The Enchanted April - Chapter 13

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnem, Chapter thirteen. The
uneventful days only outwardly uneventful, slipped by in floods of sunshine,
and the servants watching the four ladies came to the
conclusion that there was very little life in them. To

(00:25):
the servants, San Salvatore seemed asleep. No one came to tea,
nor did the ladies go anywhere to tea. Other tenants
in other springs had been far more active. There had
been stir and enterprise. The boat had been used, excursions

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had been made, Beppo's fly was ordered. People from Mizago
came over and spent the day. The house rang with voices.
Even sometimes Champagne had been drunk. Life was varied, life
was in trusting. But this, what was this? The servants
were not even scolded. They were left completely to themselves.

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They yawned, perplexing. Two was the entire absence of gentlemen.
How could gentlemen keep away from so much beauty? Four
added up, and even after the subtraction of the old one,
the three younger ladies produced a formidable total of that

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which gentlemen usually sought. Also, the evident desire of each
lady to spend long hours separated from the other ladies,
puzzled the servants. The result was a deathly stillness in
the house. Except at meal times. It might have been
as empty as it had been all the winter. For

(01:54):
any sounds of life there were. The old lady sat
in her room alone. The dark eyed lady wandered off alone, loitering,
so Domenico told them, who sometimes came across her in
the course of his duties, incomprehensibly among the rocks. The
very beautiful fair lady lay in her low chair in

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the top garden alone. The less but still beautiful fair
lady went up to the hills and stayed up them
for hours alone. And every day the sun blazed slowly
round the house and disappeared at evening into the sea,
and nothing at all had happened. The servants yawned yes

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the four visitors while their bodies sat That was Missus Fisher's,
or lay that was Lady Caroline's, or loitered that was
Missus Arbuthnot's, or went in solitude up into the hills
that was Missus Wilkins, or anything but torpid. Really, their

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minds were unusually busy even at night. Their minds were busy,
and the dreams they had were clear, thin, quick things,
entirely different from the heavy dreams of home. There was
that in the atmosphere of San Salvatore, which produced active
mindedness in all except the natives. They, as before, whatever

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the beauty around them, whatever the prodigal seasons did, remained
immune from thoughts other than those they were accustomed to.
All their lives, they had seen year by year the amazing,
recurrent spectacle of April, and the gardens and custom had
made it invisible to them. They were as blind to it,

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as unconscious of it as Domenico's dog asleep in the sun.
The visitors could not be blind to it. It was
too arresting, after life, and in a particularly wet and
gloomy march, suddenly to be transported to that place where
the air was so still that it held its breath,

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where the light was so golden that the most ordinary
things were transfigured. To be transported into that delicate warmth,
that caressing fragrance, and to have the old gray castle
at its setting, and in the distance the serene, clear
hills of Pereghini's backgrounds. What an astonishing contrast. Even Lady Caroline,

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used all her life to beauty, who had been everywhere
and seen everything, felt the surprise of it. It was
that year a particularly wonderful spring, And of all the
months at San Salvatore, April, if the weather was fine,
was best. May scorched and withered. March was restless and

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could be hard, marred and cold in its brightness. But
April came along swiftly like a blessing, And if it
were a fine April, it was so beautiful that it
was impossible not to feel different, not to feel stirred
and touched. Missus Wilkins we have seen, responded to it instantly.
She so to speak at once, flung off all her garments,

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and dived straight into glory, unhesitatingly, with a cry of rapture.
Missus Arbuthnot was stirred and touched, but differently she had
odd sensations presently to be described. Missus Fisher, being old,
was of a closer, more impermeable texture, and offered more resistance,

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but she too had odd sensations also in their place
to be described. Lady Caroline, already amply acquainted with beautiful
houses and climates to whom they could not come quite
with the same surprise, yet was very nearly as quick
to react as Missus Wilkins. The place had an almost

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instantaneous influence on her as well, and of one part
of this influence she was aware. It had made her,
beginning on the very first evening, want to think and
acted on her curiously like a conscience. What this conscience
seemed to press upon her notice with an insistence that

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startled her. Lady Caroline hesitated to accept the word, but
it would keep on coming into her head was that
she was tawdry. She must think that out. The morning
after the first dinner together, she woke up in a
condition of regret that she should have been so talkative

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to missus Wilkins the night before. What had made her be,
she wondered? Now. Of course Missus Wilkins would want to
grab She would want to be inseparable, and the thought
of a grabbing and inseparableness that should last four weeks
made Scrap's spirit swoon within her. No doubt, the encouraged

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Missus Wilkins would be lurking in the top garden waiting
to waylay her when she went out and would hail
her with mourning cheerfulness. How much she hated being hailed
with mourning cheerfulness, or indeed hailed at all. She oughtn't
to have encouraged Missus Wilkins the night before fatal to encourage.

