CHAPTER XIITOM AND RENA AT THE WELL
In spite of her assertion that she could not take cold, Irene took one, which, with the nervous shock, confined her to the house for a few days, greatly to her annoyance and the discomfort of the family generally. She was not the most amiable of invalids and was very exacting in her demands upon Rena, who was kept going up and down stairs after things Irene wanted or fancied she did. Every day inquiries for her had come from the McPhersons, with flowers; and every day Tom had called in person to ask after her, and to talk with Rena when she could be spared from her office as nurse; and it was Tom who saw Irene first on the piazza, looking a little pale from her recent illness. He had received a letter from one of his clients which made it necessary for him to go home for a week or so, and as he was to leave that night he had come to say good-by to his cousins. I told him Rena had gone for a walk, adding that I thought she was down in the pine-grove, by Nannie’s Well, as that was her favorite resort.
“Gone to look in?” Tom asked, and I replied,“Possibly. I heard her say she meant to try it sometime.”
“All right. I’ll find her and look in, too,” Tom answered. “But I must see Irene first. Where is she?”
I told him, and he was soon with her, and saying:
“I am glad to see you in so good order. I didn’t know for a minute but you were a goner when you went out of sight, and I began to think of all the mean things I ever did and said to you, even to the angleworm I put on your neck years ago. I really did, and if you had been drowned I believe I should have worn crêpe. I should have jumped in after you if Rex had not got ahead of me. He swims like a fish and the way he brought you to land was beautiful to see. And, I say, that ducking improved your looks, if they could be improved. The loss of your topknot was a good thing.”
“What do you mean?” Irene asked, and Tom replied:
“I mean that you look better with that Eifel tower off your head. It made you too tall.”
“Five feet nine, that’s all,” Irene answered, a little crisply.
“In reality, perhaps; but five ten in appearance—taller than Rex, and that won’t do,” was Tom’s rejoinder, while Irene asked:
“Did he ever criticise my height?”
“Why, no; not exactly,” Tom replied, with a feeling that he was getting into hot water. “He has said something about your being rather tall, but with your hair as it is now, and that topknot half-way across the Atlantic, as it must be by this time, you are all right, and I never saw you look so well.”
Irene knew Tom meant all he said, and her face brightened a little, but there was still a shadow on it as she said:
“Do please be serious and sensible for once, and tell me if Mr. Travers saw the braid I lost?”
For a moment Tom hesitated; then he replied:
“Saw it? of course he did. How could he help it when he pulled it off your head and thought he had a part of your scalp with it? You never saw so distressed a fellow as he was holding it gingerly as if it were a live thing, and he was so relieved when I told him it had never grown on the top of your head, ‘the place where the wool ought to grow.’ You know that medley.”
“O Tom! why will you worry me so?” Irene asked, and Tom replied:
“I’m not worrying you. I’m only telling you how badly Rex felt when he thought he had torn off part of your head in trying to save you, and how relieved he was when I set him right. You see he lost hismother when he was a baby, and never had any sisters, or cousins, or aunts—was reared by an old mammy, who was once a slave in the family, and he knows nothing of girls’ little arts and make-ups, and supposed, of course, that every hair of that steeple was natural. I think he is glad it was not and that a part of it has gone to the mermaids. I am.”
Tom was sitting very close to Irene, with his hand on the arm of her chair, and was talking to her as he did not often talk. His compliments pleased her and she was thinking him not so bad a cousin, after all, when he startled her by saying:
“I say, Irene, how long are we going to keep up this farce of deceiving Rex?”
Irene bridled at once, and the chords in her neck began to show as they did when she was getting angry, and little red spots came out on her face.
“That’s for you and Rena to decide,” she said. “It was none of my getting up. I should never have thought of it. I am simply Rena’s tool and doing her bidding and you are as deep in it as I am, and deeper.”
“That’s so,” Tom answered, good-humoredly. “I got into it and could not very well get out, but it seems to me it has gone far enough. I had thought I’d wait till Rex told me of the will. This he does not seem disposed to do, although I have tried to leadup to it a dozen times. He always sheers off as if he hated to speak of it. I don’t believe he takes to it kindly. I am going home to-night on business, and when I come back I have concluded to tell Rex of his mistake and take every whit of the blame myself. Don’t look so scared,” he continued, as he saw how white Irene turned. “If Rex Travers cares for you he is not the man to give you up because there is no money with you. And, Irene, pardon me, my great friendship for Rex is my excuse for what I’m about to say. If he does care for you, will you try your best to make him a good, true wife?”
