O, These Men, These Men!
Angela Thirkell
© Angela Thirkell 1935
Angela Thirkell has asserted her rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
First published in 1935 by Hamish Hamilton Ltd.
This edition published in 2017 by Endeavour Press Ltd.
Table of Contents
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
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Chapter I
Unhappy Prologue
Caroline Danvers’ parents had long been dead. Her best friends and companions while she was growing up were her distant cousins Hugh Mannering and Francis Lester, who lived together in an old house in Bloomsbury belonging to the Lester family. Francis had inherited a solicitor’s business from his father and Hugh worked on a newspaper. Both were devoted to their young cousin Caroline, and when she married James Danvers, Hugh managed to get James onto the staff of his paper.
James’ family consisted of a father and mother, a younger sister Anna, and two yet younger brothers, Wilfred and George, who all lived in the country. Wilfred and George came up to town every day to their father’s office, while Mr. Danvers only came up two or three times a week. Thus it happened that Caroline, though very fond of her husband’s family, especially of Anna who was about her own age, rarely saw them. Once or twice in the year, the Danvers’ used to come up to their house in Cadogan Square for a few weeks, and occasionally Anna stayed in London with her brother and his wife.
Caroline after three years of marriage was thankful that her husband’s people saw so little of her home life. When his father and mother came to town, James was as charming to them as ever, finding considerable relief in misusing his wife more than usual when they had gone. To his young brothers, he was something of a hero, and the only one of his family who guessed what he was becoming was his sister Anna, whose further visits he did not therefore encourage.
Among Caroline’s many griefs, not the least, was the forcible estrangement of her cousins Hugh and Francis. In his drink-clouded mind, James had conceived an unreasonable and intolerable jealousy of them both, finally forbidding Caroline to ask them to the house or see them at all. The cousins were anxious and unhappy at losing sight of Caroline, but as any attempt at a meeting only meant that she would be exposed to James’ senseless rage, they stayed away.
For several months, they saw and heard nothing of Caroline. Hugh indeed saw James at the newspaper office, but avoided him as much as possible, alternately praying and fearing that his unpunctual ways and brawling habits would lead to his dismissal. Neither Hugh nor Francis knew whether James’ father and mother suspected his downward ways, and they came to the conclusion that interference would be useless and all they could do for Caroline was to wait, hoping for matters to mend. Once or twice, Francis was able as a lawyer to extricate James from some piece of folly in which his own weakness had involved him, hating at the same time to send the wreck that James was becoming back to the uncomplaining Caroline.
One morning while Francis Lester was still at breakfast, the elderly parlormaid Rose brought him a telephone message saying that Mrs. James Danvers would be glad if he or Mr. Hugh could come around at once, urgently. Mrs. Danvers, Rose said, had rung off. Filled with certain foreboding of trouble Francis left word for Hugh, who was away for a weekend, where he had gone, and drove to Caroline’s house.
Within three hours, he was at Beechwood where the Danvers family lived. Before he could get out of his car, Anna Danvers, James’ younger sister, came running out to meet him, pleased at the surprise of seeing Caroline’s delightful cousin Francis at such an unexpected hour.
“I have brought Caroline with me,” said Francis. “Anna, be an angel and ask no questions, but take her up to your room. Where are Mr. and Mrs. Danvers?”
“In the library, I expect. Oh, Francis, what is the matter? Is it James?”
“It is.”
A very quiet, polite Caroline got out of the car.
“Can you have me for a day or two, Anna?” she asked, sitting down on a low window seat in the hall. “I seem to be rather unwanted, and if it isn’t a bother I would very much like to lie down. If you could explain, Francis, it would be very kind. I might cry and that would be so mortifying.”
She looked anxiously from one to the other as she spoke, more concerned to keep up her part of a well-bred visitor apologizing for an intrusion than for anything else. In clinging to this symbol of convention, she felt she could avoid the way that madness lies.
“Yes, I will explain,” said Francis. “Go upstairs with Anna. Shall I help you?” he added, looking with concern at her pallor, the effort she made to get up.
“No thank you, I can manage so well. None of my arms and legs are broken, thank you. Will you come and see me before you go?”
“Of course I will.”
Anna and her sister-in-law went upstairs. Francis went down the passage towards the library, hearing Caroline’s voice as she labored carefully through the politeness expected of a guest, Anna’s perplexed responses. Outside the library door, he stood in thought. No one could have devised a more repugnant or difficult task than to tell a father and a mother that their eldest son was a complete failure, without decency, courage, or kindness. He could not even guess how they would take it. He must be prepared for disbelief, tears, the resentment which is felt against the bearer of bad news, possibly a refusal to shelter Caroline. In Anna, he knew he had an ally, but her father and mother were unknown quantities in this horrible game of family affairs. So were the younger brothers Wilfred and George, now he hoped safely out of the way, at work in London in their father’s office. Knowing that nothing could be much worse than his own anticipations, he went in.
