The Enchanted April

It was a wet, grey afternoon in February, and Mrs. Wilkins was sitting alone in her London ladies' club.She felt small and tired, and she did not expect anything good to happen.Then she opened The Times and saw a strange advertisement.

A small medieval castle in Italy, close to the sea, was for rent for the month of April.It was offered "to those who love wistaria and sunshine."The words made Mrs. Wilkins ache with longing.

She thought of cold, grey Hampstead, where she lived.She thought of her husband, Mellersh, a lawyer who counted every penny and never praised her.She never spent money on herself, and she never did anything just because she wished to.

Looking up, she saw another woman across the room reading the very same page.It was Mrs. Arbuthnot, whom she knew a little from their church at home.Mrs. Arbuthnot had the same hungry look on her face.

Then Mrs. Wilkins did something she had never done before: she walked over and spoke to her."What if we took that castle together for April," she said, "and asked two more ladies to share the cost?"Mrs. Arbuthnot was startled and said it was impossible — the money, the husbands, the sheer folly of it.

But she could not put the idea out of her mind either.By the time the rain stopped, the two near-strangers had almost agreed to run away to Italy.