The Enchanted April – Elizabeth von Arnim

I read this lovely book in April because of its title, and really wanted to put up my thoughts in that month as well, but alas, it was not to be.

The Enchanted April is a delightful, charming novel centred on four women from different walks of life who decide to spend a month in summer holidaying in Italy.

We are introduced to Lottie Wilkins, who married to a city lawyer, feels bogged down and stifled by their humdrum existence in Hampstead. Her husband Mellersh is an intelligent, respectable, good-looking man, highly regarded by his senior partners, but rather something of a bully at home. In their social circle, when pitted against him, Lottie pales in comparison and her careless style of dressing only adds to the general consensus that she should stay home. Mellersh is cautious with money and the daily drill of having to strictly live within their means with no room for wasteful expenditure begins to take its toll on Lottie.

While on one of her shopping trips, she spends a miserable afternoon at a women’s club, and there chances upon an advertisement in the newspapers that sets off a chain of thoughts. The ad is addressed to those who appreciate wisteria and sunshine and proposes to let furnished for the month of April a small mediaeval Italian castle on the shores of the Mediterranean.

At first, with a resigned air Lottie dismisses the idea, she grudgingly tells herself that such delights exist for the privileged. But Lottie loves wisteria and sunshine and so the idea of spending a month at the castle begins to take hold on her.

Rose Arbuthnot’s circumstances are a source of heartache for her too. Being an extremely religious woman, she is disturbed by her husband Frederick’s success as a writer of trashy but popular memoirs of the mistresses of Kings. This vocation brings him money but Rose feels guilty and dirty touching it and so she immerses herself in charity work, with the fervent hope that it will cleanse her and ease her conscience. As a couple both Rose and Frederick have drifted apart and this hurts Rose a lot given that they were so in love in the early days of their marriage.

When Lottie spots Rose also staring at the ad wistfully on that same dreary afternoon, an idea begins to take shape in the former’s mind. She approaches Rose, the two strike up an earnest conversation and Lottie gradually convinces her that if they in turn advertise for two more companions, the four of them could split the costs of staying at the castle so that the individual burden will be considerably reduced.

Using their saved nest-eggs, the two women begin the process of renting the castle. Also, with respect to their ad for more companions, two women express interest – Lady Caroline Dester and the older Mrs Fisher. Caroline Dester is a stunning woman with many admirers at her beck and call but having tired of all the attention, she is craving to get away and do some soul searching in a restful place, and Italy fits her bill perfectly. Mrs Fisher is a catankerous, old-fashioned woman who still lives in her past and reminisces about her illustrious friends and acquaintances of yore in the literary world.

These women come from completely different backgrounds, but there’s one common thread binding them: they are disillusioned with the sameness of their days and are desperately seeking an outlet that will bring some colour to their lives along with the much needed rest and solitude.

Once ensconced in the Italian castle, the four women begin to interact with each other and it is these exchanges that make The Enchanted April so delightful – the awkward dinner conversations, the various machinations of Mrs Fisher and Caroline Dester to claim the best rooms and views for themselves, and their opinions of each other.

As soon as her stay at the castle begins, Lottie’s personality undergoes a sea of change. Mesmerized by the gorgeous views, Lottie is immediately rejuvenated and her perspective of the world around her alters dramatically. Stunning vistas of the bay, jaw dropping sceneries, abundance of pretty secluded spots and the enchanting feel of the castle all combine to work their therapeutic magic on her.

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 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.

So much so that Lottie’s powers of perception sharpen considerably, and her otherwise timid, resentful personality gives way to a charming, carefree and benevolent demeanor. Indeed, she then comes up with another audacious plan that could disrupt their present idyll or will it?

The Enchanted April then is a gem of a novel with much wit and humour to commend it. Some of the set-pieces in the first few pages in the novel are hilarious – particularly the one where Lottie and Rose are being driven by the gardener to the castle past midnight, and there is no effective way of communicating with him because they can’t speak the Italian language.

The two men opened their umbrellas for them and handed them to them. From this they received a fair encouragement, because they could not believe that if these men were wicked they would pause to open umbrellas. The man with the lantern then made signs to them to follow him, talking loud and quickly, and Beppo, they noticed, remained behind. Ought they to pay him? Not, they thought, if they were going to be robbed and perhaps murdered. Surely on such an occasion one did not pay.

Von Arnim explores how an invigorating holiday is a much needed respite from mundane routines of everyday life. The novel was penned in the 1920s when there were hardly any career opportunities for women and their role was largely restricted to the household. In the novel, Arnim does not aim to depict how their Italian sojourn alters the circumstances of her characters, but rather to capture the perceptible shift in how they view it.

Lottie and Rose are housewives and will continue to play that role, but there’s something to be said for how a holiday can energize and recharge one’s batteries. Beauty of nature and the wonder of a new place can be a tonic for a tired mind…Lottie and Rose are certainly transformed by the magic of Italy, it is an apt place for some semblance of a rebirth.

“Were you ever, ever in your life so happy?” asked Mrs. Wilkins, catching her by the arm.

“No,” said Mrs. Arbuthnot. Nor had she been; not ever; not even in her first love-days with Frederick. Because always pain had been close at hand in that other happiness, ready to torture with doubts, to torture even with the very excess of her love; while this was the simple happiness of complete harmony with her surroundings, the happiness that asks for nothing, that just accepts, just breathes, just is.

Arnim’s writing is lovely and evocative and all the four women in the novel are brilliantly etched, they come across as fully realized characters. This was a perfect book to read in April with a particularly feel-good vibe in these trying times.