Only a Horse Dealer. A novel

Front matter

a IRovel. BT MRS. ROBERT JOCELYN. Author op "DRAWN BLANK," "THE CRITON HONT MYSTERY," "THE M. F. H.'s DAUGHTER," "A BIG STAKE," Etc, Etc. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. III. LONDON : F. V. WHITE & CO., 31, SOUTHAMPTON STEEET, STRAND, W.C. 1893. PRINTED BT KELLY AND 00. LIMITED, OATE STREET. LINCOLN'- INK PIE1 DS AND KINGSTON-ON-THAMES. CONTENTS. CHAP. PAGE I. — Two Discoveries ..... 1 II. — Out Cub-Huntins .... 18 III. — Molly Bevan Settles Her Owm Fate 32 IV.— "I Mead to Marry Him" . . 65 V. — Elizabeth's Discovery ... 84 VI.— Riding Home .... 98 VII.— The Old, Old Story . . . .121 VIII. — Miss Clinbarton . . . . 134 IX.— " I Shall Tell Tom " . . .153 X. — A Clue to the Mystery . . . 168 XI. — "Why Does he not Say so?" . . 183 XII.— A Double Game .... 198 XIII. — Only a Horse Dealer . , ,

Chapter I. Two Discoveries

Molly Bevan sat by the fire in her own bedroom at the Manor House. Her eyes were fixed upon its brightlyburning embers, and her thoughts were wandering far away into dreamland. It was only on the evening of the previous day that she had met the man she had once believed herself to love so much, and whose attempt to renew his flirtation with her she had treated with such calm indifference and scorn. Why had she done it ? VOL. III. Of course he had behaved abominably to her ; there was no denying that. But although Molly by nature was very proud, she also was practical sometimes in the extreme ; and this was just one of those instances when the practical side of her nature might have been supposed to be likely to step in. She knew that, although he had behaved so badl}*, he had done it because he was afraid of poverty ; and Molly, on her part, was very much afraid of poverty too.

And then she had fathomed the fact that he was a weak man ; and she knew that he had loved her in his own way, as much as it was in his nature to love any woman, and that fact satisfied her. The fault did not lie in the extent of the worship he had laid at her shrine, but in his own incapability to expand any more. He had given her all he had to give, and Molly's practical side told her that that was all she could possibly expect. And she knew that had she really loved him she would not have found it so easy to give him up ; that that would not have been her way. She could have gained more influence over him now, had she tried, and she could have married him without his ever suspecting that the marriage had been more of her making than of his. An unlimited belief m herself would have enabled her to marry a man whom she knew to be weak, and of whom she had no great reason to have a very elevated opinion, without any qualms of doubt as to the possible result.

She felt the conscious OO ONBY A HORSE DEALER. power of her own strength, and she would never have doubted but that her strength would have been sufficient to carry them both through life in a manner as satisfactory as she could desire. Yes. She knew that if she had loved him she would not have given him up. She had had her own waj* all her life, and would have had it still. If she had loved him she would have married him. The Hartleys were not badly off, and as to Sir Edward, he would have placed no obstacles in the way, as Molly knew very well. He was the most easy-going, kind-hearted man imaginable ; and then, of course, her own position was assured. She was a Bevan. Was not that enough ? As to Lady Hartley and Clara they were both detestable, but what did that matter ? A little smile broke over Molly Bevan's face as she thought of them, for she knew that had occasion called it forth she, on her part, could have been detestable too !

She could have been calm and cool and quietly aggressive, and she could have taken a positive delight in putting these two insufferable women in their own proper place. In Molly's opinion the proper place for Lady Hartley would have been behind the counter in her own grandfather's shop ; and Miss Clara was her mamma's own daughter, as anybody could very easily perceive. As to Frederic Hartley, she was not quite sure that he also was not his mother's son. That he did not take after his father was certain — in any way, at least, excepting in his looks, and he was ridiculously like Sir Edward, as far as they went. Molly thought that it must have been his looks with which she had fallen in love. She told herself that it must have been so, because the man himself, as she now knew him, was the very last man who had it in his power to attract her.

