REGINALD 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 is roomy 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 arms many 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 not many 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 his friend, 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 is all 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. Graham in
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 would be 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 be easily 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.”
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.