On the day of the cancelled meeting at the National Gallery began the
second anniversary of the resurrection of England's pride and glory--or,
more shortly, the top hat. "Lord's"--that festival which the War had
driven from the field--raised its light and dark blue flags for the
second time, displaying almost every feature of a glorious past. Here,
in the luncheon interval, were all species of female and one species
of male hat, protecting the multiple types of face associated with
"the classes." The observing Forsyte might discern in the free or
unconsidered seats a certain number of the squash-hatted, but they
hardly ventured on the grass; the old school--or schools--could
still rejoice that the proletariat was not yet paying the necessary
half-crown. Here was still a close borough, the only one left on a
large scale--for the papers were about to estimate the attendance at ten
thousand. And the ten thousand, all animated by one hope, were asking
each other one question: "Where are you lunching?" Something wonderfully
uplifting and reassuring in that query and the sight of so many
people like themselves voicing it! What reserve power in the British
realm--enough pigeons, lobsters, lamb, salmon mayonnaise, strawberries,
and bottles of champagne to feed the lot! No miracle in prospect--no
case of seven loaves and a few fishes--faith rested on surer
foundations. Six thousand top hats, four thousand parasols would be
doffed and furled, ten thousand mouths all speaking the same English
would be filled. There was life in the old dog yet! Tradition! And again
Tradition! How strong and how elastic! Wars might rage, taxation prey,
Trades Unions take toll, and Europe perish of starvation; but the ten
thousand would be 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.