'Yes, Mr. Cantwell, as I told you on the phone, I have the samples of suggested new carpeting with me to show your mother and sister.'
'Excellent! Come along, then, Miss Woodling, I'd like you to meet them, too.'
Heather indolently rose from the heavily upholstered couch and followed her stepmother down a long hall to the elegantly ornate library at its other end. There, a white-haired frail woman and a portly but pleasant-faced gray-haired woman courteously rose to meet their guests as the personable architect, his arm affectionately around his mother's waist, remarked, 'Mother, this is Mrs. Woodling, who'll be making this old house look like new, and Miss Woodling. Ladies, my mother and my sister Fern.'
'My goodness,' the white-haired woman beamed,' you two look more like sisters than mother and daughter.'
'Indeed they do, Arnold dear,' his sister nodded.
Heather frowned, glancing hastily at Rachel, who quickly amended, 'Thank you for the compliment, but actually Heather is my stepdaughter.'
'Even so,' Arnold Cantwell's mother smilingly replied. Then, to her son, 'Arnold, I'd no idea Mrs. Woodling was so young and attractive. My gracious, I suppose I thought anyone so experienced and with such good taste in home decorating had to be along in years!'
'You're very kind Mrs. Cantwell,' Rachel swiftly but politely tried to change the topic of discussion sensing the red-haired young woman's annoyance. 'If I might, I'd like to show you and Miss Cantwell some very attractive samples of carpeting and get your thoughts about where alterations could be made in the various rooms.
'Why, of course, how thoughtful of you!' the architect's mother smiled. 'Arnold dear, would you ask Jessie to bring all three of us some tea and cookies? Oh, I'm forgetting-perhaps Miss Woodling would like to take some refreshments with us?'
Arnold Cantwell interposed with an apologetic smile, 'I've asked her to play chess with me, Mother. And I'll have Jessie serve us both in the study. Take your time, I want you and Fern to be perfectly happy with the changeover, you know.'
'Oh, I'm sure we'll get along splendidly with Mrs. Woodling,' his mother said with a fond look at him. Rachel, opening her briefcase, seated herself on a chair drawn up near the couch, while Arnold Cant-well turned to the still sulky redhead: 'How about that game now, Miss Woodling?' he pleasantly proposed.
Heather nodded without enthusiasm. 'Might as well,' she mumbled, and accompanied him to a room a few doors away from the library. Opening the door, he rang the bell for the maid, smilingly gesturing to Heather to enter.
In a corner near the large bay window, there stood a handsome walnut table with an inlaid chessboard on its top, and a superb ivory set of white and black pieces. With a gasp of admiration, Heather hurried over to the table and almost reverently lifted up the black king, then the white rook, examining them, and setting them back on the board, her green eyes shining with animation. Arnold Cantwell, who had given the maid Jessie instructions to serve Rachel and his mother and sister in the library and to bring a collation for Heather and himself in here, now returned to the alluring young redhead, who had worn a summery blue cotton frock and beige nylons. For an instant, he contemplated her as she stood with her back to him, and then banteringly said, 'Most ivory sets, as you probably know, Miss Woodling, are ornamental But this one was made in the accepted Staunton design, so it could be used even in tournament play.'
She turned quickly to him, a smile curving her sensual red mouth. 'Yes,. I noticed! It must have been frightfully expensive!'
'I bought it out of my very first fee as an architect. It was something I'd always wanted since I was a fourteen year old and learned chess from a very arrogant high school senior whose father had an absolutely garish ivory set.'
'Then you must be a very good player,' Heather drawled.
'Passable. I don't have too much chance to play, not with my work, and joining a club would take much too much time. Now then, why don't you take the white pieces?'
Heather's smile vanished, to be replaced by the sulky look again. 'You don't have to patronize me because I'm a girl, Mr. Cantwell. We'll draw for colors.'
'Of course, forgive me!' Me took a black pawn and a white one, put his hands behind him, changed them several times, then offered his closed hands to Heather, who touched his left.
'You get white after all,' he chuckled, seating himself at the side of the board on which the black pieces were arrayed.
Swiftly, the red-haired young woman shot out her hand to move the king's pawn to the fourth rank, and Arnold Cantwell, pursing his lips, hesitated a moment before moving the queen's bishop's pawn to the fourth rank.
'A Sicilian,' Heather murmured, and moved her king's knight to which he answered with the queen's knight. She glanced intently at him; then, as his eyes rose to meet hers, she frowned, flushing hotly, and played the queen's pawn to the fourth rank.
There was silence for a few moments till after the architect's eighth move. 'The Najdorf variation,' Heather mused aloud, cupping her chin in both bands and leaning forward over the board.
'Yes. It's probably discredited now by the latest Russian analysis, but It leads to an aggressive game,' he retorted. 'Cigarette? Ah, we'll wait-here comes Jessie with our tea.'
The maid deferentially moved forward to set the tray down on a large hassock beside the table, then murmured, 'I've served your mother and sister and Mrs. Woodling, sir. Will there be anything else?'
'No, thanks, Jessie, that's just fine. We'll serve ourselves.' When she had left the room, he poured out tea into a Wedgewood cup. 'Do you take lemon or cream, Miss Woodling?'
'Lemon and lots of sugar. And you can call me Heather.'
'I'd like that. And still more if you'd call me Arnold in return. Here you are, and try two of these molasses cookies. Jessie baked them herself, and she's a wonder.'
He handed Heather the cup and saucer and the little plate with two large round brown cookies, and she set them down at the side of the wide table, took a perfunctory sip of the tea, her eyes scanning the position. Arnold Cantwell poured out tea for himself and leaned back in his chair, studying his lovely opponent.
'Your move!' she said almost curtly as she moved a bishop. Then, reaching for a cookie, she nibbled at it, put it back on the plate, looked up at him expectantly.
'And yours,' he countered by moving a rook.
'Oh-yeah.' Heather mumbled, glaring at the rook which threatened to take possession of the open file. She leaned back, reached for the rest of the cookie, crunched it noisily between her fine white teeth, then took up the cup and nearly drained it, setting it down with a clatter, after which she gave him a cursory look before studying the position again. 'You know your opening theory.'
'I subscribe to some British chess magazines and go over the games every so often, that's why,' he smilingly confided. 'Now, how about that cigarette?'
'Yes, please.' Puffing at it after using his monogrammed silver lighter, Heather countered with her own queen's rook to the same file, and Arnold Cant-well instantly surprised her with a king's side attack which began with the advance of the bishop's pawn.
Now fully absorbed in the complicated position, the attractive young redhead no longer glanced at her opponent with the frowning, faint hostility she had shown at the outset. Instead, cupping her chin in one hand, sitting sideways in the chair and crossing her shapely nylon-sheathed legs, she morosely pondered a full two minutes before making a defensive move. Instantly the architect followed through with the attack, and for the next quarter of an hour, Heather was busy defending herself, for the least slip could mean the shattering of her king's security. At last, thanks to his transposing a move, she was able to save herself by sacrificing a bishop for two pans to bring about a perpetual check with the queen, and gasped, 'Boy, did I ever need that!'
'That was extremely well planned, Heather!' he congratulated her as he began to set the pieces up for another game.
'Yeah, for a girl, I suppose you mean,' she flung at him as she reached out to take the second cookie off the plate and munch it, staring almost defiantly at him.
'I didn't say that at all. I'd have been very happy myself, in your shoes, to have dreamed up a clever diagonal file sacrifice like that.'
