Enchanter's Nightshade

by Ann Bridge

  Almina’s distress over this business had gone rather deep. She had been charmed by the Marchesa Nadia and her archaic grace and beauty from the first, and the discovery of those depths of unhappiness under the fair-seeming surface of this pleasant Italian family life disturbed her; still more, she was troubled by the airy way in which Elena had spoken of it. She consulted Fräulein Gelsicher about this, telling her what had happened, and blaming herself a little for not having checked the two girls’ conversation sooner.

  “You cannot prevent them, at their ages, either from knowing of these things or from talking about them, my dear Miss Prestwich,” the Swiss said, with a small sigh; “all one can do is oneself to express a just opinion, and so help to form theirs.”

  “But that isn’t easy for me,” Almina said. “You see, I have never heard such things talked about. They aren’t, at home.”

  “No—nor much with us in Switzerland,” the older woman said. “But here, they are. One must take people and places as one finds them, Miss Prestwich. If Marietta speaks of it to you again, I should refer her to her Mother.” She sighed once more, a sigh for which Almina could not quite account. Fräulein Gelsicher was wishing that either girl had a mother who would be of some use in such matters. She was also rather impatient at the English girl’s extraordinary innocence; she liked her, she respected her acquirements and still more her uprightness, but the spectacle of a governess who knew so much less of the world or of life than the pupil seemed to her slightly absurd. How like the Marchesa Suzy to have pitched on this pretty inexperienced creature, out of all the governesses in the world!—when what Marietta most needed was a wise firm middle-aged head and hand, to guide her through the distressing complexities of her family circle.

  The Marchesa Suzy, however inadequate she might be about governesses, was always at pains to live on pleasant and correct terms with her relations, even those whom she liked least; and in pursuit of this laudable end she set out one day soon after the Marchesa Nadia’s departure to call on Roffredo’s mother, the Countess Livia, at Castellone. She took Almina and Marietta with her for the drive, exhorting them to put on “something suitable”—Almina interpreted this as an indication for more or less her “best”, and wore a frock of pale green silk and the famous green hat. Sitting opposite her in the carriage, Suzy observed her, thinking—“if she knew how to do her hair, she would be quite devastatingly pretty”; she smiled with rather malicious amusement to think how acutely the Countess Livia would disapprove when she saw her. Slowly, methodically, the fat white horses trotted along the eight miles of white road which led to Castellone; their white hairs blew back, streaking Marietta’s frock of cherry-coloured linen; a cloud of white dust rose behind the carriage, and after its passage settled gently again on the looped vines and mulberry trees which bordered the road, and drifted out over the fields of maize, now getting tall and green. This generation knows nothing of the peculiar charm of those summer roads, bordered with vegetation white with dust, and the hot smell of dust, of horse-dung, and the acrid ammoniacal smell of the horses themselves. The young Marchesa wore a soft tulle veil, covering the brim of her hat and drawn down under her chin to fasten tightly at the back, to protect her face; a soft cream tussore dust-coat covered her dress—she chided Marietta for not having put on hers, and recommended Miss Prestwich to get one the next time they were in Gardone. Almina and Marietta, however, did not mind the dust and the horse-hairs; Almina was pleased to be going to see Castellone, so familiar from a distance, at close quarters, Marietta sat watching the pleasant country-side, the delicate groups of acacias on the knolls, the fine slender trunks of the poplars, and beyond them, the line of the mountains. All that Gardone country is like the backgrounds of early Italian pictures, where behind the Madonna, through some architectural opening, spreads a distance of blue mountains beyond small feathery trees; and Marietta loved it.

  The Countess Livia received them in a high cool room with heavy hangings, smelling faintly of damp and of camphor, where they sat on high-backed carved and brocaded chairs, and were offered petits fours and dark syrupy Marsala in small glasses—a peculiarly unrestoring form of refreshment after a long hot drive, but the only one ever thought of in ordinary Italian country houses in those days. The Countess Livia, long, thin and black, glanced from time to time at Miss Prest-wich with precisely that expression of slightly martyred condemnation which Suzy had expected—it amused her, but could hardly be said to have an exhilarating effect on the party as a whole. Then there was an interruption—the Countesses Aspasia and Roma di Castellone were announced. “Dio mio, I might have known it!” Marietta whispered irrepressibly to her governess—“they must have seen the carriage from the window!”

