The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy (acx book reading txt) 📕

fed; and, within their ring fence, stroll upon green turf, wear their top hats, and meet⁠—themselves. The heart was sound, the pulse still regular. E-ton! E-ton! Har-r-o-o-o-w!

Among the many Forsytes, present on a hunting-ground theirs, by personal prescriptive right, or proxy, was Soames with his wife and daughter. He had not been at either school, he took no interest in cricket, but he wanted Fleur to show her frock, and he wanted to wear his top hat parade it again in peace and plenty among his peers. He walked sedately with Fleur between him and Annette. No women equalled them, so far as he could see. They could walk, and hold themselves up; there was substance in their good looks; the modern woman had no build, no chest, no anything! He remembered suddenly with what intoxication of pride he had walked round with Irene in the first years of his first marriage. And how they used to lunch on the drag which his mother would make his father have, because it was so chic⁠—all drags and carriages in those days, not these lumbering great Stands! And how consistently Montague Dartie had drunk too much. He supposed that people drank too much still, but there was not the scope for it there used to be. He remembered George Forsyte⁠—whose brothers Roger and Eustace had been at Harrow and Eton⁠—towering up on the top of the drag waving a light-blue flag with one hand and a dark-blue flag with the other, and shouting “Etroow⁠—Harrton!” just when everybody was silent, like the buffoon he had always been; and Eustace got up to the nines below, too dandified to wear any colour or take any notice. H’m! Old days, and Irene in grey silk shot with palest green. He looked, sideways, at Fleur’s face. Rather colourless⁠—no light, no eagerness! That love affair was preying on her⁠—a bad business! He looked beyond, at his wife’s face, rather more touched up than usual, a little disdainful⁠—not that she had any business to disdain, so far as he could see. She was taking Profond’s defection with curious quietude; or was his “small” voyage just a blind? If so, he should refuse to see it! Having promenaded round the pitch and in front of the pavilion, they sought Winifred’s table in the Bedouin Club tent. This Club⁠—a new “cock and hen”⁠—had been founded in the interests of travel, and of a gentleman with an old Scottish name, whose father had somewhat strangely been called Levi. Winifred had joined, not because she had travelled, but because instinct told her that a Club with such a name and such a founder was bound to go far; if one didn’t join at once one might never have the chance. Its tent, with a text from the Koran on an orange ground, and a small green camel embroidered over the entrance, was the most striking on the ground. Outside it they found Jack Cardigan in a dark blue tie (he had once played for Harrow), batting with a Malacca cane to show how that fellow ought to have hit that ball. He piloted them in. Assembled in Winifred’s corner were Imogen, Benedict with his young wife, Val Dartie without Holly, Maud and her husband, and, after Soames and his two were seated, one empty place.

“I’m expecting Prosper,” said Winifred, “but he’s so busy with his yacht.”

Soames stole a glance. No movement in his wife’s face! Whether that fellow were coming or not, she evidently knew all about it. It did not escape him that Fleur, too, looked at her mother. If Annette didn’t respect his feelings, she might think of Fleur’s! The conversation, very desultory, was syncopated by Jack Cardigan talking about “mid-off.” He cited all the “great mid-offs” from the beginning of time, as if they had been a definite racial entity in the composition of the British people. Soames had finished his lobster, and was beginning on pigeon-pie, when he heard the words, “I’m a small bit late, Mrs. Dartie,” and saw that there was no longer any empty place. That fellow was sitting between Annette and Imogen. Soames ate steadily on, with an occasional word to Maud and Winifred. Conversation buzzed around him. He heard the voice of Profond say:

“I think you’re mistaken, Mrs. Forsyde; I’ll⁠—I’ll bet Miss Forsyde agrees with me.”

“In what?” came Fleur’s clear voice across the table.

“I was sayin’, young gurls are much the same as they always were⁠—there’s very small difference.”

“Do you know so much about them?”

That sharp reply caught the ears of all, and Soames moved uneasily on his thin green chair.

“Well, I don’t know, I think they want their own small way, and I think they always did.”

“Indeed!”

“Oh, but⁠—Prosper,” Winifred interjected comfortably, “the girls in the streets⁠—the girls who’ve been in munitions, the little flappers in the shops; their manners now really quite hit you in the eye.”

At the word “hit” Jack Cardigan stopped his disquisition; and in the silence Monsieur Profond said:

“It was inside before, now it’s outside; that’s all.”

“But their morals!” cried Imogen.

“Just as moral as they ever were, Mrs. Cardigan, but they’ve got more opportunity.”

The saying, so cryptically cynical, received a little laugh from Imogen, a slight opening of Jack Cardigan’s mouth, and a creak from Soames’ chair.

Winifred said: “That’s too bad, Prosper.”

“What do you say, Mrs. Forsyde; don’t you think human nature’s always the same?”

Soames subdued a sudden longing to get up and kick the fellow. He heard his wife reply:

“Human nature is not the same in England as anywhere else.” That was her confounded mockery!

“Well, I don’t know much about this small country”⁠—“No, thank God!” thought Soames⁠—“but I should say the pot was boilin’ under the lid everywhere. We all want pleasure, and we always did.”

Damn the fellow! His cynicism was⁠—was outrageous!

When lunch was over they broke up into couples for the digestive promenade. Too proud to notice, Soames knew perfectly that Annette and that fellow had gone prowling round together. Fleur was with Val; she had chosen him, no doubt, because