Swithin moved his arm, and said in a rumbling voice:
"Dinner, now--dinner!"
He took in Irene, on the ground that he had not entertained her since
she was a bride. June was the portion of Bosinney, who was placed
between Irene and his fiancee. On the other side of June was James with
Mrs. Nicholas, then old Jolyon with Mrs. James, Nicholas with Hatty
Chessman, Soames with Mrs. Small, completing, the circle to Swithin
again.
Family dinners of the Forsytes observe certain traditions. There are,
for instance, no hors d'oeuvre. The reason for this is unknown. Theory
among the younger members traces it to the disgraceful price of oysters;
it is more probably due to a desire to come to the point, to a good
practical sense deciding at once that hors d'oeuvre are but poor things.
The Jameses alone, unable to withstand a custom almost universal in Park
Lane, are now and then unfaithful.
A silent, almost morose, inattention to each other succeeds to the
subsidence into their seats, lasting till well into the first entree,
but interspersed with remarks such as, "Tom's bad again; I can't tell
what's the matter with him!" "I suppose Ann doesn't come down in the
mornings?"--"What's the name of your doctor, Fanny?" "Stubbs?" "He's a
quack!"--"Winifred? She's got too many children. Four, isn't it? She's
as thin as a lath!"--"What d'you give for this sherry, Swithin? Too dry
for me!"
With the second glass of champagne, a kind of hum makes itself heard,
which, when divested of casual accessories and resolved into its primal
element, is found to be James telling a story, and this goes on for
a long time, encroaching sometimes even upon what must universally be
recognised as the crowning point of a Forsyte feast--'the saddle of
mutton.'
No Forsyte has given a dinner without providing a saddle of mutton.
There is something in its succulent solidity which makes it suitable to
people 'of a certain position.' It is nourishing and tasty; the sort of
thing a man remembers eating. It has a past and a future, like a deposit
paid into a bank; and it is something that can be argued about.
Each branch of the family tenaciously held to a particular locality--old
Jolyon swearing by Dartmoor, James by Welsh, Swithin by Southdown,
Nicholas maintaining that people might sneer, but there was nothing like
New Zealand! As for Roger, the 'original' of the brothers, he had been
obliged to invent a locality of his own, and with an ingenuity worthy of
a man who had devised a new profession for his sons, he had discovered
a shop where they sold German; on being remonstrated with, he had proved
his point by producing a butcher's bill, which showed that he paid more
than any of the others. It was on this occasion that old Jolyon, turning
to June, had said in one of his bursts of philosophy: