Read Ebook: In the Bishop's Carriage by Michelson Miriam

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Ebook has 1713 lines and 57473 words, and 35 pages

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."

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