The White Lady Read online

  “Ask Norah to come up a moment, if she is not too busy,” she said to the maid who presently appeared. Norah was the Irish cook, and a great worshipper of her young mistress. She came promptly, with expectant face and willing heart, ready to perform any task asked of her from an impromptu dinner party to a mustard plaster.

  Constance had turned the lights low and thrown herself upon the couch again, her pretty hair lying in soft waves about her and trailing down the velvet covering. Norah stood by the door, arms akimbo, and admired her a moment before she asked what she could do.

  “Norah, how is that little brother of yours?” asked Constance. She had a way of always knowing about the inner life of her servants, and occasionally speaking with them about the little things in which she knew they were interested.

  Norah’s lip quivered now in quick response to the sympathetic tone, and her eyes filled with tears.

  “Oh, indade, Miss Constance, it’s very kind of ye to ask. He’s been rale bad this week. Oi can’t abear to think on him when Oi’m about me work. Oi’m feared he’s not long far this warld.”

  “Don’t you want to go and see him this evening, Norah, and take him these violets from me?” said Constance.

  It was better than if she had offered the girl a whole page of consolation from a book. There was quick response to the trouble in the tone of her voice, and the flowers touched a weak place in the warm-hearted Irish girl’s nature. She poured forth the story of her sorrow, how the doctor had said the little crippled child could not live long and how she loved him and felt she could not live without him. Her tears flowed freely.

  Constance found her own eyes wet, and felt like throwing her arms around Norah’s neck and telling her own heartaches. She had a sudden wild desire for sympathy. Then she reflected that beside Norah’s coming bereavement, her sorrow ought not to be classed as sorrow at all. Nevertheless, it was not easy to bear.

  She laid the flowers in the servant’s hand and said gently, “I wish I could help you, Norah. I am very much troubled myself about something, and it makes me long to help you.”

  With the quick excitability of her race, Norah forgot her own sorrows and flew to comfort her young mistress.

  “Oh Miss Constance,” she cried eagerly, “is there anythin’ Oi could do to help yez? Thrubble’s not for the likes o’ ye, Oi’m sure. Your purty oyes would be spoiled by the cryin’, and then what would the young gentlemen say?”

  But Norah had touched the wrong chord that time. Constance sat up sharply on the couch where she had thrown herself again, and a red spot burned on each cheek.

  “Norah, there are no young gentlemen in this whole world who have a right to care whether my eyes are spoiled by crying or not. Please don’t ever say such a thing again.”

  “Oh, indade, Miss Constance, forgive me. Oi meant nothin’ at all, sure. Oi couldn’t but see how they all comes, and brings ye blossoms, and waits on ye. And wise they are, too, to pick ye out, so handsome and good and swate as ye are, and ye to stoop to care for a poor girl’s little thrubbles. An’ sure, Miss Constance, if yez’ll only let me, Oi’ll help ye in anythin’ ye asks. Just thry me and see!”

  The girl spoke earnestly, and just as earnestly Constance looked her in the eyes and answered, “Perhaps the time will come, Norah, when I shall need your help, and I do not know of anyone I shall turn to quicker. Yes, I mean it, Norah. You are a good girl.”

  The girl’s face flushed with pleasure under the kind words, and then she hurried out.

  Chapter 2

  Two things Constance resolved upon after her night’s vigil. One was that she would immediately and entirely stop all possible outgo of her finances; the other was that she would at once go away somewhere and hide herself in the vast world, now, while none but the old lawyer knew of her misfortunes. She would disappear and make a new life for herself, and none should ever know, to pity or to scorn.

  Constance wondered if it was cowardly to run away. She thought not. She must at all costs keep her frail aristocratic grandmother from learning the truth. It would surely kill her. Besides, Constance decided that there was no need of finding out which of her friends would fail her and which were true. Why put them to so severe a test? It would do no good to anyone, and to escape it would be infinite relief to herself. She longed to begin life as if she were another girl, and to see whether she could not make of it something worthwhile.

  Her career in this city of her birth was closed. She had been a success to a certain extent. She was popular and was liked by many, but after all, there was not much glory in it. All her laurels had been stolen ones, or rather, reflected ones. They consisted of her grandfather’s old name, her father’s money, and a little personal beauty. Constance did not let that count for much. She never was a vain girl.

  She understood that that, too, was a heritage left by her beautiful mother, except insofar as she might have marred it or helped it by her own actions, thoughts, and feelings. Supposing she had been born into the Van Orden family. Would she have been a success there? Could she have carried her way through unrefined surroundings, failures, worldly pity and scorn, and come out with her face as calm and smooth as it now was? Or supposing that her life had been set so that she had been obliged to work in a mill or clerk in a store? Would she have been a success there? Could she have gone through the endless days of such work and never have been cross like the weary-looking girl who sold her hairpins at the notion counter the other day? Would she have kept a placid face and left her mother’s beauty unmarred by inward strife?

  It was the first time in her life that Constance had ever examined herself in this way. She felt that she had to take stock, to find out what kind of person she had to deal with now that she was shorn of the respectable devices that the world puts around its own for the time being.

