In the Bishop's Carriage Part 2

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. h.e.l.lo, 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.

Well, I did. While the Dowager's back was turned, I gave him the littlest one, in return for his. It made him drunker than ever.

"I think," said the Bishop, grimly, with a significant glance at the Dowager, as he turned just then and saw the old c.o.c.k ogling me, "the young lady is wiser than we. I'll take her to the station--"

The station! Ugh! Not Nance Olden, with the red coat still on.

"Impossible, my dear Bishop," interrupted the Dowager. "She can't be permitted to go back on the train alone."

"Why, Miss--Miss Murieson, I'll see you back all the way to the college door. Not at all, not at all. Charmed. First, we'll have dinner--or, first I'll telephone out there and tell 'em you're with us, so that if there's any rule or anything of that sort--"

The telephone! This wretched Edward with half his wits gave me more trouble than the Bishop and the Dowager put together. She jumped at the idea, and left the room, only to come back again to whisper to me:

"What name, my dear?"

"What name? what name?" I repeated blankly. What name, indeed. I wonder how "Nance Olden" would have done.

"Don't hurry, dear, don't perplex yourself," she whispered anxiously, noting my bewilderment. "There's plenty of time, and it makes no difference--not a particle, really."

I put my hand to my head.

"I can't think--I can't think. There's one girl has nervous prostration, and her name's got mixed with mine, and I can't--"

"Hush, hus.h.!.+ Never mind. You shall come and lie down in my room.

You'll stay with us to-night, anyway, and we'll have a doctor in, Bishop."

"That's right," a.s.sented the Bishop. "I'll go get him myself."

"You--you're not going!" I cried in dismay. It was real. I hated to see him go.

"Nonsense--'phone." It was Edward who went himself to telephone for the doctor, and I saw my time getting short.

But the Bishop had to go, anyway. He looked out at his horses s.h.i.+vering in front of the house, and the sight hurried him.

"My child," he said, taking my hand, "just let Mrs. Ramsay take care of you to-night. Don't bother about anything, but just rest. I'll see you in the morning," he went on, noticing that I kind of clung to him.

Well, I did. "Can't you remember what I said to you in the carriage--that I wished you were my daughter. I wish you were, indeed I do, and that I could take you home with me and keep you, child."

"Then--to-night--if--when you pray--will you pray for me as if I was--your own daughter?"

Tom Dorgan, you think no prayers but a priest's are any good, you bigoted, snickering Catholic! I tell you if some day I cut loose from you and start in over again, it'll be the Bishop's prayers that'll do it.

The Dowager and I pa.s.sed Edward in the ball. He gave me a look behind her back, and I gave him one to match it. Just practice, you know, Tom. A girl can never know when she'll want to be expert in these things.

She made me lie down on a couch while she turned the lamp low, and then left me alone in a big palace of a bedroom filled with things. And I wanted everything I saw. If I could, I'd have lifted everything in sight.

But every minute brought that doctor nearer. Soon as I could be really sure she was gone, I got up, and, hurrying to the long French windows that opened on the great stone piazza, I unfastened them quietly, and inch by inch I pushed them open.

There within ten feet of me stood Edward. No escape that way. He saw me, and was tiptoeing heavily toward me, when I heard the door click behind me, and in walked the Dowager back again.

I flew to her.

"I thought I heard some one out there," I said.

"It frightened me so that I got up to look. n.o.body could be out there, could they?"

She walked to the window and put her head out. Her lips tightened grimly.

"No, n.o.body could be out there," she said, breathing hard, "but you might get nervous just thinking there might be. We'll go to a room upstairs."