Enchanter's Nightshade

by Ann Bridge

  “And senta, cara Suzy, Roffredo is coming back almost at once; did you know?” This was Roma.

  “And he has taken this small villa that stood empty so long, on the Pisignacco road—so that he can work more freely.”

  “He is setting up for himself,” giggled Roma.

  “I advised it,” Aspasia said magisterially. “Indeed, I urged it on Livia. He is of an age to be—enfin, to be alone, to have some freedom! Besides,” with a meaning glance at Marietta, “it was most unpleasant having all those experiments going on at Castellone. Loud explosions and reports at all hours—and such smells!”

  “Old Alba is to be his cook and look after him,” Roma added, “and he is bringing a chauffeur person, who will also be his man-servant.”

  Presently Countess Aspasia enquired of the Marchese Francesco how his painting was getting on—he went off and fetched the sketch of the tasselled grape-hyacinth to show her.

  “And where does that grow?” she enquired.

  “In Brioni—Pipo sent it me.”

  “Ah. Pipo is in Brioni? Roma, do you hear that? And is dear Nadia there too?” the Countess Aspasia asked.

  “No, Nadia is in Rome. She is not very well, and is having some treatment,” interposed Suzy smoothly.

  “And Pipo is all alone in Brioni? But why should he go there?” Roma asked.

  La Vecchia Marchesa here took a hand. “Cara Contessa, when my sons reach the age of thirty, I cease asking why they do anything,” she said trenchantly. “I regard their lives then as their own concern. Pipo,” she added, “is forty-nine.”

  This disposed of Pipo and his affairs for the time being, and a little flicker of triumphant amusement passed over Suzy’s face. She loved seeing La Vecchia in action. Countess Roma now turned her batteries onto Marietta, and began to cross-examine her as to what lessons she was going to do.

  “My dear Roma, Miss Prestwich is only with us since luncheon today. She is barely unpacked. You surely did not expect Marietta to start work this afternoon?” Suzy said, in a comic tone of remonstrance which raised a laugh and gracefully covered the rebuff. Almina, watching all these manœuvres, felt with dismay that one would have to be very clever and very ready to live successfully in such surroundings. She also thought with relief, when the sisters had packed themselves into their little pony-carriage and driven off through the warm dusk, that with them, at any rate, she need have little to do. But here she was wrong.

  Chapter Seven

  Fräulein Gelsicher, after some days of careful observation, was inclined to bestow a tempered approbation on the new regime at Vill’ Alta. Like everyone else she had been staggered at first by Almina’s youth, and by what—among the dark Italian hair and complexions—counted as an almost dazzling prettiness; also she was inclined to feel that the becoming clothes of Mrs. Prestwich’s careful providing erred on the side of fashion, for a governess. But she did not let any of these things bias her natural just and kindly judgement; she approved of the neat table of hours and subjects pinned to the schoolroom wall, of Almina’s routine of work from 9.30 to 12.30, walks or tennis in the afternoon, and an hour or more of preparation before dinner, during which time Giulio Castellone had his lesson; and she applauded her young colleague’s resolute insistence that her pupil should present herself for work in the morning fully dressed, and not in a dressing-jacket or wrapper. She decided that Miss Prestwich was, in fact, “serious,” and told Count Carlo so, roundly, when he started some rather crude witticisms about the beauty of “the little Postiche”. She saw, far more clearly than Almina herself, how difficult the girl’s position might easily become if she relaxed for a moment that wise discretion which she had so far displayed —she took occasion, once or twice, to praise her quietly, when she had observed her refusing the pressing invitations of some of the young men of the province, who, ignorant of her exact position, had wished her to join them in a set of tennis or a game of croquet. “That is wisely done,” she said; “if the Marchesa herself asks you to make a fourth, of course it is all right. And to play with the children is quite another thing.” And to the old Marchesa, who rapped out at her one day—“What do you think of Suzy’s idea of a governess, eh, Signorina Gelsicher?” she answered with perfect sincerity that she thought the young Marchesa had been extremely fortunate in her choice.

  “Choice! There was as much choice about it as pulling a boot out of a bag!” said the old lady. “She has very pretty manners, certainly. Does she know anything?”

  “Yes, Marchesa, she knows a great deal; and what is more important, she has I think beaucoup de fonds; she is a good conscientious girl, as far as I can judge,” the Swiss replied.

