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Rose turned to Jenny. “Isn’t it awful?” she said confidentially, pulling her mouth down at the corners.
Jenny appeared startled. So far they had shared the artificial conversation of acquaintances who did not care for each other but were civil in their mutual interest.
Suddenly Rose giggled. It was a rich, absurdly happy sound. “Not the food! The music, if you can call it that. Why on earth can’t we be honest? Nobody feels like playing a dirge because the old fool is dead. Most of them couldn’t wait for him to go. Death is about the only thing that finally made him hold his tongue.”
Jenny pretended she was not taken aback. She took a deep breath and answered with a slightly shaky voice. “That may be true, but we would be wiser not to say so, Mrs. Applegate.”
Hester realized she had been holding her breath, almost till it hurt. What on earth was the matter with Rose? This was not part of their plan.
“To be wise all the time is the utmost foolishness!” Rose said rather loudly. “We are so careful being wise, we never commit any indiscretions, unless they are colossal and catastrophic!” She swung her arms wide to show how very huge the indiscretions were, nearly knocking Jenny’s glass out of her hand. “Look what you’re doing!” she reproached her. “Bad wine stains, you know.”
Jenny looked embarrassed. Several other people turned to look at Rose, then away again quickly.
A waiter passed, and Rose took another glass from his tray, but this time she took the wine. She drank it down in one long draught, then tossed the glass over her shoulder. It fell on the floor with a tinkle as it broke. She ignored it entirely and strode over towards the musicians. She made a magnificent figure, head high, skirts swaying, her handsome face bristling with life. She stood in front of the dais.
“For heaven’s sake, stop that awful screeching!” she commanded fiercely. “You on the violin, you sound like a cat wailing for a fish head. Unless you think the poor old sod went to dismal torment, which I admit is likely, try to sound as if you believed in the forgiveness of God, and some chance of heaven for him!”
The violinist clasped her hands to her bosom and let the violin slither down her dress and fall onto the floor.
Rose stooped and picked it up. She put it under her chin, seized the bow, and began to play astonishingly well. She began with the same music they had been playing, but she altered the tempo to that of the music hall, and then slid into one of the concert songs, swift and bawdy.
The pianist gave a little squawk of horror and sat stark still with her mouth open. The cellist burst into tears.
“Oh, stop it!” Rose commanded her. “Pull yourself together! And hold that thing properly!” She pointed to the cello. “Like a lover, not as if it just made you an indecent proposal!”
The cellist flung the instrument on the ground and fled, the bow trailing behind her.
Someone in the audience fainted, or pretended to. Another began to laugh hysterically. A man started to sing the words to the song. He had a rich baritone voice and—most unfortunately—knew all the words.
Hester stood frozen, aware of Jenny beside her and Alan Argyll a few feet away, paralyzed.
Rose did not hesitate a stroke but kept on playing in perfect time, swaying and tapping her feet.
Suddenly the pianist abandoned all propriety and joined in. Her face was fixed in a terrified smile, showing all her teeth.
Alan Argyll jerked to life, moving to stand at Hester’s elbow. “For heaven’s sake,” he hissed. “Can’t you do anything to stop her? This is appalling! Morgan Applegate will never live it down!”
Hester realized she was probably the only person who could do anything. She was Rose’s friend. Therefore it was an act of the utmost compassion and necessity that she intervene. She walked forward to the dais, picked up her borrowed and rather long skirts and stepped up. Rose was still playing very elegantly. She was on to a different song now, but no better.
“Rose!” Hester said quietly, but with as much authority as she could manage. “That’s enough now. Let the violinist have her instrument back. It’s time we went home.”
“Home, sweet home!” Rose said cheerfully, and loudly. “That’s a terrible song, Hester. Positively maudlin! We’re celebrating Sir what’s-hisname’s death. At least—I mean we’re remembering his life with…with regrets…I shouldn’t have said that!” She started to laugh. “Far too close to the truth. Should never speak the truth at funerals. If a man was a crashing bore like Lord Kinsdale, you say he was fearfully well-bred.”
There was a gasp of horror from the maid. “If a woman had a face like a burst boot, such as Lady Alcott,” she went on, “you say what a kind heart she had.” She laughed again, stepping back out of Hester’s reach and speaking even more loudly. “If he was a liar and a cheat, like Mr. Worthington, you praise his wit. If he betrayed his wife with half the neighborhood, you talk all about his generosity. Everyone keeps a straight face, and weeps a lot into their handkerchiefs to hide their laughter.” She hiccupped and ignored it. “You don’t understand,” she went on, looking a little dizzily at Hester. “You’ve spent too much time in the army.”
“Oh, God!” someone groaned.
Someone else began to giggle and couldn’t stop. It was wild, hilarious, hysterical laughter, soaring higher and higher.
Rose was hopelessly drunk. She must have had far more than Hester had seen or realized. Was this the terrible weakness that Morgan Applegate had been trying to guard her against? Had he the faintest idea what she was like? What she was saying so devastatingly loudly was awful! The worse for being perfectly true, and what everyone was secretly thinking.
Rose was about to start playing the violin again. The pianist was waiting, half in agony, half in ecstasy. It was probably a night she would remember for the rest of her life. She kept her eyes straight ahead and took a deep breath, then plunged in with a resounding bass chord, and then a trill on the top notes.
Hester was desperate. It was all completely out of control, and part of her was on the edge of laughter. It was only the knowledge of ruin that stopped her joining in. She snatched the violin bow from Rose, gripping it around the middle in a fashion that probably did it little good. She flung it behind her, towards the back of the dais, where at least no one would tread on it. The original violinist was still collapsed in a heap, and someone was waving a fan at her quite uselessly. The cellist had disappeared completely.
“You are going home because you are no longer welcome here,” Hester told Rose as sternly as she could. “Put that violin down and take my arm! Do as you are told!”
“I thought we could play a game,” Rose protested. “Charades, don’t you think? Or perhaps not—we’re playing it all the time, really, aren’t we? Or blindman’s buff? We could all grope around, bumping into each other and grabbing hold of the prettiest, or the richest…no, that’s being done too. All the time. What do you suggest?” She looked at Hester expectantly.
