THE HOTEL CONTINENTAL (REGENT STREET)
"So you are the man who is writing those articles about 'Dinners and
Diners,'" said old Sir George, when I dined quietly last week with him
and Lady Carcanet. "Good Lord! Who'd have thought it!"
This sounded rather a dubious compliment; but pretty Miss Carcanet,
"Brighteyes" as her family nickname is, began to take more interest in
me than she had ever shown before.
Did I go alone, or did I really take the people I said I did? she
asked. And I told her that I really did take the people I described.
"Why don't you take Brighteyes to do one with you," said Sir George.
"It's her first season, and she is seeing everything that London has to
show. She has figured in print after the Drawing-Room, and one of the
ladies' papers has had a portrait of her as a débutante of the season.
Now you might lend your aid to immortalise her."
Miss Brighteyes said she would like it immensely, and though Lady
Carcanet did not think it at all the thing for a young girl to dine
at a restaurant alone with a gentleman, Sir George said something
about there being no harm in being seen with an old buster, old enough
to be her father--which was a doubtful compliment to my grey hair. I,
of course, was delighted, and asked Miss Brighteyes to choose her day
and her restaurant. There was the Berkeley, which had then just been
reopened, the Avondale, which is going ahead with its new managers,
Dieudonné's, the Continental. I wanted to dine at all of these, and
would she take her choice.
"Is the Continental the hotel with a ruddy face and red pillars to its
portico at the bottom of Regent Street?" Miss Brighteyes asked, and
when I said that it was, she made that her choice.
"Dear me! Isn't that restaurant considered a little--well, a little
fast?" came from Lady Carcanet, who very evidently disapproved of
the whole of the proceedings; but I was able to reassure her on that
subject. The ladies who sup in the upstairs rooms may not all be
duchesses and countesses in their own right; but there is no more
respectable place to dine at, and there is no better _table d'hôte_
than is served in the downstairs room. I told Miss Brighteyes that if
she wanted to see the restaurant at its best we should have to dine
early, for most of the guests were sure to be going on to the theatre
either as spectators or players.
On Thursday Miss Brighteyes was going to the Opera to hear the
"Huguenots," and was to join her aunt there, so I was asked if Thursday
would suit, and said "Perfectly." Lady Carcanet looked discouragingly
on the whole matter; but said, very freezingly, that in that case we
had better have the brougham, which could wait and take Miss Brighteyes
to the Opera afterwards.
"Why didn't you come to my Drawing-Room Tea?" was the beginning of
the cross-examination that I went through in the brougham, on our way
to the restaurant; and I explained that as a recorder of dinners I
considered myself exempt from teas, an answer which did not satisfy
Miss Brighteyes, who pouted, and said that I might have made an
exception in her favour.
Miss Brighteyes' cloak was deposited in a side room, my coat and
hat were taken from me and put in a locker in the hall, and we
settled ourselves down at a corner table in the room, dimly lighted
by electric globes and by the red-shaded candles on the tables. It
is a most effective room, as I pointed out to Miss Brighteyes, with
its oil-paintings of figure-subjects framed in dark wood over the
mantelpieces, its line of muslin-draped windows down one side, and
on the other mirrors and the _comptoir_ of dark wood, where between
two palms one catches a glimpse, under the glow of a red-shaded lamp,
of the pretty face of the lady enthroned there. A screen of old gold
comes pleasantly into the scheme of colour. "Isn't it _delightfully_
improper to be dining alone with a gentleman in a restaurant! I do wish
Madame Quelquechose could see me now," Miss Brighteyes remarked, as I
looked through the three menus, one at 10s. 6d., one at 7s. 6d., and
one at 6s. 6d. Madame Quelquechose was, I may state, the head of the
celebrated Parisian school at which Miss Brighteyes had finished her
education.
As the young lady had to be at Covent Garden at eight, and it was now
seven, I thought the shortest of the menus--the 6s. 6d. one--would
suffice. Besides, I hold that the best dinners are always short ones.
Here it is:--
Hors-d'œuvre variés.
Consommé Sévigné.
Paupiettes de merlans Héloïse.
Tournedos grillés Judic.
Poularde rôtie.
Salade.
Asperges au beurre fondu.
Soufflé glacé Victoria.
Petits fours.
As Miss Brighteyes ate her plovers' eggs she wanted to be told who the
different people dining at the tables might be. The bearded gentleman
was one of the best-known singers, and his name a household word. The
other man with the impress of the artist strong upon him was, I was
able to tell her, the well-known Wagnerian conductor, who at the time
was constantly travelling backwards and forwards between Bayreuth and
Covent Garden. A pleasant-faced gentleman with a dark moustache, who
had smiled at me as I came in, was a well-known comedian and manager;
the gentleman dining with two ladies was a cricketer of fame. There was
the London correspondent of the _Figaro_ dining with another French
gentleman.
Our soup was excellent. There was in it a savour of the sea which
reminded me of the birds'-nest soup of China, and by that alone I
should have judged M. Baptiste Commaille, the chef, to be an artist.
Before the fish arrived my cross-examination was continued. "Had I
been to a Levee?" I was asked; and when I said I had not, and that the
reason of the not having done so was that my practical study of the
art of dining had made my tunic too tight for me, and that I was not
sufficiently wealthy just at present to buy another to use for one
occasion only in the year, I was told that I should learn to bike,
and that if I did I might come sometimes and take Miss Brighteyes to
the Park in the morning. Was I going to the big charity fancy ball at
the Empress Rooms, and if so, as what? I was not, I regretted to say,
my tunic not suiting better for balls than for levees, and my figure
not being quite in keeping with a Romeo costume from Nathan's; but I
learned that Miss Brighteyes was, and that she was going in a copy of a
costume of one of her ancestresses, all light blue with the front laced
across with pearls. The ancestress had real pearls, but Miss Brighteyes
was only to have imitation ones.
The fish I did not care for much, a _merlan_ being rather a tasteless
denizen of the sea, but Miss Brighteyes admired the cream and pink
of the _plat_ immensely, and thought that there was a suggestion for
a dress in it. Then I heard all about the recent balls, how charming
the pink peonies were at one house, and the lilies and palms at
another, and so on; and was given a disquisition on the dresses at the
Drawing-Room, of which all that I can recall is that one lady wore
muslin with roses painted on it, and ropes of wonderful pearls.
The _tournedos_, with their accompanying quarters of artichokes in
batter and scarlet tomatoes, were excellent, very excellent indeed,
and so was the chicken, delightfully brown, and done to a turn. The
_soufflé glacé Victoria_, which was brought in triumph by M. Garin, the
_maître d'hôtel_, was encased in a little summer-house of sugar, with
the names of various papers blazoned on it--that of the _Pall Mall_
being over the door, I had finished my pint of excellent champagne and
Miss Brighteyes had sipped her lemon squash, a sinful drink, even for
a girl in her first season. I was selfish enough to take my coffee
and liqueur before I told Miss Brighteyes that it was ten minutes to
eight, which put her in a flutter, for she was anxious not to lose the
overture.
This was the bill;--Two dinners, 13s.; half 88, 7s.; one lemon squash,
1s.; half tasse, 6d.; one liqueur, 1s.; total, £1: 0: 6.
* * * * *
There have been changes at the Hôtel Continental since I dined there
with the intention of putting my experiences in print. There is a new
board of directors, and the dining-room has put off its rather sombre
livery of deep reds and browns, and has adopted instead a bright dress
of white and gold and delicate greys. The curtains to the windows are
pink, and the room is as bright now as a flower-garden. Mons. Laurent
has replaced Mons. Garin as _maître d'hôtel_.