The Lost Art of Gratitude

His face showed his concern. “What parent doesn’t feel that? You think that something awful will happen if you don’t do something or other. You bargain with fate.”

She took a sip of her wine. “You have to put it out of your mind. Otherwise …”

“Exactly.”

“Minty Auchterlonie. There’s something about her that frightens me. I’m not really frightened, I suppose. But she makes me feel …”

“Anxious?” Jamie prompted.

“More than that. I get the impression that if you crossed her she’d think nothing of doing something really vindictive.”

Jamie shrugged. “She might, I suppose. But sometimes …” He broke off. “I saw Peter Stevenson today, you know. In Bruntsfield. When I was getting the scallops from Hughes’ fish shop. He was buying kippers.”

Isabel laughed. “How reassuring.”

“Your mentioning Minty reminded me,” Jamie went on. “We got chatting. I was walking back up to Church Hill as I had to go to the supermarket. I mentioned to him that we’d recently met up with Minty again. Remember, he helped you first time round with her.”

“Oh, yes.”

“Yes. He still doesn’t trust her, you know. He’s convinced that Minty pulled the wool over your eyes over that insider-dealing matter a few years ago. He said that although she’s the head of that bank there are quite a few people in Edinburgh who don’t approve of her.”

Isabel was interested, but only moderately so; there was nothing surprising in what Jamie had said. To get to the top of anything, and particularly finance, she imagined that one would have to be prepared to step on a lot of people. Minty must have done that—and made enemies in the process.

“But then he said something that made me wonder. I meant to tell you when I got back, but I forgot to. Sorry.”

Isabel waited. Jamie had now started to slice the potatoes for his potatoes dauphinois. “Why is this dish called dauphinois?” he asked.

Isabel was not sure. “It may be because it’s from the Dauphinois Alps,” she said. “That’s probably the reason. On the other hand, there may be a more romantic explanation. Did the Dauphin like his potatoes done that way?” It was unlikely, but it brought the Dauphin to mind, and his brief marriage to Mary Queen of Scots. For a moment she pictured them sitting together at a table in the French court, Mary with her teenage groom, offering him potatoes dauphinois.

“It was very tragic,” she said.

Jamie sliced another potato and laid the slices on their bed of cream and garlic. “What was very tragic?”

“The Dauphin. Francis. Mary loved him, you know, although they were betrothed when they were terribly young. She loved him. And then he went and caught an ear infection that led to an abscess in the brain. Imagine how painful his death must have been: screaming agony because pain in the ear is so close to where you are. Perhaps they had some painkillers in those days—various plants. I hope they did. Opium, maybe. Otherwise, just imagine it.”

Jamie brought her back to the subject. “Minty,” he said. “Peter said that she was in trouble—or could be. He wasn’t very specific.”

Isabel was immediately intrigued. Peter Stevenson was one of the best informed of her friends; he knew things others did not, but rarely spoke about them—which was one of the reasons, she thought, why he knew things in the first place. Could Peter Stevenson be aware of Jock Dundas and the issue of Roderick’s paternity? Surely not. Minty would hardly have talked about that, not if she wanted to keep it secret from Gordon. Edinburgh was a village: a word in the wrong place travelled every bit as quickly as a word in the right place.

She asked Jamie what Peter had said, and he told her, “Just that. Minty’s in a bit of trouble, and he was not surprised. He said something about her sailing too close to the wind.”

It was a metaphor that Isabel liked, and used herself. It conveyed very well the notion of taking full advantage of something and then being just a little bit too greedy and suffering the consequences. It fitted Minty perfectly, except that it seemed that she always got away with it. There she was, head of an investment bank, living a life of comfort in her Georgian house with the view of the Lammermuir Hills, and she had ended up in that position by … by sailing too close to the wind—there was no better expression for it. And Christopher Dove too? Had he sailed too close to the wind? No, in his case another meteorological metaphor was appropriate perhaps: he had reaped whirlwinds—or at least what he had sown.

She looked at her watch. It was not too late to phone Peter. If he was in, she could walk round to his house in ten minutes or so, talk to him and then be back within the hour. How long would the potatoes dauphinois take?

“I know this sounds impetuous,” she said, “but I want to see Peter. Could I go round there while your potatoes are dauphinoising?”

Jamie looked at her in astonishment. “Why? Can’t it wait?”