“I am going to tell you a rather tricky story,” said Isabel. “Then I’m going to ask you to give me your reaction. Don’t bother about reasons, just tell me what you would do.”
She related the story of Mr. and Mrs. B. Grace continued to unload plates as she listened, but abandoned her work when the story came to an end.
“I would write Mr. B. a letter,” she said firmly. “I would tell him not to trust his wife.”
“I see,” said Isabel.
“But I wouldn’t sign my own name,” Grace added. “I would write anonymously.”
Isabel could not conceal her surprise. “Anonymously? Why?”
“I don’t know,” said Grace. “You said that I should not bother with reasons. I should just tell you what I would do. And that’s it.”
Isabel was silent. She was used to hearing Grace express unusual views, but this curious preference for an anonymous letter astounded her. She was about to press Grace further, but her housekeeper changed the subject.
“Cat phoned,” she said. “She did not want to disturb you, but she would like to pop in for tea this afternoon. I said that we would let her know.”
“That’s fine,” said Isabel. “I would like to see her.”
Truth telling. Paternalism. She was no further forward, she felt, but suddenly she decided. She would ask Grace her views.
“Here’s another one, Grace,” she said. “Imagine that you found out that Toby was seeing another girl and not telling Cat about it.
What would you do?”
Grace frowned. “Difficult,” she said. “I don’t think I’d tell Cat.”
Isabel relaxed. At least they thought the same way on that issue.
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A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h
“But then,” Grace went on, “I think I’d probably go to Toby and tell him that unless he gave Cat up, I’d tell the other girl.
That way I’d get rid of him, because I wouldn’t want somebody like that to marry Cat. That’s what I’d do.”
Isabel nodded. “I see. And you’d have no hesitation in doing that?”
“None,” said Grace. “None at all.” Then she added, “Not that this would ever happen, would it?”
Isabel hesitated; here was another occasion on which a lie could slip out. And the moment’s hesitation was enough.
“Oh my God!” said Grace. “Poor Cat! Poor girl! I never liked that boy, you know, never. I didn’t like to say it, but now you know.
Those strawberry jeans of his, you know the ones he wears? I knew what they meant, right from the beginning. See? I knew.”
C H A P T E R E I G H T E E N
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CAT ARRIVED FOR TEA at three-thirty, having left Eddie in charge of the shop. She was let into the house by Grace, who looked at her strangely, or so Cat thought; but then Grace was strange, she always had been, and Cat had always known that.
Grace had theories and convictions about virtually everything, and one never knew what was going on in her head. How Isabel put up with those conversations in the kitchen, Cat had no idea.
Perhaps she ignored most of it.
Isabel was in her summerhouse, correcting proofs. The summerhouse was a small octagonal building, constructed of wood and painted dark green. It stood at the back, against the high stone wall that enclosed the garden; in his illness her father had spent whole days in it, looking out over the lawn, thinking and reading, although it was hard for him to turn the pages and he would wait for Isabel to do that. For some years after his death she had been unable to go into it, such were the memories, but gradually she had taken to working in it, even in winter, when it could be heated by a Norwegian wood-burning stove which stood in one corner. It was largely undecorated, save for three framed photographs which had been hung on the back wall. Her father, 1 7 0
A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h in the uniform of the Cameronians, in Sicily, under a harsh sun, standing in front of a requisitioned villa; all that bravery and sac-rifice, so long ago, for a cause that was utterly, utterly right. Her mother—sainted American mother; once awkwardly referred to by Grace as her sanitized American mother—sitting with her father in a cafe in Venice. And herself as a child with her parents, on a picnic, she thought. Foxed at the edges, the photographs needed restoration, but at present they were undisturbed.
It was a warm day for spring—more of a summer’s day, really—
and she had opened the double glass doors of the summerhouse.
Now she saw Cat approaching her across the lawn, a small brown bag in her hand. It would be something from the delicatessen; Cat never came empty-handed, and would give Isabel a small jar of truf-fle pate or olives picked at random from the shelves of her shop.
“Belgian chocolate mice,” said Cat, laying the packet on the table.
“Cats bring mice as an offering,” remarked Isabel, laying the proofs to one side. “My aunt—your great-aunt— had a cat which caught mice and put them on her bed. So thoughtful.”
Cat sat down on the wicker chair next to Isabel’s. “Grace tells me that you’re in seclusion,” she said. “Not to be
