THE WHITE LADY
"I feel in a gay mood," said Nan, as she clasped Patty round the waist,
and always ready for a dance, Patty fell into step, and the two waltzed
round the room, while Patty sang tum-te-tum to the air of a popular song.
"As if you two ever felt any other way!" exclaimed Mr. Fairfield, smiling
at them from the depths of his easy chair. "But what does this gay mood
betoken? I suppose you want to drag me out to the theatre or opera
to-night."
Mr. Fairfield's pleasant smile belied his pretense at sharpness, and he
waited to hear a reply.
"That would be lovely," said Nan, "and we'll go if you invite us. But
what I had in mind is this: I'd like to dine in the Restaurant."
"Good!" cried Mr. Fairfield. "I feel gay enough for that, myself, and we
haven't dined there for nearly a week."
The Fairfields had a complete apartment of their own, and when not
invited out, usually dined quietly in their own dining-room. But
occasionally, when the mood took them, they dined in the great Savoy
Restaurant, which was a festive pageant indeed.
Patty loved to sit at a table there, and watch the beautiful women in
their elaborate gowns, and their handsome, stalwart escorts, who were
sometimes in brave uniforms.
The splendid scene would have palled upon them, had they dined there
every evening, but as a change from their small family dinner it was
delightful.
"We'll wear our dress-up frocks," said Patty, "and perhaps my White Lady
will be there again."
"Your White Lady?" asked Nan. "Who is she?"
"That's just what I can't find out, though I've asked several people. But
she's the most beautiful lady, with a haughty, proud face, and sad eyes.
She always wears white, and there's an elderly lady who is sometimes with
her. A strange-looking old lady in black, she is; and her face is like a
hawk's."
"Oh, I remember those people; they always sit at the same table." "Yes, I
think they live here. But she is so sweet and lovely I'd like to know
her. I make up stories about her all to myself. She's like Ginevra or the
Lady of Shalott."
"You're too fanciful, Patty. Probably she's the Duchess of Hardscrabble."
"She looks like a Duchess, anyway. And also, she looks like a simple,
sweet, lovely lady. I'm going to ask father to find out who she is."
A little later the Fairfields went down to dinner.
Nan wore an exquisite gown of embroidered yellow satin, and Patty wore a
frilled white silk muslin. It was a little low at the throat, and was
very becoming to her, and in and out of her piled-up curls was twisted a
broad white ribbon, which ended in front in a saucy cluster of bows,
after the prevailing fashion.
"This is great fun," said Patty, as she took her seat with a little sigh
of content. "I just love the lights and flowers and music and noise----"
"Can you distinguish the music from the noise?" asked her father,
laughing.
"I can if I try, but I don't care whether I do or not. I love the whole
conglomeration of sounds. People laughing and talking, and a sort of
undertone of glass and china and waiters."
"That sounds graphic," said Nan, "but the waiters here aren't supposed to
make any noise."
"No, I know it, but they're just part of the whole scene, and it's all
beautiful together. Oh, there's my White Lady!"
It was indeed a charming young woman who was just entering the room. She
was tall and very slender, with a face serene and sweet. Her large, dark
eyes had a look of resignation, rather than sadness, but the firm set of
her scarlet lips did not betoken an easily-resigned nature.
With her was the elder lady of whom Patty had spoken. She was
sharp-featured and looked as if she were sharp-tempered. She wore a
rather severe evening gown of black net, and in her gray hair was a
quivering black aigrette.
In contrast to this dark figure, the younger lady looked specially fair
and sweet. Her trailing gown was of heavy white lace, and round her
beautiful throat were two long strings of pearls. She wore no other
ornament save for a white flower in her hair, and her shoulders and arms
were almost as white as the soft tulle that billowed against them.
It chanced that Mr. Fairfield's table was quite near the one usually
occupied by these two, and Patty watched the White Lady, without seeming
to stare at her.
"Isn't she exquisite?" she said, at last, for they were not within
earshot, and Nan agreed that she was.
As the dinner proceeded, Patty glanced often at the lady of her
admiration, and after a time was surprised and a little embarrassed to
find that the White Lady was glancing at her.
Fearing she had stared more frankly than she realised, Patty refrained
from looking at the lady again, and resolutely kept her eyes turned in
other directions.
But as if drawn by a magnet, she felt impelled to look at her once more,
and giving a quick glance, she saw the White Lady distinctly smiling at
her. There was no mistake, it was a kind, amused little smile of a most
friendly nature.
Patty was enchanted, and the warm blood rushed to her cheeks as if she
had been singled out for a great honour. But frankly, and without
embarrassment, she smiled back at the lovely face, and returned the
pleased little nod that was then given her.
