The Enchanted April

Mrs. Wilkins is one of the novel’s principle characters. A married woman in her late 20s, she lives in Hampstead with her husband Mellersh. She is initially depicted as shy and reticent in social situations and without much in the way of agency. Her husband is a solicitor (attorney) who enjoys moving about in literary circles so that he can build a reputation and gain new clients. Mrs. Wilkins does not enjoy these events and often finds herself unsure of what to say to the people around her. She and Mellersh are not happy in their marriage, in part because he wishes for a more social wife, but also because Mellersh finds many small reasons to find fault with her. He is exacting and reserved, while Mrs. Wilkins is actually quite emotional, imaginative, and in search of greater meaning in her life.

It is these qualities that allow her to, upon seeing a notice of a castle to rent for the month of April in Italy, dream of renting it. If she were truly as shy and uninterested in the world around her as her husband suspects, she would not have been so drawn to the listing. Even though she realizes that “Such delights were only for the rich” (3), she leans in to her desire to go rather than the reality that such a vacation might be difficult to orchestrate.

Mrs. Wilkins is, at her core, a loving, human-oriented individual. She readily strikes up a conversation with Mrs. Arbuthnot even as she realizes that her behavior must strike the other woman as odd. She warms to Mrs. Arbuthnot immediately, and it is largely due to her openness and genuine kindness that Mrs. Arbuthnot warms both to Mrs. Wilkins and to the idea of a vacation in Italy. Although Mrs. Arbuthnot values propriety more than Mrs. Wilkins, Mrs. Wilkins easily wins her over.

Mrs. Wilkins further displays her interest in love and friendship in San Salvatore. There, she quickly forgives both Mrs. Fisher and Lady Caroline for behavior that often borders on unkindness, assuring Mrs. Arbuthnot that it is impossible to be angry or ungrateful in such a beautiful locale. She puts aside her own negativity easily. Mrs. Wilkins then takes her spirit of happiness and generosity one step further, reflecting that she’d been approaching marriage the wrong way. Relationships, she realizes, should not be reciprocal: She should love and understand her husband regardless of how he treats her.

When she writes to invite him to Italy, she does so not because he has demonstrated the will to be a kinder husband, but because she has decided to overlook his ill-tempered personality. She finds that, in the light of her newfound ability to accept and understand, Mellersh shines. He becomes the husband she always wanted, and the broader argument at work in the book is that he arrives at that position because of the forgiveness of others, not his own innate ability to change.

Lady Caroline Dester is one of the novel’s primary characters. She is introduced through the framework of her beauty. The author notes in an early description that Caroline “was exceedingly pretty” (55). Beauty is not just a physical characteristic for Caroline, but a key part of how she relates to the people around her. She is aware of the power of her looks but finds it tiresome and unappealing when men become overly solicitous in her presence just because she is attractive. She does not want to use her beauty to her advantage and resents men who give her the opportunity to do so. In part because she dislikes unwanted attention, Caroline is a solitary individual. She wants time, space, and privacy, and for this reason chooses to vacation at a castle in the company of strangers.

Caroline is also a character marked by grief and loss. The love of her life died in World War One and, like many women of her generation, she loses her sense of direction as a result. She feels societal pressure to marry because it is expected of her, but she is sure that she will never love again and does not want to consign herself to a loveless union. As such, she is a complex figure, especially for women of her day. She is part of the author’s engagement with the difficulties of social propriety and the demands of marriage. Lady Caroline wonders if she might be happier unmarried, but she knows that to remain without a husband would be to risk social ostracization.

Like Mrs. Fisher, her desire for solitude prevents her from establishing friendships at San Salvatore during the novel’s early chapters. She finds it easier to judge the women around her than understand them, and initially she does not try to see them as anything other than irritating. She is, however, ultimately moved by Mrs. Wilkins’s kindness, and the two strike up a genuine friendship. She is part of the novel’s broader engagement with the power of friendship and with acceptance and understanding in particular. It is when she accepts Mrs. Wilkins and attempts to understand her as a person that she is rewarded with the kind of genuine connection that her life has long lacked.

