Enchanter's Nightshade

by Ann Bridge

  “Gela cara, such news!” she began, coming straight up to the dressing-table. “Zia Suzy is coming back! This very next week, to Vill’ Alta! And listen! Marietta is to have a governess!”

  Fräulein Gelsicher lifted one section of grey hair from in front of her face, turned it up neatly on the brush, and fastened it in position with a hair-pin. Through the gap thus formed she looked out at her pupil and said “Buon giorno, Elena cara,” very pleasantly. Elena paid no attention whatever to this gently-implied rebuke; she caught her governess by her cambric shoulders, drew her up off the dressing-stool, and whirled her round in a sort of waltz, carolling “Marietta is coming back, Marietta is coming back! And she will have a governess, a governess, a governess! And our Gelosia will have company, someone to tell how bad I am!” With a final twirl she deposited Fräulein Gelsicher on the stool again, and stood laughing.

  Fräulein Gelsicher took these demonstrations very quietly. She raised another section of hair into position and asked: “What sort of a governess?”

  “English! An English governess! She will have thick boots and flat hair and tweeds and spectacles, and will teach Marietta algebra! She will be much older and sterner than our Gelosia, and will make Marietta much cleverer than me!”

  “The good God has already made Marietta that,” observed Fräulein Gelsicher serenely, leaning forward to the mirror to effect a junction between two bits of hair, where the pad was showing a little—one or other of Fräulein Gelsicher’s pads was usually showing a little. “Senta, who tells you all this?”

  “Marietta! I have a letter just now. Princess Asquini has recommended the governess to Zia Suzy, and they have written, and it is all arranged. And they will be here on Tuesday.”

  Fräulein Gelsicher heard this piece of news with rather mixed feelings. She always felt more comfortable, breathed more freely, when the Marchesa di Vill’ Alta, whom Elena referred to as Zia Suzy, was out of the Province. Although Elena called Jber Aunt, the relationship was in reality less close —through a Vill’ Alta-Castellone marriage two generations before Count Carlo and the Marchese Francesco di Vill’ Alta, Suzy’s husband, were second cousins. But Italians carry consanguinity to unbelievable lengths, and live up to it; moreover, as the Castello di Vill’ Alta happened to be barely a couple of miles from Odredo the two families lived on terms of close intimacy, and Elena and Marietta had been brought up almost together, with much more cousinly feeling than often obtains between real first cousins. Still, there the relationship was, and in Fräulein Gelsicher’s opinion it made the relations between Elena’s father and Marietta’s mother even more deplorable than she would have thought them otherwise. What those relations were she had long been careful, in her shrewd prudence, merely to guess at; but Suzy di Vill’ Alta’s personality and record left their nature in little doubt. Fräulein Gelsicher’s rather rigid Swiss morality had perforce been tempered by a long and observant residence in another social atmosphere to a calm worldly wisdom, which little could shock; she had her own views of what was right, but she did not allow them to obscure a very practical recognition of what human nature was really like, and how it might be expected to behave. But this particular relation did shock her. She had been deeply attached to Elena’s mother, and knew Count Carlo to have been really devoted to her too; she listened, with a pitying recognition of their curious sincerity, to his frequent and devout references to “my sainted wife.” But the Count was weak and, viticulture apart, silly—it had not been difficult for that Circe of a woman, who could not leave one human being within her reach unpossessed, the governess often thought bitterly, to play upon his weakness, his sorrow and his loneliness, and so to enslave him. Disapproving profoundly, his part in the affair she nevertheless understood.

