A REGIMENTAL DINNER (HOTEL VICTORIA, NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE)
The honorary secretary of the Regimental Dinner Club, who is the
gentleman who, in one of the little rooms, somewhat resembling loose
boxes, of Cox and Co., the military bankers, presides over the ledgers
containing the accounts of Ours, had sent six weeks ago to every member
of the club, and that means nearly every officer past and present, a
notice that the annual dinner of the regiment would take place at the
Hôtel Victoria, on a certain day in Ascot week, at 8 P.M.
"Regimental dinner, sir? Yes, sir. Cloakroom third door to the right,"
said the impressive porter who, in gold-banded hat and with gold
buttons to his blue coat, stands at the front door; and farther on, at
the corner where the long corridor joins the passage, a waiter with a
cherubic face waved a cotton-gloved hand in the direction one was to go.
Hat and cloak left, an oval piece of pasteboard taken in exchange, and
a monetary transaction concluded with a gentleman at a little table,
another white-gloved hand was waved towards the drawing-rooms, and
there in the farthest room of the long suite was assembled a collection
of gentlemen in dress clothes, of all ages, most of them bronzed and
clean-shaved, though a beard here and there belonged to some one who
had left the colours. There was a glint of silver from miniature
medals and the sparkle of a couple of orders. It was not the ordinary
assemblage that waits patiently with legs apart and hands under the
coat-tails for dinner to be announced; it was an assemblage in which
much shaking of hands was going on, and intermingled with greetings
were such scraps of conversation as, "Haven't seen you for years";
"Yes, a fortnight's leave from Ireland to do Ascot"; "Home on sick
leave, but feel fit enough now"; "A big dinner to-night: thirty-three
dining."
There was so much talk that dinner was announced three times before any
one took any notice, and then there was a little block at the door,
for the Generals hung back for a moment from leading the way, and the
subalterns were not, before dinner, sufficiently assertive to take
precedence.
The stream of black coats set at last down the corridor, and on our
way we caught a glimpse of the bright scene in the _table-d'hôte_
room, where all the little tables were occupied, and where the
band was playing. We passed some pretty girls coming out of the
drawing-room--one subaltern audibly regretted that the presence of
the fair sex was tabooed at the feast--and we turned into the oak
banqueting-room.
There was a long table down the middle of the room, and at the centre
of this the General who is the colonel-in-chief of the regiment seated
himself, with, on either hand, two Generals who have in their time held
the regimental command. The getting into their places of the other
guests at the banquet was rather like the game of musical chairs,
and three unfortunates were left seatless. This, however, was soon
rectified; there was a general squeezing up to make more room, and it
was found that there was plenty of space at either end of the table for
two places to be laid. Some one, beyond the original thirty-three, had
been able to run over at the last moment from Ireland, and somebody had
come up unexpectedly from the depot, and somebody else had thought that
he had sent in his name to the secretary when he really had not.
It is an impressive room. There is a very broad frieze, on which
rosy cupids gambol against a gold background, above the panels and
carving in deep-toned oak. Across a large stained-glass window some
warm-coloured brown curtains were almost drawn-to; a tall chiffonnier,
bright with glass and napery, cut off the serving-room; clusters
of electric lights sparkled in the skylight which forms the roof.
A centre-piece and some great silver cups stood among the flowers,
banks of which ran the whole way down the table, and which were of the
colours of the regimental ribbon, with scarlet poppies to suggest the
tint of Her Majesty's uniform. There was a buttonhole of the same
coloured flowers by each guest's plate, and the cover of the menu
repeated again the familiar colours. This was the list of the feast:--
_Vins.
Milk Punch_.
_Fine old East India Madeira_.
_Château Carbonnieux_.
_Boll and Co._, 1884.
_G.H. Mumm and Co. Ex. Qual., Ex. Dry, Cuvee_ '65, 1889.
_Haut Bages_, 1875.
_Feuerheera's Zimbro_ 1884 _Port_.
_Otard's Old Liqueur Brandy_.
_Johannis Water_.
* * * * *
Hors-d'œuvre variés.
Tortue claire.
Darne de saumon à la Mathilde.
Suprêmes de filets de sole glacés Danoise.
Blanchailles au Kari.
Nageoires de tortue Washington.
Coquilles de foie gras Mireille.
Poularde à la Matignon.
Selle d'agneau. Sauce menthe.
Haricots verts sautés au beurre.
Pommes nouvelles fondantes.
Jambon de York à la Kalli.
Fèves de marais Maître d'Hôtel.
Sorbet.
Cailles de vignes et ortolans sur toast.
Salade Romaine.
Asperges en ranches. Sauce Argenteuil.
Fruits à la Créole.
Bombe Japonaise. Petits fours.
Dessert. Café noir.
As a privileged grumbler I began the dinner with finding fault, for
there were no finger-glasses as an accompaniment to the _crevettes_,
which were among the _hors-d'œuvre_, and the Boll, which was the
champagne I tried, had not been iced sufficiently--if, indeed, it had
seen the ice-pail at all. But the turtle-soup was soothing, and the
next supply of champagne that came round was of the right temperature.
In the pause between the soup and the fish one could gather better than
in the crowded dining-room who were present. On the chairman's right
was a General who had been knighted by Her Majesty for his services
in an African campaign; on his left the commander of the forces in an
island fortress, who in his time had led a battalion of the regiment
on active service; opposite to him was the lieutenant-colonel, who
has added to the sheaf of the regiment's honours in the latest Indian
campaign. A couple of majors, home from India, sat together; a group
of retired officers, now most of them squires on their country
estates, had gathered at a corner to talk over old times, the Governor
of one of Her Majesty's gaols was being much chaffed as to his
present employment; and the rest were chiefly the bronzed, healthy,
light-moustached young Englishmen, cast in the mould that tells the
world at once that a man is a soldier, and fresh from manœuvring in
Ireland or guarding the marches at a great Indian frontier station.
The turtle fins and the saddle of mutton were excellent, and the
ortolan I secured was as plump a little fellow as ever found the
shelter of a vine leaf; but when we came to the asparagus I was
constrained to ask the head waiter confidentially what the hard sticks
were with a little soft place at the end, tasting more like a Brussels
sprout than any vegetable that I knew of. The poor man, who wore a
worried look, said that they were the best procurable in France, and
turned for confirmation to a manager of many inches, who, his hair
brushed up to a point, and wearing a pointed beard, was leaning with
folded arms on the top of the chiffonnier, and contemplating the scene.
Our little difference of opinion as to the quality of the _asperges
d'Argenteuil_ concluded, the fruits and ice handed round, the General
in the chair rose, and in a few well-chosen words--for soldiers neither
care to make long speeches nor to listen to them--proposed the health
of the Queen, which was drunk standing; and as loyal subjects who wore,
or had worn, the scarlet, we applauded the suggestion of our Colonel
that a telegram should be sent to the proper quarter, and that Her
Majesty should know that the officers of one of her oldest regiments
had saluted her at their annual gathering. Then the diners broke up
into groups, for every one had much to say and much to hear, and there
were more speeches, and the healths of "officers past and present"
were drunk, and courtesies exchanged with another regiment dining in
the same hotel, and it was near the stroke of midnight when most of us
remembered that we had to be up betimes to go to Ascot on the morrow.
21_st June_.