The Solitary Horseman

Front matter

. BE EMILIE TORING oa

BOOKS BY EMILIE LORING

THE TRAIL OF CONFLICT HERE COMES THE SUN!

Prologue

@ poke refuse to see the boy, Claire. He is tortured by remorse and begs for a few moments with you.”

The white-faced woman in deep mourning walked to the window. The sunlight revealed a trace of silver in her dark hair, accentuated the ivory pallor of her skin, pitilessly exposed the shadows under the eyes brilliant with heartache too intense for tears. It revealed also the secrets of the room in which she stood. Beautiful mahogany. Fine books. Choice rugs. But, shabby patricians all. With a sigh which seemed to tear its way up Claire Grahame faced the tall man with steelgray hair. His eyes met hers with steady, compassionate tenderness as she demanded passionately:

“Why should I see him, Nick, now that he has been acquitted of killing my . . .” With an uncontrollable shudder she caught at the back of a chair.

Nicholas Cort waited, waited for her to go on, waited for pent-up emotion to shatter the incredible calm she had maintained since the tragic death of her son. She was still so young. Only thirty-nine. Too young to have lost both husband and boy. As though imploring his sympathetic understanding she hurried on:

“‘ Haven’t I done enough, Nick? I went to the Court House to plead for clemency if he were convicted. You told me that he was young, that always he had had too much money, that he had been drinking when his automobile struck David, that the man in the car ahead had been as much to blame morally. He doesn’t need my help now. Don’t think that I am sorry for that. I am not vindictive. Really I’m not. The fact that I was blessed with a son who preferred the clean ways of life doesn’t make me callous to the tragedy of weak lives which are beset by temptation.”

‘“‘ Anthony Hamilton is not weak, Claire. If he were he would not want to see you. He desires, if possible, to make some restitution.”

“ Restitution! Can he give me back my boy?” Her voice broke. She gripped the chair back tighter and went on, “ Does he intend to offer me money? Didn’t someone say that he was rich in his own right? ”

“He is and he has a wealthy father besides. It is only just that they should make some provision for your future as David would have done.”

“Not if the Court acquitted him. David! What wouldn’t David have done for his mother.”

The brooding tenderness in her voice set the tears thick in Cort’s eyes as he explained:

“Young Hamilton has no thought of offering you money, Claire. He wants to talk with you. He insists that never again can he have a moment’s happiness unless he sees you.”

“Why should he have a moment’s happiness? ”

“ You don’t mean that.”

He waited for a moment with his eyes on the woman’s downcast lids, on her white throat with its contracting muscles before he added:

“That remark sounds too much like Hamilton’s mother.”

Claire Grahame’s long lashes flew up. For the first time since she had lost her boy a spark of interest flamed

in her dark eves.

“ His mother! Do you mean that his mother is not holding his hand tight in hers through this horrible experience? ”

“On the contrary, she has raged at him because of the unpleasant notoriety into which he has plunged the family. She thinks of herself only.”

“ Didn’t his father stand by? ”

“ His father told him that he was a fool to drive when he had been drinking, not a fool to drink, you notice. His brother two years older echoed that sentiment. With that family background and remorse gnawing at his heart I am afraid for his future.”

“Have you grown fond of this — this boy, Nick? ”

Nicholas Cort colored darkly at the reproach in her tone but he met her eyes steadily as he answered:

“Yes. More and more as I have realized the physical luxury and spiritual poverty in which he has grown to twenty-one. When I learned that next June he is to be graduated from college with honors I became interested. I looked up his record. His dissipations have been with drink and cards, never with women. That temptation appears to have left him cold. I watched him through the trial. He asked no mercy. His concern was for you. For your loss.”

