Brodrick

“ Brodrick's garden was kept very smooth and very straight, no impudent little flowers hanging out of their beds, no dissolute straggling of creepers upon walls. Even the sweet-peas at the back were trained to a perfect order and propriety.
And in Brodrick's house propriety and order were carried to the point of superstition. Nothing in that queer-cornered, modern exterior was ever out of place. No dust ever lay on floor or furniture. All the white-painted woodwork was exquisitely white. ”

“ Again she thought of Gertrude. "I wonder," she said pensively, "if you really know."
"At any rate I know as much as Tanqueray."
"Do I bore you with Tanqueray?"
He shrugged his shoulders.
"You don't deny his genius?"
"I don't deny anybody's genius," said Brodrick furiously.
Jane looked at him.
"I don't think it's nice of you," said she, "to talk that way to me when I've been so ill."
"You've no right to be ill," said Brodrick, with undiminished rancour.
"I have," said Jane. "A perfect right. I can be as ill as ever I please." ”

“ The lady, he said, might be upon them any minute.
"In that case," said Tanqueray, "we'll clear out."
"You clear out? But you're the very people he wants to see."
"He?"
Hugh Brodrick. Miss Bickersteth was bringing Hugh Brodrick.
They smiled. Miss Bickersteth was always bringing somebody or being brought.
Brodrick was the right man to bring. He implored them to stay and meet Brodrick.
"Who is Brodrick?"
Brodrick, said Nicky, was a man to be cultivated, to be cherished, to be clung to and never to be let go. Brodrick was on the "Morning Telegraph," and at the back of it, and everywhere about it. ”

“ BRODRICK, ALAN, Lord Midleton (1660?–1728) , Irish statesman and lord chancellor of Ireland, came of a family which for several generations had been settled in Surrey. He was the second son of St. John Brodrick by Alice, daughter of Sir Randal Clayton of Thelwall, Cheshire, and was born about 1660. The family of Brodrick had greatly profited by the forfeitures in Ireland. Alan, eldest brother of St. John, was on 19 March 1660 appointed one of the commissioners for settling the affairs of Ireland, and shortly afterwards received a grant of 10,759 acres. ”

“ Brodrick, as soon as I heard how matters were. I'm living in Hertfordshire, or I should have been here sooner. I'm afraid it's a sad business," said Marmaduke.
"We must act, Mr. Marmaduke; we must act at once, before anything worse happens," said Mr. Brodrick, falling into his natural tone of pompous solemnity. ”

“ He met her look.
"Here's to you. You immortal Jinny."
Lucid and comprehending, over the tilted glass his eyes approved her, adored her. She flushed under the unveiled, deliberate gaze.
"Didn't I get you out of that nicely?" she said, an hour later, outside in the darkening garden, as she paced the terrace with him alone. The others, at Brodrick's suggestion, had left them to their communion. Brodrick's idea evidently was that the novelist would break silence only under cover of the night.
"Yes," he said. "It was like your sweetness." ”

“ It's ruining him. He thinks he's only got to scream loud enough for anything and he gets it. Every time he screams you rush to him. It's preposterous."
Jane listened.
"The fact is," said Brodrick, bracing himself, "you have him too much with you."
"I must have him with me."
"You mustn't," said Brodrick, with his forced gentleness.
"You think I'm bad for him?"
He did not answer.
"Gertrude—do you think I'm bad for him?"
Gertrude smiled. She did not answer any more than Brodrick.
"Miss Collett agrees with me," said Brodrick.
"She always does. What do I do to him?" ”

“ Some wondered that a man like Brodrick, solid, if you like, but after all, well, of no more than ordinary brilliance, should have gone so far. It was said among them that Jane Holland was the power behind Brodrick and his ordinary brilliance and his most extraordinary magazine. ”

“ That was what she had wanted, to be liked for her own sake, to be allowed to be a woman.
Unlike Tanqueray, Brodrick not only allowed her, he positively encouraged her to be a woman. Evidently, in Brodrick's opinion she was just like any other woman. He could see no difference between her and, well, Gertrude Collett. Gertrude, Jane was sure, stood to Brodrick for all that was most essentially and admirably feminine. Why he required so much of Jane's presence when he could have Gertrude Collett's was more than Jane could understand. ”

