At all events, old Mrs. Talbot did seem to have won certain confidences from life and death refused to more consciously alert ears. Hers had been that hearing beyond listening to which secrets are sometimes revealed.
Her death was more of a loss to her son-in-law than he might have conceived, for not only was she the last of Jenny's flesh and blood, but she was the only one else in the world who missed Jenny as he missed her. Others might, through sympathy, share his sorrow, but she and he were partners in an actual loss. Something had definitely gone from each. Jenny seemed to be twice dead with the death of her mother, and Theophil's loneliness suddenly became more absolute and cut off than ever before.
There was now no one left who could involuntarily recall remembered words and traits of Jenny, and who would for their own sakes want to sit down and talk of her. All that was left that really knew Jenny was the old house itself. That remembered and talked of her still in its dumb way; and as he realised this, his mood once more changed. He forgot his aspirations toward a broader world, and felt that, not only would it be a sort of unfaithfulness to leave Zion Place, but that to do so, and to break up this familiar harmony of home, this little cosmos of friendly furniture in accustomed relations,--pictures hung so from time immemorial, rooms dedicated to this use and no other,--would be to destroy the one mirror from which could come to him still glimpses of Jenny's living face. In just that look of the rooms was the best portrait he possessed of Jenny.
Though he had always been fond of Mr. Moggridge, it had not before occurred to Theophil to make of him a companion; but about this time, as Mr. Moggridge would drop in of an evening to discuss church matters, the young minister would be surprised to note how lonely he felt when he had gone. Indeed Mr. Moggridge possessed that great undefinable gift of companionability.
What is needed in a companion is not brilliance of conversation, but the power to make you feel that you are not quite alone in the universe. Dogs and even children possess this quality for some happily constituted individuals, but for others it is a necessity that the companion be a human being.
A human being, the quieter the better, if possible a rather large man, diffusing a sense of warmth and safety, with perhaps no other gifts than kindliness and a pipe; and sometimes you have the best of company. And Mr. Moggridge, as we know, had brains too, and interesting instincts for new things. But his best gift was his humanity. Thus Theophil encouraged his evening calls and contrived to prolong them, though the two would often sit almost silent by the hour, their pipes alone making a sort of conversation.
Sometimes the young lions of "The Dawn" would come to supper, as in the old days, as Theophil called a year ago; but supper was a poor thing without Mrs. Talbot popping in and out of the room, though she had seemed comparatively unimportant then,--not to speak of eager little Jenny,--not to think of Isabel.
Yes! the sparkle had gone out of their meetings, which began to have an air of make-believe youth about them. Theophil's interest was indeed centred in the purlieus of New Zion, but it was entirely retrospective; and though outwardly New Zion was more alive than ever, it seemed to him that activity which once started goes on of itself, and he realised that in his heart he cared nothing for the work itself, but only for the music to which it had once been set in motion. Incomplete as in one sense it was, in another and more personal sense his life seemed already complete; and while in some moods he would dream of its resounding continuance, in others he would sigh that it might end.
However, for a while he would still go on living with the shadows he loved; and as he sat alone of an evening in that silent house, he would sometimes half fancy that he heard the other occupants moving about or walking overhead. That was Mrs. Talbot with a creaking basket of clean linen on the stairs, and surely that was the opening and closing of a drawer in Jenny's room. Perhaps it was only Mr. Talbot moving his chair in the kitchen.