A Lost Cause

"Oh, sylvan? – well, I should think it was a slim, graceful, and very young-ladyish kind of word. It wears a neat grey tailor-made coat and skirt, and says, 'Papa is of opinion that,' or, 'Mamma has frequently told me.'"

They all laughed, pleased with themselves, the hour, and the charm that perfectly absurd talk has for young and happy people.

"Oh, don't talk of words, Miss Blantyre," Poyntz said, "I'm tired of them. The long vacation draws near, when I want to forget all about them. My words, the words I live by, or for, are beasts."

"Quote, dearest," Agatha said.

"Well, this is the sort of thing I see more often than anything else at present," he replied: "'The humble petition of the vicar and churchwardens of St. Somebody sheweth that, it being considered desirable to make certain alterations and improvements in the church of the said Parish, a meeting in Vestry duly convened for considering the same, was held on the first of June, at which it was resolved that the alterations shown in the plan annexed hereto and there produced, should be carried out, a copy of which resolution is also hereto annexed.'"

Both the girls cried out to him to stop.

"What musty words, dry and rusty words!" Lucy said. "And, please, what are they all about, and what do they mean?"

"They mean this – some worthy parson has badgered his congregation for money. It is the desire of his soul to have a rood-screen in his chancel, with a gilt and splendid crucifix upon the top. So, armed with a mouthful of words like that, he gets him to a sort of cellar near St. Paul's, where a dear old gentleman, named the Right Worshipful T. H. Tristram, K. C., D.C.L., sits, in a big wig and a red robe. The parson eloquently explains his wishes, and the Right Worshipful tells him to go and be hanged – or polite words to that effect. Then I and other young legal 'gents' get up and talk and argue, and the Right Worshipful listens until he's tired, and then says no again. The parson goes back to his roodless temple and preaches against Erastianism, and I and the other young legal 'gents' pouch a few guineas, and go and play pool at the Oxford and Cambridge Club."

"And then," Agatha went on, – "then father makes a speech and writes a letter to the Times and gets fearfully excited and worried for about a week, neglects his meals, passes sleepless nights, and behaves in a perfectly foolish manner generally. Then he goes down to the parish and has a convivial meat tea with the poor parson, and before he goes gives him a cheque for fifty pounds to go and have a holiday with after all the strain!"

"Exactly," said Lucy, "I will take up the parable. I have seen our friend, the parson, in the unutterable north London slum, where my poor dear brother Bernard spends all his time and money. He goes, as you say, for a holiday, to recover from the scene in the cellar near St. Paul's. He goes to Dieppe or Boulogne, where he attends the cathedral three times a day, and tries to fraternise with the priests, who regard him as a layman masquerading in borrowed plumes. In revenge, he goes and makes things uncomfortable for the local English chaplain, who, in most continental towns, is an undersized person with a red nose and an enormous red moustache and a strong flavour of Chadband at home. So 'all's well that ends well.' But, really, what fearful nonsense it all is! Isn't it wonderful that people should waste their energies so!"

"If it amuses them it doesn't matter in the least," Agatha said. "Look how happy it makes poor dear father. And I daresay he does good in his way, don't you know. It's far better than racing or anything like that. Poor dear Hermione Blackbourne was staying here not long ago, and she was telling me what a wretched time they have at home. Lord Saltire hardly ever pays the girls' allowances unless he's won a race, and the poor dears have to study the sporting papers to know if they'll be able to afford new frocks for Goodwood. Father's fads are at least harmless, or, at any rate, no one has to suffer for what he gives away."

"The old type of clergyman seems to have quite died out," Lucy said. "When I was a little girl, the rector at home was a dear old man, who dressed just like an ordinary person, and went otter-hunting three days a week. Yet I'm sure he was just as earnest as any of these new faddy people. We had a delightful old pew, with a fireplace and chairs, and poor dear father used to get his nap. And as for altar lights and copes and incense, I don't suppose dear old Mr. Jenkyns had ever heard of such things. The amount of money that Bernard spends on his church in that way is ridiculous."

"The only good I can see in it," James Poyntz said, "is that it brings a certain colour element into drab and dull lives. The people in your brother's parish, who never see any thing artistic, must gain in that way, I suppose. After all, Miss Blantyre, 'it's an ill wind that blows nobody any good.' All this Church nonsense gives pleasure, however much we may laugh at it. Take myself, for example. I'm intensely amused at all the squabbles that go on between Christians. More evil passions are stirred up and let loose over half a yard of green silk or the precise manner in which half an ounce of flour and water is baked than the politics of a century excite! It's perfectly true. There's a spirit of bitter hatred in it all that is intensely interesting to the student of character. There are hundreds of thousands of people in England who would burn my poor father in front of St. Paul's to-morrow if they could – good, respectable, honest British folk!"

