Enchanter's Nightshade

by Ann Bridge

  A little overwhelmed by the warmth of this greeting, Almina suffered herself to be taken out of the carriage, and led through the gate, which whined again behind them. Up the steps, flight after flight, they went, her new pupil chattering all the way in voluble explanations, which to Almina’s confused mind explained very little. But Giulio walked silent behind them, in an astonishment that was tinged both with disappointment and some other feeling. This a governess? This small creature in the youthful clothes and hat? And her hair! Clouds of it, like sunshine— and those great blue eyes —she was like a child! Could anyone so young know anything, teach anything? This was not the sober counterpart of Gela that he had been looking forward to. But her eyes and mouth were grave, when Marietta made some reference to him, and she turned and looked in his direction—and her forehead broad and calm. She might after all be wise, for all her air of simplicity and innocence. They went on up the steps.

  At the top Marietta paused. In front of them, across the vivid flower-beds of the terrace, rose the house, the grey stone pale in the brilliant light, a black band of shadow under the deep cornice, the closed sun shutters making yellow oblongs all across the vast front. Almina looked at it, intimidated. It was huge; it was dreadfully imposing; it was all that she had expected of grand and formal—it made the artless simplicity of the young girl beside her all the more surprising. Marietta was pointing out everything, eagerly doing the honours of her adored home. “And see, those are your windows, along at that corner on the right. And there are two other windows round the corner, too, so that you look both ways. Come— I shall show you!” And she dragged her along the terrace towards the eastern end. As they went, they passed close to the other flight of steps, where Mars and Venus stood; the English girl, startled, saw the blazing immodesty of the scarlet flowers which still decorated the statue. She turned her head away, quickly, while an inexorable blush spread over her pale skin. How horrible! Who could have done such a thing? And to have to pass it with that young man just behind them. Really, Italians were very—! She made some remark quickly to Marietta about the house. But Giulio, walking just behind, saw everything—the swiftly averted head, the colour that spread even over the white neck, under the clouds of sunny hair, and suddenly he was embarrassed too. Why had Marietta brought her that way? Little idiot! Why had he done such a foolish thing? Discontented again, he followed the two girls round the eastern wing.

  Out on the northern terrace, La Vecchia Marchesa still sat in her chair, Suzy lolled in her hammock, Elena sat holding a skein of silk which the old lady was plaiting with her fine wrinkled hands. As she approached the group, and during the introductions which followed, Almina studied these strangers with whom she was to live with curiosity tinged with anxiety. In her nervous Italian she answered some imperious questions from the very old lady, the polite and gracious enquiries of the younger one as to her comfort on her journey, the coolly friendly greetings of the other girl, who was, it seemed, the sister of the untidy young man. She was not in the least untidy; she wore her white blouse and skirt and trim red petersham belt with undoubted chic—and there was style in the way her dark shining hair was dressed. She looked rather nice, in spite of something slightly ironical in her expression. But the greatest shock was the appearance of Almina’s employer, the lady whom Marietta addressed as “Mama”. The younger Marchesa was undoubtedly “actressy”. Her pretty, rather full face was certainly made up, her eyebrows darkened; her coiffure was inconceivably elaborate. Almina had never seen anyone look like that off the stage—in a private house she hardly looked proper. And her pale dress, all lacy over the bust, was smart enough for Ascot. Or was there perhaps to be a luncheon party? In that case both she and her pupil ought to go and change—she was very conscious of the heat and unsuitability of her blue coat and skirt, and of the white dust which powdered it, mixed with short white hairs from the horses. Sitting rather stiffly on her chair, with these thoughts running in her head, she started slightly when the very old lady tapped her with an ivory paper-knife and said “You speak very good Italian. Where did you learn it?”

  “At Oxford,” Almina replied.

  “How old are you?”

  “Bonne-Mama cara!” expostulated Suzy.

  “Twenty-two,” Almina replied, readily enough.

