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Pâté à brioches(puff pastry?), baked in Charlotte moulds. Remove the paste from the inside, leaving a lid, which must be glazed with "Royale" jelly, and decoratedaux fruits de clemont, or preserved fruits. Sugar over your timbales on the other side with coloured sugar, choosing very brilliant colours.Cut up some fresh fruits, such as pineapples, pears, bananas, apricots, cherries, and grapes. Put these fruits into an apricot sauce, with kirsch and maraschino. Heat well, and fill your timbales. Serve without any delay.
It was pleasant to see Miss Dainty's (of all the principal London theatres) handwriting again. She had read all the "Dinners and Diners," she told me, and did not think that any of them were as good as the one when I had the inspiration or her presence. She had been very ill—at the point of death, indeed—owing to a sprained ankle, which prevented her going to Ascot, for which race-meeting she had ordered three dresses, each of which was a dream. Why did I take out to dinner nobody but Editors and Society ladies now? The parrot was very well, but was pecking the feathers out of his tail. She had some new pets—two goldfish, whose glass bowl had been broken and who now lived in a big yellow vase. The cat had eaten one of the love-birds, and was ill for two days afterwards. The pug had been exchanged for a fox-terrier—Jack, the dearest dog in the world. Jack had gone up the river on the electric launch and had fought two dogs, and had been bitten over the eye, and had covered all his mistress's white piqué skirtwith blood; but for all that he was a duck and his mother's own darling.
This, much summarised, was the pretty little lady's letter, and I wrote back at once to say that the pleasure of entertaining a princess of the blood-royal was as nothing to the honour of her company, and if the foot was well enough, would she honour me with her presence at dinner anywhere she liked? And, as the weather had turned tropical, I suggested either Richmond or Greenwich or the restaurant at Earl's Court.
Greenwich the fair lady gave her decision for, and then I made a further suggestion: that, if she did not mind unaristocratic company, the pleasantest way was to go by boat.
This suggestion was accepted, and Miss Dainty in the late afternoon called for me at a dingy Fleet Street office. I was delighted to see the little lady, looking very fresh and nice as she sat back in her cab, and I trust that my face showed nothing except pleasure when I perceived a small fox-terrier with a large muzzle and a long leash sitting by her side. Miss Dainty explained that as she had allowed her maid to go out for the afternoon she had to bring Jack, and of course I said that I was delighted.
We embarked at the Temple pier on a boat, which was as most river boats are. There were gentlemen who had neglected to shave smoking strong pipes; there were affable ladies of a conversational tendency, and there were a violin and harp; but there were as a compensation all the beautiful sights of the river to be seen, the cathedral-like Tower Bridge, the forest ofshipping, the red-sailed boats fighting their way up against the tide, the line of barges in picturesque zig-gag following the puffing tugs; and all these things Miss Dainty saw and appreciated. There was much to tell, too, that Miss Dainty had not written in her letter, and Jack was a never-failing source of interest. Jack wound his leash round the legs of the pipe-smoking gentlemen, was not quite sure that the babies of the conversational ladies were not somethings that he ought to eat, and at intervals wanted to go overboard and fight imaginary dogs in the Thames.
Arrived at Greenwich, at the Ship (the tavern with a rather dingy front, with two tiers of bow windows, with its little garden gay with white and green lamps, and with its fountain and rockery which had bits of paper and straws floating in the basin), I asked for the proprietor. Mr. Bale, thickset, and with a little moustache, came out of his room, and whether it was that Fleet Street and the Thames had given me a tramp-like appearance, or whether it was that he did not at once take a fancy to Jack, I could not say, but he did not seem overjoyed to see us. Yet presently he thawed, told me that he had kept a table by the window for us, and that our dinner would be ready at 6.30, as I had telegraphed.
In the meantime I suggested that we should see the rest of the house. "Would it not be better to leave the dog downstairs?" suggested Mr. Bale, and Jack was tied up somewhere below, while we went round the upper two stories ofdining-rooms—for the Ship is a house of nothing but dining-rooms. It is a tavern, not a hotel, and there are no bedrooms for guests. We went into the pleasant bow-windowed rooms on the first floor, in one of which a table was laid ready, with a very beautiful decoration of pink and white flowers, and in the other of which stand the busts of Fox and Pitt. We looked at the two curious wooden images in the passage, at the chairs with the picture of a ship let into their backs, and at the flags of all nations which hang in the long banqueting-room; and all the time Jack, tied up below, lifted up his voice and wept.
I asked if Jack might be allowed to come into the dining-room and sit beside his mistress while we had dinner, giving the dog a character for peacefulness and quiet for which I might have been prosecuted for perjury; but it was against the rules of the house, and Mr. Bale suggested that if Jack was tied up to a pole of the awning just outside the window he would be able to gaze through the glass at his mistress and be happy.
A fine old Britannic waiter, who looked like a very much reduced copy of Sir William Vernon-Harcourt, put down two round silver dishes, lifted up the covers, and there were two souchés, one of salmon and one of flounder. I helped Miss Dainty to some of the salmon and filled her glass with the '84 Pommery, which, after much thought, I had selected from the wine list. But she touched neither; her eyes were on Jack outside, for that accomplished dog, after doing a maypole dance round the pole, had now arrivedat the end of his leash—and incipient strangulation. Miss Dainty went outside to rescue her pet from instant death, and I, having eaten my souché, followed. Jack wanted water, and a sympathetic hall porter who appeared on the scene volunteered to get him a soup-plateful, and tie him somewhere where he could not strangle himself.