"Well," Lucy said, with affected gloom, "all this only reminds me of my coming penance. In a day or so now, I must dive into Hornham for my yearly stay with Bernard. I shall emerge quite thin and crushed. I always do. The 'clergy-house,' as they call the vicarage, is a lugubrious place that suggests a rather superior workhouse. When I go, the drawing-room is solemnly opened by the housekeeper. Bernard gives a couple of dinner parties and a garden party to a set of the most extraordinary people you ever saw in your life. I have to be hostess and chatter to weird people, with whom I haven't a single idea in common. Lady Linquest drove down from Park Lane to the garden party last year. I shall never forget it. She gave Bernard such a talking to, told him to 'dress like a gentleman,' and exchange to a nice country parish with some county people close by, and marry. I wish he would, too! He's wasting his life, his money, and his health in that awful place. I don't wonder at aunt's being angry. Why can't he do as she says? He could have high jinks in a nice little country church in one of the home counties just as well as where he is now."

"Beastly life, I should think," James Poyntz said. "Does he live all alone?"

"Oh, the two curates live with him, Father Stephens and Father King – they're all 'fathers,' it seems. These are two intense youths, who dress in cassocks and tippets all day long, and wear their berrettas everywhere. I think it's positively indecent to sit down to a meal dressed like that. But the worst of it is, that there's always some fast day or other, and I feel an awful pig to be having chicken and claret while the other three have oatmeal and apples. But I insisted on proper meals last year, much to the disgust of a gaunt old cat of a housekeeper, whom Bernard thinks the whole world of."

She stopped, laughing at her own volubility, and lay back upon the cushions, staring up at the green-leaf canopy above her head. All these questions seemed very trivial and unreal at that moment, in that pleasant place of sunshine, soft breezes, and the murmur of falling water. She thought of the long, mean, suburban streets of Hornham with humorous dismay. Thank goodness that she was only going to spend a fortnight there, and then would be away in a gay continental watering-place with Lady Linquest. But the few days were imperative. She was fond of her brother and knew how bitterly disappointed he would be if she were to withdraw from her promise to stay at St. Elwyn's. It was a duty which must be done, and it was an unkind fate indeed that had placed her brother in surroundings which were so uncongenial to her, and endowed him with opinions so alien to her own.

James Poyntz had lighted a cigarette. The smoke curled upwards in delicate grey spirals, and he could see his sister's friend through them, surrounded by a shifting frame which cut off the striking and clever face from its immediate surroundings, giving it a vivid and independent individuality. He could survey it more completely so. There was something in Lucy Blantyre that had begun to appeal to the young man with great and greater strength as the days went on. She was close upon beauty, and she had all the charm of a high-spirited and well-bred girl in perfect health, and knowing no trouble in life. But in the life to which he had been born, girls like her were not uncommon. Despite the fiction-mongers who fulminate against the vices of "society," and would have their readers believe that the flower of English girlhood is to be found in the middle class alone, Poyntz knew many gracious girls who were worthy to stand by any man's side throughout life. But in Lucy Blantyre he was beginning to discern something deeper and stronger. He thought that he saw in her a wonderful capacity for companionship, a real talent for wifehood. He could imagine that she would be more to her husband than an ordinary wife, identified with his hopes and career with all her soul's power, one for whom Milton's epithalamium itself would not be unworthy, with its splendid "Hail, wedded love!"

But, though such thoughts had been in and out of his mind for some time, he was hardly in love with her as yet. His temperament was honest and sincere, but cool and judicial also. He was the last man to take any definite step without a full weighing of the chances and results.

But the two had become great friends. Agatha Poyntz had her own thoughts about the matter, and they were very pleasant ones. Nothing would have pleased her more than the marriage of her brother and her friend, and she had made tête-à-têtes for them in the adroit, unobtrusive manner that girls know.

In all his conversations with Lucy, Poyntz had found a keen, resilient brain that answered to his thoughts in precisely the way he wished. The tinge of cynicism in her corresponded to the flavour of it in him, and there was sometimes real wit and understanding in her mockery.

She "suited" him – that is how he would have put it – and he was now beginning to ask and examine himself if love were not being born, a love which might make their union a perfect and lasting thing upon his way through life. Of her sentiments towards him he knew no more than that she sincerely liked him and that they were friends.

The regular throbbing pant of a steam launch on the silver Thames outside was heard, and Lucy turned suddenly in Poyntz's direction. She saw that he was looking at her gravely and steadily. A very faint flush came into her cheeks, almost imperceptible indeed, and then she smiled frankly at him.

He smiled also, pleased with himself and her, and with a sense that a new intimacy was suddenly established between them, an odd sense of which he was quite certain.

Agatha looked at the little watch in a leather bracelet on her wrist. "It's nearly lunch time!" she said; "I don't know how you people feel, but the word has a very welcome sound to me. Jim, get up and punt us home. You'll be able to argue with Father Saltus; I've asked him to lunch with us to-day. I didn't know you were coming down."

She spoke of Lord Huddersfield's domestic chaplain, a wise and courtly elderly man, whom they all liked, without in the least realising the part he played in Church affairs, regarding him, indeed, as a harmless student and a pleasant companion, but no more.

