How could a human being, thought Scrap – frowning as she issued forth from her corner – how could a man made in God’s image behave so, and be fitted for better things she was sure, with his youth, his attractiveness and his brains. He had brains. She had examined him cautiously whenever at dinner Mrs Fisher forced him to turn away to answer her, and she was sure he had brains. Also he had character – there was something noble about his head, about the shape of his forehead – noble and kind. All the more deplorable that he should allow himself to be infatuated by a mere outside, and waste any of his strength, any of his peace of mind, hanging round just a woman-thing. If only he could see right through her, see through all her skin and stuff, he would be cured, and she might go on sitting undisturbed on this wonderful night by herself.
Just beyond the daphne bushes she met Frederick, hurrying.
“I was determined to find you first,” he said, “before I go to Rose.” And he added quickly, “I want to kiss your shoes.”
“Do you?” said Scrap, smiling. “Then I must go and put on my new ones. These aren’t nearly good enough.”
She felt immensely well disposed towards Frederick. He, at least, would grab no more. His grabbing days, so sudden and brief, were done. Nice man – agreeable man. She now definitely liked him. Clearly he had been getting into some sort of a tangle, and she was grateful to Lotty for stopping her in time at dinner from saying something hopelessly complicating. But whatever he had been getting into he was out of it now – his face and Rose’s face had the same light in them.
“I shall adore you for ever now,” said Frederick.
Scrap smiled. “Shall you?” she said.
“I adored you before because of your beauty. Now I adore you because you’re not only as beautiful as a dream but as decent as a man.”
Scrap laughed. “Am I?” she said, amused.
“When the impetuous young woman,” Frederick went on, “the blessedly impetuous young woman, blurted out in the nick of time that I am Rose’s husband, you behaved exactly as a man would have behaved to his friend.”
“Did I?” said Scrap, her enchanting dimple very evident.
“It’s the rarest, most precious of combinations,” said Frederick, “to be a woman and have the loyalty of a man.”
“Is it?” smiled Scrap, a little wistfully. These were indeed handsome compliments. If only she were really like that…
“And I want to kiss your shoes.”
“Won’t this save trouble?” she asked, holding out her hand.
He took it and swiftly kissed it, and was hurrying away again. “Bless you,” he said as he went.
“Where is your luggage?” Scrap called after him.
“Oh, Lord, yes…” said Frederick, pausing. “It’s at the station.”
“I’ll send for it.”
He disappeared through the bushes. She went indoors to give the order – and this is how it happened that Domenico, for the second time that evening, found himself journeying into Mezzago and wondering as he went.
Then, having made the necessary arrangements for the perfect happiness of these two people, she came slowly out into the garden again, very much absorbed in thought. Love seemed to bring happiness to everybody but herself. It had certainly got hold of everybody there, in its different varieties, except herself. Poor Mr Briggs had been got hold of by its least dignified variety. Poor Mr Briggs. He was a disturbing problem, and his going away next day wouldn’t, she was afraid, solve him.
When she reached the others, Mr Arundel – she kept on forgetting that he wasn’t Mr Arundel – was already, his arm through Rose’s, going off with her, probably to the greater seclusion of the lower garden. No doubt they had a great deal to say to each other – something had gone wrong between them, and had suddenly been put right. San Salvatore, Lotty would say, San Salvatore working its spell of happiness. She could quite believe in its spell. Even she was happier there than she had been for ages and ages. The only person who would go empty away would be Mr Briggs.
Poor Mr Briggs. When she came in sight of the group he looked much too nice and boyish not to be happy. It seemed out of the picture that the owner of the place, the person to whom they owed all this, should be the only one to go away from it unblessed.
Compunction seized Scrap. What very pleasant days she had spent in his house, lying in his garden, enjoying his flowers, loving his views, using his things, being comfortable, being rested – recovering, in fact. She had had the most leisured, peaceful and thoughtful time of her life; and all really thanks to him. Oh, she knew she paid him some ridiculous small sum a week, out of all proportion to the benefits she got in exchange, but what was that in the balance? And wasn’t it entirely thanks to him that she had come across Lotty? Never else would she and Lotty have met – never else would she have known her.
