第49章

SOAMES ENTERTAINS THE FUTURE

It was full late for the river,but the weather was lovely,and summer lingered below the yellowing leaves.Soames took many looks at the day from his riverside garden near Mapledurham that Sunday morning.

With his own hands he put flowers about his little house-boat,and equipped the punt,in which,after lunch,he proposed to take them on the river.Placing those Chinese-looking cushions,he could not tell whether or no he wished to take Annette alone.She was so very pretty--could he trust himself not to say irrevocable words,passing beyond the limits of discretion?Roses on the veranda were still in bloom,and the hedges ever-green,so that there was almost nothing of middle-aged autumn to chill the mood;yet was he nervous,fidgety,strangely distrustful of his powers to steer just the right course.This visit had been planned to produce in Annette and her mother a due sense of his possessions,so that they should be ready to receive with respect any overture might later be disposed to make.He dressed with great care,making himself neither too young nor too old,very thankful that his hair was still thick and smooth and had no grey in it.Three times he went up to his picture-gallery.If they had any knowledge at all,they must see at once that his collection alone was worth at least thirty thousand pounds.He minutely inspected,too,the pretty bedroom overlooking the river where they would take off their hats.

It would be her bedroom if--if the matter went through,and she became his wife.Going up to the dressing-table he passed his hand over the lilac-coloured pincushion,into which were stuck all kinds of pins;a bowl of pot-pourri exhaled a scent that made his head turn just a little.His wife!If only the whole thing could be settled out of hand,and there was not the nightmare of this divorce to be gone through first;and with gloom puckered on his forehead,he looked out at the river shining beyond the roses and the lawn.Madame Lamotte would never resist this prospect for her child;Annette would never resist her mother.If only he were free!He drove to the station to meet them.What taste French-women had!Madame Lamotte was in black with touches of lilac colour,Annette in greyish lilac linen,with cream coloured gloves and hat.Rather pale she looked and Londony;and her blue eyes were demure.Waiting for them to come down to lunch,Soames stood in the open french-window of the diningroom moved by that sensuous delight in sunshine and flowers and trees which only came to the full when youth and beauty were there to share it with one.He had ordered the lunch with intense consideration;the wine was a very special Sauterne,the whole appointments of the meal perfect,the coffee served on the veranda super-excellent.Madame Lamotte accepted creme de menthe;Annette refused.Her manners were charming,with just a suspicion of 'the conscious beauty'creeping into them.'Yes,'thought Soames,'another year of London and that sort of life,and she'll be spoiled.'

Madame was in sedate French raptures."Adorable!Le soleil est si bon!How everything is chic,is it not,Annette?Monsieur is a real Monte Cristo."Annette murmured assent,with a look up at Soames which he could not read.He proposed a turn on the river.

But to punt two persons when one of them looked so ravishing on those Chinese cushions was merely to suffer from a sense of lost opportunity;so they went but a short way towards Pangbourne,drifting slowly back,with every now and then an autumn leaf dropping on Annette or on her mother's black amplitude.And Soames was not happy,worried by the thought:'How--when--where--can Isay--what?'They did not yet even know that he was married.To tell them he was married might jeopardise his every chance;yet,if he did not definitely make them understand that he wished for Annette's hand,it would be dropping into some other clutch before he was free to claim it.

At tea,which they both took with lemon,Soames spoke of the Transvaal.

"There'll be war,"he said.

Madame Lamotte lamented.