In The Bishop\'s Carriage

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IN THE BISHOP'S CARRIAGE
By MIRIAM MICHELSON

I.

When the thing was at its hottest, I bolted. Tom, like the
darling he is--(Yes, you are, old fellow, you're as precious to
me as--as you are to the police--if they could only get their
hands on you)--well, Tom drew off the crowd, having passed the
old gentleman's watch to me, and I made for the women's rooms.

The station was crowded, as it always is in the afternoon, and in
a minute I was strolling into the big, square room, saying slowly
to myself to keep me steady:

"Nancy, you're a college girl--just in from Bryn Mawr to meet
your papa. Just see if your hat's on straight."

I did, going up to the big glass and looking beyond my excited
face to the room behind me. There sat the woman who can never
nurse her baby except where everybody can see her, in a railroad
station. There was the woman who's always hungry, nibbling
chocolates out of a box; and the woman fallen asleep, with her
hat on the side, and hairpins dropping out of her hair; and the
woman who's beside herself with fear that she'll miss her train;
and the woman who is taking notes about the other women's rigs.
And--

And I didn't like the look of that man with the cap who opened
the swinging door a bit and peeped in. The women's waiting-room
is no place for a man--nor for a girl who's got somebody else's
watch inside her waist. Luckily, my back was toward him, but just
as the door swung back he might have caught the reflection of my
face in a mirror hanging opposite to the big one.

I retreated, going to an inner room where the ladies were having
the maid brush their gowns, soiled from suburban travel and the
dirty station.

The deuce is in it the way women stare. I took off my hat and
jacket for a reason to stay there, and hung them up as leisurely
as I could.

"Nance," I said under my breath, to the alert-eyed, pug-nosed
girl in the mirror, who gave a quick glance about the room as I
bent to wash my hands, "women stare 'cause they're women.
There's no meaning in their look. If they were men, now,
you might twitter."

I smoothed my hair and reached out my hand to get my hat and
jacket when--when--

Oh, it was long; long enough to cover you from your chin to your
heels! It was a dark, warm red, and it had a high collar of
chinchilla that was fairly scrumptious. And just above it the hat
hung, a red-cloth toque caught up on the side with some of the
same fur.

The black maid misunderstood my involuntary gesture. I had all my
best duds on, and when a lot of women stare it makes the woman
they stare at peacock naturally, and--and--well, ask Tom what he
thinks of my style when I'm on parade. At any rate, it was the
maid's fault. She took down the coat and hat and held them for me
as though they were mine. What could I do, 'cept just slip into
the silk-lined beauty and set the toque on my head? The fool girl
that owned them was having another maid mend a tear in her skirt,
over in the corner; the little place was crowded. Anyway, I had
both the coat and hat on and was out into the big anteroom in a jiffy.

What nearly wrecked me was the cut of that coat. It positively
made me shiver with pleasure when I passed and saw myself in that
long mirror. My, but I was great! The hang of that coat, the
long, incurving sweep in the back, and the high fur collar up to
one's nose--even if it is a turned-up nose--oh!

I stayed and looked a second too long, for just as I was pulling
the flaring hat a bit over my face, the doors swung, as an old
lady came in, and there behind her was that same curious man's
face with the cap above it.

Trapped? Me? Not much! I didn't wait a minute, but threw the
doors open with a gesture that might have belonged to the Queen
of Spain. I almost ran into his arms. He gave an exclamation.
I looked him straight in the eyes, as I hooked the collar close to
my throat, and swept past him.

He weakened. That coat was too jolly much for him. It was for me,
too. As I ran down the stairs, its influence so worked on me that
I didn't know just which Vanderbilt I was.

I got out on the sidewalk all right, and was just about to take a
car when the turnstile swung round, and there was that same man
with the cap. His face was a funny mixture of doubt and
determination. But it meant the Correction for me.

"Nance Olden, it's over," I said to myself.

But it wasn't. For it was then that I caught sight of the
carriage. It was a fat, low, comfortable, elegant, sober
carriage, wide and well-kept, with rubber-tired wheels. And the
two heavy horses were fat and elegant and sober, too, and wide
and well-kept. I didn't know it was the Bishop's then--I didn't
care whose it was. It was empty, and it was mine. I'd rather go
to the Correction--being too young to get to the place you're
bound for, Tom Dorgan--in it than in the patrol wagon. At any
rate, it was all the chance I had.

I slipped in, closing the door sharply behind me. The man on the
box--he was wide and well-kept, too--was tired waiting, I suppose,
for he continued to doze gently, his high coachman's collar
up over his ears. I cursed that collar, which had prevented
his hearing the door close, for then he might have driven off.