The souchés had been removed, and some lobster rissoles and fried slips had taken their place. Miss Dainty took a rissole and ate it while she watched the hall porter put Jack's plate of water down, and I made short work of a slip and was going to try the rissoles when Jack, in a plaintive tone of voice, informed the world that something was the matter. His mistress understood him at once. The poor dear would not drink his water unless she stood by; and this having been proved by actual fact, Miss Dainty, with myself in attendance, came back to find that whiting puddings and stewed eels had taken the place of the former dishes.
Miss Dainty took a small helping of the eels, looked at it, and then turned her eyes again to Jack, who was going through a series of gymnastics. I ate my whiting pudding, which I love, in fevered haste, and had got halfway through my helping of eels, when Miss Dainty discovered what was the matter with Jack. The boys on the steps below were annoying him, and the only way to keep him quiet would be to give him some bones. The sympathetic hall porter again came to the rescue, and Jack, under his mistress's eye, made fine trencher play with two bones.
There was a look of reproach in the veteran waiter's eye when we came back and found the crab omelette and salmon cutletsà l'Indiennewere cooling. I tried to draw Miss Dainty's attention away from Jack. I told her how Mr.Punchhad called her Faustine, and had written a page about her; but when she found there was nothing to quote in her book of press notices she lost all interest in the hump-backed gentleman.
With the advent of the plain whitebait a new danger to Jack arose. A turtle was brought by three men on to the lawn and turned loose, and Miss Dainty had to go out and assure herself that Jack was not frightened, and that the turtle was not meditating an attack upon him.
The turtle was found to be a harmless and interesting insect, and having been shown, with practical illustrations, how the beast was captured by savages, Miss Dainty took great pity on it, collected water in the soup-plate from the fountain, poured it over its head, and tried to induce it to drink, which the turtle steadfastly refused to do.
The veteran waiter was stern when we returned and found the devilled whitebait on the table. I told him to bring the coffee and liqueurs and bill out into the garden, because Miss Dainty, having been separated from her dog so long, wanted to nurse and pet him.
This was the bill:—Two dinners, 14s.; one Pommery '84, 18s.; two liqueurs, 1s. 6d.; coffee, 1s.; attendance, 1s.; total, £1: 15: 6.
We sat and watched St. Paul's stand clearagainst the sunset, and Miss Dainty, her dog happy in her lap, suddenly said, "If you give this place a good notice, I'll never speak to you again."
"Why?" I replied. "The whitebait was delicious, the whiting pudding capital, the omelette good. I liked the fried slips and the rissoles."
"Yes, perhaps," said Miss Dainty, with a pout. "But they wouldn't let me have my dog in the dining-room!"
19th July.
I have a vague remembrance of having as a small boy been taken round the Houses of Lords and Commons as a holiday treat. The Houses cannot have been sitting at the time, and the only thing that I remembered was the fact that the Lords sat on red seats, the Commons on green.
I did once, in later years, make an attempt to gain admission to hear a debate; but, after some waiting, the legislator to whom I had sent in my card came out with rather a long face. He had moved heaven and earth, he said, to find a place for me, but it was impossible. However, he suggested, brightening up, there was nothing to prevent our going together to the Aquarium over the way, which we should find much more amusing.
The House of Commons was, therefore, quite new ground to me, and I was very pleased when the Rising Legislator asked me if I would not dine some night with him in the House and hear a debate afterwards.
The House of Commons is a nice comfortingaddress to give a cabman, and as I drove down Westminster wards I felt that in the eyes of one individual I was that glorious person, an M.P.
But, if my cabman thought I was the member for somewhere or another, he was soon undeceived. We bowled into Palace Yard as if the place belonged to me, and pulled up at an arched door, where a policeman was on guard. I mentioned the Rising Legislator's name, but the policeman, who, though hard-hearted, had excellent manners, could not admit me except on the personal appearance of my host.
"Then where am I to go?" I said, appealing to the better side of that policeman's nature, and he told me to go out of the yard and turn to the right, and I would be admitted at the first door. The cabman, who had been listening, must have been satisfied with the fare I gave him, for he invited me to get into the cab again, and said he would take me round to the right place in a jiffy. Though friendly, there was a distinct familiarity now in the cabman's manner. I had ceased to be an M.P. in his eyes.
The policeman at this other door was not hard-hearted, and directed me up a long lobby, on either side of which were gentlemen of various periods, in very white marble. Every policeman I passed I mentioned the Rising Legislator's name to, just as a guarantee of good faith, and I was passed on to a central lobby, where a small selection of the public, looking very melancholy, were sitting patiently on a stone bench, and where gentlemen of noble appearance—I do not wish to be brought up at the bar of the Housefor saying anything disrespectful of any member of the House—were in converse with others, whom I took to be influential constituents. Some ladies in evening dress were being shown about by smart gentlemen. There were policemen guarding an entrance, and whenever anybody of the outside crowd approached it they were warned away with a kind of "stand out of the draught" motion. It is, no doubt, some deadly crime to get in the way of an M.P. in his own House.
A policeman directed me to write the Rising Legislator's name on the back of my card, and, having scrutinised it to see whether I had spelled the name correctly, handed it over to a gentleman in dress clothes with what looked like a gilt plate with the Royal arms on it at the V of his waistcoat. I waited some little time and inspected the statues, some of which were rather comic, in the Lobby.
Presently the Rising Legislator appeared, and apologised for being somewhat late. A chat with a Cabinet Minister was the cause. I felt a sort of reflected glory in this. We passed the sacred portals, and, as we did so, I gave the policeman a glance as much as to say. "You see, I didn't deceive you; I really do know him!" And I set my hat on the side of my head with more of a cock. "It is the custom for no one except the members of the House to wear their hats here," said the Rising Legislator; and I relapsed again into humility.