Here Molly Bevan's thoughts came to a sudden standstill. Why had her heart be__un to feel so strange ? What w*as wrong with her ? She got up and walked restlessly across the room, drew aside her curtain and looked out : there was a full moon, and it lit up the old-fashioned garden beneath her window and the scene beyond it with a weird and vivid cold white light. The steeple of the little church at Baile stood out clear and distinct in the background, and upon a rising piece of ground between it and her an ivy-covered cottage with a low flat roof took up a prominent position. Was it the weird effect of the moonlight, or if not that, then what was it that made Mary Bevan's heart beat so fast, and her eyes shine with so soft a light, as they fell upon that ivy-covered cottage ? She stood there for perhaps five minutes, smiling softly to herself, and then she moved away, and again took up her position in the old-fashioned, high backed arm-chair by the fire, with that same soft little smile upon her lips.

She had made a great and wholly unex pected discovery. She understood many things now which had been Greek to her before. There was no doubt, none at all, that she did love somebody else, far, far more than she had ever loved any fellow creature, and that that " somebody else " lived in that ivy-covered cottage on that piece of rising ground which stood just upon the outskirts of the little village of Bade. All at once the truth had come home to her. She knew now that the deep and passionate love which she had long ago stirred up in Tom Seaton's breast had aroused an answering chord within her own. She loved him. How long Molly sat there, full of the thoughts which this suddenly-made dis covery of hers had brought in its wake, she did not know ; but it must have been some little time, because by-and-bye she awoke to the fact that the fire had died quite out, and that the cold light of the moon through the still uncurtained window was shining in and making the candle, which stood on the table beside her, give forth a curiously sickly and feeble little flicker.

She was cold, too. She shivered as she rose from her seat. She wished much that she was undressed and in her warm, cosy little bed, instead of still attired in the tea-gown she had worn at dinner, and standing there between the feeble "learn of candle-light and the full cold light of the moon. She crossed her room with the bedroom candlestick which held that one small candle in her hand, and she lit the candles which stood upon her dressing-table. Ah, that was ever so much better ! She would now shut out the moon. She reached the window, took one of the curtains in her hand, and then stood there stockstill, her eyes rivetted upon the garden below, and the pupils of them dilating to twice their natural size. Good Heavens ! What was that ? What could that strange object be, which stood there by the opening of the old yew hedge, between the two old-fashioned gardens just beneath the window ?

Molly's breath came hard and fast ! She could not move from the spot where she stood, nor withdraw her glance from that motionless, unearthly -looking form upon which they had so unsuspectingly fallen, and had now become rivetted. It was the tall, thin figure of a woman, clad all in black, a long, straightly-cut, black garment, which fell in folds from the neck of its weird-looking wearer to the ground upon which she stood. There was no shape about it at all ; it was just a loose, shapeless covering of dull, dead black. Molly took it all in as she stood there. Her power of movement, and of thought, seemed paralyzed ; and yet she felt that she could have screamed or rushed away if it had only been a tall, lean woman's figure shrouded in black. It was the ghastly blue-white hue of the face and hands which contrasted so terribly with their sombre setting that held Molly there speechlessly paralyzed by fright.

She might have been there but a few seconds, it seemed to her hours, when suddenby the figure moved, the white face glanced up at her window, and its owner disappeared through the opening into the garden bevond. Then, with a scream which rang through the house, Mary Bevan turned away and fled out of her room as if she had gone out of her mind. " Good Heavens, MoUy ! what in the world is the matter ? " exclaimed her brother, emerging from his room and seizing her by the arm. And at that same moment the door of the room on the other side of Molly's was flung open, and Jim stepped out of it. He gave one glance at Molly's face, and then, without waiting to say a word or ask any questions, he hurried away as fast as he could go through the swing door leading into the right wing of the house. In a second or two more he stood outside the door of the room in which the Gibsons slept, and was banging away at it as if on very little provocation he would break it in.

" It is I ! Mr. Bevan ! " he exclaimed, in reply to a terrified appeal from within. " Open the door at once. I must speak to you. Open it, I say, or I will smash it in." " Eh, my cricky, an' whatever's wrong? " enquired old Mrs. Gibson in a tone quiver ing with agitation and alarm, as she fumbled with the door-handle, turned the kej', drew back a bolt and then stood revealed in the simplicity of a not over white nightcap, a scarlet flannel skirt, and a knitted shawl, all of which she must have been wearing when aroused from her slumbers, as she certainly had had no time to put them on. Jim Bevan unceremoniously put her aside and stepped into the room. One thing was certain ; it had not been the Gibsons who had alarmed Molly. For there was old Gibson sitting up in bed, shaking all over, and his teeth audibly chattering with fright.