"Patty, what _are_ you doing?" said Nan; "do you see any one you know?"
"No," said Patty, slowly, almost as one in a dream, "my White Lady smiled
at me,--that's all,--so I smiled back at her, and then we bowed."
"You mustn't do such things," said Nan, half smiling herself, "she'll
think you're a forward American."
"I am an American," replied Patty, "and I'd be sorry to be called
backward."
"You never will be," said her father. "Well, I suppose you may smile at
her, if she smiles first, but don't begin sending her anonymous notes."
"Nonsense," said Patty, "but you two don't know how lovely she is when
she smiles."
Mr. and Mrs. Fairfield were seated with their backs to the lady in
question, and could not see her without slightly turning their heads,
while Patty, opposite them at the round table, faced her directly.
"You're fortunate in your position," observed her father, "for were you
seated here and we there, of course she would have beamed upon us."
"She isn't beaming," cried Patty, almost indignantly; "I won't have that
angelic smile called a beam. Now, you're not to tease. She's a sweet,
dear lady, with some awful tragedy gnawing at her heart."
"Patty, you're growing up romantic! Stop it at once. I'll buy the lady
for you, if you want her, but I won't have you indulging in rubbishy
romance like that, with nothing to base it on."
Patty looked at her father comically.
"I don't believe you'd better buy her, Daddy, dear," she said. "You know
you often say that, with Nan and me on your hands, you have all you can
manage. So I'm sure you couldn't add those two to your collection; for I
feel certain wherever the White Lady goes the Black Lady goes too."
The subject was lost sight of then, by the greetings of some friends who
were passing by the Fairfields on their way out of the Restaurant.
"Why, Mrs. Leigh," exclaimed Nan, "how do you do? Won't you and Mr. Leigh
sit down and have coffee with us? Or, better yet, suppose we all go up to
our drawing-room and have coffee there."
After Patty had spoken to the newcomers and was sitting silent while her
elders were talking, she looked up in surprise as a waiter approached
her. He laid a long-stemmed white rose beside her plate, and said,
quietly, "From Lady Hamilton, Miss."
Involuntarily, Patty glanced at the White Lady, and seeing her smile,
knew at once that she had sent the rose.
As Patty explained the presence of the flower to the others, Mrs. Leigh
glanced across, and said: "Oh, that's Lady Hamilton! Excuse me, I must
speak to her just a moment."
"Who is Lady Hamilton?" asked Nan of Mr. Leigh, unable longer to repress
her interest.
"One of the best and most beautiful women in London," he replied. "One of
the most indifferent, and the most sought after; one of the richest, and
the saddest; one of the most popular, and the loneliest."
All this seemed enough to verify Patty's surmises of romance connected
with the White Lady, but before she could ask a question, Mrs. Leigh
returned, and Lady Hamilton came with her. After introductions and a few
words of greeting, Lady Hamilton said to Mr. Fairfield: "I wonder if you
couldn't be induced to lend me your daughter for an hour or so. I will do
my best to entertain her."
"Indeed, yes, Lady Hamilton; and I think you will find her quite ready to
be borrowed. You seemed to cast a magic spell over her, even before she
knew your name."
"I must confess that I have been wanting to meet her; I have searched
this room in vain for some mutual friend who might introduce us, but
until I saw Mrs. Leigh over here, I could find no one. Then, to attract
Mrs. Leigh's attention, in hope of her helping me, I sent over a signal
of distress."
"I took it as a flag of truce," said Patty, holding up the white rose as
it trembled on its stem.
"I thought it was a cipher message," said Nan, smiling. "Patty is so fond
of puzzles and secret languages, I wasn't sure but it might mean 'All is
discovered; fly at once!'"
"It means 'all is well'," said Lady Hamilton, in her gracious way; "and
now I must fly at once with my spoil."
She took possession of Patty, and with a few words of adieu to the
others, led her from the room. The lady in black rose from the table and
followed them, and Patty entered the lift, blissfully happy, but a little
bewildered.
"We'll have our coffee right here," said Lady Hamilton, as having reached
her drawing-room, she proceeded to adjust some dainty gilt cups that
stood on a small table. "That is, if you are allowed to have coffee at
night. From your roseleaf cheeks, I fancy you drink only honeydew or
buttercup tea."
"No, indeed; I'm far too substantial for those things," said Patty, as
she dropped into the cosy chair Lady Hamilton had indicated; "and for
over a year now, I've been allowed to have after-dinner coffee."
"Dear me! what a grown-up! Miss Fairfield, this is Mrs. Betham, my very
good friend, who looks after me when I get frisky and try to scrape
acquaintance across a public dining-room."
