The Careful Use of Compliments

even if the word had been more or less retired. Nobody spoke of illegitimacy anymore, and there were, fortunately, no legal consequences of any significance. But corners of shame remained in some parts of Scotland, even if so many children now were born out of wed-lock. And Grace belonged to a section of society where these things were still felt.

Isabel immediately understood and put Grace at her ease.

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“Yes, Charlie Dalhousie will be quite the young man about town, won’t you, Charlie?”

“Good,” said Grace, and went on to the business of the day.

Isabel was taking Charlie out, into town, she said, and she would stay in the house and tackle the upstairs bathroom, which she thought had been allowed to become a mess. There was a line of mould tracking its sinister way along the line of grout at the bottom of the shower—Jamie’s fault, Grace suspected—as he showered far too much in her opinion and left the cubicle too damp. Grace did not believe in showers, except for when a bath was for some reason unavailable: then one might have a shower, a quick one, remembering to wipe down the tiles after use to prevent the formation of mould.

“I’ve bought something for that shower,” said Grace. “It’s—”

“I know,” said Isabel quickly. “Mould.”

For a few moments there was silence; Isabel called such interludes Grace’s moment of censure, and this was one. But the point had been made, and she wheeled Charlie out under a smiling farewell from her housekeeper. As Isabel walked up the road, she thought about mould. Grace had made her feel responsible for it because Jamie used the shower and Grace considered Isabel to be responsible for Jamie. Grace wanted her employer to feel guilty about the presence of mould, but she felt that she could not add mould to her burden of guilt. She already felt guilty about the use of her money to buy the Review, and she felt guilty about the sheer pleasure she had taken in the thought of Lettuce’s face when he read the letter from Simon.

She could just see him, opening the letter dismissively—having seen the Edinburgh postmark and assuming that it was some inconsequential communication from herself, but no! There it was, in Lettuce’s now trembling hands, a letter from none other 2 0 8

A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h than Simon Mackintosh, WS, partner in the large law firm of Turcan Connell. Lettuce would not know what WS stood for, but she would be delighted to tell him, if asked: it was Writer to the Signet, which meant that Simon was a member of that august legal society with its splendid library overlooking St.

Giles Cathedral in the very heart of Edinburgh. Let Lettuce contemplate that for a moment in his London fastness. So might the Hanoverian have quaked at the news that Bonnie Prince Charlie had put his generals to flight.

But sweet as such thoughts were, they were not thoughts which a conscientious moral philosopher could entertain. Scha-denfreude in any shape or form was, quite simply, wrong. The discomfort of others should never be delighted over, she reminded herself; it was wrong to gloat. But then she saw Lettuce’s face again, caught in a moment of shocked disbelief, and she allowed herself to smile at that. Charlie looked up at her from his supine position and smiled too.

Isabel’s destination that morning, determined upon after the concert the previous evening at the Queen’s Hall, was Dundas Street and Guy Peploe. She had decided that with Charlie present it would be better to meet at Glass and Thompson, the cafe a few doors up from the gallery. Charlie could be fed there and would like the colours and bustle of a restaurant.

She was there first, sitting on one of the bench seats at the back, watching the two young men making coffee and preparing bread and quiches for the lunchtime rush that would come in a couple of hours. Suddenly Guy was in front of her, looking down at Charlie with amusement.

“Macpherson,” said Isabel. “My maternal grandmother was a Macpherson and we liked that tartan.”

“That purple is very fine,” said Guy. “He’s quite the lad.”

He sat down and fixed Isabel with an expectant look.

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“Yes,” she said. “McInnes.”

Guy looked apologetic. “It’s been sold, I’m afraid,” he said.

“A couple of days ago. The buyer I mentioned to you has taken it. It’s going abroad. I’m sorry—had I known that you were still interested . . .”

He hesitated, seeing her dismayed expression. “I’m really very sorry, you know,” he said. “I thought that you had decided against it.”

Isabel was lost in thought. The information that she had to give to Guy would be even less welcome now.

Guy was solicitous. “Isabel? Are you really upset?”

“No,” she began. “Not upset. And I wasn’t going to buy it. I came to have a word with you about . . . well, something that I think I’ve found out about that painting.”

“I’d be most interested,” said Guy. “As I said to you, I think that it’s a very fine McInnes.”

Isabel shook her head. “But it isn’t, Guy. It’s not a McInnes at all.”

The proprietor of the restaurant had caught sight of Isabel and had come to greet her. She asked him for two coffees and then turned back to Guy. “I believe that that painting was painted by a forger by the name of Frank Anderson. I don’t know exactly who he is, or where he is. But that painting was painted by him and not by McInnes. I know that, Guy. How I came to know it is a bit complicated, but I do.”

The coffees arrived. Guy flattened the milky top of his with a teaspoon, staring into his cup as if to find the solution there.