CHAPTER II.
THE HEN WITH ONE CHICK.
Under the cedar tree on the south lawn of Bellamy's garden sat AmaryllisCaldegard. On the wicker table at her side lay a piece of needleworkhalf-covering three fresh novels. But when the stable-clock on the otherside of the house struck noon, it reminded her that she had sat in thatpleasant shadow for more than an hour without threading her needle orreading a line.
Her reflections were coloured with a tinge of disappointment. Althoughher life, passed in almost daily contact with an affectionate father,who was a man of both character and intellect, had been anything butunhappy, it had lacked, at one time or another, variety and beauty. Butthe time spent in the exquisite Hertfordshire country surrounding theold Manor House had been, she thought, the pleasantest five weeks in hermemory.
The worldly distinction of Sir Randal Bellamy gave point to the pleasureshe felt in his courtesy to her father and his something more thancourtesy to herself. She did not tell herself in definite thought thatshe counted with Randal Bellamy for something more than the meredaughter of the man whom he considered the first and most advancedsynthetic chemist of the day; but there are matters perceived soinstinctively by a woman that she makes no record of their discovery. Ifnot without curiosity as to the future, she was in no haste fordevelopments; and Bellamy's announcement of an addition to their partycast an ominous shadow across the pleasant field of the indefinitefuture.
On the twelfth stroke of the clock Amaryllis laughed in her effort tobrush aside the clouds of her depression. Expecting her father to joinher about this time, she was determined to show him the smiling face towhich 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," hereplied.
"Flirt!"
"Well, I don't think it's likely that this Jack-of-all-trades has leftthat accomplishment out of his list," said the father.
"Rolling stones get on my nerves," objected his daughter, having knownnone.
"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 hishand.
"Telegram," said Amaryllis softly. "P'r'aps it's the avalanchedeferred."
"D'you mind having lunch half an hour earlier, Miss Caldegard?" askedSir Randal, as he came up. "Dick--my brother--is coming by an earliertrain. Just like him, always changing his mind." And he smiled, as ifthis 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 generousheart? Both Dick and I were born, I believe, with the adventurousspirit. I was pushed into the most matter-of-fact profession in theworld, which has kept me tied by the leg ever since. But Dick was nosooner out of school than he showed the force of character to discoverthe world and pursue its adventures for himself."
"But, Sir Randal, hasn't your brother ever followed any regularoccupation or business?"
"As far as I know," chuckled the man, "he's followed most of 'em, andthere are precious few he hasn't caught up with. Two years before thewar certain matters took me to South Africa. One evening, in thesmoking-room of the Grand Hotel at Capetown, a queer-looking man askedif my name was Bellamy, and, when I told him it was, inquired if LimpingDick was my brother."
"Limping Dick?" exclaimed Amaryllis.
"Yes," said Sir Randal. "That was the first time I ever heard the namehe is known by from Soeul 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 itis more than I can tell you. I told the fellow that I had indeed a youngbrother Richard, and that my young brother Richard certainly had a limp.We were saved the trouble of further description by the interruption ofa high-pitched voice:
"'Not a shade shy of six foot tall; shoulders like Georgees Carpenteer'swhen 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 wearno velvet gloves: Limpin' Dick Bellamy!'
"'That's him,' said the queer man. I agreed that the portrait wasunmistakable, and asked if either of them could tell me where he wasnow, as I hadn't seen him for a long time. So the queer man told me thattwo years before Dick, who was then overseer of a large rubberplantation north of Banjermassin in Borneo, had given him a job. Headded, however, that my brother had left Borneo some six months later.The American had first met him four years before in Bombay, and they hadjoined forces in a pearl-fishing expedition which took them somewhere inthe Persian Gulf--the Bahr-el--Bahr-el-Benat Islands, I think; they hadseparated four months later and had not met again for more than threeyears, when the American had run across him as part owner of a cattleranch in Southern Paraguay."
Amaryllis was interested in spite of herself; but her father had heardthese 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 almostold 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 thegirl, "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 ofthinking of myself not as an elderly man, but as a confirmed bachelor.For more than a month I have been enjoying your company and admiringyour 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 Iwere twenty years younger I should put off speaking like this, in thehope of gaining ground by a longer association with you. But to-day Ihave made up my mind that my best chance of winning at least youraffection lies in telling you simply and at once how completely you haveconquered mine."
That this must come sometime, Amaryllis no doubt had foreseen; yet atthis moment she felt as much surprised and embarrassed as if she hadnever read the signs.
If a woman, mother or sister, could have asked her yesterday whether shewere willing to marry Randal Bellamy, she might, perhaps, have answeredthat she liked him awfully, that she valued his love, and felt very sureof being happier as his wife than as an old maid; but now, with thefamous lawyer's kind and handsome face before her, and that pleadingnote mixing unexpectedly with the splendid tones of his voice, herdelicacy rebelled against taking so much more than she could give.
Twice she tried to speak; but, instead of words to her tongue, therecame a tiresome lump in her throat and a horrid swimminess over her eyeswhich she was determined should not culminate in tears.
"What a dear you are, Sir Randal!" she said huskily. "But--but--oh! I dolike you most awfully, but--I can't say what I mean."
The new beauty in the face which he had from the first thought solovely, the new brightness of tears in the dark-brown eyes, and thewomanly tenderness which he had never before found in her voice, madehis heart quicken as never since he was thirty. That extra beat, if ittold him that he was still young, warned him also of the pain which isthe tribute imposed on conquered youth.
But before he found words, Caldegard appear
ed on the terrace, shoutingthat 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 itover in your mind now and then between this and Friday."