THE BISHOP’S STORY

Sunday morning Judge Harrison and Janeway played golf at the Country Club.

“Mrs. Durand tells me she is going to Italy,” said Janeway, while the two men, sitting on a bench, were waiting at a tee.

Judge Harrison, watching with contemplative interest the teeing of a ball by a player ahead, made no comment on the remark. “Why any sane woman,” continued Janeway, in the absence of response, “should want to get into that mess, I can’t imagine. Has she said anything to you about it?” he asked, when there was still no comment.

Grizzled and thin in his jersey, the Judge spoke with reluctance, but as if of something that had to be faced. “She told me last night. I’m sorry, of course,” he went on. “I said what I could to dissuade her; guess it’s no use. Louise is sane enough, as far as that goes; she’s too sane--that’s part of the difficulty. The fact simply is, Bob is a pretty free-liver. I don’t pry into his affairs, but I guess he usually has some woman on the string. Louise isn’t used to that kind of thing; it doesn’t set well with her. Just recently I understand it’s a woman that used to live here, named Montgomery. I imagine the reason Louise is going away is because she and Bob have agreed to disagree.

“No use,” continued the Judge. “When things get that bad, if a woman’s sensitive and high-strung, it’s better to quit. Your honor, Janeway. What did I make this hole in before?”

So many things were to be discussed by the two men concerning the legal affairs of which Janeway was to take hold for the Durand Companies, that Janeway spent most of the week at Eagles Nest. Tuesday afternoon the Judge and he played golf again. On their way home they drove around by Gertrude Durand’s, to pick up Mrs. Harrison.

Gertrude lived in the old Durand home. The house had been built by her father when he went to Fond du Lac to live; it represented a period in the progressive story of Fond du Lac architecture when towers were the distinctive feature of the few so-called rich men’s houses. A tower in the design of a pretentious Fond du Lac residence was as inevitable as a steeple on a Fond du Lac church, and the Durand tower, being the aggressive expression of the biggest man to come to town during the tower obsession, was a little worse than its earlier and less elaborate neighbors.

But the house was comfortable. The high ceilings were a difficulty and the extravagant panelling was an eyesore, but Gertrude was, first of all, loyal to the old home. She had time and taste and ample means, and spent all three earnestly in successive campaigns of what her Uncle Sidney termed “remuddeling” her father’s house.

The golfers, entering Gertrude’s living-room, found the bazaar meeting ended and tea being served to the committee, which included, among others, Louise and Bishop Marion, who seemed, not very successfully, trying to make his escape when Harrison and Janeway arrived. Heartened by the coming of two more men, the Bishop took fresh courage and fell to talking with Judge Harrison. Janeway sat down by Mrs. Harrison.

“You remember Bishop Marion, of course,” said Mrs. Harrison to Janeway.

“Very well,” returned Janeway, “though I haven’t seen him for some time. When he came to Fond du Lac I was living here.”

“We are all fond of his sister. She keeps house for him, you know,” continued Mrs. Harrison. “They are from the East, I believe.”

“No, the South,” said Janeway. “He was sent to this part of the country originally for his health. He’s not really rugged yet, but it seems to have built him up. He comes from South Carolinian stock, the Legarés--the ‘fighting Legarés’; there was a considerable Huguenot element, he has told me, in South Carolina.”

“From the fighting Legarés!” exclaimed Mrs. Harrison. “Then he has degenerated, for he’s the mildest-mannered man in the world.”

“Don’t be deceived,” observed Janeway. “The fighting qualities may be under discipline, but they’re there. He made a good client.”

Mrs. Harrison asked questions about the Legarés. Janeway gave her what he could, even to speculating as to whether Mrs. Stowe took her name for Simon Legree from the famous Carolinian family. But Janeway had more than the Legarés on his mind, and when he could, got nearer to Louise.

She stood at that moment talking on the edge of the circle to which Janeway had been introduced. The lines of her figure profited by the simplicity of a tailored costume and a turban heightened by an aigrette, and she stood so erect that even her head and shoulders added to the impression of decision conveyed by her eyes. It was only as she sat down, at his request, that Janeway noticed how well her slender ankles matched her well-shaped feet.

“I see you are going,” he remarked abruptly and no more loudly than necessary, but in a tone intimating reproach.