Compunction laid its quick, warm hand on Scrap. Impulsive gratitude flooded her. She went straight up to Briggs.
“I owe you so much,” she said, overcome by the sudden realization of all she did owe him, and ashamed of her churlishness in the afternoon and at dinner. Of course he hadn’t known she was being churlish. Of course her disagreeable inside was camouflaged, as usual, by the chance arrangement of her outside, but she knew it. She was churlish. She had been churlish to everybody for years. Any penetrating eye, thought Scrap, any really penetrating eye, would see her for what she was – a spoilt, a sour, a suspicious and a selfish spinster.
“I owe you so much,” therefore said Scrap earnestly, walking straight up to Briggs, humbled by these thoughts.
He looked at her in wonder. “You owe me?” he said. “But it’s I who – I who…” he stammered. To see her there in his garden… nothing in it, no white flower, was whiter, more exquisite.
“Please,” said Scrap, still more earnestly, “won’t you clear your mind of everything except just truth? You don’t owe me anything. How should you?”
“I don’t owe you anything?” echoed Briggs. “Why, I owe you my first sight of – of—”
“Oh, for Goodness’ sake – for Goodness’ sake,” said Scrap entreatingly, “do, please, be ordinary. Don’t be humble. Why should you be humble? It’s ridiculous of you to be humble. You’re worth fifty of me.”
“Unwise,” thought Mr Wilkins, who was standing there too, while Lotty sat on the wall. He was surprised, he was concerned, he was shocked that Lady Caroline should thus encourage Briggs. “Unwise – very,” thought Mr Wilkins, shaking his head.
Briggs’s condition was so bad already that the only course to take with him was to repel him utterly, Mr Wilkins considered. No half measures were the least use with Briggs, and kindliness and familiar talk would only be misunderstood by the unhappy youth. The daughter of the Droitwiches could not really – it was impossible to suppose it – desire to encourage him. Briggs was all very well, but Briggs was Briggs: his name alone proved that. Probably Lady Caroline did not quite appreciate the effect of her voice and face, and how between them they made otherwise ordinary words seem – well, encouraging. But these words were not quite ordinary – she had not, he feared, sufficiently pondered them. Indeed, she needed an adviser – some sagacious, objective counsellor like himself. There she was, standing before Briggs, almost holding out her hands to him. Briggs, of course, ought to be thanked, for they were having a most delightful holiday in his house, but not thanked to excess, and not by Lady Caroline alone. That very evening he had been considering the presentation to him next day of a round robin of collective gratitude on his departure, but he should not be thanked like this, in the moonlight, in the garden, by the lady he was so manifestly infatuated with.
Mr Wilkins therefore, desiring to assist Lady Caroline out of this situation by swiftly applied tact, said with much heartiness: “It is most proper, Briggs, that you should be thanked. You will please allow me to add my expressions of indebtedness, and those of my wife
, to Lady Caroline’s. We ought to have proposed a vote of thanks to you at dinner. You should have been toasted. There certainly ought to have been some…”
But Briggs took no notice of him whatever: he simply continued to look at Lady Caroline as though she were the first woman he had ever seen. Neither, Mr Wilkins observed, did Lady Caroline take any notice of him: she too continued to look at Briggs, and with that odd air of almost appeal. Most unwise. Most.
Lotty, on the other hand, took too much notice of him, choosing this moment when Lady Caroline needed special support and protection to get up off the wall and put her arm through his and draw him away.
“I want to tell you something, Mellersh,” said Lotty at this juncture, getting up.
“Presently,” said Mr Wilkins, waving her aside.
“No – now,” said Lotty, and she drew him away.
He went with extreme reluctance. Briggs should be given no rope at all – not an inch.
“Well – what is it?” he asked impatiently as she led him towards the house. Lady Caroline ought not to be left like that, exposed to annoyance.
