CRAZY PATCHWORK.

Otago Witness, Issue 2454, 27 March 1901, Page 59

CRAZY PATCHWORK.

So! fini&hed at la&t, sweetheart! Nay, the room is too dark, the light only glows on the warm rose and splendid gold : it shivers to white upon the ghostly blues, slumbers too darkly on wine led and imperial purple, is lost utterly in glooms of moss-green velvet and night -blue brocade. Draw back the curtains. Now how splendid the rich kaleidoscope of colour ! Here tendeiest blue gathers from its original depths, ar.d breaks into foam of white and silver. There dull crimson burns up to vivid scarlet, blazoned with gold, and peaked with tawny orange and ccol amber — barbaric, splendid ; the w orld's desire, pa?aion, strife, the strong delights of life ending the giey ashen monotores, or plunged in the violet fragrance of remembrance. Yes, here is iinjgeria] purple of a ua-

' tion's sorrow — velvet-soft beauty of pansy-* boidered thoughts, and touching them, tha'* rose pink brocade with, its scattered hajv«thorn, which the "Queen of Hearts'' vrorsj ■when she danced at the wedding of -hetf false lover. Half across the pink brocaded" and the crescent of willow-green to the right is daintily embroidered a soft wbitei feather, for that was the love he pleadedf ■« hen the hawthorn buds vs ere pink, andf forgot ere the willows shed their greygreen leaves — just a feather, blown aAvay by a brief breath of Time. Here tennis balls and racquets are worked in cunning needle craft upon a neutral background : there the meshes of a silken fishj ing net are loosely gathered across the cori ncr of a bit of lovely silk that flashes from. 1 1 tea-blue to sea-green. For those odds and j ends, with their embroidered suggestions, are dedicated to the athletic girl avlio plays tennis, and lands big trout as cleverly as her brothers. Queer colours? Yes, she always chooses her dresses quecrly, on a plan of her own. Excellent in theory, it ought to give exquisite results, but works out instead into the most eccentric combinations — due, perhaps, to the limitations of the dressmaker and the draper's stock. Our friend is rich ar.d independent, therefore remonstrance on her taste is under* .^tood to be illtimed. and resolves itself into i n murmured '"awfully original." Of course ' its very- artistic — couldn't be more so ; all ■ suggested by some wonderful effect in land- ' scape colouring, or the contrast or h&r- ■ mony of flowers with their foliage — a beau- , tiful theory, yet producing the most extraoidinary results. Here across t lll-?; russet brocade, lightened by its magnificent foliage of golden brown, is written a name and a date — the date of a wedding day, wrought in gold thread upon the wedding gown. "A , strange hue for a wedding dress, ' you say ; I ''but perhaps the bride ■was old?' No, young and pretty — gay as a lark in the sunshine — silent as a moping canary in the shade. Her choice of a wedding gown is. always a mystery to me, but it foreshadowed her life, •spent in dull brown, monotone with an uncongenial husband^ ; whose very virtues 3 re vices in her eyes. Nor does tl.e possession of means, the gratification of every reasonable want and imJ munity from actual grief, satisfy the restless soul winch chafes and wears against the dull peace of country life and monotonous prosperity. A score of idle labours have been called in to quiet that hungry, restless, soul — music, carving, painting, needlework, and sport ; each has been ■ mastered — and excellently mastered — then strewn aside — dead sea-fruit. Ah, me ! . Only one thing is needed, but none of these , can take its place ; but one corner is J empty. Yet none of these busy fads, with." all their expenditure of time and money* can. fill it. '' Heart of my heart ! can it be love we lack?" You see the mass of embroidery, tLe rich cordon of multi-coloured stitches, . the quaint designs which surround the I brown brocade, yet leave it untouched save iby that name and date? That is how the I life seems to me. All v.at it has fails to f mingle with, to enrich, or to harmonise with — bacause. What contrast of memories dwells hers. Here, where silver grey is crowned with forget-me-nots blue as the sky, and is; 1 lost in shell-pink laced with silver, to cunningly conceal where it deepens to warm rose. Here is richest brocade, and there on a glistening ground, of silk and satin is quaint lattice of stitchery, which brings all this brave show of colour into harmony, ' for this is in memory of a lovely life where j love made all things beautiful : the life of a woman who made her own happiness and the sunshine of all around her from such poor and commonplace materials as a marriage of esteem, childless, and lasting in its dull mediocrity of means and pleasures to the fall of life's years. Had she ever loved as women do love, as s>lie, with her splendid physique, her brilliant wit, her 'tenderness and sympathy, could have loved? God knows! He, too, knows how all tue rich stream that might have been an individual passion flowed here and there into channels of love and aym; ' pathy that brightened the lives around Her, how self was an unknown thing in this sweet life when laughter and help took the t place of prayer and phrase,. The commonI place husband whom she esteemed was hagj pier than the husbands that lesser women ! love, nor dreamt of any lack in all his peaceful life, v armed with the sunshine of her presence. When he died, all the brightness that liad cheered and given him courage in yeai-o of early struggle and frequent failure — for he was not clever — was lavished on us. her fortunate friends. What it was to sit m summer dusk or winter's [ red firelight, and hive all the sting of the I dav — aye, or the bitterness of the year — lifted from the soul aud dispelled in the peace of that lovely voice, whose old-world sorters died upon the twilight like a prayer and a promise. All this we who loved her. we whose lives were gladdened by 'the sunshine of her presence — we only knew. No wonder that this lovely blending of colour which melts and glows with such infinite harmonies, and is fringed ■nith a row of deep purple pansies, contia>ts' so keenly with the broken lines, the dull barrenness of that other empty life, gloomed with discontent and surrounded with beauty winch it cannot absorb. • • • V • Here, where blue o1o 1 the summer sea gathers from its original depths and breaks into foam of white nud silver, is. the memory of a young life's happiness as brief as beautiful. Felicite seemed a' ways as one kept aput a litHe even from her dearest girl friends by a, Mibtlp atmosphere which { surrounded her like the nimbus of some , saint on the page* of an old mitral. She herself was utterly unconscious of it. nor did any try to express what wat, too subtle for words— nay. my own words as I write, .-poil, as heavy pencil marks would tho lines of some delicate etching. Beautiful a« she was, men admired Felicite without pas°ion — sagcr to be seen in public with so beautiful a companion, but curiou&ly in--

