The Forsyte Saga - Volume 1

Like old Jolyon, he, too, at the bottom of his heart set the blame of

the tragedy down to family interference. What business had that lot--he

began to think of the Stanhope Gate branch, including young Jolyon and

his daughter, as 'that lot'--to introduce a person like this Bosinney

into the family? (He had heard George's soubriquet, 'The Buccaneer,' but

he could make nothing of that--the young man was an architect.)

He began to feel that his brother Jolyon, to whom he had always looked

up and on whose opinion he had relied, was not quite what he had

expected.

Not having his eldest brother's force of character, he was more sad than

angry. His great comfort was to go to Winifred's, and take the little

Darties in his carriage over to Kensington Gardens, and there, by the

Round Pond, he could often be seen walking with his eyes fixed anxiously

on little Publius Dartie's sailing-boat, which he had himself freighted

with a penny, as though convinced that it would never again come to

shore; while little Publius--who, James delighted to say, was not a bit

like his father skipping along under his lee, would try to get him to

bet another that it never would, having found that it always did. And

James would make the bet; he always paid--sometimes as many as three

or four pennies in the afternoon, for the game seemed never to pall

on little Publius--and always in paying he said: "Now, that's for your

money-box. Why, you're getting quite a rich man!" The thought of his

little grandson's growing wealth was a real pleasure to him. But little

Publius knew a sweet-shop, and a trick worth two of that.

And they would walk home across the Park, James' figure, with high

shoulders and absorbed and worried face, exercising its tall, lean

protectorship, pathetically unregarded, over the robust child-figures of

Imogen and little Publius.

But those Gardens and that Park were not sacred to James. Forsytes and

tramps, children and lovers, rested and wandered day after day, night

after night, seeking one and all some freedom from labour, from the reek

and turmoil of the streets.

The leaves browned slowly, lingering with the sun and summer-like warmth

of the nights.

On Saturday, October 5, the sky that had been blue all day deepened

after sunset to the bloom of purple grapes. There was no moon, and a

clear dark, like some velvety garment, was wrapped around the trees,

whose thinned branches, resembling plumes, stirred not in the still,

warm air. All London had poured into the Park, draining the cup of

summer to its dregs.