You neednt get into a rage, he said. If Im willing to put up with it, I suppose you neednt cry out. All I meant was that when you tell me a thing is going to cost so much, I like to well, in fact, I like to know where I am.
Look here! said Bosinney, and Soames was both annoyed and surprised by the shrewdness of his glance. Youve got my services dirt cheap. For the kind of work Ive put into this house, and the amount of time Ive given to it, youd have had to pay Littlemaster or some other fool four times as much. What you want, in fact, is a first-rate man for a fourth-rate fee, and thats exactly what youve got!
Soames saw that he really meant what he said, and, angry though he was, the consequences of a row rose before him too vividly. He saw his house unfinished, his wife rebellious, himself a laughingstock.
Lets go over it, he said sulkily, and see how the moneys gone.
Very well, assented Bosinney. But well hurry up, if you dont mind. I have to get back in time to take June to the theatre.
Soames cast a stealthy look at him, and said: Coming to our place, I suppose to meet her? He was always coming to their place!
There had been rain the night before-a spring rain, and the earth smelt of sap and wild grasses. The warm, soft breeze swung the leaves and the golden buds of the old oak tree, and in the sunshine the blackbirds were whistling their hearts out.
It was such a spring day as breathes into a man an ineffable yearning, a painful sweetness, a longing that makes him stand motionless, looking at the leaves or grass, and fling out his arms to embrace he knows not what. The earth gave forth a fainting warmth, stealing up through the chilly garment in which winter had wrapped her. It was her long caress of invitation, to draw men down to lie within her arms, to roll their bodies on her, and put their lips to her breast.
On just such a day as this Soames had got from Irene the promise he had asked her for so often. Seated on the fallen trunk of a tree, he had promised for the twentieth time that if their marriage were not a success, she should be as free as if she had never married him!
Do you swear it? she had said. A few days back she had reminded him of that oath. He had answered: Nonsense! I couldnt have sworn any such thing! By some awkward fatality he remembered it now. What queer things men would swear for the sake of women! He would have sworn it at any time to gain her! He would swear it now, if thereby he could touch her but nobody could touch her, she was cold-hearted!
And memories crowded on him with the fresh, sweet savour of the spring wind-memories of his courtship.
In the spring of the year 1881 he was visiting his old school-fellow and client, George Liversedge, of Branksome, who, with the view of developing his pine-woods in the neighbourhood of Bournemouth, had placed the formation of the company necessary to the scheme in Soamess hands. Mrs. Liversedge, with a sense of the fitness of things, had given a musical tea in his honour. Later in the course of this function, which Soames, no musician, had regarded as an unmitigated bore, his eye had been caught by the face of a girl dressed in mourning, standing by herself. The lines of her tall, as yet rather thin figure, showed through the wispy, clinging stuff of her black dress, her black-gloved hands were crossed in front of her, her lips slightly parted, and her large, dark eyes wandered from face to face. Her hair, done low on her neck, seemed to gleam above her black collar like coils of shining metal. And as Soames stood looking at her, the sensation that most men have felt at one time or another went stealing through him a peculiar satisfaction of the senses, a peculiar certainty, which novelists and old ladies call love at first sight. Still stealthily watching her, he at once made his way to his hostess, and stood doggedly waiting for the music to cease.
Who is that girl with yellow hair and dark eyes? he asked.
That oh! Irene Heron. Her father, Professor Heron, died this year. She lives with her stepmother. Shes a nice girl, a pretty girl, but no money!
Introduce me, please, said Soames.
It was very little that he found to say, nor did he find her responsive to that little. But he went away with the resolution to see her again. He effected his object by chance, meeting her on the pier with her stepmother, who had the habit of walking there from twelve to one of a forenoon. Soames made this ladys acquaintance with alacrity, nor was it long before he perceived in her the ally he was looking for. His keen scent for the commercial side of family life soon told him that Irene cost her stepmother more than the fifty pounds a year she brought her; it also told him that Mrs. Heron, a woman yet in the prime of life, desired to be married again. The strange ripening beauty of her stepdaughter stood in the way of this desirable consummation. And Soames, in his stealthy tenacity, laid his plans.
He left Bournemouth without having given himself away, but in a months time came back, and this time he spoke, not to the girl, but to her stepmother. He had made up his mind, he said; he would wait any time. And he had long to wait, watching Irene bloom, the lines of her young figure softening, the stronger blood deepening the gleam of her eyes, and warming her face to a creamy glow; and at each visit he proposed to her, and when that visit was at an end, took her refusal away with him, back to London, sore at heart, but steadfast and silent as the grave. He tried to come at the secret springs of her resistance; only once had he a gleam of light. It was at one of those assembly dances, which afford the only outlet to the passions of the population of seaside watering-places. He was sitting with her in an embrasure, his senses tingling with the contact of the waltz. She had looked at him over her, slowly waving fan; and he had lost his head. Seizing that moving wrist, he pressed his lips to the flesh of her arm. And she had shuddered to this day he had not forgotten that shudder nor the look so passionately averse she had given him.
