White Lady

“ Yet, grandly poised, as calm and fair As some proud spirit of the air, Unmoved she lifts her radiant brow— She, the White Lady of the Prow!
The winds blow east, the winds blow west, From woodlands low to the eagle’s nest; The winds blow north, the winds blow south. To steal the sweets from the lily’s mouth! We come and go; we spread our sails Like sea-gulls to the favoring gales; Or, soft and slow, our oars we dip Under the lee of the stranded ship. Yet little recks she when or how, The grand White Lady of the Prow. ”

“ The walls disappear before her, and where you expect her least of all, there you suddenly meet her tall, majestic form in the white dress, her head covered with a black veil, under which her large angry eyes are flashing."
"Hush, Schluter!" exclaimed the count, anxiously, "I know the portrait of the White Lady, which hangs in the cabinet adjoining the audience-hall, and it is, therefore, unnecessary for you to describe her appearance to me."
"Your excellency knows that we have two portraits of the White
Lady," said the castellan, laconically. ”

“ The White Lady is scarcely supposed, however, to have possessed either the power or the inclination to do more than inflict terror or create embarrassment, and is also subjected by those mortals, who, by virtuous resolution, and mental energy, could assert superiority over her. ”

“ Some may think it strange that a white woman should marry a colored man in the North, not knowing he was colored; but it is not more so than a rich white lady of Virginia, who was a belle at the St. Charles, and every place she visited, marrying a man, said to be a millionaire, whose mother was a mulatto, and his father a Frenchman, who sent him to Paris and had him educated. He came back highly educated, a wealthy gentleman, and greatly sought after for his millions and his handsome appearance, and he married this great belle. ”

“ CHAPTER XIII THE WHITE LADY AGAIN It was perhaps an imprudent thing for the two friends to remain there, exposed as they were to the danger of discovery at any moment; but, so completely were they fascinated by what was going on about them, that they had flung caution to the winds. One thing was in their favor, however; there was not much likelihood of their being attacked from below, seeing that all the servants had gone to bed; unless, perhaps, some late comer entered the house. Still, the risk had to be run, and so they stood there together, waiting for the next move. ”

“ Like the White Lady of Avenel, they are year by year fading away—the golden zone which binds their misty drapery is becoming smaller and smaller—the clack of the useful mill, or the clashing of machinery, drowns their voices at their favorite fountains; and they are forced to shut up the beautiful visions which haunt their breasts, in the deep sources of emotion which glow and bubble in silence. ”

“ The White Lady becomes in certain cases the guardian of a treasure on a hill. This is found in German as well as Bohemian sources. Sometimes she brings out the treasure herself, sometimes merely shows where it is.
3. The child forgotten in the hill and the White Lady. The child is left in the hill at one of the seasons (Good Friday, Passiontide) when it is open, and there are treasures there. The child's mother is a poor widow. After a year the mother finds the child, who has been guarded by the White Lady, according to some of the stories. A few variants exist. ”

“ Indeed, on one occasion, when a girl had been presented with a petticoat by a white lady, and returned to her people, displaying with pride her newly acquired property, her companions instead of displaying envy at her finery, only jeered at her, inquiring whether she thought herself so much better than her forefathers, that she should want to wear clothes like the white strangers. ”

“ Lady Dashwood made no reply for a moment. A still more ashen pallor crept over her white face. She placed her hand to her heart as if to still some poignant pain there, her rings shimmered and trembled in the lamplight.
"Tell me everything," she said huskily. "My punishment is coming, my sin is finding me out at last."
"Your sin?" Mary cried. "If ever there was a good woman in the world, you are one. I hate to hear you speak like that, my more than mother. Surely you must know how good and pure your life has always been. ”

