The Enchanted April - Chapter 14

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Enchanted April by Elizabeth van Arnem, chapter fourteen. That
first week, the wistaria began to fade, and the flowers
of the judas tree and peach trees fell off and
carpeted the ground with rose color. Then all the frishes disappeared,

(00:25):
and the irises grew scarce. And then while these were
clearing themselves away, the double banksia roses came out, and
the big summer roses suddenly flaunted gorgeously on the walls
and trellises fortunes yellow was one of them, a very
beautiful rose. Presently, the tamarisk and the daphnes were at

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their best, and the lilies at their tallest. By the
end of the week, the fig trees were giving shade,
the plum blossom was out among the olives, the modest
which as appeared in their fresh pink clothes, And on
the rocks sprawled masses of thick leaved, star shaped flowers,
some vivid purple and some a clear pale lemon. By

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the end of the week, too, mister Wilkins arrived, even
as his wife had foreseen he would, so he did,
and there were signs almost of eagerness about his acceptance
of her suggestion, for he had not waited to write
a letter in answer to hers, but had telegraphed that
surely was eager. It showed Scrap thought a definite wish

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for a reunion, and watching his wife's happy face, and
aware of her desire that Melerse should enjoy his holiday,
she told herself that he would be a very unusual
fool should he waste his time bothering about anybody else.
If he isn't nice to her, Scrap thought, he shall
be taken to the battlements and tip over. For by

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the end of the week, she and Missus Wilkins had
become Caroline and Lottie to each other and were friends.
Missus Wilkins had always been friends, but Scrap had struggled
not to be. She'd tried hard to be cautious, but
how difficult was caution. With Missus Wilkins free herself from

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every vestige of it, she was so entirely unreserved, so
completely expansive, that soon Scrap, almost before she knew what
she was doing, was being unreserved too, And nobody could
be more unreserved than Scrap. Once she let herself go,

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the only difficulty about Lottie was that she was nearly
always somewhere else. You couldn't catch her, you couldn't pin
her down to come and talk. Scrap's fears that she
would grab seemed grow taskue in retrospect. Why there was
no grab in her At dinner and after dinner were

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the only times one really saw her. All day long,
she was invisible, and would come back in the late
afternoon looking at perfect sight, her hair full of bits
of moss, and her freckles worse than ever. Perhaps she
was making the most of her time before Maluse arrived,
to do all the things she wanted to do, and

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meant to devote herself afterwards to going about with him,
tidy and in her best clothes. Scrap watched her, interested
in spite of herself, because it seemed so extraordinary to
be as happy as all that on so little San
Salvatore was beautiful and the weather was divine. But scenery

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and weather had never been enough for Scrap, And how
could they be enough for somebody who would have to
leave them quite soon and go back to life in Hampstead.
Also there was the imminence of Malersh. Of that Malersh
from whom Lottie had so lately run. It was all

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very well to feel one ought to share and to
make a bougest and do it. But the bogest's scrap
had known hadn't made anybody happy. Nobody really liked being
the object of one, and it always meant an effort
on the part of the maker. Still, she had to
admit there was no effort about Lottie. It was quite

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plain that everything she did and said was effortless, and
that she was just simply completely happy. And so missus
Wilkins was. For her. Doubts as to whether she had
had time to become steady enough in serenity to go
on being serene and malericious company when she had it

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uninterruptedly right round the clock had gone by the middle
of the week, and she felt that nothing now could
shake her. She was ready for anything. She was firmly grafted, rooted,
built into heaven. Whatever mellersh said or did, she would
not budge an inch out of heaven, would not rouse

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herself a single instant to come outside it and be cross.
On the contrary, she was going to pull him up
into it beside her, and they would sit comfortably together
suffused in light, and laugh at how much afraid of
him she used to be in Hampstead, and at how
deceitful her afraidness had made her. But he wouldn't need

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much pulling. He would come in quite naturally after a
day or two, irresistibly wafted on the scented breezes of
that divine air, and there he would sit, arrayed in stars,
thought missus Wilkins, in whose mind, among much other debris,
floated occasional bright shreds of poetry. She laughed to herself

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a little at the picture of Malersh, that top hatted,
black coated, respectable family solicitor, arrayed in stars. But she
laughed affectionately, almost with a maternal pride. And how splendid
he would look in such fine clothes, poor lamb, she
murmured to herself affectionately, and added, what he wants is

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a thorough airing. This was during the first half of
the week. By the beginning of the last half, at
the end of which mister Wilkins arrived, she left off,
even assuring herself that she was unshakable, that she was
permeated beyond altering by the atmosphere. She no longer thought

