The Lost Art of Gratitude

Minty was silent. Isabel saw a muscle on the side of her face twitch slightly; it was almost imperceptible, but she saw it.

“Yes,” Isabel continued. “I went round to McGregor, Fraser and talked to him.”

“A good firm,” said Minty. “We occasionally use—”

Isabel was aware that any conversation with Minty was a struggle for control. Again she cut in. “He told me something quite extraordinary. He said that Margaret Wilson had been speaking to him.”

Minty frowned. “Margaret Wilson? The Margaret Wilson at the bank? That one?”

“Yes. Your Margaret Wilson. And what she told him has effectively frightened him off.”

Minty shook her head in puzzlement. “I’ve never mentioned you to Margaret. Never.”

Isabel watched her. Minty would have no difficulty, she thought, in denying any knowledge of this. But she was determined to persist.

“Margaret Wilson is a friend of yours, I believe.”

“She isn’t,” snapped Minty. “She works at the bank, yes, but I don’t know her all that well. And let me repeat what I’ve just said—she and I have never discussed anything to do with you. We just haven’t.”

“Doesn’t matter,” said Isabel. “I’m afraid that I think that you have. The significant thing is that she told Jock Dundas that you had set me on to him and that I was some sort of … ‘enforcer.’ She said that my job would be to ruin him.”

Minty’s eyes opened wide. “What?”

“And Jock Dundas believed her. He’s very concerned about a partnership in the firm. He thought he wouldn’t get it if a scandal blew up.”

Minty seemed to be listening very carefully. “Even if …”

“Even if that means giving up Roderick.”

Minty sat back in her chair. Isabel found herself feeling surprised over her adversary’s reaction. She had anticipated a flat denial from Minty, which she would simply discount. But what she saw now was something quite different. There had been an initial denial—at least with regard to Margaret Wilson—but that had been followed by a reaction that was altogether more calculating.

Minty now leaned forward. “Well, I must say that this is very satisfactory, Isabel,” she said. “At least from my point of view. As for this … this ridiculous story that Jock came up with—who knows where he got that from. He probably made it up.”

“Why? Why would he make it up?”

Minty shrugged. “I haven’t the faintest idea.” She paused for a moment. “To get back at me? Probably. A parting shot. Yes, why not? People get pleasure from harming others … after it’s all over. Hell hath no fury—you know the expression.”

“Like a woman scorned,” Isabel continued. “That saying rather focuses on women, as I recall.”

Minty laughed. “Oh, come on! Men are just as bad as we are. A man can be as vituperative as a woman any day. Are you telling me that men don’t go in for revenge?”

“They do, I suppose.”

“Well,” said Minty. “There you are.”

Isabel needed to find something out. “I take it that you ended the affair? It wasn’t the other way round?”

Minty did not answer immediately; she glanced away. “It was me. Yes. I became a little bit bored, frankly. Some men—these good-looking ones—are really rather, how shall I put it delicately, disappointing. You’ll know that, of course.”

Isabel caught her breath at the naked effrontery. Minty had seen Jamie and was obviously including him in this category of disappointing good-looking men. You’ll know that, of course.

“I’m not sure I know what you mean,” she said icily. “Perhaps I’ve just been luckier.”

They stared at each other. Isabel felt her dislike for Minty well up; simple, pure dislike. Is this what hate is? she asked herself. Or is hate something even stronger? Is hate the desire to annihilate, to stamp out—to annul the other? She could not recall hating in that sense—ever—but perhaps this is how it started.

The intensity of her antipathy worried her, and she briefly closed her eyes. Unbidden, a line of poetry came to her: Let hatred not distort us / nor make crooked our ways. She could not place it; it was dredged from some deep place in her memory, detached from its reference, its anchor. But she would heed it, wherever it came from.

“I suppose it’s possible,” she said. “I suppose he might wish to harm you.”

Minty sensed a small victory. “Yes,” she said, simply. “As I told you.”

Yet it still seemed implausible to Isabel—why would Jock Dundas bother? And she remained puzzled by Minty’s reaction. If Minty had indeed set the whole thing up, then surely she would have taken more trouble to protest her innocence. She had not even bothered about that, as if she did not care at all whether or not Isabel believed her.

Isabel’s appetite had disappeared, and even had she still felt hungry and in need of soup, she could not face the prospect of lunch with a triumphant Minty. She looked at her watch. “I’m not sure that I have time for lunch after all,” she said. “I have to see somebody.”

Minty smiled sweetly, almost conspiratorially. “Somebody interesting?”