“Clever?”
“As clever as you like—a bit—a bit up in the air!”
He had not been able to discover what houses Bosinney had built, nor what his charges were. The impression he gathered was that he would be able to make his own terms. The more he reflected on the idea, the more he liked it. It would be keeping the thing in the family, with Forsytes almost an instinct; and he would be able to get ‘favoured-nation,’ if not nominal terms—only fair, considering the chance to Bosinney of displaying his talents, for this house must be no common edifice.
Soames reflected complacently on the work it would be sure to bring the young man; for, like every Forsyte, he could be a thorough optimist when there was anything to be had out of it.
Bosinney’s office was in Sloane Street, close at, hand, so that he would be able to keep his eye continually on the plans.
Again, Irene would not be to likely to object to leave London if her greatest friend’s lover were given the job. June’s marriage might depend on it. Irene could not decently stand in the way of June’s marriage; she would never do that, he knew her too well. And June would be pleased; of this he saw the advantage.
Bosinney looked clever, but he had also—and—it was one of his great attractions—an air as if he did not quite know on which side his bread were buttered; he should be easy to deal with in money matters. Soames made this reflection in no defrauding spirit; it was the natural attitude of his mind—of the mind of any good business man—of all those thousands of good business men through whom he was threading his way up Ludgate Hill.
Thus he fulfilled the inscrutable laws of his great class—of human nature itself—when he reflected, with a sense of comfort, that Bosinney would be easy to deal with in money matters.
While he elbowed his way on, his eyes, which he usually kept fixed on the ground before his feet, were attracted upwards by the dome of St. Paul’s. It had a peculiar fascination for him, that old dome, and not once, but twice or three times a week, would he halt in his daily pilgrimage to enter beneath and stop in the side aisles for five or ten minutes, scrutinizing the names and epitaphs on the monuments. The attraction for him of this great church was inexplicable, unless it enabled him to concentrate his thoughts on the business of the day. If any affair of particular moment, or demanding peculiar acuteness, was weighing on his mind, he invariably went in, to wander with mouse-like attention from epitaph to epitaph. Then retiring in the same noiseless way, he would hold steadily on up Cheapside, a thought more of dogged purpose in his gait, as though he had seen something which he had made up his mind to buy.
He went in this morning, but, instead of stealing from monument to monument, turned his eyes upwards to the columns and spacings of the walls, and remained motionless.
His uplifted face, with the awed and wistful look which faces take on themselves in church, was whitened to a chalky hue in the vast building. His gloved hands were clasped in front over the handle of his umbrella. He lifted them. Some sacred inspiration perhaps had come to him.
‘Yes,’ he thought, ‘I must have room to hang my pictures.’
That evening, on his return from the City, he called at Bosinney’s office. He found the architect in his shirt-sleeves, smoking a pipe, and ruling off lines on a plan. Soames refused a drink, and came at once to the point.
“If you’ve nothing better to do on Sunday, come down with me to Robin Hill, and give me your opinion on a building site.”
“Are you going to build?”
“Perhaps,” said Soames; “but don’t speak of it. I just want your opinion.”
“Quite so,” said the architect.
Soames peered about the room.
“You’re rather high up here,” he remarked.
Any information he could gather about the nature and scope of Bosinney’s business would be all to the good.
“It does well enough for me so far,” answered the architect. “You’re accustomed to the swells.”
He knocked out his pipe, but replaced it empty between his teeth; it assisted him perhaps to carry on the conversation. Soames noted a hollow in each cheek, made as it were by suction.
“What do you pay for an office like this?” said he.
“Fifty too much,” replied Bosinney.
This answer impressed Soames favourably.
“I suppose it is dear,” he said. “I’ll call for you—on Sunday about eleven.”
The following Sunday therefore he called for Bosinney in a hansom, and drove him to the station. On arriving at Robin Hill, they found no cab, and started to walk the mile and a half to the site.
It was the 1st of August—a perfect day, with a burning sun and cloudless sky—and in the straight, narrow road leading up the hill their feet kicked up a yellow dust.
“Gravel soil,” remarked Soames, and sideways he glanced at the coat Bosinney wore. Into the side-pockets of this coat were thrust bundles of papers, and under one arm was carried a queer-looking stick. Soames noted these and other peculiarities.
No one but a clever man, or, indeed, a buccaneer, would have taken such liberties with his appearance; and though these eccentricities were revolting to Soames, he derived a certain satisfaction from them, as evidence of qualities by which he must inevitably profit. If the fellow could build houses, what did his clothes matter?
“I told you,” he said, “that I want this house to be a surprise, so don’t say anything about it. I never talk of my affairs until they’re carried through.”
Bosinney nodded.
“Let women into your plans,” pursued Soames, “and you never know where it’ll end.”
“Ah!” Said Bosinney, “women are the devil!”
This feeling had long been at the—bottom of Soames’s heart; he had never, however, put it into words.
“Oh!” he Muttered, “so you’re beginning to…” He stopped, but added, with an uncontrollable burst of spite: “June’s got a temper of her own—always had.”
“A temper’s not a bad thing in an angel.”
Soames had never called Irene an angel. He could not so have violated his best instincts, letting other people into the secret of her value, and giving himself away. He made no reply.
They had struck into a half-made road across a warren. A cart-track led at right-angles to a gravel pit, beyond which the chimneys of a cottage rose amongst a clump of trees at the border of a thick wood. Tussocks of feathery grass covered the rough surface of the ground, and out of these the larks soared into the hate of sunshine. On the far horizon, over a countless succession of fields and hedges, rose a line of downs.
Soames led till they had crossed to the far side, and there he stopped. It was the chosen site; but now that he was about to divulge the spot to another he had become uneasy.
“The agent lives in that cottage,” he said; “he’ll give us some lunch—we’d better have lunch before we go into this matter.”
He again took the lead to the cottage, where the agent, a tall man named Oliver, with a heavy face and grizzled beard, welcomed them. During lunch, which Soames hardly touched, he kept looking at Bosinney, and once or twice passed his silk handkerchief stealthily over his forehead. The meal came to an end at last, and Bosinney rose.
“I dare say you’ve got business to talk over,” he said; “I’ll just go and nose about a bit.” Without waiting for a reply he strolled out.
Soames was solicitor to this estate, and he spent nearly an hour in the agent’s company, looking at ground-plans and discussing the Nicholl and other mortgages; it was as it were by an afterthought that he brought up the question of the building site.
“Your people,” he said, “ought to come down in their price to me, considering that I shall be the first to build.”
Oliver shook his head.
“The site you’ve fixed on, Sir,” he said, “is the cheapest we’ve got. Sites at the top of the slope are dearer by a good bit.”