We peeped through a door and I was shown the Speaker in the chair, whom I looked at withdue awe; and then we went down a long, panelled passage, the panels being the lockers, of which each member has one, and presently we were in a lofty room with three great windows, and the Rising Legislator was asking for the table that had been reserved for him.
It is a fine room, this Strangers' Dining-Room. The ceiling is nobly ornamented, and the clusters of electric lights dropping from it illumine the room cheerfully. On the walls is a paper with a pattern in which heraldic roses and fleurs-de-lys play the principal part; the curtains to the windows are of a soft green, and at about the height of a man's head, topping the oak panelling, is a fine work of art, a broad border of carvings of such things as furnish the good fare of the table. The great windows, looking out on the Terrace and the river, have massive stone frames, and inside they have as well a second wooden framing, with all the modern appliances for letting in fresh air. There is a little desk, with an accountant sitting at it. Beyond him, through an open door, there is a glimpse of the Members' Dining-Room. The chairs are covered with green leather, and have stamped on their backs a gilt portcullis. It is in most things just like the dining-room of some big club.
I had asked to be given the ordinary dinner; but the Rising Legislator insisted on our having either a duck or a chicken in our menu. He orderedconsommé Brunoise, which, looking at the bill of fare with him, I saw would cost him 5d. a portion; whitebait;noisettes de mouton aux haricots verts, two portions of which would cost him halfa crown. From the price list I gathered, too, that hon. members can have a dinner, at fixed price, of two courses for 1s. 9d., three for 2s. 3d., four for 3s.
There was a difficulty about the duck, or chicken, and the waiter had to go from the table to the desk a couple of times before it was discovered that the Rising Legislator could have a duck; and a fine fat duck it was when it appeared. "I have got to speak to-night," said the Rising Legislator, "and therefore we must have champagne," and he ordered some '89 Clicquot to be put on ice. While thepourparlersas to the duck were in progress I had time to look round at the little tables and the people dining at them. There were but few diners yet; but two of the faces at the table next to ours caught my eye at once as being familiar. The hair, with a streak of grey in it, the long face, the spectacles, the straight beard, belonged to Mr. Dillon, and the man opposite to him with the penthouse brows and the sleeve pinned up on to his coat was Michael Davitt. The little stout gentleman with a moustache, fingering his pince-nez, who came up presently to speak to them, was Dr. Tanner.
Just as the duck difficulty was settled and our soup put before us, somebody entered the room and mumbled something in a loud voice. "Speaker has left the chair," said the Rising Legislator in explanation, and immediately the tables began to fill. Mr. Walter Long and two friends were the first to enter; then, in succession, baldish of head, bearded, and in a very long frock-coat, SirWilliam Wedderburn; Mr. Morrell, broad of face; Mr. Yoxall, champion of the N.U.T., thin and lightly bearded; Mr. Sam Smith, with a big white beard; and burly Mr. Henniker-Heaton, the Imperial Postmaster-General of time to come—all familiar public figures easy to recognise. Mr. Austen Chamberlain, in a grey Ascot suit and a blue-and-white shirt, hovered about the desk by the entrance, as if waiting for some one who did not appear.
The whitebait was excellent, the duck in life must have been a bird of aldermanic figure, thenoisettesin size would have satisfied a hungry man and in tenderness have pleased a gourmet, and we had come to the strawberry-ice stage when again there was a loud mumble, and the Rising Legislator told me that the Speaker was in the chair.
From strawberry ice we had progressed to coffee and old brandy, when behind the wainscotting there was a ringing as of many bicycle bells, and about half of the diners rose, grasped their hats, and ran as swiftly as if they were going to a fire.
"It is a count," said the Rising Legislator. "Wewill go down on to the Terrace and smoke a cigar before I find you a place to listen to the debate." Down a staircase with beautiful dark old panelling of the napkin pattern we went until we came to the dimness of the Terrace, where a policeman stood at ease to mark the spot sacred to members only, and where the ladies who had dined in the House formed the centres of groups. We watched the lights twinkle inthe great hospital across the dark flood, and the red and green eyes of a launch that came slipping down the river. Presently, with a sigh, the Rising Legislator threw away his cigar. "I suppose we must go in and hear what they are talking of," he said.
26th July.
In the morning, with my shaving water, was brought a note in a dashing feminine handwriting. It was from the little American prima donna to say she was sorry that she had forgotten, but she was engaged to dine with some friends who were leaving England, and would I take her out some other night instead; and she considerately suggested two evenings on which she should have known that I would be out of town for Goodwood.
I felt inclined to reply, like Uncle Gregory, that I knew those friends—"they cum fr' Sheffield"; but I did nothing worse than to write that of course I would take her out with pleasure on the first evening she had vacant when I came back to town.
I had arranged to drive her down to Earl's Court to give her dinner at the Quadrant, to take her on to the lawn of the Welcome Club for coffee and liqueurs, and then to go the round of the side shows. It is not easy in August to find a lady to take out to dinner at twelve hours'notice. Mrs. Charlie Sphinx was at Carlsbad, and Miss Dainty was taking a holiday from the wear and tear of "resting" at some French watering-place. I sent a note round by a cab to Sir George to ask if I might take Miss Brighteyes out to dinner; but the man came back saying that the house was all shut up, and that he could make no one hear.
At the worst, I thought, I could pick up a man at the club; but the few men in the smoking-room had either to go back to their wives or had some dinner engagement. So it came that I started alone for Earl's Court.
