The Enchanted April
the hills dotted with white houses and orange groves, and to the west
was the thin thread of land by which San Salvatore was tied to the
mainland, and then the open sea and the coast line beyond Genoa
reaching away into the blue dimness of France. Yes, she would say she
wanted to have this entirely to herself. How obviously sensible if each
of them had their own special place to sit in apart. It was essential
to her comfort that she should be able to be apart, left alone, not
talked to. The others ought to like it best too. Why herd? One had
enough of that in England, with one’s relations and friends—oh, the
numbers of them!—pressing on one continually. Having successfully
escaped them for four weeks why continue, and with persons having no
earthly claim on one, to herd?
She lit a cigarette. She began to feel secure. Those two had gone for a
walk. There was no sign of Mrs. Fisher. How very pleasant this was.
Somebody came out through the glass doors, just as she was drawing a
deep breath of security. Surely it couldn’t be Mrs. Fisher, wanting to
sit with her? Mrs. Fisher had her battlements. She ought to stay on
them, having snatched them. It would be too tiresome if she wouldn’t,
and wanted not only to have them and her sitting-room but to establish
herself in this garden as well.
No; it wasn’t Mrs. Fisher, it was the cook.
She frowned. Was she going to have to go on ordering the food? Surely
one or other of those two waving women would do that now.
The cook, who had been waiting in increasing agitation in the kitchen,
watching the clock getting nearer to lunch-time while she still was
without knowledge of what lunch was to consist of, had gone at last to
Mrs. Fisher, who had immediately waved her away. She then wandered
about the house seeking a mistress, any mistress, who would tell her
what to cook, and finding none; and at last, directed by Francesca, who
always knew where everybody was, came out to Lady Caroline.
Domenico had provided this cook. She was Costanza, the sister of that
one of his cousins who kept a restaurant down on the piazza. She helped
her brother in his cooking when she had no other job, and knew every
sort of fat, mysterious Italian dish such as the workmen of Castagneto,
who crowded the restaurant at midday, and the inhabitants of Mezzago
when they came over on Sundays, loved to eat. She was a fleshless
spinster of fifty, grey-haired, nimble, rich of speech, and thought
Lady Caroline more beautiful than anyone she had ever seen; and so did
Domenico; and so did the boy Giuseppe who helped Domenico and was,
besides, his nephew; and so did the girl Angela who helped Francesca
and was, besides, Domenico’s niece; and so did Francesca herself.
Domenico and Francesca, the only two who had seen them, thought the two
ladies who arrived last very beautiful, but compared to the fair young
lady who arrived first they were as candles to the electric light that
had lately been installed, and as the tin tubs in the bedrooms to the
wonderful new bathroom their master had had arranged on his last visit.
Lady Caroline scowled at the cook. The scowl, as usual, was transformed
on the way into what appeared to be an intent and beautiful gravity,
and Costanza threw up her hands and took the saints aloud to witness
that here was the very picture of the Mother of God.
Lady Caroline asked her crossly what she wanted, and Costanza’s head
went on one side with delight at the sheer music of her voice. She
said, after waiting a moment in case the music was going to continue,
for she didn’t wish to miss any of it, that she wanted orders; she had
been to the Signorina’s mother, but in vain.
“She is not my mother,” repudiated Lady Caroline angrily; and her anger
sounded like the regretful wail of a melodious orphan.
Costanza poured forth pity. She too, she explained, had no mother—
Lady Caroline interrupted with the curt information that her mother was
alive and in London.
Costanza praised God and the saints that the young lady did not yet
know what it was like to be without a mother. Quickly enough did
misfortunes overtake one; no doubt the young lady already had a
husband.
“No,” said Lady Caroline icily. Worse than jokes in the morning did she
hate the idea of husbands. And everybody was always trying to press
them on her—all her relations, all her friends, all the evening papers.
After all, she could only marry one, anyhow; but you would think from
the way everybody talked, and especially those persons who wanted to be
husbands, that she could marry at least a dozen.
Her soft, pathetic “No” made Costanza, who was standing close to her,
well with sympathy.
“Poor little one,” said Costanza, moved actually to pat her
encouragingly on the shoulder, “take hope. There is still time.”
“For lunch,” said Lady Caroline freezingly, marvelling as she spoke
that she should be patted, she who had taken so much trouble to come to
a place, remote and hidden, where she could be sure that among other
things of a like oppressive nature pattings also were not, “we will
have—”
Costanza became business-like. She interrupted with suggestions, and
her suggestions were all admirable and all expensive.
Lady Caroline did not know they were expensive, and fell in with them
at once. They sounded very nice. Every sort of young vegetables and
fruits came into them, and much butter and a great deal of cream and
incredible numbers of eggs. Costanza said enthusiastically at the end,
as a tribute to this acquiescence, that of the many ladies and
gentlemen she had worked for on temporary jobs such as this she
preferred the English ladies and gentlemen. She more than preferred
them—they roused devotion in her. For they knew what to order; they did
not skimp; they refrained from grinding down the faces of the poor.