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It was bad enough not to encourage, for just sitting
there and saying nothing seemed usually to involve her. But
actively to encourage was suicidal. What on earth had made her?
Now she would have to waste all the precious time,
the precious lovely time for thinking, in for getting square
with herself. In shaking Missus Wilkins off with great caution

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and on the tips of her toes, balancing herself carefully
lest the pebbles should scrunch. She stole out when she
was dressed, to her corner, but the garden was empty.
No shaking off was necessary. Neither Missus Wilkins nor anybody
else was to be seen. She had it entirely to herself,

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except for Domenico, who presently came and hovered watering his
plants again, especially all the plants that were nearest her.
No one came out at all. And when after a
long while of following up thoughts which seemed to escape
her just as she had got them, and dropping off
exhausted to sleep. In the intervals of this chase, she

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felt hungry and looked at her watch and saw that
it was past three, and realized that nobody had even
bothered to call her into lunch, so that Scrap could
not but remark if anyone was shaken off, it was
she herself. Well, but how delightful and how very new

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now she would really be able to think uninterruptedly delicious
to be forgotten. Still, she was hungry, and Missus Wilkins,
after that excessive friendliness the night before, might at least
have told her lunch was ready, And she had really
been excessively friendly, so nice about Malersia's sleeping arrangements, wanting

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him to have the spare room. In all, she wasn't
usually interested in arrangements. In fact, she wasn't ever interested
in them, so that Scrap considered she might be said
almost to have gone out of her way to be
agreeable to missus Wilkins, and in return, Missus Wilkins didn't
even bother whether or not she had had any lunch. Fortunately,

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though she was hungry, she didn't mind missing a meal.
Life was full of meals. They took up an enormous
proportion of one's time, and Missus Fisher was she was afraid,
one of those persons who at meals linger. Twice now
she had dined with Missus Fisher, and each time she

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had been difficult at the end to dislodge, lingering on
slowly cracking innumerable nuts and slowly drinking a glass of
wine that seemed as if it would never be finished.
Probably it would be a good thing to make a
habit of missing lunch. And as it was quite easy
to have tea brought out to her, and as she

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breakfasted in her room, only once a day would she
have to sit at the dining room table and endure
the nuts scrap burrowed her head comfortably in the cushions,
and with her feet crossed on the low parapet, gave
herself up to more thought. She said to herself, as
she had said at intervals throughout the morning, Now I'm

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going to think. But never having thought out anything in
her life, it was difficult. Extraordinary how one's attention wouldn't
stay fixed, Extraordinary, how one's mind slipped sideways. Settling herself
down to a review of her past as a preliminary

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to the consideration of her future, and hunting in it
to begin with, for any justification of that distressing word tawdry.
The next thing she knew was that she wasn't thinking
about this at all, but had somehow switched on to
mister Wilkins. Well, mister Wilkins was quite easy to think about,

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though not pleasant, She viewed his approach with misgivings, for
not only was it a profound and unexpected bore to
have a man added to the party, and a man too,
of the kind she was sure mister Wilkins must be.
But she was afraid, and her fear was the result

(12:21):
of a drearily unvarying experience, that he might wish to
hang about her. This possibility had evidently not yet occurred
to missus Wilkins, and it was not one to which
she could very well draw her attention, not that is,
without being too fatuous to live. She tried to hope

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that mister Wilkins would be a wonderful exception to the
dreadful rule. If only he were, she would be so
much obliged to him that she believed she might really
quite like him. But she had misgivings. Suppose he hung
about her so that she was driven from her lovely

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top garden. Suppose the light in Missus Wilkins's funny, flickering
face was blown out. Scrap felt she would particularly dislike
this to happen to Missus Wilkins's face. Yet she had never,
in her life met any wives, not any at all,

