CHAPTER XXVIII
THE TALK OF THE TOWN
Macochee’s common interest in Marley was sharpened by his leaving town, and out of the curiosity that raged, Lawrence and Mayme Carter one evening made a call on Lavinia.
“Well, Lavinia,” said Lawrence, almost as soon as they were seated in the parlor, “what’s the news about Glenn? How’s he getting along?”
“Oh, pretty well,” she said, smiling.
“Does he like Chicago?”
“Oh, yes; that is, fairly well.”
“Run get his letters and let us read them.”
“Why, Jack! The idea!” Mayme rebuked him.
But Lavinia instantly got up.
“Well, I’ll read you part of one or two,” she said. “He can tell you much better than I all about himself.”
She was gone from the room a moment and then returned with two thick envelopes.
“My, Lavinia, you don’t intend to read all that, do you?” Lawrence made a burlesque of looking at his watch.
“Oh, you needn’t be afraid,” said Lavinia, smiling. She opened a letter.
“Here’s one that came several days ago. He mentions you both in this one.”
“You don’t mean to say he connects our names?” Lawrence affected consternation.
“Can’t you be serious a moment?” Mayme said, “I want to hear what he says; do go on, Lavinia, and don’t mind Jack.”
Lavinia read the extract from the diary and Marley’s comment.
“Doesn’t he say anything about you?” said Lawrence. “Why don’t you read that? You skip the most interesting parts. You’d better let me read them. Here—” and he held out his hand for the letter.
But Lavinia laid one letter securely in her lap and opened the other.
“Listen to this,” she began, and then she glanced over the first page and half-way down the second.
“Here you’re skipping again,” cried Lawrence. “Why don’t you play fair?”
“‘I have made a friend,’ he says,” she began, “‘and it all came about through the strike. You know the freight handlers went out on the first of May, and since then there has been more excitement than work in the office. The freight house is stacked high with freight, and only a few men are working there and they are afraid of their lives. All around the outside of the big, long shed are policemen and detectives, and the strikers’ pickets. All day they walk up and down, up and down, at a safe distance, just off the company’s ground, and they waylay everybody and try to get them not to go to work here. I happened to see the strike when it began. It was day before yesterday morning. I had gone out in the freight house on some little errand and just at ten o’clock I noticed a man walk down by the platform that runs along outside the shed. I saw him stop by one of the big doors and look in. Suddenly he gave a low whistle, then another. The men in the freight house stopped and looked up. Then the man outside raised his arm, and held up two fingers—’”
“He wanted them to go swimming probably,” interrupted Lawrence.
“Oh, Jack, do stop,” said Mayme, irritably. “Right at the most interesting part, too! Do go on, Lavinia.”
Lavinia read on:
“‘Then the man outside raised his arm, and held up two fingers, and instantly every truck in the shed dropped to the floor, bang, the men all went and put on their coats, marched out of the freight house—and the strike was on. Well, after that came the policemen and the detectives and the pickets, to say nothing of the reporters. It is about these last that I mean to tell you, for among them I have found this new friend. The other day a young man came into the office to see Clark, our boss. I was attracted by him at once. He was tall, and his smooth-shaven face was refined and thoughtful; I call him good-looking; his eyes were dark and his nose straight and full of character; his lips were thin and level; his hair was not quite black and stopped just on the right side of being curly. He was dressed modestly, but stylishly; I remember he wore gloves—he always does—and I thought him somewhat dudish. But what was my pleasure to see on his waistcoat the little white cross of my fraternity! I rushed up to him instantly, and gave him the grip. He was a Sig., from an Indiana college, and he is a reporter on the Courier. His name is James Weston; no, he is no relation to Bob Weston of Macochee at all. I asked him that the first thing; but he is some relation to the Cliffords, distant, I suppose.’”
“I wonder if that isn’t the young man who visited them summer before last?” asked Mayme. “I’ll bet it is!”
“No, it can’t be,” said Lavinia, “I thought of that the very first thing, but you see he says,” and Lavinia read on:
“‘He says he hasn’t been there for years. We chatted together for a few minutes and were friends at once. To-morrow night, if I can get off in time, I’m to dine with him at a café down-town. My, but it was good to see some one wearing that little white cross! You see my college training has done me some good after all.’”
In their conversation afterward, Lavinia and Mayme celebrated Marley’s abilities as a writer, but Lawrence begged Lavinia to read them more, particularly, as he assured her, those parts about herself, saying he could judge better of Marley’s abilities after he heard how he treated romantic subjects.
“I want to know how he handles the love interest,” he said.
“Oh, you got that from George Halliday,” said Mayme. “It sounds just like him when he’s discussing some book none of us has read, doesn’t it, Lavinia?”
