Now that the thing she was afraid of had become a fact, she told herself
that she might have known, that she had known it all the time. As she
faced it she realized how terribly afraid she had been. She had had
foreknowledge of it from the moment when Jane Holland came first into
Brodrick's house.
She maintained her policy of silence. It helped her, as if she felt
that, by ignoring this thing, by refusing to talk about it, by not
admitting that anything so preposterous could be, it did somehow cease
to be.
She would have been glad if Brodrick's family could have remained
unaware of the situation. But Brodrick's family, by the sheer instinct
of self-preservation, was awake to everything that concerned it.
Every Brodrick, once he had passed the privileged years of his minority,
knew that grave things were expected of him. It was expected of him,
first of all, that he should marry; and that, not with the levity of
infatuation, but soberly and seriously, for the good and for the
preservation of the race of Brodricks in its perfection. As it happened,
in the present generation of Brodricks, not one of them had done what
was expected of them, except Sophy. John had fallen in love with a
fragile, distinguished lady, and had incontinently married her; and she
had borne him no children. Henry, who should have known better, had
fallen in love with a lady so excessively fragile that she had died
before he could marry her at all. And because of his love for her he had
remained unmarried. Frances had set her heart on a rascal who had left
her for the governess. And now Hugh, with his Jane Holland, bid fair to
be similarly perverse.
For every Brodrick took, not delight, so much as a serious and sober
satisfaction, in the thought that he disappointed expectation. Each one
believed himself the creature of a solitary and majestic law. His
actions defied prediction. He felt it as an impertinence that anybody,
even a Brodrick, should presume to conjecture how a Brodrick would, in
any given circumstances, behave. He held it a special prerogative of
Brodricks, this capacity for accomplishing the unforeseen. Nobody was
surprised when the unforeseen happened; for this family made it a point
of honour never to be surprised. The performances of other people,
however astounding, however eccentric, appeared to a Brodrick as the
facilely calculable working of a law from which a Brodrick was exempt.
Whatever another person did, it was always what some Brodrick had
expected him to do. Even when Frances's husband ran away with the
governess and broke the heart Frances had set on him, it was only what
John and Henry and Sophy and Hugh had known would happen if she married
him. If it hadn't happened to a Brodrick, they would hardly have blamed
Heron for his iniquity; it was so inherent in him and predestined.
So, when it seemed likely that Hugh would marry Jane Holland, the
Brodricks were careful to conceal from each other that they were
unprepared for this event. They discussed it casually, and with less
emotion than they had given to the wild project of the magazine.
It was on a Sunday evening at the John Brodricks', shortly after Jane
had left Putney.
"It strikes me," said John who began it, "that one way or another Hugh
is seeing a great deal of Miss Holland."
"My dear John, why shouldn't he?" said Frances Heron.
"I'm not saying that he shouldn't. I'm saying that one way or another,
he does."
"He has to see her on business," said Frances.
"_Does_ he see her on business?" inquired John.
"He says he does," said Frances.
"Of course," said the Doctor, "he'd _say_ he did."
"Why," said Sophy, "does he say anything at all? That's the suspicious
circumstance, to my mind."
"He's evidently aware," said the Doctor, "that something wants
explaining."
"So it does," said Sophy; "when Hugh takes to seeing any woman more than
once in five months."
"But she's the last woman he'd think of," said Frances.
"It's the last woman a man thinks of that he generally ends by
marrying," said John.
"If he'd only think of her," said the Doctor, "he'd be safe enough."
"I know. It's his not thinking," said John; "it's his dashing into it
with his eyes shut."
"Do you think," said Frances, "we'd better open his eyes?"
"If you do that," said Levine, "he'll marry her to-morrow."
"Yes," said the Doctor; "much better encourage him, give him his head."
"And fling her at it?" suggested Sophy.
"Well, certainly, if we don't want it to happen, we'd better assume that
it will happen."
"Supposing," said Frances presently, "it did happen--what then?"
"My dear Frances, it would be most undesirable," said John.
"By all means," said Levine, "let us take the worst for granted. Then
possibly he'll think better of it."
The family, therefore, adopted its characteristic policy of assuming
Hugh's intentions to be obvious, of refusing to be surprised or even
greatly interested.
Only the Doctor, watching quietly, waited for his moment. It came the
next evening when he dropped in to dine with Hugh. He turned the
conversation upon Jane Holland, upon her illness, upon its cause and her
recovery.
"I shouldn't be surprised," said he, "if some time or other she was to
have a bad nervous break-down."
Hugh laughed. "My dear Henry, you wouldn't be surprised if everybody had
a bad nervous break-down. It's what you're always expecting them to
have."
Henry said he _did_ expect it in women of Miss Holland's physique, who
habitually over-drive their brains beyond the power of their body. He
became excessively professional as he delivered himself on this head.
It was his subject. He was permitted to enlarge upon it from time to
time, and Hugh was not in the least surprised at his entering on it now.
It was what he had expected of Henry, and he said so.
Henry looked steadily at his brother.
"I have had her," said he, "under very close observation."
"So have I," said Hugh. "You forget that she is an exceptional woman."
"On the contrary, I think her so very exceptional as to be quite
abnormal. Geniuses generally are."
"I don't know. For a woman to live absolutely alone, as she does, and
thrive on it, and turn out the work she does--It's a pretty fair test of
sanity."
"That she should have chosen to do so is itself abnormal."
"It's not a joyous or a desirable life for her, if that's what you
mean," said Hugh.
But that was not what the Doctor meant, and he judged it discreet to
drop the discussion at that point.
And, as for several weeks he saw and heard no more of Miss Holland, he
judged that Hugh had begun to think, and that he had thought better of
it.
For the Doctor knew what he was talking about. When a Brodrick meant to
marry, he did not lose his head about a woman, he married sanely,
soberly and decorously, for the sake of children. It was so that their
father had married. It was so that John--well, John had been a little
unfortunate. It was so that he, the Doctor----
He stopped short in his reflections, remembering how it was that he had
remained unmarried. Like every other Brodrick he had reserved for
himself the privilege of the unexpected line.