(13:24):
who had been able to understand that she didn't in
the least want their husbands. Often she had met wives
who didn't want their husbands either, but that made them
none the less indignant if they thought somebody else did,
and none the less sure when they saw them hanging
around Scrap that she was trying to get them, trying

(13:46):
to get them the bear thought. The bare recollections of
these situations filled her with the boredom so extreme that
it instantly sent her to sleep again. When she woke up,
she went on with mister Wilkins. Now, if thought Scrap
mister Wilkins were not an exception and behaved in the

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usual way, would Missus Wilkins understand or would it just
simply spoil her holiday? She seemed quick, But would she
be quick about just this? She seemed to understand and
see inside one. But would she understand and see inside

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one when it came to mister Wilkins. The experienced Scrap
was full of doubts. She shifted her feet on the parapet.
She jerked a cushion straight. Perhaps she had better try
and explain to Missus Wilkins during the days still remaining
before the arrival. Explained in a general way, rather vague

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and talking at large, her attitude towards such things. She
might also expound to her her peculiar dislike of people's
husbands and her profound craving to be at least for
this one month let alone. But Scrap had her doubts
about this too. Such talk meant a certain familiarity, meant

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embarking on a friendship with Missus Wilkins. And if after
having embarked on it and faced the peril it contained
of too much Missus Wilkins, mister Wilkins should turn out
to be artful, And people did get very artful when
they were set on anything, and manage, after all, to

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slip through into the top garden. Missus Wilkins might easily
believe she had been taken in and that she Scrap
was deceitful, deceitful, and about mister Wilkins wives were really pathetic.

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At half past four, she heard sounds of saucers on
the other side of the Daphne bushes. Was Tea being
sent out to her? No, the sounds came no closer.
They stopped near the house. Tea was to be in
the garden, in her garden. Scrap considered she might at

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least have been asked if she minded being disturbed. They
all knew she sat there. Perhaps some one would bring
hers to her in her corner. No nobody brought anything. Well,
she was too hungry not to go and have it
with the others to day, but she would give Francesca

(16:49):
strict orders for the future. She got up and walked
with that slow grace, which was another of her outrageous
number of attractions. Towards the sounds of Tea. She was
conscious not only of being very hungry, but of wanting
to talk to Missus Wilkins again. Missus Wilkins had not grabbed.

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She had left her quite free all day, in spite
of the reprochement the night before. Of course, she wasn't
original and put on a silk jumper for dinner, but
she hadn't grabbed This was a great thing. Scrap went
towards the tea table quite looking forward to missus Wilkins,

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And when she came in sight of it, she saw
only Missus Fisher and Missus Arbuthnot. Missus Fisher was pouring
out the tea, and Missus Arbuthnot was offering Missus Fisher macaroons.
Every time Missus Fisher offered Missus Arbuthnot anything her cup
or milk or sugar, Missus Arbuthnot offered her macaroons, pressed

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them on her with an awe assiduousness, almost with obstinacy.
Was it a game? Scrap wondered, sitting down and seizing
a macaroon. Where is missus Wilkins, asked Scrap. They did
not know, at least Missus Arbuthnot, on Scrap's inquiry, did

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not know. Missus Fisher's face at the name became elaborately uninterested.
It appeared that Missus Wilkins had not been seen since breakfast.
Missus Arbuthnot thought she had probably gone for a picnic.
Scrap missed her. She ate the enormous macaroons, the best

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and biggest she had ever come across in silence. Tea
without Missus Wilkins was dull, and Missus Arbuthnot had that
fatal flavor of motherliness about her, of wanting to pet one,
to make one very comfortable, coaxing one to eat, coaxing
her who was already so frankly so even excessively eating,

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that seemed to have dogged Scrap's steps through life. Couldn't
people leave one alone? She was perfectly able to eat
what she wanted. Unincited, she tried to quench Missus Arbuthnot's
zeal by being short with her useless. The shortness was
not apparent, It remained as all Scrap's evil feelings remained

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covered up by the impenetrable veil of her loveliness. Missus
Fisher sat monumentally and took no notice of either of them.
She had had a curious day and was a little worried.
She'd been quite alone, for none of the three had
come to lunch, and none of them had taken the