  Their entrance enlivened the atmosphere, all the same. The good sisters had a perfectly sound piece of news. Ernest di Castellone, another nephew of Countess livia’s—he with the smart Belgian wife—had suddenly re-opened the question of selling or otherwise disposing of Castel Vecchio, a small property of the Castellone family lying some miles away to the South, which had been standing empty for years. “Ernest says, if it were done up, some rich American would certainly take it,” Countess Roma observed. “What is your view, Suzy? You know so many Americans.”

  Before the Marchesa could answer, Countess Aspasia intervened. There was a difficulty about the title—before selling the house, it would be necesary to arrange one owner who could be empowered to treat. “But whose is it?” the Marchesa Suzy asked, surprised.

  “That is the point—it appears that it belongs in equal shares to eighty-one members of the Castellone family,” Aspasia said, with a sort of measured amusement in her tones. “Francesco, Suzy, would be a holder, and I suppose Marietta too. It is very complicated — all the collaterals have a share.”

  Marietta, her name being mentioned, was encouraged to open her mouth. “Oh Mama, I have never even seen Castel Vecchio! Could we not go there, for a picnic? I should so love to see it.”

  “You want to survey your property, do you, you mercenary little thing?” her mother said, laughing at her. “I don’t know—it is a long way; thirty kilometres at least.”

  The picnic plan, however, found strong support from the two spinsters. It was years since they had seen Castel Vecchio, they would love to see it again—dear Elena would certainly put them up at Odredo for it, to shorten the distance —“and with plenty of carriages, we could all drive over—rest the horses, see the place, and drive back.”

  While this plan was under discussion, there was a further interruption. Count Roffredo burst in, exclaiming—“Dio mio, Mama, where in the universe are all my books?”—and then stopped short, finding the room full of people. Only for a moment, however—then he went round the circle, with his usual pleasant assurance, kissing hands all the way, except for the two girls. Marietta at once invoked his support for the picnic plan, and he gave it enthusiastically—any jaunt which involved driving his car perilously about the Province was sure of Roffredo’s approval. Then, with a further enquiry as to the whereabouts of some engineering books which he wanted, he bowed himself out with skilful ease.

  What the Sorellone had really come for, however, was not merely to discuss Castel Vecchio, but to learn all they could about the Marchesa Nadia and her affairs, a matter on which the Countess Livia herself was not without curiosity. A polite enquiry from Countess Roma as to the Russian’s departure soon produced the desired effect—Livia, with a repressive glance, suggested that Marietta must be tired of sitting indoors, and that she might like to show Miss Prestwich the garden. Marietta dutifully agreed, but once outside the door, far sooner than her governess thought prudent—“Now they will set to!” she exclaimed, “and have it all out. Povera Zia Nadia! Why should they discuss her misfortunes?”

  Once out of doors, however, her attention was quickly distracted. From the lowest of several shady terraces, screened with ilexes and cypresses, and formal with tubbed myrtles and oleanders, they looked out, in the casual Italian
manner, over a sort of steading or farmyard, surrounded by buildings, where fowls scratched among waggons, and a couple of bullock-teams stood, waiting to be unharnessed. In one of the sheds a number of women were gathered, and Marietta cried out—“Oh, see, they are taking the silk! Come and look.”