I had written for a table to be kept for me at eight o'clock, and a few minutes before the hour I disembarked at the entrance by the lake. It was between the lights, and the great white globes aglow with electricity looked garish against the delicate opal of the sky, and cast strange reflections on the water. I paused for a moment to listen to the blue-coated musicians on their island bandstand commencing the march from "Aïda," and then went past the bronze Gordon on his camel, past a buffet where a little crowd were dining frugally off sandwiches and pale ale, over the long bridge, through the gardens, and at last to the restaurant. In front of the broad awning which stretches before the restaurant, standing by a red rope, which keeps the public from coming too near, are two janitors, who, in their dark blue and peaked caps, look rather like warders: a clerk at a desk, with a big open book before him, sits opposite to the entrance.
Had I booked a table? the clerk asked me as I came up. Certainly I had. I had written that I wanted a particularly good table at eight o'clock. The clerk looked up at a tall gentleman with a reddish beard and moustache who stood behind him, M. Gerard, Messrs. Spiers and Pond's manager, and the gentleman with the beard looked at his watch. It was a quarter-past eight. M. Gerard explained that no tables were kept after eight, and drew a vivid picture of a well-dressed but famished crowd standing outside at the red ropes and threatening to tear down the place if they were not admitted to the vacant places. My table had been given to an eminently respectable couple who did not look as if they would tear down anything, and I was about to go over the way to the Welcome, in wrath, when it was found that there was a table for four, right up against the barrier, vacant; and I settled down in solitary dignity at one of the best tables in the place. A smart young waiter, in white apron and brown coat with pink facings, put the menu in front of me. I ordered a pint of Deutz and Gelderman to be put in ice, and then looked round me.
Immediately behind me a party were being entertained by two young barristers. I could hear but not see them. They were telling legal stories, and there was one as to Inderwick and the House of Lords that set their table in a roar. Opposite to me was a little family of father, mother, and son, and a pretty girl came bustling in to complete the party, with, from her manner, a tale of misadventure and delay to be told.A bald-headed, smart-looking soldier, a cavalryman from his bearing, was giving dinner to a youngster who might be at a crammer's—they were among the few men wearing evening dress; there was an engaged couple who gazed into each other's eyes across the table, and there was a fat gentleman, who I should think was a Jewish financier, who was giving dinner to a girl with many rows of pearls round her throat and a glint of diamonds on her dress. The financier was drinking the girl's health, and as he held back his head to drain his glass she made, lightning quick, a face at him, which said more than pages of history.
I had eaten myhors-d'œuvre, and the waiter brought me the clear soup I had chosen. It was not as hot as it should have been; but the kitchen is some way off from the tables at the far edge of the awning, and, with one of the most wonderful outlooks in the world, one is not prepared to be over particular as to cookery.
The opal tints in the sky had died out and had left it a sheet of steel. On the right the tall white building in which is the panorama was already shining with electric light; the canvas buttresses and towers, looking solid enough now, stood black against the grey. In the bandstand in the centre of the promenade Dan Godfrey and his crimson-coated musicians were playing a waltz air, and a crowd, dimly seen, was moving round and round this centre of attraction. The Welcome Club, with its lighted windows, was away to the left, and, above all, the Great Wheel, starred with lights, moved its circle very gentlyand silently. Men in the half light were running hither and thither with long sticks with a flame at the end, and lights green, white, and rose began to twinkle on all sides.
The choice had been given me betweensaumon, sauce Rubensandfilet de merlan frit, sauce Ravigote. I chose the whiting, and had the cook only been more careful in boning his fish I should have called it excellent.
The engaged couple had left their table, and a merry party, two nice-looking girls, a young, clean-shaven man, and a grey-hairedbon vivant, had taken their places. The girls, who had evidently come out to enjoy themselves thoroughly, were laughing already.
The financier had ordered another bottle of champagne; the girl with the pearls opposite to him, her chin on her fist, was gazing out at the sky from which the light had faded. A big party, the men in evening dress, passed through under the awning to the big room of the restaurant, a room decorated with paintings of Indian gods and heroes and rajahs, and the red shades of the candles on their table made a pleasant note of warm colour.
My waiter brought thepigeon braisé Démidoff. I looked at it and it appeared nice; but I sent it away, for I was not hungry, and there were other dishes still to come.
The sky now was all light indigo, with the clouds deeper patches of the same colour. All the little lamps in the garden were alight, twinkling in great curves against the black of the battlements. The bandstand was outlinedwith rose: the Welcome Club was ablaze with green: the trees under all this light had a strange metallic shine. The rays from the searchlight came sweeping overhead: the Wheel with its circle of stars still turned solemnly. Amidst all the lights one inscription in green and white lamps, "Infant Incubator," fixed itself on my attention, and I found myself wondering what an infant incubator could be like.
The crowd outside had increased in number. There seemed to be many ladies in white with white hats amongst it; there was occasionally a gleam of white shirt fronts; little boys in straw hats and Eton collars dived into the thick, and then reappeared; the programme boys, in grey Early Victorian dress, came and went. The band was hammering away at the "Mikado." Two pretty girls in black dresses with wide white collars, one with a white sailor hat, one with a black one, paused outside to watch us dining. I should have liked to ask them in to dine, for I was feeling very lonely, but I remembered British conventionality, and forbore. Thecôtelette d'agneau à la Bellevuewhich the waiter brought me was hot and well cooked, but I do not think that the chicken, a wing of which succeeded the cutlet, could have lived a very happy life. I think it must have been consumptive.
The restaurant was beginning to empty now, the guests filing out in twos and threes, and vanishing into the parti-coloured crowd; and still the Wheel, with its silent power, turned, and still the "Infant Incubator" danced before my eyes.