  But now, really, it was time that it should come to an end. (Liaisons, Fräulein Gelsicher knew, had a way of coming to an end.) Elena was eighteen, she was getting more and more observant; it was shocking and unseemly to a degree that the slightest risk should be run of her recognising for what it was the state of affairs between her father and the woman whom she spoke of and treated as an Aunt. Indeed it was only a child’s blind filial trust and ready acceptance of any state of affairs with which it has grown up that had prevented her, Fräulein Gelsicher felt sure, from recognising it already. She had picked up, as it was, the nickname by which the Marchesa Suzy was known in the entire Province—“The Enchantress”; she laughed her bubbling ready laugh, clear as water, over any fresh instance of some unlucky male falling under the Enchantress’ spell. And now, after several months absence, with Elena by that much older and sharper, they were coming back from Rome, that whole party, a full two months earlier than usual, to trouble the peace of the Province of Gardone. Something ought to be done about it. Fräulein Gelsicher had already spent a great deal of time wondering, far more fruitlessly than was usual with her, what could possibly be done about it. The only person who would be likely to have the courage to tackle such a thorny business, or the wisdom to do it with any hope of success, was Suzy’s mother-in-law, the aged Marchesa di Vill’ Alta, known everywhere in affectionate respect as “La Vecchia Marchesa.” The old Marchesa was very very old; ninety-nine—if she lived till next September she would see her century out. And she showed every sign of doing that and more. Her powers of mind and body were unimpaired to an extraordinary degree. Her brilliant black eyes, untinged by rheum, saw everything; she heard whatever she wanted to hear, but quenched unwelcome statements by a sudden and arbitrary deafness; she remembered everything—including the jewelled knife-hilt stuck in the broad belt of Murat’s green-and-gold hunting costume—which she wished to remember, and ignored the rest; her mind still moved like a rapier among such affairs as she deigned to take an interest in, a rather limited category which included her own relations, high Italian society, German royal houses, old lace, diplomatic memoirs and French novels; but which excluded all social and political movements since the Republic, Americans, religious thought, and modern inventions of every kind; her tongue still commanded whole quiversful of the most trenchant sentences of appraisal or condemnation. If La Vecchia Marchesa chose, she could probably deal with the situation—if not through Suzy, through Count Carlo. But who or what was to move La Vecchia Marchesa to such a choice? She must have seen, long since, what was going on, since at Vill’ Alta she lived always in her son’s house; certainly she was not deceived, yet she held her ancient, wrinkled, bediamonded but still distinguished hand. How then on earth could she be persuaded to move? There was no record, in the long chronicles of provincial gossip, of anything but La Vecchia Marchesa’s own initiative having ever moved her in any direction whatever.

  All this passed through Fräulein Gelsicher’s mind as she sat at her dressing-table, continuing to put up her hair, while Elena twirled the grey switch, knotting it into fashionable coils (till Fräulein Gelsicher quietly removed it from her hands and put it unfashionably in position on her own head), chattered, and laughed. When the hair was done, and she could claim her governess’s undivided attention, she laid before her on the dressing-table one of the two letters she had brought in, beseeching her, with an impish giggle, to read it.

  Fräulein Gelsicher took up the letter—it was unstamped and unsealed, and addressed to Marietta di Vill’ Alta. She knew the writing—it was that of the younger of the Count’s two unmarried cousins who occupied the top floor in the house, the Contessa Roma di Castellone.

  “What is this? It is Marietta’s. I am to read it?” she asked, puzzled.

  “Ma si! Ma si! You have the writer’s permission!” Elena answered, almost suffocated with laughter. “Read it out, Gela.”

  Fräulein Gelsicher did as her pupil bade her. Countess Roma was a foolish woman; like her sister Countess Aspasia an impassioned gossip, but without the self-restraint which restricted the latter lady’s communications to the affairs of others—Roma liked to talk about her own uninteresting concerns and doings, and nothing was more likely than that she should wish b
oth Elena and Fräulein Gelsicher to read a letter in which she took an ill-founded pride.

  “My dearest Marietta! Your cousin Aspasia and I have both learned with FONDEST pleasure, the good news of your educational future. A great opportunity opens before you now, of forming your mind, adding to your accomplishments, and improving your character. I hope that in everything you will show docility to your new instructress. The English are a race of considerable learning, I believe, and no doubt your dear mother has chosen for you a woman worthy of your deepest respect. It is to be hoped that you will not fail to profit by such a chance. Your cousin Aspasia and I have often felt that you have lacked, in the past, both those full opportunities for study which young girls should have, and any steady model at hand on which to mould yourself. Your Mother’s household is so social! But you will in all probability NOT inherit those qualities which make her what she is, and you may well expect your life, for that reason, to be different from hers. Indeed I dare almost say that I hope this will be the case! Beauty is a dangerous possession!! I embrace you warmly, Marietta cara.

  Roma Castellone.

