Rena

“ Everything Irene did was done for effect, and there was nothing natural about her. Reared in poverty, she early learned to cater to the whims and wishes of people whose notice she wished to attract. What they thought and believed, she believed and thought; while her skilful hands and active, well-balanced brain were always ready to help in any emergency. To Rena’s slightest wish she was a slave—toady, Tom called her, and Rena repaid her with a love which saw no fault in her. Nothing could dissuade her from her faith in and affection for Irene, who seemed to return the love bestowed upon her. ”

“ Reginald didn’t like bare necks, but this was so much like a piece of polished marble that he rather admired it, and watched her while she chided Tom for never writing to her, or coming to see her for so long a time. Tom returned her banter playfully, but was looking at Rena, who was sitting where the lamplight fell upon her as it did upon Irene, bringing out her delicate features in profile and showing her beautiful eyes which rested very often, but very furtively, upon the man in the rocker. ”

“ Rena was very tired and she accepted Colin’s offer gladly and was driven home by Nixon. With Rena gone Rex’s paroxysms of delirium returned. The eye came back and sat upon the wall and the ceiling and the bureau and chairs, sometimes in one place, sometimes in another, while the braid of hair wound itself now around my head and then around that of Rex, who kept asking for Rena, and became so wild that the doctor said to me at last: “I think we must send for that young lady. She does more good than both of us.” ”

“ McPherson delighted her. To stand well with him might be a means of advancing her cause with Reginald. “Beauty and good dressing take with every old man,” she thought, and her toilet was faultless when, after dinner, she came out upon the piazza where I was sitting with Rena. Her gown, which fell in soft folds around her perfect figure, was black, with no color to relieve it except the roses she had pinned on the bosom of her dress.
“O Irene!” Rena exclaimed, “how lovely you look! I always like you best in black, and the roses are the color of your cheeks.” ”

“ When she saw the yearning in Rena's eyes, she threw herself at her son's feet.
"Oh, John," she cried despairingly, "don't take her away from me! Don't take her, John, darlin', for it'd break my heart to lose her!"
Rena's arms were round her mother's neck, and Rena's voice was sounding in her ears. "There, there, mamma! Never mind! I won't leave you, mamma—dear old mamma! Your Rena'll stay with you always, and never, never leave you." ”

“ 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 ”

“ Rena's shrinking from the irrevocable step of marriage was due to a simple and yet complex cause. Stated baldly, it was the consciousness of her secret; the complexity arose out of the various ways in which it seemed to bear upon her future. Our lives are so bound up with those of our fellow men that the slightest departure from the beaten path involves a multiplicity of small adjustments. It had not been difficult for Rena to conform her speech, her manners, and in a measure her modes of thought, to those of the people around her ”

“ Let’s come here often, and—” turning to Rena, “if you ever want to look in the well, either by moonlight, or starlight, or sunlight, I am the man to hold the glass and see that you don’t fall in, and Rex, I am sure, will do the same for Irene; hey, Rex?” ”

“ He fell into an unquiet slumber, and dreamed
again of Rena. He must learn to control his
waking thoughts; his dreams could not be curbed.
In that realm Rena's image was for many a day
to remain supreme. ”

“ Rena, however, stood by her first decision. She was tired and her head ached, and she didn’t care for Tom anyway and less for Mr. Travers. She would put on a clean shirt-waist, with fresh collar and cuffs, and that was all. But Irene proceeded to make an elaborate toilet, taking a great deal of pains with her hair, which, with the help of a false braid, was piled higher than usual upon her head and made her seem as tall as an ordinary man. ”

“ There was no doubt in his mind as to which was which, and he barely glanced at Rena, who chose to carry her own umbrella and bag, but whose eyes, as she declined his services, flashed upon him a smile which made him think “she ain’t bad, neither; but, my! what a swell t’other one is!”
77He had Irene’s belongings and helped her from the car, and when he saw her looking at the McPherson carriage, he said: “That’s the McPhersons. I’ll bet it has come for you, if you are Miss Burdick. There’s nobody else on the train.” ”

“ There are sordid souls that eat and drink and breed and die, and imagine they have lived. But Rena's life since her great awakening had been that of the emotions, and her temperament made of it a continuous life. Her successive states of consciousness were not detachable, but united to form a single if not an entirely harmonious whole. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Rex would go in strong for Rena, if he knew she was the one. I saw his eyes shine two or three times when she was talking, while Irene never moved him any more than a fly moves an elephant when it lights on him. I know what she is up to. She means to make him so much in love that when he finds his mistake he’ll stick to her, as he would, if he were half-way 132interested and thought she cared. That’s Rex. Poor Rex, I shall have to go down on my knees to him yet. ”

“ Fine fellow—that Rex!”
He looked steadily at Irene, who blushed becomingly, while Rena seemed troubled as if she felt herself in the shadow of her brilliant cousin. If so the feeling only lasted a moment before she smiled again at something he said. This time his sharp, black eyes looked quickly at her through his gold rimmed glasses, scanning her closely. Then, putting his hand on her shoulder and turning her to the light, he said, 140“Excuse an old man who might be your grandfather; but, you are more like the picture in our drawing-room than your cousin, who should resemble her. ”

