The Lost Art of Gratitude

“That’s precisely what I’m saying: in order to become better people, we must practise,” Isabel said. Jamie had a nose for philosophy, she thought, but she was not sure that this was what she wanted. The best sort of relationship, she thought, was where each person had a private area, a place of mental retreat. She did not necessarily want to talk to him about these things; he did not belong here. He lived in a world of music, and beauty, to which she was readily admitted but in which she did not really have a right of abode. We live where we belong, she thought; that is where we really live. But although she understood this, she did not think she could spell this out to him, as it would sound condescending, which it certainly was not, or unfriendly, which it even more certainly was not. There was a time when men had said to women, Don’t you worry your pretty little head about that; what outrageous, patronising condescension. And women, or so many of them, had suffered it meekly, because they had been trapped.

They heard a squeak from within. Grace must have returned early from the walk by the canal and had now brought her charge into the hall. Held up by Grace, Charlie was able to look at them through the letter box while Jamie fumbled with his keys. Isabel bent down and stared into the bright eyes that watched her, jubilant at her return, brimming with delight. Dogs, she had read somewhere, think each time their owners leave the house that they have lost them for ever. Did small children think the same, she wondered; for if they did, each parting must seem like the beginning of a lifetime apart, each return a reunion with those one thought one would never see again. Or was it exactly the opposite with children? Did they think that we were always there, that we would never go away, and that our occasional absences were no more than a temporary interruption of our attention, as in a hotel when room service is for some reason suspended?

THERE WERE TWO TELEPHONE CALLS before Cat came round with Bruno, both of them important, but only one of them welcomed. The one that Isabel was pleased to receive was from Guy Peploe, who telephoned her shortly after lunch with the simple message, “We got it.”

Isabel, whose mind had been on her editing, asked what they had got.

“Charles Edward Stuart.”

She remembered that this was the day of the auction in London. “Oh. Well, that’s very good news.”

“It is. And there’s something else.”

“Oh yes?”

“We got it cheaply. One other person in the room was after it. And another phone bidder, apart from us.” He paused. “But that’s not what makes me feel rather excited.”

Isabel reached across her desk to the catalogue. The relevant page had been turned down at the corner and she went straight to it. Charles Edward Stuart, Bonnie Prince Charlie, last real hope of the Stuart dynasty, looked out at her from a feigned oval. A very weak face, she thought; pretty, but weak. How could those tough Highlanders have fallen for such a foppish-looking pretender?

Isabel asked whether there was anything special about the painting.

“Have you seen that Nicholson book?” asked Guy. “The one on the iconography of Bonnie Prince Charlie?”

Isabel knew the book. There was a copy somewhere in her library.

“Go and take a look at the engraving of the Toqué portrait of Charlie,” said Guy. “The one that was lost.”

Isabel was puzzled. “The engraving was lost?”

“No, the original painting. It was engraved by somebody before the painting was lost. So the only way we know what it looked like is through that engraving.”

“Oh.”

“Yes. Take a look at it. Then tell me what you think.”

“Now? It’ll take some time to find Nicholson.” She looked at her shelves, her overstocked bookshelves. She imagined Nicholson himself lost in the piles and confusion of books. She imagined calling him, Professor Nicholson! Professor Nicholson! And a faint answering cry coming from somewhere in the midst of all those books.

“Not now,” said Guy. “Some time soon, though. Take a look. He has a picture of the engraving in his book.”

“And?”

“And it’s identical to our painting,” said Guy. “The one we’ve just bought.”