His knowledge of ecclesiastical law was good, and in the wrangles between diocesan chancellors and recalcitrant clergy which were becoming more and more frequent, he was frequently retained. He was a very familiar figure in Dr. Tristram's Consistory Court, and his familiarity with ecclesiastical litigation only increased a contempt for those who professed and called themselves Christians, which was as profound as it was sincere, and as fundamentally the result of ignorance as it was both.
For, brilliant as he was, the young man had not the slightest acquaintance with modern religious thought. He saw everything through the spectacles of temperamental distaste, and still believed that Professor Huxley had dealt the final blow to Christianity in 1876! Lord Huddersfield had often pressed his son to read the question as it at present stood, to see what Gore and the philosophic apologists were saying, or even to note the cautious but inevitable conclusions that prominent scientists like Lord Kelvin and Sir Oliver Lodge were arriving at. But the young man always refused. The ancient indictment of the Gadarene swine represented the last word in the controversy for him, and a brain keen and finely furnished with facts on all other questions, on this was not only content to be forty years behind the conclusions of theological science, but imagined that it was in the van of contemporary thought.
Of late, Lord Huddersfield had given up the attempt to influence his son's opinions. "It is impossible," he had said, "to explain that the sky is blue to a man who has blindfolded himself all his life, and one cannot build a basis in a vacuum." So, while both men respected each other's attainments on all subjects but religious ones, on these James thought his father a fool, and Lord Huddersfield knew that his son was.
Despite all this difference, the younger man was a frequent and welcome visitor at his father's various houses, and between him and his sister Agatha there was a real and deep affection. Agatha was conventionally indifferent to religious things, James was profoundly antagonistic to them, and thus, if they did not meet quite on common ground, they were never likely to disagree.
And Lucy Blantyre, the third member of that gay young trio on the summer morning, was a combination of both of them. She was very well off in the affairs of this world, as indeed was her brother, Bernard Blantyre of St. Elwyn's. But, while he had early devoted his life and money to the service of God, Lucy had refused to identify herself with his interests. She lived with her aunt, Lady Linquest, a gay old dame of Mayfair, and it was only at rare intervals that she paid a duty visit to her brother. Yet, though she was, from a surface point of view, purely a society girl, popular, and happy in a bright and vivid life, there were temperamental depths in her, unsounded as yet, which showed her sometimes—to her own wonder and discomfort—that she was a true blood-sister to the priest in north-east London. At times, a wave of scorn for the Church possessed her. She saw the worst side of religious externals and poured bitter fun upon their anomalies. This is, of course, a very easy thing to do. Any one can ridicule the unseen and its ministers: it requires no special talent to be rude to God! At other times, the girl saw this very clearly and was ashamed. She had a good brain and despised all that was cheap and vulgar at the bottom; and when her moods of wilfulness had passed, she stood upon the brink of devotion and belief.
Nothing serious animated any of the three. The day was wonderful. In a sky like a hard, hollow sapphire the sun burned like a white-hot disc of platinum. The island was deliciously cool; the murmur of a near river mingled with the bourdon of the bees. The smooth turf on which they lay was starred with chaste and simple flowers.
"Isn't it perfect to-day!" Agatha said. "Bee, go away from my face! 'Pleasant it is when the woods are green and the winds are soft and low, to lie amid some sylvan scene'—Lucy, dear, what are you thinking about?"
"I was wondering if we were really reclining in what the poets of last century called 'bosky shade.' Is this bosky, Mr. Poyntz?"
"Decidedly bosky, I should say. But surely both of you can put the island to a better use than merely to illustrate quotations from the poets? It's far too fine for that."
"Oh, do let me have 'bosky'," Lucy replied. "It's such a dear, comic word. I've always loved it. It always seems a fat word to me. I'm sure it's fat and it waddles—in the word world!"