He was particularly pleased with the appearance of a picture, on the wall opposite, which he himself had given them:
“I’d no idea it was so good!” he said.
They rose to go into the drawing-room, and James followed Irene closely.
“That’s what I call a capital little dinner,” he murmured, breathing pleasantly down on her shoulder; “nothing heavy – and not too Frenchified. But I can’t get it at home. I pay my cook sixty pounds a year, but she can’t give me a dinner like that!”
He had as yet made no allusion to the building of the house, nor did he when Soames, pleading the excuse of business, betook himself to the room at the top, where he kept his pictures.
James was left alone with his daughter-in-law. The glow of the wine, and of an excellent liqueur, was still within him. He felt quite warm towards her. She was really a taking little thing; she listened to you, and seemed to understand what you were saying; and, while talking, he kept examining her figure, from her bronze-coloured shoes to the waved gold of her hair. She was leaning back in an Empire chair, her shoulders poised against the top – her body, flexibly straight and unsupported from the hips, swaying when she moved, as though giving to the arms of a lover. Her lips were smiling, her eyes half-closed.
It may have been a recognition of danger in the very charm of her attitude, or a twang of digestion, that caused a sudden dumbness to fall on James. He did not remember ever having been quite alone with Irene before. And, as he looked at her, an odd feeling crept over him, as though he had come across something strange and foreign.
Now what was she thinking about – sitting back like that?
Thus when he spoke it was in a sharper voice, as if he had been awakened from a pleasant dream.
“What d’you do with yourself all day?” he said. “You never come round to Park Lane!”
She seemed to be making very lame excuses, and James did not look at her. He did not want to believe that she was really avoiding them – it would mean too much.
“I expect the fact is, you haven’t time,” he said; “You’re always about with June. I expect you’re useful to her with her young man, chaperoning, and one thing and another. They tell me she’s never at home now; your Uncle Jolyon he doesn’t like it, I fancy, being left so much alone as he is. They tell me she’s always hanging about for this young Bosinney; I suppose he comes here every day. Now, what do you think of him? D’you think he knows his own mind? He seems to me a poor thing. I should say the grey mare was the better horse!”
The colour deepened in Irene’s face; and James watched her suspiciously.
“Perhaps you don’t quite understand Mr. Bosinney,” she said.
“Don’t understand him!” James hummed out: “Why not? – you can see he’s one of these artistic chaps. They say he’s clever – they all think they’re clever. You know more about him than I do,” he added; and again his suspicious glance rested on her.
“He is designing a house for Soames,” she said softly, evidently trying to smooth things over.
“That brings me to what I was going to say,” continued James; “I don’t know what Soames wants with a young man like that; why doesn’t he go to a first-rate man?”
“Perhaps Mr. Bosinney is first-rate!”
James rose, and took a turn with bent head.
“That’s it’,” he said, “you young people, you all stick together; you all think you know best!”
Halting his tall, lank figure before her, he raised a finger, and levelled it at her bosom, as though bringing an indictment against her beauty:
“All I can say is, these artistic people, or whatever they call themselves, they’re as unreliable as they can be; and my advice to you is, don’t you have too much to do with him!”
Irene smiled; and in the curve of her lips was a strange provocation. She seemed to have lost her deference. Her breast rose and fell as though with secret anger; she drew her hands inwards from their rest on the arms of her chair until the tips of her fingers met, and her dark eyes looked unfathomably at James.
The latter gloomily scrutinized the floor.
“I tell you my opinion,” he said, “it’s a pity you haven’t got a child to think about, and occupy you!”
A brooding look came instantly on Irene’s face, and even James became conscious of the rigidity that took possession of her whole figure beneath the softness of its silk and lace clothing.
He was frightened by the effect he had produced, and like most men with but little courage, he sought at once to justify himself by bullying.
“You don’t seem to care about going about. Why don’t you drive down to Hurlingham with us? And go to the theatre now and then. At your time of life you ought to take an interest in things. You’re a young woman!”
The brooding look darkened on her face; he grew nervous.
“Well, I know nothing about it,” he said; “nobody tells me anything. Soames ought to be able to take care of himself. If he can’t take care of himself he mustn’t look to me – that’s all.”
Biting the corner of his forefinger he stole a cold, sharp look at his daughter-in-law.
He encountered her eyes fixed on his own, so dark and deep, that he stopped, and broke into a gentle perspiration.
“Well, I must be going,” he said after a short pause, and a minute later rose, with a slight appearance of surprise, as though he had expected to be asked to stop. Giving his hand to Irene, he allowed himself to be conducted to the door, and let out into the street. He would not have a cab, he would walk, Irene was to say good-night to Soames for him, and if she wanted a little gaiety, well, he would drive her down to Richmond any day.
He walked home, and going upstairs, woke Emily out of the first sleep she had had for four and twenty hours, to tell her that it was his impression things were in a bad way at Soames’s; on this theme he descanted for half an hour, until at last, saying that he would not sleep a wink, he turned on his side and instantly began to snore.
In Montpellier Square Soames, who had come from the picture room, stood invisible at the top of the stairs, watching Irene sort the letters brought by the last post. She turned back into the drawing-room; but in a minute came out, and stood as if listening. Then she came stealing up the stairs, with a kitten in her arms. He could see her face bent over the little beast, which was purring against her neck. Why couldn’t she look at him like that?
Suddenly she saw him, and her face changed.
“Any letters for me?” he said.
“Three.”
He stood aside, and without another word she passed on into the bedroom.
Chapter VII
Old Jolyon’s Peccadillo
Old Jolyon came out of Lord’s cricket ground that same afternoon with the intention of going home. He had not reached Hamilton Terrace before he changed his mind, and hailing a cab, gave the driver an address in Wistaria Avenue. He had taken a resolution.
June had hardly been at home at all that week; she had given him nothing of her company for a long time past, not, in fact, since she had become engaged to Bosinney. He never asked her for her company. It was not his habit to ask people for things! She had just that one idea now – Bosinney and his affairs – and she left him stranded in his great house, with a parcel of servants, and not a soul to speak to from morning to night. His Club was closed for cleaning; his Boards in recess; there was nothing, therefore, to take him into the City. June had wanted him to go away; she would not go herself, because Bosinney was in London.
But where was he to go by himself? He could not go abroad alone; the sea upset his liver; he hated hotels. Roger went to a hydropathic – he was not going to begin that at his time of life, those new-fangled places we’re all humbug!
With such formulas he clothed to himself the desolation of his spirit; the lines down his face deepening, his eyes day by day looking forth with the melancholy which sat so strangely on a face wont to be strong and serene.