Jim felt just a little foolish. " You must get up at once, Gibson," he exclaimed, in a tone of quiet authority, by which he hoped to cover the fact that he had made a great commotion all about nothing. " There is somebody about the place, and we must make a thorough search. Miss Bevan has been much alarmed, and as it is not for the first time, we must investigate the matter thoroughly." " Eh, my cricky ! " murmured Mrs. Gibson, as she worked her feet into a pair of hob-nailed boots. " Just to think of that now! Sure, an' I told Miss Bevan that this is no fit place for her, but she would not belave a w*ord I said." Jim only benefited by a part of this speech. He had hurried off in the middle of it to see what was next to be done. He knew nothing as yet as to what had happened to alarm Molly so.

He had made so very sure that the Gibsons had been at the bottom of it, and he had lost some time in consequence in following up a false scent. Molly had regained her self-possession by the time he returned, and was explain ing to Dick just what she had seen. And as Jim came back to them through the swing door on the right of the landing, the door upon the left side of it opened also, and Elizabeth, in a long, white cashmere dressing-gown, appeared upon the scene. She had been comfortably in bed, and fast asleep, when the noise of opening doors had aroused her, and suspecting something was wrong, she had lit her candle, put on her slippers and dressing-gow*n, and hurried out of her room to see if she was wanted and could be of any assistance. No sooner was she through the swing door than her eyes fell upon her sister's face, and she knew that it was Molly who had this time been alarmed.

Nothing could have distressed her more ! To her Molly was still a fragile, very young girl, who could bear no unpleasant shocks, and from whom all call for anxiety or fear must be carefully kept away. TAVO DISCOVERIES. 17 It was soon all explained. Molly told her little story well. She was not tired, and had been sitting reading, forgetting the lateness of the hour. She liked the moon light and had drawn aside the curtains. It all seemed quite probable and natural, and — it was sufficiently near the truth. With Bessie's protecting arm linked into her own, she went with Bessie into Bessie's room. And meanwhile Dick and Jim searched every corner of the garden, stables and outbuildings. And found nothing at all. 34 vol. nr.

Chapter II. Out Cub-hunting

" I like this mare immensely, Dick." The speaker was Bessie Bevan ; there was a becoming hue of pink in her cheeks and a bright expression of enjoyment and excitement in her e}*es, and she sat upon the back of a remarkably neat-looking bright bay mare as if she and it were one. She had an undeniably good seat in her saddle had Bessie, and just the figure of all others which looked best in a riding-habit. One forgot to remember that she was plain when one saw her upon horseback, because on horseback she looked a perfect horsewoman, and upon horseback it is far OUT CUB-HUNTING. 19 more important to have a really good figure than a really pretty face. And then she looked so full of life and so thoroughly at home and happy. Every body was glad to see Bessie out hunting, because she had such a genial smile and such a pleasant, cheery way of greeting everyone she knew.

Bessie Bevan was one of those women who always keep their old friends, and find it very easy to make new ones. She seemed to remember everything about everyone, and to enter into all their little joys and grievances as if they were her own. She had a very sympathetic, kind hearted disposition, plenty to say for her self, and a very willing ear to lend to other people. So it need hardly be said that she was a remarkably popular 3-oung woman. 34* On the morning in question she was riding one of Dick's recent purchases. He was riding another of them ; and they had just set out on their way cub-hunting. He was riding the Irish horse, Marcellus, as he was called ; though Dick said the name was too long, and that he meant to change it. Bessie was riding a mare which he had bought from Mayton, on the second day's sale.

She was six years old ; he had given eighty pounds for her, her name was Atalanta ; and Dick was very much pleased indeed to think that she was his. A nicer, smarter mare one could hardly hope to see, and she was every bit as nice to ride as she was to look at. " I knew you would like her," he re turned, in reply to his sister's remark. " I was never more taken with any animal OUT CUR-HUNTING. 21 before. She ought to fetch a high price some day before long, for I have an idea that she is a nailer across country." " I am certain of it," replied Bessie enthusiastically. " She feels as if she could jump a haystack, and I am quite positive that she will be as keen to go as ever she can be. Her mouth is perfect, Dick, and she just can move nicely, cannot she ? A real good walker, and I am sure she can trot almost as fast as many horses can gallop.