Lavinia admitted that it did sound like Halliday, and Mayme returned to her attack on Lawrence by saying:
“What do you know about writing, anyway?”
They might have gone farther along this line had not Mrs. Blair entered with a plate of cake and some ice-cream that had been left over from their dessert at supper. These refreshments instantly seemed to affect Mayme with the idea that the call had assumed the formality of a social function, and as she nibbled at her cake, she asked with a polite interest:
“Just what is Mr. Marley’s position with the railroad, Lavinia?”
“Oh,” Lavinia answered, “he has a place in the office of the freight department; he’s a clerk there.”
“I’m so glad to know,” said Mayme, as if in relief.
“Why?” Lavinia looked up in alarm.
“Oh, well, you know—how people talk.” Mayme raised her pale eyebrows significantly. Lavinia was disturbed, but Lawrence, detecting the danger, instantly turned it off in a joke.
“She heard he was a section hand,” he said.
“The idea!” laughed Lavinia.
“Isn’t this just the worst place for gossip you ever heard of?” said Mayme.
“The worst ever,” said Lawrence. “If I were you I’d quit and start a reform movement.”
When they had gone and were strolling toward the Carters’, Lawrence grumbled at Mayme:
“What did you want to give it all away to Lavinia for?”
“Why, Jack, I didn’t say anything, did I?”
“Oh, no, nothing—only you tipped off the whole thing to her.”
“Why, what did I say that hinted at it, even?”
“‘Oh, you know how people talk!’” Lawrence mimicked her tone as he repeated her words.
“Well, you know they do, Jack, and you know all the mean things they’ve been saying about Glenn. And you remember Charlie Davis’ mother told mama that Charlie ran across him in the street: in Chicago and that—”
“Oh, Charlie Davis!” said Lawrence, as impatiently as he could say anything. “What’s he? Anyway, you didn’t have to tell Lavinia.”
“Well, I’m glad we got the truth anyway.”
“Yes, so am I.”
“We must tell everybody.”
“Sure,” acquiesced Lawrence, “if we can get the gossips started the other way they’ll have him president of the road in a few days.”
CHAPTER XXIX
A MAN OF LETTERS
The Macochee gossips, after they were assured he was engaged in clerical, and not manual work, might have promoted Marley much more rapidly than his railroad would have done, had it not been for the news that he had changed his employment. They had gone far enough to noise it about that Marley was chief clerk in the office, where he was only a bill clerk, when the Republican, with the impartial good nature with which it treated all of Macochee’s folk, so long as they kept out of politics, mentioned him for the first time since his departure, and then, to tell of the advancement he was rapidly making in the metropolis that loomed so large and important in their provincial eyes. Lavinia had the facts in a letter from Marley a day or so before the Republican had them, though she never could imagine, as she told everybody, where the Republican got its information.
“I have a big piece of news to tell you,” he wrote. “Last night I dined with Weston. It was the first really enjoyable evening I have had since I struck the town. Luckily, the strikers had everything tied up so tight that we could do little work, and I had no trouble in getting off in time. I met him about six o’clock, and we went to the swellest restaurant in town. Weston is the finest fellow you ever saw; as it was pay night, he said he would blow me off to a good dinner. And he did, the best dinner I have ever eaten; there were half a dozen courses, and as we ate we talked, talked about everything, college days, the hard days that come after college, and you, and everything. Weston’s experience has been about the same as mine—one long, hopeless search for a job. He, however, did not wait so long as I did; he said that he realized there was no place for him in a small town, and so he set out for the city almost at once. His father wanted him to study medicine, but he said he hadn’t the money or the patience to wait, and he hated medicine anyway, and, as newspaper work offered the quickest channel to making a living he chose that. His secret ambition, he confessed, is literature, and I believe he is writing a book, but he would not, or did not, tell me as much. He says he thinks newspaper work a bad business for any one to get into, but then I have discovered that that is the way every man talks about his own calling.
“After we had finished our dinner, we sat there for a long, long time over our coffee and cigarettes, and we finally got to talking about the strike. Weston, you know, has been working on it, and I was glad to be able to tell him a good many things he said he could use. Finally, I don’t know just how it came about, but I told him how the strike started with us, about the man appearing in the street alongside the freight house, whistling, and then holding up two fingers—I think I described it to you in a letter the other night. Weston was greatly interested; I can see him still, sitting across the table from me, knocking the ashes from his cigarette into his empty coffee-cup and looking so intently at me out of his brown eyes that he almost embarrassed me. And what was my surprise when I finished to have him say:
“‘By Jove, Marley, I’ll have to use that. I’ve been wondering how to lead my story to-night.’
