ONE SUNDAY MORNING
It was Sunday morning and Marley sat in church looking at a shaft of
soft light that fell through one of the tall windows. From gazing at the
shaft of light, he began to study the symbols in the different windows,
the cross and crown, the lamb, the triangle that represented the
Trinity, all the Roman symbols that Protestantism still retains in its
decorations. Then he counted the pipes in the organ, back and forth,
never certain that he had counted them correctly. All about him the
people were going through the service, but it had lost all meaning for
Marley, because he had been accustomed to it from childhood.
Having been reassured by Lavinia, he felt that he should be happy, yet a
strong sense of dissatisfaction, of uncertainty, flowed persistently
under all his thoughts, belying his heart's assurance of its happiness.
When Doctor Marley, advancing to the pulpit, buttoned his coat down
before him, pushed aside the vase of flowers the ladies' committee
always put in his way, and stood with his strong, expressive hand laid
on the open Bible, Marley's thoughts fixed themselves for a moment in
the pride and love he had always had for his father. There swept before
him hundreds of scenes like this when his father had stood up to preach,
and then suddenly he realized that his father had grown old: he was
white-haired and in his rugged, smooth-shaven face deep lines were
drawn--the lines of a beautiful character.
He remembered something his father had said to the effect that the
pulpit was the only place in which inexperienced youth was desired,
showing the insincerity of what people call their religion, and then he
remembered the ambitions he had dimly felt in his father in his earlier
days; it had been predicted that his father would be a bishop. But he
was not a bishop, and now in all probability never would be one; he was
not politician enough for that. And Marley wondered whether or not his
father could be said to have been successful; he had come to know and to
do high things, he had lived a life full of noble sacrifice and the
finest faith in humanity and in God; but was this success? He heard his
father's voice:
"The text will be found in the third chapter of the Lamentations of
Jeremiah."
But Marley never listened to sermons; now and then he caught a phrase,
or a period, especially when his father raised his voice, but his
thoughts were elsewhere, anywhere--not on the sermon. The men and women
sitting in front of him kept shifting constantly, and he grew tired of
slipping this way and that and craning his neck in order to see his
father. And then the constant fluttering of fans hurt his eyes, and they
wandered here and there, each person they lighted on suggesting some new
train of thought.
Presently they fell on a girl in a white dress, and in some way she
suggested Lavinia. And instantly he felt that he should be perfectly
happy when thinking of Lavinia, but, as suddenly, came that subconscious
uncertainty, that deep-flowing discontent. He went over his last
conversation with Lavinia, in which he had found such assurance, but now
away from her he realized that he had lulled himself into a sense of
security that was all false; and the conviction that Macochee had no
place for him, at least as a lawyer, came back. He tried to put it away
from him, and think of something else.
His eyes fell on old Selah Dudley, sitting like all pillars of the
church, at the end of his pew. Dudley's back was narrow, and rounded out
between the shoulders so that Marley wondered how he could sit
comfortably at all; his head was flat and sheer behind, and Marley could
see with what care the old banker had plastered the scant hair across
his bald poll--the only sign of vanity revealed in him, unless it were
in the brown kid gloves he wore. Marley looked at Dudley with the
feeling that he was looking at the most successful man in Macochee, and
yet he had a troubled sense of the phariseeism that is the essential
element of such success. He remembered what Wade Powell had said;
immediately he saw Dudley in a new light; the old man sat stolid,
patient and brutal, waiting for some heterodoxy, or something that could
be construed as heterodoxy, theological or economic, like a savage with
a spear waiting to pierce his prey, and glad when the moment came.
But Marley, seeing the young girl in the white dress, again thought of
Lavinia, who would be sitting at that very moment with her father and
mother and Connie and Chad over in the Presbyterian church. How long
would it be before he could sit there beside her, as her husband? Then
with a flash it came to him that they would, in all likelihood, be
married in that very church. Instantly he saw the spectators gathered,
he saw the pulpit and the chancel-rail hidden in flowers, he saw his
father with his ritual in his hands, waiting; and then while the organ
played the wedding march, Lavinia coming down the aisle, her eyes
lowered under her veil. His heart beat faster, he felt a wave of
emotion, joyous, exciting.
But there was much to do before that moment could come--the long days
and nights of study; the examination looming like a mountain of
difficulties, then months and years of waiting for a practice. He tried
to imagine each detail of the coming of a practice, but he could not; he
could not conceive how it was possible for a practice to come to any
one, much less to him. There were many lawyers in Macochee now, and all
of them were more or less idle. There was certainly no need of more.
Judge Blair and Wade Powell and every one had told him that, and
suddenly he felt an impatience with them all, as if they were
responsible for the conditions they described; they all conspired
against him, men and conditions, making up the elements of a harsh,
intractable fate.
And Marley grew bitter against every one in Macochee; they all gossiped
about him, they were all determined to drive him away; well, let them;
he would go; but he would come back again some day as a great,
successful lawyer, looking down on them and their little interests, and
they would be filled with envy and respect. But what of Lavinia?
What right had he to ask her to marry him? What right had he to place
her in the position he had? He realized it now, clearly, he told
himself, for the first time. She had given up all for him. She would go
out no more, she had foregone her parties, calls, picnics, dances,
everything; in her devotion she had estranged her friends. He had given
her parents concern, he had placed her in a false, impossible position.
He must rescue her from it. But how? By breaking the engagement? He
blushed for the thought. By going away quietly, silently, without a
word? That would only increase the difficulty of her position. By
keeping her waiting, year after year, until he could find a foothold in
the world? Even that was unfair.
No, he could not give up Lavinia and he could not go away from Macochee,
hence it followed that he must give up the law. He must get some work to
do, and at once; something that would pay him enough to support a wife.
He began to canvass the possibilities in Macochee. He thought of all the
openings; surely there would be something; there were several thousand
persons in Macochee, and they lived somehow. He did not wish to give up
the law; not that he loved it so, but because he disliked to own himself
beaten. But it was necessary; he could suffer this defeat; he could make
this sacrifice. There was something almost noble in the attitude, and he
derived a kind of morbid consolation from the thought.
His father was closing the Bible--sure sign that the sermon was about to
end. There was another prayer, then a hymn, and while the congregation
remained standing for the benediction, he heard his father's voice:
"The peace of God which passeth all understanding--"
The words had always comforted him in the sorrows he was constantly
imagining, but now they brought no peace.
In another moment the congregation was stirring joyously, in unconscious
relief that the sitting was over. The hum of voices assumed a pleasant
social air, as friend and acquaintance turned to greet one another. The
people moved slowly down the aisle. He caught a glimpse of his father,
smiling and happy--happy that his work was done--passing his
handkerchief over his reddened brow and bending to take the hands of
those who came to speak to him and to congratulate him. Just then Selah
Dudley gave his father his hand; the sight pleased Marley; and suddenly
an idea came to him.