Rena's experiment

by Mary Jane Holmes

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.