  “Tiens! Well, I trust your opinion,” said the old lady. “I am glad. I wish Marietta to be in good hands. All the same, she is a great deal too pretty. Governesses should not be pretty!” she said, with an amiable chuckle. “Giulio or someone will be falling in love with her.”

  “I think she is discreet,” Fräulein Gelsicher replied.

  “Hm! Well, she can’t do more,” said the Vecchia Marchesa.

  One afternoon when Almina had been at Vill’ Alta nearly a fortnight, she and Fräulein Gelsicher, with Elena and Marietta, undertook a walk to the village of Macerbo, whose churchyard, set high on a hill, commanded an unusually wide and lovely view—from it, Marietta said, you could look right into the bed of the river Serpiglione, flowing south-westwards across the plain from the mountains. They walked at first by pleasant paths across pastures or through the maize-fields, where every little eminence was crowned with a tuft of acacias, slender and delicate of foliage, and by every stream grew groups of the small poplars, bare save for a long straggling truss of branches at the top, their trunks standing out silvery-white against the distant blue of the mountains. It was a delicious day, hot and bright, with a clear north wind which bent the slender poplars and sent satiny tremors shooting across the flowering grass; the wind affected the two cousins as it does cats, and they were in headlong spirits— Almina herself felt exhilarated, satisfied after a good morning’s work, eager to see later what Giulio would have made of the essay she had set him. She walked in great contentment, unusually alive to the beauty of her surroundings, and the delicious freshness of the early summer’s day; in the intervals of her desultory talk with Fräulein Gelsicher, she told herself that she was very lucky to be so happy.

  For the last part of the way they had to take to the road, which wound, white and dusty, up the slope of the hill on which Macerbo stood. Another road, coming in from the west from the direction of Verona, met theirs in the square at the top. Along this second road, as they climbed, they saw a white cloud of dust rising, hurtling along at a surprising speed.

  “It must be a motor-car,” said Elena. “I wonder if it is Roffredo?”

  “It must be either Roffredo or the Bianchini’s car, because there are no others in Gardone,” said Marietta.

  “I don’t think it can be the Bianchini’s,” said Elena. “Dino won’t let it be used any more. Didn’t you hear? It met the dog-cart in that narrow bend in the drive, and killed the horse—and the groom is still in the hospital in Gardone.” She laughed—and Marietta laughed too. Almina had not yet got accustomed to the Italian habit of regarding a violent accident involving personal friends as a really good joke, and was slightly shocked by their mirth. When they reached the village, however, the question as to the ownership of the car was soon settled. In the open piazza before the church a small crowd had gathered about a motor and some object on the ground; as the party approached an old woman, with loud screechings, raised the object, revealing it as the corpse of a turkey. Her screeches —it was clear that she was the owner of the bird—were directed partly to the late lamented, partly at a tall vigorous-looking young man with Titian-red hair, wearing a long pale dust-coat like an umpire’s, who stood, lighting a cigarette and looking enormously amused, and occasionally remonstrating very good-naturedly with the old woman under the title of Grandmother. At sight
of him, both the cousins cried “Roffredo!” and ran forward. Almina and Fräulein Gelsicher, following, saw him greet them with a sort of careless pleasure; then he turned in their direction, saying—“And La Gelosia—” and checked in mid-sentence. “Who is that?” he muttered to Elena, looking at Almina.

  “That’s my new governess, Miss Prestwich,” Marietta said.

  “She’s not your governess?” the young man said, incredulous.

  “Ma si. E cosi cara,” she whispered to him.

