WAKING
Carman was inducted into office the first Monday in December, quietly,
as the _Republican_ said, as though it reflected credit on the new
county clerk as a man who modestly avoided the demonstration that might
have been expected under such circumstances. Marley, in the hope of
seeing his own name, eagerly ran his eyes down the few lines that were
devoted to the occurrence, but his name was not there, the
_Republican's_ reporter, as he felt, being a man who lacked a sense of
the relative importance of events.
Marley had taken no part in the campaign, though Wade Powell wished him
to, and suggested every now and then that he speak at some of the
meetings that were being held in the country schoolhouses. Powell said
it would be good practice for him in a profession where so much talking
has to be done, and he found other reasons why Marley should do this, as
that it would extend his acquaintance, and give him a standing with the
party; but, though Marley was always promising, he was always
postponing; the thought of standing up and speaking to the vast
audiences his imagination was able to crowd into a little school-room
filled him with fear, and he never could bring himself to consent to any
definite time. Besides this, he could not find an evening he was willing
to spend away from Lavinia.
When election was over, he expected that he would hear from Carman, but
he had no word from him. Several times he was on the point of mentioning
the subject to Wade Powell, but somehow, with a reticence for which he
reproached himself, he could not bring himself to do it. He watched the
papers closely, but he found it quite as hard to find in them any
information about Carman as on any other subject, except, possibly, the
banal personalities of the town as they related themselves to the coming
and going of the trains.
But at last, on the day it had occurred to the reporter to chronicle the
fact that Carman had been inducted into office, the little item struck
Marley sadly; he felt a sense of detachment from Carman; he could not
altogether realize that intimate relationship to Carman in his new
official position that he felt belonged to one who was to be Carman's
deputy. In his imagination he saw Carman shambling about in the dingy
room where the county clerk kept the records of the court, his knees
unhinging loosely at each step, his shoulders bent, his hands in his
trousers pockets, his right eye squinting here and there observantly,
the left fixed, impervious to light and shadow, to all that was going on
in the world. He wondered if Carman, as he looked about, had been
thinking in any wise of him or had seen him as a part of the place where
his life was to be lived for the next three years.
Marley read the paper at supper time; in the evening he went to see
Lavinia. She too had read the paper.
"I know," she said simply, and he was grateful for her quick intuition.
"Have you seen him?"
"No."
"Are you going to?"
"Would you?"
"Why, certainly, at once."
Marley went to the Court House the first thing in the morning. He feared
he might have arrived too early, but Carman had the virtue that goes
farther perhaps than any other in the affections and approval of men, he
rose early. He had been at his office since long before seven o'clock.
Marley found the new county clerk at his desk, obviously ready for
business. The desk was clean, with a cleanness that was rather a
barrenness than an order. The ink-wells, the pens, with their shining
new steel points, the fresh blotters, all were laid on the clean pad
with geometrical exactness. The pigeon holes were empty, but they were
all lettered as if the mind of the new county clerk had grappled with
the future, come off victorious, and provided for every possible
emergency, though there were certain contingencies that had impressed
him as "Miscellaneous."
Carman looked up with the obliging expression of the new public
official, but Marley's heart instantly sank with a foreboding that told
him he might as well turn about then and go. It was plain that Carman
saw nothing in the call beyond a mere incident of the day's work.
Marley took a chair near Carman's desk. He looked at Carman once, and
then looked instantly away; the eye that lacked the power of
accommodation was fixed on him, and it made him nervous.
"Do you remember me, Mr. Carman?" asked Marley; and then fearing the
reply he hastened to add: "I'm Glenn Marley; Mr. Powell introduced me to
you out at the fair-grounds last fall."
"Yes, I remember," said Carman.
"I suppose you know what I came for?"
Carman's right eye widened somewhat in an expression of mild surprise.
"You know," urged Marley, "the clerkship."
"What clerkship was that?"
"Why, don't you know? The chief clerkship, I reckon."
"Here?"
"Why, yes. Don't you remember?"
Carman's right eye wore a puzzled look.
"Don't you remember?"
"Well, you've got me," said Carman, with a little laugh of apology.
"Why, I understood," Marley went on, "that in the event of your election
I was to have a position here."
"What as?"
"Why--as chief deputy."
That right eye of Carman's was fixed on him questioningly.
"Chief deputy?" he said finally. "Here--in my office?"