  “Hm! Are you serious?” the old lady next enquired.

  Almina was rather taken aback. “I have always thought so—” she began gravely, when the old lady suddenly abandoned her questionnaire, and whipped round on the young man, who had seated himself on the parapet. “Giulio! Do not sit on the stone! You will certainly get piles!”

  The young Marchesa exploded with laughter. “Oh Bonne-Mama, how wicked you are!” she said, going over and kissing the old lady. “Come, Miss Prestwich, come to your room. You will want to wash before luncheon.”

  She swept her off. On the way upstairs she was all charm and kindness, explaining the party—”Elena and Giulio are my niece and nephew—they live next door to us, at Odredo. —My mother-in-law is wonderful, isn’t she? Do you know that if she lives till September, she will be a hundred?” The kindness, the charm, the being “taken into” things a little fell like balm on Almina’s spirit, tired, nervous and bewildered as she was—in the immense room to which she was finally conducted, she turned to her hostess, in reply to a hope that she would be really comfortable, and said fervently “I am sure I shall. Thank you so much.” Suzy smiled a little to herself as she closed the door and went downstairs. It would be all right about the little governess—she would be devoted; there would be no trouble with her.

  “Well, Bonne-Mama, what do you think of her?” Suzy asked, as she returned to the terrace. “Marietta, go and get tidy for lunch, my child. Your hair is a sight and your blouse is so dirty.” Marietta went. “Well?” Suzy continued, still looking amused and lighting a cigarette.

  “She looks very well-bred, but as a governess, the thing is ridiculous!” the old lady pronounced. “Lydia must be mad!” Suzy burst out laughing again. Her laughter was enchanting—rather high but with a warm quality of mirth in it. The old Marchesa, as if reluctantly, gave a faint chuckle too, as she listened to her daughter-in-law. “No, but it is true,” she persisted.

  “Oh, Bonne-Mama cara, and her face when you spoke to Giulio! You are a most perverse old woman! No—I think she will do quite well,” she pursued. “I know about English girls. They are very serious.”

  “Her hair is lovely,” Elena here put in. “Nearly the colour of yours, Zia Suzy.”

  “Yes—if she could do it,” Suzy said, looking slightly less amused.

  “I might teach her to,” said Elena.

  “It is her business to teach,” said the old lady, rather tartly. “Governesses need not have fashionably dressed hair.”

  “We will get Gela to give her some lessons in coiffure, then,” said Elena, irrepressibly, “and teach her how to look like a governess. Zia Suzy, we must go, or we shall be late for lunch. Where can Giulio have got to?”

  But at that moment Giulio appeared, sauntering round the end of the east wing. The pair took their leave and set off again along the terrace, Elena asking her brother where he had hidden himself. He did not tell her. In fact, as soon as his Aunt and Miss Prestwich had disappeared into the house, he had slipped round onto the South terrace. There, with an anger which he could not explain, he tore out the scarlet geraniums which he had tucked behind the hands of the statue of Venus, and flung them into the bushes.