“ She will be Miss Burdick, and I just Rena, a poor relation, if you please. She is older and so much taller than I am and handsomer and grander looking every way that people will naturally think her the girl intended for Mr. Travers if they have heard of the will, as I dare say they have. I shall not say so, of course. I would not tell a lie for anything; you know I would not. I shall hold my tongue, and let Irene take the lead, and if any one is rude enough to ask which is which I shall be rude enough to say ‘That is for you to find out.’ Mr. Travers, of course, will not ask. ”

“ Tom exclaimed, with a feeling as if Rex had struck him.
“Perhaps,” Rex answered. “At all events, I am a different man from what I was before this illness. Something has wrought a change in me. You know how afraid I used to be of women, and how I shrank from talking to—to—Miss Irene, and how you used to call me a fool, as I was, and may be yet, but somehow the fear of a woman’s dress is gone. Perhaps it was having Miss Bennett potter round me so much, and perhaps it was the touch of Rena’s hands which brought such cooling with them. Don’t look so savage. ”

“ No man likes to be fooled as Rex and I have been, and I believe my soul I take it harder than he does. I don’t think he was hit bad. Now, if you had been you—”
“No, no, no,” Rena cried vehemently, guessing what he meant. “There was Tom—always Tom—before I saw Mr. Travers. It could never have been.”
“Then Sandy made a confounded mistake and muddle. The will was a queer one any way, and now how is the money to go? I’d like to know,” Colin asked.
Rena neither knew nor cared. She had confessed everything, and her heart was lighter than it had been since she came to Oakfield. ”

“ Travers, for caring what I do. Few people except Rena have ever cared.”
“You are very fond of your cousin, I see,” Reginald said.
“Fond of her!” Irene replied, speaking truthfully. “I rather think I am. How can I help it, when she is the sweetest, jolliest little girl in the world?”
The word jolliest grated on Reginald’s ears. In his ignorance of girls, a jolly one savored of a fast one, for whom he could have no liking. ”

“ Isn’t Irene a stunner?”
“Why, yes,” Reginald replied, putting on the vest he had just taken off. “She nearly took my wits away. I never had many, you know, and I believe I was more stupid than usual to-night. Why, I didn’t know anything when Miss Burdick’s eyes were on me, and it was worse with the little one, Rena you call her. I caught her looking at me a great deal. Why did she, I wonder, do you know?”
Tom laughed and said:
“A cat may look at a king. Perhaps Rena admired you. Irene did, I am sure. I saw it in her eyes. They are very handsome.” ”

“ There was a hunted look in Reginald’s eyes as they met those of Tom, who began to pity him, while mentally calling him weak and a coward.
“He can’t help it, though,” he thought, “any more than I can help feeling happier with a woman’s skirt in sight than I am when alone. He was born that way. Poor Rex! I wonder what the outcome will be. Not Rena; no, not Rena, for whom I am acting a lie, and am actually feeling a good deal of interest in the drama, having this advantage that I know both sides of the story.” ”

“ I’ll call Miss Bennett, or Tom, or both,” Rena said, starting again to rise, but Rex’s imperative “Sit still,” kept her quiet, while he went on:
“I am an awkward man as you know, and in nothing more so than in lovemaking, the last thing in the world I once thought I should have attempted. Uncle Colin tried to coach me when I was laboring under a mistake and thought I ought to make love to some one else. He said I must ask the girl if her pulse beat in unison with mine.” ”

“ A glimmer of reason was asserting itself for a moment, and Tom’s eyes filled with tears as he said: “Yes, Rex, I was in it, and I am so sorry. We are all sorry. Rena most of all.”
At the mention of Rena, Rex’s manner changed at once.
“Yes, Rena,” he said, with a ring of pleasure in his voice, “Rena, with the little soft hands which 270take the eyes away. She can catch them! Where is she? I want her. She’s the girl, you know, the other was somebody else, very grand and tall and beautiful, and lives in Claremont instead of New York, and is not the one Sandy meant. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Colin answered. “A girl with no nonsense, and such a face and such an air and manner. I congratulate you, my boy; yes, I do. Sandy did well for you.”
Rex began to feel damp again as he had the night before, but he closed his book and said:
“You mean Miss Burdick?”
“Certainly. Whom should I mean?” Mr. McPherson replied. “The other one! What is her name?”
“Rena,” Rex said, and he went on: “Yes, Miss Rena is a nice little girl, with wonderful eyes like Nannie’s, but she can’t hold a candle to Irene. ”

“ I hope Rex’s wife will respect his wishes. She can have any other room in the house.”
What Irene’s answer was I could not hear, but that it was satisfactory was proven by Mr. McPherson’s hearty:
“Thank you, I was sure you would feel that way.”
Reginald, who still held Rena’s arm, clutched it so tight that she gave a little cry and wrenched herself from him.
160“I’ve hurt you,” he said, in great distress. “I am always doing something stupid. I am so sorry.”
“It does not matter at all,” Rena replied. “Nothing matters but myself, Mr. Travers.” ”

“ She was very frank and Rex smiled faintly and said: “It’s some comfort to know that you like me 251and might possibly have cared if there were no Tom.”
He seemed very tired and Rena knew she ought to leave him, but could not go without his forgiveness.
“Miss Bennett will be coming for me, I have stayed so long,” she said, “but I cannot go until you forgive me.”
“I must,” he answered. “There is nothing else to do. It has hurt me some; for no man likes to be the subject of a joke like that, but I am glad you have told me and wish you had done so before.” ”