In the Bishop's Carriage Part 36

"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 a.s.sociates--"

"My a.s.sociates? 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 cla.s.s. 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 skysc.r.a.per 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 gla.s.ses. 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 n.i.g.g.e.r 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 a.s.sistant. 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 peac.o.c.ks spread their tails and strut as they pa.s.s each other? Well, the peac.o.c.k 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 peac.o.c.k 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 pa.s.s, 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, "G.o.d 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