In the Bishop's Carriage Part 35

"G.o.d 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 blus.h.i.+ng 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--"