The Romance of Zion Chapel [3d ed.]Le Gallienne, Richard
General
The Romance of Zion Chapel [3d ed.]
Le Gallienne, Richard
Clergy -- England -- Fiction; English fiction -- 19th century; Triangles (Interpersonal relations) -- Fiction
He could not answer, his voice would have choked in sobs. He leaned his
head close to Jenny and pressed her hand, and in spite of himself two
great tears fell upon Jenny's cheek.
But Jenny was curiously calm. There was almost a note of scolding in her
voice, as she said, "It's no use crying, Theophil--it's got to
be borne."
She was already growing strangely wise, and a little removed from earth.
The first fears of her dark journey were passing, as she was more and
more sinking among the shadows. In moments there seemed to be something
almost trivial in earthly grief. But there was still one earthly joy,
one earthly pride, of which her soul began to conceive the desire. It
had come with the thought of her grave that one day took her, less with
fear, than of a new home to which she would presently be going. In her
fancy she had seen her name: "_Jenny Talbot, the beloved daughter of
John and Jane Talbot, aged twenty-one years_" and it had struck her
that the name was wrong.
Talbot? that was not her name. This was not the legend of her days. The
world would be all wrong about her if it only read that in after days.
No, her tomb could only bear one inscription--and what sweetness amid
all the bitterness of death there was to say it over and over again to
herself: "_Jenny Londonderry, the beloved wife of Theophilus
Londonderry, aged twenty-one years_."
Only twenty-one years--she thought of those who would perhaps some day
stand and read those words and think "What a sad little life!"--and yet
all that mattered of life had been lived in those short years, aye, in
two of them, and the violet breath of young love would come up to those
who read from her young grave, as it would never breathe from the earth
of long-wed, late-dying lovers.
Perhaps it was a beautiful chance for love to end like theirs; their
love had never grown old, so it would remain forever young, a spring
sign, a star in the front of love's year for ever.
Jenny spoke her wish to Theophil in the quiet of that night. The wish
had been in his heart too, and the wish was presently fulfilled. Brides
have seldom been happier than Jenny as she looked on the wife's ring
that hung loose on her thin finger, and brides have often been sadder.
Death was coming very near now, so near that Jenny began to forget that
she was going to die. She forgot too that she was married to Theophil,
and would sometimes babble her heart-breaking fancies of the little home
that was so near now, till sometimes Theophil had to hurry away with his
unbearable grief to some other room.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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