CHAPTER II
A ROSE AND A SONG
As Mrs. Markle tripped up the steps of Colonel Hathaway’s porch, where the girls were holding their sewing bee, one could but wonder why Irene MacFarlane should have been chary of her praise of anyone so altogether charming. She was perfect from the tips of her tiny grey suede shoes to the hat which shaded the piquant face at just the right angle. Nature had not only endowed Hortense Markle with a rare and glowing beauty but hers also was the gift of knowing exactly how to clothe that beauty. Every portion of her costume was as carefully thought out and planned by the little artist as had been the rarest of her rugs by some Hindu weaver or the most choice of her pictures by some famous painter. She delighted in soft greys and pastel shades which set off to perfection her rich, almost oriental, beauty.
“She knows perfectly well if she wore brilliant colors they would be becoming but would coarsen her,” Irene said to herself as she watched the charming little lady mount the steps, her arm around Mary Louise, who had hurried down the walk to meet her new friend.
“Oh, why didn’t you girls let me know you were here sewing? I have been so lonely sitting up in my stuffy little apartment all alone. Only think, I might have been here all morning having such a pleasant time with all of you! I believe you think I am too old for you.”
This she said so gaily, giving such a ringing laugh at the thought of anybody’s thinking she was too old, that all the girls joined in, even Irene. Irene had wondered at herself as much as Mary Louise had. For the life of her she could not account for a feeling of antipathy that she felt for both Mr. and Mrs. Markle. It was not like her to take unaccountable dislikes, or even accountable ones. Her theory of life was to live and let live and her sympathy embraced all mankind, good and bad alike. Why could she not find room in her heart for this charming, beautiful young woman whose manner to her had always been gracious and kind?
“It is just a case of Dr. Fell,” Irene said to herself.
“‘I do not like thee, Dr. Fell—
The reason why I cannot tell;
But one thing ’tis, I know full well:
I do not like thee, Dr. Fell.’”
She determined, however, to keep her unreasonable sentiments to herself and at least to be as cordial and polite to Mary Louise’s guest as she could manage to be.
“We sew here almost every morning,” said Irene. “We are helping to make Mary Louise’s trousseau.”
“How charming! Please let me help. Sewing is my one accomplishment.”
A thimble was found to fit the tapering finger and Mrs. Markle was soon as busy as the others in their task of love.
“I wish I could sew better,” exclaimed Elizabeth Wright. “I am going to have to pick out this foolish little flower that I have been trying so hard to make look as though it were growing on Mary Louise’s camisole. There now! I’ve cut a hole in it! Oh, what a stupid I am! Right in the middle of the garment and this crepe de chine costs ’steen dollars a yard! Oh me, oh my! I told you girls I ought to go into business and not try to be so girlie.”
“Let me see if I can’t set you right,” said Mrs. Markle. “I am past mistress at patching.” She took the garment from the unresisting hands of Elizabeth, quickly ripped out the crooked flower that poor Elizabeth had been vainly endeavoring to embroider on it and then, with deft sure fingers and a needle so fine one could hardly see it, she inserted an invisible patch where the cruel scissors had slipped. This needle she took from the lining of her velvet hand bag. It was much smaller than any found in the work boxes of the girls. Irene remarked on it.
“I never can get such tiny needles as that,” she said. “Perhaps if I could manage to shop for myself I might find one.”
“Oh, I’ll be delighted to give you some!” cried the older woman. “I am like you: I simply cannot sew with a spike.”
“That will be very kind of you,” said Irene, wishing she could be as pleasant to Mrs. Markle as Mrs. Markle was to her and hoping that her sentiments were not voiced in her words. She was trying hard to get over her feeling of dislike and distrust for the beautiful little lady but, even though she should give her a thousand fairy needles, she knew that she could not like her. She watched the process of putting in the invisible patch. It was the most perfect piece of needlework she had ever seen and Irene herself did all but perfect work.
“How on earth do you do it?” she exclaimed. “Why, one cannot tell where the patch is!”
The girls crowded around to see the little patch. If Irene did not know how to do it it must be wonderful indeed.
“It is quite easy when once you learn,” laughed Mrs. Markle. “I learned at the convent in Paris. First be sure and match the warp and woof of your material. It takes sharp eyes, but one thread out of place is fatal. Then use a bit of raveled crepe de chine for your thread and the rest is all plain sailing. Practice makes perfect. Now shall I embroider a rose over the place?”
