White Truffles in Winter (23 page)

The Times
would write:

“Finding it impossible to sleep, she determined to take chloral, but by accident took
120
grains, which was an overdose, and the disastrous effects were soon apparent.”

The staff at The Savoy had found Escoffier lying prostrate outside of her door, weeping, inconsolable. Delphine and the children waited for him at the train station for hours.

“I did not come to London to be embarrassed,” she told him, and refused to unpack her bags completely.

A week later, a package was delivered to Escoffier's rooms. It was a full-length ermine coat with oversized sleeves and a high collar made of mink dyed black. Sarah's coat. The card read “From Mr. Boots.”

His heart nearly stopped when he saw it.

“And who is this?” Delphine said.

“An associate,” he said. “He saw you in the dining room with the children and asked if he could send you a gift. ‘Beauty for beauty,' he said. I thought it would be a nice surprise.”

“And you are not jealous?”

“Of course not.”

“And why not?”

Escoffier hesitated and that was his mistake. And so she answered instead, “Because you no longer love me.”

Madame Escoffier.

He wanted to say her name as he had their first night together. He wanted to fill it with that same sense of wonderment, the same shy pleasure; he wanted to take her into his arms, to touch her round belly, to feel their child kick at his hand. He wanted to hold his gangly sons close to him and kiss away their tears. But he had no way of explaining the man he had become. He could not find the words to speak until they arrived back at the train station and he said, “I will become undone without you.”

Which, unfortunately, was quite true.

S
EVEN YEARS HAD GONE BY SINCE HE'D SEEN DELPHINE.
No matter. Escoffier had spent the afternoon tasting figs for her at the greengrocers. He'd only come to pick up his “consideration” for the month, the money suppliers paid to him for the privilege, as he liked to think of it, of selling food to The Savoy. But there were so many figs, such abundance, he could not resist. The sight of them lifted his spirits. It was as if he were walking again down the rue du Figuier, the only street in Paris lined completely in ancient fig trees, and taking his fill. His heart was greedy for them; they would be the perfect gift from Mr. Boots.

The beloved Mr. Boots.

While it had begun as a deception born out of panic, through the years weekly shipments to Madame Escoffier from “Mr. Boots” had become a delight for Escoffier. In his letters he was forced to adopt a cheerful formality with his wife, a tone of friendship. But with the shipments of Mr. Boots, he could be an ardent lover.

The fruit alone inspired him. In the heat of summer there were
mirabelles
from Alsace: small and golden cherries, speckled with red. And
Reine Claude
from Moissac, sweet thin-skinned plums the color of lettuce touched with gold. In August, green hazelnuts and then green walnuts, delicate, milky and fresh. And of course, for just a moment in early fall,
pêches de vigne
, a rare subtle peach so remarkable that a shipment was often priced at a year's wages. And right before winter,
Chasselas de Moissac
grapes: small, pearlescent and so graceful that they grow in Baroque clusters, as if part of a Caravaggio still life.

But that day there were so many figs that he was late for the meeting. He knew Ritz would be cross, but he was often cross, so it made no difference.

When Escoffier finally entered The Savoy's American Bar, Ritz was sitting at the far end waiting in his impeccable black suit. He looked as he always did; he had an unflinching immaculate air about him. He was well shaven, well brushed, the ends of his mustache were perfectly turned upward toward heaven but his hands were clasped together so tightly that his knuckles were white. Over the years, Ritz had become too thin and darkly quiet.

Afternoon tea was in full swing next door in the dining room. Orchestra music floated into the cool dark bar. “To cover the silence which hangs like a pall over an English dining table,” as Ritz once said. But at that moment it was merely a nagging reminder of the sacrilege that was going on in the main room.

Afternoon tea was an abomination. No matter how hard Escoffier tried to create the very best of everything, the English wanted only to eat the familiar, wretched and often cloying foods for their teas.

The lemon curd tarts proved to be an endless source of vexation for Escoffier.
He knew that the
tarte
should only be made with sweet Menton lemons from Côte d'Azur:
it was the only acceptable fruit.
The Menton provides a depth of flavor, a mellow tartness with a floral edge, which is remarkable. But the British would not have it. At least three times a week, Escoffier was summoned by one plaid-clad matron or another only to hear the complaint, “This is not like my dear sweet Nan's,” to which he replied,
“Je ne parle pas l'anglais”—
even though he had heard the complaint so many times before he knew exactly what they were saying.