Mr. and Mrs. Danvers were surprised to see Francis at twelve o’clock on a Monday morning, but as he was a solicitor, they concluded that some kind of business had brought him to Beechwood, and asked him to stay to lunch. Francis fidgeted wretchedly and answered their questions at random, trying to remind himself that he had handled dozens of similar cases professionally and at the same time, failing entirely to find any precedent for what he had to do. His distress was so apparent that Mrs. Danvers asked him point blank if he was in some kind of difficulty.
“I am,” said Francis, “and the worst of it is that it affects you too. It’s about James.”
“Is he dead?” asked Mrs. Danvers, suddenly looking old.
Francis would have liked to say, “No, worse,” but he realized that to a parent nothing can be worse than a child’s death. Death is the only final and irrevocable disgrace. All others may be repaired or forgotten.
“No, Mrs. Danvers, he is quite all right in that way. I don’t know how much you know,” he said, temporizing.
“We don’t know anything. James hasn’t told us anything in particular. Is anything wrong, badly wrong?”
“I’m afraid it is, Mrs. Danvers. It’s about Caroline too. In fact I had to bring her here.”
“But why? Is she ill? Is James ill? Where is Caroline? I must see her.”
“Evelyn,” said Mr. Danvers, “wait, my dear. Francis, please
tell us exactly what has happened. We have been anxious about James for a long time. He has been extravagant, that we know. What more?”
“Drink, sir, and pretty well everything that goes with it,” said Francis, desperately anxious to get the worst out. “Caroline rang up this morning and asked us to go to her. Hugh was away so I went. Did you know that James had lost his newspaper job some time ago because he was always drunk? He was badly in debt too. They have been living on her money, which isn’t much. Sometimes she hasn’t known where he was for days at a time. I have found him once or twice and brought him back to her.” He hesitated.
“Please go on,” said Mr. Danvers.
“There have been women too. Caroline didn’t tell me about them – James did. On Saturday night he brought one home with him. Caroline heard them both go out on Sunday morning. He didn’t come back last night. She had been sitting up all Sunday night afraid to go to bed. Then this morning she rang us up. James had practically turned me and Hugh out of the house, or I might have helped her before. She could hardly talk at all. When she had told me what had been happening I thought she would collapse, but she wouldn’t let herself. I couldn’t obviously take her to my house, so I brought her here. Was I right?”
Mr. Danvers’ face had been buried in his hands while Francis spoke. He raised it drawn and ravaged.
“Quite right,” he said. “Our son’s wife is a child of the house. Thank you, Francis. Evelyn, you had better go and see Caroline. God knows what is to come of all this, but that child has need of comfort.”
“This letter came from James just as we were leaving,” said Francis, taking it out of his pocket. “I opened it. It wasn’t the moment to consider whether one was being honorable. He says he doesn’t propose to come back and she can do what she likes.”
“Cecil, what are we to do?” said Mrs. Danvers, looking imploringly at her husband.
“My dear, I can’t tell you yet. Francis can advise us perhaps, but we can do nothing at present except to try to help Caroline. I blame myself. I have been deliberately blind to things I could have seen. I hadn’t the courage to talk to James and now we are all punished for my cowardice. My poor Evelyn.”
Rapid steps were heard in the passage and Anna came running in.
“Francis, please come at once,” she said breathlessly. “I made Caroline go to bed. What has happened to her? She is ill, she can hardly speak. She said you promised to see her before you went. Mother, Father, what is it? What has Francis said?”
“It isn’t Francis,” said Mr. Danvers, “it is James. He has been unkind to Caroline and left her. Don’t ask anymore just now.”
“I hate James,” cried Anna with sudden passion. “I saw him when I stayed with them last year. Drinking and bullying. I had a row with him and he said if I would promise not to tell father and mother he would turn over a new leaf I was a fool and a coward and I promised. Did you know that Caroline was going to have a baby then, Francis? That is all over now, thanks to James, the hateful brute. She made me promise not to tell anyone, because she thought you would all be angry with James. It was then that I had the row with him. I wish I had told everyone in the world. Oh, Mother, Father.”
She flung herself into her mother’s arms in a storm of tears.
Mr. Danvers rose like an old man.
“You had better see Caroline if she wants you, Francis,” he said. “Come up.”
Francis followed him in silence to Anna’s room. Mr. Danvers knocked at the door. There was no answer. Francis felt his heart beating as Mr. Danvers knocked again. Still there was silence and they went softly in. Caroline was lying in Anna’s bed, quite still, her eyes closed.
“My poor child, my poor child,” said Mr. Danvers compassionately. “I don’t know what to say. You shall be safe with us. This is your home.”
Caroline’s lips moved, but neither man could hear what she said. Francis sat down by her bed.
“What is it, Caroline?”
“Tell Mr. Danvers not to be angry with James,” said Caroline in such a thread of a voice that it sounded to Francis as though it came to him from far away and on her latest breath.
“We aren’t thinking of James, only of you, Caroline.”
