The Old Helmet Volume I Part 11

"Now don't _you_ come to help!" said Miss Broadus, with a thoughtful face and a piece between her finger and thumb.

"Why not?"

"I know!" said Miss Broadus, never taking her eyes from the board which held them as by a charm,--"I can play a sort of a game; but if you take part against me, I shall be vanquished directly."

"Why should I take part against you?"

Miss Broadus at that laughed a good-humoured little simple laugh.

"Well"--she said, "it's the course of events, I suppose. I never find anybody taking my part now-a-days. There! I am afraid you have made me place that piece wrong, Mr. Carlisle. I wish you would be still. I cannot fight against two such clever people."

"Do you find Miss Powle clever?"

"I didn't know she was, so much, before," said Miss Broadus, "but she has been playing like a witch this evening. There Eleanor--you are in check."

Eleanor was equal to that emergency, and relieved her king from danger with a very skilful move. She could keep her wits, though her cheek was high-coloured and her hand had a secret desire to be nervous. Eleanor would not let it; and Mr. Carlisle admired the very pretty fingers which paused quietly upon the chess-men.

"Do not forget a proper regard for the interests of the church, Miss Broadus," he remarked.

"Why, I never do!" said Miss Broadus. "What do you mean? Oh, my bishop!--Thank you, Mr. Carlisle."

Eleanor did not thank him, for the bishop's move shut up her play in a corner. She did her best, but her king's resources were cut off; and after a little shuffling she was obliged to surrender at discretion.

Miss Broadus arose, pleased, and reiterating her thanks to Mr.

Carlisle, and walked away; as conscious that her presence was no more needed in that quarter.

"Will you play with me?" said Mr. Carlisle, taking the chair Miss Broadus had quitted.

"Yes," said Eleanor, glad of anything to stave off what she dreaded; "but I am not--"

"I am no match for you," she was going to say. She stopped suddenly and coloured more deeply.

"What are you not?" asked the gentleman, slowly setting his p.a.w.ns.

"I am not a very good player. I shall hardly give you amus.e.m.e.nt."

"I am not sorry for that--supposing it true. I do not like to see women good chess-players."

"Pray why do you not like it?"

"Chess is a game of planning--scheming--contriving--calculating. Women ought not to be adepts in those arts. I hate women that are."

He glanced up as he spoke, at the fair, frank lines of the face opposite him. No art to scheme was shewn in them; there might be resolution; he liked that. He liked it too that the fringe of the eyes drooped over them, and that the tint of the cheek was so very rich.

"But they say, no one can equal a woman in scheming and planning, if she takes to it," said Eleanor.

"Try your skill," said he. "It is your move."

The game began, and Eleanor tried to make good play; but she could not bring to it the same coolness or the same ac.u.men that had fought with Miss Broadus. The well-formed, well-knit hand with the coat sleeve belonging to it, which was all of her adversary that came under her observation, distracted Eleanor's thoughts; she could not forget whose it was. Very different from the weak flexile fingers of Miss Broadus, with their hesitating movement and doubtful pauses, these did their work and disappeared; with no doubt or hesitancy of action, and with agile firmness in every line of muscle and play. Eleanor shewed very poor skill for her part, at planning and contriving on this occasion; and she had a feeling that her opponent might have ended the game many a time if he had chosen it. Still the game did not end. It was a very silent one.

"You are playing with me, Mr. Carlisle," she said at length.

"What are you doing with me?"

"Making no fight at all; but that is because I cannot. Why don't you conquer me and end the game?"

"How can I?"

"I am sure I don't know; but I believe you do. It is all a muddle to me; and not a very interesting piece of confusion to you, I should think."

He did not answer that, but moved a piece; Eleanor made the answering move; and the next step created a lock. The game could go no further.

Eleanor began to put up the pieces, feeling worsted in more ways than one. She had not dared to raise her eyes higher than that coat-sleeve; and she knew at the same time that she herself had been thoroughly overlooked. Those same fingers came now helping her to lay the chess-men in the box, ordering them better than she did.

"I want to shew you some cottages I have been building beyond Rythdale tower," said the owner of the fingers. "Will you ride with me to-morrow to look at them?"

He waited for her answer, which Eleanor hesitated to give. But she could not say no, and finally she gave a low yes. Her yes was so low, it was significant; Eleanor knew it; but Mr. Carlisle went on in the same tone.

"At what hour? At eleven?"

"That will do," said Eleanor, after hesitating again.

"Thank you."

