The Enchanted April quotes

She had to say things about them, and she didn’t know what to say. She used to murmur, “Marvellous,” and feel that it was not enough. But nobody minded. Nobody listened. Nobody took any notice of Mrs. Wilkins.

She was the kind of person who is not noticed at parties.

Her clothes, infested by thrift, made her practically invisible; her face was non-arresting; her conversation was reluctant; she was shy. And if one’s clothes and face and conversation are all negligible, thought Mrs.

His sister’s circle admired him. He pronounced adequately intelligent judgments on art and artists. He was pithy; he was prudent; he never said a word too much, nor, on the other hand, did he ever say a word too little.

He produced the impression of keeping copies of everything he said; and he was so obviously reliable that it often happened that people who met him at these parties became discontented with their own solicitors, and after a period of restlessness extricated themselves and went to Wilkins.

Naturally Mrs. Wilkins was blotted out. “She,” said his sister, with something herself of the judicial, the digested, and the final in her manner, “should stay at home.” But Wilkins could not leave his wife at home.

Mrs. Arbuthnot was taken aback. Then she said gently, “Oh, but it is. It is there if we choose, if we make it.”

“I do choose, and I do make it, and it isn’t,” said Mrs. Wilkins.

Then Mrs. Arbuthnot was silent, for she too sometimes had doubts about homes. She sat and looked uneasily at Mrs. Wilkins, feeling more and more the urgent need to getting her classified. If she could only classify Mrs.

No doubt a trip to Italy would be extraordinarily delightful, but there were many delightful things one would like to do, and what was strength given to one for except to help one not to do them?

Steadfast as the points of the compass to Mrs. Arbuthnot were the great four facts of life: God, Husband, Home, Duty.

She had gone to sleep on these facts years ago, after a period of much misery, her head resting on them as on a pillow; and she had a great dread of being awakened out of so simple and untroublesome a condition.

All that was over now. She had long since found peace. And Frederick, from her passionately loved bridegroom, from her worshipped young husband, had become second only to God on her list of duties and forbearances.

There he hung, the second in importance, a bloodless thing bled white by her prayers.

For years she had been able to be happy only by forgetting happiness. She wanted to stay like that. She wanted to shut out everything that would remind her of beautiful things, that might set her off again longing, desiring …

And Frederick, from her passionately loved bridegroom, from her worshipped young husband, had become second only to God on her list of duties and forbearances. There he hung, the second in importance, a bloodless thing bled white by her prayers.

For years she had been able to be happy only by forgetting happiness.

She wanted to stay like that. She wanted to shut out everything that would remind her of beautiful things, that might set her off again longing, desiring …

“Of course,” she said in a low voice, almost as if she were afraid the vicar and the Savings Bank were listening, “it would be most beautiful—most beautiful—”

“Even if it were wrong,” said Mrs. Wilkins, “it would only be for a month.”

“That—” began Mrs. Arbuthnot, quite clear as to the reprehensibleness of such a point of view; but Mrs. Wilkins stopped her before she could finish.

“Anyhow,” said Mrs. Wilkins, stopping her, “

I’m sure it’s wrong to go on being good for too long, till one gets miserable.

And I can see you’ve been good for years and years, because you look so unhappy”—Mrs.

“It only shows,” said Mrs. Wilkins in a whisper, as they turned away from the letter-box, “how immaculately good we’ve been all our lives.

The very first time we do anything our husbands don’t know about we feel guilty.

”

Nothing of this money was spent on her house or dress; those remained, except for the great soft sofa, austere. It was the poor who profited.

Their very boots were stout with sins.

But how difficult it had been. Mrs. Arbuthnot, groping for guidance, prayed about it to exhaustion. Ought she perhaps to refuse to touch the money, to avoid it as she would have avoided the sins which were its source?

“Yes, I think that’s all right,” he said, getting up and giving it to her. “Now,” he added, taking the six notes she held out and smiling, for Mrs. Arbuthnot was agreeable to look at, “

I’m richer, and you’re happier. I’ve got money, and you’ve got San Salvatore. I wonder which is best.

”

So she said, taking Mrs. Arbuthnot’s offered hand, “Very well. I waive references.”

She waived references.

The two as they walked to the station in Kensington High Street could not help thinking that this way of putting it was lofty. Even Mrs. Arbuthnot, spendthrift of excuses for lapses, thought Mrs. Fisher might have used other words; and Mrs.

