Marjorie was a Bright Young Thing. Her over-privileged life consisted of moving effortlessly between one exclusive house party and the next.
One night at a costume party at the country home of Algenon Cutherinton-Gusset, the twenty-one-year-old heir to a merchant bank, Marjorie dressed as Queen Elizabeth I. She had partaken of far too much vermouth and quite enough opium that she became quite disoriented.
She was unmissed when she staggered through the opulent gardens. How she got on to the quiet country road that ran alongside the house was for anybody to guess.
She must have looked a sight, dressed in a long flowing white dress with her face smothered with white makeup. Algenon’s friend Freddy had rather archly likened it to self-rising flour.
Mr. Tom Blakely, a butcher in the nearby village, was driving down the road when out of nowhere (he later swore to the police) a woman stood in front of his car. He swerved to avoid her and when his car shuddered to a halt, he looked to where the woman should have been and she had vanished. Mr. Blakely spoke of the most ghastly and ghostly white face imaginable.
So began the mystery of the Lady in White. Many locals later spotted her on the same stretch of road; sometimes she carried a baby. They still talk of the Lady in White and her story has been repeated in many books.
Marjorie knew nothing of the excitement she caused. She had fallen into a ditch.
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Words: Richard Rooney
Illustration: A.I.
Flash Fiction 250
Flash Fiction 250 