  “E cosi bella!” he returned, in an undertone, as he allowed himself to be led over towards the two governesses. He greeted Fräulein Gelsicher and suffered the introduction to Miss Prestwich with the same careless ease; then, the matter of the turkey having been liquidated for a few lire, the whole party went into the churchyard. Here more hens and turkeys, to Almina’s rather scandalised astonishment, were pecking and gobbling among the tombstones, the photographs set in metal crosses, and the wreaths under glass shades; ignoring these, they walked round the florid whitewashed bulk of the church to the further side, where below a rough stone parapet the ground fell steeply away to the plain. There, sure enough, about half a mile away was the Serpiglione, its broad bed cut deeply into the green landscape, with blue threads of water twining through the bare white expanse of stones—beyond, the plain stretched on, fold beyond fold, the white houses and villages set in it like pearls strewn on crumpled velvet, till the foothills sprang to meet the mountains, and that blue confusion of peaks bounded the whole. Here where they stood they were further West and further North than Almina had been before, and the view had new features. She could now look right into the steep-sided valley through which the Serpiglione cuts its way out into the plain, the exit guarded by a curious isolated block of hill; and round to the East was a mountain she had never seen before, a great blunt-topped mass rising slightly above its fellows. The party strung out along the parapet, the three cousins calling observations to one another; Almina stood a little apart, looking at the view. The cool wind lifted the hair round her temples, the expanse of earth and mountains lifted her heart; that deep-cut channel of the Serpiglione stirred her, gave a sense of an all-conquering power, now calm and held in reserve, to be unleashed at the due moment. A line of verse, whose origin she had forgotten, came into her mind—”Blown crystal clear by Freedom’s northern wind”; it matched her unexpected moment of exaltation.

  Then a flower caught her eye, growing among the stones of the parapet in small trailing tufts of green, starred with mauve. She stooped and picked a piece and examined it; it was the creeping linaria. And at that moment Roffredo di Castellone strolled over and addressed her.

  “You collect flowers, Mademoiselle?” he asked, in slightly American English.

  “Yes,” said Almina.

  “And what is that?” he asked, touching the flower in her hand.

  “Linaria Cymbalaria,” she answered.

  “Corpo di Bacco! You are a real botanist! What a boon you will be to my Uncle Francesco,” he said, with a laugh which showed a set of very strong white teeth. Easy and assured, he let his blue eyes rest on her in a glance of very direct appraisal. “You do not look like a learned person, you know, Mademoiselle,” he said.

  Almina, disconcerted, blushed a little. “All the same, I am; learning is my profession,” she said. And to turn the conversation—“Signor Conte, what is the name of that mountain?” she asked in Italian, indicating the big peak with the blunt summit.

  “The Monte Canone. It is a very good climb by the western ridge,” he said, still talking English. “Do you climb?”

  “No, I never had the chance.”

  “Ah, you should. There is nothing like it.” He pointed out various peaks to her, telling her their names; presently he said “And do you see that lump of hill at the entrance to the gorge, there where the river comes out?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you see that there is a building on it? It is clear today—you should.” “Yes, I can.”

  “That is a fortress—it was built by my great-grandfather, another Roffredo di Castellone,” he said. “You see it was by that valley that the Austrians were always coming in, to harry our poor Italy. So he built that fortress—it is a huge place, really—to defend this entrance; he did it entirely at his own—what is the word?—frais”

  “Expense,” Almina said.

  “Si—at his own expense. Dunque, the government was very grateful, and offered him all sorts of titles and rewards, but his answer was that he only wanted one reward.”

  “And what was that?” Almina asked.

  “That when he was dead, they should build him into the northern wall, upright, and facing Austria!” the young man said, with a sudden ring in his voice. “So that was done, and there he is, to this day. E bello, no?” he said, looking at her.

  “Yes, rather!” said Almina with enthusiasm, using the idiom of her day.

  The others now came up and joined them—it was time to return. Roffredo offered to drive them back to Vill’ Alta in his car, but Fräulein Gelsicher declared cheerfully that nothing would induce her to enter it. “I have no mind to go about murdering fowls,” she said. Almina thought it expedient to follow her example, and as the two girls could not go unescorted, the plan fell through. The car was laboriously ground and started; they watched it chugging dustily and noisily off along the Castellone road, and then set out on their return walk. And on the way Almina found herself thinking a good deal about that patriotic and romantic figure, the builder of the fortress. He cast a certain glamour over his descendants—he was, she thought, a most satisfactory ancestor to have. When Giulio came over for his lesson that evening, bringing one of his laboriously correct but singularly lifeless essays, she watched him, as he read it out, still thinking of the fortress-builder. Somehow it was not so easy to relate Giulio, docile and extremely shy, with his stoop, his black untidy hair and his sensitive face and hands, to that militant old man as it was Count Roffredo—the body in the wall, still defiant in death, had probably, she felt, owned red hair, white strong teeth, and a manner of indifferent ease.

