The Enchanted April

Chapter 9

On her first full morning at San Salvatore, Mrs. Fisher surveyed the sitting-room she had chosen for her own with the quiet satisfaction of a woman who knows exactly what she wants and how to get it. Honey-coloured walls glowed around her, an amber inlaid desk stood ready, books in lemon covers filled the shelves, and through the great window the sea sparkled towards Genoa. A glass door led out onto the battlements, where a quaint watch-tower served as a writing nook, and a marble seat at the far end overlooked the western bay and the Gulf of Spezia beyond. Stone sarcophagi, brimming with flowers, lined the parapets. The only flaw, in Mrs. Fisher’s eyes, was a second glass door, opening from the round drawing-room the others would surely claim. She could already picture the Hampstead women spilling out across her battlements, ruining them for her with their eyes and their company.

Ringing for Francesca, she ordered the shutters of the round drawing-room closed against the sun, then had a cabinet of curiosities hauled across its door from the inside. Domenico was next summoned to drag one of the flower-filled sarcophagi across the door from outside. No one, Domenico objected, will be able to use the door. No one, Mrs. Fisher replied firmly, will wish to. With both entrances blocked, she settled into her chair and gazed at her secured battlements with calm pleasure.

The question of money came next. Eight shillings a day, all found, including unlimited baths—what other place abroad could offer her such comfort? Only the food troubled her, and she determined to propose that each of them hand Lady Caroline a weekly sum, any surplus to be returned. From there her thoughts drifted homeward to Prince of Wales Terrace, to her inherited house where a Turkey carpet covered the dining-room floor, a black marble clock measured out her father’s days, and maroon curtains she had known all her life framed aquariums whose goldfish she had loved since childhood. Were they the same goldfish? She wondered often, remembering the afternoon Carlyle had marched up to the glass in fury and struck it with his fist, scattering the creatures while he shouted at them in his broad Scots that they were lucky, lucky deaf devils not to have to listen to her father’s blethering. Dear Carlyle. Thomas is immortal, her father had said. Mrs. Fisher was almost certain she had read him.

The gong caught her still lost in reverie. She hurried to wash and smooth her hair, fearful of finding her place taken, and was first into the dining-room. Francesca stood ready with a steaming dish of maccaroni, but Mrs. Fisher had no intention of waiting. Serve me, she commanded, and sat with a stony face while the others dawdled. The maccaroni itself was a misery—slippery, wriggling off her fork, evoking memories of Mr. Fisher in his most undignified moments. At last she took a knife to it, chopped it small, and remembered Browning, who had once dealt with a dish of it at her father’s table in a single dig and whisk.

Minutes passed. Francesca, who disliked Mrs. Fisher for never having smiled at her, suggested fetching Lady Caroline. Mrs. Fisher, glaring at the cold dish, ordered the gong beaten again, and then, when Mrs. Arbuthnot and Mrs. Wilkins arrived breathless and apologising, dispatched them both out to the garden in her stead. She herself settled to an excellent omelette bursting with young peas.

In the garden, the errant pair found Lady Caroline stretched on her low chair with her eyes shut tight. Mrs. Arbuthnot laid a gentle hand on the girl’s forehead; Mrs. Wilkins, more shrewd, urged that Lady Caroline wanted nothing but to be left alone. The freckled one, Scrap decided, had risen in her esteem. But when they returned indoors, Mrs. Arbuthnot dutifully reported a headache and asked what aspirin was in Italian. The proper remedy for headaches, Mrs. Fisher pronounced, is castor oil—Carlyle had taken it almost to excess and called it the oil of sorrow. Mrs. Wilkins, struggling with her cold maccaroni, insisted again that Lady Caroline had no headache at all. Mrs. Fisher, icy, demanded how she presumed to know. When I was out there just now, said Mrs. Wilkins, I saw inside her. Mrs. Fisher refused to dignify such nonsense with a reply. She rapped the table-gong sharply and demanded her next course, and Francesca, with what could only have been wilful malice, offered her the maccaroni once more.