'different to the opportunities of a tete-a-tete.' She was "not clever save in gentle household ways/ not brilliant, in accomplishments. The books of strange sins and titled sinners, which mark our modern ficitlon, worried and disgusted her. A born nurse, her tender hands smoothed the way ; iher violet eyes lit th& gloom of the Valley ' of the Shadow, as first her father, and then ler dearest friend, passed down the "Via •Dolorosa." Perhaps these things gave the tender grace and deep repose to her voice fend manner which rendered her presence so restful. Not' sad, for, as her sister's children (a -fresh arrival each year) claimed her tare and care, no laugh coald'be merrier, no. footstep lighter, or playmate gayer than ,was Felicite. And one, seeing her thus, loved her with all a gooS .tosuEs fervent tenderness, all a strong -man's'^passion. Felieite was ■amazed- her life was full of cares and duties — for others. It was ordered ; she had no time for a life of her own — she. There was mother, the' boys, home, Mabel's children. And love demanded love, while she — the lovely violet eyes were troubled in their inmost deeps, the swee> lips straightened in* perplexity — did not Know what the love of a man and a maid mean£. -Ah! but the eyes faltered when one day two strong, masterful hands dxsew the golderf head to -a new resting place, and Felicite found that, |he had a special vocation after *n. v . - . " i The'suh shone "upon a bride so fair that tears rose "in world-weary eyes as they looked at her: purity and glad unconscious innocence embodied. A himp rose in the man's throat and a passionate awe thrilled him as he saw her coming up the aisle through -bars of sun and shadow — to Ije-his. Why should he above all other men be so blest? - Had a whole long year indeed fled? The Bun shone gaily as on that wedding morn, but in a darkened room a little golden ' ray strove to reach a white face whose violet eyes were closed in the sleep that knows no waking ; quiet hands, whose massive wedding and betrothal rings were all unworn, while all around lay roses as sweet and lilies as fair as those that but a year " Ago had bloomed for her bridal. The wandering pencil' of golden light slipped nearer, and touched a tiny head whose dark curls ■were coldly pillowed on Felicite's quiet breast, and the sun climbed high in the unclouded blue and the lark soared up, up, i leaving the wake of his gUd song to mark his flight*

But for one man the world had grown dark and empty exceedingly. Here is a brilliant blaze of crimson, where gold gleams in strange dragon -like forms of Sinons grace. Now it is lurid to flame colour, and again dies down in gloom of wme-red velvet whose irregular edges lie upon the annihilation of black. A life that began with the regal lavishness of youth, beauty, and wealth ; but hidden underneath it all was the curse of heredity, the foreword of weakness, and the impulse to evil. Could anything be more beautiful than this rich ivory silk upon which are raised peacocks' feathers? Youth," wealth, pleasure, and the sinister "evil eye." Then comes the crimson satin with its splendour of coiling golden dragons and, 10-! a little space (like a rift between sunset clouds) of flickering blue and white. It is plain to see, I think. The years of a socially brilliant marriage ; its reckless splendours deepening to license, broken by a little gleam of better things when a little child came — and went — a few tears fell and were [ dried. Then the colour riots on again through orange, latticed with jewelled sequins, burns up to flame colour, and flashes out in the arrogant splendour of the scarlet woman" ; deepens, and dies down in the lime-red softness of sensuous indulgence and drink-laden oblivion, plunges into the outer blackness of delirium, desolation, and death. A hideous story! "Why embody its tragic follies that 'so easily slipped into strange sins? Nay. sweetheart. My crazy patchwork, to hold the emblems of life, must show the semblance of life ; and, though blue is the sky and blue is the sea, though our eyes may always find the rest of leaf and blade in all their tender green, yet the pomp and the menace of scarlet doth call to us from every place — save only God's solitudes.