One does not truly understand the absurdity of wealth until one is invited to muck about in it. My arrival at St. Horace’s Park, that monstrous pile of brick and vanity, was no different than landing on the moon, if such a thing were possible. A place where one is detached from all sense and where every object is seemingly placed to mock the rational mind. Of course, I was hired as some casual odd-jobber, neither cook nor gardener, nor, God forbid, parlour maid. I was to be a kind of living ornament, flitting about in the shadows, wiping the occasional vase or straightening the odd, oversized portrait, for the occupants of such homes require an audience for their eccentricities. I was to be their low-life exhibit.

The first thing to strike me was the sheer volume of rooms. Fifty-two of them, or so the housekeeper, a bloodless woman named Mrs. Lipton, declared with a sniff. “One for each week of the year,” she explained. These rooms, of course, weren’t for use. No one ‘used’ any room here. They were for existence, like those bizarrely ornamental flowers you find in the Second Class lounge on an ocean liner, all for show and yet with no real purpose. The family themselves only resided in a suite of six, leaving forty-six rooms to rot in their own silent splendeur.

The carpets were thick enough to lose one’s footing in, like walking through a bog of velvet. Every corner held some relic of a bygone age, over-polished gilded clocks that didn’t tell the time, statues with slightly chipped noses, and chandeliers hanging precariously from ceilings frescoed with scenes of gods and cherubs indulging in activities that would have scandalised even the most liberal libertine. At every step, I half-expected one of these monstrosities to come crashing down, ending my ordeal in a blaze of baroque tragedy.

It was the lavatories that truly amused me. One must understand that the simple act of relieving oneself in this house became an exercise in excess. No fewer than nine bathrooms, each more ludicrous than the last, were scattered throughout the mansion. The fixtures gleamed like something out of a naval ship, brass and silver competing for dominance. The towels were embroidered with a family crest, two lions standing on hind legs, clutching a sceptre. As for the soap, it came in shapes and colours I scarcely thought possible. Shells, peacocks, miniature marble statues of naked slim people. I briefly considered whether I could live off the soaps alone, such was their delicate aroma of lavender, rose, and some multiple other exotic flowers I couldn't name.

The gardens were no better. Manicured to the half-inch, they were arranged in such precision that I half-imagined the gardener using a ruler to ensure the tulips stood at precisely equal distances from one another. A hedge maze stood to the west of the grounds, a labyrinth so intricate that it was rarely entered for fear of becoming hopelessly lost. Mrs. Lipton told me in confidence that the lord of the house, Sir Bertram, once disappeared in it for three days. “When he came out, he’d grown a beard and claimed to have had visions,” she whispered. I’m not sure if this story was meant to inspire reverence or fear, but it certainly deepened my growing sense of the house’s absurdity.

The kitchen, a place where one might expect the realities of life to reassert themselves, was instead a cathedral of gadgets and polished surfaces. There were no fewer than five toasters, three bread knives engraved with the family’s initials, and a copper soup tureen that could drown a battalion but was used, apparently, only once a year for a charity gala. The head cook, a portly man named Gregory, seemed to take it all in stride. “There’s a machine here for everything but breathing,” he told me with a grin, slicing a loaf with one of the bread knives. “And I wouldn’t be surprised if they got one of those in next.”

The dining room was a gallery of discomfort. A table that could easily seat thirty had only four chairs set around it, making me wonder if the family played athletic musical chairs when it came time to eat. It was draped with a white cloth so vast it could have powered a fleet of sailing ships, and the centrepiece was a crystal candelabrum that reflected light in such a way as to blind any unfortunate soul sitting too close to it. The room was rarely used.

Perhaps the most amusing feature was the “family museum,” which occupied a whole east wing of the house. It was not a museum in the conventional sense, where one might expect to find valuable heirlooms or relics of historical significance. No, this was a museum of the absurd. There were glass cases filled with the most laughable of curios. An elaborately framed collection of Sir Bertram’s childhood report cards (all marked with glowing comments about his “gentle spirit”), a stuffed otter wearing a monocle, and a painting of a pug in military uniform. I remember standing there, gazing at the pug’s imperious expression, wondering if perhaps the entire house had been designed by someone who had lost all touch with reality.

As I wandered from room to room, I felt less and less connected to the world I had known. The house was a living satire of itself, a place where wealth had reached such a height of absurdity that it ceased to be wealth and became a kind of grotesque theatre. Each object, each room, seemed to be a prop in a grand play, one that no one was watching but which continued to be performed all the same.

And it should have been a relief to leave each day, stepping out of the opulence and into the brisk air of my freedom. As I rode away on my bicycle, my backpack light on my shoulders, I could only laugh at the madness of it all. For the first week.

Wealth, I realised, was no joke and then I suddenly realised, to my lasting amazement, that I wanted it. All of it.

~~~~~~~~

Thanks to Mr Evelyn Waugh for stylistic inspiration.