The Forsyte Saga - Volume 1

A heavy sky seemed to cover the world with the grey whiteness of a

whitewashed ceiling. There was no freshness or fragrance in the air. On

such a day even British workmen scarcely cared to do more 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.