IN WHICH JENNY KISSES MR. MOGGRIDGE
Isabel was leaving very early next morning for London, so good-byes must
be brief. Jenny and Theophil saw her off at the station, but before
leaving Zion Place there had been a moment in which for the second time
in their lives she and Theophil had been alone.
They had stood together in the little study and taken each other's
hands, without a word, and they had looked into each other's faces as
those look whom a look must last a long time.
They didn't even say good-bye, for, if they were never to meet again,
the look was not good-bye. And meet again it was not unlikely they
would, for it had been already arranged that Isabel was to lead off the
autumn entertainments; but the look did not mean that, either. As life
had been planned for them, all subsequent meetings must be merely
trivialities. They had met once, and fate had decided that they must
never meet like that again. In that long look each knew that they met
and parted for ever, autumn arrangements notwithstanding.
Each came out of that look as out of a great cathedral, and from that
moment till the train left Theophil, with an unwonted sense of
loneliness, by Jenny's side, they entered that cathedral no more. Their
devotions were done for that day, and they must resume their secular
duties, rippling idly over the great deeps of themselves.
One always leaves a station from which a dear friend has just gone with
a certain subdued air, a certain bereaved hush in the voice, and even
Jenny felt a momentary loneliness too. But it was not long before the
doors of home opened again for her in the sound of Theophil's voice;
and in the sense of the old familiar nearness to him she was back again
safe in the only world she ever wished to dwell in.
It was more of an effort with Theophil, and the voice that made home for
Jenny had a strange sound in his own ears, as though it were still
talking to Isabel; but the effort was soon made, and though Jenny teased
him a little and said she believed he had quite lost his, that was to
say _her_, heart to Isabel, of course she believed no such thing. Doubt
is too terrible a toy for true love to play with. You only dare to doubt
as you must sometimes face the fear of death.
"I wish next October were here," said Jenny, artlessly; "it seems such a
long time to wait to see her again."
Did Theophil wish the same? He hardly knew.
"Distance is such a silly thing," went on Jenny. "It seems to have been
invented just to separate those who want to be together. It seems so
arbitrary, so unnecessary."
"I suppose death is a form of distance," said Theophil, irrelevantly.
"Life too, I'm afraid," said Jenny.
"Yes, indeed, life too," assented Theophil, dreamily.
"If I were to die," said Jenny, suddenly, "would you still do what we
said?"
"Why do you ask that, dear? You're a very serious little woman this
morning. Of course I would. You know. But why do you ask me now?"
"Oh, only, dear, because I wonder whether we really ought to. Somehow
Isabel's visit has made me feel that life is a bigger, fuller thing than
I had dreamed, and that men like you, at all events, have duties towards
it even greater than your love for a little thing like me."
"Jenny dear, don't talk like that. Why should you? You don't surely
doubt my love!"
"Of course not, Theophil. It was only my silly little brain thinking
for once in a while,--and I don't mean to be unkind, but really I rather
mean it. Are you still quite sure there is nothing in the world more
important than love?"
"Quite sure," he answered; "surer than ever--if that were possible. You
are not beginning to doubt that? Certainly it is a silly little brain,
if that's what its thinking is coming to."
"I don't mean it for myself. Little women have nothing but love to think
of; but great men, men with a mission in the world ..."
"Please, Jenny!"
"Well, dear, I mean it; and I sometimes think that perhaps, perhaps, I'm
hindering your life; that if you were to be bothered with love at all,
you should have married some clever, wonderful woman,--woman, say,
like Isabel."
"Jenny!"
"Of course, dear, I know you don't think so," she continued; and he
realised that it was all artless accident on her part--"Still I cannot
help thinking it for you sometimes, dear, and sometimes I feel very
selfish to have your love,--as though, so to say, I was wearing someone
else's crown."
"Jenny dear, will you promise never to talk like that again? A clever
woman! To be a woman is to be a genius, but to be a clever woman is to
be another man of talent."
"That wouldn't be fair to Isabel."
"No," assented Theophil, "Isabel is different too."
And that brought them to Theophil's office and good-bye till the
evening.
For the evening there had been fixed an important church meeting, the
first annual business meeting of minister and deacons since Londonderry
had come to New Zion. It was an occasion of jubilation all round,
particularly for Mr. Moggridge, who gave voice to New Zion's general
satisfaction, you may be sure, in no uncertain terms of praise.
New Zion was, indeed, _New_ Zion once more, he said, thanks to their
indefatigable young pastor,--a play on words which was received with the
applause due to so unmistakable a union of wit and truth.
Nor did the proceedings result in mere compliments. The church found
itself rich enough to increase its minister's stipend; and when Theophil
took Mr. Moggridge back to supper, another surprise awaited him, in the
form of a suspicious-looking letter, which, being opened, revealed a
quite unexceptionable £50 note, enclosed in a sheet of note-paper, on
which was written--"From never mind who."
The writing was unknown to Londonderry, but there could be only one
culprit.
"Of course, Mr. Moggridge, this is from you. Really ..."
"No, sir, indeed; you make a mistake there," protested Moggridge, lying
badly, and growing purple.
"Who do _you_ suspect, Jenny?"
"Why, of course, it's Mr. Moggridge!"
"Mr. Moggridge!" exclaimed Jenny impulsively, throwing her arms round
Mr. Moggridge's surprised shoulders, and kissing him somewhere in his
whiskers,--"Mr. Moggridge! you are the dearest, kindest man in the
world!"
And Jenny was not far wrong.
"Mr. Londonderry," said Mr. Moggridge, by way of changing the subject,
and warmly grasping the young man's hand, "New Zion's proud of you,
sir--and so is Eli Moggridge."
And that moment would have been as good for all three, even without the
fifty-pound note.