CHAPTER IVREGINALD AND TOM

Tom Giles, Attorney at Law in Newton, Mass., sat in his office one hot summer morning, wondering if he should accept an invitation he had received by letter from his friend and college chum, Reginald Travers, to spend a few weeks with him in Oakfield.

“It is not a very gay town,” Reginald wrote. “The young persons have mostly emigrated to fairer fields in the west, and the old ones stay because they cannot get away and are attached to their rocky farms and houses and customs of a century ago. Some of them are as full of superstition as the negroes of the South, and I am told that what few young people there are here actually look into wells at noon and walk round haystacks at night, hoping to see their future consorts. To you, who are a descendant of the believers in Salem witchcraft, this sort of thing will be delightful, and I have no doubt you will be looking into a well some day at noon. There is a famous one on Uncle Colin’s farm, with a story attached to it.

“But no matter about the well, that is the least attraction. The air is fine and there are some pleasant drives and views, while Uncle Colin’s house isroomy and hospitable, and Uncle Colin the most genial of hosts. I call him uncle although he is in no way related to me. His brother, Sandy McPherson, married my great-grandmother, Mrs. Travers. She was a widow, with an only son, who was my grandfather. The Travers family must have been given to only sons, for my father was one and I am one, and, as you know, nearly alone in the world. Some time before Sandy McPherson’s death, which occurred several months ago, I visited him and was greatly pleased with the canny old Scotchman. I think he was pleased with me, for he left a will, made after I was there, in which I figure conspicuously and not altogether satisfactorily. When I have made up my mind I may tell you about it. Until then don’t bother me. You know I do not like to discuss my affairs with anybody, and this affair least of all. It is not pleasant. Don’t fail to come. I want to see you awfully.

“Reginald Travers.”

When Tom read this letter his first impulse was that he would accept the invitation. Then he began to waver. He had not a surplus of money to spend, and it might be better to stay at home and grind, as he called his office work. Then, too, he knew that in New York there was a little, dark-haired, brown-faced girl, whom he cared more to see than a dozen Reginalds. This was Rena, the pet name he had given her, although she was christened Irene.He had known her since she was three years old and her mother had died suddenly at his home where she was visiting his mother, who was her cousin. There was no one to care for her, as her father was dead, and she had stayed on, the darling of the household, the object of his boyish admiration and then of his love, as both grew older and the young girl seemed to know exactly what chords to touch to make him her slave. At fifteen she had fallen heir to ten or fifteen thousand dollars from a bachelor uncle, and as Tom’s mother died about that time Rena had gone to live with her Aunt Mary in New York, who, not caring for her when she was a baby, now found that she wanted just such a bright young girl to add éclat to her surroundings and keep her from growing old too fast.

Before she left for New York, Tom’s love for her got the better of his judgment and he asked her to be his wife when she was older. There was a look almost of horror in Rena’s gray eyes as she listened, and when he finished she began impetuously, “Tom Giles, are you crazy, making love to me, a child of fifteen, and you twenty-two and the same as my brother? I’d as soon marry my brother, if I had one. It is horrible, and almost makes me hate you. I shall hate you, if you ever say a word of this kind again.”

She burst into a fit of weeping so violent that it frightened Tom, who tried to make amends for his blunder by saying that he was a fool and a brute and everything bad and never would speak to her of love again, if she would forgive him. That was six years ago, and the episode had seemingly passed from Rena’s memory, or if she thought of it, it was as of something which would never be repeated, for Tom was one who kept his word. And so she went on teasing him with her pretty ways and blandishments and her open show of affection for and trust in him. He was the dearest old Tom, in whom she confided all her secrets and troubles, confident that he would never fail her, and all the while his great love for her was eating his heart out, and he sometimes felt that in spite of his word he must speak again.

“But I’ll wait a while longer,” he thought, “wait till I see some sign that she wants me to speak. She likes me now better than any one in the world, she says, and by and by, who knows?”

