She thought about this, and then asked Tom whether he 2 3 8
A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h had said anything to her about it. He replied that he had not, and the reason for this was that he could not be sure. It was a terrible thing to accuse anybody of, and he found that he was not able to do it.
“But you can’t stay with somebody if you think that she’s capable of that,” said Isabel. “You can’t do that.”
He spread his hands in a gesture of resignation. “I’m engaged to her. All Dallas knows. I can’t turn round and . . . and end it just on the basis of a suspicion.”
Isabel felt a growing anger within her. “You can’t? Of course you can. People break off engagements all the time. That’s why we have them. A trial period.”
He looked at her helplessly. “I can’t bring myself to do it. I can’t tell her.” He sighed. “And maybe I’m wrong anyway.
Maybe the whole thing is my imagination.”
“No,” she said. “I don’t think it’s that. But the point is, surely, that you don’t want to marry her. You’ve just told me that meeting me made you feel that. You did mean that, didn’t you?”
He nodded vigorously. “I did. Yes, all that was true. This other thing—the thing at the falls—that’s something on top of it. An extra difficulty. But—and I know this sounds weak—I just can’t bring myself to break it off. She would be devastated.” He met her gaze, as if pleading. “I just can’t decide. I know I have to, but I can’t.”
“Why would she be devastated if she wants to get rid of you?”
Tom sighed. “I don’t know. I just don’t.”
Isabel decided. “Do you want my advice?”
“No. I have to make my own decision.”
“But you’ve just told me you can’t do that.”
Now he looked anguished. “I’d be a coward if I let somebody else do my dirty work, do my thinking for me.”
T H E R I G H T AT T I T U D E T O R A I N
2 3 9
“Yes,” said Isabel. “It would be cowardly. But all of us are cowards from time to time. I certainly am, and just about everybody else is, if they’re honest with themselves.” She looked at him searchingly. “One thing occurs to me, though. I take it that if she wants to get rid of you, she would want to do so after your marriage, not before. For financial reasons.”
He shifted in his chair, as if the question made him feel uncomfortable. “She stands to benefit from my death, even now.
I have already made arrangements. My lawyers advised it when we got engaged.”
“I see.” She picked up a small silver teaspoon from the tea tray and began to play with it between her fingers. “Do you think she might accept a settlement?”
“You mean that I should pay her off?”
“Yes. Because if she doesn’t really like you, then why is she engaged to you?”
“Money?”
“It looks that way,” said Isabel. “Don’t you think?”
Tom said something that Isabel did not catch. But then he repeated himself. “How horrible to have to put it that way,”
he said.
Isabel thought so too. Human affairs, though, were reduced to monetary calculation all the time, and marriage had traditionally been about money every bit as much as it had been about love.
He was staring at her. “Should I do that? Should I offer her money?”
“What do you think?”
“No,” he said. “I’m asking you what you think.”
“All right. Yes, I think that you might offer her something.
You don’t have to, but if it’s important to you that she releases 2 4 0
A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h you, so to speak, then do it.” I should not be interfering, she thought. I have resolved not to interfere in the affairs of others, and now I’m doing this. But he had asked her, had he not? He had pressed her to give her advice, and she had done so. Did that amount to interference? She was not sure.
C H A P T E R T W E N T Y - O N E
E
JAMIE TELEPHONED. He did so shortly after Tom’s departure, when Isabel had stacked the teacups in the dishwasher and returned to her study to work. He wanted to have dinner with her, he said, if she was free. Of course she was, although she tried not to say so too quickly. But she was quick enough.
At Jamie’s suggestion, they met in a pub, the St. Vincent Bar, on his side of town. It was a small bar tucked away near the end of a wide Georgian thoroughfare that went down the hill from George Street. This road came to an architectural full stop at an imposing, high-pillared church on St. Vincent Street; beside it was a much more modest Episcopal church, also known as St.
