Country Place

by Peter Selgin
(Page 2)

Our room was at the end of three increasingly steep and narrow flights of blue-carpeted stairs. An attic room, it contained no right angles whatsoever. "Please don't lock the door," the cheerful man warned as he left us, "there are no keys. We want you to feel like this is your home, not a hotel."

The bedroom was just large enough to accommodate a queen-sized brass bed, but the adjoining bathroom was surprisingly ample, lined with cobalt blue Spanish tiles. There was a small Jacuzzi and a view facing the rear garden and fitness center. I started getting excited. First a dip in the indoor pool, I thought. No. First a walk on the grounds, No. First explore the library, find a good book, a glass of port, then a walk on the grounds. No...
Paulette dragged me out for a walk.

We wandered a series of muddy roads in the balmy February afternoon. The woods were naked and filled with birdsong; the landscape gray, ocher, olive drab, interrupted with patches of snow. Now and then Paulette would stop, aim her binoculars, and try to single out a bird with a unique voice. There wasn't a soul around. The crunching of our boots on the road was the only human sound, loud as thunder.

On the way back we passed the woodshed, stockaded by cords of wood, almost as big as the house I grew up in. I wondered what it would really be like to be the owner of such an estate, with all those eaves and mullioned windows. A city dweller for most of the past twenty years, I couldn't imagine it. I could scarcely imagine wanting it. What would I do all the time? No cafes, no museums, art galleries or theatres. I would need many books and many friends - Transcendental poets and Hudson River School painters. I would need hobbies like birdwatching and lap-swimming. I would have to be passionate about many things, as a means of keeping sane. Going to church would help. So would bottles of port.

Back at the inn, I found my way past the walled gardens, through puddles of mud and slabs of ice, to the indoor pool.

There was no one there. I rolled back the plastic cover that kept the water warm. As I swam, I continued to wonder about country luxury. What exactly is country luxury, anyway? A glass of port? A starched white shirt and crackling fire? Stuffed pheasant with Grand Marnier sauce? All these things taken together? Supposing we'd stayed home in our cramped upper West-Side apartment (minus the crackling fire since we do not have a working fireplace) but with all the rest (substitute a Perdue Cornish Hen for the pheasant); why isn't it the same? Is the leaded glass what's missing, or the massive wood beams? Are they what hold up the illusion? Must we have oak beams in order to believe? Maybe it's all the fresh air. No, no one came to Troutbeck simply for fresh air and trees and quiet. They came for the milieu: to breathe, and take long walks in a stage-set of country luxury, a Currier & Ives print come to life. Everything is real, but everything is also a prop. People came to be characters in a weekend-long drama, to play the roles of wealthy, country aristocrats, to be reminded, as constantly and consistently as possible, that they were not at home, but someplace infinitely superior. Pass the salt would you, Ralph Waldo?