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trouble to let her know they were not coming, and
Missus Arbuthnot, drifting casually into tea, had behaved oddly till
Lady Caroline joined them and distracted her attention. Missus Fisher
was prepared not to dislike missus Arbuthnot, whose parted hair
and mild expressions seemed very decent and womanly, But she

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certainly had habits that were difficult to like. Her habit
of instantly echoing any offer made her of food and drink,
of throwing the offer back on one as it were,
was not, somehow what one expected of her. Will you
have some more tea was surely a question to which

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the answer was simply yes or no. But missus Arbuthnot
persisted in the trick she had exhibited the day before
at breakfast, of adding to her yes or no the
words will you. She had done it again that morning
at breakfast, and here she was doing it at tea,
the two meals at which missus Fisher presided and poured out.

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Why did she do it? Missus Fisher failed to understand.
But this was not what was worrying her. This was merely,
by the way. What was worrying her was that she
had been quite unable that day to settle to anything,
and had done nothing but wander restlessly from her sitting
room to her battlements and back again. It had been

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a wasted day and how much she disliked waste. She
had tried to read, and she had tried to write
to Kate Lumley, but no, a few words read, a
few lines written, and up she got again, and went
out on to the battlements and stared at the sea.

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It did not matter that the letter to Kate Lumley
should not be written. There was time enough for that.
Let the others suppose her coming was definitely fixed, all
the better. So would mister Wilkins be kept out of
the spare room and put where he belonged, Kate would
keep she could be held in reserve. Kate in reserve

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was just as potent as Kate in actuality. And there
were points about Kate in reserve which might be missing
from Kate in actuality. For instance, if missus Fisher were
going to be restless, she would rather Kate were not
there to see. There was a want of dignity about restlessness,

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about trotting backwards and forwards. But it did matter that
she could not read a sentence of any of her
great dead friend's writings. No, not even of Brownings, who
had been so much in Italy, nor of Ruskins, whose
stones of venice she had brought with her to reread
so nearly on the very spot, nor even a sentence

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of a really interesting book like the one she had
found in her sitting room about the home life of
the German Emperor poor Man, written in the nineties, when
he had not yet begun to be more sinned against
than sinning, which was she was firmly convinced what was
the matter with him now? And full of exciting things

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about his birth and his right arm, and accouchere without
having to put it down and go and stare at
the sea. Reading was very important. The proper exercise and
development of one's mind was a paramount duty. How could
one read if one were constantly trotting in and out?

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Curious this restlessness, was she going to be ill? No,
she felt well, indeed unusually well, and she went in
and out quite quickly, trotted, in fact, and without her stick.
Very odd that she shouldn't be able to sit still,
she thought, frowning across the tops of some purple hyacinths

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at the Gulf of Spatsia, glittering beyond a headland. Very
odd that she, who walked so slowly, with such dependence
on her stick, should suddenly trot. It would be interesting
to talk to some one about it, she felt not
to Kate to a stranger. Kate would only look at

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her and suggest a cup of tea. Kate always suggested
cups of tea. Besides, Kate had a flat face that
Missus Wilkins, now annoying as she was, loose tongued as
she was, impertinent, objectionable, would probably understand and perhaps know

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what was making her be like this. But she could
say nothing to Missus Wilkins. She was the last person
to whom one could admit sensations dignity alone, forbade it confide,
and Missus Wilkins never, and missus arbuthnot. While she wistfully

(25:00):
mothered the obstructive scrap at tea, felt too that she
had had a curious day. Like Missus Fishers, it had
been active, but unlike Missus Fisher's only active in mind,
her body had been quite still. Her mind had not
been still at all. It had been excessively active. For years.

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She had taken care to have no time to think.
Her scheduled life in the parish had prevented memories and
desires from intruding on her. That day, they had crowded.
She went back to tea feeling dejected, and that she
should feel dejected in such a place with everything about

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her to make her rejoice, only dejected her the more.
But how could she rejoice alone? How could anybody rejoice
and enjoy and appreciate, really appreciate alone except Lottie. Lottie
seemed able to. She had gone off down the hill

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directly after breakfast, alone, yet obviously rejoicing, for she had
not suggested that Rose should go too, and she was
singing as she went. Rose had spent the day by herself,
sitting with her hands clasping her knees, staring straight in
front of her. What she was staring at were the

