The Kindly Ones by Anthony Powell

The sixth novel of the series of twelve collectively titled A Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell

We are slowly building toward the Second World War. I thought we would arrive there in this novel. Instead, we begin with another flashback, this one all the way back to the childhood of our main character and Powell stand-in, Nicholas Jenkins.

Jenkins is a boy of 10 or so, living at a modest house in the country called Stonehurst. There are new characters to meet. The staff is more prominent than Jenkins’ mother and father. Albert is the cook. Jenkins’ nurse is named Edith Orchard. There are two more: Billson, a woman who carries a torch for Albert, and a man named Bracey who fancies Billson. Jenkins, as usual, passively observes life around him but isn’t involved in anything interesting himself. At the end of this long chapter the family prepares to receive a visit from family friend General Aylmer Conyers and his wife, arriving in their new motorcar. Inconveniently, Uncle Giles, asks to be invited on the same day. That morning, Albert informs Jenkins’ mother that he has agreed to marry a woman in Bristol and will be giving notice. This news causes Billson to have a breakdown. She appears in the drawing room naked. General Conyers helps Billson to her room, wrapped in a shawl from the piano.

As is often the case in Powell’s story-telling, this dramatic event is told second-hand. Jenkins, our narrator, isn’t even present. He had gone for his morning walk with his governess when it occurs.

At the end of the chapter, Uncle Giles appears just as the Conyers’ are leaving. The scene is further interrupted by Dr. Trelawny, the guru of a small spiritual cult, leading his flock on a walk-about of some sort. Conyers is a casual follower of Dr. Trelawny so they speak to each other. Uncle Giles greets everyone with the news that Archduke Franz Ferdinand had been assassinated just that morning.

The main action of Chapter Two takes places at Stourwater, the castle owned by Sir Magnus Donners, the industrialist. The time is back to the present day, meaning late 1930s (Powell published this novel in 1962). Jenkins and his wife Isobel have been invited to visit Hugh Moreland and his wife Matilda at the country cottage where they are living. Matilda has given up hopes of being an actress and Moreland was looking for a quiet place to do his composing. The evening of their visit they are invited to Stourwater for dinner, and who should be sent to pick them up in his car but, surprise!, Peter Templer. Templer is also a guest at Donners’ along with his nervous wife, Betty. After dinner the group makes a game of taking photos of themselves in poses evoking the Seven Deadly Sins inspired by tapestries that hang in the dining hall. Donners is the photographer. Templer is half-naked portraying “Lust” when, surprise, Kenneth Widmerpool walks in, visiting Donners on business. They talk about the approaching war. Donners’ business is in metals so a war provides opportunities for him.

In Chapter Three we learn that Uncle Giles has died. Coincidentally, he died at a hotel owned by Albert, Jenkins’ family cook from the first chapter. Jenkins travels to Bayswater to arrange a cremation. As Jenkins is digging through Giles’ belongings I kept expecting him to come across a pile of stocks or the deed to a mansion. Alas, no. He finds nothing of value in his Uncle’s possessions except a book titled, The Arab Art of Love. So that long-told story ends with no pay-off. The cremation is dispatched quickly. Also staying at the hotel is Robert Dupont, Jean Templer’s former husband. He and Jenkins go out for a drink together. Dupont tells Jenkins that after he and Jean reunited, Jean left him for Jimmy Brent – another of the fellows riding in that car that went into a ditch all those years ago, a story told in the first of these novels, A Question of Upbringing. Dupont is also involved in business with Magnus Donners and is upset with Kenneth Widmerpool for screwing up a deal that Dupont had worked on.

When they get back to the hotel there’s a scene. Dr. Trelawny (surprise!) another guest of the hotel has gotten himself locked in a bathroom. Albert ask Dupont and Jenkins to help. They do. And then Jenkins and Dupont share a drink with Dr. Trelawny and also Myra Erdleigh. (Remember her? She was the mystic that was involved with Uncle Giles in The Acceptance World) There’s some mystical talk.

Chapter Four. And by the way, every novel so far has been either four or five chapters and all about the same length, between 200 and 250 pages. Now the war is inevitable and preparations are being made. All the youngish male characters are maneuvering to get involved in whatever way they can. Jenkins thinks that his old family friend General Conyers might be able to help and calls on him. Conyers can’t help, but the big surprise (surprise!) is that Conyers is planning to marry again after the death of his wife four or five years earlier. The fiancee appears at the end of the visit and it’s Miss Weedon, Tuffy, whose real name is Geraldine, the former secretary to Mrs. Foxe and the woman who nursed Charles Stringham off the bottle.

Next attempt to join the military service, Jenkins tries Widmerpool, who is already serving as a Territorial officer. (I have no idea what that means). Widmerpool can’t help either, but he asks Jenkins to accompany him to the Jeavons’ place that evening to help with some business related to his mother. On the way there they encounter Gypsy Jones leading a street protest. Seeing her makes Widmerpool uncomfortable (he had paid for her abortion long ago and doesn’t want a scandal on his military record). At the Jeavons’, Lady Molly introduces a guest who she met through a cat rescue, of all things. Surprise!, it’s Moreland. Matilda has left him. He and Jenkins go out for a bite to a restaurant called The Scarlet Pimpernel. If Moreland will give her a divorce Matilda plans to marry Magnus Donners – she was his lover previously. At the restaurant they run into Mark Members, Quiggin, and Anne Stepney. It often seems in these books that characters appear for no reason except to keep them in play. Jenkins and Moreland walk back to the Jeavons’ house. Moreland goes to bed. Then it turns out Jeavons himself is working on war recruiting and he will be able to get Jenkins the position he seeks.

This is the end of the “second movement”, as Powell labels his novels. Perhaps Powell was holding off the war so that it would coincide with the beginning of the next major division.

My sense of these novels so far is that the multiple characters with everybody involved in each other’s lives in multiple ways, and interweaving stories, is like a soap opera, or perhaps, because it’s English and aristocratic, like a long-running Masterpiece Theater production, more complicated than Downton Abbey, but no more profound. The story keeps spinning out, tracking Powell’s actual life, I suppose, but doesn’t seem to be adding up to anything, or pointing toward anything.

We’ll see what happens now, now that war has come.