“Oh, but she isn’t,” Lotty assured him, just as if he had said this aloud, which he certainly had not. “Caroline is perfectly all right.”
“Not at all all right. That young Briggs is—”
“Of course he is. What did you expect? Let’s go indoors to the fire and Mrs Fisher. She’s all by herself.”
“I cannot,” said Mr Wilkins, trying to draw back, “leave Lady Caroline alone in the garden.”
“Don’t be silly, Mellersh – she isn’t alone. Besides, I want to tell you something.”
“Well tell me, then.”
“Indoors.”
With a reluctance that increased at every step, Mr Wilkins was taken farther and farther away from Lady Caroline. He believed in his wife now and trusted her, but on this occasion he thought she was making a terrible mistake. In the drawing room sat Mrs Fisher by the fire, and it certainly was to Mr Wilkins, who preferred rooms and fires after dark to gardens and moonlight, more agreeable to be in there than out of doors, if he could have brought Lady Caroline safely in with him. As it was, he went in with extreme reluctance.
Mrs Fisher, her hands folded on her lap, was doing nothing, merely gazing fixedly into the fire. The lamp was arranged conveniently for reading, but she was not reading. Her great dead friends did not seem worth reading that night. They always said the same things now – over and over again they said the same things, and nothing new was to be got out of them any more for ever. No doubt they were greater than anyone was now, but they had this immense disadvantage – that they were dead. Nothing further was to be expected of them, while of the living – what might one not still expect? She craved for the living, the developing – the crystallized and finished wearied her. She was thinking that if only she had had a son – a son like Mr Briggs, a dear boy like that – going on, unfolding, alive, affectionate, taking care of her and loving her…
The look on her face gave Mrs Wilkins’s heart a little twist when she saw it. “Poor old dear,” she thought, all the loneliness of age flashing upon her, the loneliness of having outstayed one’s welcome in the world, of being in it only on sufferance, the complete loneliness of the old childless woman who has failed to make friends. It did seem that people could only be really happy in pairs – any sorts of pairs, not in the least necessarily lovers, but pairs of friends, pairs of mothers and children, of brothers and sisters – and where was the other half of Mrs Fisher’s pair going to be found?
Mrs Wilkins thought she had perhaps better kiss her again. The kissing in the afternoon had been a great success – she knew it: she had instantly felt Mrs Fisher’s reaction to it. So she crossed over and bent down and kissed her and said cheerfully, “We’ve come in…” which indeed was evident.
This time Mrs Fisher actually put up her hand and held Mrs Wilkins’s cheek against her own – this living thing, full of affection, of warm, racing blood – and as she did this, she felt safe with the strange creature, sure that she who herself did unusual things so naturally would take the action quite as a matter of course, and not embarrass her by being surprised.
Mrs Wilkins was not at all surprised – she was delighted. “I believe I’m the other half of her pair,” flashed into her mind. “I believe it’s me, positively me, going to be fast friends with Mrs Fisher!”
Her face when she lifted her head was full of laughter. Too extraordinary, the developments produced by San Salvatore. She and Mrs Fisher… but she saw them being fast friends.
“Where are the others?” asked Mrs Fisher. “Thank you, dear,” she added, as Mrs Wilkins put a footstool under her feet – a footstool obviously needed, Mrs Fisher’s legs being short.
“I see myself throughout the years,” thought Mrs Wilkins, her eyes dancing, “bringing footstools to Mrs Fisher…”
“The Roses,” she said, straightening herself, “have gone into the lower garden – I think lovemaking.”
“The Roses?”
“The Fredericks, then, if you like. They’re completely merged and indistinguishable.”
“Why not say the Arbuthnots, my dear?” said Mr Wilkins.
“Very well, Mellersh – the Arbuthnots. And the Carolines…”
Both Mr Wilkins and Mrs Fisher started. Mr Wilkins, usually in such complete control of himself, started even more than Mrs Fisher, and for the first time since his arrival felt angry with his wife.
“Really—” he began indignantly.