  Having made these decisions, Constance, as was her wont in all things, set about carrying out her purposes.

  The first thing that appeared in the morning of immediate action was a number of purchases made a day or two before. There were some books she had selected. There was a beautiful piece of embroidery she had bought for her dressing table. There was a charming hat, a delightful forerunner of Easter millinery, and there was an evening gown.

  She had congratulated herself on the choice of her purchases and then had straightway forgotten them. Such things were too common in her life for them to matter much either way. She often ordered goods sent home on approval, and if, when they appeared, they suited her needs, she kept them. It was a common thing on her shopping trips to pick up something pretty and utterly unnecessary for her immediate use.

  Even now, when the packages were opened by her maid, she thought little of them except for the passing curiosity to see whether the hat would be as becoming as she had thought when she bought it.

  But, as she stepped in front of the glass to try on the hat, a card caught her attention. It was something new for the store where she had bought it to attach such cards to purchases sent home. Possibly good-natured forbearance was ceasing to be a virtue to them. But there hung the card reading clearly: NOT RETURNABLE IF WORN OR IF THIS CARD HAS BEEN DETACHED. She had reached out her hand for the scissors to clip the thread, when her eye was arrested by the words, and she paused. She had not expected to return the hat, for she liked it, but it occurred to her now that it was unnecessary and that this expense might be saved. She had thought the hat cheap when she bought it. Twenty-five dollars did not seem high for such a hat. She had often paid more. But four such hats represented a hundred dollars. Ten hundreds made a thousand, and only five poor little thousands stood between herself and poverty, and the scorn of her former world. The air seemed to swarm with dainty nothings of hats that menaced her peace, and she dropped it back into its box and wrapped the tissue paper folds about it hurriedly as if the sight of it troubled her.

  “Tie it up, Susanne, and send it back,” she said as she walked over to the gown that lay upon the foot of her couch, its sheeny folds t
aking delicate lights from the morning sun streaming in at the window.

  “Oh Miss Constance!” exclaimed Susanne in dismay. “Don’t you like it? Just try it on, do. I’m sure it suits you nicely. It is a beautiful hat.”

  “Yes, Susanne, it’s pretty, but I’ve changed my mind. They are all to go back. Tie them up, and see that they are sent back at once.”

  Susanne was disappointed. She delighted in assisting to robe her young mistress in these beautiful creations of dressmakers and milliners. No event of the week was pleasanter than when a delivery wagon arrived at the door with a new lot of lovely things. But she knew by the tone of Constance’s voice that there was no use in arguing the matter. For some reason her young lady chose to scorn these purchases. Hers was but to obey. So with a sigh she put them all back in their wrappings.

  As for Constance, she went gravely into the next room and sat down to think. There were more things to be changed than she had reckoned upon. Every little item of her daily life must be dealt with, and that right speedily. She stepped to her desk and glanced over the day’s memoranda. There was an appointment with the dressmaker. She had put that down for the morning. The dress was to be finished in time for a dinner next week. But, if she was to make a change in her life, she would not need the dress nor the dinner. Ruthlessly the pencil crossed off that engagement. She would make no shopping tour that morning. She reached for the telephone and called up the dressmaker. “I have changed my plans,” she told the woman, “and shall not need the dress at present.” Then she went back to the memoranda.

  Her pencil traveled down the list, crossing off everything that was not an absolute demand upon her time. She paused as she came to the last. It was the orchestra concert that evening. She always had the same pleasant seat for the season. She was a passionate lover of music. To be sure, the friends who shared the box were not those she would have chosen to be with under her present stress of mind, but that could not be helped, and if she wished to keep up appearances, it would be better to go straight ahead and appear in public as usual until she could slip out of this old world of hers altogether. That was the problem before her today—how to slip out, and where to slip to. It must be decided today. She would have no long delay. Maybe the music would help her to think, if no answer to the question came sooner.

  So, leaving the evening engagement standing in her little book, she went down to breakfast.

  But the answer was nearer at hand than she knew. On the breakfast table lay a pile of letters. Her grandmother was already reading the morning paper, and Constance, looking over her mail, shoving aside society notes and bills and recognizing at a glance the handwriting on several invitations, took up a letter in a hand that stirred her memory pleasantly. It was from a friend in Chicago, one whom she had known but a short time, and then but slightly, but one to whom she had taken a great fancy. She was surprised to get the letter, as she had not expected the girl to write. She opened it with a flutter of anticipation. It was an invitation to her to visit the friend in her western home and take part in a number of society functions that were being planned.

  There was a spirit of real desire on the writer’s part to have her come, and a freshness of eagerness that touched Constance. It was this in the other girl that had first drawn Constance toward her. A sudden impulse seized her to accept this invitation and thus get away from her home and make her plans, free from numberless little interruptions. Might she not even linger on the way in some quiet country place and get a chance to think?

  “Grandmother,” she said, looking up impulsively, “I have an invitation to visit Marion Eastlake, who was here last winter. Do you remember her? You said she had eyes like forget-me-nots.”

