Irene did not answer. Baffled and uncomfortable, he said:
“It’s a fine thing for Bosinney, it’ll be the making of him. I suppose she’s told you all about it?”
“Yes.”
There was another pause, and then Soames said:
“I suppose you don’t want to go?”
Irene made no reply.
“Well, I can’t tell what you want. You never seem contented here.”
“Have my wishes anything to do with it?”
She took the vase of roses and left the room. Soames remained seated. Was it for this that he had signed that contract? Was it for this that he was going to spend some ten thousand pounds? Bosinney’s phrase came back to him: “Women are the devil!”
But presently he grew calmer. It might have been worse. She might have flared up. He had expected something more than this. It was lucky, after all, that June had broken the ice for him. She must have wormed it out of Bosinney; he might have known she would.
He lighted his cigarette. After all, Irene had not made a scene! She would come round – that was the best of her; she was cold, but not sulky. And, puffing the cigarette smoke at a lady-bird on the shining table, he plunged into a reverie about the house. It was no good worrying; he would go and make it up presently. She would be sitting out there in the dark, under the Japanese sunshade, knitting. A beautiful, warm night….
In truth, June had come in that afternoon with shining eyes, and the words: “Soames is a brick! It’s splendid for Phil – the very thing for him!”
Irene’s face remaining dark and puzzled, she went on:
“Your new house at Robin Hill, of course. What? Don’t you know?”
Irene did not know.
“Oh! then, I suppose I oughtn’t to have told you!” Looking impatiently at her friend, she cried: “You look as if you didn’t care. Don’t you see, it’s what I’ve’ been praying for – the very chance he’s been wanting all this time. Now you’ll see what he can do;” and thereupon she poured out the whole story.
Since her own engagement she had not seemed much interested in her friend’s position; the hours she spent with Irene were given to confidences of her own; and at times, for all her affectionate pity, it was impossible to keep out of her smile a trace of compassionate contempt for the woman who had made such a mistake in her life – such a vast, ridiculous mistake.
“He’s to have all the decorations as well – a free hand. It’s perfect – ” June broke into laughter, her little figure quivered gleefully; she raised her hand, and struck a blow at a muslin curtain. “Do you know, I even asked Uncle James….” But, with a sudden dislike to mentioning that incident, she stopped; and presently, finding her friend so unresponsive, went away. She looked back from the pavement, and Irene was still standing in the doorway. In response to her farewell wave, Irene put her hand to her brow, and, turning slowly, shut the door….
Soames went to the drawing-room presently, and peered at her through the window.
Out in the shadow of the Japanese sunshade she was sitting very still, the lace on her white shoulders stirring with the soft rise and fall of her bosom.
But about this silent creature sitting there so motionless, in the dark, there seemed a warmth, a hidden fervour of feeling, as if the whole of her being had been stirred, and some change were taking place in its very depths.
He stole back to the dining-room unnoticed.
Chapter VI
James at Large
It was not long before Soames’s determination to build went the round of the family, and created the flutter that any decision connected with property should make among Forsytes.
It was not his fault, for he had been determined that no one should know. June, in the fulness of her heart, had told Mrs. Small, giving her leave only to tell Aunt Ann – she thought it would cheer her, the poor old sweet! for Aunt Ann had kept her room now for many days.
Mrs. Small told Aunt Ann at once, who, smiling as she lay back on her pillows, said in her distinct, trembling old voice:
“It’s very nice for dear June; but I hope they will be careful – it’s rather dangerous!”
When she was left alone again, a frown, like a cloud presaging a rainy morrow, crossed her face.
While she was lying there so many days the process of recharging her will went on all the time; it spread to her face, too, and tightening movements were always in action at the corners of her lips.
The maid Smither, who had been in her service since girlhood, and was spoken of as “Smither – a good girl – but so slow!” – the maid Smither performed every morning with extreme punctiliousness the crowning ceremony of that ancient toilet. Taking from the recesses of their pure white band-box those flat, grey curls, the insignia of personal dignity, she placed them securely in her mistress’s hands, and turned her back.
And every day Aunts Juley and Hester were required to come and report on Timothy; what news there was of Nicholas; whether dear June had succeeded in getting Jolyon to shorten the engagement, now that Mr. Bosinney was building Soames a house; whether young Roger’s wife was really – expecting; how the operation on Archie had succeeded; and what Swithin had done about that empty house in Wigmore Street, where the tenant had lost all his money and treated him so badly; above all, about Soames; was Irene still – still asking for a separate room? And every morning Smither was told: “I shall be coming down this afternoon, Smither, about two o’clock. I shall want your arm, after all these days in bed!”
After telling Aunt Ann, Mrs. Small had spoken of the house in the strictest confidence to Mrs. Nicholas, who in her turn had asked Winifred Dartie for confirmation, supposing, of course, that, being Soames’s sister, she would know all about it. Through her it had in due course come round to the ears of James. He had been a good deal agitated.
“Nobody,” he said, “told him anything.” And, rather than go direct to Soames himself, of whose taciturnity he was afraid, he took his umbrella and went round to Timothy’s.
He found Mrs. Septimus and Hester (who had been told – she was so safe, she found it tiring to talk) ready, and indeed eager, to discuss the news. It was very good of dear Soames, they thought, to employ Mr. Bosinney, but rather risky. What had George named him? ‘The Buccaneer.’ How droll! But George was always droll! However, it would be all in the family they supposed they must really look upon Mr. Bosinney as belonging to the family, though it seemed strange.
James here broke in:
“Nobody knows anything about him. I don’t see what Soames wants with a young man like that. I shouldn’t be surprised if Irene had put her oar in[16]. I shall speak to….”
“Soames,” interposed Aunt Juley, “told Mr. Bosinney that he didn’t wish it mentioned. He wouldn’t like it to be talked about, I’m sure, and if Timothy knew he would be very vexed, I….”
James put his hand behind his ear:
“What?” he said. “I’m getting very deaf. I suppose I don’t hear people. Emily’s got a bad toe. We shan’t be able to start for Wales till the end of the month. There’s always something!” And, having got what he wanted, he took his hat and went away.
It was a fine afternoon, and he walked across the Park towards Soames’s, where he intended to dine, for Emily’s toe kept her in bed, and Rachel and Cicely were on a visit to the country. He took the slanting path from the Bayswater side of the Row to the Knightsbridge Gate, across a pasture of short, burnt grass, dotted with blackened sheep, strewn with seated couples and strange waifs; lying prone on their faces, like corpses on a field over which the wave of battle has rolled.
He walked rapidly, his head bent, looking neither to right nor left. The appearance of this park, the centre of his own battle-field, where he had all his life been fighting, excited no thought or speculation in his mind. These corpses flung down, there, from out the press and turmoil of the struggle, these pairs of lovers sitting cheek by jowl for an hour of idle Elysium snatched from the monotony of their treadmill, awakened no fancies in his mind; he had outlived that kind of imagination; his nose, like the nose of a sheep, was fastened to the pastures on which he browsed.