THE STAR AND GARTER, RICHMOND
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 that dress 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 we had
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-rooms
has 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, some _hors-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. The _hors-d'œuvre_ were 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 dining _tête-à-tête_ with 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 that _petite marmite_ is 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 weather was 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 fates
Plotted 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.
9_th August_.