The beans, the ice, and the peach with which I finished my dinner were all good—I refused thepouding Victoriawhich was on the menu; and after sipping my coffee and paying my bill—one dinner, 7s. 6d.; one pint 239, 6s. 6d.; liqueur, 2s.; total, 16s.—I obeyed an irresistible impulse and went over to see what an infant incubator was like.
3rd August.
The little American prima donna was not so faithless as I thought, for when, Goodwood being over, I wrote to her and asked her if she would not take pity on a poor bachelor stranded in a deserted town, and drive down to Richmond and dine, she telegraphed back a "Yes," and told me that I might come and pick her up at the Hôtel Cecil.
The covered-in space before the big caravanserai in the Strand in June and July, is almost as representative of English life as is church parade in the Park. In August it is more like the hall of an hotel at some big American watering-place, for our cousins from across the herring-pond take possession of all the seats, and sit all day long drinking iced drinks through straws, and listening to the band.
I found the little prima donna, looking very fresh and cool in pink, rocking herself in a chair, and was immediately denounced for being in dress clothes when I had wired to her not to change into evening dress. I explained thatdress clothes with a man are a very different thing from evening dress with a lady, and also that it was the custom. "Some of your English customs do tire me," was the remark with which the prima donna closed the discussion, and then told me that I might have a cocktail if I thought that it would make me feel good. This libation in honour of the great republic performed, we started. The little prima donna, the dress clothes forgiven, was prepared to be pleased. She had a remark to make as to everything that we passed, and reconstructed for me the Fulham Road as it would be in an American city. In time she thought we might learn how to build a town. The groups of ponies coming back from Ranelagh, where the last match of the season had been played between the Butterflies and a home team, interested her immensely, as also did some of the players driving back in their neat little carts at a great pace, and later on a glimpse of the club grounds with the great elms, the glint of water through a thicket, and the smooth green of the polo ground, set her talking of American polo grounds, Myopia, and other names which were strange to me; and though she was quite sure that the boys over in America could whip our British players every time, still she allowed that they had nothing there quite like the grey old house with its elms and its water. The conversion of the little prima donna was commencing.
The sun set, a red ball dipping into the brown heat mist, as we passed over Barnes Common, and when the little prima donna said that wehad nothing in England like the sunsets over the Hudson, I felt that on this day, at least, the sun was not behaving well in his manner of setting.
We came to Richmond Park in the afterglow, and going in through the Sheen gate, drove through the Park, which was glorified by the rosy dimness which lingers so long at the close of a hot August day. The mysterious light was on the great trees and the stretches of bracken and the rolling distances of sward. The deer were moving through the fern, and there was a drowsy silence, broken only by the calling of the birds and the faint hum of the outside world shut away beyond this fairy paradise. The little prima donna sat with parted lips and wide-open eyes, drinking in all the scene and whispering at intervals, "Beautiful! beautiful!" I had no need to ask her whether there was anything like this in her country across the ocean.
Presently the bicyclists came drifting down the road in shoals. These swift, silent travellers put a modern note into the picture of old-time woodland, and suddenly we came to the iron gates, and the tall, grey house, and the little prima donna said that her drive through fairyland had given her an appetite.
The Star and Garter has as many appearances and moods as a pretty woman. On a Sunday afternoon, when the bicycles are piled in tens of scores outside the building, when the gravel is crunched continuously by carriages coming and going, when every table in both dining-roomshas its full complement of guests, and little groups stand outside the glass panelling watching for their turn to come, when the coffee-drinkers sit at the round tables in the passage, and the terrace is bright with girls' dresses, and rings with laughter, when far below, the face of the river is crowded with boats, and a crowd streams along the towing-path, then the Star and Garter is frankly, merrily Cockney. But on a summer night when the moon is at the full, when the windows of the ball-room are alight, and the whisper of a waltz tune comes down to the terrace, when the river runs a ribbon of silver through the misty landscape, then the Star and Garter becomes an enchanted palace.
It was a quiet evening on the day that I drove down with the little prima donna, but had I not telegraphed early in the day we should not have got the table for two by the open window that looked out on to the terrace and to the Thames in the valley below.
The little prima donna stood by the window and gazed out. She felt the charm of the scene, but fought against it, for she was a little piqued that she had never seen anything quite like it before, that the United States did not hold its exact parallel. "I guess it is that your landscapes are so small and so easily filled up that makes them so different from ours," was her explanation; but that was not what she meant.
The manager of the restaurant had told me that he had ordered a little dinner for me, somehors-d'œuvre, petite marmite,red mullet,tournedos, pommes sautées,a duckling, salad, and some ices;and I told him that that would do very nicely. Thehors-d'œuvrewere on the table, but it was difficult, hungry as she was, to induce the little prima donna to leave her first view of the river, a river now grown steel-colour in the growing darkness, and to turn to the prosaic side of life, and dinner.
It is a comfortable dining-room, with its green curtains to the big bow-window, its paper with a flower pattern, its mirrors and its great panes of glass through which the arched looking-glasses of the hall can be seen. Of our fellow-diners there was no one whose face is well known to the world. There was a young man with gold buttons to his coat and a suggestion of the Georgian period in his full head of hair, who was diningtête-à-têtewith a pretty dark-haired lady; there was a bald-headed gentleman entertaining a family party; there were three young gentlemen dining by themselves very merrily; the rest were the people one sees at any good hotel.
The soup was excellent—though why managers of restaurants always seem to think thatpetite marmiteis the only soup in existence I do not know; but the prima donna was glad to put down her spoon and look out of the window again. She had read that morning, she told me, all the descriptions she could find of Richmond, in prose and verse; but the real thing was more beautiful than any description of it had prepared her for. I felt that the conversion of the little American was progressing.