He went on, taking the chess-men from her fingers as fast as she gathered them up, and bestowing them in the box after a leisurely manner; then rose and bowed and took his departure. Eleanor saw that he did not hold any communication with her mother on his way out; and in dread of Mrs. Powle's visitation of curiosity upon herself, she too made as quick and as quiet an escape as possible to her own room. There locked the door and walked the floor to think.

In effect she had given her answer, by agreeing to ride; she knew it.

She knew that Mr. Carlisle had taken it so, even by the slight freedom with which his fingers touched hers in taking the chess-men from them.

It was a very little thing; and yet Eleanor could never recall the willing contact of those fingers, repeated and repeated, without a thrill of feeling that she had committed herself; that she had given the end of the clue into Mr. Carlisle's hand, which duly wound up would land her safe enough, mistress of Rythdale Priory. And was she unwilling to be that? No--not exactly. And did she dislike Rythdale Priory's master, or future master? No, not at all; nevertheless, Eleanor did not feel quite willing to have him hers just yet; she was not ready for that; and she chafed at feeling that the end of that clue was in the hand of her chess-playing antagonist, and alternatives pretty well out of her power. An alternative Eleanor would have liked.

She would have liked the play to have gone on for some time longer, leaving her her liberty in all kinds; liberty to make up her mind at leisure, among other things. She was not just now eager to be mistress of anything but herself.

Eleanor watched for her mother's coming, but Mrs. Powle was wiser. She had marked the air of both parties on quitting the drawing-room; and though doubtless she would have liked a little word revelation of what she desired to know, she was content to leave things in train. She judged that Mr. Carlisle could manage his own affairs, and went to bed well satisfied; while Eleanor, finding that her mother was not coming, at last laid herself also down to rest, with a mixed feeling of pleasure and pain in her heart, but vexation towering above all. It would have been vexation still better grown, if she had known the hint her mother had given Mr. Carlisle, when that evening he had applied to her for what news she had for him? Mrs. Powle referred him very smilingly to Eleanor to learn it; at the same time telling him that Eleanor had been allowed to run wild--like her sister Julia--till now she was a little wilful and needed taming.

She looked the character sufficiently well when she came down the next morning. The colour on her cheek was raised yet, and rich; and Eleanor's beautiful lips did not unbend to their brilliant mischievous smile. She was somewhat quick and nervous too about her household arrangements and orders, which yet Eleanor did not neglect. It was time then to dress for her ride; and Eleanor dressed, not hurriedly but carefully, between pleasure and irritation. By what impulse she could not have told, she pulled the feather from her riding cap. It was a long, jaunty black feather, that somewhat shaded and softened her face in riding with its floating play. Her cap now, and her whole dress, was simplicity itself; but if Eleanor had meant to cheat Mr. Carlisle of some pleasure, she had misjudged and lost her aim; the close little unadorned cap but shewed the better her beautiful hair and a face and features which n.o.body that loved them could wish even shaded from view.

Mrs. Powle had maintained a discreet silence all the morning; nevertheless Eleanor was still afraid that she might come to ask questions, and not enduring to answer them, as soon as her toilet was finished she fled from her room into the garden. This garden, into which the old schoolroom opened, was Eleanor's particular property. No other of the family were ever to be found in it. She had arranged its gay curves and angles, and worked in it and kept it in great part herself. The dew still hung on the leaves; the air of a glorious summer morning was sweet with the varied fragrance of the flowers. Eleanor's heart sprung for the dear old liberty she and the garden had had together; she went lingeringly and thoughtfully among her petunias and carnations, remembering how joyous that liberty had been; and yet--she was not willing to say the word that would secure it to her. She roved about among the walks, picking carnations in one hand and gathering up her habit with the other. So her little sister found her.

"Why Eleanor!--are you going to ride with Mr. Carlisle?"

"Yes."

"Well he has come--he is waiting for you. He has brought the most _splendid_ black horse for you that you ever saw; papa says she is magnificent."

"I ordered my pony"--said Eleanor.

"Well the pony is there, and so is the black horse. O such a beauty, Eleanor! Come."

Eleanor would not go through the house, to see her mother and father by the way. Instinctively she sheered off by the shrubbery paths, which turning and winding at last brought her out upon the front lawn. On the whole a more marked entrance upon the scene the young lady could not have contrived. From the green setting of the shrubbery her excellent figure came out to view, in its dark riding drapery; and carnations in one hand, her habit in the other, she was a pleasant object to several pairs of eyes that were watching her; Julia having done them the kind office to say which way she was coming.

Of them all, however, Eleanor only saw Mr. Carlisle, who was on the ground to meet her. Perhaps he had as great an objection to eyes as she had; for his removal of his cap in greeting was as cool as if she had been a stranger; and so were his words.

"I have brought Black Maggie for you--will you do me the honour to try her?"