O, These Men, These Men! Read online

  After two years of hopeless misery, borne at first with useless tears and entreaties, then with stupefied resignation, Francis had brought her to Beechwood. Then there was nothing but a confused memory of days and weeks in the bedroom, which Anna had given up to her so that she need not be moved, of the kind anxious faces of her father and mother-in-law, of glimpses of Francis, of visits from Hugh who had brought her flowers and had nothing to say, of occasional calls from Wilfred and George when, weak as she was, she could be amused by their obvious embarrassment and their ill-concealed relief when Anna or Mrs. Danvers turned them out.

  Then came the tedious affair of divorce, in which, Caroline did as various people told her without any particular interest. It became known later that James had gone to South Africa, though whether with or without someone who appreciated him was not disclosed. And in due course Caroline was free to do exactly as she liked with herself. Mr. and Mrs. Danvers would not hear of her leaving them and she felt apathetically grateful for their kindness, so she stayed on at Beechwood, devotedly watched by Anna, and always filling Wilfred and George with a faint feeling of discomfort by her presence. They liked her, but after all she had been James’ wife and one couldn’t help feeling a bit awkward. He had been a jolly good chap, and if one wasn’t to talk about him in front of the family just in case it upset Caroline, that was only another instance of the grinding tyranny which one had to put up with.

  For the past year, Caroline had not been in town except for such law business as made her presence absolutely necessary. Hugh had been away for most of the time, doing foreign correspondence for his newspaper, and Francis had been extremely busy, so she had seen little of her cousins. Life at Beechwood had flowed again in its accustomed channels and except that Mr. and Mrs. Danvers both looked older, Caroline might have been right in feeling that everything was a dream and life might go on where it had so suddenly stopped more than a year ago.

  Now as autumn drew on Mr. and Mrs. Danvers were taking Anna, Caroline and the boys to London for the winter. The large house in Cadogan Square was opened and made ready for the family. It was the thought of this change that filled Caroline with such alarm as she lay in bed at Beechwood on a sunny October morning. She had begged her mother-in-law to leave her at Beechwood where she said she would be quite happy alone, or with the Herberts and the Beatons for occasional company, but Mrs. Danvers made such a point of her coming that Caroline had to give in.

  “It doesn’t much matter where I am,” she said wearily to Anna who came in to sit on the end of her bed before she got up.

  “Don’t be so silly, Caroline. I have got a kind of sister after all these years of brothers and I need you badly. We shall have my sitting room at Cadogan Square to ourselves and go to concerts and things and it will be great fun. And now Hugh is back we can make him and Francis take us about a bit.”

  “Is Hugh back? I didn’t know.”

  “Didn’t Francis ever tell you? He writes to you so often that I thought he would certainly have mentioned it.”

  “No,” said Caroline, “he never told me. Perhaps it won’t be so bad in town after all, Anna. Of course Hugh is never free at night because of his newspaper, but we might have lunches or Sunday evenings. Anna, why can’t I help having that morbid feeling that people will say ‘That’s the woman who was such a soft fool that she couldn’t stop her husband drinking, so he ran away with someone else’?”

  “Because you are morbid, darling. I wish I could explain to you kindly enough how very little people do notice one, even if one is as lovely as you are. Truly, Caroline, neither beauty nor misfortune is an asset. What you need is a thick skin and to enjoy life as it comes. Get up now, darling, or you’ll never get packed.”

  When Caroline came downstairs, she found Colonel Beaton and his daughter Julia in the drawing room, come to say goodbye. Colonel Beaton was a tall spare man whose blue eyes, wrinkled at the corners, looked more like a sailors than a soldiers. He had retired from the army when he inherited a small estate near Beechwood called Whitelands. Here, he farmed mildly and wrote scholarly books about military matters. Julia was just what a Julia should be, with dark hair and eyes, fair skin, red lips, and pretty hands and feet. She adored her father and was perfectly content to do whatever he liked.

  “Well, Caroline,” said Colonel Beaton, who had got onto very friendly terms with the Beechwood family in the past year, “I am sorry you are going to town. We shall miss you and Anna.”

  “So shall I,” said Caroline, “I mean Anna and I will miss you and Julia.”

  “Will you really?” said Colonel Beaton.

  “Why of course we shall. I shall miss you both especially, because I have so few friends in London now. Anna has heaps.”

  “That’s too bad,” said Colonel Beaton, a remark which Caroline could not quite interpret.

  “Never mind, Caroline,” said Julia. “Father is going to lecture on Agrippa – oh well, Agricola then – at the end of November, and well be up in town for a few days. We must all go to a show then. Do you know any men in London?”

  “There are my cousins Hugh Mannering and Francis Lester,” said Caroline, thinking of Hugh.

  “There are Caroline’s cousins Francis Lester and Hugh Mannering,” said Anna, thinking of Francis.

  “And there are Wilfred and George,” said Julia. “Oh, we shall do splendidly. I don’t know your cousin Francis but I adore your cousin Hugh, Caroline. Why don’t they come here oftener?”

  “They are both busy and Hugh has been abroad.”

