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.”
CHAPTER IV
A FLORAL OFFERING
As the days went by, Patty and Lady Hamilton became close friends. Mr. and Mrs. Fairfield approved of the intimacy, for the elder woman’s influence was in every way good for Patty, and in return the girl brought sunshine and happiness into Lady Hamilton’s life.
They went together to concerts and picture exhibitions, but Patty could rarely persuade her friend to go to a social affair.
“It’s absurd, Lady Hamilton,” said Patty, one day, “to shut yourself up as you do! All London wants you, and yet you won’t go ’round and play pretty with them.”
Ignoring this outburst, Lady Hamilton only smiled, and said: “Do you know, Patty, I think it’s time you dropped my formal title, and called me by my first name. I’d love to have you do so.”
“I’ve often wondered what your first name is, but I haven’t the slightest idea. Tell me.”
“No, guess. What name do you think suits me?”
Patty considered.
“Well,” she said, at last, “I think it must be either Ethelfrida or Gwendolyn Gladys.”
Lady Hamilton laughed merrily. “Prepare yourself for a sudden shock,” she said. “I was named for my grandmother, Catharine.”
“Catharine! What an absurd name for you! You’re not even a Kate. But you are Lady Kitty, and I’ll call you that, if I may.”
“Indeed you may. Father used to call me Kitty, when I was a child, but as I grew older, I preferred my full name.”
“Lady Kitty is just right for you, and when you’re in the mood you’re a saucy puss. Now, listen, the reason for my invasion of your premises this morning is that I want you to go with me this afternoon to a tea on the Terrace of Parliament House.”
Patty’s tones were very persuasive, and she looked so daintily attractive in her fresh morning gown that few could have refused any request she might make.
Lady Hamilton in a soft, frilly white négligée, was sipping her coffee and looking over her letters when Patty had interrupted the process. She looked at her eager young guest with a slow, provoking smile, and said only:
“Nixy.”
“But why not?” said Patty, smiling too, for she knew the Englishwoman had learned the slangy word from herself. “You’d have a lovely time. It’s so beautiful there, and the people are always so cordial and pleasant.”
“But I don’t want to go.”
“But you ought to want to. You’re too young to give up the pomps and vanities of this world. How can I make you go?”
“You can’t.”
“I know it! That’s just the trouble with you. I never saw such a stubborn, self-willed, determined–”
“Pigheaded?”
“Yes! and stupidly obstinate thing as you are! So, there now!”
They both laughed, and then Lady Hamilton said more seriously, “Shall I tell you why I won’t go?”
“Yes, do, if you know, yourself.”
“I know perfectly. I won’t go to the Terrace because I’m afraid I’ll meet my father there.”
“For goodness’ sake! Is that the real reason? But you want to be reconciled to him!”
“Yes, but you don’t understand. We couldn’t have a ‘Come home and all will be forgiven’ scene on the Terrace, in sight of hundreds of people, so if I did see him, I should have to bow slightly, or cut him dead; it would depend on his attitude toward me which I did. Then the episode would merely serve to widen the breach, and it would break me up for days.”
“I can’t understand such conditions,” said Patty, earnestly. “Why, if I were at odds with my father, and I can’t even imagine such a thing, I’d rush at him and fling myself into his arms and stay there till everything was all right.”
“That’s just because you’re of a different temperament, and so is your father. My father is an austere, unbending man, and if I were on the Terrace and were to fling myself into his arms, he’d very likely fling me into the Thames.”
“You’d probably be rescued,” said Patty, gravely; “there’s always so much traffic.”
“Yes, but father wouldn’t jump in to rescue me, so I’d only spoil my gown for nothing. Give it up, dear, it’s a case outside your experience. Father and I are both too proud to make the first advance, and yet I really believe he wants me as much as I want him. He must be very lonely in the great house, with only the servants to look after him.”
“Perhaps he’ll marry again,” said Patty, thoughtfully; “my father did.”
“I wish he would, but I’ve no hope of that. Now, never mind about my troubles, tell me of your own. Who’s taking you to the tea?”
“Mrs. Hastings. But she isn’t giving it. We’re to sit at some Member’s table; I don’t know whose. The Merediths will be there, too. Tom and Grace, you know. I like them very much.”
“Yes, they’re nice children. I know them slightly. Patty, some day I’ll give a party for you, here in my rooms. How would you like that?”
“Oh, Lady Kitty, I’d love it! You’d have to come to that, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes, indeed, you couldn’t drive me away. Let’s have a children’s party. All dress as children, I mean; little children, or babies.”
“Just the thing! I always wanted to see a party like that. I’ve only heard of them. Can we have it soon?”
“Next week, I think. I’ll consult Mrs. Betham, and I think I can coax her ’round to it; though she’s bound to wet-blanket it at first.”
“Oh, yes, you can coax her, I know. How good you are to me! I do have beautiful times. Really too many for one girl. Honestly, Lady Kitty, do you think it’s right for me to lead such a butterfly life? I just fly about from one entertainment to another; and even if I’m at home, or alone, I always have a good time. Sometimes I think I’m a very useless member of this busy world.”
Lady Hamilton smiled kindly. “How old are you?” she said.
“I’ll be eighteen next month.”
“And you haven’t set the Thames on fire, or won the Victoria Cross yet? But you’re just at the age when your type of happy girlhood is often beset with over-conscientious scruples. Don’t give way to them, Patty. It is not your lot to do definite, physical good to suffering humanity, like a Red Cross nurse, or the Salvation Army. Nor is it necessary that you should work to earn your bread, like a teacher or a stenographer. But it is your duty, or rather your privilege, to shed sunshine wherever you go. I think I’ve never known any one with such a talent for spontaneous and unconscious giving-out of happiness. It is involuntary, which is its chiefest charm, but whoever is with you for a time is cheered and comforted just by the influence of your own gladness. This is honest talk, my child, and I want you to take it as I mean it. Don’t try to do this thing, that would spoil it all; but just remember that you do do it, and let that satisfy your desire to be a useful member of this busy world.”