Wilkins kept on murmuring as they walked up and down the platform at Victoria, having arrived there an hour before they need have, “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!

It got hold of Mrs. Wilkins first, and spread from her like a rose-coloured flame over her pale companion. Mellersh at Calais, where they restored themselves with soles because of Mrs. Wilkins’s desire to eat a sole Mellersh wasn’t having—

Mellersh 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 Mellersh.

Mrs. Wilkins put her arm round Mrs. Arbuthnot’s neck and kissed her.

“The first thing to happen in this house,” she said softly, solemnly, “shall be a kiss.”

“Dear Lotty,” said Mrs. Arbuthnot.

She lay with her arms clasped round her head thinking how happy she was, her lips curved upwards in a delighted smile.

In bed by herself: adorable condition.

She had not been in a bed without Mellersh once now for five whole years;

Something was wrong somewhere. Wonderful that at home she should have been so good, so terribly good, and merely felt tormented. Twinges of every sort had there been her portion; aches, hurts, discouragements, and she the whole time being steadily unselfish.

Now she had taken off all her goodness and left it behind her like a heap of rain-sodden clothes, and she only felt joy.

She was naked of goodness, and was rejoicing in being naked. She was stripped, and exulting. And there, away in the dim mugginess of Hampstead, was Mellersh being angry.

Twinges of every sort had there been her portion; aches, hurts, discouragements, and she the whole time being steadily unselfish. Now she had taken off all her goodness and left it behind her like a heap of rain-sodden clothes, and she only felt joy.

She was naked of goodness, and was rejoicing in being naked. She was stripped, and exulting.

And there, away in the dim mugginess of Hampstead, was Mellersh being angry.

She tried to visualise Mellersh, she tried to see him having breakfast and thinking bitter things about her; and lo, Mellersh himself began to shimmer, became rose-colour, became delicate violet, became an enchanting blue, became formless, became iridescent.

Actually Mellersh, after quivering a minute, was lost in light.

“Well,” thought Mrs. Wilkins, staring, as it were, after him. How extraordinary not to be able to visualise Mellersh; and she who used to know every feature, every expression of his by heart. She simply could not see him as he was.

She laughed. She had never said anything like that to Mellersh yet, and the idea of it amused her. But why had she not? Oh yes—she used to be afraid of him.

Funny to be afraid of anybody; and especially of one’s husband, whom one saw in his more simplified moments, such as asleep, and not breathing properly through his nose.

When she was ready she opened her door to go across to see if Rose, who had been put the night before by a sleepy maidservant into a cell opposite, were awake.

but they had had no idea she was so pretty. She was exceedingly pretty.

Everything about her was very much that which it was.

Her fair hair was very fair, her lovely grey eyes were very lovely and grey, her dark eyelashes were very dark, her white skin was very white, her red mouth was very red.

… was having a violent reaction against beautiful clothes and the slavery they impose on one, her experience being that the instant one had got them they took one in hand and gave one no peace till they had been everywhere and been seen by everybody.

You didn’t take your clothes to parties; they took you.

It was quite a mistake to think that a woman, a really well-dressed woman, wore out her clothes; it was the clothes that wore out the woman—dragging her about at all hours of the day and night. No wonder men stayed young longer.

“I got here yesterday morning,” she said, looking up at them and smiling. She really was bewitching.

She had everything, even a dimple.

“It’s a great pity,” said Mrs. Arbuthnot, smiling back, “because we were going to choose the nicest room for you.”

Then Lady Caroline began to be afraid these two were originals. If so, she would be bored.

Nothing bored her so much as people who insisted on being original, who came and buttonholed her and kept her waiting while they were being original.

And the one who admired her—it would be tiresome if she dogged her about in order to look at her. What she wanted of this holiday was complete escape from all she had had before, she wanted the rest of complete contrast.

And if ever she was out of humour or definitely cross—and who would not be sometimes in such a world?—she only looked so pathetic that people all rushed to comfort her, if possible by means of kissing. It was more than tiresome, it was maddening.

Nature was determined that she should look and sound angelic. She could never be disagreeable or rude without being completely misunderstood.

“I had my breakfast in my room,” she said, trying her utmost to sound curt. “Perhaps I’ll see you later.”

“

I love things to be taken out of my hands,

” said Mrs. Wilkins.

“What is rather silly,” said Mrs. Wilkins with much serenity, “is to mind.

I can’t see the least point in being in authority at the price of one’s liberty.