She looked at him in mild surprise. “What do you mean? How can you ‘see’?” she demanded.

“It’s written,” he responded, with leisurely confidence. “You look trim as a baby battleship already.”

“I don’t know what a ‘baby battleship’ looks like,” she smiled, “but I wish I felt like some sort of a fighting craft. I’ve been having a touch of what you men call ‘cold feet’ about venturing abroad. But I’m going.”

“I was sure you were,” he declared, in amiable banter; “no one ever takes my advice.”

“Oh!” she protested, lifting her eyebrows as she looked at him. “How can that be? I hear that many people _seek_ your advice.”

“Not quite the same thing, but no matter; I want to inflict at least a suggestion on you.”

“That’s very kind.”

“But may I?”

“I’m in a mood to listen to anything. Of course, you mustn’t tell me I can’t go.”

“It’s the submarines, and I’ve been wanting to tell you----”

“Thinking of my danger?”

“Of you and your danger,” he retorted. “But on your part you mustn’t make fun of me. There is a line of French steamers running from New York to the Mediterranean; I don’t know the name of it at the moment, but I can get it for you. You are going to Italy--take that line. Those steamers are not molested by submarines.”

“How extraordinary!” she exclaimed, with wide-open eyes. “How can _that_ be?”

“It is the line of travel to and from Rome, kept open for those whose necessities take them to and from the Vatican. I imagine the Germans dare not sink those boats--or do not; they have rows enough on their hands as it is.”

Louise drew a long breath. “Well,” she said, with relief, “that should prove a very valuable suggestion. Will you really let me know about it?”

He was ready to continue the conversation, but she turned to ask an irrelevant question of Gertrude. Gertrude was talking with the Bishop, and now took occasion to tell Janeway that Bishop Marion had spoken that afternoon before the Woman’s Club.

“What did you talk to the women about?” asked Janeway of the Bishop.

“He gave us a perfectly wonderful talk,” declared Gertrude.

“I don’t know how palatable it was,” said the Bishop, “but the ladies were kind enough to receive it politely. I ventured to call attention to what I conceive to be the debt woman owes to Christianity; I reminded them of a few of her tribulations before our Christian era, and of some of the things Christianity has done to relieve her of them and to elevate her in her relation to men; how our Divine Lord, in choosing the Blessed Virgin for His mother, had set up a new type of womanhood and motherhood. And how innocently ungrateful it seemed to me for women nowadays--enjoying the privileges and liberties Christianity has brought them--to march up and down the land abusing Christianity, which they do in the most irresponsible manner possible. I referred to what Christianity had done to keep our women from living in Moslem harems. I recalled how a saint and a pope, aided only by Venice and Spain, with France and England very deaf to his appeals, had organized the defense of Europe at a time when the Turk was well on his road to overwhelm it. I spoke of the battle of Lepanto----”

“New ‘stuff’ for a woman’s club,” suggested Harrison.

“But I brought it up to date,” continued the Bishop, apologetically, “by linking it with Chesterton’s poem, and I only instanced that the Gulf of Lepanto was the point at which was once decided the question as to whether Europe should be Christian or Moslem; and ventured to add,” he continued, with delicate emphasis, “that east of Lepanto there still are no women’s clubs.”

“But, Bishop,” exclaimed Gertrude, “I can’t imagine who inflicted that awful woman on us to talk on divorce after you, or, rather, at you.”

“It was only that she wanted very much to bring me to her way of thinking,” suggested the Bishop composedly.

“Why, she positively ranted,” said Louise.

“I didn’t mind that much,” said Bishop Marion, “but I confess I’m always sorry to hear a woman defending the divorce and remarriage evils of to-day. It isn’t that it’s so revolting; but it always seems to me, when I think of what Christ has done for woman, like biting the hand that feeds you. Of course, they do it without realizing what they do.”

Judge Harrison spoke from his corner. “The only objection I have to this divorce business is that it throws too many cold-storage women on the market. I’ve got a client now with two daughters--fine girls. He claims he can’t get ’em married; the second-hand females grab off the boys.”