But it was great inside: soft and warm, the cushions of dark
plum, the seat wide and roomy, a church paper, some notes for the
Bishop's next sermon and a copy of Quo Vadis. I just snuggled
down, trust me. I leaned far back and lay low. When I did peek
out the window, I saw the man with the brass buttons and the cap
turning to go inside again.

Victory! He had lost the scent. Who would look for Nancy Olden in
the Bishop's carriage?

Now, you know how early I got up yesterday to catch the train
so's Tom and I could come in with the people and be naturally
mingling with them? And you remember the dance the night before?
I hadn't had more than three hours' sleep, and the snug warmth of
that coach was just nuts to me, after the freezing ride into
town. I didn't dare get out for fear of some other man in a cap
and buttons somewhere on the lookout. I knew they couldn't be on
to my hiding-place or they'd have nabbed me before this. After a
bit I didn't want to get out, I was so warm and comfortable--and
elegant. O Tom, you should have seen your Nance in that coat and
in the Bishop's carriage!

First thing I knew, I was dreaming you and I were being married,
and you had brass buttons all over you, and I had the cloak all
right, but it was a wedding-dress, and the chinchilla was a wormy
sort of orange blossoms, and--and I waked when the handle of the
door turned and the Bishop got in.

Asleep? That's what! I'd actually been asleep.

And what did I do now?

That's easy--fell asleep again. There wasn't anything else to do.
Not really asleep this time, you know; just, just asleep enough
to be wide awake to any chance there was in it.

The horses had started, and the carriage was half-way across the
street before the Bishop noticed me.

He was a little Bishop, not big and fat and well-kept like the
rig, but short and lean, with a little white beard and the
softest eye--and the softest heart--and the softest head. Just
listen.

"Lord bless me!" he exclaimed, hurriedly putting on his
spectacles, and looking about bewildered.

I was slumbering sweetly in the corner, but I could see between
my lashes that he thought he'd jumped into somebody else's
carriage.

The sight of his book and his papers comforted him, though, and
before he could make a resolution, I let the jolting of the
carriage, as it crossed the car-track, throw me gently against
him.

"Daddy," I murmured sleepily, letting my head rest on his
little, prim shoulder.

That comforted him, too. Hush your laughing, Tom Dorgan; I mean
calling him "daddy" seemed to kind of take the cuss off the
situation.

"My child," he began very gently.

"Oh, daddy," I exclaimed, snuggling down close to him, "you
kept me waiting so long I went to sleep. I thought you'd never
come."

He put his arm about my shoulders in a fatherly way. You know,
I found out later the Bishop never had had a daughter. I guess he
thought he had one now. Such a simple, dear old soul! Just the
same, Tom Dorgan, if he had been my father, I'd never be doing
stunts with tipsy men's watches for you; nor if I'd had any
father. Now, don't get mad. Think of the Bishop with his gentle,
thin old arm about my shoulders, holding me for just a second as
though I was his daughter! My, think of it! And me, Nance Olden,
with that fat man's watch in my waist and some girl's beautiful
long coat and hat on, all covered with chinchilla!

"There's some mistake, my little girl," he said, shaking me
gently to wake me up, for I was going to sleep again, he feared.

"Oh, I knew you were kept at the office," I interrupted
quickly. I preferred to be farther from the station with that
girl's red coat before I got out. "We've missed our train,
anyway, haven't we? After this, daddy dear, let's not take this
route. If we'd go straight through on the one road, we wouldn't
have this drive across town every time. I was wondering, before
I fell asleep, what in the world I'd do in this big city if you
didn't come."

He forgot to withdraw his arm, so occupied was he by my
predicament.

"What would you do, my child, if you had--had missed your--your
father?"

Wasn't it clumsy of him? He wanted to break it to me gently, and
this was the best he could do.

"What would I do?" I gasped indignantly. "Why, daddy, imagine
me alone, and--and without money! Why--why, how can you--"

"There! there!" he said, patting me soothingly on the shoulder.

That baby of a Bishop! The very thought of Nancy Olden out alone
in the streets was too much for him.

He had put his free hand into his pocket and had just taken out a
bill and was trying to plan a way to offer it to me and reveal
the fact to poor, modest little Nance Olden that he was not her
own daddy, when an awful thing happened.