”

And beneath these trees were groups of blue and purple irises, and bushes of lavender, and grey, sharp cactuses, and the grass was thick with dandelions and daisies, and right down at the bottom was the sea.

Colour seemed flung down anyhow, anywhere; every sort of colour, piled up in heaps, pouring along in rivers

—the periwinkles looked exactly as if they were being poured down each side of the steps—and flowers that grow only in borders in England, proud flowers keeping themselves to themselves over there, such as the great blue irises and the lavender, were being jostled by …

If only Frederick were with her, seeing it too, seeing as he would have seen it when first they were lovers, in the days when he saw what she saw and loved what she loved …

“You mustn’t sigh in heaven,” said Mrs. Wilkins. “One doesn’t.”

“I was thinking how one longs to share this with those one loves,” said Mrs. Arbuthnot.

“

Oh, but nobody helps anybody in heaven. That’s finished with. You don’t try to be, or do. You simply are.

”

After watching her a minute Mrs. Arbuthnot did the same. Their happiness was then complete. Their husbands would not have known them. They left off talking. They ceased to mention heaven.

They were just cups of acceptance.

Meanwhile Lady Caroline, on her wall, was considering her position. The garden on the top of the wall was a delicious garden, but its situation made it insecure and exposed to interruptions.

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.

She had not had a question like that in her mind before. It had made her feel lonely.

She wanted to be alone, but not lonely.

That was very different; that was something that ached and hurt dreadfully right inside one. It was what one dreaded most. It was what made one go to so many parties;

And she could always relax her privacy if, when she became better acquainted with her companions, she should think it worth while, but she doubted whether any of the three would so develop as to make her think it worth while.

Hardly anything was really worth while, reflected Mrs. Fisher, except the past.

It was astonishing, it was simply amazing, the superiority of the past to the present.

Her annual outlay was small. The house was inherited.

Death had furnished it for her.

She trod in the dining-room on the Turkey carpet of her fathers; she regulated her day by the excellent black marble clock on the mantelpiece which she remembered from childhood;

She found it difficult to eat—slippery, wriggling off her fork, making her look, she felt, undignified when, having got it as she supposed into her mouth, ends of it yet hung out. Always, too, when she ate it she was reminded of Mr. Fisher.

He had during their married life behaved very much like macaroni. He had slipped, he had wriggled, he had made her feel undignified, and when at last she had got him safe, as she thought, there had invariably been little bits of him that still, as it were, hung out.

Francesca from the sideboard watched Mrs. Fisher’s way with macaroni gloomily, and her gloom deepened when she saw her at last take her knife to it and chop it small.

… eminent people assembled to do him honour, and withdraw to the window with a young person nobody had ever heard of, who had been brought there by accident and whose one and only merit—if it be a merit, that which is conferred by chance—was beauty.

Beauty! All over before you can turn round.

An affair, one might almost say, of minutes. Well, while it lasted it did seem able to do what it liked with men. Even husbands were not immune. There had been passages in the life of Mr. Fisher …

The war finished Scrap. It killed the one man she felt safe with, whom she would have married, and it finally disgusted her with love. Since then she had been embittered.

She was struggling as angrily in the sweet stuff of life as a wasp got caught in honey.

Just as desperately did she try to unstick her wings. It gave her no pleasure to outdo other women; she didn’t want their tiresome men. What could one do with men when one had got them?

she didn’t want their tiresome men. What could one do with men when one had got them? None of them would talk to her of anything but the things of love, and how foolish and fatiguing that became after a bit.

It was as though a healthy person with a normal hunger was given nothing whatever to eat but sugar.

Love, love … the very word made her want to slap somebody. “Why should I love you? Why should I?” she would ask amazed sometimes when somebody was trying—somebody was always trying—to propose to her. But she never got a real answer, only further incoherence.

and to become inconspicuous, to fade, to grow shabby and dim, would probably be most painful. And once she began, what years and years of it there would be!

Imagine, thought Scrap, having most of one’s life at the wrong end. Imagine being old for two or three times as long as being young.

Stupid, stupid. Everything was stupid. There wasn’t a thing she wanted to do. There were thousands of things she didn’t want to do. Avoidance, silence, invisibility, if possible unconsciousness—these negations were all she asked for at the moment;

“And meanwhile,” said Mrs. Fisher, getting up, for the cold of the stone was now through, “I shouldn’t trouble my head if I were you with considerings and conclusions.

Women’s heads weren’t made for thinking, I assure you.

I should go to bed and get well.”