“What do you mean? What do you take me for? A good, true wife, indeed! As if I’d be anything else!” Irene answered, hotly, and Tom replied:
“I’ve put my foot in it and I may as well be plain. We never agreed very well. I know you thoroughly. You have your good points. You are very clever and handsome. Yes, the handsomest woman I ever saw.” Irene’s face began to soften, but clouded again as Tom went on: “You can be an angel when you feel like it, and something else when you don’t. You are not open as the day, and it would hurt Rex cruelly to find you in any little underhand tricks such as you practice. You know you do. You study every act with a view to the result. Rex never told a lie in his life, nor acted one, and could scarcely forgivehis wife if he caught her in one. Then you are pretty peppery, and Rex hasn’t a bit of that condiment in his makeup, and your voice, which can be like a turtle-dove when you choose, would frighten him if he heard it as croaky as I have heard it.”
Tom was saying pretty hard things, and Irene was thoroughly angry for a moment, and there was not much of the turtle-dove in her voice as she said:
“Tom Giles, you are insulting me!”
“I believe my soul I am,” Tom answered, “and I beg your pardon, and I don’t know why I have been so plain, except that I want Rex to be happy.”
Irene knew that Tom could help or hinder her cause, and with a great effort she controlled herself and said:
“It is not probable that Mr. Travers will ever ask me to be his wife. If he does I shall accept him and try to be to him all even you could wish me to be, and—Tom—” she hesitated, while the tears began to fill her eyes—“and, Tom, don’t throw obstacles in my way. You will get Rena and be happy. She does not want Mr. Travers. If she did I believe she could get him. She wants you. Take her and let me be happy, too. I have not much that is pleasant in my home life. You know I haven’t.”
She was a good deal agitated, and Tom was not proof against the pathetic look in her eyes.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I shall let Rex paddle his own canoe after he knows which canoe he is in, but I shall tell him the truth when I come back. And now I must be going. It is getting toward noon, and I must find Rena.”
Bidding her good-by, he walked rapidly away in the direction of the pine-grove, where he found Rena with the mirror in her hand.
“Upon my word,” he thought, “I believe she is going to look in the well. I wish I could hide and steal up behind her.”
He couldn’t do this, for Rena saw him nearly as soon as he saw her and involuntarily dropped the mirror as she went forward to meet him.
“I’ve caught you,” he said, passing his arm around her. “You were about to look into the well. Go ahead, and if you see anybody or don’t, I’ll take a hand after you.”
“O Tom!” Rena cried, trying to extricate herself from him. “I was going to take a peep in the well, the day is so fine, and the sun so bright. Just for fun, you know. I don’t believe a thing in it. And now you’ve spoiled everything.”
“No, I haven’t,” Tom answered. “I tell you go ahead, and when you are through I’ll try my luck. Hurry up! You’ve only a minute before noon, and you ought to be there now working yourself intoa proper frame of mind to receive the spectre. Be sure you don’t fall in.”
He had released her, and was holding his watch in one hand, while with the other he picked up the mirror, wiped a speck of dirt from it, and handed it to her. She took it rather reluctantly and said:
“Do you think you ought to be here?”
“Certainly,” he answered. “Wouldn’t it be rather uncanny for you to be alone when a man’s face comes staring at you in the mirror—Rex’s, for instance.”
“Tom!” was Rena’s only answer, as she stepped upon the stone projecting over the well.
“See that you don’t fall when he comes,” Tom said. “You have just ten seconds before he ought to be starting. Shall I count?”
He began counting very deliberately and loudly, while Rena held her breath wishing he would stop. He did stop just as the village bell began to strike the hour of noon.
“Now for it,” he said. “Look close; don’t miss him. Do you see him yet? I believe I hear a rustling in the air.”
Rena did not reply, and after a moment Tom called again. “Time he was there unless you are to be an old maid.”
“Tom Giles, will you stop!” Rena exclaimed,“How can I keep in a proper frame of mind if you go on like that?”
For half a minute Tom was silent; then he called again:
“Has he come?”
“No, and never will with you here bothering me so,” was the answer, while Tom drew stealthily nearer to her, and with a quick movement threw his arm around her and put his head down until his face touched hers and was reflected in the mirror beside her.
“Do you see him now?” he asked. “I do!”
There was a little scream and Rena fell back, pale and trembling.
“How dare you frighten me so and spoil it all!” she said. “Just for a moment when the shadow of a great bushy head began to come in sight I thought somebody was really coming, and it was only you, after all.” This was not very reassuring, but Tom didn’t mind. He knew Rena, and keeping his arm around her he led her to the seat under the pines, where he sat with her the first night of their visit to the well and she picked the needles from his sleeve and neck.