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of it or noticed it. She took it for granted,
if one may say so, and she certainly said so,
not only to herself but also to Lady Caroline. She
had found her celestial legs. Contrary to Missus Fisher's idea
of the seemly, but of course contrary what else would

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one expect of Missus Wilkins. She did not go to
meet her husband at Missago, but merely walked down to
the point where Beppo's fly would leave him and his
luggage in the street of Castaignetto Missus Fisher disliked the
arrival of mister Wilkins, and was sure that anybody who
could have married Missus Wilkins must be at least of

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an injudicious disposition. But a husband, whatever his disposition, should
be properly met. Mister Fisher had always been properly met.
Never once in his married life had he gone unmet
at a station, nor had he ever not been seen off.
These observances, these courtesies strengthened the bonds of marriage and

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made a husband feel he could rely on his wife's
being always there. Always being there was the essential secret
for a wife. What would have become of mister Fisher
if she had neglected to act on this principle. She
preferred not to think enough things became of him, as
it was for whatever one's care and stopping up married

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life yet seemed to contain chinks, But Missus Wilkins took
no pains. She just walked down the hill singing. Missus
Fisher could hear her, and picked up her husband in
the street as casually as if he were a pin.
The three others, still in bed, for it was not

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nearly time to get up, heard her as she passed
beneath their windows down the zigzag path to meet mister Wilkins,
who was coming by the morning train. And Scrap smiled
and Rose sighed, and missus Fisher rang her bell and
desired Francesca to bring her her breakfast in her room.

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All three had breakfast that day in their rooms. Moved
by a common instinct to take cover, Scrap always breakfasted
in bed, but she had the same instinct for cover,
and during breakfast she had made plans for spending the
whole day where she was, Perhaps, though it wouldn't be

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as necessary that day as the next. That day, Scrap
calculated Miller should be provided for he would want to
have a bath, And having a bath at San Salvatore
was an elaborate business, a real adventure if one had
a hot one in the bathroom, and it took a
lot of time. It involved the attendants of the entire staff,

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Domenico and the boy Giuseppe, coaxing the patent stove to burn,
restraining it when it burnt too fiercely, using the bellows
to it when it threatened to go out, relighting it
when it did go out. Francesca anxiously hovering over the tap,
regulating its trickle, because if it were turned on twofold,
the water instantly ran cold, and if not full enough,

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the stove blew up inside and mysteriously flooded the house,
and Costanza and Angela running up and down, bringing pails
of hot water from the kitchen to eke out what
the tap did. This bath had been put in lately
and was at once the pride and the terror of
the servants. It was very patent. Nobody quite understood it.

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There were long printed instructions as to its right treatment
hanging on the wall, in which the word pericoloso recurred.
When missus Fisher, proceeding on her arrival to the bathroom,
saw this word. She went back to her room again
and ordered a sponge bath instead. And when the others
found what using the bathroom meant, and how reluctant the

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servants were to leave them alon with the stove, and
how Francesca positively refused to and stayed with her back
turned watching the tap, and how the remaining servants waited
anxiously outside the door till the bather came safely out Again,
they too had sponge baths brought into their rooms instead.

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Mister Wilkins, however, was a man and would be sure
to want a big bath. Having it, Scrap calculated, would
keep him busy for a long while. Then he would unpack,
and then after his night in the train, he would
probably sleep till the evening, So would he be provided
for the whole of that day and not be let

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loose on them till dinner. Therefore, Scrap came to the
conclusion she would be quite safe in the garden that day,
and got up as usual after breakfast and dawdled as
usual through her dressing, listening with a slight cocked ear
to the sounds of mister Wilkins's arrival, of his luggage

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being carried into Lotty's room on the other side of
the landing, of his educated voice as he inquired of Lotty, first,
do I give this fellow anything? And immediately afterwards can
I have a hot bath? Of Lotty's voice cheerfully assuring
him that he needn't give the fellow anything because he

(12:24):
was the gardener, and that yes, he could have a
hot bath. And soon after this the landing was filled
with the familiar noises of wood being brought, of water
being brought, a feet running of tongues vociferating in fact,
with the preparation of the bath. Scrap finished dressing, and

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then loitered at her window, waiting till she should hear
mister Wilkins go into the bathroom. When he was safely there,
she would slip out and settle herself in her garden
and resume her inquiries into the probable meaning of her life.
She was getting on with her inquiries. She dozed much

