Indian Summer of a Forsyte

“And Summer’s lease hath all too short a date.”

— Shakespeare

In the last day of May in the early ‘nineties, about six o’clock of the evening, old Jolyon Forsyte sat under the oak tree below the terrace of his house at Robin Hill.

He was waiting for the midges to bite him, before abandoning the glory of the afternoon.

His thin brown hand, where blue veins stood out, held the end of a cigar in its tapering, long-nailed fingers — a pointed polished nail had survived with him from those earlier Victorian days when to touch nothing, even with the tips of the fingers, had been so distinguished.

His domed forehead, great white moustache, lean cheeks, and long lean jaw were covered from the westering sunshine by an old brown Panama hat.

His legs were crossed; in all his attitude was serenity and a kind of elegance, as of an old man who every morning put eau de Cologne upon his silk handkerchief.

At his feet lay a woolly brown-and-white dog trying to be a Pomeranian — the dog Balthasar between whom and old Jolyon primal aversion had changed into attachment with the years.

Close to his chair was a swing, and on the swing was seated one of Holly’s dolls — called

‘Duffer Alice’ — with her body fallen over her legs and her doleful nose buried in a black petticoat.

She was never out of disgrace, so it did not matter to her how she sat.

Below the oak tree the lawn dipped down a bank, stretched to the fernery, and, beyond that refinement, became fields, dropping to the pond, the coppice, and the prospect — ‘Fine, remarkable’ — at which Swithin Forsyte, from under this very tree, had stared five years ago when he drove down with Irene to look at the house.

Old Jolyon had heard of his brother’s exploit — that drive which had become quite celebrated on Forsyte ‘Change.

Swithin!

And the fellow had gone and died, last November, at the age of only seventy-nine, renewing the doubt whether Forsytes could live for ever, which had first arisen when Aunt Ann passed away.

Died! and left only Jolyon and James, Roger and Nicholas and Timothy, Julia, Hester, Susan!

And old Jolyon thought:

‘Eighty-five!

I don’t feel it — except when I get that pain.’