And the clotted cream, such trouble. A more refined palate would have demanded
crème chantilly
sweetened with an
eau-de-vie
like Calvados or
eau-de-vie de poire
, because pear is always lovely in the fall. But not the English. Their tea must be the tea they remembered from childhood.

And, of course, there must be seventeen types of tea, although most of the ladies drank champagne and some even went for gin with tonic served in a tall glass with tiny limes. “I feel a touch of scurvy,” they would often tell the waiter.

Afternoon tea was a nightmare.

Escoffier took a seat alongside Ritz at the bar, although he would have rather sat at a table. In the dining room, the orchestra swung into a melody from
The Pirates of Penzance
with several ladies singing along to the patter of the “Major-General's Song.” He winced. Given the slurry drunken laughter, he assumed that the re-creation of the libretto would probably not be pleasing to the very model of a modern major-general.

“The customer is always right?”

“And usually off key.”

“I will never understand the English and their tea. Dinner crowns the day. What more does a tea do except ruin dinner?”

“It fills our pockets and keeps them away from cabbage and sausage.”

There were two small cocktail glasses in front of Ritz. One held a drink with a single twist of lemon. The other had an olive. He continually arranged and rearranged the glasses until they sat in a perfect line; the napkins, just so.

“Drink. Opine,” he said and handed Escoffier the glass with the lemon. “This is a Martinez from California. Old Tom Gin. Vermouth. Bitters. Maraschino liqueur.”

Escoffier took a sniff and handed the glass back by the stem, so as not to warm the drink. “It seems very much like a Manhattan. The juniper of the gin is very nice. Very pronounced. What if you use dry vermouth and eliminate the maraschino?”

Ritz handed him the second glass. “It would be this. Equal parts of gin and Martini e Rossi vermouth. It is called a Martini.”

Escoffier sniffed again. “Better.”

“Stronger. We will begin with these tonight for the investors' dinner. Money will fly from their pockets.”

“Cocktails ruin the palate.”

“Cocktails are American, and thereby exotic.”

After a time, Escoffier had come to understand that he was not, as Ritz had promised, an ambassador for France at all. He felt very much like the pet chameleon Sarah often wore as a bit of jewelry: decorative, out of his element, and tethered with a gold chain.

He unfolded the menu he'd created for the investors' dinner. Cocktails would most certainly ruin it, but drunken investors were generous investors and the Ritz Hotel Development Company, whose primary partners were Ritz and Escoffier, needed money.

Within the year, they'd planned to open Hôtel Ritz in Paris on the fashionable Place Vendôme and then, the next year, their flagship, the Carlton.

A quick walk from The Savoy, the Carlton would be even more modern, more elegant and more expensive. It would be, frankly, better. And so as soon as it was finished, Ritz said that they would leave their contracts with The Savoy and become as rich as D'Oyly Carte himself.

“Ritz Development hotels will be the greatest in the world.”

“And they will not serve afternoon tea?”

“The words
Ritz
and
tea
will never appear in the same sentence again.”

Escoffier often dreamt of that day.

And so it became his challenge to construct the menus for the investors' dinners with an eye to extravagance—a particular type of extravagance—one that could be easily charged back to The Savoy, hidden in one account or another.

There was so much at stake that it kept him up at night. The two men were both making more money than the prime minister himself, and Delphine was spending Escoffier's share at an alarming rate—supporting a villa filled with assorted family members was outrageously expensive. If they were to leave The Savoy to open these new ventures, his salary could not falter; there were too many mouths to feed at La Villa Fernand.

Escoffier placed the menu on the bar.

“The wines alone will be one thousand pounds. Excessive?”

“Is that not the point?”

Ritz drank the martini and read aloud.