“Now you know the strike at our place occurred several days ago, but since then it has been spreading, and to-day the men on another road walked out. This morning when I picked up the Courier and turned to the strike news, here is what I read, under big head-lines:
“‘A short man with a brown derby hat cocked over his eye walked leisurely down Canal Street at ten o’clock yesterday morning. The short man walked a block and then turned and walked back. At the open door of the C. and A.’s big freight house he stopped. Suddenly he whistled, once, twice, thrice, in low notes. Then he raised his hand with a gesture that was graceful and yet commanding, and held up two fingers. Inside the freight house the men who were heaving away at the big bales and boxes, attracted by the whistle, paused in their labor and looked up; they saw the man raise his two fingers; and, with the discipline of well-trained troops, they dropped their trucks, put on their coats and marched out of the freight house. And the Alton had been added to the list of railroads whose men were on strike.’
“Of course, I was surprised and puzzled, and a little pleased too, that I had had a hand in the article. As I read it, though, I thought of a hundred details I might have told Weston, and I began to wish I had written the account myself. This afternoon he came around to the office again, and the first thing he said was:
“‘Did you see your story this morning?’
“I told him I had, of course. ‘But,’ I added, ‘that was the way it happened on our road; not on the Alton.’
“But he only laughed, and said something about the tricks of the trade.
“And now for the news I was going to tell you. I told Weston, as we talked the story over, of my little wish that I had written the article myself, and he looked at me intently for a moment. Then he said:
“‘How’d you like to break into newspaper business?’
“My heart leaped; it came to me suddenly that it wasn’t the law, nor railroad work, but journalism that I wanted to enter. I told him so frankly and he said:
“‘Well, it’s a dog’s life and I don’t know whether I’m doing you a good turn or not, but I’ll speak to the city editor tonight. He’s a little short of men just now.
“My heart is in my mouth. I can hardly wait till to-morrow, when I’m to see him again. Think of it, dear, and all it means! It means more money, association with men of my own kind, men like Weston, and a fine, interesting life; and it means you; oh, it means you!”
Marley was able in this letter to communicate to Lavinia some of his enthusiasm and some of his suspense, and she found it difficult to await the result of his next interview with Weston. She began to count the hours until Marley and Weston should meet again, and then in a flash it came over her that they had doubtless already met, that the decision was already known, the fate determined, and she was still in ignorance. She had a sense of mystery in it, and she grew impatient, wondering why he did not telegraph. The next day came, and a letter with it; but the letter did not decide anything. Marley wrote that Weston had spoken to the city editor, and that he had told him to bring Marley around that evening. And so, other hours of waiting, and then, at last, another letter. Marley announced the result with what self-repression he could command.
“It’s settled,” he wrote. “I’m to go to work Monday—as a reporter on the staff of the Courier. The salary to begin with is to be fifteen dollars a week. I’m glad to quit railroad work; I’m not built to be a railroad man; I can’t adhere to rules as they want me to, and I can’t bow down as it seems I should. I didn’t tell you that my boss and I had not been getting along very well lately; I thought I wouldn’t worry you. I was glad to be able to tell him to-day that I’d quit Saturday. I did it in a proud and haughty manner; he seemed surprised and shocked—even pained. And when I broke the news gently to the young Canuck he expressed great sorrow and regret, but in his secret heart I knew he was glad, for now as a prophet he can vindicate himself, at least partly, in his diary.”
Lavinia was glad that Marley had gone into newspaper work; much as she had tried she had not been able to conceive of him in exactly the ideal light as a clerk in a railroad office; that position, while it may have had its own promise, nevertheless did not envelope him in the atmosphere she considered native to him. In his new relation to literature, which, in her ignorance, she confounded with journalism, she felt a deep satisfaction, and a new pride, and she was glad when the Republican announced the fact of Marley’s new position; she felt that it was a fitting vindication of her lover in the eyes of the people of Macochee and a rebuke for the distrust they had shown in him.
Thereafter her mail was increased, for in addition to his letter Marley sent her the Courier with his work marked; often he marked Weston’s as well, and early in June he wrote: “I want you to read Weston’s story in Sunday’s paper about the Derby; it’s a peach; it’s the best piece of frill writing that the town has seen in many a day.”
The tone of Marley’s letters now became more cheerful; it was evident to Lavinia that he was finding an interest in life, and in his descriptions of his daily work and the places all over Chicago it took him to and the people of all sorts it brought him in contact with, she found a new interest for her own life. When he wrote that his salary had been increased because of his story about a Sunday evening service in a church of the colored people in Dearborn Street, it seemed to her that happiness at last had come to them, and if, with the passing of June, she felt a pang at Marley’s grieving in one of his letters that this was the month in which they had intended to be married, she was consoled by the rapid progress he was making in his work. His salary had been raised a second time; he was receiving now twenty-five dollars a week; it seemed large to her, and she could not understand why it did not seem large to Marley, even when he wrote that Weston was paid forty dollars a week.
