The morning came, cold, with a high, grey, London sky, and at half-past ten the first carriage, that of James, drove up.  It contained James and his son-in-law Dartie, a fine man, with a square chest, buttoned very tightly into a frock coat, and a sallow, fattish face adorned with dark, well-curled moustaches, and that incorrigible commencement of whisker which, eluding the strictest attempts at shaving, seems the mark of something deeply ingrained in the personality of the shaver, being especially noticeable in men who speculate.

Soames, in his capacity of executor, received the guests, for Timothy still kept his bed; he would get up after the funeral; and Aunts Juley and Hester would not be coming down till all was over, when it was understood there would be lunch for anyone who cared to come back.  The next to arrive was Roger, still limping from the gout, and encircled by three of his sons—­young Roger, Eustace, and Thomas.  George, the remaining son, arrived almost immediately afterwards in a hansom, and paused in the hall to ask Soames how he found undertaking pay.

They disliked each other.

Then came two Haymans—­Giles and Jesse perfectly silent, and very well dressed, with special creases down their evening trousers.  Then old Jolyon alone.  Next, Nicholas, with a healthy colour in his face, and a carefully veiled sprightliness in every movement of his head and body.  One of his sons followed him, meek and subdued.  Swithin Forsyte, and Bosinney arrived at the same moment,—­and stood—­bowing precedence to each other,—­but on the door opening they tried to enter together; they renewed their apologies in the hall, and, Swithin, settling his stock, which had become disarranged in the struggle, very slowly mounted the stairs.  The other Hayman; two married sons of Nicholas, together with Tweetyman, Spender, and Warry, the husbands of married Forsyte and Hayman daughters.  The company was then complete, twenty-one in all, not a male member of the family being absent but Timothy and young Jolyon.

Entering the scarlet and green drawing-room, whose apparel made so vivid a setting for their unaccustomed costumes, each tried nervously to find a seat, desirous of hiding the emphatic blackness of his trousers.  There seemed a sort of indecency in that blackness and in the colour of their gloves—­a sort of exaggeration of the feelings; and many cast shocked looks of secret envy at ‘the Buccaneer,’ who had no gloves, and was wearing grey trousers.  A subdued hum of conversation rose, no one speaking of the departed, but each asking after the other, as though thereby casting an indirect libation to this event, which they had come to honour.

And presently James said: 

“Well, I think we ought to be starting.”

They went downstairs, and, two and two, as they had been told off in strict precedence, mounted the carriages.