“Don’t be too hard on the poor women, Judge,” rejoined the Bishop. “They are the prime sufferers through divorce. Humanly speaking, I sometimes feel I might be reconciled to irresponsible divorce and equally irresponsible remarriage, if woman could be benefited by it. I think my own Lawgiver had it in mind that they could not, when he restricted men in this regard. He saw what any intelligent man may now see, that woman is the victim and man the sorry profiteer by the divorce court. Small wonder that after being preyed upon these unfortunates turn again to prey on men.”

Louise listened intently.

“Bishop, you’re too soft-hearted,” interposed Mrs. Harrison. “You haven’t had enough experience with women.” While Bishop Marion looked in subdued humor at Mrs. Harrison, Judge Harrison spoke again.

“Janeway ought to be able to give us points on this,” said he. “Have you found divorcées troublesome, Janeway?”

“I agree with Bishop Marion whenever I can,” remarked Janeway diplomatically. “I certainly agree with him,” he added, with characteristic emphasis, “that woman is the divorce victim in the great run of cases. Woman is naturally more decent than man. There are a few innocent women that profit by release from a brute; there are also female vampires that profit by divorce, because it extends the scope of their operations; the divorce court is to them what a bank is to a business man. These creatures get their line of credit--such as it is--from our divorce courts, and transact their business of ‘vamping’ under legal auspices.

“But excluding these two classes and coming to the great majority of cases, divorce is now only a legalized means of wife desertion, and our unfortunate girls are its victims.

“Our poor boys are in just as bad a way,” objected Harrison. “This client with the daughters is a railroad executive. He has a son also. ‘If I send him to college,’ he says to me, ‘a lot of half-baked professors--gas-bags that couldn’t earn an honest living outside of an endowed institution--will make a Socialist of him. There’s no use trying to make a business man of him; business to-day, if it’s anything more than running a peanut stand, is discreditable. An American business man, if his turnover reaches a million, is looked on as a thief.’”

“You know, Bishop,” interposed Gertrude, “I’m just a hot-blooded little pagan, but I really did appreciate every word you said. And he had a most wonderful woman there with him and his sister, as a guest,” she continued, speaking with characteristic energy to Janeway. “I wish you could have met her. By the way,” she added, looking accusingly at the Bishop, “you said she had a story, and you promised to tell it.”

“You mean Miss Virginia Hampton? Her story _is_ unusual,” said the Bishop.

“At the beginning of the French Revolution,” he continued, “a French noblewoman, the Countess de Large, found herself stranded in the Netherlands. Europe was seething over the outbreak in France, and the Countess conceived it to be her duty to rejoin her sovereigns in Paris. She had been a favorite at the French court, and the Princess de Lamballe, companion of Marie Antoinette, had been godmother to her daughter and only child, a little girl of six. By the time the Countess reached Paris, the flames had so spread that she found she would be very fortunate if she could get out of France with her head on her shoulders. After much hardship and difficulty and by bribing the mistress of Talleyrand with a necklace worth a king’s ransom, the Countess got a permit to leave France. Accompanied by a faithful maid and her little girl, she made her way in constant peril to Marseilles; there she arranged for passage on a ship to North America.

“The flight across the harbor to the ship had to be made at night. In the darkness and confusion, among other escaping refugees, a tragedy occurred: the maid and the little girl, put into one boat, were taken to the ship for Boston. The Countess, in another boat, was put aboard a French ship bound for the Brazils.

“This French ship, on its way to South America, was captured by a Spanish cruiser--Spain being then at war with France. The Countess, as a passenger and an emigrée of distinction, was treated with the utmost consideration, and placed by the Spanish court in the care of the Countess of Montijo, mother, by the way, of the ex-Empress Eugénie.

“The Countess de Large, overwhelmed by the loss of her child, remained for years with her protectors in Spain. The maid in charge of the little girl reached Boston, but without being able to speak one word of English or knowing a soul in the whole of North America. She proved, however, a remarkably resourceful maid, and turning to a trade she had learned in her youth, she opened a millinery shop; with her earnings she thus provided for her young charge and herself. When the little one reached school age, the maid-milliner sent her to the best private school in Boston, where one of her school-mates was Theodosia, daughter of Aaron Burr.

