A GAME AT CHESS.
"Life's burdens fall, its discords cease,
I lapse into the glad release
Of nature's own exceeding peace."
WHITTIER.
"I don't see," said Aunt Faith, "why the child can't come to me,
Henderson, while you and Elizabeth are away. I don't believe in putting
yourself under obligations to people till you're sure they're going to
be something to you. Things don't always turn out according to the
Almanac."
"She goes just as she always has gone to the Rushleighs," replied Mr.
Gartney. "Paul is to be away. It is a visit to Margaret. Still, I shall
be absent at least a fortnight, and it might be well that she should
divide her time, and come to Cross Corners for a few days, if it is only
to see the house opened and ready. Luther can have a bed here, if Mis'
Battis should be afraid."
Mis' Battis was to improve the fortnight's interval for a visit to
Factory Village.
"Well, fix it your own way," said Miss Henderson. "I'm ready for her,
any time. Only, if she's going to peak and pine as she has done ever
since this grand match was settled for her, Glory and I'll have our
hands full, nursing her, by then you get back!"
"Faith is quite well," said Mrs. Gartney. "It is natural for a girl to
be somewhat thoughtful when she decides for herself such an important
relation."
"Symptoms differ, in different cases. _I_ should say she was taking it
pretty hard," said the old lady.
Mr. and Mrs. Gartney left home on Monday.
Faith and Mis' Battis remained in the house a few hours after, setting
all things in that dreary "to rights" before leaving, which is almost,
in its chillness and silence, like burial array. Glory came over to
help; and when all was done--blinds shut, windows and doors fastened,
fire out, ashes removed--stove blackened--Luther drove Mis' Battis and
her box over to Mrs. Pranker's, and Glory took Faith's little bag for
her to the Old House.
This night she was to stay with her aunt. She wanted just this little
pause and quiet before going to the Rushleighs'.
"Tell Aunt Faith I'm coming," said she, as she let herself and Glory out
at the front door, and then, locking it, put the key in her pocket.
"I'll just walk up over the Ridge first, for a little coolness and
quiet, after this busy day."
There was the peace of a rested body and soul upon her face when she
came down again a half hour after, and crossed the lane, and entered,
through the stile, upon the field path to the Old House. Heart and will
had been laid asleep--earthly plan and purpose had been put aside in all
their incompleteness and uncertainty--and only God and Nature had been
permitted to come near.
Mr. Armstrong walked down and met her midway in the field.
"How beautiful mere simpleness and quiet are," said Faith. "The cool
look of trees and grass, and the stillness of this evening time, are
better even than flowers, and bright sunlight, and singing of birds!"
"'He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: He leadeth me beside the
still waters: He restoreth my soul: He leadeth me in the paths of
righteousness for His name's sake.'"
They did not disturb the stillness by more words. They came up
together, in the hush and shadow, to the pleasant doorstone, that
offered its broad invitation to their entering feet, and where Aunt
Faith at this moment stood, watching and awaiting them.
"Go into the blue bedroom, and lay off your things, child," she said,
giving Faith a kiss of welcome, "and then come back and we'll have our
tea."
Faith disappeared through passages and rooms beyond.
Aunt Henderson turned quickly to the minister.
"You're her spiritual adviser, ain't you?" she asked, abruptly.
"I ought to be," answered Mr. Armstrong.
"Why don't you advise her, then?"
"Spiritually, I do and will, in so far as so pure a spirit can need a
help from me. But--I think I know what you mean, Miss Henderson--spirit
and heart are two. I am a man; and she is--what you know."
Miss Henderson's keen eyes fixed themselves, for a minute, piercingly
and unflinchingly, on the minister's face. Then she turned, without a
word, and went into the house to see the tea brought in. She knew, now,
all there was to tell.
Faith's face interpreted itself to Mr. Armstrong. He saw that she
needed, that she would have, rest. Rest, this night, from all that of
late had given her weariness and trouble. So, he did not even talk to
her in the way they mostly talked together; he would not rouse, ever so
distantly, thought, that might, by so many subtle links, bear round upon
her hidden pain. But he brought, after tea, a tiny chessboard, and set
the delicate carved men upon it, and asked her if she knew the game.
"A little," she said. "What everybody always owns to knowing--the
moves."
"Suppose we play."
It was a very pleasant novelty--sitting down with this grave, earnest
friend to a game of skill--and seeing him bring to it all the resource
of power and thought that he bent, at other times, on more important
work.
"Not that, Miss Faith! You don't mean that! You put your queen in
danger."
"My queen is always a great trouble to me," said Faith, smiling, as she
retracted the half-made move. "I think I do better when I give her up in
exchange."
"Excuse me, Miss Faith; but that always seems to me a cowardly sort of
game. It is like giving up a great power in life because one is too weak
to claim and hold it."
"Only I make you lose yours, too."
"Yes, there is a double loss and inefficiency. Does that make a better
game, or one pleasanter to play?"
"There are two people, in there, talking riddles; and they don't even
know it," said Miss Henderson to her handmaid, in the kitchen close by.
Perhaps Mr. Armstrong, as he spoke, did discern a possible deeper
significance in his own words; did misgive himself that he might rouse
thoughts so; at any rate, he made rapid, skillful movements on the
board, that brought the game into new complications, and taxed all
Faith's attention to avert their dangers to herself.
For half an hour, there was no more talking.
Then Faith's queen was put in helpless peril.
"I must give her up," said she. "She is all but gone."
A few moves more, and all Faith's hope depended on one little pawn, that
might be pushed to queen and save her game.
"How one does want the queen power at the last!" said she. "And how much
easier it is to lose it, than to get it back!"
"It is like the one great, leading possibility, that life, in some sort,
offers each of us," said Mr. Armstrong. "Once lost--once missed--we may
struggle on without it--we may push little chances forward to partial
amends; but the game is changed; its soul is gone."
As he spoke he made the move that led to obvious checkmate.
Glory came in to the cupboard, now, and began putting up the tea things
she had brought from washing.
Mr. Armstrong had done just what, at first, he had meant not to do. Had
he bethought himself better, and did he seize the opening to give vague
warning where he might not speak more plainly? Or, had his habit, as a
man of thought, discerning quick meaning in all things, betrayed him
into the instant's forgetfulness?
However it might be, Glory caught glimpse of two strange, pained faces
over the little board and its mystic pieces.
One, pale--downcast--with expression showing a sudden pang; the other,
suffering also, yet tender, self-forgetful, loving--looking on.
"I don't know whichever is worst," she said afterwards, without apparent
suggestion of word or circumstance, to her mistress; "to see the
beautiful times that there are in the world, and not be in 'em--or to
see people that might be in 'em, and ain't!"
They were all out on the front stoop, later. They sat in the cool,
summer dusk, and looked out between the arched lattices where the vines
climbed up, seeing the stars rise, far away, eastwardly, in the blue;
and Mr. Armstrong, talking with Faith, managed to win her back into the
calm he had, for an instant, broken; and to keep her from pursuing the
thought that by and by would surely come back, and which she would
surely want all possible gain of strength to grapple with.
Faith met his intention bravely, seconding it with her own. These
hours, to the last, should still be restful. She would not think,
to-night, of those words that had startled her so--of all they suggested
or might mean--of life's great possibility lost to him, away back in the
sorrowful past, as she also, perhaps was missing it--relinquishing
it--now.
She knew not that his thought had been utterly self-forgetful. She
believed that he had told her, indirectly, of himself, when he had
spoken those dreary syllables--"the game is changed. Its soul is gone!"