“ Mary, if she had been alone, could have hidden her own face in her hands for self-contempt. She was the leader in this adventure, she was the mother, she the woman of age and experience, the woman who had taken credit for keen perceptions and ready sympathy. And here she had sat, hard, cruel, disgusted, shutting out kindness and pity from her heart while a girl, her paid secretary, had taken her place. She had despised these poor creatures because their ugliness and their sin were spread before her, but what of the sin, the deceit and pride she had been hiding in her own heart? ”

“ Why, she won't even have it that you're poor and ill; she always tells people what a fine mother she has, a lady she said you were, and that's because she's fond of you, and won't have others look down on you!"
Mrs. Wilson could not have heard half of these rapid words, but they succeeded in changing the current of her thoughts. Her moans ceased; Mary saw her pull the shawl together across her chest and turn to the young woman stooping over her. "Pretty?" she said earnestly. "She's as pretty as a summer's day, my Florrie is! They men's been after her ever since she left school! ”

“ Mary let him go without showing him the indignation that she felt. She was forty-six, at an age when a man is considered in the prime of his life, and they wanted to treat her as though she were delicate like a child or a bent old woman. It was quite natural, a great many wealthy women let themselves be treated like that. She herself had been far too apt to talk of herself as old, to behave as though her faculties were decaying. As she lay in bed with a bell under her hand and her maid in the next room attentive to her slightest signal, Mary realised that her attitude to life had changed. ”

“ Then, as Mary's surprise was growing into wonder, the drawn muscles quivered and relaxed, and Miss Percival turned, with a swift movement of pity, to slip her arm round the huddled woman on the bed.
"Poor mother," she said, stroking the swollen hands, "don't cry, my dear, don't cry! You're not alone now; we're going to stand by your Florrie and help her face the trouble. You mustn't be too hard on her; she's a good girl, you know! See how well she looks after you, and how clean she keeps the room! A great many girls wouldn't do that, with the hard day's work she has. ”

“ If Mary had been another business man James would have cursed her and put her out of his mind until the moment had come for decisive action. But she was not a business man, she was his wife; his whole moral universe was sensitive to her behaviour.
He could not believe in the depth and reality of Mary's feelings. He saw her merely determined to get her own way, and moved by a woman's natural love of scenes. To him the effort she had made, when she gave up her scheme for increasing the waitresses' wages, had seemed perfectly natural. ”

“ She was gone, and she had left Mary nothing but another picture of suffering and evil. Mary did not know what Miss Percival's story had been, but to change her as it had clearly changed her, it must, Mary felt, have been abominable. There was something wrong about this question of men and women, something twisted and wrong underneath the comforting appearance of everyday social life. She had always known that there are wicked men and terribly wicked women, but she had always thought of them as outside, exceptional, far away. Now, everywhere she looked, she saw ugliness and suffering and sin. ”

“ It is whether Lady Mary thinks black, or Lady Clementina thinks white; whether her father who begot her voted with the Marquis of Londonderry or Earl Grey—that is the grand question to be solved, before my friend Sir Robert can condescend to be the saviour of his country. To have the privilege of making a batch of peers, or a handful of bishops is nothing, positively nothing—no, the crowning work is to manufacture a lady’s maid. What’s a mitre to a mob-cap—what the garters of a peer to the garters of the Lady Adeliza? ”

“ Mary, though she felt more sorry than ever for Laura, was a little shocked at this. It was bitter and it was unjust. It certainly looked as though Harry's mind might be rather horrid, but as for men—James had been extraordinarily sympathetic, and so, Mary felt sure, had been the husbands of most of her friends. Of course they were not interested in the minutiæ of these affairs. Mary herself had realised instinctively that a decent woman keeps the great experiences of her life to herself. If she feels them deeply she expresses it in her altered outlook and in her character. ”

“ Guinivere showed him into the sitting-room. Mary was lying on the sofa, and as the door opened she turned towards it. Her face, when first she caught sight of him, expressed nothing but surprise. She half rose—then he saw the look of surprise change to trouble, almost to fear. Poor little thing—poor little darling—she was afraid of him! He crossed the room and took her into his arms. "Ridiculous little mother," he said, "why did you look at me like that? I've not come to tell you anything more dreadful than that I love you!"
Mary clung to him. "Oh, James," she said, "haven't you?" ”