“Please don’t,” said the other-world voice politely. “I am quite all right.”
“Can I do anything for you?”
“No, thank you. Thank you for bringing me here. Give my love to Hugh.”
The thin small voice ceased. Francis took her hand. It lay unresponsive in his own.
“I think you ought to have Dr. Herbert, sir,” he said to Mr. Danvers, who was only too glad to find something definite to do. Mrs. Danvers then came in and took possession. Francis said goodbye to her, refusing renewed offers of lunch and promising to ring up in the evening for news. In the hall he found Anna, her eyes swollen with crying, but otherwise herself again.
“How is Caroline?” she said.
“I don’t know. Your father is sending for Dr. Herbert. Anna – James is your brother and was once a friend of Hugh’s and mine, but I could kill him with the greatest pleasure.”
“So could I,” said Anna. “Oh, Francis, what is going to happen?”
“I don’t know. When Caroline is well enough to talk she will have to decide. She could divorce James if she likes, of course. Goodbye, Anna, and take care of her.”
He got into his car and drove back to town. There were arrears of work in the office to be dealt with. It was not till nearly eight that he got back to his house in Bloomsbury, where he and Hugh had lived together since his parents’ death.
“You will have to wait till after dinner,” he said to Hugh, who was anxious to know the meaning of his message. “Thank goodness it’s Monday.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s the evening your paper lets you loose. I need you to talk to.”
After a dinner, which their fear of Rose the parlormaid and Maud who helped with the waiting prevented them from hurrying, the cousins went up to Francis’ study, a comfortable room behind the drawing room. Here, Francis took so long to fill and light a pipe that Hugh became indignant.
“Caroline sent for you apparently at cockcrow from what Rose told me,” he complained, “and you go off all mysteriously for the day and come back late, and then pretend we can’t talk in front of Rose, when well you know that she knows all about everything long before we do. Has James cut his throat in a fit of D.T.’s? I haven’t seen him for about three months, not since the editor finally sacked him, so I am quite in the dark. Of course there’s been a lot of talk in the office, but I haven’t encouraged it.”
“James is every kind of a blackguard,” said Francis.
“Well, I know that. Do you mean more than getting tight and getting into debt and carrying on with women? I’m more sorry than I can say for Caroline.”
“Did you know about the women?” asked Francis.
“Of course I did. James used to come in and boast about them in his cups, which were practically continuous in the last few months. I couldn’t knock my cousin’s husband down in the subeditor’s room, or I’d have done it. That sort of thing doesn’t look well for the paper. What has he done now? Cat burgling?”
“I think he has killed Caroline. I left her at Beechwood. She was in bed and almost unconscious. All she could say was, Don’t be angry with James. It would give me a great deal of pleasure to wring James’ neck, very slowly. Angry! There isn’t a word for the kind of rage it makes me feel.”
“Steady,” said his cousin. “I still haven’t the faintest idea what really happened. Do you mean that James has done anything to her, hurt her? I’m in with you on the neck wringing if he has.”
“Sorry, Hugh. I ought to be legal-minded. Of course you don’t understand.”
He repeated to Hugh, though at greater length, what he had told the Danvers’ that morning, adding some details which he had not thought it necessary to inflict on James’ father and mother. Hugh listened with a darkening face
and at the end relieved his feelings by remarking, Hell.
“Exactly,” said Francis. “Hell for Caroline. And we have got to do what we can to help her out. James’ people are splendid. They must have been hard hit. Poor Anna broke down, but she was all right when I left. She had seen James at it and knew more than her parents will ever know. They will take care of Caroline. Of course we couldn’t talk of the future at all, and what to do about James. Have you any idea where he may have gone?”
“Not the faintest, but I might find something out at the office. Junior reporters have a disconcerting way of knowing what their betters are up to.”
Just then Rose came in with the evening post.
“Thanks, Rose,” said Francis, taking his letters. “And please get me Mrs. Cecil Danvers’ number on the telephone – the country number.”
“I say,” said Hugh, “here’s a letter from James.”
“Confound his impudence,” said Francis.
“You’ll probably confound it even more when you’ve read this,” said Hugh, passing the letter to his cousin.
“Dear Hugh,” it said, “Please tell anyone I owe money to at the office that I shall probably continue to owe it. I have found someone who really appreciates me at last and don’t intend to come back. Caroline can get any information she wants from my lawyers. I suppose one of you will be ready to marry your charming cousin when she is free. Francis is very welcome to her, though I doubt whether she will look at him while you are about. J.D.”
Before either of the cousins could voice the anger which both felt, the telephone rang. Francis answered it and heard Anna’s voice.
“Caroline is no worse,” he said as he put the receiver back. “Dr. Herbert says it is shock and exhaustion, and they have doped her so that she’ll sleep. Anna says she only spoke once, to apologize for being a trouble and to ask if you would be coming down. Oh, I didn’t tell you she sent you her love when I left her this morning.”
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