[CHAPTER XVIII]
THE AVONDALE (PICCADILLY)
While I sat in the anteroom of the Hôtel Avondale and waited for the Epicure, whom I had asked to come and dine with me, as a general practitioner would call in a specialist in a delicate case, I pondered over the vicissitudes which, during the past few years, have befallen the hotel that has now come into the hands of the two young and energetic men from the Savoy.
It opened with a great flourish of trumpets, I remember, as the Cercle de Luxe, just at the time that Society seemed inclined to take to dining clubs, and the Amphitryon was always full, and the Maison Dorée glittered scarcely a stone's-throw away. I was much impressed then with the gorgeousness of the staircase, with the walls of reddish marble, topped by white, veined with black, and above that a broad painted frieze, red in tone, studded with portraits of Elizabethan worthies, which marbles and frieze and portraits remain to this day. There were gorgeous pictures then in the smoking-room, downstairs, of Elizabeth, or her nobles, going in State on the Thames, and hawking and setting out to war, which pictures, when I peeped into the room before going upstairs, seem to have vanished. The room in which I was waiting for the Epicure was in those days a drawing-room of excessive gorgeousness, and I can recall that I thought that it was not for a simple ordinary man like myself to sit on yellow satin sofas that shone like looking-glasses. Now the room has nice panels of old-gold brocade and the sofas and curtains are in deep blue velvet. An American flag, draped over the principal piece of furniture in the room, shows of what nationality most of the guests at the Avondale at present are.
What was the cause of the non-success of the Cercle de Luxe, I do not know, for the dining-room was charming, and the cookery was undeniable. The next development of the house was as a cosy hotel, with the big rooms broken up into little suites of apartments, the anteroom turned into a dining-room, where a very good table-d'hôte dinner was served, and a bid made to attract well-to-do couples who liked hotel life. I looked over the hotel at the time of this transformation, and thought that if ever I married I would spend my honeymoon in No. 9, which was a particularly charming suite of apartments. I am, however, still in a state of single blessedness, and No. 9 has been converted into the kitchen of the restaurant, for Messrs. Garin and Eugène have broken down the partitions, restored the dining-room to its former proportions, and are trying to make the Avondale a little Savoy in Piccadilly.
The Epicure arrived on the stroke of the hour, and we went into the dining-room, where I had retained a table by the window. It is a pleasant room now, and will be even better when the new decorations have toned down under the influence of the London climate. There are pillars of black and white marble with gilded capitals and marble mantels, and the walls are frescoed by some modern artist. Opposite to us on the broadest space of wall a Diana worked in high relief in plaster was backed by a view of the falls of the Rhine, and on either side in panels were a lady in an Empire dress and a gentleman of the same period teaching a merveilleuse how to look through a telescope. There was an appetising show of fruit on the table in the centre, the strawberries being on the summit of a great block of ice. A Moorish gentleman, who I expect does nothing more ferocious than make coffee, made a fine splash of colour in his crimson and gold.
The Epicure having announced that he was not hungry, and that he could not drink champagne, I felt that the menu which had been devised by the management, and had met with my entire approval, might be too long for him, and I thought regretfully of the bottle of Moët and Chandon which I had ordered to be put in the ice-pail just long enough to get a chill into the wine. This was our dinner:—