The Forsyte saga - Complete
then they were obliged, and moved about their business without
the drone of talk which whiles away the pangs of labour.
Through spaces of the unfinished house, shirt-sleeved figures
worked slowly, and sounds arose—spasmodic knockings, the scraping
of metal, the sawing of wood, with the rumble of wheelbarrows
along boards; now and again the foreman’s dog, tethered by a
string to an oaken beam, whimpered feebly, with a sound like the
singing of a kettle.
The fresh-fitted window-panes, daubed each with a white patch in
the centre, stared out at James like the eyes of a blind dog.
And the building chorus went on, strident and mirthless under the
grey-white sky. But the thrushes, hunting amongst the
fresh-turned earth for worms, were silent quite.
James picked his way among the heaps of gravel—the drive was
being laid—till he came opposite the porch. Here he stopped and
raised his eyes. There was but little to see from this point of
view, and that little he took in at once; but he stayed in this
position many minutes, and who shall know of what he thought.
His china-blue eyes under white eyebrows that jutted out in
little horns, never stirred; the long upper lip of his wide
mouth, between the fine white whiskers, twitched once or twice;
it was easy to see from that anxious rapt expression, whence
Soames derived the handicapped look which sometimes came upon his
face. James might have been saying to himself: “I don’t
know—life’s a tough job.”
In this position Bosinney surprised him.
James brought his eyes down from whatever bird’s-nest they had
been looking for in the sky to Bosinney’s face, on which was a
kind of humorous scorn.
“How do you do, Mr. Forsyte? Come down to see for yourself?”
It was exactly what James, as we know, had come for, and he was
made correspondingly uneasy. He held out his hand, however,
saying:
“How are you?” without looking at Bosinney.
The latter made way for him with an ironical smile.
James scented something suspicious in this courtesy. “I should
like to walk round the outside first,” he said, “and see what
you’ve been doing!”
A flagged terrace of rounded stones with a list of two or three
inches to port had been laid round the south-east and south-west
sides of the house, and ran with a bevelled edge into mould,
which was in preparation for being turfed; along this terrace
James led the way.
“Now what did _this_ cost?” he asked, when he saw the terrace
extending round the corner.
“What should you think?” inquired Bosinney.
“How should I know?” replied James somewhat nonplussed; “two or
three hundred, I dare say!”
“The exact sum!”
James gave him a sharp look, but the architect appeared
unconscious, and he put the answer down to mishearing.
On arriving at the garden entrance, he stopped to look at the
view.
“That ought to come down,” he said, pointing to the oak-tree.
“You think so? You think that with the tree there you don’t get
enough view for your money.”
Again James eyed him suspiciously—this young man had a peculiar
way of putting things: “Well!” he said, with a perplexed,
nervous, emphasis, “I don’t see what you want with a tree.”
“It shall come down to-morrow,” said Bosinney.
James was alarmed. “Oh,” he said, “don’t go saying I said it was
to come down! _I_ know nothing about it!”
“No?”
James went on in a fluster: “Why, what should I know about it?
It’s nothing to do with me! You do it on your own
responsibility.”
“You’ll allow me to mention your name?”
James grew more and more alarmed: “I don’t know what you want
mentioning my name for,” he muttered; “you’d better leave the
tree alone. It’s not your tree!”
He took out a silk handkerchief and wiped his brow. They entered
the house. Like Swithin, James was impressed by the inner
court-yard.
“You must have spent a deuce of a lot of money here,” he said,
after staring at the columns and gallery for some time. “Now,
what did it cost to put up those columns?”
“I can’t tell you off-hand,” thoughtfully answered Bosinney, “but
I know it was a deuce of a lot!”
“I should think so,” said James. “I should....” He caught the
architect’s eye, and broke off. And now, whenever he came to
anything of which he desired to know the cost, he stifled that
curiosity.
Bosinney appeared determined that he should see everything, and
had not James been of too “noticing” a nature, he would certainly
have found himself going round the house a second time. He seemed
so anxious to be asked questions, too, that James felt he must be
on his guard. He began to suffer from his exertions, for, though
wiry enough for a man of his long build, he was seventy-five
years old.
He grew discouraged; he seemed no nearer to anything, had not
obtained from his inspection any of the knowledge he had vaguely
hoped for. He had merely increased his dislike and mistrust of
this young man, who had tired him out with his politeness, and in
whose manner he now certainly detected mockery.
The fellow was sharper than he had thought, and better-looking
than he had hoped. He had a—a “don’t care” appearance that James,
to whom risk was the most intolerable thing in life, did not
appreciate; a peculiar smile, too, coming when least expected;
and very queer eyes. He reminded James, as he said afterwards, of
a hungry cat. This was as near as he could get, in conversation
with Emily, to a description of the peculiar exasperation,
velvetiness, and mockery, of which Bosinney’s manner had been
composed.
