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Chapter 13 · The Enchanted April

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Chapter thirteen of The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Arnum. This LibriVox recording is
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in the public domain. Read by T. R. Love. The uneventful
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days only outwardly uneventful, slipped by in floods of sunshine, and the servants
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watching the four ladies came to the conclusion there was very little life in them.
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To the servants, Sin Salvatore seemed asleep. No one came to tea,
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nor did the ladies go anywhere to tea. Other tenants in other springs
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had been far more active. There had been stir and enterprise. The boat
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had been used, excursions had been made, Beppo's fly was ordered. People
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from Mizago came over and spent the day. The house rang with voices.
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Even sometimes Champagne had been drunk. Life was varied, life was interesting.
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But this, what was this? The servants were not even scolded. They
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were left completely to themselves. They yawned. Perplexing too was the entire absence
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of gentlemen. How could gentlemen keep away from so much beauty? For added
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up and even after the subtraction of the old one, the three younger ladies
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produced a formidable total of that which gentlemen usually sought. Also, the evident
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desire of each lady to spend long hours separated from the other ladies puzzled the
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servants. The result was a deathly stillness in the house. Except at meal
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times. It might have been as empty as it had been all winter.
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For any sounds of life there were. The old lady sat in her room
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alone. The dark eyed lady wandered off alone, loitering, so Domenico told
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them, who sometimes came across her in the course of his duties, incomprehensibly
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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 the
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hills and stayed up them for hours alone. And every day the sun blazed
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slowly round the house and disappeared at evening into the sea, and nothing at
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all had happened. The servants yawned. Yet the four visitors, while their
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bodies sat that was Missus Fisher's, or lay that was Lady Caroline's, or
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loitered that was Missus Arbuthnot's, or went in solitude up into the hills that
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was Missus Wilkinson's, were anything but torpid. Really, their minds were unusually
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busy. Even at night. Their minds were busy, and the dreams they
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had were clear, thin, quick things entirely different from the heavy dreams of
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home. There was that in the atmosphere of San Salvatory which produced active mindedness
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in all except the natives. They as before, whatever the beauty around them,
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whatever the prodigal seasons, did, remained immune from thoughts other than those
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they were accustomed to. All their lives. They had seen year by year
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the amazing, recurrent spectacle of April in the gardens, and custom had made
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it invisible to them. They were as blind to it, as unconscious of
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it as Domenico's dog asleep in the sun. The visitors could not be blind
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to it. It was too arresting, after London, in a particularly wet
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and gloomy march, suddenly to be transported to that place where the air was
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so still that it held its breath, where the light was so golden that
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the most ordinary things were transfigured, To be transported into that delicate warmth,
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that caressing fragrance, and to have the old gray castle as the setting,
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and in the distance the serene, clear hills of Perugini's backgrounds was an astonishing
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contrast. Even Lady Caroline, used all her life to beauty, who had
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been everywhere and seen everything, felt the surprise of it. It was that
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year a particularly wonderful spring, And of all the months at Sain Savatore,
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April, if the weather was fine, was best. May scorched and withered.
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March was restless and could be hard and cold in its brightness. But
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April came along softly, like a blessing. And if it were a fine
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April, it was so beautiful that it was impossible not to feel different,
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not to feel stirred and touched. Missus Wilkins we have seen, responded to
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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.
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Missus Arbuthnot was stirred and touched, but differently she had odd sensations presently to
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be described. Missus Fisher, being old, was of a closer, more
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impermeable texture, and offered more resistance, but she too had odd sensations also
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in their place to be described. Lady Caroline, already amply acquainted with beautiful
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houses and climates to whom they could not come quite with the same surprise,
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yet was very nearly as quick to react as Missus Wilkins. The place had
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an almost instantaneous influence on her well, and of one part of this influence
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she was aware. It had made her, beginning on the very first evening,
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want to think and acted on her curiously like a conscience. What this
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conscience seemed to press upon her notice with an insistence that startled her. Lady
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Caroline hesitated to accept the word, but it would keep on coming into her
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head was that she was tawdry. She must think that out. The morning
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after the first dinner together, she woke up in a condition of regret that
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she should have been so talkative to Missus Wilkins the night before. What had
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made her be she wondered? Now, of course Missus Wilkins would want to
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grab She would want to be inseparable, and the thought of a grabbing and
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an inseparableness that should last four weeks made Scrap's spirit swoon within her. No
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doubt, the encouraged Missus Wilkins would be lurking in the top garden waiting to
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waylay her when she went out, and would hail her with mourning cheerfulness.
