Rank and Talent; A Novel, Vol. 3 (of 3)

by William Pitt Scargill

At this discovery he was somewhat tempted to smile; and as in some cases tears lead to thought, so in others do smiles lead to reflection. And is not this the order and ordinance of nature? The human infancy, which is the vestibule of intellect, is a scene commingled of smiles and tears, of passionate sorrows and of noisy joys; then comes reflection. So it had been with Markham in what may be called his theological infancy. Led by circumstances to reflect and to think, he perhaps carried reflection and thought farther than he first intended, or was aware of. But it was something, and indeed a very great matter, that he had penetration enough to see through, what he had charity enough to call, the unconscious mask of fanaticism.

Thus led to reflection, his mind did not hastily settle. He was entertained by various speculations, and he made many inquiries, and was forced to find answers for them as well as he could. He had, as people say, his own opinions. What those opinions were we know not, and perhaps Markham himself did not exactly know; and therefore, as he apprehended these opinions indistinctly, he could not communicate them, and thus they were likely to continue his own. Whatever were his literal opinions, the spirit of his theological feeling was catholic; not Roman Catholic, gentle reader, but catholic in its widest acceptation. He did at one time reprobate sectarianism not as a nurse of dangerous heresies, but as a violation of the spirit of nature’s catholicism, and an unauthorised earth-born enclosure of heaven’s free blessings; but he, in time, so far surmounted that feeling, as to discern in the constitution of the human mind the elements of sectarianism; and he at length came to the dangerous conclusion, that there must needs be diversity of opinion so long as there was diversity of minds.

This state of mind will easily account for his overlooking the theological education of Clara Rivolta, while and when he thought of paying court to her; and it will also serve to explain the fact of his calmly conversing with Signora Rivolta on subjects connected with theology. For this good lady had also a free and liberal spirit towards dissidents; and did think that in religion there was something eternal and indivisible, which humors of the day could not limit, nor the low walls and fences of sectarianism divide. Her faith, however, and her devotion, however liberal might be her feelings, were modulated and disposed according to the religion in which she had been educated. Those forms she preferred decidedly, but not angrily.

Now that part of the conversation which had reference to theology was on the broadest and most general principles; and the parties, so far as they went, coincided.

Markham had been talking with Signora Rivolta a long while; and he had been so mightily well pleased with his own speculations, freely uttered and candidly received, that he did not notice that all this time Clara had been perfectly silent; and that she had been attentively, to all appearance, occupied with her drawing.

But the conversation on the part of the mother of Clara presently flagged; and the eyes of the Signora were directed to a time-piece that stood on a bracket in the room where they were sitting. The index pointed to the hour of two. Markham recollected having seen that time-piece in poor old Richard Smith’s cottage at Brigland; and when Signora Rivolta looked at it so earnestly, there rushed into the young man’s mind recollections of the past; and he was so lost in these recollections, that he did not think of the proper interpretation of the Signora’s looks at the time-piece.

There was presently an awkward silence; and Clara lifted up her face from the table and looked at her mother, and saw that her mother’s eyes were directed to the time-piece; and there also did she look, and then suddenly her countenance changed, and she looked again at her mother, and slightly at Markham, and she almost sighed.

Markham scarcely heeded these movements for a minute or two; but presently his recollection came to him, and he bethought himself that he had made an unusually long visit, and he rose to take his departure. Then he saw, by the manner in which Signora Rivolta received his motion to depart, that his stay had been quite long enough; and he was still, with all his philosophy, so far in love with Clara, that he fancied that she also seemed glad that he was going. She smiled, indeed, and courteously said, “Good morning, sir.” But if she had not smiled, she must have sighed; and perhaps have almost wept.

As Markham was retiring, he met at the drawing-room door a strange mysterious-looking personage, dressed in black, and having a look of gloom and darkness far beyond any darkness of attire. The stranger fixed his eyes inquiringly on the young barrister, and by his looks seemed to rebuke the young man as an unwelcome intruder. Markham again looked at the stranger, not from wilful curiosity and voluntary impertinence, but almost through a power of fascination. Never had he seen a countenance of such singular and curious expression. It seemed not only unenglish, but unearthly. The eyes were large, flat, and lustreless; the cheeks long, narrow, pendulous, and sadly sallow; the nose aquiline; the forehead low and wrinkled; the hair thick and grizzled; the mouth wide, and the lips thin and pale; and the teeth long and irregular, and alternately black and yellow, like the keys of an old harpsichord. Markham sickened at the sight; he guessed what the stranger was; and so can our readers.