The Enchanted April, Chapter 4

Hello,

It's Mandy here.

I'm really pleased you've decided to join me tonight to listen to chapter four of The Enchanted April.

Elizabeth von Armen was a prolific writer,

Best known for the story you're going to listen to tonight,

And also her debut novel,

Elizabeth and Her German Garden.

Elizabeth wasn't crazy about the limitations of either marriage or motherhood,

And liked to escape to her garden and to her writing.

So before we start,

Let's just spend a few moments taking up a comfortable position,

Whether that's sitting or lying,

And do any of those last minute adjustments you might need to do to make yourself as comfortable as you can be today,

At this particular moment in time.

Okay,

Then I'll begin.

Chapter four.

It had been arranged that Mrs Arbuthnot and Mrs Wilkins,

Travelling together,

Should arrive at San Salvatore on the evening of March 31st.

The owner,

Who told them how to get there,

Appreciated their disinclination to begin their time in it on April 1st,

April Fool's Day,

And Lady Caroline and Mrs Fisher,

As yet unacquainted and therefore under no obligations to bore each other on the journey,

For only towards the end would they find out by a process of sifting who they were,

Were to arrive on the morning of April 2nd.

In this way,

Everything would be got nicely ready for the two,

Who seemed,

In spite of the equality of the sharing,

Yet to have something about them of guests.

There were disagreeable incidents towards the end of March,

When Mrs Wilkins,

Her heart in her mouth and her face a mixture of guilt,

Terror and determination,

Told her husband that she had been invited to Italy,

And he declined to believe it.

Of course he declined to believe it.

Nobody had ever invited his wife to Italy before.

There was no precedent.

He required proofs.

The only proof was Mrs Arbuthnot,

And Mrs Wilkins had produced her,

But after what entreaties,

What passionate persuading.

Mrs Arbuthnot had not imagined she would have to face Mr Wilkins and say things to him that were short of the truth,

And it brought home to her what she had for some time suspected that she was slipping more and more away from God.

Indeed,

The whole of March was filled with unpleasant anxious moments.

It was an uneasy month.

Mrs Arbuthnot's conscience,

Made super sensitive by years of pampering,

Could not reconcile what she was doing with its own high standard of what was right.

It gave her little peace.

It nudged her at her prayers.

It punctuated her entreaties for divine guidance with disconcerting questions such as,

Are you not a hypocrite?

Do you really mean that?

Would you not,

Frankly,

Be disappointed if that prayer were granted?

The prolonged,

Wet,

Raw weather was on the side too of her conscience,

Producing far more sickness than usual among the poor.

They had bronchitis.

They had fevers.

There was no end to their distress.

And here she was,

Going off,

Spending precious money on going off,

Simply and solely to be happy.

One woman,

One woman being happy,

In these piteous multitudes.

She was unable to look the vicar in the face.

He didn't know.

Nobody knew what she was going to do.

But from the beginning,

She was unable to look anybody in the face.

She excused herself from making speeches,

Appealing for money.

How could she stand up and ask people for money,

When she herself was spending so much on her own selfish pleasure?

Nor did it help her,

Or quiet her,

That having actually told Frederick,

In her desire to make up for what she was squandering,

That she would be grateful if he would let her have some money,

He instantly gave her a cheque for £100.

He asked no questions.

She was scarlet.

He looked at her a moment and then looked away.

It was a relief to Frederick that she should take some money.

She gave it all immediately to the organisation she worked with and found herself more tangled in doubts than ever.

Mrs Wilkins,

On the contrary,

Had no doubts.

She was quite certain that it was a most proper thing to have a holiday and altogether right and beautiful to spend one's own hard collected savings on being happy.

Think how much nicer we shall be when we come back,

She said to Mrs Arbuthnot,

Encouraging that pale lady.

No,

Mrs Wilkins had no doubts.

But she did have fears and March was for her too an anxious month,

With the unconscious Mr Wilkins coming back daily to his dinner and eating his fish in the silence of imagined security.

Also,

Things happen so awkwardly.

It really is astonishing how awkwardly they happen.

Mrs Wilkins,

Who was very careful all this month to give Melesh only the food he liked,

Buying it and hovering over its cooking with a zeal more than common,

Succeeded so well that Melesh was pleased,

Definitely pleased,

So much pleased that he began to think that he might,

After all,

Have married the right wife instead of,

As he had frequently suspected,

The wrong one.

The result was that on the third Sunday in the month,

Mrs Wilkins had made up her trembling mind that on the fourth Sunday,

There being five in that March and it being on the fifth of them that she and Mrs Arbuthnot were to start,

She would tell Melesh of her invitation.

On the third Sunday then,

After a very well-cooked lunch in which the Yorkshire pudding had melted in his mouth and the apricot tart had been so perfect that he ate it all,

Melesh,

Smoking his cigar by the brightly burning fire,

The wild hail gusts banged on the window,

Said,

I am thinking of taking you to Italy for Easter,

And paused for her astounded and grateful ecstasy.

None came.

The silence in the room,

Except for the hail hitting the windows and the gay roar of the fire,

Was complete.

Mrs Wilkins could not speak.

She was dumbfounded.

The next Sunday was the day she had meant to break her news to him,

And she hadn't even prepared the form of words in which she would break it.

Mr Wilkins,

Who hadn't been abroad since before the war,

And was noticing with increasing disgust,

As week followed week of wind and rain,

The peculiar persistent vileness of the weather,

Had slowly conceived a desire to get away from England for Easter.

