FAQ · 18 questions
Frequently asked, at every hour: questions for the Society's desk
Questions reach the desk in no particular order. Here they run roughly as an evening does: arranging it, the hotel, discretion, the figures, and the standards the Society keeps.
Those that usually come before a first booking are answered on the front page and are left there. The tariff is printed in full on its own page.
At 01:00
The quiet hour
The questions most guests ask, and one or two they would rather not.
Asked, and answered
Plain answers in the order guests tend to ask. Anything missing, Cressida will answer in writing.
Adults, and adults only: every guest must be eighteen or over, as is every companion on the roster. Beyond that the Society asks for courtesy, a truthful address and an evening you mean to keep. Cressida may decline a booking where age, sobriety or intent is in any doubt, and she will not argue the point at length.
A day is comfortable, two are better. Same-evening bookings work well for an hour or two in W1, but a black tie dinner or a night until breakfast deserves the widest choice of companion, and the companion herself appreciates time to plan what she will wear.
Many guests do exactly that. An hour, at £600, is long enough for a drink in your hotel bar and a sense of each other. If it goes well, a longer evening can follow on another night, arranged in the usual way. Browse the roster for the portrait you would like to meet.
Please do. Give Cressida her name and your dates, and if she is free she will come. The Society keeps no file on its guests, so mention that you have met before; Cressida will take your word for it.
No. The Society keeps no premises that guests visit, and no companion receives anyone at home. Every evening happens where you are: a hotel, a serviced flat, a private house, or a restaurant or bar you have chosen for the start of it.
London's hotels receive visitors at all hours, and a well dressed guest meeting you in the bar or asking the desk for your room is nothing remarkable. Your companion arrives as your visitor and behaves as one. Hotels named on pages such as the Park Lane page appear there as places guests stay, never as partners.
Whatever the room expects. Name the restaurant to Cressida and your companion dresses to suit it; if you would like black tie, a cocktail dress or something easier for an evening in, say so. For dinner on Piccadilly, a jacket is rarely a mistake.
Yes. Describe the table to Cressida, who is hosting and who else is coming, and say how she should be introduced, an old acquaintance or a guest of the host. She arrives knowing her part and plays it lightly. Most such evenings fit the dinner date, four unhurried hours at £1,800.
Yes, booked as a weekend, from £6,000. Send Cressida the destination, the dates and how you would like the days to run. Nothing is booked, neither flights nor rooms, until the companion has read the plan and agreed to it and you have accepted the figure Cressida returns.
Very little: the time, the address and the first name to ask for at the desk, with anything you asked Cressida to pass on. She is told nothing more, does not ask, and will not mention the Society to anyone you meet during the evening.
You may. Send it to Cressida in advance and she will put it to the companion, who is free to sign or decline. Most guests find it unnecessary: the Society's habit is to keep very little, and to keep that little to itself.
Reach Cressida through the buttons on these pages and nowhere else. Genuine replies quote figures that match the tariff, arrive in the thread you opened, and never ask for identity papers or a new charge midway. The booking page lists what Cressida will never request.
Yes. Whatever Cressida writes down is what your companion receives, to the pound. The only thing ever added is a taxi fare for an address beyond Zone 2, and that is quoted before you confirm, never on the night.
Neither is expected; the figure is complete. Some guests bring flowers to a long dinner or remember a book she mentioned, and such gestures are received warmly, but nobody counts on them.
She is out of London or otherwise unavailable, and the date shown is when she expects to be back. "Available today" means she has let Cressida know she will take bookings that day; the hour itself still has to be agreed.
Always. Each companion keeps her own diary, accepts only the evenings she chooses and may decline any booking without giving a reason. The fee is hers, paid to her directly, and her page on the roster stays up only as long as she wishes.
Because it describes the whole of what the Society arranges, and saying so plainly is kinder than leaving anything to inference. A fee buys a companion's time and her company for the length booked. Nothing else is on offer, and an evening in which something else is sought ends early, with the fee still due.
Sparingly. A guest's note appears on a companion's page only if it was written after an evening that really happened, and only with a first name and the month attached. Cressida trims anything indiscreet and leaves the verdict alone, three stars included. Nothing is invented or paid for, and a companion who dislikes a note about herself may have it taken down.
One message to Cressida
Write with the night you have in mind, an hour, and where you will be staying. Cressida answers in the same thread, usually within minutes, with a name and a figure.