There's no place like home

“You are cordially invited to tea at Blaine House...”

Actually, I didn’t get my invitation to the annual Christmas tea at the governor’s mansion because the member of the Kennebec Valley Garden Club who was responsible for a certain number of invitations forgot to mail them out. This lady also happens to be my library’s most dedicated Friend, and it was while she was in decorating the library for the holidays that she remembered to mention the tea to me. (I’m actually pleased when someone else confesses to having forgotten something they were supposed to do. Makes me feel less the pariah). The Garden Club does the decorating for this annual event at Blaine House, and extends the invitations.

I love visiting old houses. This person who was an apartment-dweller from the time she left home at 18 until she moved into her first rental house in the southern Louisiana countryside at the age of 50, and has never in her life had a strong desire to own a home, has always been fascinated by big, beautiful, historically interesting houses. I always find myself imagining what it must have been like to live there, picturing myself sitting in that sitting room, sleeping in that four poster, standing at that window looking out at that garden. So I really could not pass up this chance to visit one of Maine’s most important “houses,” which has been the home of 25 governors and their families since the house was given to the state in 1919.

Located across the street from Maine’s State House in Augusta, and a five minute drive from my little library in Hallowell (the two cities bleed into one another), Blaine House was built in 1833 by a retired ship’s captain. It actually looks something like an old ship – the enclosed lookout on the roof could be the captain’s “bridge”, the four tall, white, black-topped chimneys, two on each side of the roof, could be smoke stacks

The house is the traditional white, with black shutters, and is surrounded by a white picket fence. It does look New Englandish, but I think it would not look out of place in the Deep South, perhaps because it’s so large, and has the lovely gardens around it.

The house was purchased in 1862 by James G. Blaine, one of Maine’s foremost political figures. He served as Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, was a U.S. Senator, Secretary of Sate and – what really surprised me – lost the presidency in 1884 to Grover Cleveland by only 2000 votes. Had he won, we would all have heard of James G. Blaine. It was his daughter who bequeathed the house to the state in 1919.

Inside, there is the “state” dining room, to the right of the main entrance hall. It can supposedly seat 36, but I think that would be a very snug fit. The table that was in place looked like it could comfortably seat 20, and there wasn't a whole lot of floor space available for adding "leaves." Indeed, none of the rooms is on anything approaching the grand scale, which seems appropri-ately "understated Maine."

The green and silver striped wallpaper is supposed to represent the trees and lakes of Maine, but what it looks like is a traditional, elegant dining room wallpaper. This is where tea – or coffee, if that was your preference – was served. And unlike at the little tea my library held a couple of months back, where functional but inelegant industrial coffee pots provided coffee and hot water, which went into styrofoam cups, here the beverage of your choice came out of a beautiful silver tea service, and was poured into lovely china cups.

Beyond this dining room is the kitchen, and beyond that, the "family" dining room, which naturally is smaller, cozier. Among the decor-ations there was a marvelous gingerbread house that had been done by the chef at the Augusta Country Club. I was enchanted by it, for I do love gingerbread houses.

Across the hall from the state dining room is the state reception room, with beautiful black Italian marble fireplaces, a dusky blue rug that makes a nice contrast with the white walls, and white columns that separate one part of the room from the other. You could easily imagine dignitaries standing around making small talk, sipping glasses of champagne. On this particular day we were all sipping tea or coffee, and most of us were hardly what you’d call dignitaries. There was a very large Christmas tree decorated charmingly with all natural ornaments, such as frosted pine cones and clusters of dried flowers.

My favorite room was the next one back, originally an open porch that was glassed in (very sensibly, given Maine winters) and became the sunroom. But I thought of it as the music room, as there was a baby grand piano there, being played by an unlikely-looking fellow, overweight, middle-aged, lank, shoulder-length hair. Not what you’d expect. Given all the genteel ladies, most well past middle age, who were hosting the tea, I guess I would have expected one of their number to be playing. All the windows looking out on the garden make the room very light and airy.

Beyond the sunroom/music room was a very small, very masculine study – more black marble, lots of wood, dark leather, books that actually belonged to James Blaine behind glass doors. And a door led from there to where ol’ Blaine, or later governors, might have gone to escape the ladies – the billiard room. Yes, real live billiard tables.