“Very well, Mellersh – the Briggses, then.”
“The Briggses!” cried Mr Wilkins, now very angry indeed – for the implication was to him a most outrageous insult to the entire race of Desters – dead Desters, living Desters and Desters still harmless because they were yet unborn. “Really—”
“I’m sorry, Mellersh,” said Mrs Wilkins, pretending meekness, “if you don’t like it.”
“Like it! You’ve taken leave of your senses. Why, they’ve never set eyes on each other before today.”
“That’s true. But that’s why they’re able now to go ahead.”
“Go ahead!” Mr Wilkins could only echo the outrageous words.
“I’m sorry, Mellersh,” said Mrs Wilkins again, “if you don’t like it, but…”
Her grey eyes shone, and her face rippled with the light and conviction that had so much surprised Rose the first time they met.
“It’s useless minding,” she said. “I shouldn’t struggle if I were you. Because…”
She stopped, and looked first at one alarmed solemn face and then at the other, and laughter as well as light flickered and danced over her.
“I see them being the Briggses,” finished Mrs Wilkins.
That last week the syringa came out at San Salvatore, and all the acacias flowered. No one had noticed how many acacias there were till one day the garden was full of a new scent, and there were the delicate trees – the lovely successors to the wisteria – hung all over among their trembling leaves with blossom. To lie under an acacia tree that last week and look up through the branches at its frail leaves and white flowers quivering against the blue of the sky, while the least movement of the air shook down their scent, was a great happiness. Indeed, the whole garden dressed itself gradually towards the end in white, and grew more and more scented. There were the lilies, as vigorous as ever, and the white stocks and white pinks and white banksia roses, and the syringa and the jasmine, and at last the crowning fragrance of the acacias. When, on the first of May, everybody went away, even after they had got to the bottom of the hill and passed through the iron gates out into the village, they still could smell the acacias.
THE END
Note on the Text
The text in the present edition is based on that of the first edition of The Enchanted April, published in 1922 by Macmillan. The spelling and pun
ctuation have been standardized, modernized and made consistent throughout.
Notes
p.22, Du Barri: Madame du Barry (also spelt Du Barri) (1743–93) was the maîtresse-en-titre, or chief mistress, of Louis XV of France (1710–74). She was a victim of the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution.
p.23, Montespan… Maintenon: Madame de Montespan (1640–1707) was a famous maîtresse-en-titre of Louis XIV (1638–1715); Madame de Pompadour (1721–64) was another chief mistress of Louis XV (see note to p. 22) from 1745 to 1751; Anne, or Ninon, de l’Enclos (1620–1705) was a well-known courtesan and frequenter of literary salons; Madame de Maintenon (1635–1719) was the morganatic second wife of Louis XIV. She was extremely powerful politically.
p.54, And the name of the chamber… was Peace: A quotation from John Bunyan’s (1628–88) The Pilgrim’s Progress (1678).
p.64, Isn’t his cricket wonderful?: A reference to Lionel Tennyson, 3rd Baron Tennyson, (1889–1951) who was a cricketer for Hampshire and England, and a man prominent in high society. He was Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s (1809–92) grandson.
p.94, Teufelsdröck… So like Carlye to call him that: Diogenes Teufelsdröckh is a character from Carlyle’s Sartor Resartus (1833–34). Von Arnim here corrects Carlyle’s German – without the “h” – as the surname translates as “Devil’s dung”.
p.103, Farringford: The Isle of Wight home of Alfred, Lord Tennyson (see note to p. 64).
p.127, Blessed Damozel: The Blessed Damozel (1850) is a poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828–82). In the poem, the damozel observes her lover from heaven.
p.131, And they two shall be one flesh: Ephesians 5:31.
p.135, Perugini’s backgrounds: Charles Edward Perugini (1839–1918) was a well-known painter, primarily of portraits.
p.154, pericoloso: “Dangerous” (Italian).
p.166, colazione: “Breakfast” (Italian).
The Enchanted April Page 24
