“But that doesn’t really make any difference,” said Florence.
“My offer stands. You can still have it for the figure I suggested.”
She paused, taking a sip of coffee from her mug. Isabel saw that she was looking at her over the rim. The look was that of a schoolteacher observing a favourite pupil who has perhaps just a touch too much character: a mixture of approbation and envy.
“May I ask why you want me to have it?” Isabel asked. “I hope that I don’t sound rude, but I really would like to know.”
Florence put down her mug. “Because I like you, Miss Dalhousie,” she said. “That’s one reason. I just do.”
Isabel shook her head. “But you hardly know me. I really don’t see how you can come to any conclusions about me on the basis of . . . on the basis of not much more than one meeting.
And, anyway, your idea of my circumstances is, I’m afraid, wrong. That young man—”
“Is just a friend. Oh, I imagined that might be the case.
After the lawyer came back to me and said that you had been to see her. She said that . . . Well, I’m sorry to have to say this. She said that she didn’t believe what you told her—that you were, in fact, having an affair with that young man.”
It is not easy to hear the news that we have been spotted in our lies, and Isabel’s reaction, a simple human reaction, was to blush. This was burning shame, made physical, and Florence, seeing it, immediately regretted having said what she had.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have told you that. I made 1 3 0
A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h it sound more serious than it was. And I’m sure that she mis-understood what you said. I’m sure that you didn’t deliberately mislead her.”
“I did,” said Isabel plainly. “I told her that Jamie and I were in a relationship. Those were my exact words.”
“Well . . .”
“I don’t know exactly why I did it,” said Isabel. “Pride, probably. Perhaps I was just fed up with being condescended to by married people. You know how it can be sometimes.”
Florence reached across and placed her hand on Isabel’s arm. “I’m single,” she said. “I know what you’re talking about.”
Isabel looked down at the design of the waxed tablecloth on the table. It looked French: a series of little pictures of a cornucopia disgorging its contents before a group of surprised picnickers:
“It’s so ridiculous,” said Isabel. “A week ago my life was all very straightforward. Now it seems that I’ve talked myself into a whole web of misunderstandings and deceptions. All over nothing.”
Florence laughed, and her laughter defused the tension.
“Let’s forget about all that,” she said. “The point is this: I gather you’re buying this place for somebody who works for you. That’s reason enough for me to want to sell it to you.”
Isabel protested, but Florence was insistent. “If you could have seen some of the people who have been through this place since it’s been on the market, you’d understand how I feel.
Some of them were nice enough, but an awful lot of them were ghastly, just ghastly. Materialistic. Ill- mannered. And quite a few of them actually condescended to me. They thought, woman in her sixties. Very uninteresting. Unimportant. Practically non-existent. And then there was you, and that young man. And I 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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suddenly thought, Why should I sell this to somebody I don’t like? I don’t need the money. I’m comfortably off, with my teaching pension and the money and that house in Trinity left to me.
I don’t need anything more.”
She stopped to take a sip of her coffee. On the other side of the table, Isabel stared out of the window and thought about what Florence had said. She could see the logic of the decision and she knew that she should accept; to be able to accept is as important as to be able to give—she knew that.
“You’re being very generous,” she said. Then she hesitated, but just for a few moments, before she continued. “I can afford to pay more, you know. I’m not short of money.”
She felt the soft power of Florence’s gaze; those grey, understanding eyes. “I know that.”
But how did she know? thought Isabel. Do I seem well-off?
There is a well-off look, Isabel thought, but she did not imagine she had it. It was an assuredness that came with not being anxious; that and a well-tended air. But how did one distinguish between that and arrogance?
“Let’s leave it at that,” Florence suggested. “You can sleep on my offer and then, in, let’s say, two days, your lawyer can let us know whether you want to go ahead. Would you be happy with that?”
Isabel made a gesture with her hands, palms outwards, which indicated acceptance, and resignation too. Florence, smiling, reached for the cafetiere to top up Isabel’s mug. “That young man,” she said. “You’re lucky to have such a friend.”
“Very,” said Isabel.
“You’re obviously fond of him,” said Florence, and then added, “And he of you, of course.”
Isabel again said, “Very.”
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A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h Florence put down her mug, exactly over one of the
