Aunt Sophie's Diamonds Page 13

  “She is no mind reader, however,” he objected mildly.

  “What sight-seeing shall we do?” Luane asked eagerly. “Will you take us to Astley Circus? Will it be open?”

  “I doubt your chaperone will be interested to see the horses perform,” Sir Hillary replied in a disparaging tone.

  “I should adore to see them!” the chaperone corrected his misapprehension immediately. “I beg mama to take me every year, but she says it is underbred. She did let her housekeeper take me to Madame Tussaud’s once—oh, years ago, just shortly after papa died. But we ought not to be so merry when we are in mourning.”

  “Ah, well, if our lack of breeding is to lead us to Astley’s, it can’t be expected we shall observe any laws of mourning. Your mama intends keeping it mum among her cronies, and no one will know you in any case. Gab and I shall slip off our armbands, and we’ll never be taken for a party of mourners.”

  “It seems wicked to be having such a good time when we ought to be sad,” Miss Milmont said, but in no very firm manner, and she allowed herself to be overridden by the others.

  “Let’s ask Aunt Marcia now, cousin, so that the matter can be settled,” Loo said, hopping up from the table.

  “It is not yet ten-thirty, and mama never rises before noon.”

  “Wake her up,” Loo directed immediately.

  “She is mad as a hornet to be wakened early. That will only set her jaw against the plan. It is better to wait till she’s up.”

  “Let me put it to her,” Hillary said.

  “You won’t want to wait so long,” Claudia pointed out. “I’m sure you could cut a wheedle with her, but it might be two hours before she comes down.”

  “I am flattered at your confidence in my wheedling abilities, but there is nothing to do outside on such a day as this. We’ll see if we can find a few chips to set a fire in the Crimson Saloon and be comfortable there. I wish to speak to Miss Bliss, too. She will not lie abed till noon. In fact, she is surely up and about somewhere already. Do you think you might ask her to see me, brat?” Hillary asked Loo.

  Luane went to get Miss Bliss and, when they came down, the others had removed to the Crimson Saloon. No chips were in evidence, however, and as Thoreau’s idea of pulling a couple of legs off one of the rickety chairs was vetoed by an outraged Miss Milmont, they all sat shivering in the gloom and chill.

  Miss Bliss carried a long, rectangular wooden box in her hands and, when she had said good-day to the gentlemen, she handed it to Sir Hillary. “This is your chess set.”

  “It isn’t, you know. She left it to you,” he reminded her.

  “To dispose of as I see fit. I see fit to give it to you. It was her intention. Besides, I don’t play chess.”

  “The temptation is too strong to resist,” he said, accepting the box. “I own I have had my eye on it for years. Thank you, Blissful.” He smiled and kissed her cheek, then opened the box, and set the carved pieces on the board, admiring each as he did so, and trying to encourage the others to find them as beautiful as he himself did.

  “They are much finer than grandpapa’s,” Claudia told him. “He has a set with the black pieces carved in wood and the white in mule bone. He is a very good player. At least, I think he is; he always beats me.”

  “Do you play chess, Miss Milmont?” he asked with interest. “But how felicitous! Our long vigil till your mama comes down is taken care of. Will you be black or white?”

  “I know the moves,” she replied, which fell upon his ears dolefully. He had suffered through many fifteen minute games with players who ‘knew the moves’ and nothing else about the game. Still, there was nothing else to do, and they sat down at a buhl table and chose their colors.

  “You be white. That means you have to go first,” she told him.

  “You know that, too!” he praised her. “And here you let on to be an amateur.”

  “The horses are beautifully carved,” she commented, viewing the knights.

  “Yes, the horses are generally referred to as knights,” he began his instruction. “And these big pieces with the crosses on top are our kings.” His shapely hand with its long, slender fingers pointed out the pieces. “You know, I collect, that the object of the game is not to whisk as many of my pieces as possible off the board, but to place my king in check.”

  “Yes, I know that,” she assured him. “These little crowns are very nicely done, aren’t they? They are my favorite pieces, for they can hop all over the place.”

  “And the little crowns are called queens,” he continued.

