Overnight, ten hours counted from her arrival
One commissionAn overnight is ten hours at £1,800, counted from the minute she arrives. In practice that is dinner, the hours after it, sleep and breakfast, and it is the only commission here where the end of the evening is not a thing either of you has to think about. It is also the one guests describe afterwards as the best value on the ladder, which is a strange thing to say about the largest figure and is nonetheless what they say.
Most of these are written in Knightsbridge and Belgravia, where the hotels are quiet and the residential streets are quieter. A day of notice is kind rather than compulsory. Not every woman takes them, so the shortest route is to name two from The Hang and let Tamsin tell you which of the two has the night free.
Suited to overnights
How ten hours are counted
From her arrival, straight through. A companion who comes to you at eight leaves at six the following morning; one who arrives at eleven is with you until nine. Say in the message which end matters more to you, because an early breakfast and a late dinner cannot both be had inside the same ten hours, and it is better to decide that now than at two in the morning.
Nothing is added for the hour at which it starts or the day of the week it falls on. There is no late arrival figure and no weekend figure. £1,800 is the whole of it.
What the night is, and is not
It is ten hours of one woman's time and company. Nothing further is sold here at any length, and the length is not a way of buying something the shorter bookings do not include. This is worth stating on this page more plainly than on any other, because it is the page where guests most often assume otherwise. What the extra hours actually buy is the absence of a clock, which is a great deal more than it sounds.
Breakfast, and the morning
Most guests order it upstairs, which avoids a dining room at eight in the morning and is the one part of the night that benefits from a little planning. She is not company that vanishes before the light: the hours run to their end and she says a proper goodbye at it. Several of the women here are early risers by habit and will be entirely cheerful about it, which can be alarming at seven.
Four who are good at a long night
Nancy is thirty, takes dinners and overnights rather than short calls, and has never in her life rushed a goodnight. Sonya is thirty-two, direct, and runs an evening so well that you do not notice it being run. Michelle reads a tired guest in about a minute and moves dinner an hour later without being asked. Violetta is slow to arrive and worth the first hour, and the second is where she opens up. Three of the four are also on the thirties drawer of the cabinet.
The ten hours, as they usually fall
She arrives at nine. A drink while the evening decides what it is, then a table at half past that nobody has to leave early. Back by midnight, a last glass, and the long unhurried conversation that guests tend to remember best. Sleep, which she takes seriously and does not apologise for. Breakfast upstairs at half past six, and her goodbye at seven, ten hours from the door.
Where a night is easiest
Knightsbridge and Belgravia are named above for a reason: the hotels there are small enough that a late return goes unremarked and quiet enough that the morning is not a corridor of trolleys. Holland Park suits a guest who has taken a house for the week. Park Lane suits one who wants the park across the road at seven with a coffee in hand. Any district on the list will do; those four simply make the ten hours easier.
Writing it a day ahead
Give the date, the hour she should arrive and the address, and ask for ten hours. Tamsin comes back with a name, an arrival time to the minute and £1,800 in writing, and holds nothing until you have agreed. The figure goes to her at the door and is never raised again. An overnight can be moved or dropped with three hours' notice at no cost; inside the last two hours before she is due, half stands. The full terms are on the rates page.
Two pages of the long view on this commission
Questions on this commission
Yes. Give her arrival as the hour you expect to be back, and the ten hours run from there. Err on the late side, and message Tamsin if the dinner overruns so that she is not waiting outside a door.
Three hours' notice or more and nothing is owed. Inside the last two hours before she is due, half of the £1,800 stands. Once the night has begun either of you may end it early, and the figure handed over at the door stays as it was, which is the reason for being sure before the date is agreed.
Not in the figure. The difference is only notice: Friday and Saturday nights are asked for first, so a day or two ahead is sensible there rather than merely kind.