In the Bishop's Carriage

XVII.

PHILADELPHIA, January 27.

Maggie, dear:

I'm writing to you just before dinner while I wait for Fred. He's down at the box-office looking up advance sales. I tell you, Maggie Monahan, we're strictly in it—we Obermullers. That Broadway hit of mine has preceded me here, and we've got the town, I suspect, in advance.

But I'm not writing to tell you this. I've got something more interesting to tell you, my dear old Cruelty chum.

I want you to pretend to yourself that you see me, Mag, as I came out of the big Chestnut Street store this afternoon, my arms full of bundles. I must have on that long coat to my heels, of dark, warm red, silk-lined, with the long, incurving back sweep and high chinchilla collar, that Fred ordered made for me the very day we were married. I must be wearing that jolly little, red-cloth toque caught up on the side with some of the fur.

Oh, yes, I knew I was more than a year behind the times when I got them, but a successful actress wears what she pleases, and the rest of the world wears what pleases her, too. Besides, fashions don't mean so much to you when your husband tells you how becoming—but this has nothing to do with the Bishop.

Yes, the Bishop, Mag!

I had just said, "Nance Olden—" To myself I still speak to me as Nancy Olden; it's good for me, Mag; keeps me humble and for ever grateful that I'm so happy. "Nance, you'll never be able to carry all these things and lift your buful train, too. And there's never a hansom round when it's snowing and—"

And then I caught sight of the carriage. Yes, Maggie, the same fat, low, comfortable, elegant, sober carriage, wide and well-kept, with rubber-tired wheels. And the two heavy horses, fat and elegant and sober, too, and wide and well-kept. I knew whose it was the minute my eyes lighted on it, and I couldn't—I just couldn't resist it.

The man on the box-still wide and well-kept—was wide-awake this time. I nodded to him as I slipped in and closed the door after me.

"I'll wait for the Bishop," I said, with a red-coated assurance that left him no alternative but to accept the situation respectfully.

Oh, dear, dear! It was soft and warm inside as it had been that long, long-ago day. The seat was wide and roomy. The cushions had been done over—I resented that—but though a different material, they were a still darker plum. And instead of Quo Vadis, the Bishop had been reading Resurrection.

I took it up and glanced over it as I sat there; but, you know, Mag, the heavy-weight plays never appealed to me. I don't go in for the tragic—perhaps I saw too much of the real thing when I was little.

At any rate, it seemed dull to me, and I put it aside and sat there absent-mindedly dreaming of a little girl-thief that I knew once when—when the handle of the door turned and the Bishop got in, and we were off.

Oh, the little Bishop—the contrast between him and the fat, pompous rig caught me! He seemed littler and leaner than ever, his little white beard scantier, his soft eye kindlier and his soft heart {?}

"God bless my soul!" he exclaimed, jumping almost out of his neat little boots, while he looked sharply over his spectacles.

What did he see? Just a red-coated ghost dreaming in the corner of his carriage. It made him doubt his eyes—his sanity. I don't know what he'd have done if that warm red ghost hadn't got tired of dreaming and laughed outright.

"Daddy," I murmured sleepily.

Oh, that little ramrod of a bishop! The blood rushed up under his clear, thin, baby-like skin and he sat up straight and solemn and awful—awful as such a tiny bishop could be.

"I fear, Miss, you have made a mistake," he said primly.

I looked at him steadily.

"You know I haven't," I said gently.

That took some of the starch out of him, but he eyed me suspiciously.

"Why don't you ask me where I got the coat, Bishop Van Wagenen?" I said, leaning over to him.

He started. I suppose he'd just that moment remembered my leaving it behind that day at Mrs. Ramsay's.

"Lord bless me!" he cried anxiously. "You haven't—you haven't again—"

"No, I haven't." Ah, Maggie, dear, it was worth a lot to me to be able to say that "no" to him. "It was given to me. Guess who gave it to me."

He shook his head.

"My husband!"

Maggie Monahan, he didn't even blink. Perhaps in the Bishop's set husbands are not uncommon, or very likely they don't know what a husband like Fred Obermuller means.

"I congratulate you, my child, or—or did it—were you—"

"Why, I'd never seen Fred Obermuller then," I cried. "Can't you tell a difference, Bishop?" I pleaded. "Don't I look like a—an imposing married woman now? Don't I seem a bit—oh, just a bit nicer?"

His eyes twinkled as he bent to look more closely at me.