From this Lady Caroline concluded that she had been extravagant, and
promptly countermanded the cream.
Costanza’s face fell, for she had a cousin who had a cow, and the cream
was to have come from them both.
“And perhaps we had better not have chickens,” said Lady Caroline.
Costanza’s face fell more, for her brother at the restaurant kept
chickens in his back-yard, and many of them were ready for killing.
“Also do not order strawberries till I have consulted with the other
ladies,” said Lady Caroline, remembering that it was only the first of
April, and that perhaps people who lived in Hampstead might be poor;
indeed, must be poor, or why live in Hampstead? “It is not I who am
mistress here.”
“Is it the old one?” asked Costanza, her face very long.
“No,” said Lady Caroline.
“Which of the other two ladies is it?”
“Neither,” said Lady Caroline.
Then Costanza’s smiles returned, for the young lady was having fun with
her and making jokes. She told her so, in her friendly Italian way, and
was genuinely delighted.
“I never make jokes,” said Lady Caroline briefly. “You had better go,
or lunch will certainly not be ready by half-past twelve.”
And these curt words came out sounding so sweet that Costanza felt as
if kind compliments were being paid her, and forgot her disappointment
about the cream and the chickens, and went away all gratitude and
smiles.
“This,” thought Lady Caroline, “will never do. I haven’t come here to
housekeep, and I won’t.”
She called Costanza back. Costanza came running. The sound of her name
in that voice enchanted her.
“I have ordered the lunch for to-day,” said Lady Caroline, with the
serious angel face that was hers when she was annoyed, “and I have also
ordered the dinner, but from now on you will go to one of the other
ladies for orders. I give no more.”
The idea that she would go on giving orders was too absurd. She never
gave orders at home. Nobody there dreamed of asking her to do anything.
That such a very tiresome activity should be thrust upon her here,
simply because she happened to be able to talk Italian, was ridiculous.
Let the originals give orders if Mrs. Fisher refused to. Mrs. Fisher,
of course, was the one Nature intended for such a purpose. She had the
very air of a competent housekeeper. Her clothes were the clothes of a
housekeeper, and so was the way she did her hair.
Having delivered herself of her ultimatum with an acerbity that turned
sweet on the way, and accompanied it by a peremptory gesture of
dismissal that had the grace and loving-kindness of a benediction, it
was annoying that Costanza should only stand still with her head on one
side gazing at her in obvious delight.
“Oh, _go_ away!” exclaimed Lady Caroline in English, suddenly
exasperated.
There had been a fly in her bedroom that morning which had stuck just
as Costanza was sticking; only one, but it might have been a myriad it
was so tiresome from daylight on. It was determined to settle on her
face, and she was determined it should not. Its persistence was
uncanny. It woke her, and would not let her go to sleep again. She hit
at it, and it eluded her without fuss or effort and with an almost
visible blandness, and she had only hit herself. It came back again
instantly, and with a loud buzz alighted on her cheek. She hit at it
again and hurt herself, while it skimmed gracefully away. She lost her
temper, and sat up in bed and waited, watching to hit at it and kill
it. She kept on hitting at it at last with fury and with all her
strength, as if it were a real enemy deliberately trying to madden her;
and it elegantly skimmed in and out of her blows, not even angry, to be
back again the next instant. It succeeded every time in getting on to
her face, and was quite indifferent how often it was driven away. That
was why she had dressed and come out so early. Francesca had already
been told to put a net over her bed, for she was not going to allow
herself to be annoyed twice like that. People were exactly like flies.
She wished there were nets for keeping them off too. She hit at them
with words and frowns, and like the fly they slipped between her blows
and were untouched. Worse than the fly, they seemed unaware that she
had even tried to hit them. The fly at least did for a moment go away.
With human beings the only way to get rid of them was to go away
herself. That was what, so tired, she had done this April; and having
got here, having got close up to the details of life at San Salvatore,
it appeared that here, too, she was not to be let alone.
Viewed from London there had seemed to be no details. San Salvatore
from there seemed to be an empty, a delicious blank. Yet, after only
twenty-four hours of it, she was discovering that it was not a blank at
all, and that she was having to ward off as actively as ever. Already
she had been much stuck to. Mrs. Fisher had stuck nearly the whole of
the day before, and this morning there had been no peace, not ten
minutes uninterruptedly alone.
Costanza of course had finally to go because she had to cook, but
hardly had she gone before Domenico came. He came to water and tie up.
That was natural, since he was the gardener, but he watered and tied up
all the things that were nearest to her; he hovered closer and closer;
he watered to excess; he tied plants that were as straight and steady
as arrows. Well, at least he was a man, and therefore not quite so
annoying, and his smiling good-morning was received with an answering
smile; upon which Domenico forgot his family, his wife, his mother, his
grown-up children and all his duties, and only wanted to kiss the young
lady’s feet.
He could not do that, unfortunately, but he could talk while he worked,
and talk he did; voluminously; pouring out every kind of information,
illustrating what he said with gestures so lively that he had to put
down the watering-pot, and thus delay the end of the watering.