If Lady Hamilton was lovely when she was silent, she was doubly
bewitching when she talked in this gay strain. Little dimples came and
went in her cheeks, so quickly that they had scarcely disappeared before
they were back again.
Mrs. Betham bowed and spoke politely to Patty, but her voice was quick
and sharp, and her manner, though courteous, was not attractive.
"I doubt the coffee's hot," she said, as a waiter, who had just brought
it in, was filling the tiny cups.
"It's steaming," said Lady Hamilton, gaily, and Patty saw at once that
whatever it was that made her new friend sorrowful, it was not the
grumbling tones of Mrs. Betham.
"It's quite too hot, Julia," she went on; "unless you're careful, you'll
steam your throat."
"Not I," growled Mrs. Betham. "I'm not such a stupid as that. But I must
say I like my coffee at a table like a Christian, and not setting my cup
in my lap, or holding it up in the air."
"Dear me, Julia," said Lady Hamilton, with great solicitude expressed on
her face; "dear me, your gout must be very bad to-night. It makes you
quite cross. Poor dear!"
Mrs. Betham sniffed at this, but a grim smile came into her eyes, and
Patty concluded she was not quite so grumpy as she seemed.
After the coffee was finished, and the tray taken away, Mrs. Betham
excused herself and went off to her own room.
"The way it began," said Lady Hamilton, as if to explain her interest in
Patty, "was one day when I went through the corridors and passed your
drawing-room, and the door was a little mite ajar, and I heard you
singing. I am very fond of just that high, sweet kind of voice that you
have, and I paused a few moments to listen to you. Then afterward I saw
you in the dining-room two or three times at luncheon or dinner, and I
took a fancy to know you, for I felt sure I should like you. Do you mind
coming to see me once in a while, my dear? I am very lonely."
"Mind! No, indeed!" cried Patty, impetuously throwing her arms around her
new friend. "I loved you the first time I ever saw you. But why do you
say you are lonely? You, a great lady."
"I will tell you my story in a few words," said Lady Hamilton. "For I
suppose you would hear it from others, and I would rather tell it you
myself. I am the daughter of Sir Otho Markleham. Of course, if you were a
Londoner, you would know all this, but as you're not, I'll tell you.
Well, I am Sir Otho's only daughter, and four years ago, when I was just
eighteen, I ran away from home and married Lord Cecil Hamilton. He was a
good man, but he had quarrelled with my father on a point of politics,
and my father disapproved of the match. He disowned me as his daughter,
though he said he would always continue the allowance I had had as a
girl. I was glad of this, not only because Lord Hamilton, though a man of
good fortune, was not a wealthy man, but also because it seemed to show
my father had not entirely cast me off. But he forbade us to go to his
house, and we went to Paris and lived there for a year. After one year of
happy married life Cecil died, and since then my only aim in life has
been to be reconciled to my father. But he will not have it, or at least
he won't have it unless I make the first overtures toward peace."
"And won't you?" cried Patty, in astonishment.
"Not I! I am not to blame. The two men quarrelled, and now that Cecil is
gone, why should my father hold the feud against me? It is not my place
to ask his pardon; I've done nothing wrong."
"You ran away from home," said Patty, thinking only of the justice of the
case, and quite forgetting that she was seeming to censure a titled
English lady.
"Yes, but that was not wrong. Father knew that Cecil was a fine,
honourable man, of an old family. He had no right to forbid my marriage
because of a foolish personal disagreement."
"Your mother?" said Patty.
"My mother died when I was a child," said Lady Hamilton, and at once
Patty felt a new bond of companionship.
"I lived alone with my father, in our great house in London, and I had a
happy and uneventful life, until Cecil came. Since his death, I've longed
so to go home to my father, and be at peace with him, but though many
kind friends have tried to bring about a reconciliation, they haven't
been able to do so."
"And so you live here alone at the Savoy?"
"Yes, with Mrs. Betham, who is really an old dear, though sometimes she
grumbles terribly."
"And do you go into society?"
"I've begun to go a little, of late. Cecil made me promise I'd never wear
black dresses, so I've worn white only, ever since he died, and I suppose
I always shall. That is, in the house. I have black street gowns. But I
can't seem to care for gay parties as I used to. I want father, and I
want my home."
"Is your father in London?"
"Oh, yes; he's a Member of Parliament. But he's of a stubborn and
unyielding nature."
"And so are you?"
"And so am I. Now, let's drop the subject of myself for the present,
while you sing for me. Will you?"
"Yes, indeed," said Patty, warmly; "with more pleasure than I ever sang
for any one else."