"You look—you look, my little girl, exactly like the pretty, big-eyed, wheedling-voiced child I wished to have for my own daughter."

I caught his hand in both of mine.

"Now, that's like my own, own Bishop!" I cried. Mag—Mag, he was blushing like a boy, a prim, rather scared little school-boy that somehow, yet—oh, I knew he must feel kindly to me! I felt so fond of him.

"You see, Bishop Van Wagenen," I began softly, "I never had a father and—"

"Bless me! But you told me that day you had mistaken me for—for him."

The baby! I had forgotten what that old Edward told me—that this trusting soul actually still believed all I'd told him. What was I to do? I tell you, Mag, it's no light thing to get accustomed to telling the truth. You never know where it'll lead you. Here was I—just a clever little lie or two and the dear old Bishop would be happy and contented again. But no; that fatal habit that I've acquired of telling the truth to Fred and you mastered me—and I fell.

"You know, Bishop," I said, shutting my eyes and speaking fast to get it over—as I imagine you must, Mag, when you confess to Father Phelan—"that was all a—a little farce-comedy—the whole business—all of it—every last word of it!"

"A comedy!"

I opened my eyes to laugh at him; he was so bewildered.

"I mean a—a fib; in fact, many of them. I—I was just—it was long ago—and I had to make you believe—"

His soft old eyes looked at me unbelieving. "You don't mean to say you deliberately lied!"

Now, that was what I did mean—just what I did mean—but not in that tone of voice.

But what could I do? I just looked at him and nodded.

Oh, Maggie, I felt so little and so nasty! I haven't felt like that since I left the Cruelty. And I'm not nasty, Maggie, and I'm Fred Obermuller's wife, and—

And that put a backbone in me again. Fred Obermuller's wife just won't let anybody think worse of her than she can help—from sheer love and pride in that big, clever husband of hers.

"Now, look here, Bishop Van Wagenen," I broke out, "if I were the abandoned little wretch your eyes accuse me of being I wouldn't be in your carriage confessing to you this blessed minute when it'd be so much easier not to. Surely—surely, in your experience you must have met girls that go wrong—and then go right for ever and ever, Amen. And I'm very right now. But—but it has been hard for me at times. And at those times—ah, you must know how sincerely I mean it—at those times I used to try to recall the sound of your voice, when you said you'd like to take me home with you and keep me. If I had been your daughter you'd have had a heart full of loving care for me. And yet, if I had been, and had known that benevolent fatherhood, I should need it less—so much less than I did the day I begged a prayer from you. But—it's all right now. You don't know—do you?—I'm Nance Olden."

That made him sit up and stare, I tell you. Even the Bishop had heard of Nancy Olden. But suddenly, unaccountably, there came a queer, sad look over his face, and his eyes wouldn't meet mine.

I looked at him puzzled.

"Tell me what it is," I said.

"You evidently forget that you have already told me you are the wife of Mr.—Mr. Ober—"

"Obermuller. Oh, that's all right." I laughed aloud. I was so relieved. "Of course I am, and he's my manager, and my playwright, and my secretary, and—my—my dear, dear boy. There!" I wasn't laughing at the end of it. I never can laugh when I try to tell what Fred is to me.

But—funny?—that won him.

"There! there!" he said, patting me on the shoulder. "Forgive me, my dear. I am indeed glad to know that you are living happily. I have often thought of you—"

"Oh, have you?"

"Yes—I have even told Mrs. Van Wagenen about you and how I was attracted to you and believed—ahem!"

"Oh—oh, have you!" I gave a wriggle as I remembered that Maltese lace Maria wanted and that I—ugh!

But, luckily, he didn't notice. He had taken my hand and was looking at me over his spectacles in his dear, fatherly old way.

"Tell me now, my dear, is there anything that an old clergyman can do for you? I have an engagement near here and we may not meet again. I can't hope to find you in my carriage many more times. You are happy—you are living worthily, child? Pardon me, but the stage—"

Oh, the gentle courtesy of his manner! I loved his solicitude. Father-hungry girls like us, Maggie, know how to value a thing like that.