  They made their way down to the yard. There, in a long open-fronted shed, a dozen or more women and girls were at work, unwinding the raw silk from the still living cocoons of the silk-worms. The two girls watched the whole process. Into shallow pans of lukewarm water, (whose temperature was carefully tested with her naked elbow by an old crone, who greeted Marietta with much affection as “Marchesina”) were flung two or three handfuls of the curious little sausage-shaped cases, from a heap on the ground—they floated, covering the surface of the water like little dirty paper balloons. As each pan was ready a woman began very gently stirring and turning the cocoons till they were wet all over—then, with a sort of whisk or brush of coarse twiggy ‘gran turco’ she began, very lightly and delicately, to half-sweep, half-whip across the surface of the floating mass. Gradually the papery covering disintegrated, and fine single threads of silk began to cling to the brush; she went on sweeping and whipping till from every floating cocoon one of those gossamer filaments clung to the bundle of twigs, in a long fine cloud that reminded Almina of a comet’s tail. Now the woman pulled out this tail to a yard or more in length, broke off the brush, made the end of the skein of fibres fast to a small wicker distaff, and then began with a smooth flicking movement of the wrist to wind the silk onto it off the floating cocoons, yard after yard, interminably. The two girls watched, fascinated—all down the shed, into which dusty shafts of sunlight poured, the women stood, turning the distaffs with a peculiar rhythmic movement, very graceful, while the sheeny yellowish filaments grew on them till each woman seemed to be waving a little golden baton. “It’s like drawing out star-light and winding it up,” Marietta said, her dark eyes alight with pleasure. Almina asked what became of the robbed cocoons, which lay, looking curiously thin and naked, in a growing pile on a cloth on the ground.

  “Oh, they are all right—it does them no harm, for the water is of just the heat they like,” the child replied—“old Ida sees to that. What are needed to grow, to make more silk-worms, they keep—what becomes of the others I really don’t know. Senta, Ida—” and she turned to the old woman and asked her the question.

  “The hens have them, Marchesina,” the old creature replied, grinning, “it makes them lay.”

  At this point Count Roffredo strolled up—he had observed them from above and came down to see, as he said gaily, what they were up to.

  “It is I who teach Miss Prestwich now, about silk-worms,” Marietta said. The young man wandered about, rallying the women in the shed—he slipped a bundle of the loose golden floss off one of the filled distaffs, and gave it to Almina, saying “It is just the shade of your hair.” Almina coloured—the women, overhearing, laughed and echoed the remark. But Roffredo was soon bored with the silk-worm shed, and suggested showing Miss Prestwich the garden. Marietta was by this time involved in listening to a long recital by old Ida about the doings of her grand-children—“Yes, go—I follow you in a minute,” she said hastily.

  So the young man and Miss Prestwich went off together, up into the garden again. Almina was rather acutely conscious that this was by no means what Countess Livia had intended, but comforted herself with the reflexion that Marietta would join them in a few moments. That however was by no means Count Roffredo’s intention. He led his companion off along the terraces, out to a part of the garden which lay beyond the red wing, where the Sorellone lived— this was wilder, with open stretches of rough grass between groups of stone pines, and straggling thickets of privet and arbutus. It was a hot quiet afternoon, with a heavy stillness in the air suggesting thunder somewhere about; crickets shrilled wildly in the dry grass, and the loaded sweetness of the privet-blossom, the fine aromatic fragrance of the sun-warmed pines came to them in alternation as they walked along the narrow unkempt paths. A curious disquiet, like the thunderous overcharged heat of the day, held them both; they had never been alone together before, and this solitude was heavy with possibilities of which both were aware. Almina was at once nervous and excited, and yet full of a strange physical lassitude—she would have liked, from sheer weakness, to sit on one of the rather tumble-down wooden seats which occurred here and there, but was too timid to suggest it. She was waiting for she did not quite know what—for something vaguely wonderful to happen, in which the young man beside her would play a prominent, perhaps an alarming part. Roffredo was waiting for something too, but in a much more practical way. He knew perfectly well what he wanted—to take the small delightful figure beside him into his arms, feel her firm supple shape, and kiss her a great deal, especially at that delicious place where the fine pale gold of her hair, the little soft strands and tendrils, melted into the golden-white skin of her neck—all turned now to an incredible delicate transparency in the green shadow of her hat. But it was more complicated than that, too; he liked her enormously, this little English girl, with her quiet rather definite manner, her surprising botanical knowledge—Roffredo loved precise knowledge about anything— and a sort of dainty firmness that there was about her altogether. Besides kissing her, he wanted to make her like him, and like being kissed by him—and he was not at all sure that she did, or would. Anyhow these things had to be done nicely, gracefully—had to be led up to; and he found himself slightly at a loss how to lead up to it with this girl of another nationality—which all added to his sense of tension. While he was making conversation, with unwonted awkwardness, he noticed a flower growing in the grass on the slope above them, a flower with small bluish-purple stars at the top of narrow trumpets. In a moment he was after it, and brought it down to her—“Of course you know what that is?” he said, smiling.