“My loss! Can you stand there and plead for this Anthony Hamilton and realize what it is? Ever since his father died David has had his strong arms about the children and me. Rose and little Peter do not yet know how their brother went. I hope they never will. He was such a boy, Nick, when he had to shoulder responsibility, such a boy. We hadn’t much money but we four were so happy together. David and I spent hours and hours planning how we could carry on thie

Io PROLOGUE place, White Pillars, the old Grahame homestead with its seventy acres. We decided on a fruit farm because he loved the open. The three years he put in at Agricultural College were thrilling to us all. We set out hundreds of trees and look! ” she pointed eagerly to the window. ‘ There they are for the first time faintly pink with bloom. How we planned. In ten years we would be shipping fruit to markets all over the civilized world. Fruit You Can Eat In The Dark, was to be our slogan. Such waste, Nick, such waste! If we get into this horrible war raging overseas, David would have gone and I should have been proud to have my son in the service of his country —but to lose his life like this. . . . Oh well,” she dropped her hands in utter futility as the passion of emotion burned out. She walked to the window and conceded without turning:

“ Write young Hamilton that he may come.”

“ He is waiting outside now, Claire.”

“All this time? You were so sure that I would see him? ”

“Yes. I know you better than you know yourself. You would never let a boy suffer if you could help it.”

He opened a door across the hall. The woman at the window crushed her black-bordered handkerchief in white-knuckled hands.

“Thank you for letting me come, Mrs. Grahame.”

At the low voice she turned. She set her teeth hard in her lip before she looked at the youth who had laid waste her life. He wasn’t the boy she had imagined. Perhaps the last weeks had aged him. His dark hair was brushed to satin smoothness except where it rippled rebelliously above his ears. His eyes were black with

PROLOGUE II emotion, his nose and mouth had the chiseled perfection of marble, he was tall and lean. His hands looked as though he had never used them. Probably he hadn’t, the woman thought, as a vision of the brown hands she had loved, with their hardened palms, flashed into her mind. She seated herself by the old table and motioned to the wing-chair opposite:

“Won’t you sit down? ”

“ Thank you, no. I only want to tell you . .

She put her hand to her throat.

“ Please, please don’t! I—JIcouldn’t bear it. Now that I have seen you I know what you feel. I am not bitter any longer. Really Iam not. Tell me about yourself. Your plans. All my life I have loved boys.”

She bit her lips to steady them.

“Plans! I have no plans. I want to do what I can for you and then — then I don’t care much what happens.”

“ Oh, but you must care. You must. Don’t you see? Accidentally you have robbed the world of a young, beautiful life. You have no longer the right to waste yours. You must take its place. My son meant to put so much into the world and now—now—oh, my God! ”

With the agonized cry Claire Grahame flung her arms on the table and dropped her head upon them. Cort sprang forward but Hamilton was before him. He dropped to his knees and encircled the black-clad figure with his arms as he implored:

“ Let me take your son’s place. Of course, not in your heart, but if you can bear seeing me around let me work for you, help you — love you.”

The last words were a mere whisper. Nicholas Cort held his breath as though by the slightest movement he might tip the scales in which a future hung in the balance. It seemed hours, though the old clock in the corner had ticked but seconds, when the woman raised her head. Hamilton withdrew his arms and stood as though awaiting judgment.

“Look at me! ”

His eyes, which she could see now were gray, met hers steadily.

“ Do you mean that you are willing to work for me? Willing to give up your way of living for my way? ”

The color rushed into his white face.

“‘ Give me the chance. Only give me the chance.”

She gazed back at him for a moment before she stared down at the hands clenched in her lap.

‘“‘ Suppose — just suppose that I accept your proposal? What would your parents say? ”

Hamilton took an impetuous step forward. Unobserved Nicholas Cort left the room. The boy’s voice was rough with bitterness.

“They don’t care what I do. They are furious with me now. They have my brother Mark.”

“You don’t realize what you would be giving up, Anthony. My life runs in an entirely different groove from yours. Three years ago I invested all I had, except enough to carry us until the crops could help, in peach and apple orchards. If you were to take David’s place you would have to work as he worked, as he planned to work for ten years. Do you mean that you would give that time to me? Share our fortunes? Live as we live? — without using your own money, without help from your people? Temperately? ”

“Temperately! After living through the hell of these last weeks do you think I’ll ever drink again? Give me the chance to help you, Mrs. Grahame. I have no right to ask you to lift this intolerable load from my heart but if you will . . .”