  “That’s right. The oval with a slash is called a bishop, I remember. They go sidewise. Grandpa doesn’t talk much when he plays, but he is very good.”

  Hillary advanced his king’s pawn to the fourth square. Claudia followed with the same move. He was unsure whether she was following him from ignorance, or did it with intention. He advanced his black knight, and when Claudia countered by advancing her queen one space forward to protect her pawn, he felt the stirring of hope that she knew what she was doing. When she had, within the space of ten minutes relieved him of one of his ‘horses,’ as she persisted in calling the knights, and a pawn, which she called by its correct name, he was alerted to danger and settled into the game with enthusiasm.

  “I believe I can switch my little tower and move the king two spaces over here,” she said, castling with a doubtful glance at her opponent.

  “Yes, but I don’t see why you are doing it.”

  “I see that bishop you have over there in the corner, waiting to slide out and take me,” she replied. “Those bishops are the plaguiest things. Grandpapa is always finishing me off with them.”

  Sir Hillary had failed to observe this fact himself, though he didn’t mention it. “You play much faster than Aunt Sophie,” Luane remarked. She and Gabriel were watching over their shoulders.

  “And much better,” Hillary murmured.

  “Grandpa hates waiting forever for me to make a move. Check, madame,” she said.

  “What?” Hillary shouted.

  “I told you you have to watch out for these sliding bishops,” she warned. Then he saw her bishop attacking his queen. “See, he’s way off there, a mile away, but with a clean field to swoop down on your little crown.”

  “You are not obliged to point out when you have my queen in check,” he said.

  “Am I not? Well, I wish I had known that. Grandpa always tells me.”

  “It is a courtesy merely.”

  “I wouldn’t have bothered to be courteous. Still, it’s an even duller game when the crown is off the board,” she remarked, stifling a yawn.

  “I trust you don’t mean to doze off on me entirely,” Hillary said with a lazy smile.

  Despite Miss Milmont’s yawns and lackadaisical manner of moving her pieces while chatting over her shoulder to her cousin, it was the most enjoyable game Sir Hillary had played in years. On the stroke of twelve Miss Milmont pointed out to him that he was floored, for he couldn’t move his king here because of her pawn, or here because of that sneaky old bishop in the corner, or here because he hadn’t thought to move his own pawn, or here because of the rook, which she called a tower.

  “Check and checkmate in fact,” he declared, incredulous at being beaten by a mere girl, and one besides who wasn’t half paying attention.

  “Grandpapa always says, ‘I’ve got you now, Missie,’ when I can’t move my king. I daresay we don’t play it properly.”

  “You do your grandfather an injustice. If he has taught you to play this well, you don’t need the fancy jargon to go with it. We will have a rematch very soon, Lady Turn-about! You and your ‘knowing the moves.’ Fair-speech indeed! You conned me properly.”

  “You should have tipped the board like Aunt Sophie,” Loo laughed.

  “I didn’t notice she had me checkmated. It was the bishop hiding in the corner.”

  “I didn’t get many of your pieces off,” Claudia consoled him. “See, I only have three pawns a
nd one horse and one little tower, and, of course, your crown. It was the crown that did you in.”

  “And I cautioned you against going after pieces. You’ve gammoned me, Miss Milmont. Ah, here is your mama.”

  Mrs. Milmont came striding in, all smiles to see Sir Hillary come to call on her so soon. Her vivacity at his dinner party had paid off handsomely. “Sir Hillary, so nice of you to come,” she said, advancing and holding out her hand. “Has my little girl been giving you a game of chess? Dull stuff, Claudia. I’m sure Sir Hillary is bored to flinders.”

  “Au contraire, darling. Beat to flinders. This is a very clever little girl you have here.”

  “Naughty boy, you are funning. What a charming time we had last night. We must return the favor and have you to dine here one evening. I shall speak to Jonathon about it. He is locked in his study, poor fellow, trying to make heads or tails of Aunt Sophie’s jumbled accounts.”

  “An unenviable task, but it is you I wish to see, not the captain.”