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How much she hated being hailed with mourning cheerfulness, or indeed hailed at all.
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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
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nothing seemed usually to involve her. But actively to encourage was suicidal. What
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on earth had made her? Now she would have to waste all the precious
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time, the precious lovely time for thinking, in for getting square with herself,
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in shaking Missus Wilkins off with great caution, and on the tips of
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her toes, balancing herself carefully lest the pebbles should scrunch. She stole out
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when she was dressed, to her corner, but the garden was empty.
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No shaking off was necessary. Neither Missus Wilkins nor anybody else was to be
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seen. She had it entirely to herself, except for Domenico, who presently
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came and hovered watering his plants again, especially all the plants that were nearest
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to her. No one came out at all, And when after a long
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while of following up thoughts which seemed to escape her just as she had got
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them, and dropping off, exhausted to sleep. In the intervals of this
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chase, she felt hungry and looked at her watch and saw that it was
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past three. She realized that nobody had even bothered to call her in to
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lunch, so that Scrap could not but remark if anyone was shaken off,
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it was she herself. Well, but how delightful and how very new now
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she would really be able to think uns interruptedly delicious to be forgotten. Still,
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she was hungry, and Missus Wilkins, after that excessive friendliness the night
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before, might at least have told her lunch was ready. And she had
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been really excessively friendly, so nice about Malursia's sleeping arrangements, wanting him to
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have the spare room and all. She wasn't usually interested in arrangements. In
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fact, she wasn't ever interested in them, so that Scrap considered she might
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be said almost to have gone out of her way to be agreeable to missus
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Wilkins, and in return, Missus Wilkins didn't even bother whether or not she
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had any lunch. Fortunately, though she was hungry, she didn't mind missing
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a meal. Life was full of meals. They took up an enormous proportion
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of one's time. And Missus Fisher was she was afraid, one of those
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persons who at meals lingered. Twice now she had dined with missus Fisher,
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and each time she had been difficult at the end to dislodge, lingering on
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slowly cracking innumerable nuts and slowly drinking a glass of wine that seemed as if
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it would never be finished. Probably it would be a good thing to make
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a habit of missing lunch. And as it was quite easy to have tea
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brought out to her, and as she breakfasted in her room, only once
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a day would she have to sit at the dining room table and endure the
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nuts scrap burrowed her head comfortably in the cushions, and with her feet crossed
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on the low parapet, gave herself up to more thought. She said to
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herself, as she had said at intervals throughout the morning, Now I'm going
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to think. But never having thought out anything in her life, it was
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difficult. Extraordinary how one's attention wouldn't stay fixed, Extraordinary, how one's mind
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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,
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for any justification of that distressing word tawdry. The next thing she knew was
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that she wasn't thinking about this at all, but had somehow switched on to
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mister Wilkins. Well, mister Wilkins was quite easy to think about, though
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not pleasant, She viewed his approach with misgivings, for not only was it
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a profound and unexpected bore to have a man added to the party, and
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a man too, of the kind she was sure mister Wilkins must be.
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But she was afraid, and her fear was the result of a drearily unvarying
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experience that he might wish to hang about her. This possibility had evidently not
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yet occurred to missus Wilkins, and it was not one to which she could
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very well draw her attention, not that is, without being too fatuous to
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live. She tried to hope that mister Wilkins would be a wonderful exception to
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the dreadful rule. If only he were, she would be so much obliged
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to him that she believed she might really quite like him, but she had
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misgivings. Suppose he hung about her so that she was driven from her lovely
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top garden. Supposed the light in Missus Wilkinson's funny, flickering face was blown
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out. Scrap felt she would particularly dislike this to happen to Missus Wilkinson's face.
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Yet she had never in her life met any wives, not any at
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all, who had been able to understand that she didn't in the least want
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their husbands. Often she had met wives who didn't want their husbands either,
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but that made them none the less indignant if they thought somebody else did,
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and none the less sure when they saw them hanging round Scrap that she was
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trying to get them, trying to get them the bear thought. The bare
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recollection of these situations filled her with a boredom so extreme that it instantly sent
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her to sleep again. When she woke up, she went on with mister
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Wilkins. Now, if thought Scrap mister Wilkins were not an exception and behaved
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in the usual way, would Missus Wilkins understand or would it just simply spoil
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her holiday? She seemed quick, But would she be quick about just this.