“Give me a few hours in which to decide. I want to help you but I wonder if —if I am big enough. I will talk with Mr. Cort and — Rose darling . . .”

She tried to smile at the little girl who entered the room. ‘The child’s head was covered with short black curls of satin softness. In her simple pink linen frock she looked younger than her twelve years. In one arm she clasped a doll. Its head was shattered. One rosy cheek, one sapphire eye alone remained intact. Between wet lashes her eyes were brilliant with expectation. She tiptoed forward. Her lovely lips trembled as she slipped her hand into Hamilton’s and asked shyly:

“ Are you my new big brother? ”

She clung tightly to the fingers which gripped hers as she explained eagerly:

“ Mummy, Uncle Nick told me that I had a new big brother. Have I, Mummy? I’ve missed Davie so.”

The dimpled chin quivered. The dark eyes filled with tears.

Claire Grahame bent over her. Her voice was sympathetically tender as she asked:

“ Rose darling, what happened to Annabel Lee? ”

The little girl looked at the doll clasped in her arms. Tears made deep dark pools of her eyes as she answered her mother:

“Nap Long strung Annabel to a tree and — and shot her head off and then—he offered me striped candy.” The scorn in her voice choked in a convulsive swallow before she added: ‘‘ I wouldn’t let him see me cry, I wouldn't.”

“Nap Long again! The village bad boy. He delights in hectoring the younger children,” Claire Grahame answered the question in Anthony Hamilton’s eyes.

He dropped to one knee and caught the child in his arms as he comforted:

“ Dear, Tony will get you another doll.”

Rose leaned contentedly close and shook her head:

“T don’t want another child in place of my darling Annabel Lee. I— I’m grown-up now.” With a heart-broken little cry she pressed her face against young Hamilton’s shoulder.

For an instant Claire Grahame stood motionless looking at the boy and girl before she crumpled to a chair and hid her face in her arms outflung on the table. Her slender body shook with sobs. The child regarded her for a moment in startled uncertainty. Two big tears coursed down her cheeks. She looked through drenched eyes at the youth who still held her close:

“Mummy mustn’t cry like that. If you really are my new brother put your arms about her. That is what Davie did when Daddy left us. Don’t cry, Mummy. Don’t cry. Davie would be so sorry.”

She knelt at her mother’s feet and snuggled her head against her arm. Hamilton laid a tender hand upon one shaking shoulder. At the touch a cry of infinite love and longing welled from the woman’s heart:

“David! Myson! My splendid son! ”

Chapter I

A GEM of a laugh. A thrilled whisper: “Ready boys! ”

The girl, perched on the newel-post of the stairway which swept gracefully up to the hall above, put an harmonica to her lips. A shaft of September sunlight from a window on the landing illumined her, set a bit of nickel on the instrument ablaze, lingeringly tipped with gold the pink and white cosmos in the Georgian bowl of silver on the half-moon table. Her laughterbrimmed eyes were on the three dogs on the stairs. Rusto, the Belgian, loomed in majestic dignity above the shaggy, black wire-haired Pinschers. His ears were cocked, his eyes were on the girl. The smaller of the two dogs tilted his head and rolled his eyes heavenward as though preparing to scale Carusonian heights of tone. The beady eyes of his twin fixed on a door across the hall suggested dark and dour reflection as he flexed sensitive nose muscles.

At the first note of reveille all three threw back their heads, spread their jaws and flung their voices on the air. On her tricky perch the girl swayed with laughter. She stopped playing to chant in a sweet, husky contralto:

i5

“We must get him out!

We must get him out!