With this hope for the by and by, Tom contented himself, knowing that however much Rena might brother him, he could never think of her as a sister. He had soothed her with kisses and candy when her mother died. She had sat in his lap at her mother’s funeral. She had cried herself to sleep in his armsmany a night. She had teased and tyrannized over him in a thousand ways, but had never given the slightest sign that he was more to her than dear old Tom, who was always to do her bidding, no matter what it was. And he had done it religiously, and was ready at any time to walk up to the cannon’s mouth, if she so desired it. He had wanted to join her in Europe, when she wrote so earnestly for him to do so, but funds were low and his business must not be neglected. She was home now. She would be going somewhere with her aunt, and if possible he meant to join her. That she was in any way connected with the will which was not satisfactory to Reginald he did not dream until he received her letter. He had been Reginald’s room-mate for two years in college, and there was a warm friendship between them, although they were entirely unlike each other. Reginald was naturally shy and proud, or seemed so, and awkward in ladies’ society, and reticent to the last degree; slow to like or show his liking, but firm as a rock and true as steel when once he cared for a person, or thought a thing was right. In this respect Tom was like him, but in scarcely any other. He was frank and outspoken, fond of fun and joke, and ready to do a favor to a friend or foe, and knew just what to say to ladies, no matter what their calibre might be. Everybody liked Tom Giles, and notmany liked Reginald Travers until they knew him intimately, and found that beneath his cold, impassive exterior there was a heart as warm, perhaps, as Tom’s, when the right chord was touched. For women Reginald cared but little, and matrimony had had no part of his thoughts until he read a copy of Sandy McPherson’s will. He was glad enough for the money, if he could have it without the girl. She troubled him, and yet he never for a moment thought he should not try to fulfil his part of the contract. After a while, and he meant to make it a long while, he would find her, perhaps, and if she were at all desirable and seemed to fancy him, he would try conscientiously to manufacture a liking for her. He did not believe much in love anyway. Tom Giles went in for that sort of thing strong and was always mooning about a second cousin, Rena somebody, he had forgotten the last name, so little did he care for his friend’s love affairs. When he read that Irene Burdick was the girl intended for him, he had a vague idea that he had heard the name before, but had no idea that it was the Rena Tom mooned over so much. Since leaving college he had seen but little of Tom, who was working up a law business in Newton, while he was attending to some property he owned in and near Richmond, Va., where he was born. But he had not forgotten hisfriend, and after he had been in Oakfield a few days there came over him a great longing to see him again, and perhaps tell him about the will, which was giving him so much trouble. He did not like to think of it and had, of his own accord, mentioned it but once to Mr. McPherson, asking him if he knew where the girl was and if he had ever seen her.

Mr. McPherson never had, “but Sandy saw her,” he said. “I can’t remember exactly what he thought of her. I only know he liked her build and fancied there was a look in her eyes like Nannie, who was some very distant relative of hers, and whose portrait, you know, hangs in the drawing-room between his two wives, one your great-grandmother, the other Irene’s. She lives in New York with her aunt, a Mrs. Graham, and has not been home from Europe a great while.”

“Does she know about the will? and what does she think of it?” Reginald asked, and Mr. McPherson replied: “When my brother died, I made some inquiries about her and heard she was in Europe, so I concluded not to send her a copy till she came home, which she did some weeks ago. Then I sent it at once and her aunt replied that her niece was a good deal upset by it and would write me what she thought later on. She has not written, and that isall I know. She is probably waiting for you to take the initiative and find her.”

“Which I shall not do at present. I shall let Providence direct awhile,” was Reginald’s answer, and there the conversation dropped.

Reginald had heard of Nannie when he visited in Oakfield before, and had thought her a very foolish young girl to drown herself when she might have been mistress of Sandy’s fine house. Aside from that he had felt no particular interest in her. Now, however, if her eyes were like those of the girl he was to marry, he’d have a look at them. Watching his opportunity when Colin was out, he went into the room where the three portraits were hanging, the two great-grandmothers, his and Irene’s, with caps on their heads, as was the fashion of those times, and Nannie, looking very girlish in her low-necked gown, with her hair falling in long curls on her white shoulders. She was rather pretty, Reginald thought, especially her eyes, which followed him whichever way he turned, and gave him a queer kind of feeling, making him think of them even in his sleep. Still he did not speak of her to McPherson a second time, till the latter startled him one day by saying, “I saw a Mrs. Parks this morning, who lives in that big old house near the grove where the well is. She told me she had received a letter from a Mrs. Grahamin New York asking her if her niece, Miss Irene Burdick, and a friend, cousin, I think, could be accommodated with board at her house a few weeks; and then she asked if I didn’t suppose it was the Miss Burdick your grandfather had in view for you. The will was so queer that it went like wildfire, and everybody knows about it, and the girl’s name and where she lives.”

Reginald grew very pale and then very red as he said, “Do you think it is she?”

Mr. McPherson knew it was, for after Reginald’s first conversation with him he had received a letter from Mrs. Graham, making some inquiries concerning Reginald.

“The old lady is after him, if the girl isn’t,” Colin had thought, and had at once replied that the young man was spending the summer with him, and she’d better come out and see him for herself.

When he heard she had written for board for her niece at Mrs. Parks’, he had wondered a little that she, too, did not come as chaperone, but reflected that it was none of his business and he would let Providence run it as Reginald was doing. In reply to Reginald’s question, “Do you think it is she?” he told of his correspondence with Mrs. Graham, and added, “I am sure of it, and shall be glad to see her.”