He was doing very well in his business.

He could afford a trip.

Switzerland was useless in April.

There was a familiar sound about Easter in Italy.

To Italy he would go,

And as it was cause comment if he didn't take his wife,

Take her he must.

Besides,

She would be useful.

A second person always was useful in a country whose language one didn't speak,

For holding things,

For waiting with the luggage.

He had expected an explosion of gratitude and excitement.

The absence of it was incredible.

She could not,

He concluded,

Have heard.

Probably she was absorbed in some foolish daydream.

It was regrettable how childish she remained.

He turned his head,

Their chairs were in front of the fire,

And looked at her.

She was staring straight into the fire,

And it was no doubt the fire that made her face so red.

I am thinking,

He repeated,

Raising his clear cultivated voice,

And speaking with acerbity,

For inattention at such a moment was deplorable,

Of taking you to Italy for Easter.

Did you not hear me?

Yes,

She had heard him,

And she had been wondering at the extraordinary coincidence,

Really most extraordinary,

She was just going to tell him how.

How she had been invited,

A friend had invited her,

Easter too.

Easter was in April,

Wasn't it?

Her friend had a house there.

She had invited her,

And she had invited him.

In fact,

Mrs Wilkins,

Driven by terror,

Guilt and surprise,

Had been more incoherent,

If possible,

Than usual.

It was a dreadful afternoon.

Melesh,

Profoundly indignant,

Besides having his intended treat coming back on him,

Like a blessing to roost,

Cross-examined her with the utmost severity.

He demanded that she refuse the invitation.

He demanded that,

Since she had so outrageously accepted it without consulting him,

She should write and cancel her acceptance.

Finding himself up against an unsuspected shocking rock of obstinacy in her,

He then declined to believe she had been invited to Italy at all.

He declined to believe in this Mrs Arbuthnot,

Of whom till that moment he had never heard.

And it was only when the gentle creature was brought round,

With such difficulty,

With such a desire on her part to throw the whole thing up,

Rather than tell Mr Wilkins less than the truth,

And herself endorsed his wife's statements,

That he was able to give them credence.

He could not but believe Mrs Arbuthnot.

She produced the precise effect on him that she did on the tube officials.

She hardly needed to say anything.

But that made no difference to her conscience,

Which knew,

And would not let her forget,

That she had given him an incomplete impression.

Do you,

Asked her conscience,

See any real difference between an incomplete impression and a completely stated lie?

God sees none.

The remainder of March was a confused bad dream.

Both Mrs Arbuthnot and Mrs Wilkins were shattered.

Try as they would not to,

Both felt extraordinarily guilty.

And when on the morning of the 30th they did finally get off,

There was no exhilaration about the departure,

And no holiday feeling at all.

We've been too good,

Much too good,

Mrs Wilkins kept on murmuring,

As they walked up and down the platform at Victoria,

Having arrived there an hour before they need to have done.

And that's why we feel as though we're doing wrong.

We're browbeaten.

We're not any longer real human beings.

Real human beings aren't ever as good as we've been.

Oh,

She clenched her thin hands,

To think that we ought to be so happy now,

Here on the very station actually starting,

And we're not.

And it's being spoilt for us,

Just simply because we've spoilt them.

What have we done?

What have we done,

I should like to know,

She inquired of Mrs Arbuthnot indignantly,

Except for once,

Want to go away by ourselves and have a little rest from them.

Mrs Arbuthnot,

Patiently pacing,

Did not ask who she meant by them,

Because she knew Mrs Wilkins meant their husbands,

Persisting in her assumption that Frederick was as indignant as Malish over the departure of his wife,

Whereas Frederick didn't even know his wife had gone.

Mrs Arbuthnot,

Always silent about him,

Had said nothing of this to Mrs Wilkins.

Frederick went too deep into her heart for her to talk about him.

He was having an extra bout of work finishing another of those dreadful books,

And had been away practically continually the last few weeks,

And was away when she left.

Why should she tell him beforehand?

Sure as she so miserably was that he would have no objection to anything she did,

She merely wrote him a note and put it on the hall table,

Ready for him,

If and when he should come home.

She said she was going for a month's holiday,

As she needed a rest,

And she hadn't had one for so long,

And Gladys,

The efficient parlour maid,

Had orders to see to his comforts.

She didn't say where she was going,

There was no reason why she should,

He would not be interested,

He wouldn't care.

The day was wretched,

Blustering and wet,

The crossing was atrocious,

And they were very sick.

But after having had been very sick,

Just to arrive at Calais and not be sick was happiness,

And it was there that the real splendour of what they were doing first began to warm their benumbed spirits.

They'd got hold of Mrs Wilkins first,

And spread from her like a rose-coloured flame over her pale companion.

Melesh at Calais,

Where they restored themselves with souls,

Because of Mrs Wilkins' desire to eat a soul Melesh wasn't having,

Melesh at Calais had already begun to dwindle and seem less important.

None of the French porters knew him,

Not a single official at Calais cared a fig for Melesh.

In Paris,

There was no time to think of him,

Because their train was late and they only just caught the Turin train at the Gare de Lyon,

And by the afternoon of the next day,

When they got into Italy,

England,

Frederick,

Melesh,

The vicar,

Hampstead,

The club,

Shulbred,

Everybody and everything,

The whole inflamed sore dreariness had faded to the dimness of a dream.

To be continued.