Mrs. Fisher, a widow, is the oldest of the group of women at San Salvatore. She is affluent, of high social standing, and “solidly seated in respectability” (64). She is presented initially as a domineering woman who feels entitled to take charge. She selects the best room for herself, sits at the head of the table, and offends Mrs. Arbuthnot by acting as the group’s host. Although Mrs. Wilkins is forgiving and so happy to be in Italy that she declines to think ill of those around her, Mrs. Fisher is not liked by the other members of the group.

The novel was written during the years following the First World War, and Mrs. Fisher is very much a relic of a bygone era. She resents modern women like Caroline in part because she herself still embodies and appreciates Victorian values. She believes in tradition, rigidly defined gender roles, and social propriety. She also remains steeped in Victorian culture. Her parents were friends with some of the greatest authors of the Victorian era, and she regularly mentions them in passing conversation. None of the other women appreciate authors such as Ruskin, Arnold, and others and find Mrs. Fisher’s name-dropping amusing and eccentric. Mrs. Fisher values solitude and makes every effort to spend time alone, even going so far as to commandeer common areas so that she might relax without being disturbed by the presence of other women.

However, she too changes as a result of her time at San Salvatore. She realizes that it is possible to evolve even in old age and hopes to embody a new set of values. She ultimately decides not to invite her friend Kate to the castle because Kate has known her for so long that she would be incapable of seeing her as anyone other than who she has always been. Mrs. Fisher becomes more open to the friendship of the other three women and also finds Mellersh to be a sympathetic and appealing person. Like the other women, Mrs. Fisher comes to value acceptance and understanding more than she did at the beginning of the novel.

Mellersh is Mrs. Wilkins’s husband and one of the novel’s secondary, but important characters. He is a career-focused solicitor (attorney) whose chief ambition in life is to grow his list of clients. He maintains an active social life to develop contacts with the sort of people who are affluent enough to hire legal representation, and he often drags his shy, socially awkward wife with him to various dinners and parties.

Mellersh has not yet been financially successful at the time of the novel’s beginning, and he is also characterized by his frugality. He provides Mrs. Wilkins with an allowance to run the household and suggests she save her extra pounds (scant as they are) as a “nest egg” in case some unforeseen tragedy should arise. Although this seems generous, Mrs. Wilkins understands that there are expenses which Mellersh would deem acceptable for the nest egg and those he would frown upon. Mellersh believes in economy, although he does not apply the same rules to himself. He expects her to provide the best possible food for the lowest possible price, and has no issue with maintaining a wardrobe that is higher in quality than his wife’s. Initially Mrs. Wilkins finds him a controlling and judgmental partner, and he observes on more than one occasion that he is dissatisfied with her also.

Their fortunes change, however, at San Salvatore. Mrs. Wilkins decides, upon reflection at the castle, that she’d been characterizing love wrong. She thought as a newlywed that it should be reciprocal, but now she finds that she thinks it should be selfless. She writes to Mellersh to invite him to San Salvatore, and he arrives a changed man. He is kind, solicitous, and decides that: “It was his one aim during his stay at San Salvatore to be a treasure” (164). Since Mellersh has not apologized to his wife for the difficulties of their marriage, the novel argues that it was forgiveness and understanding that brought about the change in marriage.

The Enchanted April is thematically interested in the power of kindness and understanding, and in the case of Mellersh, kindness and understanding alter his entire personality. He is so moved by his wife’s invitation to San Salvatore that he resolves to be a better man, and he is successful in his attempts. There remains one self-serving element to his personality at the castle: He knows who Lady Caroline is and hopes that someone in her affluent family will hire him as a solicitor, but he also admits to himself that he admires her as a person. His newfound appreciation for character thus tempers his financial ambitions, rendering him a more complex character.