  “Let us be seated,” she said, leading him with great condescension to a sofa a little removed from the others, who regarded the tête-à-tête eagerly, trying to read by signs the outcome of Sir Hillary’s proposal.

  “I have to go to London tomorrow,” he began. “Some business to do with Loo. She is coming with me.”

  “How unpleasant for you,” she commiserated. “Just the worst time of the year, with the roads full of potholes, and very likely it will pour rain, as it is today.”

  “I hope not, but in any case, what I want to ask you, darling, is whether you will be so kind as to loan me your little daughter to accompany us. Company for Loo on the long trip.”

  “Who will chaperone them?”

  “I will undertake to look after them both. We do not mean to remain overnight. Gabriel will look after the girls while I transact a little business. It will be an outing for them. I felt you would be depressed to be showing little Claudia such a flat time on her annual vacation. I am sure it has bothered you no end,” he added with a considerate smile.

  “To be sure it has, for we usually have such a gay time, seeing all the sights and shopping and so on. But it seems a little irregular—for the girls to go with no female escort.”

  The name Miss Bliss, though unspoken, hovered in the air between them.

  “I am Loo’s guardian, and will be happy to stand in loco parentis to little Claudia for one day. Say she may come. I will take good care of her, I promise you. And if the weather turns bad, the girls can stay at my place—it is staffed year-round, and Gab and I will put up at an hotel. Though we shan’t go at all if the weather looks unpromising.”

  “I can see no harm in it. If you undertake to look after them.” Her real regret was that she could not insinuate herself into the carriage, but with Mr. Blandings’ arrival pending, she didn’t dare leave. Jonathon could not be counted on to issue the invitation without her here to nudge him into it.

  Pleased with his easy success, Sir Hillary remained chatting for a quarter of an hour to reward Marcia, regaling her with a string of anecdotes of the ton, largely apocryphal. She was delighted to be reaching such an intimate footing with him and had already formed the plan to make Jonathon, by prayer or price, invite him to dine while Mr. Blandings was at Swallowcourt.

  Miss Bliss rose to glide from the room, and Sir Hillary went to intercept her. “I wanted to have a word with you, Miss Bliss,” he said. “Did you think I had come begging for the chess set, when I asked for you? I had, of course, but having invented a pretext for my visit, I am determined to present it.”

  He walked with her to the door, and they chatted a while. Something to do with Luane, Marcia assumed, and ignored them. A small package was handed into Miss Bliss’s care, and she went immediately to her room to dispose of it. Sir Hillary returned to the Crimson Saloon and began putting the chessmen in their niches in the box.

  “I have bad news for you,” he said to the girls as he did this.

  “But she was smiling! I made sure she said I could go!” Claudia said in a disheartened voice.

  “She gave her permission for the trip to London. The bad news is of my own devising. I am making a stipulation regarding the trip. You must promise me you will not go digging up Aunt Sophie tonight.”

  They had forgotten about it in the excitement of the trip, but once it was called to their minds, it seemed a steep price to pay, even for a trip to London.

  “And let Jonathon walk off with my necklace? How can you suggest such a thing, Sir Hillary?” Luane demanded.

  “He will not do so.”

  “You can’t know that.”

  “We’ll compromise,” Claudia intervened. “We’ll bear watch on Jonathon tonight, and if he doesn’t go after the diamonds, we won’t. Will that serve as well, Sir Hillary?”

  He considered it a moment. “One slight handicap occurs to me. Bearing watch on Jonathon all night will play havoc with your rest. You won’t close your eyes till dawn, and we mean to leave at eight. And I might just mention that when I say eight, I mean eight, not eight-thirty or nine-thirty or any other hour that suits you. If we are to have a decent visit, we must make an early start.”

  “I am usually up by seven,” Claudia told him, “and shall make myself responsible for having Loo ready too. But about staying awake all night, I daresay we would be a trifle pulled by tomorrow. Still, we can’t leave him an open field. Even seeing the horses at Astley’s isn’t worth that.”

