University of Virginia Library

3. CHAPTER III.
A GAME OF CHESS.

“I BEG your pardon?” said Maverick Hayle.
He said it in simple bewilderment.

Perley repeated her remark.

“You wish — excuse me — do I understand
you to wish —”

“`Partner' was undoubtedly the word that she
used, Maverick,” said Mr. Hayle the senior, with
an amused smile.

“I want to be a partner in the firm,” reiterated
Perley, with great distinctness; “you 're very stupid
this morning, Maverick, if you 'll excuse me.
I thought I had expressed myself clearly. I want
to be a partner in Hayle and Kelso.”

They were sitting — the two gentlemen and the
young lady — around a table in Miss Kelso's parlor:
a little table which Perley had cleared to
its pretty inlaid surface, with some indefinite idea,
which vastly entertained Maverick, of having

room in which to “conduct business.” Some
loose papers, a new glazed blank-book, and a little
gold pencil lay upon the table. The pattern of
the table was a chess-board of unusual beauty:
Miss Kelso's hand, slightly restless, traced the
little marble squares, sometimes with the pencil,
sometimes without, while she talked. The squares
were of veined gray and green.

“I sent for you this morning,” said Perley,
turning to the elder gentleman, “because it
seemed to me quite time that I should understand
the state of my affairs as my father's death has
left them. I am very ignorant, of course. He
never talked to me about the business; but I
suppose that I could learn. I should prefer to
learn to understand my own affairs. This is not
inconsistent, I am sure you will appreciate, with
that confidence which it is my delight to feel in
you and Maverick.”

Maverick, at the sound of his own name, looked
up with a faint effort to recall what had preceded
it, having plunged suddenly and irretrievably into
the depths of a decision that Story, the next time
he was in the country, should make a study of a
hand upon squares of gray and green. In self-defence
he said so.

“Whatever responsibilities,” said Perley, with
a slight twitch of annoyance between her eyes,
and speaking still to the elder gentleman, — “whatever
responsibilities rest upon me, as sole heir to
my father's property, I am anxious to fulfil in
person. Whatever connection I have with the
Hayle and Kelso Mills, I am anxious, I am exceedingly
anxious, to meet in person. And I thought,”
added the young lady, innocently, “that the simplest
way would be for me to become a partner.”

“Now I don't know another woman,” said
Maverick, rousing, with an indulgent smile, “who
could have originated that, father, if she had tried.
Let us take her in. By all means take her in.
As she says, what could be simpler?”

“Miss Perley will of course understand what
would be in due time legally and suitably explained
to her,” observed Mr. Hayle, “that she
has, and need have, no responsibilities as heir to
her father's property; that she has, and can have,
no such connection with the Hayle and Kelso
Mills as requires the least exertion or anxiety
upon her part.”

“But I don't understand at all,” said Perley.

“I thought I fell heir to all that, with the money.
At least I thought I could if I wished to.”

“But we 're private, not corporate, don't you
see?” explained Maverick, carelessly. “You
don't fall heir to a partnership in a company as
you would to stock in a corporation, Perley.
You must see that.”

Probably Perley did not see that in the least.
The little gold pencil traced a row of greens and
skipped a row of grays in a sadly puzzled, unbusiness-like
way.

“You could not fall heir to the partnership
even if you were a man,” continued Maverick, in
his patronizing fashion. “The choice of a new
partner, or whether, indeed, there shall be a new
partner, is a matter resting wholly with the Senior
and myself to settle. Do I make it clear?”

“Quite clear,” said Perley, brightening; “so
clear, that I do not see anything in the world to
prevent your choosing me.”

Both gentlemen laughed; about as much as
they seemed to think was expected of them.
Maverick took up the pencil which Perley had
laid down, and jotted green squares at his end of
the table. Perley, at hers, slipped her empty

fingers musingly along a soft gray vein. She
was half vexed, and a little mortified. For the
first time in her life, she was inclined to feel
ashamed of being a woman. She was seriously
interested, — perhaps, again, for the first time in
her life, seriously interested — in this matter. A
faint sense of degradation at being so ignorant
that she could not command the respect of two
men sufficiently to the bare discussion of it possessed
her.

“One need not be a child because one is a
woman!” she said, hotly.

“The case is just this, my dear,” said the
Senior, kindly observant of her face and tone.
“Your father dies” — this with a slight, decorous
sadness in his voice, but mathematically withal, as
he would propound a sum for Perley's solution:
A man buys a bushel; or, A boy sold a yard —
“your father dies. Maverick and I reorganize
the firm in our own way: that is our affair. You
fall heir to a certain share of interest in the business:
that is your affair. It is for you to say
what shall be done with your own property. You
are even quite at liberty to withdraw it entire
from the concern, or you can leave it in our

hands, which, I am free to say, we should, in the
existing state of affairs, prefer —”

“And expect,” interrupted Maverick, pleasantly,
making little faces on Perley's pink, shell-like
nails with the pencil.

