CHAPTER XXIII
CONCLUSION
November had come and the Oakfield visitors were all gone,—I to my work as stenographer,—Rena to New York, and Tom to Newton, where Rex finally joined him. He was very well and seemed very happy as he took every car line in and out of the city, and read every advertisement of “Villas for Sale.” He had been with Tom into the six room flat, third floor, and had sniffed at it scornfully.
“Rena here!” he said, “in these little rooms, with an elevator to reach them! I tell you, Tom, it will never do, and I’ll have my way in this matter. That eighty thousand is going to do some good.”
“All right,” Tom finally said. “Go ahead, and see what Rena says.”
She was coming in a few days with her aunt to see the flat and decide on its furnishing, and Rex was quite as anxious about it as Tom, who anticipated a scene when she learned the truth. Mrs. Graham had objected to the flat, and had mentally objected to Tom, as a poor man. Reginald would have pleased her better. But she had no choice. Rena was to marry Tom and live in a flat, and was very happy and anxious to see both. Tom met them at the station and took them to the hotel where he had engaged rooms for them. It was too late when they arrived to see the flat that day, but Tom came early the next morning to take them to it in a very smart turnout. Rena had heard so much from her aunt of the economy she must practise as Tom’s wife, that the fine carriage and horses disturbed her as something Tom could not afford.
“I shall have to restrain him,” she thought, “for it is like him when he has one dollar to spend two.”
“Couldn’t we walk, or take a street-car?” she asked, and Tom replied: “Yes, but I am going to show you the city and some of the suburbs.”
It did not take long to reach the flat, and they were soon inspecting the rooms, at which Mrs. Graham looked askance, while Rena drew a quick breath, they were so much smaller than she had expected. Tom was in high spirits as he showed them through.
“This is the parlor,” he said, indicating the front room, “and this little nook out of it over the hall can be fitted up as a Japanese den. This room we will use for a library, where I can smoke and read. This is the dining-room, all furnished in oak. And the biggest room in the house with a fair outlook. Here is a sleeping-room, and bath-room, here the kitchen, here the servant’s room, small, to be sure, but less work to take care of; and here is what I consider best of all, a nice platform or open shed out of the kitchen where we can keep our truck. How do you like it?”
They had reached the open shed where they were to keep truck, of the nature of which Rena, who knew nothing of housekeeping, had no idea. She had followed Tom mechanically, with a feeling that her aunt’s gown rustled more than usual as they went from room to room. She did not quite know what she did think except that it was different from what she had expected. Evidently Tom was pleased and wished her to be, and with a catch of breath she said:
“It is very nice, but rather small, big enough for us, though,” while her aunt asked:
“Where am I to sleep if I should visit you—there is no spare room for guests?”
“By George! I hadn’t thought of that,” Tom said; then, brightening suddenly, he added, “We’ll put a bed-lounge in the library and turn that into a sleeping-room. Shall we go now?”
“But we haven’t decided what furniture we want,” Rena said, and Tom replied:
“Time enough for that after I show you the city.”
Rena was the first to go down the stairs, which she preferred to the elevator. Behind her came her aunt who turned to Tom and said in a low tone: “You must give up that Quixotic notion not to use Rena’s money, and rent a larger place. According to that will she has a right to a part of Sandy’s fortune, and she must not be buried here!”
“Think so?” Tom answered, good-humoredly, while Mrs. Graham shrugged her shoulders and thought of Reginald Travers and the will.
They were all rather silent, as they drove around the city, seeming to Rena to be going out of it until at last they were in a suburb and stopped before a handsome, modern house, with grounds in front and garden and stable in the rear.
“Who lives here?” Rena asked.
“No one at present. I want you to see it,” Tom said, putting up his arms to lift her out.
“I believe he has been playing a joke about that flat,” Mrs. Graham thought, as she followed up the walk to the front door, of which Tom had the key.
He seemed quite at home in the house, which was perfect in every respect, with plenty of room for guests, a modern hall and staircase, with broad window-seats and a fireplace, and Rena went off into little shrieks of ecstasy, while the six rooms of the flat, third floor, grew smaller and smaller in her mind.
“Tom,” she said, at last, timidly, as they sat in one of the window-seats, “how much is a home like this worth?”
Tom named a price which made her gasp.
“Did you think of buying it?” he asked.
“No, I couldn’t, and furnish it and keep it up as it ought to be kept, but it’s lovely,” Rena said. “Why did you bring us here? Whose is it?”
“Yours, if you prefer it to the flat.”
“Oh, Tom! You ought not to have done it! You couldn’t afford it, and you must let me help, but it was so good in you, you dear, delightful, darling old Tom,” Rena exclaimed, and forgetting that her aunt was present she threw her arms around Tom’s neck, nearly strangling him and knocking off his hat, which rolled on the floor.
