The Romance of Zion Chapel [3d ed.]

by Richard Le Gallienne

"Oh, Isabel, to think that I have lost you! lost you!"

But Isabel was stronger: "No, dear, you have not lost, you have found me. To have lost each other would have been never to have met. Dear, I love to think that you might be weak for my sake. No woman can help a man be strong who cannot first make him weak. Ah, love, how weak I could be for your sake,--and how strong!... but be strong for mine, be strong for Jenny's sake. I love that best." Then for a moment they stood lost once more, locked in an embrace so touchingly kind, so sheltering, so calm, that their very attitude was home; and, had they had ears or eyes for a world outside that home, they might have seen, at that dark half-opened staircase door, a little face look in happy and draw back dead; for Jenny had followed them more quickly than she or they had expected, and, not finding them in the lecture-hall, had sought them here with a light heart. She had heard none of their words; she had only seen that look of home upon their faces and written across their arms.

Very quietly she stole away. She felt very dazed and tired. The shock had been so swift that already it seemed half unreal. She felt she must sit down, and, passing into the silent chapel, lit only with dim reflections from without, she sank on to a seat and thought of little but that it was good to be sitting down, and that the darkness was good, and that there looming out of the shadow was Theophil's pulpit, and beneath was her little harmonium,--to-morrow night would be her choir-practice, she mustn't forget that; no, she mustn't forget that--and then the darkness began to frame flashing pictures of that dreadful glimpse of brightness--were they still standing like that?--how happy they looked!--and would they always go on standing together in brightness like that, while she sat here in the darkness. Well, the darkness was good; how she should dread brightness for the future. If only she need not go to the recital!--might she not be spared that? No! she must have courage, she must go, they must not know she had seen them, not yet, not till she had thought what must be done, not till she had made her plans. It would have to be talked of if she let them know. That would be terrible. Isabel would be gone to-morrow, and then she might speak to Theophil, might set him free. But now she must go,--she must not be later than they; they would be passing down to the hall presently, she must be there before them,--she must be quick,--she must go now....

As Isabel and Theophil entered the hall together, and smiled a recognising smile at Jenny already in her place, she was able to smile back at them, though there were some who thought she looked very white, and found her very quiet when they tried to talk to her.

She couldn't help remarking to herself how little of the common resentment she felt towards the two on whose faces she now saw a happiness which she wondered she had not seen before. But her anguish was too great for resentment. She felt towards their love as she might have felt towards death,--it was a terrible fact, and in her good heart there was already the beginning of pity for them too. Perhaps she felt that it was a little unkind of them not to have trusted her,--just as a child might who had felt worthy of our trust, but had been deemed too young to share it. If they had only told her, might she not have loved their love? (Ah! if we would only trust the deeps in those we love!)

Had Isabel only seen that white face in the dark doorway, she would have spared Jenny one of her recitations that night. It was a poem of Mrs. Browning's, perhaps the most poignant poem of renunciation ever written, and Isabel had chosen it, as love will choose a song, for the fearful joy of singing it where all may hear but one only may understand. It was the poem of a like renunciation to theirs, though for different reasons; but there was sufficient literal application to them for Jenny now to understand it too. It was called a "Denial," and began:--

"We have met late--it is too late to meet,
O friend, not more than friend!
Death's forecome shroud is tangled round my feet,
And if I step or stir, I touch the end.
In this last jeopardy
Can I approach thee,--I, who cannot move?
How shall I answer thy request for love?
Look in my face and see.
"I might have loved thee in some former days.
Oh, then, my spirits had leapt
As now they sink, at hearing thy love-praise!
Before these faded cheeks were overwept,
Had this been asked of me,
To love thee with my whole strong heart and head,--
I should have said still...Yes, but smiled and said,
'Look in my face and see!'
"But now...God sees me, God, who took my heart
And drowned it in life's surge.
In all your wide warm earth I have no part--
Light song overcomes me like a dirge.
Could love's great harmony
The saints keep step to when their bonds are loose,
Not weigh me down? am I a wife to choose?
Look in my face and see--
"While I behold, as plain as one who dreams,
Some woman of full worth,
Whose voice, as cadenced as a silver stream's,
Shall prove the fountain-soul which sends it forth
One younger, more thought-free
And fair and gay, than I, thou must forget,
With brighter eyes than these ... which are not wet--
Look in my face and see!
"So farewell thou, whom I have known too late
To let thee come so near.
Be counted happy while men call thee great,
And one beloved woman feels thee dear!--
Not I!--that cannot be,
I am lost, I am changed,--I must go farther where
The change shall take me worse, and no one dare
Look in my face and see."

The agony of this verse as one reads it is heart-breaking, but as Isabel recited it, it was unbearable, and others in that audience besides Jenny felt the personal cry in the voice, though none but Jenny knew its destination. But to Jenny's ears the exquisite wifeliness of the last verse was fuller of pain than all the rest,--

"Meantime I bless thee. By these thoughts of mine
I bless thee from all such!
I bless thy lamp to oil, thy cup to wine,
Thy hearth to joy, thy hand to an equal touch
Of loyal troth. For me,
I love thee not, I love thee not!--away!
There's no more courage in my soul to say
'Look in my face and see.'"

When Isabel sat down, amid hushed clapping, it was observed that Miss Jenny Talbot had fainted. Theophil sprang with others to her assistance, and Jenny, being carried into an ante-room for air and water, presently reviving, asked faintly for Mr. Moggridge to take her home, the thought of the big kind man coming into her mind with a sense of homely refuge.