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gray swords of the agaves, and on their tall stalks
the pale irises that grew in the remote place she
had found. While beyond them, between the gray leaves and
the blue flowers, she saw the sea. The place she
had found was a hidden corner where the sun baked

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stones were padded with time, and nobody was likely to come.
It was out of sight and sound of the house.
It was off any path. It was near the end
of the prominent. She sat so quiet that presently lizards
darted over her feet, and some tiny birds like finches,

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frightened away at first, came back again and flitted among
the bushes round her, just as if she hadn't been there.
How beautiful it was, and what was the good of it?
With no one there, no one who loved being, with
one who belonged to one to whom one could say look,

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And wouldn't one say look dearest? Yes, one would say dearest,
and the sweet word, just to say it to somebody
who loved one would make one happy. She sat quite still,
staring straight in front of her, strange that in this

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place she did not want to pray, She who had
prayed so constantly at home, didn't seem able to do
it here at all. The first morning, she'd merely thrown
up a brief thank you to Heaven on getting out
of bed, and had gone straight to the window to
see what everything looked like, thrown up the thank you

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as carelessly as a ball, and thought no more about it.
That morning, Remembering this and ashamed, she had knelt down
with determination. But perhaps determination was bad for prayers, for
she'd been unable to think of a thing to say.

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And as for her bedtime prayers. On neither of the
nights had she said a single one. She had forgotten them.
She had been so much absorbed in other thoughts that
she had forgotten them. And once in bed she was
asleep and whirling along among bright, thin, swift dreams. Before

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she had so much time as to stretch herself. What
had come over her? Why had she let go the
anchor of prayer? And she had difficulty too in remembering
her poor, in remembering even that there were such things
as poor. Holidays, of course were good, and were recognized

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by everybody as good. But ought they so completely to
blot out, to make such havoc of the realities. Perhaps
it was healthy to forget her poor, with all the
greater gusto which she go back to them. But it
couldn't be healthy to forget her prayers, And still less

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could it be healthy not to mind. Rose did not mind.
She knew she did not mind, And even worse, she
knew she did not mind not minding. In this place
she was indifferent to both the things that had f
her life and made it seem as if it were

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happy for years. Well, if only she could rejoice in
her wonderful new surroundings have that much at least to
set against the indifference, the letting go. But she could not.
She had no work, She did not pray. She was
left empty. Lotty had spoilt her day that day, as

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she had spoilt her day the day before, Lotty with
her invitation to her husband, with her suggestion that she
too should invite hers. Having flung Frederick into her mind
again the day before, Lotty had left her for the
whole afternoon. She had left her alone with her thoughts.

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Since then they had been all of Frederick where at
Hampsteady came to her only in her dreams. Here he
left her dreams free and was with her during the
day instead. And again that morning, as she was struggling
not to think of him, Lottie had asked her, just
before disappearing, singing down the path if she had written

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yet and invited him. And again he was flung into
her mind and she wasn't able to get him out.
How could she invite him? It had gone on so long,
their estrangement, such years, she would hardly know what words
to use. And besides, he would not come. Why should

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he come? He didn't care about being with her What
could they talk about between them? Was the barrier of
his work and her religion. She could not. How could she,
believing as she did, in purity, in responsibility for the
effect of one's actions on others, bear his work, bear

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living by it. And he, she knew, had at first
resented and then been merely bored by her religion. He
had let her slip away, He had given her up.
He no longer minded, He accepted her religion indifferently, as
a settled fact. Both it and she rose's mind becoming

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more luminous in the clear light of April at San
Salvatore suddenly saw the truth bored him naturally when she
saw this, when that morning it flashed upon her for
the first time, she did not like it. She liked
it so little that for a space the whole beauty

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of Italy was blotted out. What was to be done
about it? She could not give up believing in good
and not liking evil. And it must be evil to
live entirely on the proceeds of adulteries, however dead and
distinguished they were. Besides, if she did, if she sacrificed

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her whole past, her bringing up her work for the
last ten years, would she bore him less. Rose felt
right down at her very roots that if you have
once thoroughly bored somebody, it is next to impossible to
unbore him. Once a bore, always a bore, Certainly, she

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thought to the person originally bored. Then thought she, looking
out to see through eyes grown misty, better cling to
her religion. It was better, she hardly noticed the reprehensibleness
of her thought, than nothing. But oh, she wanted to

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cling to something tangible, to love, something living, something that
one could hold against one's heart, that one could see
and touch and do things for. If her poor baby
hadn't died. Babies didn't get bored with one It took
them a long while to grow up and find one out.

