Programme:

Introduction of Characters by site:

The White Lady, Sophia Hyatt - Newstead Abbey

The Clue is O

O – Sophia, The White Lady, silent and unheeding, walks the formal passages of Newstead Abbey.  The Clue for the Gardens is O.

(Thoth gives The White Lade a temporary spell so that she may speak, as, in life, she could not.)

White Lady:  White Lady:  My real name is Sophia Hyatt - but I have been known now for so long as The White Lady.  In this way, by becoming a source of tourist amusement, the truth of my willing life has been obscured.  And, although my story was partially told by Washington Irving, the events of my death are barely a footnote in history:

It reads:  Sophia HYATT, the mysterious "Little White Lady," whose story is so beautifully told by Washington IRVING, in his "Newstead," was accidentally run over in the Maypole yard, Nottingham, by POTTER the Loughborough carrier, on the 21st of September, 1825. She was very deaf. The fore-horse knocked her down, and the cart wheel went over her back killing her instantly. This poor lady was an enthusiastic admirer of BYRON, and spent several years in pensive solitude amongst the gardens and grounds of Newstead Abbey."

I was a granddaughter of Sir William Byron of Bulwell Wood Hall, my mother having married her father's dog handler - something of a misalliance.  Though happy, we were not rich. An illness at the age of 13 left me deaf and dumb, and I lived in penury most of my life.

My remains were interred in Hucknall churchyard, as close as possible to the vault containing the ashes of my beloved Byron.  Had I the means to speak, or write, or sing, I would have told a different story about the love of words and the sublime. 

I did not seek out the Merry Sleuths - they petitioned me.