  “But of course, so he has. Father and I met him in Berlin last spring. We had the greatest fun. Father wanted to talk to him seriously about political situations, but I wouldn’t let them, and we danced and danced and went to all the beerhalls and places. I adore anyone who dances well. You must come and dance with us, Caroline. Or don’t you dance now? Perhaps I oughtn’t to have asked you.”

  “Oh, yes, I would dance. Divorce isn’t like being in mourning, if that is what you are thinking of.”

  “No, no, I didn’t mean that. At least not quite that. I thought it might be like a kind of half mourning perhaps. We needn’t go anywhere very smart.”

  Julia was then suppressed and taken away by her father, who made no effort to apologize for his silly daughter, feeling that she was her own excuse.

  “Julia!” said Anna in an exclamation when they had gone.

  “I know,” said Caroline. “No one could mind what Julia says, but it doesn’t help one to get over the morbidness, does it? Of course it is good practice to talk about divorce as if it were quite an amusing trifle, and I need some practice. Anna, I won’t be morbid.”

  The journey to London was a short one, taking under an hour, which was why Wilfred and George were able to go up and down to work every day when they were at Beechwood. It was on this day in no way remarkable except for words between Wilfred and George, who had been given a day off from the office because their mother felt she needed them, though for no specific reason. The words were on the subject of breakfast. George said a man couldn’t possibly do a decent morning’s work unless he had a decent breakfast with porridge and eggs and bacon and toast and marmalade and tea. Wilfred maintained that half a grapefruit and a small cup of coffee were the only food a man could work on. Any more than that, he said, and a man was useless for the rest of the day. This led by easy stages to George comparing Wilfred with Hitler, and Wilfred drawing a trenchant parallel between George and the Ogpu, at which point Mrs. Danvers who was doing a crossword puzzle, asked for the name of a bird in three letters, only it mustn’t be emu or tit.

  “There is only one other bird in crossword circles,” said Mr.

  Danvers suddenly waking from a feigned sleep in which he was trying to ignore his sons’ differences, “moa.”

  Mrs. Danvers thanked him, and Wilfred, who could not bear not to be of help in anything that was going on, went and sat next to his mother and annoyed her frightfully by suggesting words before she was re
ady for them.

  “Do you know, I have never been upstairs in this house?” said Caroline to Anna who was showing her the bedroom next to her own and the bathroom they were to share. “When I used to come here to dinner with James I sometimes got as far as your mother’s room to take off my coat, but never any further. I sometimes thought I’d ask your mother if I could spend the night here instead of going home, but it would have seemed too marked.”

  “Why?”

  “It would have looked as if one wanted to get away from James, as indeed one did,” said Caroline, as she took things out of her dressing case and arranged them. “Anna, I do wish there were a name to call one’s husband after one has divorced him. It sounds so silly to say James to outsiders when a person is right out of one’s life. Could I be continental do you think and say Danvers?”

  “Well, darling, you could,” said Anna, “but as father is Danvers, not to speak of Wilfred and George, and heaps of cousins and uncles that we have, I think it would be less confusing to say James.”

  “Yes, perhaps. All the same a name like Nemo, or The Aforesaid would be much less uncomfortable. I don’t mind with you, Anna, but with anyone else it is uncomfortable past words. I wish words didn’t hurt one so much.”

  “If you say them often enough they won’t,” said Anna. “It’s all habit. Say your own name often enough and it sounds like gibberish. Similarly with any other name.”

  “Do you think so?” asked Caroline, much interested. She sat down before the mirror and looked at herself; saying “Caroline, Caroline, Caroline.” Her image in the glass blurred and faded and became clear again. From under the brim of her hat, a white face looked at her with dark eyes, its lips, twisted with whimsical disbelief, making the motion of “Caroline, Caroline.”

  “No, it doesn’t work,” she said at last. “I can’t get away from my own name or my own face. It’s a horrid thought that one’s same name and face may be waiting for one after one is dead forever and ever. The one thing one wants to get away from one is tied to forever and ever.”

  “Tonight I shall say you are tired with the journey and the way those silly boys behaved,” said Anna. “Tomorrow I shall scold you if you go on like that. Go and have your bath first, because I haven’t started unpacking. We haven’t much time if Francis and Hugh are coming.”

  Caroline jumped up.

  “Is Hugh coming?” she asked.

  “And Francis. Didn’t mother tell you there was a telephone message when we arrived?”

  “She did say something,” Caroline confessed, “but to be truthful, Anna, I was so busy feeling sorry for myself that I didn’t listen. What a self-centered beast I am. I can’t think how you can bear me.”

  “Nor can I. Hurry up with that bath.”