“Oh, do!” cried Elizabeth, “and please somebody give me some plain basting to do on gingham aprons if the bride is to have such things.”
“Don’t you have to have a pattern for your rose?” asked Irene, reaching for her workbag. “I have some patterns here, very pretty ones, and some tracing paper.”
“No, thank you! I just make up as I go along—”
“Like the wonderful rug weavers of India,” cried Alora. “Do you sing a song as you go and weave the music into your work as they do, Mrs. Markle?”
“Why, yes, sometimes! But please don’t call me Mrs. Markle. I’m not so terribly old and you don’t know how I long to have someone call me by my own name, Hortense.”
“Doesn’t Mr. Markle?”
“He calls me Pet. Awfully silly, but he always has. I think it would be so pleasant if all of you girls would just call me Hortense. Won’t you?” She smiled so brightly on the ring of girls grouped around her that they succumbed to her charms. Even Irene melted a bit and decided that perhaps she did like the little lady a tiny bit after all. Anyone who could put in an invisible patch must be a desirable acquaintance.
“You see it has been many years since I have been with my own people and so few ever call me anything but Mrs. Markle. It is very lonesome to have persons so formal.”
As she talked she had been deftly outlining a rose on the front of the camisole, drawing it with needle and thread with strokes as sure as those of a great flower painter. Then choosing her silk from Irene’s basket she began to embroider. Irene was spellbound in her attention. The first petal took form under the flying fingers as though by magic.
And then the woman sang. It seemed hardly fair that anyone so beautiful and clever as Hortense Markle should also have a voice, but voice she did have of a rich depth that thrilled her audience.
‘Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a flying:
And the same flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow will be dying.
The glorious land of heaven, the sun,
The higher he’s a-getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he’s to setting.
That age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse and worst
Times still succeed the former.
Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may, go marry:
For having lost but once your prime,
You may forever tarry.’”
“Lovely! Lovely!” cried the girls.
“I don’t know that tune,” said Laura Hilton, who had a sweet little voice of her own with a bird-like note and was ever in search of songs that would fit it. “I know the words, Herrick’s, aren’t they? But the tune is different from any I have ever heard.”
“It has a kind of teasing quality,” said Alora.
“The tune is my own,” declared the singer.
“Then you can write music too!” cried Irene. This was surely a remarkable person for her to take an unreasonable dislike to.
“Not write it—just sing it. I don’t know one note from the other except by ear,” answered Mrs. Markle still busily embroidering.
“I think the tune was fine,” put in Elizabeth, “but I can’t hand a thing to the words. Always hammering on girls to get married! It sounds too like home to me. I bet anything old Herrick was as withered and dried up as a salt herring. Losing his own prime was nothing. He, as a man, was perfectly sure that he was still attractive, married or unmarried—but the poor girls—it makes me more and more determined to get me a job.”
They all laughed heartily at Elizabeth’s taking the song personally and Mrs. Markle was much interested in what the girl expected to do and how soon she intended to begin doing it.
“I don’t blame you at all for wanting to do something. I often feel myself I should like to but Felix is so opposed. He is away so much I could easily carry on some occupation besides home making. What are you thinking of doing?”
“I don’t know. I can type but I don’t want to be a stenographer, at least I don’t want to be a man’s stenographer. Somebody might think it was up to me to marry the creature. I’d like to have a shop—a kind of literary work-shop—where one could get manuscript typed; where budding authors could have their spelling corrected and their punctuation put to rights. I’m a queen bee on spelling and punctuation. I might even write obituaries and valedictories for the going and coming. I might combine a kind of clipping bureau with it for folks who like to see their names in print. Of course I’d have to have a partner.”
“The very thing!” cried Mary Louise. “A friend of mine, Josie O’Gorman, wants to come to Dorfield to settle and she could go in with you. Josie is financially independent, but she says she simply must do something. You know her father was the great detective. He died last month,” she explained to Mrs. Markle.
“See, I have finished the rose!” Hortense interrupted and held it up for their inspection. It was so natural that one almost expected a fragrance to arise from it.
“But look! What is that on the edge of this petal?” cried Irene, who was bending over the embroidery entranced by its perfectness. “It looks like a tiny faded place.”
“So it is! That is where the tune got woven into my picture.
‘The same flower that smiles to-day
To-morrow will be dying.’”
“Oh!” was all Irene could say, but she began all over to hate Hortense Markle for suggesting fading flowers where Mary Louise’s trousseau was concerned. “It wasn’t kind! It wasn’t kind!” she kept on saying to herself.