The Careful Use of Compliments

The offprints would be free, and she wrote a note to that effect.

The second letter asked why a book review of Virtues in a Time of Trial had not yet appeared; that, too, was easily dealt with.

The reviewer had died, of old age as it happened, before writing the review. A new reviewer had been approached and the review would appear in due course.

Ten minutes: that was all it took to read and reply to these letters. At this rate, Isabel thought, she would be finished in an hour, possibly even earlier. But then came an innocent-looking envelope, addressed in handwriting, and postmarked London.

She slit open the envelope and began to read the letter. The letterhead, once exposed, told her who the sender was—the oddly named Professor Lettuce, professor of moral philosophy at one of the smaller universities in London, and chairman of T H E C A R E F U L U S E O F C O M P L I M E N T S

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the Review’s editorial board. In general, Robert Lettuce played a small role in the affairs of the Review, being content to allow Isabel to run everything. She reported to him and the board from time to time and he, in due course, reported to the Review’s owners, a small academic publishing firm. This firm published textbooks in veterinary science and biology; the Review of Applied Ethics came into its possession almost by accident when it bought the building occupied by the private trust that owned the Review. In the trustees’ relief at selling a building that had been a drain on finances, the Review had been thrown into the sale as a gesture of goodwill. The new owners were lukewarm about their ownership and had occasionally mentioned their willingness to sell the Review, should a suitable purchaser be found. But no purchaser had ever expressed more than a passing interest in a concern that made very little profit, if any at all. So there had been no change in ownership.

She read halfway through the letter, put it down for a few moments, and then picked it up to read the remainder.

Dear Isabel,

As you know, I’ve enjoyed working with you over the last five years. [He’s going to resign, she thought as she read this.] We have had very few disagreements, and I must say that I have always been very impressed with your editing of the Review. Under your editorship, the circulation has increased considerably—some would say dramatically—and the journal has been redesigned.

Remember how awfully dull it looked when we first started, with that curious mauve cover? [Actually, thought Isabel, you were against the change. I had to 3 6

A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h persuade you; you liked mauve, as I recall.] And I have always appreciated the single theme idea, which was your brainchild and which has been, in my view, a great success.

But, Isabel, as I am sure that you appreciate, there is always a case for change, as well as for variety, and at the prompting of a couple of members of the board I carried out a sounding of the others to see whether people felt that it was time for a fresh incumbent of the editorial chair. I did not imagine that there would be much support for this, but unfortunately I was proved to be quite wrong on this. The view, I’m afraid, was pretty much unanimous: it’s time for a change.

I know that you will be both surprised and upset by this: both of these reactions were mine too. But I know, too, that you will understand that in voting for a change the members of the board are in no sense passing ad-verse judgement on your considerable achievements at the helm of the Review.

There was some enthusiasm for an immediate change of editor, but I took the view that the best thing to do would be for you to remain in the post for the rest of the year (if you are willing) and then we can start the next calendar year with the new person. That will give you time to look for something else, and also will provide continuity, which is so important.

As to your successor, Christopher Dove has offered his services and this choice is broadly acceptable to the rest of the board. No doubt you and he will be able to get together at some point to discuss the technicalities of the changeover.

T H E C A R E F U L U S E O F C O M P L I M E N T S

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And there the letter had ended, with Lettuce’s signature underneath and a pencilled postscript asking Isabel whether she had read the “wonderfully perceptive” obituary of the reviewer who had died before getting round to reviewing Virtues in a Time of Trial. “An excellent piece,” wrote Lettuce. “Did you know he was an accomplished violinist and a glider pilot in his earlier years?”

Isabel’s emotions were complex. She was shocked by the unexpectedness of the news, by the sheer surprise of being told that what she had taken for granted, her job, was being taken from her. Then there was a sense of disgust at the obvious plotting that must have been going on. Dove—he was the one, she decided. It had occurred to her before this that Dove probably coveted her post as editor; he was ambitious and the editorship of an established journal would help him on his climb up the pole of academic success. He was currently at an obscure university, one so low in the pecking order that it appeared in no tables at all. She had been told by a friend who knew him that he really would like to be elsewhere altogether, at Magdalen College, Oxford, of which he was a graduate. That involved an ascent on an Alpine scale, and the editorship of the Review would help. He would have been in touch with other members and poured poison in their ears, dangling some sort of carrot perhaps, cajoling, and enough of them had been craven enough to go along with this. Not one, she thought, not one had contacted her to discuss the issue; that was almost the most difficult thing to bear.

And as for Lettuce himself, he might have telephoned to break the news personally, he might even have bothered to travel to Edinburgh to discuss it with her. Instead, he had written this relatively impersonal letter—a document which 3 8

A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h amounted to a letter of dismissal. It had been made worse by the fact that he had appended a chatty postscript. That is a hall-mark of guilt, she thought; he who feels acutely guilty attempts to establish that all is actually well by resorting to the quotidian remark that has nothing to do with the real business. That is exactly what Lettuce had done.

Isabel let the letter drop to the floor. It fell facedown, but the ink from the signature had seeped through the cheap paper to provide faint mirror-writing on the back. Ecuttel. That was a far better name for him, far more