Roger's house in Prince's Gardens was brilliantly alight. Large numbers
of wax candles had been collected and placed in cut-glass chandeliers,
and the parquet floor of the long, double drawing-room reflected these
constellations. An appearance of real spaciousness had been secured by
moving out all the furniture on to the upper landings, and enclosing
the room with those strange appendages of civilization known as 'rout'
seats. In a remote corner, embowered in palms, was a cottage piano, with
a copy of the 'Kensington Coil' open on the music-stand.
Roger had objected to a band. He didn't see in the least what they
wanted with a band; he wouldn't go to the expense, and there was an end
of it. Francie (her mother, whom Roger had long since reduced to chronic
dyspepsia, went to bed on such occasions), had been obliged to content
herself with supplementing the piano by a young man who played the
cornet, and she so arranged with palms that anyone who did not look into
the heart of things might imagine there were several musicians secreted
there. She made up her mind to tell them to play loud--there was a lot
of music in a cornet, if the man would only put his soul into it.
In the more cultivated American tongue, she was 'through' at
last--through that tortuous labyrinth of make-shifts, which must be
traversed before fashionable display can be combined with the sound
economy of a Forsyte. Thin but brilliant, in her maize-coloured frock
with much tulle about the shoulders, she went from place to place,
fitting on her gloves, and casting her eye over it all.
To the hired butler (for Roger only kept maids) she spoke about the
wine. Did he quite understand that Mr. Forsyte wished a dozen bottles of
the champagne from Whiteley's to be put out? But if that were finished
(she did not suppose it would be, most of the ladies would drink water,
no doubt), but if it were, there was the champagne cup, and he must do
the best he could with that.
She hated having to say this sort of thing to a butler, it was so infra
dig.; but what could you do with father? Roger, indeed, after making
himself consistently disagreeable about the dance, would come down
presently, with his fresh colour and bumpy forehead, as though he had
been its promoter; and he would smile, and probably take the prettiest
woman in to supper; and at two o'clock, just as they were getting into
the swing, he would go up secretly to the musicians and tell them to
play 'God Save the Queen,' and go away.