The Forsyte Saga Page 13

  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.

  “Let’s go over it,” he said sulkily, “and see how the money’s gone.”

  “Very well,” assented Bosinney. “But we’ll hurry up, if you don’t 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 couldn’t 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 coldhearted!

  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 schoolfellow 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 Soames’s 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. She’s 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 lady’s 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 month’s 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 Irene’s opinion. I’m ordering the purple leather curtains for the doorway of this court; and if you distemper the drawing room ivory cream over paper, you’ll 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.

  “I’ll look into Beech’s some time,” he said, “and see what’s 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 I’m not in the habit of giving up what I’ve 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 o’clock 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, “I’ll just go in. You needn’t 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 Bosinney’s voice, not in the room, but quite close, saying.

  “Ah! there were such heaps of things I wanted to talk about, and now we shan’t have time!”

  Irene’s voice answered: “Why not at dinner?”

  “How can one talk. . . .”

  June’s 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.

  “I’ve promised to go for a drive with uncle. . . .”

  “The big one! Make him bring you; it’s only ten miles—the very thing for his horses.”

  “Poor old Uncle Swithin!”

  A wave of the azalea scent drifted into June’s face; she felt sick and dizzy.

  “Do! ah! do!”

  “But why?”

  “I must see you there—I thought you’d 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 can’t bear this scent!”

  Her eyes, so angry and direct, swept both their faces.

  “Were you talking about the house? I haven’t seen it yet, you know—shall we all go on Sunday?”

  From Irene’s face the colour had flown.

  “I am going for a drive that day with Uncle Swithin,” she answered.

  “Uncle Swithin! What does he matter? You can throw him over!”

  “I am not in the habit of throwing people over!”

  There was a sound of footsteps and June saw Soames standing just behind her.

  “Well! if you are all ready,” said Irene, looking from one to the other with a strange smile, “dinner is too!”

  Chapter II

  June’s Treat

  Dinner began in silence; the women facing one another, and the men.

  In silence the soup was finished—excellent, if a little thick; and fish was brought. In silence it was handed.

  Bosinney ventured: “It’s the first spring day.”

  Irene echoed softly: “Yes—the first spring day.”

  “Spring!” said June: “there isn’t a breath of air!” No one replied.

  The fish was taken away, a fine fresh sole from Dover. And Bilson brought champagne, a bottle swathed around the neck with white. . . .

  Soames said: “You’ll find it dry.”

  Cutlets were handed, each pink-frilled about the legs. They were refused by June, and silence fell.

  Soames said: “You’d better take a cutlet, June; there’s nothing coming.”

  But June again refused, so they were borne away. And then Irene asked: “Phil, have you heard my blackbird?”

  Bosinney answered: “Rather—he’s got a hunting song. As I came round I heard him in the square.”

  “He’s such a darling!”

  “Salad, sir?” Spring chicken was removed.

  But Soames was speaking: “The asparagus is very poor. Bosinney, glass of sherry with your sweet? June, you’re drinking nothing!”

  June said: “You know I never do. Wine’s such horrid stuff!”

  An apple charlotte came upon a silver dish, and smilingly Irene said: “The azaleas are so wonderful this year!”

  To this Bosinney murmured: “Wonderful! The scent’s extraordinary!”

  June said: “How can you like the scent? Sugar, please, Bilson.”

  Sugar was handed her, and Soames remarked: “This charlotte’s good!”

  The charlotte was removed. Long silence followed. Irene, beckoning, said: “Take out the azalea, Bilson. Miss June can’t bear the scent.”

  “No; let it stay,” said June.

  Olives from France, with Russian caviar, were placed on little plates. And Soames remarked: “Why can’t we have the Spanish?” But no one answered.

  The olives were removed. Lifting her tumbler June demanded: “Give me some water, please.” Water was given her. A silver tray was brought, with German plums. There was a lengthy pause. In perfect harmony all were eating them.

  Bosinney counted up the stones: “This year—next year—some time.”