We had got up street as far as the opera-house, when we were
caught in the jam of carriages in front; the last afternoon opera
of the season was just over. I was so busy thinking what would be
my next move that I didn't notice much outside--and I didn't want
to move, Tom, not a bit. Playing the Bishop's daughter in a
trailing coat of red, trimmed with chinchilla, is just your
Nancy's graft. But the dear little Bishop gave a jump that almost
knocked the roof off the carriage, pulled his arm from behind me
and dropped the ten-dollar bill he held as though it burned him.
It fell in my lap. I jammed it into my coat pocket. Where is it
now? Just you wait, Tom Dorgan, and you'll find out.

I followed the Bishop's eyes. His face was scarlet now. Right
next to our carriage--mine and the Bishop's--there was another;
not quite so fat and heavy and big, but smart, I tell you, with
the silver harness jangling and the horses arching their backs
under their blue-cloth jackets monogrammed in leather. All the
same, I couldn't see anything to cause a loving father to let go
his onliest daughter in such a hurry, till the old lady inside
bent forward again and gave us another look.

Her face told it then. It was a big, smooth face, with
accordion-plaited chins. Her hair was white and her nose was
curved, and the pearls in her big ears brought out every ugly
spot on her face. Her lips were thin, and her neck, hung with
diamonds, looked like a bed with bolsters and pillows piled high,
and her eyes--oh, Tom, her eyes! They were little and very gray,
and they bored their way straight through the windows--hers and
ours--and hit the Bishop plumb in the face.

My, if I could only have laughed! The Bishop, the dear, prim
little Bishop in his own carriage, with his arm about a young
woman in red and chinchilla, offering her a bank-note, and Mrs.
Dowager Diamonds, her eyes popping out of her head at the sight,
and she one of the lady pillars of his church--oh, Tom! it took
all of this to make that poor innocent next to me realize how he
looked in her eyes.

But you see it was over in a minute. The carriage wheels were
unlocked, and the blue coupe went whirling away, and we in the
plum-cushioned carriage followed slowly.

I decided that I'd had enough. Now and here in the middle of all
these carriages was a bully good time and place for me to get
away. I turned to the Bishop. He was blushing like a boy.
I blushed, too. Yes, I did, Tom Dorgan, but it was because I was
bursting with laughter.

"Oh, dear!" I exclaimed in sudden dismay. "You're not my
father."

"No--no, my dear, I--I'm not," he stammered, his face purple
now with embarrassment. "I was just trying to tell you, you poor
little girl, of your mistake and planning a way to help you,
when--"

He made a gesture of despair toward the side where the coupe had
been.

I covered my face with my hands, and shrinking over into the
corner, I cried:

"Let me out! let me out! You're not my father. Oh, let me out!"

"Why, certainly, child. But I'm old enough, surely, to be, and I
wish--I wish I were."

"You do!"

The dignity and tenderness and courtesy in his voice sort of
sobered me. But all at once I remembered the face of Mrs. Dowager
Diamonds, and I understood.

"Oh, because of her," I said, smiling and pointing to the side
where the coupe had been.

My, but it was a rotten bad move! I ought to have been strapped
for it. Oh, Tom, Tom, it takes more'n a red coat with chinchilla
to make a black-hearted thing like me into the girl he thought I
was.

He stiffened and sat up like a prim little school-boy, his soft
eyes hurt like a dog's that's been wounded.

I won't tell you what I did then. No, I won't. And you won't
understand, but just that minute I cared more for what he thought
of me than whether I got to the Correction or anywhere else.

It made us friends in a minute, and when he stopped the carriage
to let me out, my hand was still in his. But I wouldn't go. I'd
made up my mind to see him out of his part of the scrape, and
first thing you know we were driving up toward the Square, if you
please, to Mrs. Dowager Diamonds' house.

He thought it was his scheme, the poor lamb, to put me in her
charge till my lost daddy could send for me. He'd no more idea
that I was steering him toward her, that he was doing the only
thing possible, the only square thing by his reputation, than he
had that Nance Olden had been raised by the Cruelty, and then
flung herself away on the first handsome Irish boy she met.

That'll do, Tom.

Girls, if you could have seen Mrs. Dowager Diamonds' face when
she came down the stairs, the Bishop's card in her hand, and into
the gorgeous parlor, it'd have been as good as a front seat at
the show.

She was mad, and she was curious, and she was amazed, and she was
disarmed; for the very nerve of his bringing me to her staggered
her so that she could hardly believe she'd seen what she had.