After this Reginald grew very nervous and began to think of writing a second time to Tom, asking why he neither came nor answered his letter. He began, too, to wonder when Irene would arrive at Mrs. Parks’, and when he saw me in church his first thought was, “she’s come, and she’s old enough to be my mother,” and this accounted for the expression of his face when he first caught sight of me. Mrs. Parks’ introduction reassured him, and his temperature went down a little. Still he was very anxious for Tom, who, he felt, would somehow be a help and a safeguard.

“He’ll know just what to say to her,” he thought. “He’ll talk to her, while I look on and draw my own conclusions.”

The next day he received a letter from Tom, very short and to the point.

“Old chap,” Tom wrote, “Providence permitting and nothing happening to prevent, I’ll pack my grip and be in Oakfield Tuesday.

“Tom.”

There was a comfort in this, and Reginald began to feel better, never dreaming of the state of Tom’s mind. Knowing Reginald, Tom did not believe Rena would fancy him, and there was hope in that. Of Reginald, he had no doubt. He could not help being interested in Rena, and what the outcome wouldbe he could not guess. Irene, he was sure, would leave nothing undone to attract Reginald and might possibly succeed.

“Well, let her,” he thought for a moment. “That will leave Rena for me.” Then his better nature and his great liking for Reginald came to the surface, and he continued: “It is unworthy of Rena to deceive Rex even for a few weeks. Let her go to Oakfield, if she goes at all, as herself and not as another. I shall try to persuade her to give up her experiment.”

That day he wrote to her:

“Dear Rena, I was never so shocked in my life as when I received your letter. You have been up to a good many escapades, larks, or experiments you call them, but this last is the craziest of them all; and I beg you to give it up. It is unworthy of you. It is unwomanly—excuse me for saying so—it is a deception, if not a positive lie, and an imposition upon a good man. I know Reginald Travers. We were in college together and room-mates for two years. He is my best friend and I don’t want him wronged. He is shy and reticent, not at all a ladies’ man. Has no small talk. Knows nothing of girls and their ways, and does not care to know. But he is a gentleman and the soul of honor and would never be guilty of a mean act, and on that account does not suspect meanness in others, and might beeasily imposed upon. I do not think he is just your style, but he is a clean, splendid man, and I do not want him fooled by Irene. You say I do not like her, and I admit it. I know she is a fine specimen of flesh and blood, and as artful as she is beautiful. There is no deception at which she would stop, if she hoped to be benefited by it. I am sure of it. It is in her blood—not on your side of the house, not on the Burdick side, thank Heaven! but on her mother’s. She is useful to you because—excuse me, Rena—you do not like trouble, and she takes it all from you, and does it in a purring kind of way which soothes you to sleep, as it were, or shuts your eyes to her real character. Don’t take her to Oakfield. Don’t go there yourself. If you do not like the will and do not mean to have anything to do with it, or with Reginald, say so at once; or if you have a curiosity to see him, wait and let him seek you, as he is sure to do in time, for if he thinks this will imposes a duty on him he is going to fulfil it. He has invited me to visit him in Oakfield, and I had about made up my mind to decline, when I received your letter. Now, if you still persist in this crazy scheme, I shall accept Rex’s invitation; for, Rena, O Rena! I cannot have you compromised in any way? I don’t know as my presence in Oakfield will help you, but if you go, I shall go, too, not to betray you, of course. If you insist upon my keeping silent I promise to do so, for a while at least.

“Your loving cousin,“Tom.”

“Your loving cousin,

“Tom.”

He sent the letter; and the answer came promptly, and hotly. Rena was very angry, and addressed him as “Mr. Thomas Giles,” instead of “Dear old Tom,” telling him to mind his business and she would mind hers. She was doing nothing out of the way. She was not going to lie, as he seemed to think, nor deceive, either. She was simply not going to blurt out to Reginald Travers, “I am the girl you are to marry.” He probably knew she was coming with her cousin, as her aunt had written about it to Mr. McPherson, and she was going to let him find out which was which. If he asked her, or any one else asked her, she would tell the truth, instead of saying, “That is for you to find out,” as she at first intended to do; and she hoped he’d be satisfied at that. As for Irene, she was to be Miss Burdick, and Rena was to be Rena. That was all. Then she went on to say that she thought old Tom might let her have a little fun, and she didn’t know whether she was glad he was to be at Oakfield or not. On the whole, she guessed she was, but he was to hold his tongue. If questions were put to him he wasn’t to lie; she could never respect him if he did; but he must get out of it some way, and if there were blame she’d take it all upon herself and tell Mr. Travers it was one of her larks.