“Hold on,” he said. “You are choking me to death and wide of the mark. I could not begin to buy the place, even with your help. Rex bought it and gives it to you. I have the deed in my pocket. Here it is.”
He drew out a legal-looking document and held it up, but Rena did not see it. She had bounded half across the room, where she stood with flashing eyes and white lips, exclaiming:
“I’ll never take it, never!”
“Come back here, and I will explain,” Tom said, and rather reluctantly Rena went back and resumed her seat beside him, while her aunt, scarcely less excited, asked:
“Is it a joke?”
“Not a bit of it. It’s true as the Gospel. Rex bought this house and has given it to Rena, with money enough to furnish it.”
“But why did he do it?” Rena asked, and very briefly Tom told her, while she listened with the tears streaming down her face and a strange feeling stirring in her heart.
Tom made her understand the will as she never had before, and that eighty thousand dollars were Rex’s in virtue of his having proposed to her and been rejected. Rena was a woman and something like resentment flashed up for a moment as she said:
“So all that fine talk about love and my pulse beating in unison with his was put on for the sake of getting the money?”
“No, it wasn’t,” Tom said. “He cared for you very much—loved you, if that term suits you better. He told me so, and if you had not been engaged to me he would have tried to win you for himself, I know Rex, the best fellow that ever lived, and the most generous. I tried to dissuade him from doing what he has, but I might as well talk to the wind. He is determined, and so I turn the matter over to you, who can accept or reject, as you please.”
“I reject!” Rena said decidedly. “Do you think I can accept so great a gift from Mr. Travers?”
“But, Rena, consider the peculiar circumstances,” Mrs. Graham began.
She had no idea of letting Rena lose this lovely home, and her arguments were so strong and persuasive that Rena finally yielded so far as to say she would think about it, and to ask where Mr. Travers was.
“In the city, at the same hotel as you, waiting to see you,” Tom told her.
“Oh, I can’t do that, as I must tell him I cannot take the house,” Rena said, but when on their return to the city they passed the flat and Tom asked:
“Would you like to look at it again, or furniture for it?” she answered quietly:
“No, drive on, I am tired.”
After lunch Tom said to her: “Will you see Rex? He has a private parlor, and is in there.”
“Oh, no!” Rena cried, turning very white and beginning to tremble.
“But you must. Don’t be foolish,” her aunt persisted.
“Then Tom must go with me,” Rena said.
“No,” he answered. “It is better for you to see him alone. I’ll go as far as the door. Come on, and have it over. He will not hurt you.”
Very unwilling Rena went, shaking like a leaf when the door closed and she found herself with Rex. The particulars of that interview Tom never knew, nor asked, but Rena’s face was stained with tears when it was over, and she was greatly agitated as she said to him:
“I’ve consented, and I feel so mean; but I couldn’t help it, he was so nice—so like a brother, which he says he wants to be to us, and he almost made me believe that a part of that eighty thousand dollars was mine by right—that Sandy McPherson wished it so, and Colin, too; and we are to stay at the McPherson place when we please and he will be there some of the time and here with us in his house. I can’t help feeling it is his, and in spite of it all I am so happy, for truly I did not want the flat, it is so small and stuffy. He reminded me that twenty thousand dollars are lawfully mine according to the will, but I won’t touch it. He shall keep it and give it to Irene, if he wants to. I know she did some things which surprised me, but I was to blame for getting her into the plot. She liked Mr. Travers and she had reason to think he liked her. I am sorry for her—and I——”
She did not finish for Tom stopped her mouth with kisses, saying:
“Never mind Irene. She shall not suffer. I am glad the thing is settled.”
He seemed relieved, and Rena at last became quite composed and consented to dine that night in Rex’s private parlor. He proved an admirable host and not at all like the timid man whom Tom had once almost dragged through the fields to call upon the Misses Burdick. It was decided that Rena and her aunt were to select the furniture for the house, or a part of it, before going home, and in the excitement of shopping Rena forgot the humiliation she thought she should always feel when she remembered how her handsome home came to her. They stayed a week in Newton and Boston and then returned to New York, where preparations for the wedding went on rapidly. Mrs. Graham would have liked a church affair with a grand reception, but Rena shrank from it.
“We’ll be married at home in the morning with only a few friends here—Irene, Mr. Travers, Mr. McPherson, Miss Bennett, Mrs. Parks, Lottie and Sam.”
“Oh, horror!” Mrs. Graham exclaimed, but she gave in and the wedding took place the day before Christmas with all the invited guests present except Irene, who declined on the pretense that she was just recovering from the grippe, and no one seemed to miss her.
I was there, with Colin and Rex and Mrs. Parks and Lottie and Sam, to the last of whom Rex was very gracious, feeling that he owed him something for exposing the farce at the well and thus saving from which he would have found it hard to extricate himself.
After the bride and groom were gone and Sam was about to leave Rex drew him aside and asked:
“Are you much of a farmer?”