At last, having seen all that was to be seen, he came out again
at the door where he had gone in; and now, feeling that he was
wasting time and strength and money, all for nothing, he took the
courage of a Forsyte in both hands, and, looking sharply at
Bosinney, said:
“I dare say you see a good deal of my daughter-in-law; now, what
does _she_ think of the house? But she hasn’t seen it, I
suppose?”
This he said, knowing all about Irene’s visit not, of course,
that there was anything in the visit, except that extraordinary
remark she had made about “not caring to get home”—and the story
of how June had taken the news!
He had determined, by this way of putting the question, to give
Bosinney a chance, as he said to himself.
The latter was long in answering, but kept his eyes with
uncomfortable steadiness on James.
“She _has_ seen the house, but I can’t tell you what she thinks
of it.”
Nervous and baffled, James was constitutionally prevented from
letting the matter drop.
“Oh!” he said, “she has seen it? Soames brought her down, I
suppose?”
Bosinney smilingly replied: “Oh, no!”
“What, did she come down alone?”
“Oh, no!”
“Then—who brought her?”
“I really don’t know whether I ought to tell you who brought
her.”
To James, who knew that it was Swithin, this answer appeared
incomprehensible.
“Why!” he stammered, “you know that....” but he stopped, suddenly
perceiving his danger.
“Well,” he said, “if you don’t want to tell me I suppose you
won’t! Nobody tells me anything.”
Somewhat to his surprise Bosinney asked him a question.
“By the by,” he said, “could you tell me if there are likely to
be any more of you coming down? I should like to be on the spot!”
“Any more?” said James bewildered, “who should there be more? I
don’t know of any more. Good-bye.”
Looking at the ground he held out his hand, crossed the palm of
it with Bosinney’s, and taking his umbrella just above the silk,
walked away along the terrace.
Before he turned the corner he glanced back, and saw Bosinney
following him slowly—“slinking along the wall” as he put it to
himself, “like a great cat.” He paid no attention when the young
fellow raised his hat.
Outside the drive, and out of sight, he slackened his pace still
more. Very slowly, more bent than when he came, lean, hungry, and
disheartened, he made his way back to the station.
The Buccaneer, watching him go so sadly home, felt sorry perhaps
for his behaviour to the old man.
CHAPTER V SOAMES AND BOSINNEY CORRESPOND
James said nothing to his son of this visit to the house; but,
having occasion to go to Timothy’s one morning on a matter
connected with a drainage scheme which was being forced by the
sanitary authorities on his brother, he mentioned it there.
It was not, he said, a bad house. He could see that a good deal
could be made of it. The fellow was clever in his way, though
what it was going to cost Soames before it was done with he
didn’t know.
Euphemia Forsyte, who happened to be in the room—she had come
round to borrow the Rev. Mr. Scoles’ last novel, “Passion and
Paregoric”, which was having such a vogue—chimed in.
“I saw Irene yesterday at the Stores; she and Mr. Bosinney were
having a nice little chat in the Groceries.”
It was thus, simply, that she recorded a scene which had really
made a deep and complicated impression on her. She had been
hurrying to the silk department of the Church and Commercial
Stores—that Institution than which, with its admirable system,
admitting only guaranteed persons on a basis of payment before
delivery, no emporium can be more highly recommended to
Forsytes—to match a piece of prunella silk for her mother, who
was waiting in the carriage outside.
Passing through the Groceries her eye was unpleasantly attracted
by the back view of a very beautiful figure. It was so charmingly
proportioned, so balanced, and so well clothed, that Euphemia’s
instinctive propriety was at once alarmed; such figures, she
knew, by intuition rather than experience, were rarely connected
with virtue—certainly never in her mind, for her own back was
somewhat difficult to fit.
Her suspicions were fortunately confirmed. A young man coming
from the Drugs had snatched off his hat, and was accosting the
lady with the unknown back.
It was then that she saw with whom she had to deal; the lady was
undoubtedly Mrs. Soames, the young man Mr. Bosinney. Concealing
herself rapidly over the purchase of a box of Tunisian dates, for
she was impatient of awkwardly meeting people with parcels in her
hands, and at the busy time of the morning, she was quite
unintentionally an interested observer of their little interview.
Mrs. Soames, usually somewhat pale, had a delightful colour in
her cheeks; and Mr. Bosinney’s manner was strange, though
attractive (she thought him rather a distinguished-looking man,
and George’s name for him, “The Buccaneer”—about which there was
something romantic—quite charming). He seemed to be pleading.
Indeed, they talked so earnestly—or, rather, he talked so
earnestly, for Mrs. Soames did not say much—that they caused,