  P.S. Your Cousin Elena is going to the Opera tonight— she has a most expensive dress from Joséphine. I should not have thought this extravagance necessary for a young girl, but no doubt Signorina Gelsicher knows what she is about.”

  A faint flush of annoyance tinged the governess’s worn face as she put the letter back in its envelope, but “Very characteristic” was all she said, rather drily. Elena exploded with laughter.

  “Isn’t it? O Gela, I have caught you too! Isn’t it perfect? Won’t it vex Marietta beautifully?”

  The governess wheeled round on her stool to face the young girl.

  “Elena! You haven’t been doing that again? No, that is too naughty! You promised me you would give up that silly trick,” she said reproachfully.

  “For six months! I only promised for six months, and I haven’t done one since Giulio’s last October! But what does it matter? I can write to Marietta tomorrow, before she has time to answer it—she never answers letters for days and days!” Elena answered airily. “Don’t spoil sport, Gela darling. Isn’t it good? ‘I should not have thought this extravagance necessary’,” she read out, and giggled again; “Gela, you were quite hurt! But you know it is just what they would say, the old cats!”

  “You will get into serious trouble one of these days, if you go on with this,” Fräulein Gelsicher said repressively. One of her pupil’s few, and more disconcerting talents was a quite brilliant gift for forgery. She could imitate any handwriting if she had it before her for a few hours, in the most completely convincing fashion—and, as now, she was equally successful at reproducing the epistolary style of people she knew. For years this gift had been a source of anxiety and annoyance to Fräulein Gelsicher, perhaps the only serious cause of annoyance her charge had ever given her—and she made ceaseless struggles to force or persuade the child to give it up. But the love of pure mischief for its own sake was one of the strongest traits in Elena di Castellone’s character, and much as she loved her Gelosia, not even for her could she forego the delight of sitting down to prepare a beautiful and careful forgery of a thoroughly tiresome communication, and then watching, enchanted, the effects upon the victim gradually unfolding themselves. Scolded always, punished sometimes, once or twice really frightened at the unexpectedly serious results of her handiwork, she yet could not stop doing it. It was like a disease, Fräulein Gelsicher said. She, poor woman, as usual got little or no help from the Count in her wrestlings with his daughter on this head; at fifty he had still a good deal of Elena’s childish folly in his composition, and when Fräulein Gelsicher came to him with some dire tale of a successful forgery and an infuriated relation, he was more than likely to throw back his great handsome head, and laugh through his grizzled beard till the room echoed. “But it’s funny, Signorina Gelosia,” he would say, wiping his eyes with his fine cambric handkerchief, when she rebuked him, with privileged severity, for his levity. “You must see how it is funny! Eh, she’s adroit, the little one!” and he would go off into fresh fits of mirth.

  On this occasion Fräulein Gelsicher triumphed over Elena, using the green taffeta dress and the necessity for a personal visit to Mme. Joséphine to drive a bargain about the suppression of the letter to Marietta. It was, she agreed, not likely to do serious harm-but her sense of consistency forbade her to countenance it. She put it away in the black russia leather bag, topped with silver, which hung from a silver hook attached to the neat petersham belt that marked the junction between her mauve face-cloth skirt and her mauve-and-white tartan blouse, along with the household keys, her handkerchief, her silver bottle of digestive pills and a slip with memoranda for the day written on it. There was a sentence in the letter which had vaguely worried her, and she wished to read it again. What was it that Elena had written about Marietta’s mother, and the tone of that household? As a statement by Countess Roma it had seemed natural enough—from Elena, if she remembered it aright, it was extremely disconcerting. She had no time now, but later she must re-read it and consider it. Putting on her mauve cloth bolero jacket, reaching only to the waist, her mauve hat quilled with ribbon, a grey marabout boa and grey suède gloves, Fräulein Gelsicher went off to do battle on her pupil’s behalf with the French dressmaker.