“Have been at it all my life,” Sam replied, with the air of a man of forty.
“Well, then,” Rex continued, “How would you like to see what you can do with my farm a few miles from Richmond? It was said to be a good one, I believe, before the war, but is somewhat run down. Would you like it?”
“You bet!” Sam answered, his eyes shining as he saw a chance to marry Lottie sooner than he had hoped.
He left that afternoon with Mrs. Parks and Lottie, but Mr. McPherson spent the night as he wished to question Mrs. Graham with regard to Rena, until he settled it to a certainty that she was a blood relation to Nannie, and that there had been no mistake in the distribution of Sandy’s money. Then he returned home, while Rex went to Boston, where a few days later he was joined by Mrs. Graham and with her finished the selection of furniture for the house. It was some time in January that the newly married pair took possession of their new home, where Mrs. Graham and Rex were waiting to welcome them.
Years have passed since then, bringing some changes. Tom has grown stouter and jollier, if possible, while Rena, who will always be girlish, tries to assume a matronly air on account of the two little children who call her mother. One is a boy, christened Travers McPherson, the other a girl named Nannie, for her far-removed relative, whose picture Colin insists she resembles. Irene has made up her mind to bear the inevitable gracefully and is a frequent visitor in Newton, where her still lovely face attracted the attention of a middle-aged bachelor from Boston, with a handsome house on Commonwealth Avenue, and more money than either Rex or Tom. The last I heard she was engaged to him, and Rena is to give her the wedding. Whenever I can leave my work I visit Rena and frequently meet with Mr. McPherson and Rex, the latter of whom is uncle and the other grandfather to the children. Sam Walker, lives on Mr. Travers’ farm, which, under his skilful management, is in better condition than before the war when it was called one of the best in the country. Tom’s practise has increased until Mrs. Graham no longer looks upon him as a poor man, but speaks of him with pride as “a promising lawyer, my niece’s husband.” Nearly every summer the family go to the McPherson place, where Rex joins them, and the children, with their carts and shovels, play sometimes on the beach and sometimes in the grounds, but their favorite place is in the pine-grove near the covered well, where poor Nannie met her tragic death, without which this story could never have been written.
THE END.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
POPULAR NOVELS
BY
MRS. MARY J. HOLMES.
TEMPEST AND SUNSHINE. ENGLISH ORPHANS. HOMESTEAD ON HILLSIDE. ’LENA RIVERS. MEADOW BROOK. DORA DEANE. COUSIN MAUDE. MARIAN GREY. EDITH LYLE. DAISY THORNTON. CHATEAU D’OR. QUEENIE HETHERTON. BESSIE’S FORTUNE. MARGUERITE. MRS. HALLAM’S COMPANION. THE TRACY DIAMONDS. THE MERIVALE BANKS. DARKNESS AND DAYLIGHT. HUGH WORTHINGTON. CAMERON PRIDE. ROSE MATHER. ETHELYN’S MISTAKE. MILBANK. EDNA BROWNING. WEST LAWN. MILDRED. FORREST HOUSE. MADELINE. CHRISTMAS STORIES. GRETCHEN. DR. HATHERN’S DAUGHTERS. PAUL RALSTON. THE CROMPTONS. RENA’S EXPERIMENT.
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WHAT THE CRITICS SAY OF
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THE CROMPTONS
By MARY J. HOLMES
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“Nobody who has followed the gallant sailor—diminutive, but oh, my!—in his previous adventures around the earth, is going to miss this red-not volume of marvelous exploits.”—_N. Y. World._ Illustrated. Cloth bound, $1.50.
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY COOK BOOK
By =Mrs. C. F. Moritz= and =Adele Kahn=. A modern and complete household cook book such as this is, since cooking has come to be a science no less than an art, must find a welcome and become the most popular cook book of all the many now published.
“It can hardly be realized that there is anything worth eating that its receipt cannot be found in this volume. This volume has been carefully compiled and contains not only the receipts for an elaborate menu, but also the modest ones have been considered.”—_Book and Newsdealer._ Bound in oil cloth, for kitchen use, $1.50.
HIS FRIEND THE ENEMY
By =Wm. Wallace Cook=. Author of “Rogers of Butte,” “Little Miss Vassar,” etc.
The _Detroit Free Press_ says: “It gives a graphic story built round one of the ‘county-seat wars’ that have been actual occurrences in the development of the West. The story is well furnished with incident, moves with a rush, and gives a vivid idea of some lively times out in the Territories.” Cloth bound. Illustrated, $1.50.
THE PAGAN’S CUP
By =Fergus Hume=, author of “The Mystery of a Hanson Cab,” etc. This is a thrilling detective story, in which the interest and mystery is well sustained. Cloth bound, $1.25.
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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
● Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained. ● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_. ● Enclosed bold or blackletter font in =equals=.