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She seemed to understand and see inside one. But would she understand and
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see inside one when it came to mister Wilkins. The experienced Scrap was full
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of death. She shifted her feet on the parapet. She jerked a cushion
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straight. Perhaps she had better try and explain to Missus Wilkins during the days
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still remaining before the arrival. Explain in a general way, rather vague and
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talking at large, her attitude towards such things. She might also expound to
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her her particular dislike of people's husbands and her profound craving to be at least
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for this one month let alone. But Scrap had her doubts about this too.
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Such talk meant a certain familiarity, meant embarking on a friendship with Missus
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Wilkins. And if after having embarked on it and faced the peril it contained
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of too much Missus Wilkins, mister Wilkins should turn out to be artful,
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and people did get very artful when they were set on anything, and manage,
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after all, to slip through into the top garden. Missus Wilkins might
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easily believe she had been taken in and that she Scrap was deceitful, deceitful,
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and about mister Wilkins. Wives were really pathetic. At half past four,
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she heard sounds of saucers on the other side of the Daphne bushes.
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Was Tea being sent out to her? No, the sounds came no closer.
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They stopped near the house. Tea was to be in the garden,
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in her garden, Scrap considered she might at least have been asked if she
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minded being disturbed. They all knew she sat there. Perhaps some one would
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bring hers to her in her corner. No nobody brought anything. Well,
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she was too hungry not to go and have it with the others to day,
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but she would give Francesca strict orders for the future. She got up
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and walked with that slow grace, which was an another of her outrageous number
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of attractions. Towards the sounds of Tea. She was conscious not only of
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being very hungry, but of wanting to talk to Missus Wilkins again. Missus
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Wilkins had not grabbed. She had left her quite free all day, in
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spite of the reprochement the night before. Of course, she was an original
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and put on a silk jumper for dinner, but she hadn't grabbed this was
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a great thing. Scrap went towards the tea table quite looking forward to missus
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Wilkins, and when she came in sight of it, she saw only missus
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Fisher and Missus Arbuthnot. Missus Fisher was pouring out the tea, and Missus
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Arbuthnot was offering missus Fisher macaroons. Every time missus Fisher offered Missus Arbuthnot anything
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her cup or milk or sugar, Missus Arbuthnot offered her macaroons pressed them on
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her with an odd stuousness, almost an obstinacy. Was it a game?
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Scrap wondered, sitting down and seizing a macaroon. Where is missus Wilkins,
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asked Scrap. They did not know, at least Missus Arbuthnot, on Scrap's
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inquiry, did not know. Missus Fisher's face at the name became elaborately uninterested.
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It appeared that Missus Wilkins had not been seen since breakfast. Missus Arbuthnot
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thought she had probably gone for a picnic. Scrap missed her. She ate
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the enormous macaroons, the best and biggest. She had ever come across in
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silence tea without Missus Wilkins was dull, and Missus Arbuthnot had that fatal flavor
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of motherliness about her, of wanting to pet one, to make one very
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comfortable, coaxing one to eat, coaxing her, who was already so frankly
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even excessively eating, that seemed to have dogged Scrap's steps through life. Couldn't
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people leave one alone? She was perfectly able to eat what she wanted uninsided,
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She tried to quench Missus Arbuthnot's zeal by becoming short with her useless.
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The shortness was not apparent, It remained as all Scrap's evil feelings remained covered
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up by the impenetrable veil of her loveliness. Missus Fisher sat monumentally and took
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no notice of either of them. She had had a curious day and was
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a little worried. She had been quite alone, for none of the three
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had come to lunch, and none of them had taken the trouble to let
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her know they were not coming, and Missus Arbuthnot, drifting casually into tea,
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had behaved oddly till Lady Caroline joined them and distracted her attention. Missus
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Fisher was prepared not to des like missus Arbuthnot, whose parted hair and mild
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expression seemed very decent and womanly, But she certainly had habits that were difficult
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to like. Her habit of instantly echoing any offer made her of food and
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drink, of throwing the offer back on one as it were, was not,
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somehow what one expected of her. Will you have some more tea was
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surely a question to which the answer was simply yes or no. But missus
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Arbuthnot persisted in the trick she had exhibited the day before at breakfast, of
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adding to her yes or no the words will you. She had done it
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again that morning at breakfast, and here she was doing it at tea,
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the two meals at which missus Fisher presided and poured out. Why did she
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do it? Missus Fisher failed to understand. But this was not what was
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worrying her. This was merely, by the way. What was worrying her
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was that she had been quite unable that day to settle to anything, and
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had done nothing but wander restlessly from her sitting room to her battlements and back
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again. It had been a wasted day, and how much she disliked waste.