"My dear Mrs. Ramsay," he began, confused a bit by his
remembrance of how her face had looked fifteen minutes before,
"I bring to you an unfortunate child, who mistook my carriage
for her father's this afternoon at the station. She is a college
girl, a stranger in town, and till her father claims her--"

Oh, the baby! the baby! She was stiffening like a rod before his
very eyes. How did his words explain his having his arm round the
unfortunate child? His conscience was so clean that the dear
little man actually overlooked the fact that it wasn't my
presence in the carriage, but his conduct there that had excited
Mrs. Dowager Diamonds.

And didn't the story sound thin? I tell you, Tom, when it comes
to lying to a woman you've got to think up something stronger
than it takes to make a man believe in you--if you happen to be
female yourself.

I didn't wait for him to finish, but waltzed right in. I danced
straight up to that side of beef with the diamonds still on it,
and flinging my arms about her, turned a coy eye on the Bishop.

"You said your wife was out of town, daddy," I cried gaily.
"Have you got another wife besides mummy?"

The poor Bishop! Do you think he tumbled? Not a bit--not a bit.
He sat there gasping like a fish, and Mrs. Dowager Diamonds,
surprised by my sudden attack, stood bolt upright, about as
pleasant to hug as--as you are, Tom, when you're jealous.

The trouble with the Bishop's set is that it's deadly slow. Now,
if I had really been the Bishop's daughter--all right, I'll go
on.

"Oh, mummy," I went on quickly. You know how I said it,
Tom--the way I told you after that last row that Dan Christensen
wasn't near so good-looking as you--remember? "Oh, mummy, you
don't know how good it feels to get home. Out there at that awful
college, studying and studying and studying, sometimes I thought
I'd lose my senses. There's a girl out there now suffering from
nervous prostration. She worked so hard preparing for the
mid-years. What's her name? I can't think--I can't think, my
head's so tired. But it sounds like mine, a lot like mine.
Once--I think it was yesterday--I thought it was mine, and I made
up my mind suddenly to come right home and bring it with me. But
it can't be mine, can it? It can't be my name she's got. It can't
be, mummy, say it can't, say it can't!"

Tom, I ought to have gone on the stage. I'll go yet, when you're
sent up some day. Yes, I will. You'll be where you can't stop me.

I couldn't see the Bishop, but the Dowager--oh, I'd got her. Not
so bad an old body, either, if you only take her the right way.
First, she was suspicious, and then she was scared. And then, bit
by bit, the stiffness melted out of her, her arms came up about
me, and there I was, lying all comfy, with the diamonds on her
neck boring rosettes in my cheeks, and she a-sniffling over me
and patting me and telling me not to get excited, that it was all
right, and now I was home mummy would take care of me, she would,
that she would.

She did. She got me on to a lounge, soft as--as marshmallows, and
she piled one silk pillow after another behind my back.

"Come, dear, let me help you off with your coat," she cooed,
bending over me.

"Oh, mummy, it's so cold! Can't I please keep it on?"

To let that coat off me was to give the whole thing away. My rig
underneath, though good enough for your girl, Tom, on a holiday,
wasn't just what they wear in the Square. And, d'ye know, you'll
say it's silly, but I had a conviction that with that coat I
should say good-by to the nerve I'd had since I got into the
Bishop's carriage,--and from there into society. I let her take
the hat, though, and I could see by the way she handled it that
it was all right--the thing; her kind, you know. Oh, the girl I
got it from had good taste, all right.

I closed my eyes for a moment as I lay there and she stood
stroking my hair. She must have thought I'd fallen asleep, for
she turned to the Bishop, and holding out her hand, she said
softly:

"My dear, dear Bishop, you are the best-hearted, the saintliest
man on earth. Because you are so beautifully clean-souled
yourself, you must pardon me. I am ashamed to say it, but I shall
have no rest till I do. When I saw you in the carriage downtown,
with that poor, demented child, I thought, for just a moment--oh,
can you forgive me? It shows what an evil mind I have. But you,
who know so well what Edward is, what my life has been with him,
will see how much reason I have to be suspicious of all men!"

I shook, I laughed so hard. What a corker her Edward must be!
See, Tom, poor old Mrs. Dowager up in the Square having the same
devil's luck with her man as Molly Elliott down in the Alley has
with hers. I wonder if you're all alike. No, for there's the
Bishop. He had taken her hand sympathizingly, forgivingly, but
his silence made me curious. I knew he wouldn't let the old lady
believe for a moment I was luny, if once he could be sure himself
that I wasn't. You lie, Tom Dorgan, he wouldn't! Well--But the
poor baby, how could he expect to see through a game that had
caught the Dowager herself? Still, I could hear him walking
softly toward me, and I felt him looking keenly down at me long
before I opened my eyes.