"Why, yes," said Marley. "Don't you remember?"
The question in the right eye had given way to a surprise that was
growing in Carman's mind, and spreading contagiously to a surprise,
deeper and more acute, in Marley's mind. The eye had something
reproachful in its steady stare. Marley leaned over impulsively.
"Why, surely you haven't forgotten--that day out at the fair-grounds,
when Mr. Powell introduced me to you? I understood, I always understood
that I was to have the place. I never mentioned it to you afterward, I
didn't like to bother you, you know. I waited along, feeling that
everything was all right. But when election was over--and afterward,
when you took your office, and I didn't hear anything--I thought I'd
come around and see you."
Despite the sinister left eye, Marley leaned close to Carman and waited.
Carman was long in bringing himself to speak. Even then he did not seem
to be sure of the situation he was dealing with.
"You say you understood you was to have a job under me as chief clerk?"
"Why, yes," replied Marley.
"Who'd you understand it from, me or Wade Powell?"
"Well--" Marley hesitated, "I thought I understood it from you; I
certainly understood it from Mr. Powell."
"You say you got the idea from something I said out at the
fair-grounds?"
"Yes, sir, at the fair-grounds."
Carman turned away and knitted his brows.
"At the fair-grounds," he said presently, as though talking more to
himself than to Marley. "The fair-grounds, h-m. Yes, I do remember--"
Marley's heart stirred with a little hope.
"I do remember seeing you there, and talking to you. But I don't
remember making you any promises. Did you ask me?"
"No; Mr. Powell did that."
"And what did I say?"
"Well," Marley answered, "I can't recall your exact words, but I got the
impression, and so did Mr. Powell, I'm sure, that it was all right, I--I
counted on it."
"Well, say, Glenn," he said; "I'm awfully sorry, honest I am. I remember
now, come to think of it, that Wade did say something like that, and
maybe I said something to lead you to think I'd do it; I don't say I
didn't--I don't just remember. But I reckon you've banked more on what
Wade told you than on what I did. Course, I reckon I didn't turn you
down--a feller never does that in a campaign, you know. But Wade takes a
lot o' things for granted in this life."
He smiled indulgently, as if Powell's weaknesses were commonly known and
understood.
"I reckon you relied too much on what Wade told you," Carman went on.
His right eye was fixed on Marley, but Marley did not return the look.
He had turned half-way round and thrown his arm over the back of his
chair. He looked out the window, his eyes vacant and sad. He was
thinking of Lavinia, of their hopes and plans, of the little home that
had become almost a reality to them; the trees in the Court-House yard
held their gaunt limbs helplessly up against the cold December day; the
ugly clouds were hurrying desperately across the sky; he thought of the
little law office across the street, with the dusty law books lying on
the table, and the hopelessness of it all overwhelmed him. But there
beside him Carman still was speaking:
"It's like Wade," he was saying. "I'm sorry, derned if I hain't."
Marley scarcely heard him. He was looking ahead. How many years--
"He hadn't ought to of done it," Carman was going on; "no, sir, he
hadn't ought."
How many years, Marley was thinking, would they have to wait now? Would
Lavinia be lost with all the rest? Ought he to ask her to wait any
longer? But Carman kept on:
"I've got all my arrangements made now, you see."
He swept his arm about the office where the few clerks were bending over
the big records in which they were copying the pleadings they could not
understand. Marley did not see; he saw nothing but the ruin of all his
hopes. It was still in there; the atmosphere held the musty odor of a
public office; the clock ticked; once a stamping machine clicked sharply
as a clerk marked a filing date on some document. And then a great
disgust overwhelmed him, a disgust with himself for being so fatuous, so
credulous. He had taken so much for granted, he had acted as a child,
not as a man, and he felt a hatred for himself, he felt almost like
striking himself.
"I guess I've been a fool," he said suddenly, rising from his chair.
"No, you haven't neither," said Carman, "but Wade Powell has; he had no
business--"
Marley did not wait to hear Carman finish his sentence. Shame and
mortification were the final aspects of his defeat; he put on his hat,
drew it down over his eyes and stalked away. Carman looked at him as he
disappeared through the lofty door. The pupil of his right eye widened
as he looked, and when Glenn had passed from his sight he turned to his
desk, and began to rearrange the tools to which he was so unaccustomed.