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She had tried to read, and she had tried to write to Kate
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Lumley, but no, a few words read, a few lines written,
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And she got up again and went out on to the battlements and stared at
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the sea. It did not matter that the letter to Kate Lumley should not
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be written. There was time enough for that. Let the others suppose her
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coming was definitely fixed, all the better. So would mister Wilkins be kept
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out of the spare room and put where he belonged, Kate would keep she
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could be held in reserve. Kate in reserve was just as potent as Kate
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in actuality. And there were points about Kate in reserve which might be missing
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from Kate in actuality. For instance, if missus Fisher were going to be
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restless, she would rather Kate were not there to see. There was a
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want of dignity about restlessness, about trotting backwards and forwards. But it did
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matter that she could not read a sentence of any of her great dead friend's
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writings. No, not even Brownings, who had been so much in Italy,
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nor of Reskins, whose stones of venice she had brought with her to
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re read so nearly on the very spot, nor even a sentence of a
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really interesting book like the one she had found in her sitting room about the
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home life of the German Emperor poor Man, written in the nineties, when
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he had not yet begun to be more sinned against than sinning, which was
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she was firmly convinced what was the matter with him now? And full of
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exciting things about his birth and his right arm and echouscheer, without having to
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put it down and go stare at the sea. Reading was very important.
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The proper exercise and development of one's mind was a paramount duty. How could
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one read if one were constantly trotting in and out? Curious this restlessness,
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was she going to be ill? No, she felt very well, indeed
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unusually well, and she went in and out quite quickly, trotted in fact,
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and without her stick. Very odd that she shouldn't be able to sit
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still, she thought, frowning across the tops of some purple hyacinths at the
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Gulf of Spezia, glittering beyond a headland. Very odd that she, who
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walked so slowly, with such dependence on her stick, should suddenly trot it
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would be interesting to talk to some one about it, She felt not to
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care to a stranger. Kate would only look at her and suggest a cup
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of tea. Kate always suggested cups of tea. Besides, Kate had a
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flat face that Missus Wilkins, now annoying as she was, loose tongued as
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she was, impertinent, objectionable, would probably understand and perhaps know what was
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making her be like this. But she could say nothing to missus Wilkins.
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She was the last person to whom one would admit sensations dignity alone, forbade
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it confide in Missus Wilkins never, and missus arbuthnot. While she wistfully mothered
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the obstructive scrap at tea, felt too that she had had a curious day.
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Like Missus Fisher's. It had been active, but unlike Missus Fisher's,
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only active in mind. Her body had been quite still. Her mind had
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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
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the parish had prevented memories and desires from intruding on her. That day,
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they had crowded. She went back to tea feeling dejected, and that she
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should feel dejected in such a place with everything about her to make her rejoice,
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only dejected her the more. But how could she rejoice alone? How
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could anybody rejoice and enjoy and appreciate, really appreciate alone except Lottie. Lottie
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seemed able to. She had gone off down the hill directly after breakfast,
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alone, yet obviously rejoicing, for she had not suggested that Rose should go
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too, and she was singing as she went. Rose had spent the day
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by herself, sitting with her hands clasping her knees, staring straight in front
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of her. What she was staring at were the gray swords of the agaves,
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and on their tall stalks the pale irises that grew in the remote place
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that she had found. Well beyond them, between the gray leaves and the
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blue flowers, she saw the sea. The place she had found was a
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hidden corner where the sun baked stones were padded with time, and nobody was
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likely to come. It was out of sight and sound of the house.
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It was off any path. It was near the end of the promontory.