She certainly ought to sell well ; but, oh, what a bore it will be when we have to sell her ! " Dick laughed. He had a pleasant, cheery laugh, which would have pre possessed you in his favour. " I expect the thing will have its trying side, Bessie," he said lightly ; '* most things have, and all one has got to do is to make the best of them." " Of course," agreed Bessie, in as cheerful a tone as his. " If life was all ups and no downs, one would never be able to appre ciate the ups half as much as w*e do now." "You like that other animal that I bought from Mayton, do you not ? " questioned Dick, after they had trotted on for a few minutes in silence. " I think he is a good buy, though of course he is not half so smart as that mare. I was glad to get him, for I had fixed my fancy on him from the first, only I never expected to get him at anything like my own price.

Mayton only had a very moderate sale this time, there were so few people there that second day who give long prices. There is no doubt about it that we were out-of the-way luck}-. It was not a thing that one will often repeat, I fear, that sale of ours. Getting four hundred and ten for the Clinker was quite a chance thing, you see ; good horse as he is, he is not worth more than half that amount of money." " Oh, of course, that was a mere chance," agreed Bessie. " And it was entirely due to the fact that Captain Galloper and Sir John both fixed their minds upon him." " Yes," said Dick. " And that, capital feUows as they both are, and Al to hounds, they are both of them just as mad as March hares and as reckless as ever they can be." " Yes," agreed Bessie, " and they are very rich men." There was a few minutes' silence, which Bessie broke : " I wonder if the other horse you bought from Mayton has a name," she said suddenly.

" He was only entered as being a brown horse in the catalogue, was he ? " "No," replied Dick. "An unusual thing with a dealer's horse. What shall we call him, Bessie ? " Bessie became wrapped in thought, then looked up and said : " Why not continue with heathen mythology ? Pegasus would do, would it not ? " "As well as anything else," replied Dick, who in the lesser as well as the greater matters of life, never had any objection to being saved from personal trouble. " Pegasus it shall be, and we must sin cerely hope that he wiU be a flyer, although he is minus the wings." Just then they overtook Sir John Gow ell, who was jogging on to the meet, in the company of a lady whom neither of them had ever seen before. She was a tall, handsome-looking girl of perharjs six or seven-and-twenty. She sat well upon her horse, wore a remarkably well-cut habit, and possessed a pair of fine, flashing dark eyes, out of which she looked with an interested expression when Sir John exclaimed : " Good morning, Miss Bevan.

How are you, Dick ? Got some of the new* ones out, I see. That is an uncommonly nice looking mare that Miss Bevan is riding, and looks like going." He laughed cheerily. " Not but that she will have to go when the occasion arises for it, with either of you young people on her back." " I am glad you like her," said Bessie, with a smile. "We are both quite in love with her ourselves." " And that reminds me that Miss Clinbarton, who is doing us the honour of staying with us just now, is anxious to make your acquaintance," returned Sir John, turning tow*ards the lady who was with him. " She says that she has fallen quite in love with this horse-dealing speculation of j'ours, and considers it a most interesting and enterprising idea." " Indeed I do," said a very pleasant voice. " I simply love anything to do with horses, and I think it must be such fun to have so many passing through one's hands.

If there is one thing I like better than another it is riding a new horse." She smiled at them both as she spoke ; but she addressed her remark to Dick more than Bessie, and, as was perhaps natural, when they rode on Sir John and Bessie, and Dick and Miss Clinbarton, did so side by side. Now Dick was not a ladies' man by any means as a rule, so Bessie was rather amused by the fact that he rode about with Miss Clinbarton a good deal that day. There was no sport, only a few cubs chopped in covert, and so there was plenty of time for coffee-housing ; and Miss Clinbarton seemed to find Dick more in teresting than anybody else who happened to be out. In a frank, downright way she made no secret of her preference for young Mr. Bevan's society ; and upon Sir John laughingly commenting upon it afterwards, she expressed her opinion that he was a very fine young fellow, and looked better upon horseback than any other man she had ever seen.

Meanwhile Bessie, riding home with Dick, also commented upon this suddenly formed friendship. She had a reason of her own for doing so, otherwise she would have left the matter alone. "What a good-looking woman that Miss Clinbarton is ! " she remarked, quite casually. "And rides well, I am sure." "So am I," said Dick; "and what is more she is an uncommonly good sort — not a bit of nonsense about her, and I never met a woman who had half as much to say for herself upon every subject under the sun. She seems to have travelled all over the world, to have read every book worth reading, to have seen everything worth *__, "" „ v__. seeing, and know everything worth knowing. You will like her, Bessie, I am sure." Bessie bestowed a fleeting but anxious glance at her brother's animated face. " I have no doubt of it, Dick," she replied quietly; " only I fear I shall not have much opportunity of doing so.