"You know," I said slowly, "the thing that keeps a woman straight and a man faithful is not a matter of bricks and mortar nor ways of thinking nor habits of living. It's something finer and stronger than these. It's the magic taboo of her love for him and his for her that makes them—sacred. With that to guard them—why—"

"Yes, yes," he patted my hand softly. "Still, the old see the dangers of an environment that a young and impulsive woman like you, my dear, might be blind to. Your associates—"

"My associates? Oh, you've heard about Beryl Blackburn. Well—she's—she's just Beryl, you know. She wasn't made to live any different. Some people steal and some drink and some gamble and some... Well, Beryl belongs to the last class. She doesn't pretend to be better than she is. And, just between you and me, Bishop, I've more respect for a girl of that kind than for Grace Weston, whose husband is my leading man, you know. Why, she pulls the wool over his eyes and makes him the laughing-stock of the company. I can't stand her any more than I can Marie Avon, who's never without two strings—"

All at once I stopped. But wasn't it like me to spoil it all by bubbling over? I tell you, Maggie, too much truth isn't good for the Bishop's set;—they don't know how to digest it.

I was afraid that I'd lost him, for he spoke with a stately little primness as the carriage just then came to a stop; I had been so interested talking that I hadn't noticed where we were driving.

"Ah, here we are!" he said. "I must ask you to excuse me, Miss—ah, Mrs.—that is—there's a public meeting of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children this afternoon that I must attend. Good-by, then—"

"Oh, are you bound for the Cruelty, too?" I asked. "Why, so am I. And—yes—yes—that's the Cruelty!"

The Cruelty stands just where it did, Mag, when you and I first saw it; most things do in Philadelphia, you know. There's the same prim, official straight up-and-downness about the brick front. The steps don't look so steep now and the building's not so high, perhaps because of a skyscraper or two that've gone up since. But it chills your blood, Maggie darlin', just as it always did, to think what it stands for. Not man's inhumanity to man, but women's cruelty to children! Maggie, think of it, if you can, as though this were the first time you'd heard of such a thing! Would you believe it?

I waked from that to find myself marching up the stairs behind the Bishop's rigid little back. Oh, it was stiff and uncompromising! Beryl Blackburn did that for me. Poor, pretty, pagan Beryl!

My coming with the Bishop—we seemed to come together, anyway—made the people think he'd brought me, so I must be just all right. I had the man bring in the toys I'd got out in the carriage, and I handed them over to the matron, saying:

"They're for the children. I want them to have them all and now, please, to do whatever they want with them. There'll always be others. I'm going to send them right along, if you'll let me, so that those who leave can take something of their very own with them—something that never belonged to anybody else but just themselves, you understand. It's terrible, don't you know, to be a deserted child or a tortured child or a crippled child and have nothing to do but sit up in that bare, clean little room upstairs with a lot of other strangelings—and just think on the cruelty that's brought you here and the cruelty you may get into when you leave here. If I'd had a doll—if Mag had only had a set of dishes or a little tin kitchen—if the boy with the gouged eye could have had a set of tools—oh, can't you understand—"

I became conscious then that the matron—a new one, Mag, ours is gone—was staring at me, and that the people stood around listening as though I'd gone mad.

Who came to my rescue? Why, the Bishop, like the manly little fellow he is. He forgave me even Beryl in that moment.

"It's Nance Olden, ladies," he said, with a dignified little wave of his hand that served for an introduction. "She begins her Philadelphia engagement to-night in And the Greatest of These."

Oh, I'm used to it now, Maggie, but I do like it. All the lady-swells buzzed about me, and there Nance stood preening herself and crowing softly till—till from among the bunch of millinery one of them stepped up to me. She had a big smooth face with plenty of chins. Her hair was white and her nose was curved and she rustled in silk and—

It was Mrs. Dowager Diamonds, alias Henrietta, alias Mrs. Edward Ramsay!

"Clever! My, how clever!" she exclaimed, as though the sob in my voice that I couldn't control had been a bit of acting.

She was feeling for her glasses. When she got them and hooked them on her nose and got a good look at me—why, she just dropped them with a smash upon the desk.

I looked for a minute from her to the Bishop.

"I remember you very well, Mrs. Ramsay. I hope you haven't forgotten me. I've often wanted to thank you for your kindness," I said slowly, while she as slowly recovered. "I think you'll be glad to know that I am thoroughly well-cured. Shall I tell Mrs. Ramsay how, Bishop?"

I put it square up to him. And he met it like the little man he is—perhaps, too, my bit of charity to the Cruelty children had pleased him.

"I don't think it will be necessary, Miss Olden," he said gently. "I can do that for you at some future time."

And I could have hugged him; but I didn't dare.