  Chapter Six

  That first day at Vill’ Alta seemed as long as an ordinary week to Almina Prestwich—it was so crammed with new impressions, new people and new things as to be very exciting and exhausting. Her room, in which the Marchesa had left her, telling her that luncheon would be in three quarters of an hour, was highly novel, to begin with. Left alone, she looked round it. There was a large bed, with a high pointed back of carved and painted wood and a rich lace coverlet; a writing table, a high-backed couch, a tall chest of drawers, a che
val glass, three armchairs and several quite large tables—but there was no dressing-table, washstand or wardrobe. Except for the bed and the cheval-glass, it was like a large and richly-furnished boudoir. Moreover, it had three doors in the three corners of the room, besides the one by which she had entered. Cautiously, she went and opened one of them, and stood in surprise. The door led into a very small square room, arranged as an oratory, with a crucifix, prie-dieu, flowers, and a variety of holy statues and pictures. Almina, whose sober Low-Church upbringing had been modified at Oxford into the fashionable High-Church tendency, was charmed with the oratory. She shut the door gently, and tried another. Ah, this was better. Here was the cabinet de toilette, with washstand, dressingtable, commode, and a hip-bath painted white propped against the wall. She noticed with admiration the exquisite quality of the linen on the towel-horse, the vast monograms —S. d. V.A.—on the face-towels and even on the bath-towel, with a coronet above. Here she could wash—but where was her luggage? She wanted her little fitted dressing-case, that awkward square object whose two lids fell back to disclose a vast array of silver-topped cut-glass boxes and bottles, and of ivory brushes and combs—no young lady in Almina’s day but carried her toothbrush in a silver-stoppered glass cylinder, her hairpins in a long glass box with a silver lid, her soap in another, and ranged her pairs of brushes and clothes-brushes, one stiff and one soft, behind bands of watered silk, when she set out on a journey. A more futile, heavy, cumbersome and unpractical object than the Victorian dressing-case was never devised by man, or used, as a matter of course, by woman. But where was hers? Thinking that this was rather like Bluebeard’s palace, Almina opened the third door. Triumph! There in a third little corner room, fitted up all round with hanging cupboards with sliding-doors, and a glorious array of shelves, was her luggage. She carried her dressing-case into the cabinet de toilette, got out her things, and washed—hurried back to the clothes cupboard, opened her new and exciting suitcase, in which she had prudently put a dress for emergencies, and pulled it out—a bolero and skirt of pale yellow embroidered linen, with a soft white broderie anglaise blouse to go with it. She did her hair and then changed into these garments, wishing, as she did so, that she had got some white suède shoes like Elena di Castellone’s. However, her new black glacé-kid ones were very nice, and she put them on. Now, even if there was a lunch-party, she would do, she thought, glancing at herself in the cheval-glass. She looked round her room, so luxurious, formal and pretty, with a sort of startled pleasure—really, this did seem a nice place. But before she went downstairs she slipped for a moment into the oratory, and kneeling at the prie-dieu, prayed with real earnestness that she might not be led away by fashion and luxury, but might serve her employer faithfully, and be of real use to her pupil.

  There was no luncheon-party. But it seemed almost like one to Almina when they sat down in the great dining-room with its high painted ceiling—the old Marchesa, the young Marchesa, herself, Marietta, the Márchese Francesco and the Marchese Paolo, who chose this day to make one of his periodic incursions to the family table. Two men-servants in white cotton gloves moved round the room, handing food which was all strange, and by no means all of it nice, Almina thought. There was a cheese and spaghetti affair at first which she liked, but this was followed by a selection of very odd things fried in batter, and she had no idea what they were—on recognising, finally, an unmistakeable cock’s-comb, she was almost too disgusted to finish. Who knew what the other unrecognisable things might be? Almina had yet to learn to appreciate the joys of fritto misto. And the next course was worse—large glutinous lumps of something, a-swim in masses of rice and a gravy that was like brown ink, she thought. She was right—she was eating sepia, or cuttlefish, stewed in its own ink, a favourite dish in the province of Gardone.