In fact, as the light and careless conversation of all of them showed, not one of the three young people had the remotest idea of what they were discussing. And though each one of them had a sense of humour, they were not able to see the humorous side of their airy patronage of the Catholic Church! This Mr. Saltus was known as one of the most profound metaphysicians of the day. The greatest modern brains were influenced by his writings in Christian apologetics; bishops, statesmen, great scientists knew of him as one to whom it was given to show how all thought and all philosophy were daily proving the truth of the Incarnation. His work in the life of the Church was this, and he was Lord Huddersfield's chaplain because that position gave him leisure and freedom for his work, and kept him in touch with the very centre of things.

James Poyntz had arrived from London by an early train, and had joined the girls at once.

In a moment or two, the young man was propelling the long mahogany punt with easy strokes towards the artificial cutting which led to the Seaming boathouse. Then, laughing and talking together, the three strolled over the wonderful lawns, pneumatic to the tread, brilliant as emerald to the eye, towards the old house with its encircling oaks and elms.

The tall red chimneys rose up between the leaves, that triumph of the Tudor style, which alone of all architectural systems has shown how chimneys may aid and complete the beauty of a building. The house rested upon the lawns as if it might float away at any moment, as they passed round an ancient grey dove-cot and some formal box-trees, and came in sight of the beautiful place. James Poyntz gave a quick breath of pleasure as he saw it, the old riverside palace of his ancestors. There were other houses which would one day be his – a great, grim Yorkshire fortress, the gay villa at Nice by the old citadel of Mont-Albano, where the Paglion sings its song of the mountain torrent, the decorous London mansion in Berkeley Square. But of all, he loved the old Tudor house by the river best.

How well Lucy walked! her carriage was a pleasure to watch. Yes! she harmonised with her background, she was in correspondence with her environment, she would be a fit mistress of Scarning in some dim future day.

They sat down to lunch in an ancient, mellow room, panelled in oak, with Tudor roses everywhere. It was beautifully cool and fresh after the glare outside. Father Saltus was a tall and very portly elderly man. His head was large, formed on a grand scale, and his mouth powerful but good-humoured. His eyebrows were very bushy and extremely white, and they overhung eyes which were of a dark grey, deep but not sombre, with much that was latent there.

The meal was progressing merrily when the butler entered and spoke to the footman who had been waiting on them. Then he went up to Agatha. "His Lordship has returned, Miss," he said, "and will be down to lunch in a moment."

Lord Huddersfield had been away for several days. The family house in London was let, as the Baron did not entertain largely since his wife's death. Agatha's season was spent under the wing of the St. Justs, her mother's people. But Lord Huddersfield had chambers in Piccadilly, and no one ever quite knew whether or not he would be at Scarning at any given time.

He entered in a moment, a slim, spectacled man, with a short beard, very quietly dressed, a man who did not, at first glance, in any way suggest the power he wielded or the strenuous personality he was.

He kissed his daughter, shook hands with his son, Lucy, and the chaplain, and sat down. They noticed that he was pale and worried.

"Have any of you seen the papers?" he said in a strong, resonant voice, which came oddly from a man so ordinary and undistinguished in appearance.

"I saw the Times this morning, Father," Poyntz said, "but that is all." The girls confessed that they had not touched the pile of journals in the library, and Mr. Saltus said he had been writing letters all the morning and so had not yet been able to see the news.

"I am sorry," said Lord Huddersfield sadly. "I had hoped that you would have seen the thing that has happened. I had hoped that I should not have had to tell you, Miss Blantyre."

His voice was so charged with meaning that Lucy shivered. Her eyes became full of apprehension. "Why me, Lord Huddersfield?" she said, "what has happened?"

Agatha, who was thoroughly frightened, laid a sympathetic hand upon her friend's arm. James, who was gazing anxiously at the girl, suddenly turned to his father.

"I think you had better tell your news right out," he said quietly. "Don't keep Miss Blantyre in suspense, Father; it is mistaken kindness. I am sure that she will be brave."

Every one looked at Lord Huddersfield; the air was tense with expectation. "Your good brother, Miss Blantyre," the peer began – Lucy gave a quick gasp and the colour faded from her lips – "your good brother, yesterday in church, was saying Mass when suddenly some local residents rose in their places and made an open protest, shouting and brawling at the very moment of the Prayer of Consecration!"

Lucy gazed steadfastly at him, waiting. He said nothing more. "Go on, please," she managed to whisper at last.

"They were at once ejected, of course," Lord Huddersfield said.

"And Bernard?"

"Although his state of mind must have been terrible, despite his pain, I learn from a private telegram that he continued the service to the end."

The three young people stared incredulously; only Father Saltus suddenly looked very grave.

"But – why – is that all, Lord Huddersfield?" Lucy said with a gasp of half-relief. "I thought you meant that something dreadful had happened to Bernard."

"Yes," he said, very surprised, "I have told you."