Isabel took a deep breath. “I shall tell you what I am going to do, Professor Lettuce.”
Lettuce smiled. He was enjoying his triumph. “Please do.”
“I am going to write to this person …” She gestured to the letter. “I shall write to him and explain that I never received his letter. I shall, further, tell him that I have received assurances and an apology from Dr. Jones and that I have accepted those assurances and that apology—”
Lettuce interrupted her. “No good,” he said. “Not enough. You—”
Isabel cut him short. “No, certainly not enough. I agree. I shall also be writing to your friend Christopher Dove, and will tell him that I have recently discovered a startling instance of plagiarism in his own work. It occurs in an article that he published some years ago. A piece he wrote on self-interest, in fact. I am sure that it was unintentional. I have noted the chapter and verse and will send them to you immediately when I return after this lunch. Perhaps you might discuss this with Professor Dove.”
She watched Lettuce’s expression. She saw the small eyes open more widely in astonishment; she saw the chin sag suddenly. Her eye was drawn to the speck of salad oil—still there.
“You have some oil on your cheek, Professor Lettuce,” she said. “Just there.”
While Lettuce, flustered, reached for his table napkin, Isabel lifted her fork and began to tackle the small helping of fettuccine she had ordered. “Now, perhaps we should discuss your friend for a moment, Professor Lettuce.”
“My friend?”
“Christopher Dove. You know, I’ve always found it odd that you and he are so close, bearing in mind his reputation.”
Lettuce appeared to have recovered his composure. “He enjoys an excellent reputation, Miss Dalhousie. He is highly thought of by …”
“You,” interjected Isabel. “Yes, but not by many others. Perhaps you’re not aware of his controversial friendship with a young woman who was a doctoral candidate of his. You may not have heard that the external examiner of that particular thesis lodged a note of reservation with the university. He said that Dove had interfered with the report on the thesis, slightly changing the tenor of some of his remarks.”
“I cannot believe that,” said Lettuce. “A typographical error or two, at the most.”
“That’s what the university chose to believe,” said Isabel. “But then I knew one of his colleagues, who said that the departmental secretary had told him that Dove had told her to do it. She was too worried about her job to complain.”
“Nonsense,” said Lettuce. “Vulgar rumours.” He wrinkled his nose. “And I’m surprised to hear you spreading them, Miss Dalhousie, though perhaps I shouldn’t be.” He tried to affect a look of disapproval but failed. He looks dyspeptic, thought Isabel. He’s wilting.
Isabel twirled a piece of pasta on to her fork. “I must say that I’m disappointed that you don’t seem to be ready to accept the very obvious truth about Christopher Dove,” she said casually. “Especially when Cambridge University Press has asked my advice about finding somebody of sound judgement to edit their new edition of Hume papers. I know the commissioning editor there, as it happens.”
Lettuce stopped eating. “Hume papers?”
“A very important new publishing project,” said Isabel. “Five volumes over ten years. And there’s to be a major conference to mark each new volume. Bloomington, Indiana. Tel Aviv. Helsinki. Siena. Sydney.”
She watched him. He was quite still. “Starting off in Bloomington,” she went on. “Have you been there, Professor Lettuce?”
Lettuce shook his head. He had coloured slightly, she noticed.
“I had a wonderful visit there,” Isabel said. “A few years ago—in the spring. The blossom was out and it was just perfect. I was very well looked after. They took me to the Lilly Library. They have the most remarkable collection there—literary papers from all sorts of people, all neatly boxed away. And an astonishing collection of miniature books. Tiny ones. Smaller than that plum tomato you’re trying to eat. You should impale it on your fork, you know.”
It took Professor Lettuce some time to marshal his thoughts. As she waited for him, Isabel, toying with her pasta, found herself feeling some sympathy for her now-deflated adversary, caught between ambition and loyalty to his dubious ally. He was like one of those lettuces that, when you squeeze them, are all air between the leaves and reduce to more or less nothing, just a few thin green leaves. Although Lettuce was older than Dove by at least a decade, if not more, he was not the ringleader; it was dawning on her that it was Christopher Dove who was the prime mover in whatever plans the two of them had hatched. Lettuce was the mere messenger here, and he had seen the ground completely cut from beneath his feet with this countercharge against Dove. Now, watching him try to recover, she felt sorry for him; he was like a great beached whale struggling to get back into the water. To be pitied rather than despised.
“I’m most interested in Hume …,” Lettuce began. Then he stopped.
Isabel reached out across the table and placed her hand on his wrist. “I have no desire to fight with you, you know. I bear you no ill will over what happened.”
He opened his mouth to speak. “Christopher said—”
“Christopher Dove does not like me. He tried, quite wrongly, to get me out as editor of the
Lettuce’s eyes were on her as she spoke. He looked down at her hand upon his wrist, as if trying to make sense of it, but he did not try to shrug it off.
“I fear that Christopher may have misled me,” he said. “And if that is so, I believe that I owe you an apology.”
“Which I am happy to accept,” said Isabel quickly. “So let’s forget all about it and talk about your new book on Hutcheson. Isn’t it extraordinary how the influence of the Scottish Enlightenment is still felt so strongly?”
