When Mrs Wilkins sees an advert for a castle to rent in Italy for ‘those who appreciate wistaria and sunshine’ she is overtaken by an unexpected desire to take up the property and escape from her dreary life for a month. She sees another woman, Mrs Arbuthnot, notice the advert and senses in her the same longing. Completely out of character for them both they decide to enquire, and on finding the rent rather steep, seek two more women to share the cost. Before they know it they are arriving in Italy and acquainting themselves with the castle which is to be their home for the month of April. Mrs Fisher and Lady Caroline arrive separately to Wilkins and Arbuthnot and there is an ongoing silent battle over who should be in the role of host. Lady Caroline wants to be left alone, worn out by London society and the attention her good looks bring. Mrs Fisher doesn’t appear to have any great aspirations for the holiday but puts herself in the role of ensuring decorum is maintained. She finds Mrs Wilkins entirely too excitable and informal.
There is not much in the way of plot in this novel, it is merely a gentle meditation on the lives of women in the 1920s, on marriage and expectation, on finding your own desires. As the novel progresses we see each woman come to realisations about themselves. Mrs Wilkins is the most immediately and obviously changed, feeling the weight and drudgery of life float away. She spends her days on long walks, picnicking by herself in the landscape around the castle. Her heart is so lightened by the experience that she invites her husband to stay with them. Lady Caroline fears that the other women will want to be her friend and ruin her peace, but she soon finds that actually she wishes Mrs Wilkins would bother her more. She spends her days thinking and realises that she has been mean and shallow. Throughout she is frustrated by the fact that when she tries to be unpleasant to others they don’t realise - her voice is so sweet and her looks so pretty that they are merely enchanted. We come to see in Mrs Arbuthnot a longing to be important to another person. Before she left London we saw that her marriage was not a happy one. Her husband makes money in ways she doesn’t approve of and marriage has made her pious and judgmental. When her husband arrives he is reminded of who she was before they were married, a similar experience to that of Mr and Mrs Wilkins, and you feel sad for them that they have spent so long being unhappy in their marriages.
Our first impressions of Mrs Arbuthnot and Wilkins are positive. Mrs Wilkins seems fairly innocent in her enthusiasm and looks forward to preparing the castle for the other two women, wanting to see their pleasure when they arrive. Lady Caroline and Mrs Fisher show no such signs of conviviality, taking the best rooms for themselves and moving unwanted furniture into the rooms Mrs Wilkins and Arbuthnot will inhabit. Certainly I felt great affection for Mrs Wilkins, and Mrs Fisher’s dislike of her, ignoring her as much as possible, feels unkind. The castle does eventually work its magic on them all however, and they see the good in each other that perhaps they couldn’t at the beginning. Mrs Fisher generally approves of Mrs Arbuthnot, but unaware that she sees herself as the host, is confused by her constant response to being offered tea or food being to offer it back. This is the kind of gentle humour littered throughout.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. There were characters that you related to from the start, others that were harder around the edges. There was a real innocence to Mrs Wilkins and Arbuthnot planning the trip, the descriptions likening their feelings to that of having been with a lover. These are women who have become trapped by their domestic lives, and whose courage to do something different frees them from those invisible shackles, allowing them to discover themselves once more.
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