The Forsyte Saga - Volume 1

So June went to the sea. The family awaited developments; there was

nothing else to do.

But how far--how far had 'those two' gone? How far were they going to

go? Could they really be going at all? Nothing could surely come of it,

for neither of them had any money. At the most a flirtation, ending, as

all such attachments should, at the proper time.

Soames' sister, Winifred Dartie, who had imbibed with the breezes of

Mayfair--she lived in Green Street--more fashionable principles in

regard to matrimonial behaviour than were current, for instance, in

Ladbroke Grove, laughed at the idea of there being anything in it. The

'little thing'--Irene was taller than herself, and it was real testimony

to the solid worth of a Forsyte that she should always thus be a 'little

thing'--the little thing was bored. Why shouldn't she amuse herself?

Soames was rather tiring; and as to Mr. Bosinney--only that buffoon

George would have called him the Buccaneer--she maintained that he was

very chic.

This dictum--that Bosinney was chic--caused quit a sensation. It failed

to convince. That he was 'good-looking in a way' they were prepared to

admit, but that anyone could call a man with his pronounced cheekbones,

curious eyes, and soft felt hats chic was only another instance of

Winifred's extravagant way of running after something new.

It was that famous summer when extravagance was fashionable, when the

very earth was extravagant, chestnut-trees spread with blossom, and

flowers drenched in perfume, as they had never been before; when roses

blew in every garden; and for the swarming stars the nights had hardly

space; when every day and all day long the sun, in full armour, swung

his brazen shield above the Park, and people did strange things,

lunching and dining in the open air. Unprecedented was the tale of cabs

and carriages that streamed across the bridges of the shining river,

bearing the upper-middle class in thousands to the green glories of

Bushey, Richmond, Kew, and Hampton Court. Almost every family with any

pretensions to be of the carriage-class paid one visit that year to

the horse-chestnuts at Bushey, or took one drive amongst the Spanish

chestnuts of Richmond Park. Bowling smoothly, if dustily, along, in

a cloud of their own creation, they would stare fashionably at the

antlered heads which the great slow deer raised out of a forest of

bracken that promised to autumn lovers such cover as was never seen

before. And now and again, as the amorous perfume of chestnut flowers

and of fern was drifted too near, one would say to the other: "My dear!

What a peculiar scent!"