The Lost Art of Gratitude

dangerous words, had eventually been felt. So what if Jamie was a bit younger than she was; so what?

She had regretted her refusal and had hoped that he would mention marriage again, but he had not. Subsequently she considered broaching the subject herself, and on one or two occasions had come close to doing so, only to be inhibited by a vague sense of embarrassment. The problem was this: a woman did not ask a man to marry her, at least conventionally. There was no reason for it, of course, other than social custom, and Isabel knew that this was changing. People said that plenty of women were proposing to men—a third of all women, she had read—but prepared as she was to accept this figure, she could not think of anybody she actually knew who had proposed to their husbands. That did not mean that they had not done so, of course; there are some things that a large number of people do but few will admit to.

Entertaining subversive thoughts, for example, in a society in the grip of a political hegemony is not something that people will readily admit to, such is the power of intellectual intimidation; and yet people do have such thoughts. And when it comes to something that reflects on a person’s desirability or popularity, then the tendency to reticence may be particularly marked. Not everyone would care to admit to finding a spouse through an advertisement—or to be the subject of an advertisement; where is the romance in finding somebody through a lonely hearts column, cheek by jowl with Cars For Sale and Miscellaneous Bargains? Therein lay an admission of personal failure: the glamorous, the attractive, the sought-after, they had no need to advertise, whereas the inadequate and the unwanted did.

This thought crossed her mind—only to be quickly dismissed. It was not like that at all: there were plenty of perfectly eligible people who resorted to the services of an introduction agency or who advertised, and the results were often very successful. And there were plenty of women—there must be—who even if they proposed to a man might just as easily have received proposals themselves. No, the male monopoly of proposals, such as it was, was untenable and should be abandoned. And yet, and yet … the fact of the matter was that she had lacked the courage to propose to Jamie.

It did not matter. She could now say my fiance, and they could exchange rings. She wanted to give him one too and had already seen one she liked in a jeweller’s window in Bruntsfield. It was a discreet band made of rose-coloured gold; a lovely thing which it had never occurred to her she would eventually purchase. And when it came to a ring for her, when Jamie had mentioned it she had suggested something modest; she did not want him to spend too much. Of course, now that they were engaged the whole issue of the disparity in their respective means could disappear. Her possessions would be his by virtue of the marriage, and vice versa, of course; Jamie was about to become well-off.

There were other things to think about that were considerably less attractive than rings. Prominent amongst these was the question of what, if anything, to say to Cat. Isabel’s niece had grudgingly accepted her aunt’s relationship with Jamie, her former boyfriend, but both of them, by unspoken agreement, kept off the subject when in one another’s company. Now Isabel had to decide whether to mention the engagement to Cat, or whether, in fear of her ire, to say nothing, leaving her to hear of it from somebody else. Eddie could be the messenger, perhaps, or even the personal announcements column of the Scotsman could break the news, not the bravest way out, but one that might make it easier for Cat to deal with news that almost certainly would not be welcome.

Even if she was still feeling euphoric—almost light-headed—after the evening’s events, Isabel had several things to do that morning. Jamie had hinted that breakfast in bed would not go amiss—for the second time, she observed, in three days, but she agreed, none the less, to make it for him.

“When we’re married,” she said, “I take it that you won’t expect breakfast in bed every day. Or will you?” She would make him breakfast in bed every day if that was what he wanted; of course she would. She would do anything for him.

“Of course not,” he said. “This will be the very last time. I promise.”

It sounded so strange to utter the words when we are married. As a moral philosopher, and arbiter, in that role, of hypothetical private lives, she was used to talking about the marriages of others. Now it was her—Isabel Dalhousie—whose future was being referred to. Married: the word had a delicious flavour to it; like the name of some exotic place—Dar-es-Salaam, Timbuktu, Popocatepetl. Marriage was a whole territory, a citizenship, to be adopted and inhabited, as the neophyte takes on the ways and thinking of a new religion. She had been married before, of course, but it had been something false, something quite different.

When she took the breakfast tray up to Jamie, she found that he had taken Charlie into bed with him and was reading to him, a story of a fox and his family who defeat a trio of unpleasant farmers. The story had been translated into Scots as The Sleekit Mr. Tod, and it was this version that Jamie was reading to Charlie. It was well beyond his understanding, of course, but the little boy was listening intently.

“I want him to understand Scots,” said Jamie. “It’s our language, after all.”

Isabel smiled. “Of course. But he probably has to understand English first.”

Jamie looked doubtful, and returned to the story. “A tod is a fox in Scots,” he explained to Charlie. “That’s why he’s called Mr. Tod.”

Charlie stared at his father with grave incomprehension.

Jamie began to read again. “ ‘And so the wee tod askit his faither, Will there be dugs? ’ ”

Isabel left the room, a smile lingering on her lips. Will there be dugs? Will there be dogs? That might be the dread question that every fox thinks when contemplating his end—if foxes are aware of mortality. Will there be dugs, or will it be easy?

LEAVING THE HOUSE shortly after ten, Isabel set off across the Meadows for George Square and the University Library. It was one of her favourite walks, as it afforded a good view of the skyline of the Old Town, a serrated line of chimney pots and spires that followed the ridge stretching down from the Castle to Holyrood. Behind that line was the Fife sky, across which scudded clouds blown in from the North Sea: wisps of grey, banks of darkening purple, splashes of white. Edinburgh could experience within a few minutes all four seasons, and the skies characteristic of each.

The University Library occupied the south side of a square that had been largely destroyed by the architectural vandalism of the sixties. One side of the square survived though, and this was bounded by a cobbled street running south to north. The buildings on this side, a perfect row of Georgian houses three storeys high, were now occupied by university offices and chaplaincies, by small academic departments and the University Press. Here too was a chapel for students of Orthodox faith, a basement transformed by icons and the chanting of priests; here, Isabel remembered, was the office of the Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue, a language that had words for this little bit of a small island, this land of rain and clouds and shafts of poetry.

Everywhere in this city, everywhere Isabel went, there were memories. As an eighteen-year-old she had come