A year after that she had yielded. What had made her yield he could never make out; and from Mrs. Heron, a woman of some diplomatic talent, he learnt nothing. Once after they were married he asked her, What made you refuse me so often? She had answered by a strange silence. An enigma to him from the day that he first saw her, she was an enigma to him still.
Bosinney was waiting for him at the door; and on his rugged, good-looking, face was a queer, yearning, yet happy look, as though he too saw a promise of bliss in the spring sky, sniffed a coming happiness in the spring air. Soames looked at him waiting there. What was the matter with the fellow that he looked so happy? What was he waiting for with that smile on his lips and in his eyes? Soames could not see that for which Bosinney was waiting as he stood there drinking in the flower-scented wind. And once more he felt baffled in the presence of this man whom by habit he despised. He hastened on to the house.
The only colour for those tiles, he heard Bosinney say, is ruby with a grey tint in the stuff, to give a transparent effect. I should like Irenes opinion. Im ordering the purple leather curtains for the doorway of this court; and if you distemper the drawing-room ivory cream over paper, youll get an illusive look. You want to aim all through the decorations at what I call charm.
Soames said: You mean that my wife has charm!
Bosinney evaded the question.
You should have a clump of iris plants in the centre of that court.
Soames smiled superciliously.
Soames said: You mean that my wife has charm!
Bosinney evaded the question.
You should have a clump of iris plants in the centre of that court.
Soames smiled superciliously.
Ill look into Beechs some time, he said, and see whats appropriate!
They found little else to say to each other, but on the way to the Station Soames asked:
I suppose you find Irene very artistic.
Yes. The abrupt answer was as distinct a snub as saying: If you want to discuss her you can do it with someone else!
And the slow, sulky anger Soames had felt all the afternoon burned the brighter within him.
Neither spoke again till they were close to the Station, then Soames asked:
When do you expect to have finished?
By the end of June, if you really wish me to decorate as well.
Soames nodded. But you quite understand, he said, that the house is costing me a lot beyond what I contemplated. I may as well tell you that I should have thrown it up, only Im not in the habit of giving up what Ive set my mind on.
Bosinney made no reply. And Soames gave him askance a look of dogged dislike for in spite of his fastidious air and that supercilious, dandified taciturnity, Soames, with his set lips and squared chin, was not unlike a bulldog.
When, at seven oclock that evening, June arrived at 62, Montpellier Square, the maid Bilson told her that Mr. Bosinney was in the drawing-room; the mistress she said was dressing, and would be down in a minute. She would tell her that Miss June was here.
June stopped her at once.
All right, Bilson, she said, Ill just go in. You neednt hurry Mrs. Soames.
She took off her cloak, and Bilson, with an understanding look, did not even open the drawing-room door for her, but ran downstairs.
June paused for a moment to look at herself in the little old-fashioned silver mirror above the oaken rug chest a slim, imperious young figure, with a small resolute face, in a white frock, cut moon-shaped at the base of a neck too slender for her crown of twisted red-gold hair.
She opened the drawing-room door softly, meaning to take him by surprise. The room was filled with a sweet hot scent of flowering azaleas.
She took a long breath of the perfume, and heard Bosinneys voice, not in the room, but quite close, saying.
Ah! there were such heaps of things I wanted to talk about, and now we shant have time!
Irenes voice answered: Why not at dinner?
How can one talk.
Junes first thought was to go away, but instead she crossed to the long window opening on the little court. It was from there that the scent of the azaleas came, and, standing with their backs to her, their faces buried in the golden-pink blossoms, stood her lover and Irene.
Silent but unashamed, with flaming cheeks and angry eyes, the girl watched.
Come on Sunday by yourself We can go over the house together.
June saw Irene look up at him through her screen of blossoms. It was not the look of a coquette, but far worse to the watching girl of a woman fearful lest that look should say too much.
Ive promised to go for a drive with Uncle.
The big one! Make him bring you; its only ten miles the very thing for his horses.
Poor old Uncle Swithin!
A wave of the azalea scent drifted into Junes face; she felt sick and dizzy.
Do! ah! do!
But why?
I must see you there I thought youd like to help me.
The answer seemed to the girl to come softly with a tremble from amongst the blossoms: So I do!
And she stepped into the open space of the window.
How stuffy it is here! she said; I cant bear this scent!