“ Miss Percival, who was seated at her desk, had not answered at once. Instead she had drawn a beautiful lady with curling hair on her pad of blotting-paper. Then, in a startled tone, as if she had just awaked, she said, "Very well, Mrs. Heyham, just as you wish of course. Have you decided yet where the home is to be?"
Mary had not decided, but she thought it must be somewhere bracing with a pier and a band, and plenty of nigger minstrels. "It won't do to choose a place where they would feel lonely," she conceded. ”

“ She paused, but Mary, holding Giles a little closer, gave her a smile that encouraged her to go on. "Well, we don't exactly tell them, do we?" There was a freedom, a recklessness, about Miss Percival's choice of words that struck Mary as unusual. "Because after all, they're here in the world to please men, and most men wouldn't know what to do with a really noble wife. So we lie to them, and tell them to mind their manners, and our clear bright eager little girls learn to chatter at tea-parties. I've watched it again and again. As they grow up something seems to go out of them. ”

“ But here was some one, all joy, animation, and indulgence--a glorified Julie who trod on air. Why? Because good-fortune had befallen her friend? His heart smote him. He had never seen her so touching, so charming. Since the incubus of Lady Henry's house and presence had been removed she seemed to have grown years younger. A white muslin dress of her youth, touched here and there by the Duchess's maid, replaced the familiar black satin. When Warkworth first saw her he paused unconsciously in surprise. ”

“ Wilson and Florrie had every right to cry, the landlady had cried because it seemed the proper thing to do, the little man had cried, presumably because he could not help it, and when she reached home Mary had cried without any definite excuse. It was true that she had realised for the first time how gay, how clean, how spacious, her own house was, how refreshing warm water is, and plenty of soap, but a sensible person need hardly have made these an occasion for weeping. As a matter of fact she was crying where a more energetic woman would have rejoiced. ”

“ For a moment she did not turn round to greet her daughter; when she did Rosemary was shocked by her white face. "How she minds!" she thought, and then she felt a sudden shyness and embarrassment at the idea that her mother should mind. They kissed one another then and Rosemary disengaged herself and stroked the satin of her mother's sleeve.
"I love you in fine clothes, mother," she said, "you are one of the people who can wear them. You ought to have big flounced skirts and a stiff stomacher embroidered with pearls."
Mary did not answer. ”

“ I’m composing an epic—it is to be called The White Lady, and I’ve got twenty lines of it made already—and two of them are thrilling. The heroine wants to go into a convent and her father warns her that if she does she will never be able to ”

“ The nurse looked down at her cloak. She would not, in Mary's place, have encouraged any future expression of what might well turn out a deplorable opinion.
Miss Percival put her hands on the table behind her and leaned back on them a little before she spoke. "Oh, I don't know," she said then, "but most young women seem to me such spoiled thwarted things. Girls, if they've had any sort of chance, are fine creatures. I think they may seem hard from the outside, but in their hearts they long to be noble and pure and spiritual, only, poor things, they don't know what nobility and purity are." ”

“ But his anger with himself, under the pressure of business, diminished to an occasional uneasy pang, and his kind heart filled instead with solicitude for Mary. Women are hysterical creatures—one must take it and leave it at that. The thing had been a nasty shock for Mary, a very nasty shock indeed. He must be patient with her poor little attempts at scolding and make things up to her in every way he could. ”

“ This lady in the white bath-robe which she calls a peignoir
Is, for the time being, the mistress of my friend,
And the delicate white feet of her little white dog
Are not more delicate than she is,
Nor would Gautier himself have despised their contrasts in whiteness
As she sits in the great chair
Between the two indolent candles. ”