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She sat so quietly that presently lizards darted over her feet, and some tiny
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birds like finches, frightened away at first, came back again and flitted among
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the bushes round her, just as if she hadn't been there. How beautiful
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it was, and what was the good of it with no one there,
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no one who being with one, who belonged to one to whom one could
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say look, And wouldn't one say look dearest? Yes, one would say
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dearest, and the sweet word, just to say it to somebody who loved
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one would make one happy. She sat quite still, staring straight in front
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of her, strange that in this place she did not want to pray,
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She who had prayed so constantly at home, didn't seem able to do it
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here at all. The first morning, she had merely thrown up a brief
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thank you to Heaven on getting out of bed, and had gone straight to
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the window to see what everything looked like, thrown up the thank you as
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carelessly as a ball, and thought no more about it. That morning,
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remembering this and ashamed, she had knelt down with determination. But perhaps determination
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was bad for prayer, for she had been unable to think of a thing
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to say, and as for her bedtime prayers. On neither of the nights
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had she said a single one. She had forgotten them. She had been
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so much absorbed in other thoughts that she had forgotten them. And once in
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bed she was asleep and whirling among bright, thin, swift dreams. Before
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she had so much time as to stretch herself out. What had come over
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her? Why had she let go the anchor of prayer? And she had
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difficulty too in remembering her poor, in remembering even that there were such things
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as poor. Holidays, of course were good, and were recognized by everybody
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as good. But ought they so completely to blot out, to make such
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havoc of the realities. Perhaps it was healthy to forget her poor with all
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the greater gusta would she go back to them? But it couldn't be healthy
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to forget her prayers, And still less could it be healthy not to mind.
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Rose did not mind. She knew she did not mind, And even
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worse, she knew she did not mind not minding. In this place she
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was indifferent to both the things that had filled her life and made it seem
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as if it were happy for years. Well, if only she could rejoice
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and her wonderful new surroundings have that much at least to set against the difference
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the letting go. But she could not. She had no work, She
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did not pray. She was left empty. Lottie had spoiled her day that
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day, as she had spoilt her day the day before, Lottie with her
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invitation to her husband, with her suggestion that she too should invite hers.
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Having flung Frederick into her mind again the day before, Lotty had left her
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for the whole afternoon. She had left her alone with her thoughts. Since
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then they had all been of Frederick. Where at Hampstead he came to her
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only in her dreams. Here he left her dreams free and was with her
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during the day instead. And again that morning, as she was struggling not
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to think of him, Lotty had asked her, just before disappearing, singing
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down the path, if she had written yet and invited it. And again
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he was flung into her mind, and she wasn't able to get him out.
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How could she invite him? It had gone on so long, their
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estrangement, such years, she would hardly know what words to use. And
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besides, he would not come. Why should he come? He didn't care
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about being with her. What could they talk about between them was the barrier
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of his work and her religion. She could not. How could she,
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believing as she did, in purity, in responsibility for the effect of one's
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actions on others, bear his work, bear living by it. And he,
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she knew, had at first resented and then been merely bored by her
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religion. He had let her slip away, He had given her up.
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He no longer minded, He accepted her religion indifferently as a settled fact.
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Both it and she rose's mind becoming more luminous, and the clear light of
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April at San Salvatore suddenly saw the truth bored him naturally when she saw this,
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when that morning it flashed upon her for the first time, she did
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not like it. She liked it so little that for a space the whole
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beauty of Italy was blotted out. What was to be done about it?
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She could not give up believing in good and not liking evil. And it
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must be evil to live entirely on the proceeds of adulteries, however dead and
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distinguished they were. Besides, if she did, if she sacrificed her whole
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past, her bringing up her work for the last ten years. Would she
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bore him less? Rose felt right down at her very roots that if you
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have once thoroughly bored somebody, it is nextra impossible to unbore them. Once
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a bore, always a bore, Certainly, she thought to the person originally
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bored. Then, she thought, looking out to the sea through eyes grown
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misty, better cling to her religion. It was better, she hardly noticed
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the reprehensibleness of her thought, than nothing. But how she wanted to cling
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to something tangible to love's living, something that one could hold against one's heart,
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that one could see and touch and do things for if a poor baby
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hadn't died, babies didn't get bored with one it took them a long while
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to grow up and find one out. And perhaps one's baby never did find
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one out. Perhaps one would always be to it, however old and bearded.