“He is not likely to fancy me, a little, dark, scrawny thing, when there is Irene in all her blonde beauty and style,” she wrote, “and if he happens to fancy her, as I hope he will, the only wrong I can see is that he will think he is getting fifty thousand dollars with her, and may be disappointed when he finds he isn’t; but if he is all you say he is, the soul of honor, and all that, and his love for Irene rises above his love of money, I mean to give him my share, ten thousand dollars. You can’t say that it is not fair, or that I am such a little cat as your letter implied. I cried over it and had an awful headache, and I shall be very cool to you when I first meet you in Oakfield.

“Rena.”

“P. S.—We are going next week Wednesday.”

When Tom read this letter he decided at once to go to Oakfield the following Tuesday, and wrote to Reginald to that effect. Reginald met him at the station; and, grasping both his hands, said to him: “I am so glad you have come, more glad than you can guess.”

He had never shown so much feeling before, and Tom looked at him curiously, thinking all the time of Rena, who was to arrive the next day. He knew Reginald well enough to know he would not speak of her at present, perhaps not at all in connection with the will; but in some way he must let it be known that she was his cousin before she came.There could be no betrayal of confidence in that. Consequently when they were at dinner that night, he said, very indifferently, “Do you know a Mrs. Parks, who takes boarders?”

Reginald at once began to get nervous, and his hands shook as he replied, “I know there is such a woman. What of her?”

“Nothing much,” Tom answered. “Perhaps you may remember having heard me speak of my cousin Rena when we were in college. She lived with my mother when she was a little girl.”

“Oh, yes. I remember perfectly, but I don’t recall her last name,” Reginald said.

“Burdick,” Tom replied, with a sidelong look at his friend, who dropped his knife and fork suddenly upon his plate as he repeated, “Burdick! That is not a common name. I have heard it before.”

“Perhaps,” Tom answered. “I have two cousins by that name, or, rather, second cousins. One I call Rena, and the other Irene; their fathers were brothers. I hear from Rena that they have engaged board for the summer with a Mrs. Parks, and will be here to-morrow on the four o’clock train.”

Reginald resumed his knife and fork and said, with an attempt to laugh:

“Oh, yes, I see, and fancy it was Miss Rena who had something to do with your coming to Oakfield.What did you say of the other young lady, Irene you called her? Is she your cousin, too?”

“Second, I told you, same as Rena,” Tom answered, beginning to grow hot with a feeling that he was acting a lie by not telling the truth at once. “If Rex keeps on I shall tell him in spite of my promise,” he thought. But Reginald asked no more questions, nor did he in any way refer to the subject again that evening. He was, however, more than usually quiet, and looked the next morning as if he had not slept well.

“He is taking it hard,” Tom thought, as he watched him trying to seem natural and talk of what they would do that day.

“We might go into the billiard-room this morning and knock the balls round a little,” he said; “then in the afternoon I’ll take you for a drive over the hills, and—er—er—perhaps after dinner you will want to call upon your cousins—upon Miss Rena, and—er——”

He didn’t say “Irene.” The name seemed to cleave to the roof of his mouth, and he couldn’t speak it.

“Certainly,” Tom said. “I’ve not seen Rena since she came from Europe.”

“Oh-h! was she there with her cousin?” Reginald asked, and Tom answered:

“Yes, they were both there awhile,” and felt himself a worse deceiver than he had charged Rena with being.

After a moment Reginald looked across the table to Colin, who had taken no part in the conversation. Knowing he was a little deaf, Reginald said to him:

“The young ladies, the Misses Burdick, Tom’s cousins, come this afternoon to Mrs. Parks’.”

“Yes, I know,” Mr. McPherson replied, and Reginald continued, hesitatingly:

“How would it do to send them some flowers from the greenhouse? I noticed a good many roses in bloom yesterday.”

“I think it a good idea,” Mr. McPherson said. “I’ll have the carriage go for them, too. The village ’bus is a miserable old rattletrap, and may not be there.”

“Thank you,” Reginald answered, and there were two red spots on either cheek, while the rest of his face was very pale, as he finished his breakfast and went out into the open air and then into the billiard-room.

“He does take it infernally hard,” Tom thought again, feeling a disposition to laugh at Reginald’s abstracted manner as he knocked the balls listlessly about, seldom hitting the mark, and apparently caring little whether he did or not.

The roses and lilies were gathered and sent and at the appointed time the McPherson carriage went to the station for the expected travellers. Reginald had asked Tom if he cared to go and meet the young ladies, and Tom answered:

“I think not. I will wait and we will call this evening.”

“Yes, certainly; I’ll call, if you think I ought,” Rex said, and Tom replied:

“No ought about it that I know of. You must call some time, and may as well have it done with. You’ll find the young ladies charming.”

“A-all right,” Reginald answered, and the words sounded like a groan.

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