When I did, you should have seen him jump. Guilty he felt.
I could see the blood rush up under his clear, thin old skin, soft
as a baby's, to find himself caught trying to spy out my secret.

I just looked, big-eyed, up at him. You know; the way Molly's
kid does, when he wakes. I looked a long, long time, as though I
was puzzled.

"Daddy," I said slowly, sitting up. "You--you are my daddy,
ain't you?"

"Yes--yes, of course." It was the Dowager who got between him
and me, hinting heavily at him with nods and frowns. But the dear
old fellow only got pinker in the effort to look a lie and not
say it. Still, he looked relieved. Evidently he thought I was
luny all right, but that I had lucid intervals. I heard him
whisper something like this to the Dowager just before the maid
came in with tea for me.

Yes, Tom Dorgan, tea for Nancy Olden off a silver salver, out of
a cup like a painted eggshell. My, but that almost floored me!
I was afraid I'd give myself dead away with all those little jars
and jugs. So I said I wasn't hungry, though, Lord knows, I hadn't
had anything to eat since early morning. But the Dowager sent the
maid away and took the tray herself, operating all the jugs and
pots for me, and then tried to feed me the tea. She was about as
handy as Molly's little sister is with the baby--but I allowed
myself to be coaxed, and drank it down.

Tea, Tom Dorgan. Ever taste tea? If you knew how to behave
yourself in polite society, I'd give you a card to my friend, the
Dowager, up in the Square.

How to get away! That was the thing that worried me. I'd just
made up my mind to have a lucid interval, when cr-creak, the
front door opened, and in walked--

Tom, you're mighty cute--so cute you'll land us both behind bars
some day--but you can't guess who came in on our little family
party. Yes--oh, yes, you've met him.

Well, the old duffer whose watch was ticking inside my waist
that very minute! Yes, sir, the same red-faced, big-necked fellow
we'd spied getting full at the little station in the country.
Only, he was a bit mellower than when you grabbed his chain.
Well, he was Edward.

I almost dropped the cup when I saw him. The Dowager took it
from me, saying:

"There, dear, don't be nervous. It's only--only--"

She got lost. It couldn't be my daddy--the Bishop was that. But
it was her husband, so who could it be?

"Evening, Bishop. Hello, Henrietta, back so soon from the
opera?" roared Edward, in a big, husky voice. He'd had more
since we saw him, but he walked straight as the Bishop himself,
and he's a dear little ramrod. "Ah!"--his eyes lit up at sight
of me--"ah, Miss--Miss--of course, I've met the young lady,
Henrietta, but hang me if I haven't forgotten her name."

"Miss--Miss Murieson," lied the old lady, glibly. "A--a
relative."

"Why, mummy!" I said reproachfully.

"There--there. It's only a joke. Isn't it a joke, Edward?" she
demanded, laughing uneasily.

"Joke?" he repeated with a hearty bellow of laughter. "Best
kind of a joke, I call it, to find so pretty a girl right in your
own house, eh, Bishop?"

"Why does he call my father `Bishop', mummy?"

I couldn't help it. The fun of hearing the Dowager lie and
knowing the Bishop beside himself with the pain of deception was
too much for me. I could see she didn't dare trust her Edward
with my sad story.

"Ho! ho! The Bishop--that's good. No, my dear Miss Murieson, if
this lady's your mother, why, I must be--at least, I ought to be,
your father. As such, I'm going to have all the privileges of a
parent--bless me, if I'm not."

I don't suppose he'd have done it if he'd been sober, but
there's no telling, when you remember the reputation the Dowager
had given him. But he'd got no further than to put his arm around
me when both the Bishop and the Dowager flew to the rescue. My,
but they were shocked! I couldn't help wondering what they'd have
done if Edward had happened to see the Bishop in the same sort of
tableau earlier in the afternoon.

But I got a lucid interval just then, and distracted their
attention. I stood for a moment, my head bent as though I was
thinking deeply.

"I think I'll go now," I said at length. "I--I don't
understand exactly how I got here," I went on, looking from the
Bishop to the Dowager and back again, "or how I happened to miss
my father. I'm ever--so much obliged to you, and if you will give
me my hat, I'll take the next train back to college."

"You'll do nothing of the sort," said the Dowager, promptly.
"My dear, you're a sweet girl that's been studying too hard. You
must go to my room and rest--"

"And stay for dinner. Don't you care. Sometimes I don't know
how I get here myself." Edward winked jovially.

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