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less frequently, and was beginning to be inclined to agree
that tawdry was the word to apply to her past. Also,
she was afraid that her future looked black. There she
could hear mister Wilkins's educated voice again. Lottie's door had opened,
and he was coming out of it, asking his way

(13:30):
to the bathroom. It's where you see the crowd, Lotty's
voice answered, still a cheerful voice. Scrap was glad to
notice his steps went along the landing, and Lotty's steps
seemed to go downstairs. And then there seemed to be
a brief altercation at the bathroom door, hardly so much

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an altercation as a chorus of vociferations on one side
and wordless determination Scrap judged to have a bath by
oneself on the other. Mister Wilkins knew no Italian, and
the expression periculozzo left him precisely as it found him,

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or would have if he had seen it. But naturally
he took no notice of the printed matter on the wall.
He firmly closed the door on the servants, resisting Domenico,
who tried to the last to press through, and locked
himself in as a man should for his bath, judicially,
considering as he made his simple preparations for getting in

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the singular standard of behavior of these foreigners, who both
male and female apparently wished to stay with him while
he bathed. In Finland, he had heard the female natives
not only were present on such occasions, but actually washed
the bath taking traveler. He had not heard, however, that

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this was true too of Italy, which somehow seemed much
nearer civilization, perhaps because one went there and did not
go to Finland. Impartially examining this reflection and carefully balancing
the claims to civilization of Italy and Finland, mister Wilkins
got into the bath and turned off the tap. Naturally,

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he turned off the tap, it was what one did.
But on the instructions, printed in red letters, was a
paragraph saying that the tap should not be turned off
as long as there was still fire in the stove.
It should be left on, not much on, but on
until the fire was quite out. Otherwise, and here again

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was the word pritcolozzo, the stove would blow up. Mister
Wilkins got into the bath, turned off the tap, and
the stove blew up, exactly as the printed instructions said
it would. It blew up, fortunately only in its inside,
but it blew up with a terrific noise, and mister

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Wilkins leapt out of the bath and rushed to the door,
and only the instinct born of years of training made
him snatch up a towel as he rushed. Scrap half
way across the landing. On her way out of doors,
heard the explosion. Good heavens, she thought, remembering the instruction,

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There goes mister Wilkins. And she ran toward the head
of the stairs to call the servants. And as she
ran out ran mister Wilkins, clutching his towel, and they
ran into each other. That damned bath, cried mister Wilkins,
imperfectly concealed in his towel, his shoulders exposed at one

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end and his legs at the other. And Lady Caroline
Dester to meet whom he had swallowed all his anger
with his wife and come out to Italy for Lottie
and her letter had told him who was at San
Salvatore besides herself and Missus Arbuthnot, and mister Wilkins at
once had perceived that this was an opportunity which might

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never recur. Lottie had merely said, there are two other
women here, Missus Fisher and Lady Caroline Dester. But that
was enough. He knew all about the Droit Witches, their wealth,
their connections, their place and history, and the power they
had should they choose to exert it of making yet

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another solicitor happy by adding him to those they already employed.
Some people employed one solicitor for one branch of their affairs,
and another for another. The affairs of the Droit Witches
must have many branches. He had also heard, for it
was he considered part of his business to hear, and

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having heard it, to remember of the beauty of their
only daughter. Even if the Droit Witches themselves did not
need his services, their daughter might beauty led one into
strange situations. Advice could never come amiss, And should none
of them, neither parents nor daughter, nor any of their

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brilliant sons, need him in his professional capacity. It yet
was obviously a most valuable acquaintance to make it opened
up vistas. It swelled with possibilities. He might go on
living in Hampstead for years and not again come across
such another chance. Directly his wife's letter reached him, he

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telegraphed and packed. This was business. He was not a
man to lose time when it came to business, nor
was he a man to jeopardize a chance by neglecting
to be amiable. He met his wife perfectly amiably, aware
that amiability under such circumstances was wisdom. Besides, he actually

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felt amiable very for once Lottie was really helping him.
He kissed her affectionately on getting out of Beppo's fly,
and was afraid she must have got up extremely early.
He made no complaints of the steepness of the walk up.
He told her pleasantly of his journey, and when called upon,

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obediently admired the views. It was all neatly mapped out
in his mind what he was going to do that
first day. Have a shave, have a bath, put on
clean clothes, sleep awhile, and then would come lunch and
the introduction to Lady Caroline in the train. He had

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selected the words of his greeting, going over them with care,
some slight expression of his gratification in meeting one of
whom he, in common with the whole world, had heard,
but of course put down delicately, very delicately, some slight
reference to her distinguished parents and the part her family