The fish was not a success. The weatherwas very hot, and, as the prima donna put it, "this mullet, I guess, has not been scientifically embalmed." The waiter, deeply grieved, spirited the fish away, and put the tournedos, which were excellently cooked, in their place.
The pine outside the window was black now against the sky, and a chilly breeze came up from the river. The little prima donna felt the chill, and drew her cloak over her shoulders.
The duck was plump and tender, and when she had trifled with a wing, the prima donna, hoping that nobody would be horrified, asked for a cigarette. The ice and coffee and liqueurs finished, I called for the bill—hors-d'œuvre, 2s.; marmite, 1s. 6d.; tournedos, 4s.; pommes, 1s.; caneton, 8s. 6d.; salade, 1s.; ices, 2s.; coffee, 1s.; one bottle Deutz and Gelderman, 12s. 6d.; cigarettes, 1s.; liqueurs, 2s. 6d.; couverts, 1s.; total, £1: 18s.—and then suggested that we should go down on to the terrace. The prima donna leant over the balustrade, her cigarette making a point of light, and gazed in silence at the darkened landscape. The river, visible still amidst the darkness, had caught and held in its bosom the reflections of the summer stars and of a newborn moon. Presently she threw away the little roll of paper and tobacco, and began quoting in a low voice—a speaking voice as musical as singing—the lines of poor Mortimer Collins's swan song:—
Stern hours have the merciless fatesPlotted for all who die;But looking down upon Richmond aits,Where the merles sing low to their amorous mates,Who cares to ask them why?
The conversion of the little American was complete.
9th August.
I first met Arthur Roberts in the buffet of the Cavour, and first heard there the tale of "The Old Iron Pot." On that occasion I was taken by a friend into the buffet, a long room with a bar decorated with many-coloured glasses, a broad divan running along the wall, and many small tables by it. Seated on the divan was a thin, clean-shaven little man, talking to a very tall man, also clean-shaven. So immersed in their conversation were the two that they hardly acknowledged me when I was introduced to them; "they" being Messrs. Arthur Roberts and "Long Jack" Jervis, both of them then playing in "Black-eyed Susan" at the Alhambra, almost next door. As far as I could make out, the entrancing story that Mr. Arthur Roberts was telling, had as its central figure an old iron pot. He was in deadly earnest in his recital. Mr. Jervis and my friend were thoroughly, almost painfully, interested, and accompanied the story with little exclamations of surprise and sympathy, but for the life of me I could notfollow the narrative. All sorts and conditions of people suddenly were introduced into the tale by name, and as suddenly disappeared out of it. Arthur Roberts finished, and the other two broke into speeches of congratulation, saying how thoroughly interested and affected they had been. I, in a bewildered way, commenced to ask questions, when the mouth of the merry comedian began to twitch up on one side, and his eyelids to blink. Then I understood. I was another victim to the tale of "The Old Iron Pot."
It was in this buffet, which remains now as it was then, that Arthur Roberts invented the game of "spoof,"—but that is a very long story.
There has always been a savour of Bohemianism around the Cavour, and therefore it was only right and proper that the six of us who sat down to dinner there one August evening, should all in our time have wandered through the pleasant paths of the country of free-and-easiness. With grey hairs has come ballast, and one of the party is now a great landowner, doing his duty as high sheriff of his county; two of the others are chairmen of boards controlling great theatrical enterprises; a fourth, who won renown originally as a Jehu, now coins money in successful speculation; and the fifth is the trusted adviser of a well-known plutocrat. One of the chairmen, who can claim the title of successful dramatic author as well, and is not unknown on the Stock Exchange, was the giver of the feast. Our gathering came about through an argument on the relative merits ofcheap and expensive restaurants, and whether there was value received for the difference in the price of the dinners. The chairman was a warm upholder of the cheap dinner, and concluded the argument by saying, "When I go to the Savoy or Princes' I am prepared to pay for my surroundings and company; when I want food only I go to Philippe of the Cavour, and ask him to add something to his three-shilling dinner, and to give me five-shillings-worth, and if you fellows will come and dine with me there you shall try for yourselves." And "we fellows" said like one man that we would.
The Cavour, which shows its clean white face, adorned with golden letters, to Leicester Square, has grown immensely since I first made its and M. Philippe's acquaintance. There comes first a narrow little room, with a big counter on which fruit and flowers and cold meats are displayed, and behind which a lady in black stands. Here M. Philippe, shortish, grey-haired, with a little close-clipped moustache, black coat, and turned-down collar, with a black tie, generally waits to usher his patrons in, and find them seats. Then comes the big room, the walls in light colour, brass rails all round to hold hats, on the many mirrors a notice pasted, "Our table d'hôte Sundays, 6 to 9"; in the centre a big square table with a palm in the middle of it, the table at which, when the room is crowded, lone gentlemen are set to take their dinner, and around the big table a cohort of smaller tables. The ceiling mostly consists of a skylight, the windows in which always keepthe room cool. Beyond this room is another one, newly built, also light in colour, and with many mirrors.