  When Caroline came down, she found Francis and Hugh in the drawing room with Mrs. Danvers. Because she was anxious to be in the background as much as possible, she had dressed in black, which didn’t suit her. Hugh was very sorry to see his cousin Caroline looking so unwell and determined to be very kind to her and do his best to cheer her up. Luckily, he was next to her at dinner, so he had every opportunity of carrying out his kind plan, but he found the result rather disappointing. In vain did he tell Caroline about his experiences on the Continent, the statesmen he had met, the information he had gathered, the plays and ballets he had seen. Caroline was very quiet and hardly did more than say yes or no at the right moment, or sometimes at the wrong moment. She had a disconcerting way of suddenly looking straight into one’s eyes, as if she were sending a message over the flow of speech between her and whoever was talking to her. More than once while he was speaking, Hugh found Caroline’s eyes fixed upon him with this strange penetrating quality, as if she were trying to see right into his mind, ignoring the obstruction of speech. Once or twice he tried to return her direct gaze, but there was something baffling in it, as if she were prepared to advance and yet were on the point of flight. So Hugh contented himself with smiling kindly at her whenever their eyes met.

  Presently, her attention was claimed by George who wanted her sympathy. Did she, he inquired, think there was anything wrong in going straight to bed when one came home after a theater. Caroline said she thought it a reasonable thing to do.

  “I thought you would. But Mother always wants us to see if the light is on in her room and come in and say good night and give her a chatty little account of what we’ve been doing. I must say for Old Intellect that he never bothers one so long as one doesn’t slam the front door when one comes in, and turns up at the office on time next day. If one isn’t to have any freedom at all, one might as well be in the nursery. Ask Wilfred and see what he says.”

  “It is rather horrid to have to talk about plays directly you come home,” said Caroline sympathetically. “I always feel very cross after I have seen a play I like, and hate everybody. I remember once at a play with Hugh—”

  She stopped suddenly. If she began to remember that evening she would remember too much, she would remember how James had looked at her when she got home, what that night had been.

  Francis, looking at her between the shaded candles from the other side of the table, wondered what George could have said to make her suddenly look as if she expected someone to hit her. George was an extremely good example of a spoilt young man – both the boys were spoilt he considered – and quite insensitive, but not unkind. Caroline must still be very unarmed, very easy to hurt. When she came into the room before dinner, he had been looking forward to resuming the companionship that the last year had interrupted, but now he hardly knew whether the old Caroline lived at all. She was not changed in any respect that he could single out, yet she was different. Something like an invisible sheet of glass was between them. He wondered uneasily if she still thought of James, if she was blaming herself for not enduring more, for having decided to break the tie between them forever. If this were so, he would have to blame himself as well for the part he had taken when her divorce was under discussion. At first, he had not wanted to interfere, but Caroline would not or could not express her feelings, and Mr. and Mrs. Danvers had begged him to help them in the decision. As he looked at the matter, there was no doubt at all what was best for Caroline, and his advice, together with the Danvers’ urgent wish to see Caroline in safety, had certainly played a part in persuading Caroline to agree. Some step had to be taken, and Caroline was so broken that she would have let things slide forever, so her nearest friends had to make her decide.

  As he looked at her, she turned around again to Hugh and he saw her looking into Hugh’s eyes, for she was tall and their faces as they sat were almost on a level, with the curious insistence that had so often charmed and baffled him in her. Twice in her deepest need, she had summoned her spirit from its unknown fastnesses to send a message to Hugh. What was the meaning of the messages, the meaning of her grave appraising gaze? Francis told himself not to be a fool and began to talk to Mrs. Danvers, who was full of plans for the winter, for committees, dinner parties, lectures, the manifold business of an idle winter in town.

  “I want you to get Caroline to take more interest in things,” she said in a low voice. “Dr. Herbert is fairly satisfied with her now, but she has very little life. Anna and I feel that she ought to make an effort and go about more. Partly on Cecil’s account, because it makes him so unhappy to see the poor child living through each day simply to get to the end of it. You and Hugh must take her out. She looks quite happy talking to Hugh now.”

  “You never hear of James, I suppose?” said Francis, finding himself, much to his own annoyance, speaking of James in a hushed voice as if he were dead.

  “No, never, except that his allowance is drawn regularly. It is very thoughtless of him. I sometimes feel,” said Mrs. Danvers with the voice of one who has a gentle grievance, “that if Caroline had been a little firmer we should not have had all this trouble. But no one listens to me, so I say nothing.”

  “You don’t know what she feels about it?”
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  “Anna may know. I don’t. She doesn’t tell me anything. I find it very trying not to know what is going on. The boys are just the same, or if they do tell me what they are doing it is at such awkward times. George for instance still keeps up his schoolboy habit of coming to say good night when he gets in late. I don’t mean at four in the morning, but after a dinner or a play. Of course I love to see him, but so often I have just read myself into a comfortable sleepy state and the dear boy comes crashing upstairs and hangs about outside my door till I have to call him to come in, and then he gives me a long account of his evening which is, I must say, usually a complaint about how boring the play was or what a poor dinner he had, and by then I am entirely unsleepy again. And then he goes off and doesn’t shut the door properly and I have to call after him. So trying.”

  Caroline had turned to Hugh, rather abruptly deserting her young brother-in-law’s grievances, because her ears had caught a phrase passing between Hugh and her father-in-law who owing to a dearth of women were sitting next to each other.

  “Oh, Father,” she said breaking into their talk, for during the past year she had come to call Mr. and Mrs. Danvers by name as if they were her own parents, “Father, is Hugh really to stay in London now? What fun?”