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had played in the history of England, made, of course,
with proper tact. A sentence or two about her eldest brother,
Lord Winchcombe, who had won his v C in the
late War under circumstances which could only cause he might
or might not add this every Englishman's heart to beat
higher than ever with pride, and the first steps towards

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what might well be the turning point in his career
would have been taken. And here he was. No, it
was too terrible. What could be more terrible? Only a
towel on water running off his legs, and that exclamation.
He knew at once the lady was Lady Caroline. The

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minute the exclamation was out he knew it. Rarely did
mister Wilkins use that word, and never never in the
presence of a lady or a client. While as for
the towel, why had he come? Why had he not
stayed in Hampstead? It would be impossible to live this down,

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But mister Wilkins was reckoning without scrap. She indeed screwed
up her face at the first flash of him on
her astonished sight in an enormous effort not to laugh,
And having choked the laughter down and got her face
serious again, she said as composedly as if he had
had all his clothes on, how do you doo? What

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perfect tact mister Wilkins could have worshiped her, this exquisite
ignoring blue blood, of course, coming out overwhelmed with gratitude,
he took her offered hand and said, how do you do?
In his turn, and merely to repeat the ordinary words

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seemed magically to restore the city situation to the normal. Indeed,
he was so much relieved, and it was so natural
to be shaking hands, to be conventionally greeting, that he
forgot he had only a towel on, and his professional
manner came back to him. He forgot what he was
looking like. But he did not forget that this was

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Lady Caroline Dester, the lady he had come all the
way to Italy to see, and he did not forget
that it was in her face, her lovely and important face,
that he had flung his terrible exclamation. He must at
once entreat her forgiveness to say such a word to
a lady, to any lady, but of all ladies, to

(22:43):
just this one. I'm afraid I used unpardonable language, began
mister Wilkins, very earnestly, as earnestly and ceremoniously, as if
he had had his clothes on. I thought it most
appro said Scrap, who was used to dams. Mister Wilkins

(23:05):
was incredibly relieved and soothed by this answer. No offense
then taken blue Blood again. Only blue Blood could afford
such a liberal, such an understanding attitude. It is, Lady
Caroline Dester, Is it not to whom I am speaking?

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He asked, his voice sounding even more carefully cultivated than usual,
for he had to restrain too much pleasure, too much relief,
too much of the joy of the pardoned and the
shriven from getting into it. Yes, said Scrap, And for
the life of her, she couldn't help smiling. She couldn't

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help it. She hadn't meant to smile at mister Wilkins,
not ever, But really he looked, and then his voice
was the top of the rest of him, oblivious of
the towel and his legs, and talking just like a church.
Allow me to introduce myself, said mister Wilkins, with the
ceremony of the drawing room. My name is MELLERSH. Wilkins.

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And he instinctively held out his hand a second time
at the words I thought perhaps it was said Scrap
a second time, having hers shaken, and a second time
unable not to smile, He was about to proceed to
the first of the graceful tributes he had prepared in

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the train, oblivious as he could not see himself, that
he was without his clothes, when the servants came running
up the stairs, and simultaneously Missus Fisher appeared in the
doorway of her sitting room. For all this had happened
very quickly, and the servants away in the kitchen, and
Missus Fisher, pacing her battlements, had not had time, on

(24:55):
hearing the noise to appear before the second hand shake.
The servants, when they heard the dreaded noise, knew at
once what had happened, and rushed straight into the bathroom
to try and stanch the flood, taking no notice of
the figure on the landing and the towel. But Missus
Fisher did not know what the noise could be, and,
coming out of her room to inquire, stood rooted on

(25:18):
the door sill. It was enough to root anybody. Lady
Caroline shaking hands with what, evidently, if he had had
clothes on, would have been Missus Wilkins's husband, and both
of them conversing. Just as if then Scrap became aware
of missus Fisher. She turned to her at once, do

(25:42):
let me, she said, gracefully. Introduce mister Malurish Wilkins. He
has just come this, she added, turning to mister Wilkins.
Is missus Fisher. And mister Wilkins, nothing if not courteous,
reacted at once to the conventional formula. First he bowed
to the elderly lady in the doorway. Then he crossed

(26:05):
over to her, his wet feet leaving footprints as he went,
And having got to her, he politely held out his hand.
It is a pleasure, said mister Wilkins, in his carefully
modulated voice, to meet a friend of my wife's. Scrap
melted away down into the garden. End of Chapter fourteen.