“Meantime things were happening in France. Ten years had elapsed and Napoleon was firmly in the saddle. Wishing to add lustre to his rather miscellaneous court, he invited the exiles of the French nobility to return to France, and the Countess de Large, aged by her troubles, returned to Paris. The alert little Boston milliner got wind of what was doing, and, converting her resources, made arrangements to return with her charge, now a girl of sixteen, to France. So effective was her diplomacy that she got the little girl and herself under the wing of the Minister we were then sending to the French court--John Jay. Minister Jay numbered in his diplomatic suite a young man from Charleston, South Carolina, son of a distinguished Revolutionary general, after whom Fort Sumter was named. You remember, Judge, we had two able men in South Carolina in Revolutionary times--Marion, the Swamp Fox, taking his nickname from the theatre of his operations along the coast--and not an ancestor of mine, by the way--and Sumter, operating in the hills. Sumter was known as the Game Cock.

“On the voyage young Sumter fell violently in love with the youthful aristocrat, but her chaperon held him sternly aloof. On reaching Paris, to the joy of all concerned, the Countess de Large and her daughter were reunited. Young Sumter pressed his suit. There were differences in religion to be considered, but these were not prohibitive. It was, however, a matter of the gravest concern to the Countess de Large to ascertain just who the Sumters were in South Carolina. Some of the French letters making these inquiries are in the hands of her descendants in Charleston to-day. The two were married.

“Sumter, advancing in the diplomatic service, was in time sent as our Minister to Brazil. There a daughter was born to the Sumters; she was named Brazilia Sumter. Brazilia, in due time, married a gentleman of a Carolinian family, to whom she bore a number of daughters. These children came along during and after the time that our Civil War had laid waste to the South. The family, as all our families, was reduced to new and disastrous straits. But, like brave Southern women, three of these sisters set about to earn their living and take a place in the new world about them. They started a girls’ school in Washington and made a complete success of their undertaking. The youngest sister, now retiring, having saved up from her years of hard work and devotion to the training of American gentlewomen, a little capital, now plans to take it to the relief of her distressed French relatives--whom none of the American branch now living has ever seen--and to give herself--literally--for she will undertake the hardest kind of nursing and, I fear, never come back--to the cause of France. This is Miss Virginia Hampton, whom you saw with my sister this afternoon,” explained the Bishop to Gertrude. “They would both have been here with me, but for passport exigencies that took them to Chicago on the five-o’clock train.”

“What a splendid woman,” murmured Louise intensely.

“And going to brave the submarines!” exclaimed Gertrude.

“She will accompany me and my sister on my _ad limina_ visit to Rome. And from Italy we can get her into France.”

Of all the listeners in the Bishop’s circle Louise seemed most absorbed. The party was breaking up. Conversation became general, but Louise sought the side of the Bishop and kept close to him. Leaving, she managed to engage him for a moment apart. “You are going to Italy, Bishop Marion?”

“In about a fortnight, Mrs. Durand.”

“You are taking your sister and a friend?”

“Yes.”

“Bishop Marion, I want to ask a very great favor--may I, too, go with you?”

He mastered his complete surprise with another question. “You are not serious?”

“Quite serious, Bishop Marion.”

“You don’t really mean you are going to Italy?”

“I certainly am.”

“But your passport? You know they are impossible to get, either to France or Italy, except under the gravest showing, and then only after interminable delays.”

She faced him quite collectedly and with the utmost determination reflected in her bearing. “Mr. Simms is attending to that. He gets anything we need from Washington,” she smiled. “And just now, when I heard you say you and your sister and Miss Hampton were going! I can’t tell you,” she exclaimed, “how I felt. It just seemed like a special Providence!” He perceived the restraint she spoke under--he saw how deeply she was moved; it was written all over her manner. “‘What an opportunity,’ I said to myself!” She spoke rapidly on. “If I may go with you--I mean, provided, of course, it would be agreeable to the ladies, after you have talked with them--it will be the greatest kindness you could possibly do me.”

“Indeed,” declared the Bishop, recovering from his astonishment, “I shall be greatly pleased to have you join our party. And I think I can safely speak for my sister and our guest. I will let you hear from me to-morrow. But your passage,” he asked, in perplexity. “Can you possibly secure it now?”

No difficulty gave her any pause. “I will manage all that--somehow--if only I may go.”