[XI]
CLARIDGE'S
I reach back in memory farther in touch with Claridge's than with any other hostelry in London, One of the stories of her early life that my mother often told me when I was a small boy was how my grandfather, as crotchety an elderly widower as ever ruled an Indian district, when he finally retired from the service of John Company, arrived in London with his bullock trunks and sandalwood boxes lined with tin, his bedding rolled up in bundles, his guns, his fly-whisks, and palm-fans, and all the strange paraphernalia that an Anglo-Indian official gathered about him in those days. With him came his faithful bearer, and an ayah, and his little pale daughter, and they all descended at Claridge's Hotel—though perhaps in those days it might have been Mivart's. The first great grief of the little girl's life was that the "Nabob," as my grandfather was called in the family, delivered a "hookum" to the manager of the hotel that an English nurse must be provided directly for his small daughter, as the ayah ought to return at once to her own country, and my mother was obliged to say good-bye to her devoted Indian attendant. My first personal introduction to Claridge's was when, as a schoolboy, I was invited by another schoolboy, who wished to show off, to go with him to visit a German Graf, a nobleman with a very long string of minor titles, whose greatest glory was that he owned a castle on the Rhine. The Graf was very polite to the two little English boys, and talked to us in very bad English; and when we took our departure he saw us to the door as though we had been persons of the greatest importance. Mr Claridge, wearing a skull-cap of velvet, happened to be in the hall as we passed through, and I remember well the beautiful bow that he gave to the Count. Mr Claridge's bows were celebrated; they were of a different depth, according to the rank of the person to whom he bowed, and there was even a delicate difference in the salute that he gave to a Serene Highness to that with which he welcomed a Royal Highness. Claridge's in those days consisted of half-a-dozen houses connected with each other, and the best rooms in these houses formed the suites where the various royalties who patronised the hotel lodged, Mr Claridge and his staff of servants being always on the watch that the privacy of his guests should not be invaded. On one occasion, when a famous caricaturist took a room at the hotel, Mr Claridge waited on him and informed him that he must transfer his custom elsewhere, for, though he, Mr Claridge, was a great admirer of the artist's talent, and decorated the walls of some of the rooms with his work, he could never allow a royal personage to be caricatured within the walls of his hotel. Not that Mr Claridge himself always spoke too respectfully of the great ones of the earth. Archbishop Temple used to tell a story that when in 1846 the Pope seriously thought of taking refuge in England, Mr Claridge remarked that he was so full up with kings and royal dukes that he could only offer his Holiness a small back room, but that, being a bachelor, he, the Pope, would probably not mind.
The old Claridge's was pulled down and the new Claridge's built in the nineties, and I remember the opening day, when a great crowd of fashionable people came to look at its salons and ballroom and restaurant, and the royal suite. The india-rubber roadway in the entrance, then a novelty, was much admired, and the six footmen in the hall, in their state livery, looked mighty splendid. Mr D'Oyly Carte, who more than anyone else had been the moving spirit in the creation of the new hotel, was wheeled about in a chair through the crush of pretty ladies and distinguished gentlemen, for he was then very ill.
The new Claridge's soon found its own particular atmosphere, an atmosphere of perfect serenity. The little army of footmen, who were too gorgeous for ordinary occasions, were reduced in numbers, and now only one superb being in plush and silken calves moves about the hall and arranges the papers in the reading-room. The inner hall, with its pillars and walls of white, and its reflected light, is a most comfortable lounge in which to sit after dinner and listen to the orchestra, and out of this open two rooms, one of Wedgwood blue with Wedgwood designs on it, and the other of old gold. The restaurant has been considerably altered since its first opening, for it has been divided into two rooms, the colouring of it has been brightened, and at night an abundance of light is now thrown on to the painted ceilings from cunningly concealed lamps. The bases of the great arches which support the roof are cased in dark oak, with an inset of olive wood; the carpet is of rose and grey and the chairs are of green leather with the arms of the hotel stamped upon it.
It is a restaurant in which dinner takes its right place as one of the tranquil pleasures of life. The music of the band is never too loud, the fine napery and the admirable glass are pleasant to the touch, the flowers in the silvered stands of the table lamps give an agreeable touch of colour, the cut glass of the pendent electroliers sparkles, and the first and the second maîtres d'hôtel, M. Invernizzi, who comes from the Palace Hotel, at St Moritz, to London for the season, and M. Castelani, who is a permanency at Claridge's, are tactfully attentive, while M. Gehlardi, the manager of the hotel, walks through the rooms during the course of dinner to bow here and there at a table, and to assure himself that all is well. It is the clientele of Claridge's that has made its atmosphere, for the well-dressed, good-looking, quiet people who dine at the tables, put a comfortable distance apart, are folk whose names bulk largely in the Society columns of the newspapers, and the list of the diners on any given night in Claridge's Restaurant would be for the most part a string of titles. Good manners are in the air, and I do not think that even the rawest plutocrat could be unmannerly amidst such surroundings.
On the night that I last dined at Claridge's, I had written beforehand asking that a table for three should be reserved for me, and I had intended to give my guests the larger of the two dinners of the restaurant, the twelve-and-six one, which runs through the usual courses, and which is by no means a set dinner, for any dish which does not exactly match the fancy of a dinner-giver is changed for another to suit his whim or his palate. But I found that a special little feast had been ordered for me by M. Gehlardi, and the menu of it was as follows:—
Melon Cantaloup.
Bortch à la Russe.
Filets de Sole Newnham-Davis.
Noisette d'Agneau aux Fines Herbes.
Petits pois frais. Pommes Noisettes.
Coq en Pâte.
Salade de Romaine à l'Estragon.
Fraises Parisienne.
Friandises.