the land to the sheep farmer down the road, and I look after the house for the owners.”
“You do a very good job,” said Isabel, looking about the well-ordered kitchen, with its rows of gleaming copper saucepans and well-blacked skillets.
“I try my best. But it’s tough work when we have the short lets. The Bruces are no trouble, because they’re here for so long.
And they’re easy people to get on with.”
Isabel nodded. “But you wanted to talk to me about something . . .”
Mrs. Paterson put down the dish towel. “I’m so embarrassed about this,” she said. “You see, Angie asked me this morning to put some bottled water in your rooms. She said that there should be a bottle in your room and one in that young man’s room too. Jamie, isn’t it? Well, I said that you were sharing now.
I didn’t think, I just said it. And she was very surprised. I thought I shouldn’t have mentioned anything. You see, when I made up the room . . .”
Isabel shook her head. “Don’t worry about that,” she said.
“It’s not important. It really isn’t.” She paused. “Being in adjoin-ing rooms proved very convenient.”
Mrs. Paterson looked up sharply. “Oh?”
Isabel shrugged. It was too late now to sidestep the issue.
“Well, I suppose I’m just telling you the truth. We have to do that, you know. I could lie to you and pretend that I was embarrassed but I wasn’t. It provoked a conversation between us, you see. And he stayed. Last night was the first time we were together.”
Mrs. Paterson made a gesture with her hand which Isabel could not interpret. Was this shock? she wondered. A gesture of 2 1 6
A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h disapproval? People in Edinburgh might tolerate things which people in the more conservative Scottish countryside would not. Taking a younger lover might be just the sort of thing of which Mrs. Paterson might have a low opinion.
The older woman turned away for a moment and stared out of the window. Then she turned round again. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Your private affairs are none of my concern.”
“But I mentioned them to you,” said Isabel.
Mrs. Paterson nodded. “That’s true, I suppose that you did.”
She paused. “May I ask you something, Miss Dalhousie? Would you mind?”
Isabel wondered what the question might be. It was probably Jamie’s age that she was interested in finding out. “Of course you can ask me.”
“I know I’m older than you,” began Mrs. Paterson. “But . . .
but do you think that if I went to Edinburgh I might be able to find a young man like that? Do you think I’d have a chance?”
“Would you like me to help you?” asked Isabel. She burst out laughing, as did the other woman. They both knew that neither was serious, but Isabel thought, What if she said yes? How would I do it? And that question prompted another in her mind.
How on earth had she found Jamie? How had that marvellous, improbable event happened? It was luck, surely, on the same scale as winning the lottery, or any of those things that were against wild, impossible odds, but which happened from time to time and made one believe in the operation of providence.
She returned to the drawing room. Joe and Mimi had gone for a rest before dinner; the country air, Mimi said, made one feel sleepy. Isabel agreed. She could have gone to sleep, she thought, on top of the hill when she had been lying there look-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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ing at the sky. She had done that once in Ireland one summer, with John Liamor, at the end of a long walk; they had lain down exhausted in a field one evening and woken up when it was dark and the sky was filled with stars. They had both been so struck by the beauty of the experience that they had said nothing about it, and now, strangely, when she thought about it she thought of John without that bitterness that had accompanied her memories of him.
Jamie was paging through a magazine. Tom and Angie were seated on a sofa.
“Well,” said Jamie, putting down the magazine. “I’m going upstairs.”
Isabel stayed where she was. Angie, she noticed, was watching her. She could not leave the room behind him—not now.
“Dinner is at seven-thirty,” said Angie, transferring her gaze to Jamie. “Drinks at seven.”
As Jamie acknowledged the information, Isabel, who had poured herself a fresh cup of tea, fiddled with her teaspoon.
Then Angie said, “Is everything all right up there? Are you comfortable enough?”
Jamie was on the point of leaving the room. He stopped.
“Yes,” he said quickly. “Yes, it’s fine.”
“I’ll come up and check on everything,” said Angie. “I’ve left the arrangements to Mrs. Paterson, but I should see that everything’s all right.”