  Roffredo turned up to call the next day at Vill’ Alta; when Miss Prestwich and Marietta returned from tennis at Odredo they found him sitting on the terrace with Suzy and the old Marchesa, drinking Madeira. His manner to the old lady was very attractive, courteous and attentive; to the young Marchesa he was gallant, with the rather artificial and blatant gallantry which Almina was gradually becoming accustomed to see handed out to her employer and Elena by their compatriots. At dinner the talk was of him. “It is pleasant to have Roffredo here again,” the old Marchesa said to her son. “We missed him last summer.”

  “He is improved,” said Suzy. “He has more manner.”

  “He always had a good manner—and how working in a motor-factory can improve it, I can’t think,” said the old lady. “But he is certainly none the worse. He is a very fine young man.”

  “How are his inventions going?” the Marchese wanted to know.

  “So-so, I think,” Suzy said indifferently.

  “He has one—it is something to do with the ignition of the petrol, I think—that is being tested now,” Marietta put in eagerly. “It is something to do with the position of the little points that make the spark, and the metal you use. And if it goes well, it may be that the N.S.A. will take it. They are trying it; they are interested.”

  “And how do you know all this?” her Father asked her fondly.

  “He explained it to Giulio, and Giulio told me.”

  “I did not think Giulio was able to understand such things; his head is always in the clouds,” said Suzy lazily, peeling a fig.

  “Mama! Giulio has a very good brain,” said Marietta, with slight indignation. “Hasn’t he, Miss Prestwich?”

  The old Marchesa fixed her black eyes on Miss Prestwich at this point—the girl was aware of her glance, and knew that she was waiting to see how she would deal with the situation in which Marietta had put
her.

  “I think he has a gift for languages,” she said quietly, “that is all I have had the opportunity of judging, so far.”

  The old lady gave a tiny nod, and Almina knew that she had passed. She constantly had the sense, with the old Marchesa, of being given a test question in an examination; it was a little unnerving, but rather to her own surprise, she did not mind it much. Without knowing why, she found herself both liking and trusting the old woman.

  A few days later there was a further addition to the collection of relations which was gradually gathering for the summer, as usual, in the province. This was the Marchesa Nadia di Vill’ Alta. Suzy had carried her point with her mother-in-law, and had invited Nadia to come for a visit, to see whether something could not be done to improve the situation between her and her husband, the Marchese Pipo. The old lady, while agreeing that it was the right thing to do—how often, she reflected, it was the women like Suzy, and not the rigidly virtuous ones, who saw the right thing to do, and bestirred themselves to do it—dreaded the visit a good deal; her Russian daughter-in-law, with her intensity of emotion, was always fatiguing to her, and in this crisis she was certain to be very difficult. On the day of Nadia’s arrival she was restless and a little irritable—her egg-nog was not right, her shawls were too hot, she did not get her nap in the afternoon, being too fretted to sleep. “You must talk to her too,” she said to Suzy. “I cannot do it all alone; that is, I will not,” she corrected herself.

  “Of course I will talk to her too, Bonne-Mama cara,” Suzy soothed her.

  The Marchesa Nadia appeared that night at dinner, a tall graceful creature, beautifully built, with black hair parted close and smoothly off one of those square white Russian faces, and immense eyes of a curious pale blue, like glass; she wore the length of her hair in a great plait, pinned round her head like a tiara. This severe coiffure, among the puffs and chignons then prevalent, gave her an archaic look, like a queen out of the past, Almina thought—she was very beautiful. Her hands were beautiful too, long and white; she did not use them for conversational purposes, as her in-laws did, but left them lying, in her lap or on the table, as though they hardly belonged to her—but Almina noticed that they trembled a little, sometimes, even while she talked with a rather feverish animation to the Marchese Francesco. Suzy noticed it too, and sighed to herself—“Dio mio, she is in a bad state,” she thought. “I must warn her that she must really control herself when she talks to Bonne-Mama; Bonne-Mama isn’t as strong as I thought. We can’t have her upset.” Like all the rest of the family, Suzy attached enormous importance to La Vecchia Marchesa’s reaching her hundredth birthday safely. It was now early June, and the birthday was in mid-September—only three and a half months to go. After they had all taken coffee on the terrace, Suzy, professing concern for her sister-in-law’s fatigue after her journey, carried her off to her room. Sitting there, graceful and easy, “How do you find Bonne-Mama looking?” she asked.