Caviar frais
• Chilled caviar • •
Blinis de Sarrasin
• Buckwheat blinis • •
Oursins de la Méditerranée
• Sea urchins • •
Consommé aux Oeufs de Fauvette
• Consommé with a perfect warbler's egg in honor of the illustrious singer Adelina Patti • •
Velouté Dame-Blanche
• Sweet almond cream soup with star-shaped chicken quenelles • •
Sterlet du Volga à la Moscovite
• Very rare sturgeon that lives between the fresh and salt rivers in the Caspian • •
Barquette de Laitance à la Vénitienne
• Fish roe in pastry boats • •
Chapon fin aux Perles du Périgord
• Capon with truffles from Périgord • •
Cardon épineux à la Toulousaine
• Cardoons poached in veal fat and sauced • •
Selle de Chevreuil aux Cerises
• Saddle of venison with cherries • •
Suprêmes d'Ecrevisses au Champagne
• Crayfish in a champagne and truffle cream sauce • •
Mandarines Givrées
• Frosted tangerines • •
Terrine de Caille sous la Cendre, aux Raisins
• Terrine of quail with grapes • •
Salade Mignon
• Prawn, artichoke bottoms, black truffle seasoned with mayonnaise sauce • •
Asperges à la Milanaise
• Asparagus prepared in the style of Italy • •
Délices de Foie gras
• Foie gras studded with truffles, covered with bacon set in champagne aspic and served very cold with very hot grilled toast • •
Soufflé de Grenade à l'Orientale
• Pomegranate soufflé “oriental style” • •
Biscuit glacé aux Violettes
• Iced cake with violets • •
Fruits de Serre Chaude
• Hothouse fruit

“Echenard supplied the translations. I feel we should go without.”

“Investors should know what they are eating.”

“Investors should speak French.”

“They speak Money. It is the universal language.”

The menu was extensive and challenging. The house was filled that night with the main room overbooked. Escoffier looked at his watch. “Bertie and Miss Langtry are still in his suite. His wife and the rest of the Marlborough Set are scheduled to arrive for cocktails at sunset, less than an hour from now.”

“Martinis for her, too, then—Prince Edward loves drama.”

“And when the future queen appears in the bar with Lillie Langtry's head in her hands, what will the investors think?”

“They will be overjoyed. Investors love to see Royals bicker. It makes them feel important. Money will flow from their hands.”

Ritz finished the drink but before he could tap the glass, the barman brought another. He took a sip. Escoffier lowered his voice.

“This dinner tonight. The expense is overwhelming.”

“Adelina Patti?”

“She has consented to sing ‘Home Sweet Home,' as you requested, but for five thousand pounds. Which account should this be charged to?”

“That is a very good question. How many years of salary is that?”

“For some? A lifetime.”

“It will be interesting to see what account you choose, then. Housekeeping? That would be amusing. You could say that Prince Edward demanded to sleep on sheets of gold. Of course, he never actually
sleeps
, does he?”

“What would the auditors say to that?”

“They certainly couldn't question him about it.”

The auditors had been working for four months at the behest of The Savoy's board of directors. The hotel, its bar and dining rooms were filled every night and yet the half-year accounts showed a drop in net profits from
24
percent in
1895
to just
13
percent.

“Business is always cyclical,” Ritz tried to explain. “Consider the tulip. Once only afforded by kings and now nearly a weed.”

But the board had been blunt about its displeasure. Behind closed doors it questioned a litany of businesses connected to the hotel that Ritz and Escoffier alone profited from. It carried on at great length about soliciting backing from customers and tradespeople, the practice of accommodating and entertaining family and friends, and were quite incensed that potential partners of the Ritz Hotel Development Company had been allowed to run up large bills that had never been settled. Presents that had nothing to do with The Savoy's business but had been sent to outside parties with the “manager's compliments” annoyed them. Household goods and food charged to the hotel's account that had been delivered to Ritz's new home in Hampstead made D'Oyly Carte feel betrayed.

“This is all standard practice,” Ritz said.

“When a hotel is showing a wide profit, yes.”

“Thirteen percent is—”

“Not enough. You have been simply using The Savoy as a place to live in, a pied-à-terre, an office, from which to carry on your other schemes and as a lever to float a number of other projects in which the hotel has no interest whatever.”

“I am The Savoy.”

“You overestimate your worth.”