I’ll be honest, I’ve been kind of dreading this. A glance across the spines of the Dr. John Thorndyke novels and short story collections by R. Austin Freeman reveals Helen Vardon’s Confession (1922) to be his longest book by a factor of about 50%, yet Nick Fuller — who directed me so some excellent Thorndyke novels when I was new to author and character both — considers it perhaps Freeman’s worst offering. And having now read it, I can see its many problems, not least of which is a short story’s worth of criminous endeavour hiding in a 130,000 word novel that takes in too many loose ideas to warrant its tedious length. This was…not fun to read.

To save her — guilty, let it be remembered — father from criminal prosecution, imprisonment, and disgrace, twenty-something Helen Vardon makes a disagreeable marriage with the far older Mr. Lewis Otway, a marriage which, immediately upon its completion, she is given two reasons to bitterly regret. As such, she refuses to live with Otway and moves instead to London under the partial stewardship of Dr. Thorndyke and his assistant Francis Polton. Here, in a sort of idealised artists’ commune in the East End, she begins to enjoy a freer life, which the occasional presence of Mr. Otway does little to spoil. When, however, a long-forgotten romance rears its head, Helen must contend with the ramifications of her sham marriage and the puckered, disapproving face of society that will always look askance at a wife who does not lodge with her husband.

The novel opens and closes well; Freeman is writing in a very emotion-heavy, almost Edwardian style, like the worst excesses of Wilkie Collins, but still captured my drifting attention with some superb turns of phrase, like Otway suggesting marriage to Helen “in a dry, commercial tone, as if he were trying to sell me something at a rather high price; as, in fact, he was”, or Helen reflecting that, as unpleasant as this all-but-forced marriage is, “[w]hen one is walking to the gallows, one does not boggle at an uncomfortable shoe”. The first third, entitled ‘Tragedy’, moves slowly, but sets up an engaging situation and is packed with enough incident to keep anyone already attuned to Freeman and his talents intrigued.

It is in the second part, ‘Romance’, that the problems start to become insuperable, since so little of any event occurs — indeed, you could skip straight to chapter 22 at the end of this part and miss out on very little, since Freeman seems to be casting around for a theme, with repeated dredgings bringing to the surface all manner of half-baked notions which, if developed, might make for an interesting reflection on certain aspects of life in 1908, but which here are picked up, turned over, and then discarded when something else takes his fancy. Perhaps the most interesting notion at play here is the role of the Artist, with Helen’s practical skill as a jeweller allowing her to live independently, if somewhat curtailed in her ambitions by the need to produce work that vendors are willing to sell. There could be a parallel here with the position of Freeman as an author of popular prose…

“Surely it is only reasonable that he should consider the needs and the wishes of the buyers. And all good craftsmen do. Chippendale’s chairs were not only good to look at; they were comfortable to sit on and serviceable in use. The only difference between an artist craftsman and a commercial producer is that the artist always does his best, for his own satisfaction apart from the question of payment; whereas the commercial producer thinks of the profit only, and turns out the worst stuff that the buyer will put up with.”

…but it gets tangled up with spiritualism, hypnotic suggestion, and much (admittedly forward-looking) reflection on the nature of marriage in society. One of these threads will have some loose bearing on the plot going forward, but Agatha Christie explored a similar idea in a 1940 novel without maundering on about it for 30,00 words first.

One must also contend with the fact that Helen Vardon herself is quite unlikeable. Freeman, whose unfortunate eugenicist leanings can be found in the reflections of Helen as she drives through poor London neighbourhoods, seems to have little sympathy with his narrator (“Woman-like, I had acted on a strong conviction; and that conviction had been wrong…”), and also has her engage in a series of frankly maddening actions: withholding key information at an inquest, promising confidentiality around a matter of identity only to brazenly break that confidence a few pages later, then failing to keep her own counsel when it will obviously only make things worse for her. With the book’s length and molasses pace straining at the patience as it already is, you’d at least want your narrator to be sympathetic, and for all its commendably pro-feminist agenda, showing his women-only artists’ commune in a very supportive and positive way, the narrative fails to uphold Helen as any more than an impetuous, selfish, and painfully naive brat.

Thank the heavens, then, for Dr. John Evelyn Thorndyke, whose handful of brief appearances just about helped maintain my interest and restored some measure of dignity to a floundering mess of a narrative. Interestingly, he’s not presented as an angel of salvation but rather a potentially threatening observer of evidence, warning Helen that, if he finds against her, he will report this with the same avidity as if he is able to clear her name when murder speaks and flicks its tongue in her direction.

The cool, relentless impartiality, the unhuman indifference to everything but the actual truth that the letter conveyed appalled me; and I even seemed to read a direct menace in its tone. If I had employed him, I should have done so at my own risk; so he seemed to hint. His intention was to “find out all he could and tell the court all he knew.” How much would he find out? How much did he know already?

As a mystery, this fails terribly — the idea that only two people know about Object X when we’ve seen and heard a third person notice, ask about, and take possession of it is clumsy riddle-mongering at its laziest — but Thorndyke’s brilliantly clear-sighted evidence which closes the book, and Freeman’s undeniable ingenuity in constructing problem and solution alike, scrape this an extra star, even if it would have been a four-star novella at any other stage in either man’s illustrious career. I’d say this is only for completists, but I’m not sure whether that’s true: my admiration for Thorndyke has increased at seeing him save this meandering tract, and hopefully Freeman and I will meet in more favourable conditions next time, but only the most wildly curious, patient, or avid fans need apply here (or will care about the reference to ‘The Mandarin’s Pearl’ (1909) from John Thorndyke’s Cases [ss] (1909)). Nothing about the experience of wading through this will improve any feelings that you already have about Thorndyke or Freeman, whatever those may be.

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