“ When Boscawen returned to England, Brodrick blockaded the French ships at Cadiz so closely, that even the friendly Spaniards could not resist making them the subject of insolent ridicule. They are said to have stuck up a notice in some such terms as 'For sale, eight French men-of-war. For particulars apply to Vice-admiral Brodrick.' The French ships did not stir out till the passage was cleared for them by a gale of wind, which compelled the blockading squadron to put into Gibraltar. Brodrick then returned to England. ”

“ So immense was the separation between Jane Holland and Jane Brodrick.
She was aware of the imminence of her loss without deploring it. She spoke of it to Brodrick.
They were sitting together, one night in June, under the lime-tree on the lawn, only half visible to each other in the falling darkness.
"Would you mind very much," she said, "if I never wrote anything again?"
He turned to her. "What makes you think you can't write? (He too had a misgiving.) You've plenty of time. You've all day, in fact." ”

“ John Brodrick's. Hence her claim. They had stretched the point of cousinship to shelter the proprieties so sacred to every Brodrick. He had not wanted her. He preferred a housekeeper who was not a lady, who would not have to be, as he expressed it, all over the place. But he was sorry for the impoverished lady and he had let her come. Then his sister Sophy had urged him to keep her on until he married. Sophy meant until he married the lady she intended him to marry. He had not married that lady nor any other; he was not going to marry at all, he told them. But he had kept Gertrude on. ”

“ She was Gertrude Collett, the lady who for three years had acted as Brodrick's housekeeper, or, as she now preferred to call herself, his secretary. She had contrived, out of this poor material of his weekly bills, to fashion for herself a religion and an incorporeal romance. ”

“ Between him and Isabel no word was spoken as to the contents of the newspaper. But between Mr Brodrick and the clergyman many words were spoken. Mr Brodrick declared at once to his intended son-in-law his belief in the accusations which were implied,—which were implied at first, but afterwards made in terms so frightfully clear. When such words as those were said and printed there could, he urged, be no doubt as to what was believed in Carmarthen. And why should it be believed without ground that any man had done so hideous a deed as to destroy a will? ”

“ Though his earlier ambitions were anything but academic, Brodrick was elected warden of Merton College, Oxford, on 17 Feb. 1881, and made his chief reputation in that capacity. The only definitely educational position Brodrick had previously held was membership of the London School Board (1877-9) , he being the first member who was co-opted to fill a vacancy caused by death. He had also promoted the University Tests Act of 1870, and he served on the council of the London Society for university extension. ”

“ It was impossible for Nicky to banish altogether from his manner the delicate reproach he felt, impossible not to be alive to the atrocious irony that brought him here to be, as Jane said, an angel, to sit and listen to this fellow Prothero. He understood that they were all there to do something for Prothero. Brodrick had been brought solely for that purpose. Tanqueray, too, and Miss Bickersteth and Miss Gunning, and he. Jane Holland was always asking him to do things, and she had never done anything for him. There was Brodrick's magazine that he had never got into. ”

“ Brodrick. There was no becoming thing that Gertrude did not say. And all the time she was aware of Brodrick's eyes fixed on Miss Holland with that curious lack of diffuseness in their vision.
Brodrick was carrying it off by explaining Gertrude to Miss Holland.
"Miss Collett," he said, "is a wonderful lady. She's always doing the most beautiful things, so quietly that you never knew they're done."
"Does anybody," said Jane, "know how the really beautiful things are done?"
"There's a really beautiful tea," said Miss Collett gaily, "in the garden. There are scones and the kind of cake you like." ”

“ He was thinking in this moment how adorable she was.
"You may as well let her," he said. "She isn't happy if she can't take care of somebody."
And, as they wondered at her, the door opened and closed again on Rose and her white blouse.
XXVII
They found Brodrick waiting for them at the station. Imperturbable, on the platform, he seemed to be holding in leash the Wendover train whose engines were throbbing for flight.
Prothero suffered, painfully, the inevitable introduction. Tanqueray had told him that if he still wanted work on the papers Brodrick was his man. Brodrick had an idea. ”