  “Oh yes, I think I remember her,” said Grandmother, looking up with her gentle patrician smile. “Well, why don’t you go, dear? It will do you good to have a bit of a change.”

  Constance breathed more freely when she saw how easy it was going to be to have this little thinking time without being questioned. She wondered what her grandmother would think if she knew what was being contemplated. But now that her mind was made up, she felt almost happy about it. There was an exhilaration in seeing something ahead besides the monotonous round of social functions. With a zest she had not known for a long time, she set about her preparations, and all through the day her voice could be heard singing snatches of gay little songs.

  She wrote her note of acceptance to Marion Eastlake and helped her maid pack. She had told her friend that she would start in a few days, naming the last of the week as the time of her arrival, but as the trunks began to fill and the noon mail brought in other wearisome invitations, the desire to be gone came upon her, and she resolved to leave home the next morning. There was no reason why she should not and every reason why she should. She could take the journey slowly, stopping on the way if the fancy took her.

  There was an old aunt, her father’s eldest sister, who lived in a small village on the way. She told her grandmother that perhaps she would stop off and make a little visit, and the quiet old lady got into quite a flutter, preparing little messages and a delicate collar of real lace to send as a gift. Constance was almost sorry she had bound herself to this much, because now that the desire to get away from things had come over her, she felt a great longing to go until she saw a place that attracted her and then get off and stay there for a day or two. The thought of having a little adventure all by herself on the way excited her. She put it aside during dinner lest her face should show some sign that would betray her, but she need not have feared. Her grandmother was too much interested in telling over a timeworn tale of the Assembly ball the year she had come out, and Constance had heard it too often to need to listen in order to make the right responses at the right time.

  Now and then she stole a glance at the correct butler, who with impassive watchfulness stood sentinel behind her grandmother’s chair. How shocked he would be, she thought, if he knew she was planning to break away from her world of dignity and tradition.

  And all the while she answered her grandmother’s gentle chat and gave low orders to the butler and wondered how it would seem to have no butler and no stately dinner served at precisely the right moment. Would she have to do the cooking herself?

  She went to the concert, but she heard no symphony, for long before they had reached that part of the program, her rapid thoughts were hurrying on her journey, which she had now determined to begin on the morrow. The music became a sweet, dreamy, lulling sound that belonged to the world she was leaving. She would regret it, she knew, when it was gone, but now she felt impatient of it, of everything that kept her from taking some decided step and putting herself out of this awful dread of the future. She wanted to walk boldly up to that future and take it by the throat before it had opportunity to turn upon her and rend her.

  Morris Thayer was there, of course. She had known he would be. But the chairs on either side of her were occupied. He could get no nearer than to lean across from the back of the box. She thanked him for the flowers in her usual pleasant manner, but he felt somehow that she was holding him at a distance once more. He watched her face to see whether he might read her thoughts as the grand chords of the music swept on, but he could make nothing of it. He marked her highbred features, as he had done many times before, and each dainty and expensive detail of her toilet, and his soul rejoiced in her. There was no discount on her. Her grandfather and her bank account, as well as her taste and beauty, were all right. He would win her.

  But Constance’s thoughts were about the morrow and her journey.

  At home again, she spent half the night sitting at her desk, going over a number of little matters that had to be attended to before she went away; and when she went to bed, everything was in readiness for her departure on the eight o’clock train in the morning.

  This necessitated an unusually early breakfast. Mrs. Wetherill did not come down but bade her good-bye in her room. Constance forced herself to swallow a few mouthfuls o
f breakfast, gave her orders to the dignified butler and maid, and almost gleefully drove to the station with the chauffeur. She felt that she was escaping everything—calls, flowers, parties, dinners, and all perplexing questions—albeit she was going out to face something more momentous than any of those could ever have been.

  Chapter 3

  The train drew up with a dull chug of relief, like a lazy person who is thankful to lay down a burden even for a little while. It seemed to doze, and snort in its sleep.

  Constance looked out from the window of the parlor car for relief from her perplexing problems.

  She was almost sorry already that she had taken the journey, yet it had to be. What she had to do and decide could not be done at home, submerged as she was in an ocean of society. It was absolutely necessary for her to detach herself from the life she had been living if she hoped to accomplish the desired end of hiding the downfall of the family wealth.

  She had been four hours on her way and had reached no definite conclusions except the manner in which she would cut herself off from the world. That much she had determined. They would close the house in which they were living, indefinitely, and rent it, perhaps, or sell it if the lawyer thought—ah! The lawyer had said that everything was gone except five thousand dollars! How she kept forgetting that! The house, too, was probably gone, then—sold already or belonged to them only in name. But surely some way could be found to keep that from becoming apparent to the world. The lawyer would know how.

  Yes, they would shut up the house and go away, traveling, supposedly, for Grandmother’s health or her own—or both. Everybody went summering, often wandering away on a far western or European ramble, and no one thought it strange if they chose to stay a year. After a year was passed, who would remember to inquire more than casually, except perhaps a few personal friends who might easily be managed by evasion?