Free The Importance of Being Seven by Alexander McCall Smith

nodded. ‘Of course he did. And any young man in his right mind would be fond of you. It’s just that …’
    ‘Just that what?’ Lizzie asked sharply.
    ‘It’s just that people in our position sometimes have to be a little cautious as to motives. That’s all I’m saying.’
    Lizzie glared at him. Her father had always been utterly transparent to her, and she knew exactly what he meant. ‘People in our position?’ she snapped. ‘What exactly is our position? Are we grand, or what?’
    Todd laughed – nervously. ‘Of course we’re not grand. We’re perfectly ordinary Edinburgh people.’ If Edinburgh people can be perfectly ordinary, he thought. ‘But I have achieved a certain – how shall I put it? – achieved a certain amount and we live in the Braids and there’s the firm …’ He trailed off. Lizzie’s glare had become more intense and he was feeling distinctly uncomfortable.
    ‘Are you saying that Bruce is after my money – such as it is? Is that what you’re saying?’
    Todd waved a hand airily; the very thought. ‘Of course not. I’d never say that.’
    ‘Then what are you saying?’
    Todd swallowed. His daughter had always been direct, and he should have known better than to be so oblique. ‘What I’m saying is this: sometimes people – and I’m not saying that Bruce is one of those – calculate what marriage will bring them in terms of a job and a house and so on. Bruce works for me – I’m his boss. You’re the boss’s daughter. Now it doesn’t take much imagination to see that a young man in his position might – and I say might – be thinking of what he could get out of marrying you. I just raise the possibility, that’s all.’
    Lizzie stared at her father. Her angry expression was now more baleful than anything else.
    ‘But Bruce isn’t like that,’ she said. ‘He just isn’t. You’ve completely misjudged him.’ She paused; she was on the point of tears. ‘You don’t even begin to understand, do you?’

16. For Love or Money
     
    Ideas planted in the mind may be rejected, pooh-poohed, and then unexpectedly and insidiously return to disturb our equanimity. Lizzie had rejected out of hand her father’s barely veiled suggestion that Bruce may be a fortune-hunter. Her father knew nothing about it, that was clear; Bruce had asked her to marry him because he loved her, and she had accepted his proposal for the same reason. It may be that people married for money in the past – Jane Austen had something to say about that – but who did that nowadays? Surely nobody.
    And yet her father’s words continued to haunt her, and she decided to raise the subject with her friend Diane, whom she met every Friday in a coffee bar near Holy Corner. Diane could spare the time for long coffee breaks – she was a freelance interior decorator with a largely empty diary, a diary that had potential, certainly, but not a potential that was being achieved. No matter; Diane was convinced that the big commission, the one that would change her life, would come in, and she would feature in
Scottish Home
or
House Beautiful
.
    If Diane had time on her hands, so did Lizzie. Since graduating from Strathclyde, she had held down a number of temporary jobs, but nothing permanent. Again this did not matter unduly; if the worst came to the worst – and she was confident it would not – she could always work for a maternal uncle who ran a small chain of restaurants and had promised her work if she ever needed it. For the time being, though, there were plenty of jobs to be applied for and interviews to attend.
    On this particular morning, Lizzie asked her friend if she thought that it was possible that people still married for what she described as ‘other reasons’. Diane was not sure what she meant, and looked puzzled. ‘Other reasons? You mean because they’re forced to? Or in a fit of absent-mindedness?’
    No, that was not it. ‘For … well, I suppose you’d say for money. For somebody’s