We had tea there in the Board rooms. Oh, Mag, remember how we used to peep into those awful, imposing Board rooms! Remember how strange and resentful you felt—like a poor little red-haired nigger up at the block—when you were brought in there to be shown to the woman who'd called to adopt you!

It was all so strange that I had to keep talking to keep from dreaming. I was talking away to the matron and the Bishop about the play-room I'm going to fit up out of that bare little place upstairs. Perhaps the same child doesn't stay there very long, but there'll always be children to fill it—more's the cruel pity!

Then the Bishop and I climbed up there to see it and plan about it. But I couldn't really see it, Mag, nor the poor, white-faced, wise-eyed little waifs that have succeeded us, for the tears in my eyes and the ache at my heart and the queer trick the place has of being peopled with you and me, and the boy with the gouged eye, and the cripple, and the rest.

He put his gentle thin old arm about my shoulders for a moment when he saw what was the matter with me. Oh, he understands, my Bishop! And then we turned to go downstairs.

"Oh—I want—I want to do something for them," I cried. "I want to do something that counts, that's got a heart in it, that knows! You knew, didn't you, it was true—what I said downstairs? I was—I am a Cruelty girl. Help me to help others like me."

"My dear," he said, very stately and sweet, "I'll be proud to be your assistant. You've a kind, true heart and—"

And just at that minute, as I was preceding him down the narrow steps, a girl in a red coat trimmed with chinchilla and in a red toque with some of the same fur blocked our way as she was coming up.

We looked at each other. You've seen two peacocks spread their tails and strut as they pass each other? Well, the peacock coming up wasn't in it with the one going down. Her coat wasn't so fine, nor so heavy, nor so newly, smartly cut. Her toque wasn't so big nor so saucy, and the fur on it—not to mention that the descending peacock was a brunette and ... well, Mag, I had my day. Miss Evelyn Kingdon paid me back in that minute for all the envy I've spent on that pretty rig of hers.

She didn't recognize me, of course, even though the two red coats were so near, as she stopped to let me pass, that they kissed like sisters, ere they parted. But, Mag, Nancy Olden never got haughty that there wasn't a fall waiting for her. Back of Miss Kingdon stood Mrs. Kingdon—still Mrs. Kingdon, thanks to Nance Olden—and behind her, at the foot of the steps, was a frail little old-fashioned bundle of black satin and old lace. I lost my breath when the Bishop hailed his wife.

"Maria," he said—some men say their wives' first names all the years of their lives as they said them on their wedding-day—"I want you to meet Miss Olden—Nance Olden, the comedian. She's the girl I wanted for my daughter—you'll remember, it's more than a year ago now since I began to talk about her?"

I held my breath while I waited for her answer. But her poor, short-sighted eyes rested on my hot face without a sign.

"It's an old joke among us," she said pleasantly, "about the Bishop's daughter."

We stood there and chatted, and the Bishop turned away to speak to Mrs. Kingdon. Then I seized my chance.

"I've heard, Mrs. Van Wagenen," I said softly and oh, as nicely as I could, "of your fondness for lace. We are going abroad in the spring, my husband and I, to Malta, among other places. Can't I get you a piece there as a souvenir of the Bishop's kindness to me?"

Her little lace-mittened, parchment-like hands clasped and unclasped with an almost childish eagerness.

"Oh, thank you, thank you very much; but if you would give the same sum to charity—"

"I will," I laughed. She couldn't guess how glad I was to do this thing. "And I'll spend just as much on your lace and be so happy if you'll accept it."

I promised Henrietta a box for to-night, Maggie, and one to Mrs. Kingdon. The Dowager told me she'd love to come, though her husband is out of town, unfortunately, she said.

"But you'll come with me, won't you, Bishop?" she said, turning to him. "And you, Mrs. Van?"

The Bishop blushed. Was he thinking of Beryl, I wonder. But I didn't hear his answer, for it was at that moment that I caught Fred's voice. He had told me he was going to call for me. I think he fancied that the old Cruelty would depress me—as dreams of it have, you know; and he wanted to come and carry me away from it, just as at night, when I've waked shivering and moaning, I've felt his dear arms lifting me out of the black night-memory of it.

But it was anything but a doleful Nance he found and hurried down the snowy steps out to a hansom and off to rehearsal. For the Bishop had said to me, "God bless you, child," when he shook hands with both of us at parting, and the very Cruelty seemed to smile a grim benediction, as we drove off together, on Fred and

NANCY O.

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