Her chief joy, perhaps, lay in the fact that he seemed to be living more comfortably than he had before. Now that he had left his dismal boarding-house she found a relief from its subtly communicated influence of the stranded wrecks of life, as Marley surely found it in the apartments he was sharing with Weston. She parted as gladly from the knowledge of his landlady as Marley did himself, assuring her that the landlady had “not decreased any in value as a zoo exhibit since first I rhapsodized about her.” Lavinia felt that she could dispense with much of the worry her womanly concern for his comfort had given her, and she turned with a new joy to the books he was constantly recommending.
“Did you ever read,” he wrote, “Turgenieff’s Fathers and Sons? I know that you didn’t and therefore I know what a treat you have coming. I’ll send you the book if you can’t get it in Macochee, and I presume you can’t. Snider’s sign ‘Drugs and Books’ is a lure to deceive an unwary public that doesn’t care as much for books as it does for soda-water; and the stock there, as I recall it, consists largely of forty-cent editions of books on which the copyright has expired, and which, printed on cheap, pulp paper, are to be introduced for the first time to the natives of Macochee. I wish you could see Weston’s little book-case, with its rows of his favorites. Besides Turgenieff and Tolstoi—he says the Russians are the greatest novel writers the world has yet produced—he has all of George Eliot; I have just read over again Middlemarch and Daniel Deronda. He likes Jane Austen, too, and he says you would like her; I haven’t read any but Emma as yet. I’m going to read them all. And if you like, you can read the set of little volumes I am sending you to-day; we can read them thus together. And Henry James—do read him—Daisy Miller especially; you will like that. Besides these, Weston has most of Ibsen’s plays, and sometimes he reads parts of them aloud to me; he reads them well. Some day, he says, he’s going to write a play himself; he is fond of the theater, and we often go. One of the fine things about being on a newspaper is that we get theater tickets, though we can’t always get tickets to the theater we want. Now and then the dramatic editor—a fine old fellow with a magnificent shock of white hair, who may be seen about the office late at night looking very distingué in his evening clothes—gets Weston to write a criticism on some play; and often the literary editor lets him review books. Weston said to-day he’d get the literary editor to let me review some books, and when I told him I didn’t know how, he laughed in a strange way and said that wouldn’t make the slightest difference. There’s another book you must read, and that is A Modern Instance. The chief character is Bartley Hubbard, a newspaper man. Weston and I had a big argument about the character to-day. I said I thought it was a libel on the newspaper profession and Weston laughed and said it was only the truth, and that I’d agree with him after I’d been in the work longer. ‘Newspaper work isn’t a profession anyway,’ he said, ‘but a business.’ He speaks of journalism—though he won’t call it journalism, nor let me—just as lawyers speak of the law. He is urging me, by the way, to keep up my law studies, and I’m thinking of going to the law school here, if I find I can carry it on with my other work. Weston declares I can; he says a man has to carry water on both shoulders if he wants to amount to anything in the world—Wade Powell said something like that to me once. Weston says I’ll want to get out of newspaper work after a while. He disturbed me a little to-day, and he hurt me, too, by saying that a newspaper man has no business to be married; and he knows all about you, too. Of course, he didn’t mean to hurt me, it’s merely his way of looking at things.”
Happy as she was, Lavinia still had to have her woman’s worries, and they began to express themselves in constant adjuration to Marley to guard his health; she feared the effect of night work, and she feared, too, that he could not carry on his law studies and do his duty as a reporter at the same time. She sympathized with the spirit of pride and determination which made him wish to finish his law studies and be admitted to the bar, but she found a greater satisfaction in thinking of him as a journalist than as a lawyer; the figure he thus presented to her mind was so much more romantic than the prosaic one of a lawyer to which she had been all her life accustomed; on a large metropolitan daily he was almost as romantic to her as an army officer or a naval officer would have been. And while she did not like the night work, and had her fears of it for Marley, she nevertheless felt strongly its picturesque quality.
The picture Marley drew in one of his letters of the strange shifting of the scene that is to be observed in the streets of a great city as darkness falls, when those that work in the prosaic day disappear and in their places appears the vast and mysterious army of the toilers by night, many of them in callings demanding the cover of the night, thrilled her strangely. But she did not know how from all the temptations of the irregular life he was leading he was saved, partly by the gentle friend he had found in James Weston, but more by the constant thought of the girl whom he had left behind at home.