  She examined it carefully. “I think it is Gentiana amarella, only it is out rather early,” she said. “But then of course, it is hotter here.”

  “Won’t you wear it; it is pretty,” he said; and Almina pinned it into the breast of her green dress with the emerald and diamond brooch which her Mother had given her. The skein of raw silk was in her way, and he took it from her hand—when she had finished, he held it up beside her hair, smiling, and said “They do match exactly. Your hair is like sunshine—did you know?”

  The words were light enough, but the sense of anticipation that had been holding the pair made them heavy with an unexpected significance, like the hot air of the afternoon.

  “No,” Almina said, colouring.

  “But your eyes are grave,” the young man went on, still studying her face, “like the day before sunrise. That is beautiful too. Cara signorina”—his persistent glance was half-gay, half-tender—“have you any idea how beautiful you are? I want so much to know.”

  The directness of this attack put Almina quite out of countenance. “Signor Conte, I wish you would not say these things to me,” she protested.

  “Why not? Since they are true, and must be pleasant to hear?”

  “It—it is not suitable,” the girl said, with a rather pathetic attempt to recover her usual self-possessed manner. But it was too hard for her. He was standing so near her, out there in the lonely end of the garden, with nobody about— surveying her so serenely, so freely, as one might a bird in one’s hand—smiling so quietly. His smile reminded her of something—what was it? Yes—she remembered; it was her dream of two or three nights before, when she had seen herself as a bird caught among the limed twigs, and he standing over her. That memory gave the moment an intolerable quality —obeying an impulse that she could neither analyse nor control, she turned away, and walked a step or two forward along the path.

  At once he was beside her again. “Signorina, what is it? I haven’t offended you, have I?”

  “No—but I would really rather you did not say those things to me,” she said, recovering herself a little.

  �
�Because you are the governess? It always seems so ridiculous to me that you should be a governess at all! Why are you?”

  “Because my Father died, and now we have so little money,” she answered.

  “I thought your Father was a lord,” the young man said.

  “No—he was a doctor. You are thinking of my grandfather. But he isn’t rich either,” she said, amused at his tone. “Lords are often poor.”

  “È vero? I did not know.” He made some enquiries about her relations, which the girl answered happily enough— it pleased her to talk about them, and she felt that she had safely turned a dangerous corner. But there she was mistaken. Her sudden movement away from him had taken him by surprise; it had roused both his curiosity and his instinct for pursuit—shaken him, in fact, out of his rather calculated methods of dealing with her. To kiss a girl the first time one got the chance was always a mistake, and he had been telling himself so for some minutes past—but now, coming to a seat —“Let us sit,” he said; and then, turning to her—”Why did you turn away from me, just now?” he asked, urgently.

  Young women in Almina’s day, perhaps wisely, never attempted a truthful answer to such a question. She hesitated a moment. “Because I did not like you to say those things to me,” she said.

  “But I was not speaking then. I was only looking at you,” he protested. “May I not even do that?”—and he bent forward to peer in under the brim of her hat. And as she coloured and was silent, unable to think of a reply, suddenly he took her two hands. “Ah cara, you are too lovely—you must let me look at you,” he said, with a sort of half-mocking tenderness. The startled helplessness of her face, now so close to his, was too much for him—forgetting all calculations, he drew her towards him and kissed her, slowly and gently, but with expert mastery.