“Then I’ve had all the trouble of coming out here for nothing.”

“But wouldn’t you prefer coming out and finding me well than coming out and finding me ill?” asked Scrap, smiling.

Even Mrs. Fisher was caught by the smile.

“Eh? What? Peculiar? Well, let her be peculiar if she likes.

A woman with her looks can be any damned thing she pleases

,” was the infatuated answer.

“

I’ve been a mean dog

,” said Mrs. Wilkins.

I was a stingy beast at home, and used to measure and count. I had a queer obsession about justice. As though justice mattered.

As though justice can really be distinguished from vengeance.

It’s only love that’s any good. At home I wouldn’t love Mellersh unless he loved me back, exactly as much, absolute fairness. Did you ever. And as he didn’t, neither did I, and the aridity of that house! The aridity …”

I was a stingy beast at home, and used to measure and count. I had a queer obsession about justice. As though justice mattered. As though justice can really be distinguished from vengeance.

It’s only love that’s any good.

At home I wouldn’t love Mellersh unless he loved me back, exactly as much, absolute fairness. Did you ever. And as he didn’t, neither did I, and the aridity of that house! The aridity …”

The dinner was very good.

Succulence succeeded succulence.

Costanza had determined to do as she chose in the matter of cream and eggs the first week, and see what happened at the end of it when the bills had to be paid.

Wilkins’s husband, and therefore his place was clearly indicated. Why this talk? She herself, as if foreseeing his arrival, had had a second bed put in Mrs. Wilkins’s room.

There were certain things in life which were never talked about but only done.

Most things connected with husbands were not talked about; and to have a whole dinner-table taken up with a discussion as to where one of them should sleep was an affront to the decencies.

Most things connected with husbands were not talked about; and to have a whole dinner-table taken up with a discussion as to where one of them should sleep was an affront to the decencies.

How and where husbands slept should be known only to their wives.

Sometimes it was not known to them, and then the marriage had less happy moments; but these moments were not talked about either; the decencies continued to be preserved. At least, it was so in her day. To have to hear whether Mr.

Even Lady Caroline, used all her life to beauty, who had been everywhere and seen everything, felt the surprise of it. It was, that year, a particularly wonderful spring, and of all the months at San Salvatore April, if the weather was fine, was best.

May scorched and withered; March was restless, and could be hard and cold in its brightness; but April came along softly like a blessing, and if it were a fine April it was so beautiful that it was impossible not to feel different, not to feel stirred and touched.

Mrs. Wilkins, we have seen, responded to it instantly. She, so to speak, at once flung off all her garments and dived straight into glory, unhesitatingly, with a cry of rapture.

Mrs. Wilkins, we have seen, responded to it instantly.

She, so to speak, at once flung off all her garments and dived straight into glory, unhesitatingly, with a cry of rapture.

Mrs. Arbuthnot was stirred and touched, but differently. She had odd sensations—presently to be described.

There was time enough for that. Let the others suppose her coming was definitely fixed. All the better. So would Mr. Wilkins be kept out of the spare-room and put where he belonged. Kate would keep. She could be held in reserve.

Kate in reserve was just as potent as Kate in actuality, and there were points about Kate in reserve which might be missing from Kate in actuality.

For instance, if Mrs. Fisher were going to be restless, she would rather Kate were not there to see. There was a want of dignity about restlessness, about trotting backwards and forwards.

Besides, if she did, if she sacrificed her whole past, her bringing up, her work for the last ten years, would she bore him less?

Rose felt right down at her very roots that if you have once thoroughly bored somebody it is next to impossible to unbore him.

Once a bore always a bore—certainly, she thought, to the person originally bored.

Never once in his married life had he gone unmet at a station, nor had he ever not been seen off. These observances, these courtesies, strengthened the bonds of marriage, and made the husband feel he could rely on his wife’s being always there.

Always being there was the essential secret for a wife.

What would have become of Mr. Fisher if she had neglected to act on this principle she preferred not to think. Enough things became of him as it was; for whatever one’s care in stopping up, married life yet seemed to contain chinks.

“It is a pleasure,” said Mr. Wilkins in his carefully modulated voice, “to meet a friend of my wife’s.”

Scrap melted away down into the garden.

There was a sense of broken ice; they felt at once intimate and indulgent; almost they felt to him as nurses do—as those feel who have assisted either patients or young children at their baths.

They were acquainted with Mr. Wilkins’s legs.

What Mrs. Fisher said to him that morning in her first shock will never be known, but what Mr.

