“So small,” he said. “Like a little doll.”
Isabel smiled and let her hand touch Jamie’s. He curled his fingers round hers, briefly.
“Thank you,” she said quietly.
“Thank you for what?”
“For not going away.”
He gave a start. “Why should I go away?”
She nodded in the direction of Charlie. “Not every man stays,” she said. “You might easily have preferred . . . preferred your freedom.”
He stared at her. Had she misjudged him that badly? He felt an irritation, a crossness, that she should think that of him. And Isabel, watching him, immediately sensed that.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ve offended you. I didn’t mean to. It’s just that . . . well, you’re younger than I am. You need your freedom. You don’t need to be tied down.”
Jamie swallowed. He looked about him briefly; the restaurant was busy, as it always was at lunchtime, but in the general hubbub it did not look as if anybody might overhear their conversation. “Of course I wouldn’t make myself scarce,” he said. “I told you that—right at the beginning. I told you when Charlie arrived. I was there, wasn’t I?”
“Of course you were,” said Isabel soothingly. “Please don’t be angry with me. Please.” And she thought, I’m making a mess of this. It’s exactly the same as my relationship with Cat. I make a mess of things by saying things that I don’t need to say.
Jamie was staring at the table, tracing on its surface an imaginary pattern with a forefinger. He looked up, and Isabel saw that he was flushed. “Jamie,” she said. “Please . . .”
2 8
A l e x a n d e r M c C a l l S m i t h He shook his head. “No. I want to say something. I should have said it before. Now I’m going to say it.”
She held her breath. I shouldn’t have imagined that this would last, she thought; now I’ll find out what I always feared.
To have had him, now to lose him; it was inevitable.
“Isabel,” he said. “I’d like you to marry me.” He paused. “I think we should get married.”
For a moment she thought that she had misheard him. But then he repeated it. She was surprised, but not surprised.
She had wondered whether he might say this, ever since she announced to him that she was pregnant. She had been unable to stop herself from entertaining the possibility, and had considered, at length, what her response would be. And now that the moment had come, she found herself hesitating. What if she said yes right there and then?
Instead she said, “It’s a rather public proposal, isn’t it, Jamie?” She gestured about her.
Jamie blushed. “I’m sorry. But it’s just that you brought up the whole issue of my being around. I felt that I had to say something.”
She reassured him. “Yes, I understand.”
“And?”
“I know you feel you have to ask me,” she said. “But I think we should wait. I really do. Let’s wait some time and see how things go. That makes more sense, you know.”
He did not say anything for a minute or two, and she imagined that he was wrestling with himself. If he really wanted to marry her, she thought, he would press her again. But if he had merely proposed out of a sense of duty, then he would probably accept her suggestion with some relief.
“All right,” he said at last. “Let’s see.”
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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She realised how tense she had been; now she relaxed. But she felt a certain sadness that he had gone along with her suggestion, even though she knew that this was the right thing to do, and that quite the wrong thing for her to do would be to allow him to marry her. And that, in a way, was the burden of being a philosopher: one knew what one had to do, but it was so often the opposite of what one really wanted to do.
C H A P T E R T H R E E
E
BY THE TIME Grace arrived at the house the next morning, Isabel had bathed Charlie, given him his breakfast bottle, and was standing in front of the drawing-room window, encouraging him to look out over the garden. She was not sure how much he saw, but she was convinced that he was interested and was gazing fixedly at one of the rhododendrons. As she held Charlie before the window and rocked him gently, Isabel saw Grace walking up the front path, although Grace did not spot her.
Grace had a newspaper tucked under her arm and was carrying the white canvas tote bag that accompanied her to work each day. This bag was often empty, and hung flaccid from Grace’s arm, but on occasion it bulged with tantalizing shapes that intrigued Isabel and that she wished she could ask Grace about.
She knew, though, that there was usually at least a book in the bag, as Grace was a keen reader and had a sacrosanct lunch hour during which she would sit in the kitchen, immersed in a novel from the Central Library, a cup of tea getting steadily colder in front of her.
Since Charlie’s arrival, the nature of Grace’s job had changed. This change had required no negotiation, with Grace 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