“Which we prefer, and very naturally, under
the circumstances, expect,” continued the Senior.
“You then receive certain dividends, which will
be duly agreed upon, and have thus the advantage
of at once investing your property in a safe,
profitable, and familiar quarter, and of feeling no
possible obligation or responsibility — business
obligation and responsibility are always so trying
to a lady — about it. You thus become, in fact
and in form, if you prefer, a silent partner. Indeed,
my dear,” finished the Senior, cheerfully,
“I do not see but this would meet your fancy
perfectly.”

“Especially as you are going to marry into
the firm,” observed Maverick.

“Has a silent partner a voice and vote in —
questions that come up?” asked Perley, hesitating,
and rubbing off the little faces from her nails
with a corner of her soft handkerchief.

“No,” said Maverick; “none at all. An ordinary,

unprivileged dummy, I mean. If you have
your husband's, that 's another matter. A woman's
influence, you know; you 've heard of it.
What could be more suitable?”

“Then, if I understand,” said Perley, “I invest
my property in your mills. You call me a silent
partner, to please me and to stop my asking
questions. I have nothing to do with the mills
or the people. I have nothing to do but to spend
the money and let you manage it. That 's all it
amounts to.”

“That 's all,” said Maverick.

Perley's light finger and the Junior's pencil
skirmished across the chess-table for a few moments
in silence; the finger from gray to gray;
the pencil on green and green; the finger, by
chance, it seemed, pursuing; the pencil, unconsciously,
it seemed, retreating, as if pencil-mark
and finger-touch had been in the first idle stages
of a long game.

“Who will go into the firm if I can't?” asked
Perley, suddenly.

“Father talks of our confidential clerk,” said
Maverick, languidly, “a fellow we 've promoted
from East Street, but smart. Smart as a trap.

Garrick by name. You 've seen him, perhaps, —
Stephen Garrick. But nothing is settled; and
this is submitted,” bowing, “to the close confidence
of our silent partner.”

Perley did not seem to be in a mood for gallantry;
did not smile, but only knitted her soft brows.

“Still, I do not see that there is anything to
prevent my becoming an active partner. There
is nothing the matter with the law, I suppose,
which forbids a woman becoming an active partner
in anything?”

Maverick assured her that there was nothing
the matter with the law; that the matter was
entirely with the existing firm. Excepting, indeed,
some technicality, about which he could
not, at the moment, be precise, which, he believed,
would make formal partnerships impossible
in the case of husband and wife.

“But that case we are not considering,” said
Perley, quickly. “That case it will be time
enough to consider when it occurs. As long as
I am unmarried and independent, Maverick, I
am very much in earnest in my wish to manage
my mills myself. I do not like to think that a
great many people may be affected by the use

of my property in ways over which I can have no
possible control. Of course, I don't know what
else to do with my money, and if it must be, it
must be,” — Perley noticed with some wonder
here an amused glance between father and son.
“But I shall be very much disappointed; and
I am much, I am very much, in earnest.”

“I verily believe she is,” said Maverick, with
sudden conviction. “Now, I admire that! It
is ingenuous and refreshing.”

“Then why don't you take my part, Maverick,
instead of laughing at me?” asked Perley, and
was vexed at herself for asking immediately.

“O, that,” said Maverick, “is another matter.
I may find myself entertained to the last degree
by the piquancy, originality, esprit, of a lady,
when I may be the last man upon earth to consent
to going into business with my wife. Seriously,
Perley,” for Perley did not bear this well,
“I don't see what has given you this kink, nor
why you have become so suddenly reluctant to
intrust the management of your property to me.”

“It is not my property,” said Perley, in a low
voice, “which I am reluctant to intrust to you.”

“What, then, may it be?”

“My people, — the people. Perhaps I have
thought of them suddenly. But it may be better
to remember a thing suddenly than never to
remember it at all.”

“People! O, the hands, the mill-people.
A little Quixotic fancy there. Yes, I understand
now; and very pretty and feminine it is
too. My dear Perley, you may set your kind
heart at rest about the mill-people, — a well-paid,
well-cared-for, happy set of laboring people
as you could ask to see. You can go down into
our mission school and take a class, if that is
what you are troubled about.”

“Suppose I were to withdraw my share of the
business,” suggested Perley, abruptly. “Suppose,
upon being refused this partnership for which I
have asked this morning, I should prefer to withdraw
my interest in the mills?”

