THE HEN WITH ONE CHICK.
Under the cedar tree on the south lawn of Bellamy's garden sat Amaryllis
Caldegard. On the wicker table at her side lay a piece of needlework
half-covering three fresh novels. But when the stable-clock on the other
side of the house struck noon, it reminded her that she had sat in that
pleasant shadow for more than an hour without threading her needle or
reading a line.
Her reflections were coloured with a tinge of disappointment. Although
her life, passed in almost daily contact with an affectionate father,
who was a man of both character and intellect, had been anything but
unhappy, it had lacked, at one time or another, variety and beauty. But
the time spent in the exquisite Hertfordshire country surrounding the
old Manor House had been, she thought, the pleasantest five weeks in her
memory.
The worldly distinction of Sir Randal Bellamy gave point to the pleasure
she felt in his courtesy to her father and his something more than
courtesy to herself. She did not tell herself in definite thought that
she counted with Randal Bellamy for something more than the mere
daughter of the man whom he considered the first and most advanced
synthetic chemist of the day; but there are matters perceived so
instinctively by a woman that she makes no record of their discovery. If
not without curiosity as to the future, she was in no haste for
developments; and Bellamy's announcement of an addition to their party
cast an ominous shadow across the pleasant field of the indefinite
future.
On the twelfth stroke of the clock Amaryllis laughed in her effort to
brush aside the clouds of her depression. Expecting her father to join
her about this time, she was determined to show him the smiling face to
which he was accustomed.
When he came,
"What d'you think of the news?" he said.
"What news, dad?" she asked.
"Somebody coming for you to flirt with, while the old men are busy," he
replied.
"Flirt!"
"Well, I don't think it's likely that this Jack-of-all-trades has left
that accomplishment out of his list," said the father.
"Rolling stones get on my nerves," objected his daughter, having known
none.
"From what his brother says, this one's more like an avalanche."
Amaryllis laughed scornfully.
"Positively overwhelming!" she said. "But I'm sure I shall never----"
"Hush!" said Caldegard, looking towards the house. "Here's his brother."
Sir Randal was turning the corner of the house, with an envelope in his
hand.
"Telegram," said Amaryllis softly. "P'r'aps it's the avalanche
deferred."
"D'you mind having lunch half an hour earlier, Miss Caldegard?" asked
Sir Randal, as he came up. "Dick--my brother--is coming by an earlier
train. Just like him, always changing his mind." And he smiled, as if
this were merit.
Caldegard laughed good-humouredly. "You're like a hen with one chick,
Bellamy," he said.
"No doubt," said the brother. "Do you see, Miss Caldegard," he went on,
sitting beside her, "how the pursuit of science can harden a generous
heart? Both Dick and I were born, I believe, with the adventurous
spirit. I was pushed into the most matter-of-fact profession in the
world, which has kept me tied by the leg ever since. But Dick was no
sooner out of school than he showed the force of character to discover
the world and pursue its adventures for himself."
"But, Sir Randal, hasn't your brother ever followed any regular
occupation or business?"
"As far as I know," chuckled the man, "he's followed most of 'em, and
there are precious few he hasn't caught up with. Two years before the
war certain matters took me to South Africa. One evening, in the
smoking-room of the Grand Hotel at Capetown, a queer-looking man asked
if my name was Bellamy, and, when I told him it was, inquired if Limping
Dick was my brother."
"Limping Dick?" exclaimed Amaryllis.
"Yes," said Sir Randal. "That was the first time I ever heard the name
he is known by from Söul to Zanzibar, from Alaska to Honolulu."
"Why do they call him that?" asked the girl.
The man smiled. "Because he has a limp," he said. "But how he came by it
is more than I can tell you. I told the fellow that I had indeed a young
brother Richard, and that my young brother Richard certainly had a limp.
We were saved the trouble of further description by the interruption of
a high-pitched voice:
"'Not a shade shy of six foot tall; shoulders like Georgees Carpenteer's
when he's pleased with life in the movies; hair black as a Crow Injun's;
eyes blue as a hummin' bird's weskit; and a grip--wa-al, he don't wear
no velvet gloves: Limpin' Dick Bellamy!'
"'That's him,' said the queer man. I agreed that the portrait was
unmistakable, and asked if either of them could tell me where he was
now, as I hadn't seen him for a long time. So the queer man told me that
two years before Dick, who was then overseer of a large rubber
plantation north of Banjermassin in Borneo, had given him a job. He
added, however, that my brother had left Borneo some six months later.
The American had first met him four years before in Bombay, and they had
joined forces in a pearl-fishing expedition which took them somewhere in
the Persian Gulf--the Bahr-el--Bahr-el-Benat Islands, I think; they had
separated four months later and had not met again for more than three
years, when the American had run across him as part owner of a cattle
ranch in Southern Paraguay."
Amaryllis was interested in spite of herself; but her father had heard
these things before, and was thinking of others.
"Jack-of-all-trades," he said, turning towards the house.
"And master of most," called Bellamy after him.
"What a good brother you are!" said Amaryllis softly.
"He's all the family I've got, Amaryllis," he said. "Besides, I'm almost
old enough to be his father, and I often feel as if I were."
"From what you've told me, he must be thirty at least," objected the
girl, "and I'm sure you're not fifty."
"Over," said Bellamy.
"You don't look it," she answered.
"Thank you."
"What for?"
"You make it easier."
"What easier?"
"What I'm going to say to you."
Amaryllis looked up, surprised.
"Before I met you, Miss Caldegard, I had got thoroughly into the way of
thinking of myself not as an elderly man, but as a confirmed bachelor.
For more than a month I have been enjoying your company and admiring
your goodness and beauty more and more every day, without perceiving,
until some few days ago, that I did so at great risk to myself. If I
were twenty years younger I should put off speaking like this, in the
hope of gaining ground by a longer association with you. But to-day I
have made up my mind that my best chance of winning at least your
affection lies in telling you simply and at once how completely you have
conquered mine."
That this must come sometime, Amaryllis no doubt had foreseen; yet at
this moment she felt as much surprised and embarrassed as if she had
never read the signs.
If a woman, mother or sister, could have asked her yesterday whether she
were willing to marry Randal Bellamy, she might, perhaps, have answered
that she liked him awfully, that she valued his love, and felt very sure
of being happier as his wife than as an old maid; but now, with the
famous lawyer's kind and handsome face before her, and that pleading
note mixing unexpectedly with the splendid tones of his voice, her
delicacy rebelled against taking so much more than she could give.
Twice she tried to speak; but, instead of words to her tongue, there
came a tiresome lump in her throat and a horrid swimminess over her eyes
which she was determined should not culminate in tears.
"What a dear you are, Sir Randal!" she said huskily. "But--but--oh! I do
like you most awfully, but--I can't say what I mean."
The new beauty in the face which he had from the first thought so
lovely, the new brightness of tears in the dark-brown eyes, and the
womanly tenderness which he had never before found in her voice, made
his heart quicken as never since he was thirty. That extra beat, if it
told him that he was still young, warned him also of the pain which is
the tribute imposed on conquered youth.
But before he found words, Caldegard appeared on the terrace, shouting
that it was five minutes past one, and lunch waiting.
The pair walked side by side to the house.
"Don't answer me to-day, Amaryllis," he said, "but just turn me and it
over in your mind now and then between this and Friday."