We must get him out of that of-fice! ”

She repeated the call on the harmonica. The dogs accompained to their individual satisfaction. As their wails increased in volume and tunelessness the door across the hall was flung open. A man in riding clothes appeared on the threshold. With much the spectacular effect of the sun breaking through a cloud his exasperated frown cleared away in a flashing smile as hve regarded the quartette on the stairway. The girl’s oldrose skirted knees were crossed in an effort to maintair. her equilibrium, her lovely face was dimpled with laughter, white teeth gleamed between boyish lips, her dark eyes were brilliant with triumph. The soft hat of a slightly deeper shade than her frock was crushed down at a rakish angle on her black hair. As she resumed her efforts on the instrument the dogs increased the volume of their output. They gave the impression of attempting the feat of keeping one eye on their conductor and one on the man at the door. Anthony Hamilton held up his hand:

“Lafayette we are here! ”

The girl jumped to the floor. As though released from a spell the dogs dashed across the hall. The Belgian reared on his hind feet and thumped a paw on the man’s chest. With the other he bowled over the clamoring terriers.

“Shame, Rusto! Give the little fellows a chance,” Hamilton reproved as he stooped to pat the small dogs. The large one tried to thrust his cold nose under his master’s soft collar. Anthony laughed:

“You did the trick, Rose. Here Iam. What do you want? ”

“Want! Have you forgotten that you promised to have tea with me at the river this afternoon? ”

“ Today! ”

He ruefully regarded the sheaf of papers in his hand. He pulled a memoranda book from his pocket. Rose Grahame leaned her head against his arm as she followed his eyes. Exultantly she tapped the page with a pink-tipped finger:

“There it is! Under this very date! ‘Tea with Rose.’ Let’s see you wriggle out of that and get away with it, Mr. Anthony Hamilton! Come on, Tony, I want an nice long afternoon with my best pal. I have the tea-things in a basket. I cajoled Juno into making cream scones. They’re bursting with strawberry jam. It gets dark early now and we must be back in time to dress for dinner at your mother’s. I haven’t met your brother Mark yet. I intend to make myself irresistible.”

“ Don’t try too hard, Rose.” .

“ Silly!) Do you think I meant it? I have more important things on my mind. I have a world-shaking proposition to make to you. I returned from Europe three days ago. Do you realize that this is the first chance for a heart-to-heart we’ve had since I left college? You and Mother hustled me abroad immediately after graduation. While I was gone you cut out Peter in the lady’s fickle affections and got engaged to Daphne Tennart. Poisonous of you, I call it, not to give me an inkling of the state of your young affections beforehand.”

A slight color burned beneath the bronze of Hamilton’s skin. His eyes were on the papers in his hand as he directed:

“Wait for me in the living-room. I'll be with you before you can say, ‘Hands up!’ Are the dogs invited to the tea-party? ”

“Of course. Good boys! Didn’t they help rout you out of that old office? Hurry or we won’t get to the river before the sun drops behind the trees.”

As Rose Grahame crossed the hall the dogs looked after her then at one another with the shifting, impersonal gaze canines employ when they wish to appear indifferent. One after the other they thumped to the floor in front of the office door. They rested their noses on outstretched paws. From the threshold of the living-room the girl regarded them. They wigwagged tails in languid acknowledgment of her attention.

“Why make it so blatantly evident that it is Tony whom you adore? That you play with me only when you can’t get him or Peter? ” she reproached in answer to their apologetic eyes. She crossed to the window. Her thoughts reverted to the past summer. It had been a wonderful experience but, why had her mother and -Tony been so determined that she should go? How had they. financed the trip? For the last five years the orchards had provided a comfortable income besides paying off loans but, with Peter and herself at college, there couldn’t have been much margin for travel. She had rebelled against leaving the family and the beauty of White Pillars to travel in a Europe—no matter

THE SOLITARY HORSEMAN IQ how interesting— crowded with printed-silked and tweed-suited Americans. Nevertheless, she had made the most of every moment. Perhaps now she would be permitted to enjoy life here.