  Irene finished softly: “Never! There was such a glorious sunset. The sky’s all ruby still—so beautiful!”

  He answered: “Underneath the dark.”

  Their eyes had met, and June cried scornfully: “A London sunset!”

  Egyptian cigarettes were handed in a silver box. Soames, taking one, remarked: “What time’s your play begin?”

  No one replied, and Turkish coffee followed in enameled cups.

  Irene, smiling quietly, said: “If only. . . .”

  “Only what?” said June.

  “If only it could always be the spring!”

  Brandy was handed; it was pale and old.

  Soames said: “Bosinney, better take some brandy.”

  Bosinney took a glass; they all arose.

  “You want a cab?” asked Soames.

  June answered: “No! My cloaks please, Bilson.” Her cloak was brought.

  Irene, from the window, murmured: “Such a lovely night! The stars are coming out!”

  Soames added: “Well, I hope you’ll both enjoy yourselves.”

  From the door June answered: “Thanks. Come, Phil.”

  Bosinney cried: “I’m coming.”

  Soames smiled a sneering smile, and said: “I wish you luck!”

  And at the door Irene watched them go.

  Bosinney called: “Good night!”

  “Good night!” she answered softly. . . .

  June made her lover take her on the top of a bus, saying she wanted air, and there sat silent, with her face to the breeze.

  The driver turned once or twice, with the intention of venturing a remark, but thought better of it. They were a lively couple! The spring had got into his blood, too; he felt the need for letting steam escape, and clucked his tongue, flourishing his whip, wheeling his horses, and even they, poor things, had smelled the spring, and for a brief half hour spurned the pavement with happy hoofs.

  The whole town was alive; the boughs, curled upward with their decking of young leaves, awaited some gift the breeze could bring. New-lighted lamps were gaining mastery, and the faces of the crowd showed pale under that glare, while on high the great white clouds slid swiftly, softly,
over the purple sky.

  Men in, evening dress had thrown back overcoats, stepping jauntily up the steps of clubs; working folk loitered; and women—those women who at that time of night are solitary—solitary and moving eastward in a stream—swung slowly along, with expectation in their gait, dreaming of good wine and a good supper, or—for an unwonted minute, of kisses given for love.

  Those countless figures, going their ways under the lamps and the moving-sky, had one and all received some restless blessing from the stir of spring. And one and all, like those clubmen with their opened coats, had shed something of caste, and creed, and custom, and by the cock of their hats, the pace of their walk, their laughter, or their silence, revealed their common kinship under the passionate heavens.

  Bosinney and June entered the theatre in silence, and mounted to their seats in the upper boxes. The piece had just begun, and the half-darkened house, with its rows of creatures peering all one way, resembled a great garden of flowers turning their faces to the sun.

  June had never before been in the upper boxes. From the age of fifteen she had habitually accompanied her grandfather to the stalls, and not common stalls, but the best seats in the house, towards the centre of the third row, booked by old Jolyon, at Grogan and Boyne’s, on his way home from the city, long before the day; carried in his overcoat pocket, together with his cigar case and his old kid gloves, and handed to June to keep till the appointed night. And in those stalls—an erect old figure with a serene white head, a little figure, strenuous and eager, with a red-gold head—they would sit through every kind of play, and on the way home old Jolyon would say of the principal actor: “Oh, he’s a poor stick! You should have seen little Bobson!”

  She had looked forward to this evening with keen delight; it was stolen, chaperone-less, undreamed of at Stanhope Gate, where she was supposed to be at Soames’s. She had expected reward for her subterfuge, planned for her lover’s sake; she had expected it to break up the thick, chilly cloud, and make the relations between them which of late had been so puzzling, so tormenting—sunny and simple again as they had been before the winter. She had come with the intention of saying something definite; and she looked at the stage with a furrow between her brows, seeing nothing, her hands squeezed together in her lap. A swarm of jealous suspicions stung and stung her.