  “I suggest another compromise then,” Sir Hillary began. “Jonathan is working on his accounts. I’ll ask him over to Chanely with me, and offer to give him a hand with them. It’s a bad day; he’ll be in no hurry to return. A snug dinner, a couple of stiff belts of brandy, and I can persuade him to remain the night.”

  “He might agree to it,” Luane said. “Then he can keep an eye on you, while you are keeping an eye on him.”

  “Just so—we hold each other in check,” Hillary agreed.

  “And he’d never tackle it in the broad daylight, so while we are gone tomorrow the diamonds will be safe,” Claudia added. “So everything will be fine till tomorrow night.”

  “You girls never give up,” Gabriel said with a weary sigh.

  “I hope we are not quitters!” Loo turned on him. He had managed to reinstate himself in her good graces during the morning by talking enthusiastically about the projected trip to London, but this reminded her of what a quitter he had turned out to be, and she sneered at him.

  “I’ll take the whelp home before these two come to cuffs again,” Hillary said aside to Claudia. “Are you quite sure you want to chaperone this hoyden of a girl? I cannot think it would be a pleasant task.”

  “It wouldn’t be so unpleasant as trying to knock reading and arithmetic into my cousins’ skulls,” she replied.

  “You act as tutor?’’

  “Yes, they, too, live with grandpa. Their father was papa’s brother, and since my grandfather is becoming gouty, he is leaving the running of the estate to my Uncle Gerald. I keep out of mischief by trying to teach them.”

  “No pleasant task, from that frown,” Thoreau remarked.

  “It’s not so bad when they will settle down to work, but usually they are blowing holes in their desks with winkies—salt peter and a candle you know—or throwing the ink and books at each other, or me, or bringing mice or badgers into the schoolroom. They are hard to control as their mama doesn’t like me to hit them. However, they mean no harm. They are not bad boys, only high-spirited.”

  “They should be sent away to school.”

  “Grandmama is afraid they wouldn’t receive a proper religious education and has convinced their father to have them educated at home. But they will be soon getting into Latin and Greek, and I have some hopes they will hire a tutor before I am quite done in.”

  An angry scowl greeted this remark, and fearing she had in some manner revealed herself as the lazy, spineless creature she was so often told she was, she took her leave of him.
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  Jonathon was not too reluctant to exchange the drafty, dusty study in which he labored for the gracious warmth of Chanely, and if anyone could make heads or tails of these scrambled accounts, it was Sir Hillary—as clever as an accountant with figures. The eagerness with which he snatched at the invitation even gave rise to the suspicion that he had been looking for an excuse to go to Chanely. Within ten minutes he was out the door and did not return to Swallowcourt that night.

  Chapter Eleven

  Sir Hillary was out in his estimation if he thought he would be kept waiting by the ladies. They were from their beds at six, had dressed, eaten, and done all that was necessary before seven-thirty, save throw on their bonnets and pelisses. They therefore had an impatient wait for the appearance of Thoreau’s traveling carriage and team of four. Miss Bliss had risen early to see them off, knowing Mrs. Milmont would not be on hand.

  “Everything all right?” Hillary asked her when he was admitted to the house.

  She nodded quietly and slipped into his hand that same parcel he had given her the previous day under the pretext of taking his hat.

  “We’ve been ready and waiting this age,” Loo told him.

  As promised, the gentlemen had removed their armbands, and it was a merry party that set out for the metropolis. The ladies did not look precisely fashionable, but in their best bonnets and pelisses, they were at least respectable. Gab and Loo sat on one side of the banquette in the carriage, and Claudia and Thoreau on the other. Both girls found it exceedingly pleasant to have a sheepskin rug beneath their feet, a snug blanket over their laps, and satin squabs to cushion their backs and heads.

  “What luxury!” Claudia marveled. “This seems a positively decadent carriage.”

  “We have more debauchery in store for you,” Hillary promised. “Hot coffee in this wicker basket you see here on the floor, and some scones, still warm from the oven. I had my cook make them specially this morning, in case the crumbs at Swallowcourt were not sufficient for two growing girls.”

  “Sir Hillary always does things in style,” Luane informed her cousin. “He doesn’t often exert himself, but when he does take you anywhere, you may be sure he will not stint.”