Her glance rested on a hazy blue line of hills, followed the silver river, patterned in emerald islands, which spooned between banks sometimes rough and gray with granite, sometimes fringed with willows, sometimes marshed with rushes, until it purled leisurely by the fields of White Pillars. Glittering little creeks fluttered back through mellow meadows into the green distance like gay follow-me-lad streamers floating from a charmer’s shoulders. Her thoughtful eyes lingered on a white colony of beehives, returned to the near-by orchards. As far as she could see in all directions were rows and rows of trees laden with fruit of crimson and gold. She parodied aloud:

“ Apples to right of her

Apples to left of her

Apples in front of her reddened and ripened.”

Tony had made royally good, the girl thought as she reveled in the mystic charm of the irridescent gloom into which the sunshine melted. Memory flashed back to the day more than ten years before when for the first time she had seen him. She had not half understood her mother’s grief but she had sensed the solemnity of Anthony Hamilton’s promise. He was to be son and brother to them for ten years. Forsaking all others to cleave only unto them.

How absurd that that bit of the marriage service should slip into her mind in connection with Tony.

He had kept his promise. A year after he had come to White Pillars he had been sent to a Southern camp and there he had stayed through the war training raw recruits, such raw recruits! How he had rebelled! How he had tried to get across! She and her mother had hoped for his sake that he would be sent overseas. For their own — that was a different matter. He had returned with two silver bars on his shoulder to lay aside his uniform and resume work in the orchards.

Rose forsook retrospection to watch an airplane hovering above Headless Hill. Was it a mail-carrier a little off its route? Was the pilot considering the advisability of landing on the plateau which gave the decapitated effect to the near-hill? He was coming down! The girl watched breathlessly. The great birds with a human mind in control never ceased to thrill her. He wasup! He was off! Curious that he should have landed there even for a few moments. Perhaps he was a friend of Nap Long who kept a plane in a hangar on the hill. Napoleon Bonaparte Long! Mention his name to Tony and one got figuratively the reaction as from waving a red rag at a bull. Long had spent the two years of the war in the midst of fighting and had achieved distinction as an aviator. Disliking him, as he had before, it was a little more than Tony could bear.

She musn’t think of Nap, she detested him. Much better to think of what Tony had accomplished. He had installed Eddie Timmins, who had been his orderly at camp as foreman. When the hard times came he had adopted a policy of employing only natives of the county or responsible naturalized citizens in the orchards. The men were given a chance at agricultural college in the winter.

At heart had Tony been restless under the restraint of his promise, Rose wondered. Apparently his family had unlimited wealth. Never had she talked with her mother about his past. Whenever the thought had arisen of what his life had been before he came to them she had smothered it. Whenever friend or neighbor had veered toward the subject she had sidetracked them. Curious. Was she jealous of the time before he had belonged so entirely to White Pillars? The ten years of his contract were accomplished. Had been since last spring.

He was free to go. Why should he continue to work, why continue to fight an attacking army of pests, why labor in the laboratory working out formulas, “why longer shoulder the hundred and one problems and disappointments incidental to the business of orcharding?

The plot had thickened thissummer. Tony’s mother, realizing, doubtless, that his contract as manager of the Grahame orchards had expired, had leased La Mancha, the magnificent estate which adjoined White Pillars. . Nap Long had bought it on his return from nowhere a year before—how had he made the money? Last spring he had met Mrs. Hamilton in France. She had wanted to hire a house for the season in his village. He had offered La Mancha as being the only pape estate for her, so he had explained glibly: ;

Tony had been white with anger Mrs. Hamilton had kept the place .

e bit it. owing with guests, had demanded her younger son’s presence at all festivities. What had been her object in coming to their quiet village? To bring pressure to bear to separate Tony from his adopted family?