There were also two bedrooms upstairs that could be viewed (I viewed them), though these are not part of the private residence of the house, where the governor and his family actually live. All in all, this made for a very pleasant peak into the past, and into the “public” home of today’s governor.

Hats and gloves optional

Today the Board of Trustees of my library, along with the Friends organization, held a tea for those who contributed to our 2007-2008 annual fund. The invitations that we sent out said “hats and gloves optional, but wouldn’t it be fun?” and a number of ladies did, indeed, wear hats; some even wore gloves. One lady told me her hat was 50 years old. All of the hats had to have been old, for where on earth can one buy a (formal, not sports) hat these days? Department stores used to have large hat departments, for women and men (one of my first jobs was as assistant buyer in the Men’s Shoes and Hats department of The Hecht Company in Washington, D.C.); but I don’t think they sell hats at all anymore, do they? One woman who attended our tea told me she had bought hers at the local second-hand dress shop, Reappearances, especially for the occasion.

I would have worn a hat, but it’s been a very long time since I owned one. In fact, I think the only time I ever wore a proper hat was as a child, when going to church. (Hah, those were the days, huh? Now people wear their sweat suits to church...)

My contribution to the selection of goodies available was a plate of cucumber sandwiches. I felt that any tea deserving of the name must have cucumber sandwiches, a la The Importance of Being Ernest. Making them was the usual ordeal. Probably because of my compulsion to perfection, preparing a meal when people are coming for dinner is an ordeal, preparing a single contribution for a potluck kind of event is an ordeal. And this particular ordeal began when I sat down at the computer to look for a good cucumber sandwich recipe. Too many choices! One site alone offered 89 possibilities. I ended up using a recipe out of my head – simpler than most of the ones I was reading, less like the cocktail party hors d’oeuvres many of the recipes suggested (on little rye bread rounds, with Italian dressing mixed in and paprika sprinkled on top, for example). My “recipe” consisted of mashing cream cheese and unsalted butter together, mixing a little dill into that – could probably have used more dill, but was afraid of there being too much – with a thinly sliced cucumber on each half sandwich. I removed the crust from the bread I used (naturally!), then sliced the sandwiches in half diagonally, producing little triangles. Each triangle had a cucumber.

After finally deciding how I was going to do the sandwiches, I went to the supermarket to get the ingredients, and had trouble deciding if an 8-oz package would be enough, or should I get the bigger package. After finally settling on 8 ounces (which made 20 of the little half sandwiches, for those with a party coming up), I proceeded to have trouble deciding what kind of white bread to get. Was planning on using the rest of my loaf of Country Kitchen Scotch Oatmeal for the brown sandwiches, but knew I had to have some white ones too, both for color and texture variety, and because some people, yes, even in this enlightened day and age, do not like whole grain bread. After I’d finally decided on Country Kitchen Unseeded Italian – which I probably would not go with again, because the texture was a little too flabby – I couldn’t decide whether I should buy one cucumber or two! Oh, good lord. I bought two, used only one.

And then, when it came time to actually make the sandwiches I found that, as so often happens, I had underestimated how long it would take, and was hyperventilating while frantically smearing cream-cheese-and-butter, knowing that I needed to be leaving in five minutes at the latest, in order to get to the library in time to let the ladies from the Friends in so they could set up.

But I made it in time, the sandwiches were fine, and popular, the tea was actually a very nice event, that everyone seemed to enjoy. A little girl, daughter of two of our patrons (and biggest contributors) played the violin. The child is only ten, but amazingly good; it was not embarrassing having her play. Of course, all the men present, with the exception of the two male Board members who showed up (five female members put in an appearance), had been dragged there by their wives. A tea simply is not a guy thing. In all honesty, I can’t say it’s my kind of thing either, not in the traditional sense. That “sense” involves a bunch of women sitting around talking about boring things like their health, babies, diets, with the talk possibly dipping into gossip of the cattier sort. This tea was nothing like that; talk was much more general; there was a lot of movement among groups. Actually, it was more like a cocktail party, but with the “cocktail” consisting of coffee or tea. And our Board president, who is himself a poet, read several rather charming poems that, in one way or another, had to do with libraries, or at least books. So there you go.