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It grew somebody special, somebody different from everyone else, and if for
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no other reason, precious in that one could never be repeated. Sitting with
32:38
dim eyes looking out to see, she felt an extraordinary yearning to hold something
32:44
of her very own tight to her bosom. Rose was slender and as reserved
32:50
in figure as in character, yet she felt a queer sensation of how could
32:54
she describe it, bosom. There was something about sense that made her feel
33:01
all bosom. She wanted to gather to her bosom to comfort and protect,
33:07
soothing the dear head that should lie on it with softest strokings and murmurs of
33:13
love. Frederick, Frederick's child come to her, pillowed on her because they
33:20
were unhappy, because they had been hurt. They would need her then,
33:24
if they had been hurt, they would let themselves be loved. Then if
33:29
they were unhappy, well, the child was gone, would never come now,
33:35
but perhaps Frederick some day, when he was old and tired. Such
33:40
were Missus Arbuthnot's reflections and emotions that first day at San Salvatore. By herself.
33:46
She went back to tea dejected, as she had not been for years.
33:52
Sence Salvatore had taken her carefully built up semblance of happiness away from her
33:58
and given her nothing. Yes, it had given her yearnings in exchange,
34:04
this ache and longing, this queer feeling of bosom, But that was worse
34:08
than nothing. And she who had learned balance, who never at home,
34:14
was irritated, but always able to be kind, could not, even in
34:19
her dejection that afternoon, endure missus Fisher's assumption of the position as hostess at
34:25
tea. One would have supposed that such a little thing would not have touched
34:31
her, but it did. Was her nature changing? Was she to be
34:37
not only thrown back on long stifled yearnings after Frederick, but also turned into
34:43
somebody who wanted to fight over little things? After tea, when both missus
34:47
Fisher and Lady Caroline had disappeared again, it was quite evident that nobody wanted
34:53
her. She was more dejected than ever, overwhelmed by the discrepancy between the
35:00
splendor outside her, the warm, teeming beauty and self sufficiency of nature,
35:06
and the blank emptiness of her heart. Then came Lottie back to dinner,
35:12
incredibly more freckled, exuding the sunshine she had been collecting all day, talking,
35:17
laughing, being tactless, being unwise, being without reticence, And Lady
35:24
Caroline, so quiet at tea, woke up to animation, and missus Fisher
35:30
was not so noticeable, and Rose was beginning to revive a little. For
35:36
Lottie's spirits were contagious as she described the delights of her day, a day
35:40
which might, easily to anyone else have had nothing in it but a very
35:45
long and very hot walk and sandwiches. When she suddenly said, catching Rose's
35:52
eye, let her gone. Rose flushed this tactlessness, What letter asked,
35:59
scrap interested? Both her elbows were on the table, and her chin was
36:04
supported in her hands, for the nut stage had been reached, and there
36:07
was nothing for it but to wait in as comfortable a position as possible till
36:13
missus Fisher had finished cracking. Asking her husband here, said Lottie. Missus
36:20
Fisher looked up another husband. Was there to be no end to them?
36:25
Nor was this one then a widow either? But her husband was no doubt
36:30
a decent, respectable man following a decent respectable calling. She had little hope
36:37
of mister Wilkins, so little that she had refrained from inquiring what he did?
36:43
Has it persisted, Lottie? As Rose said nothing? No? Said
36:49
Rose, Oh well tomorrow, then, said Lottie. Rose wanted to say
36:53
no again to this. Lottie would have in her place, and would besides
37:00
have expounded all her reasons. But she could not turn herself inside out like
37:05
that and invite any and everybody to come and look. How was it that
37:09
Lottie, who saw so many things, didn't see stuck on her heart and
37:15
seeing keep quiet about it the sore place that was Frederick? Who is your
37:22
husband? Asked missus Fisher, carefully adjusting another nut between the crackers. Who
37:28
should he be, said Rose quickly, roused at once by Missus Fisher,
37:32
to irritation, except mister or Buffnot. I mean, of course, what
37:39
is mister Arbuthnot? And Rose gone painfully read at this, said, after
37:45
a tiny pause, my husband. Naturally, missus Fisher was incensed. She
37:52
couldn't have believed it of this one, with her decent hair and gentle voice,
37:58
that she too could be pertinent. End of Chapter thirteen.