Rose blinked long lashes to clear sudden angry tears from her eyes. If his mother didn’t get him Daphne Tennant would. Daphne and Tony! It seemed incredible. Peter had been fairly eating out of her hand when his sister sailed in June. Daphne was harmless enough but she was two years older than Peter and entirely under the domination of her mother. The invalidish Mrs. Tennant and the pretty daughter had come to town a year before. They appeared cultured and not too eager to make friends. Perhaps because of the latter attitude they were taken up by the Country Club set. It didn’t seem quite fair that Tony with his solid-gold family background and charm, who never before had singled out a girl for his attentions, should poach on Peter’s preserves. Why had he done it? Rose wrinkled her patrician nose disdainfully as she visualized his financee’s colorless daintiness:

“Hmp! Clinging-vine stuff! That’s what he fell for,” she commented under her breath as she crossed to the fireplace. She vented her indignation on the smoldering logs. They blazed into protest under the vigorous attack of the poker. Something in her heart always went off like a flashlight flare when she thought of that engagement.

She frowned at the tall Willard clock topped by three brass balls. On its face a full-rigged ship was about to dip below the horizon. It was ticking the minutes away with exemplary fidelity. If only Tony would hurry. If they didn’t get away soon someone would buttonhole him about something. It was the busiest season of the year. The peaches were being picked. As soon as those had been shipped the fall apples would be ready to market. Her brother David’s vision had materialized. ‘ Fruit You Can Eat In The Dark,” was being sold all over the world.

Perched on the arm of the davenport at right angles with the fireplace Rose looked about her. She loved the restfulness of the plain Japanese cloth walls with their dull gold hangings, the absence of clutter of detail. A coppery bowl of russet helenium was on the piano, a happy-go-lucky arrangement of marigolds glinted in a shadowy corner. She had known the room and its heirlooms as far back as she could remember. She had learned to write at the Sheraton secretary which treasured behind its tambour doors great-great Grandmother Grahame’s pink lustre tea set. She had learned to play cards on the Hepplewhite table. In front of the Georgian mirror she had balanced on the edge of that Chippendale chair in a vain effort to admire the huge pink bow in her black hair before she fared forth on the breath-snatching adventure of her first party.

At right and left of the fireplace rose tier upon tier of books. On one side was her grandfather’s library. Sets of Dickens, Thackeray, Macaulay, Irving, Parkman. She smiled as her eyes rested on the Cadell edition of Scott. How she had revelled in the stories in those small volumes. Every valiant knight had been Tony. Every lovely lady in distress had been her mother.

Her glance fell on the Chinese Coromandel screen of vivid red lacquer which stood at the entrance of the garden room. She prickled with imagination. Always it had that effect upon her. Always it seemed to whisper mysteriously:

* Dare you to look behind me! Dare you

And always she had forced herself to look before she dashed away as though a legion of imps were at her heels. Of course she had outgrown that foolishness now, but — that bit of Oriental color still exuded an aura of sinister mystery. She looked quickly beyond it to the garden-room gay with chintz. From it drifted the scent of moist warm earth, the fragrance of blossoms. Between two sunny plant-filled windows was the wall-fountain Tony had given her mother. A bronze nymph held to her bronze ear a shell from which crystal drops fell rythmically into a miniature pool below. The drip-drip of water kept time to the tick-tock of the massive pendulum of the old clock in the corner.

“ Ready, Rose! ”

“Not really, Tony? Before I could say ‘ Hands up!’ you said. I have had time to review my whole life,” the girl mocked as she deserted her perch on the arm of the davenport.

Thoughtfully she regarded Anthony Hamilton smiling at her from the doorway. He was so good to look at. Strong. Lean. Tall. His gray eyes were clear and dependable, just now with cool laughter in their depths. His smooth, dark hair kicked up perkily above his ears. His teeth were even and white, his mouth under the slight mustache was determined but so — so rweet. That was the word for Tony’s mouth, the girl decided. And his smile? She couldn’t describe it. It just caught at her heart. Couldn’t he rage though! His riding clothes were shabby from constant wear in the saddle but she loved their suggestion of past distinction.

“Young woman, for one in a rush you are taking your time. Almost — you give the impression that you are considering the advisability of keeping your date with me.”

““T was considering how nice you are,” she answered gravely. A flash of emotion routed the laugh from the man’s eyes. The telephone on the desk rang. Rose answered it.