She pressed his arm tight in her gratitude and appreciation; and though he did not withdraw his, neither did he respond to her pressure.

Mr. Wilkins was of a cool habit, and rarely had any real wish to press.

Meanwhile, Costanza, perceiving that she had lost the Wilkinses’ ear, had gone back to Mrs. Fisher, who at least understood Italian, besides being clearly in the servants’ eyes the one of the party marked down by age and appearance to pay the bills;

… because, when she got up and he got up because she got up, intending merely to bow her out of the recess, Lady Caroline had put her feet up on the parapet again, and arranging her head sideways in the cushions had shut her eyes.

The daughter of the Droitwiches desired to go to sleep.

It was not for him, by remaining, to prevent her.

The daughter of the Droitwiches desired to go to sleep.

It was not for him, by remaining, to prevent her.

they were most respectable, neat women, who were allowed the use of the bathroom every Saturday night. Elderly, certainly, but then so was she, so was her house, so was her furniture, so were her goldfish. They were all elderly, as they should be, together.

But there was a great difference between being elderly and being a dusty old thing.

How true it was what Ruskin said, that evil communications corrupt good manners. But did Ruskin say it?

Rose clasped her hands tight round her knees. How passionately she longed to be important to somebody again—not important on platforms, not important as an asset in an organization, but privately important, just to one other person, quite privately, nobody else to know or notice.

It didn’t seem much to ask in a world so crowded with people, just to have one of them, only one out of all the millions, to oneself.

Somebody who needed one, who thought of one, who was eager to come to one—oh, oh how dreadfully one wanted to be precious!

Wilkins. Poor boy. Such a charming boy too, left to himself. It was true she could not accuse Lady Caroline of not leaving him to himself, for she was taking no notice of him at all, but that did not help.

Exactly like foolish moths did men, in other respects intelligent, flutter round the impassive lighted candle of a pretty face.

She had seen them doing it. She had looked on only too often. Almost she laid a motherly hand on Briggs’s fair head as she passed him. Poor boy.

The idea of going back to the house did not occur to her. She was afraid of nothing in life except love.

Brigands or murderers as such held no terrors for the daughter of the Droitwiches; she only would have been afraid of them if they left off being brigands and murderers and began instead to try and make love.

The next moment the footsteps turned the corner of her bit of path, and stood still.

The idea of going back to the house did not occur to her.

She was afraid of nothing in life except love.

Brigands or murderers as such held no terrors for the daughter of the Droitwiches; she only would have been afraid of them if they left off being brigands and murderers and began instead to try and make love.

He came up to her and took off his hat. His forehead beneath the hat was wet with the beads of unaccustomed climbing.

He looked ashamed and entreating, like a guilty but devoted dog.

“You must forgive me,” he said. “Lady Droitwich told me where you were, and as I happened to be passing through on my way to Rome I thought I would get out at Mezzago and just look in and see how you were.”

Briggs might give her. Mr. Briggs, infatuated, would be reckless, she felt, would stick at nothing, would lose his head publicly. She could imagine Mr. Briggs doing things with rope-ladders, and singing all night under her window—being really difficult and uncomfortable.

Mr. Arundel hadn’t the figure for any kind of recklessness. He had lived too long and too well.

She was sure he couldn’t sing, and wouldn’t want to. He must be at least forty. How many good dinners could not a man have eaten by the time he was forty?

She was sure she had been a thoroughly amusing woman between lunch and tea, and a pretty one too. She was quite certain she had been pretty; she saw it in Mr. Briggs’s eyes as clearly as in a looking-glass.

For a brief space, she thought, she had been like a torpid fly brought back to gay buzzing by the lighting of a fire in a wintry room.

She still buzzed, she still tingled, just at the remembrance. What fun it had been, having an admirer even for that little while. No wonder people liked admirers. They seemed, in some strange way, to make one come alive.

She still buzzed, she still tingled, just at the remembrance. What fun it had been, having an admirer even for that little while.

No wonder people liked admirers. They seemed, in some strange way, to make one come alive.

Although it was all over she still glowed with it and felt more exhilarated, more optimistic, more as Lotty probably constantly felt, than she had done since she was a girl. She dressed with care, though she knew Mr.

and presently he was kissing her almost as tenderly as she was kissing him; and presently he was kissing her quite as tenderly; and again presently he was kissing her more tenderly, and just as if he had never left off.

He was bewildered, but he still could kiss.

It seemed curiously natural to be doing it.