[CHAPTER XXXVI]
THE TIVOLI (THE STRAND)
La Princesse Lointaine was passing through town on her way to Rome, to her husband's palazzo—to the great grim building where the big suisse stands on guard by the entrance, and soft-footed servants in black move noiselessly about the high tapestried rooms. Her note with the tiny monogram and the coronet on it said that she was at the Savoy for a few days, and would I come and dine, on her last evening in England, and talk of old days?
I always call the pretty lady who has the honour of bearing the name of one of the oldest families of Italian nobility, "la Princesse Lointaine," for the glint of sunlight her presence brings comes so rarely and vanishes so quickly. It was at the old Delmonico's, at one of the assemblies, that I first met her, an American heiress in her second season, light-haired, large-eyed, with that perfect tact that comes naturally to American and French women. I had letters of introduction to her father, and she, taking entire charge of me as the stranger in the land, made me feel at home, and stamped that ball in my memory as one of my pleasantest recollections. She was married a year later in Rome, and I thought never to see her again; but one day at Fort William, in Calcutta, I got a note with a little monogram and coronet, brought by a peon from the Great Eastern Hotel, and I found that my Princesse Lointaine and her husband, travelling round the world, were making a fortnight's stay in the city by the Hugli, before going on to China and Japan. I showed her and her husband the forlorn grandeur of the empty palaces of the dead King of Oude, the spot where the Black Hole was, the church by the river where the first sturdy British traders left their bones, and all the other sights of Calcutta. They sailed away, and the next time that I saw her was at Venice one summer when Queen Marguerite had gone there for the bathing, and the grave husband, in some office about the court, had gone there also. Once again I saw her in her Roman home. And now, passing through from New York to the grim palazzo in Rome, she had written me a couple of lines to tell me to come and talk to her.
I would not let her give me dinner at her hotel; for in London she was the stranger and my foot was on my native flagstones, and I suggested that if she would not mind a very quiet dinner she should do me the honour of dining with me almost next door at the Tivoli, where I knew we should be quiet, where the dining-room is a very charming one, where the music is not loud enough to interfere with conversation, and where, with M. Aubanel in supreme command, I felt sure that the cooking would be good. If she cared to go on to a theatre, I would take a box somewhere. A line in reply told me that I might pick her up at the Savoy and take her on to dinner, but that after dinner she would sooner sit and talk than go to a theatre, for there was much packing to be superintended before bedtime.
I could not, as I was taking la Princesse Lointaine away from the Savoy and Maître Escoffier's masterpieces of cookery, leave my dinner to chance, so in the afternoon I went and interviewed M. Aubanel, the manager, who, mustachioed, with a full head of black hair brushed off from his forehead, is as well known on the Riviera, where he has an hotel, as he is in town.
As one of the cooks under M. Racoussot, the chef, is a Russian, and was one of the great Cubat's assistants, I knew I was safe in ordering Russian hors-d'œuvre. A very plain soup, sole (cooked in any fashion that did not include moules, of which shellfish I remembered that the Princesse was afraid), a very plain entrée of meat, snipe, asparagus, and an ice, were my requirements, and the menu, as M. Aubanel sketched it out, ran thus:—
Zakouski.
Poule au pot.
Filets de sole Florentine.
Côte de bœuf aux légumes printaniers.
Bécassines rôties.
Salade Romaine.
Asperges vertes. Sauce mousseline.
Bombe Princesse.
Dessert.
The Princesse was waiting for me when I drove up to the Savoy. She was wearing a magnificent cloak lined with ermine, and I could catch the glint at her throat of the diamonds and pearls which had been heirlooms in her husband's family for many generations. I felt at the sight of so much grandeur almost ashamed at the simplicity of the dinner I had ordered.
The Palm Room at the Tivoli has been decorated so as to form an excellent background to a pretty and well-dressed woman. The walls are panelled with some soft material of two shades of dark green which looks like stamped velvet. There is a breast-high decoration of soft coloured marbles. The pillars are chiefly of gold, and the ceiling, the pattern of which is formed by palm leaves, is white and gold. There are soft dark green portières and curtains, and the chairs are upholstered in dark green velvet. Orange shades to the electric globes which hang from the ceiling diffuse a soft warm light over everything. And no prettier subject for a handsome background to show up could be found than the Princesse when she had shed her furs. Two little light curls came down upon her forehead, the pearls and diamonds were her throat ornaments, and her dress was all white and silver. The lace of the bodice looked to me as if it were one of the wonders of Benares make, and round her white arms were three broad bands of silver lace.