Read Online The Charming Quirks of Others by Alexander McCall Smith - Free Book Online

force of goodness might merely be an entirely subjective state brought about because some region of our brain was stimulated by something we saw—or even thought we saw. The perception of goodness as a force, then, might be nothing more significant than the warm feelings brought about by alcohol, or by a mood-enhancing drug. Those insights, it was generally agreed, were unimportant and solipsistic—a chemical illusion that signified nothing.
    The moment passed. She thought she had come to some understanding of goodness, but it had been illusory, a quicksilver flash of vision, nothing more. Perhaps that is how goodness—or God—visited us: so quickly and without warningthat we might easily miss it, but perceptible none the less, and transforming beyond the transformative power of anything else we have known.
    THE FOLLOWING MORNING , while Isabel was in her study, Jillian Mackinlay walked up the front path of her house, an envelope in her hand. Grace, who was entertaining Charlie in the garden, intercepted her as she approached the front door. “Yes?” she said. “Good morning.”
    Jillian gave a start. “Oh, sorry, you gave me a bit of a fright. I hadn’t expected to find anybody lurking …”
    Grace’s nostrils flared. “I was
not
lurking. Charlie and I …”
    The visitor blushed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. I was just a bit surprised.” She paused to smile at Charlie, who was looking up at her with unblinking eyes. “This is Isabel Dalhousie’s house, isn’t it?”
    Grace reached for the large envelope that Jillian was clearly in the act of delivering. “It is. I’m the housekeeper.”
    “I see. Then could you give this to Isabel?”
    “That’s what I was proposing to do.”
    There was a short silence. Jillian looked down again at Charlie. “Well, you are a very serious little fellow, aren’t you?”
    Charlie returned her stare, and then, without warning, began to cry.
    Jillian seemed confused. “Oh dear, I seem to have upset him.”
    Grace, holding the envelope in her left hand, scoopedCharlie up with her right. “He’ll recover,” she said. “I’ll take the letter in now.”
    Isabel was at her desk when Grace delivered the letter. “This came by hand?”
    Grace nodded. “Why do people deliver by hand?” she asked. “To have a look round, if you ask me.”
    Isabel chuckled. “That’s understandable enough. Most of us are interested in other people’s houses.”
    From her expression, Grace made it clear that she was not. She gestured to Charlie, who had found the wastepaper basket and was busy emptying it of its contents. “She frightened Charlie. He started to cry.”
    “Children sometimes take against people,” said Isabel vaguely, slitting the flap of the envelope with the paper-knife that Jamie had found in an antiques shop in Stockbridge. Peering inside, she paged through the top of the papers without taking them out. It was what she had expected. She looked up; Grace’s eyes were on the envelope.
    “No,” said Isabel. “It’s not what you think. She hasn’t written an article for the
Review
. It’s not that.”
    Grace raised an eyebrow.
    “It’s something quite different,” Isabel went on. “It’s …” She stopped. Grace obviously wanted to know, but she was not sure whether she wanted to tell her. Grace had a tendency to pry, apparently believing that she had a right to know Isabel’s business. But did she? There were some things that she would find out about, just by being in the house and witnessing Isabel’s life at close quarters, but that did not give her the right to know everything.
    She wanted to say, “It’s private,” but it would have seemed so petty, so unfriendly. So instead she said, “I’ve offered to look over some applications for a school principal’s post. Nothing exciting.”
    The effect of this was to make Grace all the more interested. “Where?” she asked. “What school?”
    Isabel hesitated. “It’s