You see she is staying with the Gowells, and will probably only be there a few days." "Not a bit of it," said Dick. "She is Lady Gowell's cousin, and she is going to stay there until Christmas anyway. She is an orphan, has no near relations of her own, and lives with a Mrs. Clinburton, who chaperones her and travels about with her." " Oh ! " said Bessie in a suppressed tone, and evidently taken aback. "Yes," said Dick, too full of his subject to remark his sister's lack of enthusiasm. " And she is very anxious to come over to the Manor House and see the horses. She says she will get Lady Gowell to bring her over the first fine day they have." There w*as a rather long silence, and then Bessie looked across the road, straight into her brother's eyes. " Do you know that she is a tremendous heiress, Dick ?

" she enquired quietly. " No," said Dick, looking surprised. " She is," said Bessie. " Sir John told me so this morning. " He says that she has an immense fortune. She was an only child, and her father was one of the richest iron founders in the north. I believe he was a self-made man. Her mother, who was a first cousin of Lady Gowell's, met him at a large public baU in Exminster, fell in love with him there and then, and eloped with him a few weeks afterwards." " To the extreme annoj*ance of her family, no doubt," said Dick drily. "Though they seem to have recovered from the shock it must have been to them, now that he is dead and died a millionaire." There was again a short silence, and then Dick added quietly : " Well, Miss Clinbarton is a real good sort, heiress or no heiress ; she has evidently inherited aU the practical common-sense and untiring energy which helped her father to make his fortune."

Chapter III. Molly Bevan Settles Her Own Fate

" Miss Bevan ! Miss Bevan ! " " Yes," said Molly, turning round and coming to a standstill. " It is ages since I have seen you. Do please stop one minute and speak to me." The speaker was Tom Seaton. A few minutes previously he had caught sight of her just outside the Manor House gates, and had at once set off pell-mell in her pursuit. For she had been walking away from the Manor House, along the Muddle ton high road, at a good brisk pace when he had first seen her, and whether she on her part had or had not seen him remains an open question. Because it was by turning into the Muddleton road, out of a bye lane, that he had arrived upon the scene at all, and he had done so behind her ; but then, as everybody knows, although love in some ways is remarkably blind, in others it has eyes which can see any distance, either before or behind.

Now these two 3'oung people had never met since that day when Tom had aUowed his feelings to run away with him, in a manner for which he had blamed himself bitterly ever since. He believed he had very deeply offended her, and that was i thing which he would not have done foi any consideration in the world. He took the little hand which she offered him in his, and for a second or two held it firmly there while he looked down into her vol. in. face. " May I walk just a little way with you ? " he enquired, deferentially. " Do please say yes, I have been so miserable ever since I saw you last, and I have been longing so much to try and make my peace with you." Jim Bevan might choose to caU him an idle, good-for-nothing young fellow* ; but he was a remarkably good-looking one, and as he stood there, looking down at MoUy, he had an expression upon his face which had a steadfast, earnest reliability about it, which spoke of latent power, and did not tally with the character that the Bevans were in the habit of giving him.

To tell the truth the Bevans were a little bit prejudiced in their dislike of young Tom Seaton. The best of people do have prejudices sometimes, and theirs had originated from their uncle, who had taken an un reasonable dislike to the young man in his boyhood, and had never troubled himself to find out whether in his manhood he was in any way objectionable or not Many people in the neighbourhood liked j'oung Seaton. Everyone agreed it was a pity that he had no settled profession or occupation ; but most people were glad enough to find an unoccupied young man who could come to their dinner and tennis parties, play cricket, shoot very fairly weU, and always put in an appearance when he was wanted. Then he was an excellent dancer ; and was therefore a great acquisition at a dance or ball. " May I walk just a little way with you ?

" he repeated, pleadingly ; for MoUy 35* had remained silent and given him no reply. " I hardly know," said Molly, in a tone which he could not understand, because it seemed to him not to be like her own. " They would not like it." Tom Season's good looking face became several shades paler than its wont. " Who would not like it ? " he enquired, in a suppressed tone. " None of them," said Molly, in a low, troubled way. " You mean that they do not like me ? " he returned, quite quietly. " I know that, and I am sorry for it ; it is very un fortunate. But — but you promised to be friends with me. Are you going to give up our friendship ? " " N — o," said Molly, in a nervous tone. " No, I will not give our friendship up." His face cleared. "Thank you ever so much for that — Molly," he said, speaking very earnestly ; " it is very good of you — and it means so much to me.