Patty's Friends

“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.