“ I would refuse to leave the room, and you would then return with a search warrant and a policeman. But as for opening the special book or books, I could do that with or without his permission. While you talk to him I will look round the room and see where they are. I don't think much of it all, Mr Brodrick; but when the stake is so high, it is worth playing for. If we fail in this, we can then only wait and see what the redoubtable Mr Cheekey may be able to do for us."
Thus it was settled that Mr Brodrick and Mr Apjohn should go out to Llanfeare on the following morning. ”

“ And all the time she was overcome by the pathos of Gertrude who had been so serious and so sincere, who was leaving these things for ever. But though she was sorry for Gertrude, her heart exulted and cried out in her, "Do you think He cares for the little squat god? He cares for nothing in the world but me!"
All would have been well if Brodrick had not committed the grave error of asking to look at the Books, just to see that she had got them all right. Like Gertrude he doubted. ”

“ It was interested in contemporary talent merely as a thing in which Brodrick had a stake. It had hardly been aware of Jane Holland previous to her appearance in the "Monthly Review." After that it had been obliged to recognize her as a power propitious to the editor's ambition and his dream. For though his family regarded the editor of the "Monthly Review" as a dreamer, a fantastic dreamer, it was glad to think that a Brodrick should have ambition, still more to think that it could afford a dream. They had always insisted upon that, there being no end to the things a Brodrick could afford. ”

“ Sophy was speechless. Of all the attitudes that any Brodrick could take she had not expected this.
"We have made things too hard for her——" he said.
"We?"
"You and I—all of us. We've not seen what was in her."
Sophy repressed her opinion that they very probably would see now. As there was no use arguing with him in his present mood (she could see that) , she left him.
Brodrick heard her motor hooting down Roehampton Lane. She was going to dine at Henry's. Presently all the family would be in possession of the situation, of Jane's conduct and his attitude. And there was Gertrude Collett. ”

“ Still more distinct, more stable and more solid, more ineradicably fixed in order and propriety, were the four figures of the Brodricks. Sitting there, in a light that refused, in spite of the lime-tree, to lend itself to any mystery or enchantment, they maintained themselves in a positively formidable reality. All these Brodricks had firm, thick-skinned faces in which lines came slowly, and were few but strong. Faces, they were, of men who have lived in absolute sobriety and sanity, untorn by any temptation to live otherwise; faces of women to whom motherhood has brought the ultimate content. ”

“ BRODRICK, GEORGE CHARLES (1831–1903) , warden of Merton College, Oxford, born on 5 May 1831, at his father's rectory, Castle Rising in Norfolk, was second of four sons of William John Brodrick (1798–1870) , rector of Bath (1839–54) , canon of Wells (1855–61) , dean of Exeter (1861–7) , and seventh Viscount Midleton (1863–70) . His mother, Harriet (1804–1893) , third daughter of George Brodrick, fourth Viscount Midleton, was his father's second wife and first cousin. ”

“ Can one be too hard on a man who has acted as he has done?"
"He is hard,—isn't he, Mr Brodrick?"
"Hard! Why, yes;—I should think I am. I mean to be hard. I mean to go on trampling you to pieces till I see your cousin, Miss Brodrick, put into full possession of this estate. I don't mean to leave you a loop-hole of escape by any mercy. At the present moment you are Henry Jones, Esq., of Llanfeare, and will be so till you are put out by the hard hand of the law. You may turn round for anything I know, and say that this document is a forgery." ”

“ Brodrick had wanted to take him away to a sanatorium, but Prothero had refused flatly to be taken anywhere. The traveller was tired of travelling. He loved with passion this place where he had found peace, where his wandering genius had made its sanctuary and its home. His repugnance was so violent and invincible that the Doctor had agreed with Laura that it would do more harm than good to insist on his removal. She must do as best she could, with (he suggested) the assistance of a trained nurse. ”