“We should regret it,” said Mr. Hayle, courteously;
“but we should have nothing to do but
to make the best of circumstances.”

“I see, I see now!” Perley flushed as the eyes
of the two gentlemen met again and again with
suppressed amusement in them. “I ought to have
said that before I told you that I did n't know

what else to do with the money. Of course!
I see, I 've made a bad business blunder. I see
that you think I should always make bad business
blunders. Now, Maverick Hayle, I don't
believe I should!”

“My dear Perley,” said Maverick, wearily,
“just listen to reason for reason's sake. A
lady's patience and a gentleman's time are too
valuable to throw away at this rate. Even if
you possessed any other qualification, which you
do not, or all other qualifications, which you cannot,
for this ridiculous partnership, you lack an
absolutely essential one, — the acquaintance of
years with the business. Just reflect upon your
acquaintance with the business!”

“I will acquire an acquaintance of years with
the business,” said Perley, firmly.

“Begin at the spools, for example?”

“I will begin at the spools.”

“Or inspect the cotton?”

“Or inspect the cotton.”

“Wear a calico dress, and keep the books
in a dingy office?”

“Wear a dozen calico dresses, and keep books
in the dingiest office you have. I repeat, I am in

earnest. I ask for the vacant partnership, or
a chance to fit myself for a partnership, in Hayle
and Kelso. Whatever my disqualifications, I am
ready to remove them, any and all. If you refuse
it to me, while I suppose we shall all go on and
be very good-natured about it, I shall feel that
you refuse it to me because I am a young lady,
not because I do not stand ready to remove a
young lady's disqualifications.”

“Really, Perley, this is becoming absurd, and
the morning is half gone. If you won't take a
gallant dismissal of a foolish subject, then I do
refuse it to you because you are a young lady.”

“We must refuse it to you certainly, on whatever
grounds,” remarked the Senior, with politeness,
“however unpleasant it may be to refuse
you even the gratification of an eccentric fancy.”

Perley's pursuing finger on the little gray
squares thoughtfully traced the course of Maverick's
retreating pencil on the green. Pencil-mark
and finger-touch played faster now, as if in
the nervous stages of a shortening game.

“What do you do,” asked the young lady, irrelevantly,
and still with her light fingers thoughtfully
tracking the chess-board, and still watching

the little gold pencil, which still retreated before
it, “in your mills, when you have occasion to run
extra time?”

“Run it,” said Maverick, laconically.

“But what do you do with the people, — the
operatives, I mean?”

“Pay them extra.”

“But they are not obliged, unless they desire,
to work more than eleven hours a day?”

“No,” said the Junior, nonchalantly; “they
can leave if they prefer.”

Perley's face, bent over the squares of gray and
green, changed color slightly. She would have
spoken, it seemed, but thought better of it, and
only played with her thoughtful finger silently
along the board.

“Your remark will leave an unfortunate impression
upon the young lady, my son,” observed
the elder Mr. Hayle, “unless you explain to her
that in times of pressure it would be no more
possible for a mill to thin out its hands in extra
hours than it would be for her to dismiss her
cook when she has a houseful of company. The
state of the market is an inexorable fact, an inex-orable
fact, Miss Perley, before which employer

and employé, whose interests, of course,
are one, have little liberty of choice. The
wants of the market must be met. In fast times,
we are all compelled to work pretty hard. In
dull times, we rest and make up for it. I can
assure you that we have almost universally found
our hands willing and anxious to run an extra
hour or so for the sake of extra pay.”

“How long a day's work has the state of the
market ever required of your mills?” asked
Perley, still with her head bent and her finger
moving.

“Perhaps thirteen hours and a half. We ran
thirteen hours and a half for a week last July,
was n't it, Maverick?”

“What is the use of talking business to a woman?”
said Maverick, with such unusual animation
that he said it almost impatiently.

“I understand then,” said Perley, with the same
abruptness which had characterized her words so
often that morning, “that my application to look
after my mills in an official capacity is refused?”

“Is refused.”

“In any official capacity?”

“In any official capacity.”

“But that,” with a faint smile, “of silent partner.”

“But that,” with a bow, “of silent partner.”

“It is quite impossible to gratify me in this
respect?” pursued Perley, with her bent head
inclined a little to the Senior.

“Quite impossible,” replied the Junior.

“So, out of the question.”

“And so, out of the question.”

The finger-touch brought the pencil-mark abruptly
to a stop upon a helpless square of green.

“Checkmate?” asked the young man, smiling.

“Checkmate,” said the young lady, smiling
too.

She closed the pencil-case with a snap, tossed
the little glazed blank-book into the fire, and rang
for luncheon, which the three ate upon the chess-table,
— smiling.