“Your loving cousin Rena.”
CHAPTER IV
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?”