  Even more disconcerting were the table-manners of some of her companions. The old lady, the young Marchesa and Marietta ate normally enough, except that the old Marchesa, who belonged to an age before table-napkins came into fashion, ignored the fine lace-bordered object by her plate and wiped her fingers, daintily as a bird cleaning its beak, on the table-cloth. But the two men! Both tucked their napkins into their collars at the beginning of the meal, a sensible foreign habit which, being unfamiliar, seemed to the English girl rather ill-bred; she failed to perceive the skill, the really brilliant technique which underlay their manipulation of the spaghetti, that deft movement of the fork by which a lump the size of a duck’s egg was coiled round the implement and thrust into the mouth; she only observed, with dismay, the subsequent process of collecting the stragglers by suction. But the last straw was the Marchese Paolo’s method of dealing with the cutdefish. This gentleman, whose hair was of a thick iron-grey, his skin like old parchment, and his whole appearance of a most delicate distinction, talked steadily during the whole of lunch, in a high and rather beautiful voice and through mouthfuls of food, about Bach’s forerunners in the musical world—it was clear even to Almina, who knew little about Bach, that he was a person of considerable knowledge. But when he came to the cuttlefish, having consumed the solid parts and the rice, still talking about music he swept the fingers of his right hand across his plate, mopping up the ink—sucked them, swept the plate again, sucked them again, and finally, with an air of perfect satisfaction, ran them through his thick hair. Almina was appalled, but no one else appeared to pay any attention. At dessert the Marchese Francesco, who apart from asking his mother as each dish was offered her, if it was what she liked, had made no contribution to the conversation, cut across the information about Bach and addressing Almina, asked her if she could translate a paragraph from an English book for him. He seemed surprised when she said that she could, and relapsed into silence.

  But when they had taken coffee, out on the terrace under the ilex, he rose and asked Marietta to bring the Signorina into his room to look at the book. Escorted by Marietta— Almina only realised later that it would not have been strictly comme il faut for her to enter his study alone—she was introduced to the little paper-covered volume and the picture of the tasselled grape-hyacinth. He set a chair for her, and stood listening gravely while, after a moment’s pause, she read out the whole paragraph in clear Italian. Then he rubbed his hands with pleasure. That was famous! Would she write it down for him? With pleasure, Almina said— with some trouble a space was cleared among the litter on the table, and with a quill pen Almina wrote out the translation. The Marchese held the sheet up close to his thick spectacles and read it—he thanked her with the delighted expression of a child. Almina asked if the tasselled grapehyacinth grew near Vill’ Alta? “Alas, no—in Brioni. The Signorina is interested in wild-flowers?” Very, Almina said: her mother was rather a good botanist, and she collected wild flowers herself. “Dunque, Papa, now you will have someone to find flowers for you! That is marvellous!” Marietta said. “Papa is mad about botany,” she confided to Almina as they left the room, “but he is so blind, he can find nothing for himself, and I am too ignorant to know what is worth picking. But with you, I shall learn. Will you teach me?” Almina gladly promised, thinking with satisfaction and gratitude how well it was that her Mother had made her bring her Bentham and Hooker. To teach this eager-faced nice pupil to know the wild-flowers would be a charming occupation on their walks.

  Indeed her first concern now was to have a talk with the young Marchesa; to find out what was expected of her, and to organise her own and her pupil’s day. But this was not so easy. When she and Marietta went out onto the terrace again, the old Marchesa had retired to take her afternoon nap, the Marchese Paolo had also disappeared, and a tall handsome man with grizzled hair and beard was sitting beside the hammock where the Marchesa Suzy lay, talking to her with great animation. Marietta checked on the steps. “Oh! Zio Carlo has come,” she said, hesitating; “then perhaps we had better not disturb Mama.”

  “Who is Zio Carlo?” Almina asked, firmly—she felt that unless she made a determined effort from the outset, she would fall into endless
mistakes and confusion among this tribe of relations.

  “He is Elena’s and Giulio’s father. He is very amiable, but rather silly,” said Marietta, with startling candour.

  “Then he is your Mother’s brother?”

  “Oh dear no!” Marietta replied, laughing—the idea seemed to amuse her. “ He isn’t really an Uncle at all. Bonne-Mama’s husband’s mother, my great-grandmother, was a Castellone, so Papa and Zio Carlo are cousins. But we call him Uncle, because it is more suitable—and Elena and Giulio call Mama Zia Suzy. We call all the Castellones Uncle and Aunt—Zia Livia, Roffredo’s mother, and—” she giggled again— “the Sorellone. You will see them all very soon, especially the Sorellone. They are great gossips and very curious—they will come to see you at once.”