The Creators Part 104

Gertrude's eyebrows, raised helplessly, were a note on the folly and infatuation of the child's mother.

Caro Bickersteth and Laura left, hopeless of Jane's return to them.

Prothero stayed on, conferring with the editor. Later, he found himself alone in the garden with Jane. He asked then (what they were all longing to know) when she was going to give them another book?

"Never again, Owen, never again."

He reproached her.

"Ah--you don't know what it's been, this last year," she said. "George told me I should have to pay for it. So did Nina. And you see how I've paid."

His eyes questioned her.

"Through my child."

He turned to her. His eyes were pitiful but incredulous.

"Owen--Nina said there'd be no end to my paying. But there shall be an end to it. For a year it's been one long fight for his little life, and I've won; but he'll never be strong; never, I'm afraid, like other children. He'll always remind me----"

"_Remind_ you?"

"Yes. They say I'm responsible for him. It's the hard work I've done.

It's my temperament--my nerves."

"_Your_ nerves?"

"Yes. I'm supposed to be hopelessly neurotic."

"But you're not. Your nerves are very highly-strung--they're bound to be, or they wouldn't respond as perfectly as they do--but they're the _soundest_ nerves I know. I should say you were sound all over."

"_Should_ you?"

"Certainly."

"Then" (she almost cried it) "why should he suffer?"

"Do you mean to say you don't know what's the matter with him?"

"Owen----"

"He's a Brodrick. He's got their nerves."

"_Their_ nerves? I didn't know they had any."

"They've all got them except Mrs. Levine. It's the family trouble. Weak nerves and weak stomachs."

"But Henry----"

"_He_ has to take no end of care of himself."

"How do you know?"

"It's my business," he said, "to know."

"I keep on forgetting that you're a doctor too." She meditated. "But Sophy's children are all strong."

"No, they're not. Levine told me the other day that they were very anxious about one of them."

"Is it--the same thing that my child has?"

"Precisely the same."

"And it comes," she said, "from them. And they never told me."

"They must have thought you knew."

"I didn't. They made me think it was my fault. They let me go through all that agony and terror. I can't forgive them."

"They couldn't have known."

"There was Henry. He must have known. And yet he made me think it. He made me give up writing because of that."

"You needn't think it any more. Jacky gets his const.i.tution from you, and it was you who saved the little one."

"He made me think I'd killed him. It's just as well," she said, "that I should have thought it. If I hadn't I mightn't have fought so hard to make him live. I might have been tormented with another book. It was the only thing that could have stopped me."

She paused. "Perhaps--they knew that."

"It's all right," she said presently. "After all, if there is anything wrong with the child, I'd rather Hugh didn't think it came from him."

She had now another fear. It made her very tender to Brodrick when, coming to him in the drawing-room after their guests had departed, she found him communing earnestly with Gertrude. A look pa.s.sed between them as she entered.

"Well, what are you two putting your heads together about?" she said.

Gertrude's head drew back as if a charge had been brought against it.

"Well," said Brodrick, "it was about the child. Something must be done.

You can't go on like this."

She seated herself. Her very silence implied that she was all attention.

"It's bad for him and it's bad for you."

"What's bad for him?"

"The way you've given yourself up to him. There's no moderation about your methods."

"If there had been," said she, "he wouldn't be alive now."

"Yes, yes, I know that. But he's all right now. He doesn't want that perpetual attention. 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."