  Chapter Two

  The same Spring sun which had illuminated Fräulein Gelsicher’s purple dressing-gown and curling-pins was pouring, on that May morning, into another room in the Casa Castellone, where Giulio di Castellone sat by the window reading Croce’s Estetica. It lit up the untidy droop of his straight black hair over his high forehead and about his rather unusually shapely head, his delicate ugly profile, and the dusty right shoulder of his shabby serge suit; the fingers of his right hand, curved over the edge of the volume, made a rather beautiful study in shadow on the page, where the black print stood out strongly from the sun-warmed paper. Giulio was twenty-one, but he looked older; his thin sallow face habitually wore a thoughtful or dreamy expression, his shoulders stooped, his young mouth was often set in harsh lines. This morning, that was not the case—there was a look of eager peaceful concentration about him as he read, flicking the pages over with one hand, pushing back his hair when it fell into his eyes with the other—absorbed, satisfied; turning back now to re-read a passage, then turning forward again. Giulio was tasting one of the purest of human satisfactions—the taking in of a new intellectual conception which, though unfamiliar, is instantly sympathetic to the mind receiving it. He felt that this was right, this conception of the spiritual faculty in man as fourfold: the aesthetic, that which seeks for beauty; the logical, that which seeks for knowledge; the practical or economic, where will passes into action; the ethical, which strives towards righteousness in action and involves the whole idea of duty and obligation. His own spirit answered the philosopher’s thought with a glad affirmative. Yes—and these four, though distinct, were yet one, and of an equal validity; a series, and yet a circle. And how profound too Croce’s contention that that series develops, in individuals as in races, in a certain sequence—first the aesthetic, then the logical or intellectual, only last the ethical. Croce’s insistence on the spiritual value of the aesthetic faculty, and on its being the first to develop in human beings was not, to Giulio Castellone, the startling suggestion that it might have been to a young man in Northern Europe, where an early stressing of the moral aspect, a grim and bleak inculcation of the harshest principles of righteousness even in childhood was still in full force, in those days. Brought up in a faith where beauty is at least attempted in every form of religious ceremonial, and in a society where a practical rather than an idealistic outlook prevailed, and gaiety tempered all things, including morality, this conception was not strange to him.

  But how splendid, how satisfying, the sweep and range of Croce’s vision, setting the facts of a small individual experience in relation to a mighty whole; how fortifying to find his, Giulio’s, own hat
reds and prejudices, as well as his most dear and secret aspirations, given the sanction of clear philosophic expression. The ugliness of any form of evil, his violent sense of the less good, even, as mis-shapen, in some way distorted and crippled—this was right, then! Putting down his book, leaning forward to the open window to breathe in the fresh Spring air, he propped his head on his hand and thought, carefully relating his own instinctive feelings and ideas to this new theory, as young thinkers do. He suddenly remembered how as a little boy of eleven he had once protested against going into the salone to see Zia Suzy, and when pressed for a reason had mumbled: “She’s so ugly.” He had been scolded and derided—what a silly boy! Everyone knew how beautiful she was. “To me, she is ugly!” he had insisted stubbornly. Then he had not in the least formulated his dislike of his Aunt, but now—he tapped the open book— here it was! Spiritual ugliness—greediness, selfishness.

  Austere, unpractical, absorbed in books, Giulio was wont to pay very little heed to the proceedings of Suzy di Vill’ Alta; the gossip of the Province hardly entered his careless ears, and if he heard it, he forgot it—he was very far from assessing her relationship to his Father, or to anyone else, with any exactitude; indeed he thought about her as little as possible. But he had been aware of a vague feeling, lately, that there was a point at which something morally disagreeable really touched his life. That is it, he thought now—at least there is moral ugliness there somewhere, and that is why I can’t stand her. And seeing Fräulein Gelsicher’s neat mauve figure at that moment crossing the street below, on her way to Mme. Joséphine’s, he thought ‘Gelosia doesn’t like her either. I wonder if Gelosia ever reads Croce?’ The improbability of this idea made him giggle aloud, a very young boyish laughter; but as he watched the governess disappear round the corner, her head bent to balance her hat against a sudden puff of wind, her marabout boa streaming out behind her—a figure a little elderly, almost a little ridiculous—a sudden feeling of comfort and affection warmed his heart. Fräulein Gelsicher, however much he might tease her and laugh at her, always gave him this sense of comfort and reassurance—and now he felt that he knew why. ‘Gelosia has it— that beauty,’ he muttered to himself. But suddenly he felt that he had read enough; he must get out into the wind and sun, walk and clear his head—these patches and scraps of ideas were no good! Banging the door behind him, he went out.