Going Batty Over Old English B

I do not know how high the canopy was above the four-poster bed in the English manor house called Ston Easton Park.

I do know that my husband had to jump to reach it.

Actually, he didn’t have to jump. I asked him to.

There was a brown feather lodged in the middle of the canopy’s underside.

I saw it as I was about to turn off my bedside lamp. I did not fancy the idea of it floating down and startling me during the night. I have a thing about feathers.

“Would you please brush it away?” I asked my husband.

He stood on the bed and stretched up but could not reach it. He bent his knees and jumped.

His yelp was more surprise than fury. He swiftly opened the door to the corridor and then returned, his hands outstretched like a scene from Macbeth.

“It was--I believe--a small bat,” he said through gritted teeth. He went into the bathroom and turned on the hot water for a scrub.

We flicked on other lights and studied the canopy and the ceiling of this elegant room where we were the first guests.

Everything seemed perfection: silk and damask and the smoothest of cottons. Chippendale, Hepplewhite and other antique furnishings brought together by the designer Jean Monro, an authority on 18th-Century interiors.

The baby bat--or the prickly feather--was never again seen. Nor did we mention it to the spirited owners of Ston Eaton, Christine and Peter Smedley.

After all, the place was brand-new. That is to say, newly restored and about to debut as a country hotel. There was too much excitement to bring up the possibility of a nocturnal interloper.

We had been traveling in Somerset that spring when we heard of the impending opening of Ston Easton in the gentle Mendip Hills, 11 miles south of Bath. We telephoned from Taunton. With good cheer, they said to come ahead.

The Smedleys had bought the Georgian mansion as a home for themselves. But, as with many of England’s splendid homes, the costs of restoration and maintenance made them decide to invite paying guests.

When we turned into the long gravel drive there were no other cars. The only vehicle was a green-and-white nursery truck heaped with plants.

A young woman was wielding a trowel and barking orders to a handsome man and a springer spaniel. The spaniel barked back. They turned out to be the Smedleys and their dog Lucy.

“Don’t mind Christine,” Peter said merrily. “She grew up with a large staff in a country that shall be nameless. She’s used to giving orders. It keeps us all on our toes. Welcome.”

We checked in and then offered to help with last-minute preparations.

We had a hand in planting geraniums, anemones and trailing vines in stone urns along the formidable Palladian facade. Or at least we carried cuttings.

We have felt a propriety affection for the place since that sunny afternoon.

Now Ston Easton has expanded to 20 bedrooms, seven of which are on the first floor overlooking the broad park.

At the top of the house, where the servants once lived, are smaller bedrooms that are favored by many returning guests . . . as well as the Smedleys.

The Ston Easton kitchen has won grand awards since we first were there.

My memories are of a dream-like breakfast of plump strawberries, homemade muffins, fresh orange juice and rich coffee brewed in a plunger pot at the table. There was a basket of mums and roses. There was the anticipatory air of a dress rehearsal.

Unlike some country hotels, Ston Easton has not gone in for trumped-up entertainments or organized activities.

The silence of the English countryside is not rent by helicopters whisking guests in for high-level conferences. I don’t remember seeing hot-air balloons among the ancient oaks. I do remember walking and climbing over stiles.

Above all, Ston Easton reflects the stately mood of home for the Smedleys, home for faithful Lucy and home for a few travelers who are willing to relax, read, sit by a log fire in the library and to dine very well.

Of course, I will never know for sure if the small bat was tossed out the door on the eve of Ston Easton’s emergence as a hotel.

Or if my husband’s imagination caused him to swear that the feather was alive.

But I have always been grateful that, on that spring night, he jumped when I said jump.