“Rena,” he began, and there was no banter in the tone of his voice, which was low and earnest and made Rena’s heart beat faster than it did when shefirst saw the shadow on the glass, “suppose I had not been here and my great bushy head had appeared beside you just the same and you had known it was I—old Tom you used to call me—would you have been more ready to say yes to me than you are now that I am here in flesh and blood, loving you with my whole soul, as I have done ever since you were a little toddling girl whose hand I held to steady her walk? It was such a little fat, dimpled hand, and the fingers clung to mine so confidingly that I feel the touch yet. That hand is a woman’s now, and I want it for my own. I said I would wait for years for your answer, if necessary, but I can’t do it, and I ask you now to be my wife; but think first how the matter stands. I have not much to offer you. With Rex you would get fifty thousand dollars in your own right, and this, you know, you lose if you marry me, who have very little beside my profession to depend upon. You will be a poor man’s wife.”
“There’s that ten thousand I am to have of Sandy McPherson’s money, no matter whom I marry; that’s something, besides what I already have. We shall not starve,” came in a smothered voice from Tom’s bosom, against which Rena’s face was pressed, and Tom knew the victory was won.
She had not said she would be his wife, but he was satisfied, and kissed her passionately again and again,and might have gone on kissing her if his Elysium had not been broken in upon by a shrill voice shouting, “Miss Rena, Miss Rena! where be you? It’s half-past twelve, and dinner is getting cold.”
It was Mrs. Parks calling as she had once called for Charlotte Anne. Dinner was ready and Miss Bennett’s digester in danger of getting more out of kilter by waiting than it already was. “I must go,” Rena said, freeing herself from Tom and smoothing her rumpled hair and collar. Tom did not try to detain her, but told her he was going to Newton that night, and should tell Rex before he left of his engagement. Then they parted and Rena hurried to the house, her cheeks like roses and her eyes bright as stars, as she took her seat with us at the table and apologized for being so late. Irene watched her curiously, and when they were alone in their room she said, “Miss Bennett told Tom you had gone to the well. Did you look in?”
“Yes,” Rena answered, “I looked in.”
“And you saw——?”
“Tom!” was Rena’s prompt reply.
“Really?” Irene exclaimed in astonishment.
“Yes, really; but a flesh-and-blood Tom, not a spirit,” Rena said, repeating some of the incidents of her adventure, while Irene listened with keen interest.
“And didn’t you hear him at all as he came up behind you?” she asked.
“No, not at all,” Rena replied. “The ground is soft, you know, and the pine-needles so thick that his step made no sound. I half believe old Sandy played that same trick on poor Nannie, though she would, of course, have seen him a moment after and known he was there. He could do it.”
“Yes,” Irene said, slowly and thoughtfully, “and was Tom’s face distinct beside yours?”
“Not all of it, but enough for me to have known it was Tom if he had vanished in air instead of seizing my arm.”
Irene was more interested in the well business than in Rena’s engagement, the news of which she received with no surprise. She had expected it, she said, and congratulated Rena and hoped she would be happy. Then, saying she was tired and must rest, she shut the door of her room and gave herself up to a train of thought, which she meant should bear fruit. If she could bring Rex to a proposal before Tom came back and spoiled everything, she believed he would keep faith with her, especially as Rena was lost to him. With her quick intuition she always felt that Rena attracted Rex more than she did, but that did not matter now; Rena was engaged, and there was nothing in the way of her ownadvancement. She could explain the deception into which she had been persuaded so that Rex would not blame her, and she began to feel very happy and confident.
Meanwhile Rex was in Tom’s room watching him as he packed his valise, and telling him how sorry he was to have him go. Tom had told him of his engagement, and like Irene he heard the news without much surprise.
“I fancied it was already settled,” he said, “and I congratulate you and know you will be happy. How long will you be gone at the farthest?”
“A week anyway, perhaps two,” Tom replied.
“Make it one, if possible,” Rex answered. “I am nothing without you—and—and—I may want to consult you about something when you get back.”
“Why not consult me now?” Tom asked; and Rex replied, “It will take too long and involves too much, and I must feel surer of myself than I do now. The fact is this hot weather or something is affecting my head, which feels at times as if there was a hornet’s nest in it, and I get so hot and then so cold. I believe it is malarious here. Anyhow, I do not feel like myself. I do not seem to have any courage or life left in me.”
Tom looked at him and saw what he had not before noticed, that he did look very worn and tired.
“It’s that confounded will,” he thought, “and the sooner he gets it off his mind the better. I’ll hurry back and have it out with him. There is not time now.”
At this point Mr. McPherson was heard in the hall, asking if Rex were going to the station with Tom, in which case he would order the carriage; otherwise he would send Nixon with the buggy.
“I’m going, yes. The drive will do me good,” Rex answered; and Irene saw the McPherson carriage go by with Tom and Rex in it, both lifting their hats to Rena, who was upon the piazza, and Tom kissing his hand to her as he looked back.
Half an hour later the carriage stopped at the gate while Rex alighted, and, after saying a few words to Nixon, who nodded and drove on, he came up the walk and rang the bell, asking for Miss Burdick.