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And perhaps one's baby never did find one out. Perhaps
one would always be to it, however old and bearded.
It grew somebody special, somebody different from every one else,
and if for no other reason, precious in that one
could never be repeated. Sitting with dim eyes looking out

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to see, she felt an extraordinary yearning to hold something
of her very own tight to her bosom. Rose was
slender and as reserved in figure as in character, Yet
She felt a queer sensation of how could she describe it, bosom.
There was something about San Salvatore that made her feel

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all bosom. She wanted to gather to her bosom, to
comfort and protect, soothing the dear head that should lie
on it with softest strokings and murmurs of love. Frederick,
Frederick's child come to her, pillowed on her because they
were unhappy, because they had been hurt. They would need

(35:21):
her then, if they had been hurt, they would let
themselves be loved. Then if they were unhappy, well, the
child was gone, would never come now, but perhaps Frederick
some day when he was old and tired. Such were

(35:43):
Missus Arbuthnot's reflections and emotions that first day at San Salvatore.
By herself. She went back to tea dejected, as she
had not been for years. San Salvatore had taken her
carefully built up semblance of happiness away from her and
given her nothing in exchange. Yes, it had given her

(36:06):
yearnings in exchange, this ache and longing, this queer feeling
of bosom, But that was worse than nothing. And she
who had learned balance, who never at home, was irritated.
But always able to be kind, could not, even in
her dejection that afternoon, endure missus Fisher's assumption of the

(36:29):
position as hostess at tea. One would have supposed that
such a little thing would not have touched her, but
it did. Was her nature changing? Was she to be
not only thrown back on long stifled yearnings after Frederick,
but also turned into somebody who wanted to fight over

(36:50):
little things? After tea, when both missus Fisher and Lady
Caroline had disappeared again, it was quite evident that nobody
wanted her. She was more dejected than ever, overwhelmed by
the discrepancy between the splendor outside her, the warm, teeming
beauty and self sufficiency of nature, and the blank emptiness

(37:12):
of her heart. Then came Lottie back to dinner, incredibly
more freckled, exuding the sunshine she had been collecting all day, talking, laughing,
being tactless, being unwise, being without reticence, And Lady Caroline,
so quiet at tea, woke up to animation, and missus

(37:36):
Fisher was not so noticeable, and Rose was beginning to
revive a little. For Lottie's spirits were contagious, As she
described the delights of her day, a day which might,
easily to any one else have had nothing in it
but a very long and very hot walk and sandwiches.
When she suddenly said, catching Rose's eye, let her gone.

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Rose flushed, Miss Tactlessness, what letter, asked, scrap interested? Both
her elbows were on the table, and her chin was
supported in her hands, for the nut stage had been reached,
and there was nothing for it but to wait in
as comfortable a position as possible till missus Fisher had

(38:23):
finished cracking. Asking her husband here, said Lottie. Missus Fisher
looked up another husband. Was there to be no end
to them? Nor was this one then a widow either?
But her husband was, no doubt a decent, respectable man

(38:46):
following a decent respectable calling. She had little hope of
mister Wilkins, so little that she had refrained from inquiring
what he did? Has it persis? Did Lotty? As Rose
said nothing? No? Said Rose? Oh, well tomorrow, then, said Lotty.

(39:11):
Rose wanted to say no again to this. Lotty would
have in her place, and would besides have expounded all
her reasons. But she could not turn herself inside out
like that and invite any and everybody to come and look.
How was it that Lotty, who saw so many things

(39:32):
didn't see stuck on her heart, and seeing keeping quiet
about it the sore place that was Frederick? Who is
your husband? Asked missus Fisher, carefully adjusting another nut between
the crackers. Who should he be, said Rose quickly, roused
at once by missus Fisher to irritation, except mister Arbuthnot.

(39:58):
I mean, of course, what is mister Arbuthnot? And Rose
gone painfully read at this, said, after a tiny pause,
my husband. Naturally, missus Fisher was incensed. She couldn't have
believed it of this one, with her decent hair and

(40:19):
gentle voice, that she too should be impertinent. End of
Chapter thirteen.