As soon as we were seated, M. Philippe came bustling up. He is a very busy man, for he believes in the adage as to doing things well; and, therefore, he is up at five every morning, and goes the round of the markets, and in his own restaurant is his ownmaître d'hôtel. Yet, busy as he is, he finds time to devote much attention to Freemasonry, and his list of subscriptions to the various Masonic charities has generally the biggest total of any sent in. He was supposed in this charitable competition to have been, on one occasion, outstripped by another worker in the cause, and we immediately began to chaff him on the subject. M. Philippe acknowledged that a march had been stolen on him; but to make up for it he had been eminently successful in securing the admission of a little girl to one of the masonic institutions. "She got in on top of our poll," was his way of putting it. The feast he had prepared for us was as follows:—
Hors-d'œuvre.La petite marmite.Filets de soles Mornay.Whitebait.Poulet sauté Portugaise.Côtes de mouton en Bellevue.Canetons d'Aylesbury.Petits pois Française. Salade. Haricots verts.Fromages.Dessert.
I noted that thepetite marmite—I seem doomed always to be givenpetite marmite—was good, and was more enthusiastic than that over the fillets of sole, for those, I thought, were "very good." The whitebait, erring on the right side, were a trifle too soft. Thepoulet sauté Portugaisewas a triumph ofbourgeoiscookery, but so rich that I was glad that the good doctor who takes an interest in the state of my liver was not one of our party. The Aylesbury ducklings were fine, plump young fellows, who must have lived a youth of peace and contentment. We drank with this substantial dinner some '89 Pommery.
There is always a bustle at the Cavour, and a coming and going of guests. Directly a table is vacated plates and glasses are whisked away, fresh napkins spread, and in a few seconds M. Philippe has personally conducted some incoming guests to their seats. Thetable d'hôteis served from five to nine. First to the feast comes a sprinkling of actors and actresses, making an early meal before going to the theatre. Then comes an incursion of white-shirt-fronted gentlemen and ladies in evening dress, dining before going to the play. Lastly comes the steady stream of ordinary diners, goodbourgeoismost of them, who choose to dine as they have come from their City offices, in frock-coats or other unostentatious garb.
As we settled down to our meal, a theatrical manager, who had been giving one of the prettiest ladies of his company dinner, was leaving. A well-known amateur coachman, just up fromthe country, had time to give his wife something to eat before going off to catch another train; a white-bearded gentleman was entertaining two pretty daughters in evening dresses, and was desperately afraid that they would not get to the theatre in time to see the curtain rise. A very pretty lady, with a hat of peacocks' feathers and a great bow rising from it, was an actress "resting." The rest of the diners who filled the room were all good, respectable citizens and citizenesses, in fine broadcloth and silk, but none of their faces was familiar to us through the pages of the illustrated papers.
This was the bill paid by the chairman:—Six dinners at 5s., £1: 10s.; three bottles Pommery, '89, £2: 2s.; one seltzer, 6d.; five cafés, 2s. 6d.; six liqueurs, 4s. 6d.; total, £3: 19: 6.
M. Philippe has a little pleasure-ground attached to the restaurant, a plot of kitchen garden and an orangery, the vegetables and herbs and fruit from which must cost him about a thousand times their value at Covent Garden. But it is Philippe's hobby, and he likes to be able to give any favoured customer a bunch of mignonette grown in a garden within thirty yards of Leicester Square. At night the blazing cressets of the Alhambra and the gas decorations of Daly's light this strange little bit ofrus in urbe, and when one wonders at a practical man keeping such desirable building land for such a purpose, M. Philippe shrugs his shoulders and says, "The earth he grow every day more valuable."
16th August.
My sister-in-law is the daughter of a dean. I do not make this statement through family pride, but because it is pertinent to what follows.
Man and boy, these six years or so, I have known little Oddenino, who now rules the destinies of the Café Royal. The little man, with his quiet, rather nervous manner and big serious eyes, went from the management of the East Room at the Criterion to the Washington in Oxford Street, then to the big hotel at Cimiez, and has now put the Café Royal into shape.
During the summer of 1897, I was one day, towards lunch-time, pacing up and down the passage which leads from the pillared door in Regent Street to the café and grill-room portion of the big establishment, a passage which has on one side the bookstall where the French papers are on sale, and on the other the manager's offices, when a door opened and Oddenino appeared. I asked him what he was doing in the Café Royal, and he told me that he had come as manager. Then he put his head on one side and consideredme. With the utmost politeness he suggested that I was waiting for a lady, a soft impeachment which I admitted, and that I was not in the best of tempers, which was also true. He was deeply grieved, but tried to console me by saying that when I came back to town in the autumn I should find a comfortable room upstairs to wait in, and went on to tell me of the other improvements he intended to make. One great grief he had, and that was that some people thought that the company that frequented the restaurant was rather Bohemian. How anybody could think so, I told him, I could not understand, and as a triumphant proof of this I told Oddenino that the first lady whom I would bring to dine in the redecorated restaurant should be my sister-in-law, the daughter of a dean.
In the autumn the opportunity arrived for carrying out my promise. My brother was away slaughtering many driven partridges in Wiltshire, and my sister-in-law—did I mention that she is the daughter of a dean?—was left in solitary dignity in town. I went in the afternoon of the day we were going to dine to apprise Oddenino of our impending visitation—that word has a comforting clerical sound—and to order dinner.
My sister-in-law is not partial to shellfish, so the oysters with which I should have begun the feast were not to be thought of, nor were most of the most delicate ways of cooking a sole to be considered. My sister-in-law has always said that my idea of a perfect dinner is semi-starvation, so I included two entrées instead of one in themenu. This was the dinner which I, in consultation with Oddenino, settled upon:—
Hors-d'œuvre Russe.Pot au feu.Sole Waleska.Noisette d'agneau Lavallière.Haricots verts à l'Anglaise.Parfait de foie gras.Caille en cocotte.Salade.Pole nord.
When I suggested an ice, and Oddenino wrote downpole nord, I asked him what particular ice that meant. It was only a cream ice served on a pedestal of clear ice, he said; but he thought thatpole nordto end a menu sounded grand and mysterious.
