'Oh, well, we'll just order bread and cheese and beer. It always costs about the same.'
'But they hate you doing that. They'll try to bully us into having a proper lunch, you'll see. We must be firm and just say bread and cheese.'
'All right, we'll be firm. Come on.'
They went in, resolved to be firm. But there was an expensive smell in the draughty hallway—a smell of chintz, dead flowers, Thames water, and the rinsings of wine bottles. It was the characteristic smell of a riverside hotel. Gordon's heart sank lower. He knew the type of place this was. It was one of those desolate hotels which exist all along the motor roads and are frequented by stockbrokers airing their whores on Sunday afternoons. In such places you are insulted and overcharged almost as a matter of course. Rosemary shrank nearer to him. She too was intimidated. They saw a door marked 'Saloon' and pushed it open, thinking it must be the bar. It was not a bar, however, but a large, smart, chilly room with corduroy–upholstered chairs and settees. You could have mistaken it for an ordinary drawing–room except that all the ashtrays advertised White Horse whisky. And round one of the tables the people from the cars outside—two blond, flat–headed, fattish men, over–youthfully dressed, and two disagreeable elegant young women—were sitting, having evidently just finished lunch. A waiter, bending over their table, was serving them with liqueurs.
Gordon and Rosemary had halted in the doorway. The people at the table were already eyeing them with offensive upper–middle–class eyes. Gordon and Rosemary looked tired and dirty, and they knew it. The notion of ordering bread and cheese and beer had almost vanished from their minds. In such a place as this you couldn't possibly say 'Bread and cheese and beer'; 'Lunch' was the only thing you could say. There was nothing for it but 'Lunch' or flight. The waiter was almost openly contemptuous. He had summed them up at a glance as having no money; but also he had divined that it was in their minds to fly and was determined to stop them before they could escape.
'Sare?' he demanded, lifting his tray off the table.
Now for it! Say 'Bread and cheese and beer', and damn the consequences! Alas! his courage was gone. 'Lunch' it would have to be. With a seeming–careless gesture he thrust his hand into his pocket. He was feeling his money to make sure that it was still there. Seven and elevenpence left, he knew. The waiter's eye followed the movement; Gordon had a hateful feeling that the man could actually see through the cloth and count the money in his pocket. In a tone as lordly as he could make it, he remarked:
'Can we have some lunch, please?'
'Luncheon, sare? Yes, sare. Zees way.'
The waiter was a black–haired young man with a very smooth, well– featured, sallow face. His dress clothes were excellently cut and yet unclean–looking, as though he seldom took them off. He looked like a Russian prince; probably he was an Englishman and had assumed a foreign accent because this was proper in a waiter. Defeated, Rosemary and Gordon followed him to the dining–room, which was at the back, giving on to the lawn. It was exactly like an aquarium. It was built entirely of greenish glass, and it was so damp and chilly that you could almost have fancied yourself under water. You could both see and smell the river outside. In the middle of each of the small round tables there was a bowl of paper flowers, but at one side, to complete the aquarium effect, there was a whole florist's stand of evergreens, palms, and aspidistras and so forth, like dreary water–plants. In summer such a room might be pleasant enough; at present, when the sun had gone behind a cloud, it was merely dank and miserable. Rosemary was almost as much afraid of the waiter as Gordon was. As they sat down and he turned away for a moment she made a face at his back.
'I'm going to pay for my own lunch,' she whispered to Gordon, across the table.
'No, you're not.'
'What a horrible place! The food's sure to be filthy. I do wish we hadn't come.'
'Sh!'
The waiter had come back with a flyblown printed menu. He handed it to Gordon and stood over him with the menacing air of a waiter who knows that you have not much money in your pocket. Gordon's heart pounded. If it was a table d'hote lunch at three and sixpence or even half a crown, they were sunk. He set his teeth and looked at the menu. Thank God! It was a la carte. The cheapest thing on the list was cold beef and salad for one and sixpence. He said, or rather mumbled:
'We'll have some cold beef, please.'
The waiter's delicate eyebrows lifted. He feigned surprise.
'ONLY ze cold beef, sare?'
'Yes that'll do to go on with, anyway.'
'But you will not have ANYSING else, sare?'
'Oh, well. Bring us some bread, of course. And butter.'
'But no soup to start wiz, sare?'
'No. No soup.'
'Nor any fish, sare? Only ze cold beef?'
'Do we want any fish, Rosemary? I don't think we do. No. No fish.'
'Nor any sweet to follow, sare? ONLY ze cold beef?'
Gordon had difficulty in controlling his features. He thought he had never hated anyone so much as he hated this waiter.
'We'll tell you afterwards if we want anything else,' he said.
'And you will drink sare?'
Gordon had meant to ask for beer, but he hadn't the courage now. He had got to win back his prestige after this affair of the cold beef.
'Bring me the wine list,' he said flatly.
Another flyblown list was produced. All the wines looked impossibly expensive. However, at the very top of the list there was some nameless table claret at two and nine a bottle. Gordon made hurried calculations. He could just manage two and nine. He indicated the wine with his thumbnail.
'Bring us a bottle of this,' he said.
The waiter's eyebrows rose again. He essayed a stroke of irony.
'You will have ze WHOLE bottle, sare? You would not prefare ze half bottle?'
'A whole bottle,' said Gordon coldly.
All in a single delicate movement of contempt the waiter inclined his head, shrugged his left shoulder, and turned away. Gordon could not stand it. He caught Rosemary's eye across the table. Somehow or other they had got to put that waiter in his place! In a moment the waiter came back, carrying the bottle of cheap wine by the neck, and half concealing it behind his coat tails, as though it were something a little indecent or unclean. Gordon had thought of a way to avenge himself. As the waiter displayed the bottle he put out a hand, felt it, and frowned.
'That's not the way to serve red wine,' he said.
Just for a moment the waiter was taken aback. 'Sare?' he said.
'It's stone cold. Take the bottle away and warm it.'
'Very good, sare.'
But it was not really a victory. The waiter did not look abashed. Was the wine worth warming? his raised eyebrow said. He bore the bottle away with easy disdain, making it quite clear to Rosemary and Gordon that it was bad enough to order the cheapest wine on the list without making this fuss about it afterwards.
The beef and salad were corpse–cold and did not seem like real food at all. They tasted like water. The rolls, also, though stale, were damp. The reedy Thames water seemed to have got into everything. It was no surprise that when the wine was opened it tasted like mud. But it was alcoholic, that was the great thing. It was quite a surprise to find how stimulating it was, once you had got it past your gullet and into your stomach. After drinking a glass and a half Gordon felt very much better. The waiter stood by the door, ironically patient, his napkin over his arm, trying to make Gordon and Rosemary uncomfortable by his presence. At first he succeeded, but Gordon's back was towards him, and he disregarded him and presently almost forgot him. By degrees their courage returned. They began to talk more easily and in louder voices.
'Look,' said Gordon. 'Those swans have followed us all the way up here.'