I should, out of compliment to my sister-in-law, have liked to have driven up to the Café Royal in an equipage such as dignitaries of the Church use, with a hammer-cloth and a white-wigged coachman; but a humble coupé had to suffice.
We went up the staircase, which has been regilt and refurbished, and has more flowers and plants than of yore, and into the little waiting-room at the top of the stairs, which Oddenino had promised to have built for me to save wear and tear of my temper. It is not a very large waiting-room, a promise only of better things to come, a slice of the first of the big rooms partitioned off by a screen of mirrors. Some easy-chairs look comforting even to a hungry man, and, no doubt, not only my temper, butthat of others, will profit by it in the future. A table had been kept for us in the first room, and when my sister-in-law had settled down she began looking carefully at the diners at the other tables. I asked if there was any one whom she expected to see, and was told that she was looking for the actresses I had promised to point out to her. Our table commanded a fine view of the room we were in and the big room, the windows of which look on to Glasshouse Street. There was scarcely a vacant table, but nowhere could I see an actress to point out to my sister-in-law. There was a celebrated doctor, clean-shaven and with white hair, diningtête-à-têtewith his wife; there was a well-known barrister, invincible in licensing cases, who was giving a dinner to his wife and daughter; there was a big dinner-party of men all hailing from the Stock Exchange; there was a smart little lady talking hunting to three entranced youths; but nowhere could I see a face that I recognised as belonging to an actress.
My sister-in-law thought that she had been defrauded, but luckily the fat waiter, an old ally of mine, appeared at the right moment with the caviar, and thesommelierwas anxious to know whether I would have the Clicquot vin rosée, which poor M. Nicol used to say was the best champagne in the cellar, iced. My sister-in-law approved highly of the soup, and indeed it was excellent, simple and strong. Then came thesole Waleska, and I was anxious to see whether my sister-in-law—who, I have omitted to state, is the daughter of a dean—appreciated the delicacy of the sauce and the almost imperceptibleflavouring of cheese. She did, and I forgave her on the spot for not liking oysters. Thenoisette d'agneauwas not quite on a par with the glory of the remainder of the dinner, for the tiny morsels of lamb, the foundation of theplat, might have been more tender; but I am sure that if the dear departed geese of Strassburg could have looked upon their livers, placed snugly in a greatterrine, to which the blocks of truffle gave a half-mourning effect, and covered decently with a fair coating of transparent jelly, they would have been consoled for all their over-eating and subsequent demise.
At this period of our dinner little Oddenino came up, and I asked him to point out some of the alterations to my sister-in-law. He showed her the new lamps, which cast a pleasant rosy light on the tables; the new carpet; sent themaître d'hôtelto fetch samples of the new china and glass and silver which by now have been taken into use; explained how the kitchen, which is under the rule of M. Charles, has been doubled in size; and how the serving arrangements, which of old werecoram populo, and carried out with an accompaniment of shrill female voices and much clashing of plates, were now safely concealed behind a wall of mirrors. I told Oddenino that I thought that even now too much noise came through the open door which leads to the serving-room; for I hold a really good dinner to be so sublime a thing that the homage of absolutely silent attendance is due to it; and the little man, looking suddenly as sorrowful as if he had lost a near relation,promised to have swing doors put up, so that not a whisper should penetrate to the dining-rooms.
The quails were delicious. Their flesh almost melted in one's mouth, as my sister-in-law remarked. When thepole nordcame the ice proved not to be an ordinary one, but a semi-fluid delicacy cased in harder cream ice. The ice pedestal was in the shape of a bird resting on rocks, and when I made a feeble little jest about Andrée's pigeons my sister-in-law laughed. I reproved her austerely, telling her that if she laughed thus she would be taken for an actress. Whereon she retorted that she did not want to be taken for an actress, but that she wanted to be one. I opened my eyes in a query, and she said that if actresses were given every night such a dinner as she had eaten she wanted to be an actress.
I paid my bill while my sister-in-law admired the beautiful flower-decked Minton china, a trayful of which was brought to her, the glasses with a golden N and a crown on them and the heavy silver. The bill was: two couverts, 1s.; hors-d'œuvre, 2s.; pot au feu, 2s.; sole Waleska, 3s. 6d.; suprême d'agneau, 3s. 6d.; haricots verts, 1s. 6d.; parfait de foie gras, 4s.; caille cocotte, 5s.; salade, 1s.; pole nord, 2s. 6d.; café, 1s. 6d.; one bottle '67, 15s.; liqueurs, 2s.; total, £2: 4: 6.
I told my sister-in-law that if we were not to miss the first act of the play we were going to see, we had better be going, so she laid down the straw through which she had been sucking hercrème de menthe, and with a sigh, a tribute of remembrance to the quails, put on her gloves.
I have now a sister-in-law who is the daughter of a dean, but who wants to become an actress.
1st November.
Since writing the above the Café Royal has definitely taken its place once again as one of the first-class restaurants of London. Little Oddenino has continued making improvements, putting in a lift, making a cloak-room, and adding generally to the comfort of the place.
I asked the little man to send me the menu of a dinner given to the late Mr. "Barney" Barnato before he started on his ill-starred journey to the Cape, and also to ask M. Charles to give me therecetteof thesoles Waleska. M. Oddenino sent me a menu, which is a good specimen of a Café Royal dinner for a large party; but which I do not recognise as the Barnato menu, and also therecetteforfilets de sole St-Augustin—named after him, for his "front name" is August—the very latest delicacy in fish.
Here are menu andrecette—