The Language of Paradise: A Novel (27 page)

“With such a picture in our minds, it is possible, if we permit ourselves, to imagine further. To envision our lost children capering and laughing in that same emerald parkland, naming the birds and beasts even as Adam did—for learning is the play of Paradise—and exercising their fertile young minds by inventing games to amuse each other. A beloved wife sitting on a bench beneath a shade tree, observing these antics with a smile, as the infant who accompanied her out of this world babbles in her arms. A departed husband or brother absorbed in that task which gave him most satisfaction in life, whether wood-carving or verse-making or wall-building or tending the soil.

“And what can these pretty imaginings mean to us, you are asking—we who are left behind to shoulder our daily load without the help and comfort of our dear companions? Yet, I am asking you to be patient and indulge me further. Open your Bibles to the first chapter of Genesis and—those of you who are able—read a few verses.”

There is a rustling as people take up their books. As Sophy opens hers, she thinks: He is bringing us back to the Word, all to the good, he won’t go far astray. After a minute Gideon begins to speak again, softly, like a father telling a tale at a child’s bedside.

“What does it mean to read? What is this Lordly skill that we acquire as children and take for granted ever after? Your eyes move over the page—yes, even as God’s spirit moved over the waters!—and as you pass from line to line, your mind’s eye re-creates the making of the world. You
look
at black figures on a white ground. You
see
the blazing colors of God’s handiwork—that self-same Garden where Adam first experimented with the power of speech, where the helpmate he sought emerged full-formed from his side, where our First Parents strolled, and loved, and feasted on nature’s bounty—and, alas, sinned.” Gideon leans forward. He grasps the pulpit again, but this time it seems to Sophy that he would thrust the barrier aside if he could, and address his flock directly. “This world we walk through is only a text we must learn to read before we are permitted entrance to the deeper, truer story. Adam and Eve knew Paradise as a birthright and were expelled into the outer darkness. Brothers and sisters, it is the work of our lives—we who still wander in that darkness—to find our way back.” His eyes shift, he hesitates. “We may discover that our departed ones have made the journey before us. Let us not think of them as lost, then, but only . . .
translated
. Removed, that is, to their first home.”

Sophy has sat in an attitude of rigid attention since Gideon began to speak, looking neither left nor right. The persistent silence in the church tells her she had better keep her blinders on. She endures through the prayer and closing hymn this way, her mind whirling with trepidation. Why must he speak of outer darkness when the day is so bright? And what will they make of “translated”? Wouldn’t “changed” have served as well? The little he said was too much, too revealing of his vision. He has put the whole family at risk. As Gideon recites the benediction—a part of the service that always moves her, for how can God fail to bless when He is asked so nicely?—her mouth is dry with dread of facing the crowd.

Keeping her head down, she manages to slip out of the pew before Mama and the boys, and to avoid neighborly chatter until she arrives at Gideon’s side. People shuffle by as they always do, perhaps a little quieter than usual. Sophy, nodding and smiling, tries to read their faces as they pass, knowing they are likely to save their opinions for the churchyard or the journey home. A few look bewildered, most merely blank. She begins to feel reassured. A fair number of folks probably slept through the sermon, or retreated into their thoughts. Hasn’t she often done so herself? Of those who managed to stay awake, most lack the understanding to be alarmed; for them, Gideon’s words amount to little more than high-flown talk of Heaven—the common grist of Sunday lessons, easier to digest before dinner than Papa’s pungent evocations of Hell.

But one or two have heard. Mrs. Jennings presses Gideon’s hand, her tear-filled eyes saying all. Effie Minor, a dried cob of a woman who lives alone in a tumbledown cottage, the last of her large family, stands on tiptoe and croaks, “Couldn’t I just see that place as you was speaking, Parson, and them all at home there!”

Deacon Mendham has been earnestly conferring with Sims and two other elders at the back of the church. Now they make their way to the door as one body, the deacon at its head. Mendham, miming alarm, fends off Gideon’s greeting. “You will forgive me if I don’t take your hand, Pastor Birdsall. Your sermon has put me in fear that
doves
might fly from your sleeve. Such original interpretations! Heaven as a glorified village. Ought we to pray, then, for our souls to ascend to . . . Andover? Salvation as a conjurer’s trick. You say nothing of sin or grace, nothing of moral behavior. Perhaps we may expect a mention of these venerable concepts next Sunday?”

Mendham’s show of wit ignites a dry cackle in the elders. Dead leaves clinging to a dead branch, Sophy thinks. Her smile falters, but Gideon gazes steadily at the deacon. Although he doesn’t speak, his calm seems to her magisterial—both lofty and compassionate. She remembers the certainty he showed that day in the sickroom when he first confided what he had seen. Fragile as he was, she had believed him, and she believes him still. Then she had been too timid to take the hand he offered, but she is a woman now, and a wife; she must prove to him that she will follow wherever he leads. She sidles closer to Gideon and lets the back of her hand touch his. The churchmen will see that they are of one mind.

“Cloak old truths in new dress, and behold, we see them new!” Leander Solloway’s speaking voice is as mellifluous as his baritone raised in song. Light-footed for such a large man, he has meandered up to pay his respects and has been observing the exchange.

“Truth needs no ornament,” Mendham mutters.

“And that’s true, too.” Solloway flashes a grin wide enough to encompass the deacon and all his minions. Sophy is momentarily dazzled by this streak of geniality, the glint of perfect white teeth in a black beard. “But you will allow, sir,” he goes on, “that we fallen children are not strong enough to take our truths unadorned. Jesus, the great teacher, spoke to the people in parables.”

Mendham, not a tall man, does his best to look down his nose while thrusting his chin up at the towering intruder, and pulls at his lip as if summoning a crowning reply. But the newcomer’s cordiality seems to have a withering effect on him. Already he is retreating in the direction of the yard, shrinking backward, the others following alongside as if departing the presence of a king. Talk has circulated about the schoolmaster’s uncommon method of imposing order in the classroom: how he tames his charges, even the unruly older boys, with a soft word and a potent glance, and has yet to make use of the switch. The woman who helps with the laundry has heard that he was a mesmerist, and assures Sophy she doesn’t doubt it, for one has only to look—if one dares—into his strange “greeny” eyes. Men are more likely to credit Solloway’s authority to his height and the knotted muscle of his long arms. Sophy sees now that his power lies elsewhere. He is a veritable Goliath of good nature.

With the elders gone, Solloway turns the sun of his regard fully on Gideon. “Some intuition told me to visit your church this morning, and now I know why. I was struck by your sermon, Pastor. You gave voice to my own thoughts, and expressed them with eloquent economy, hinting much and saying little. How could you do otherwise in such company? Reticence is only wisdom here.” He inclines his head toward the churchyard, empty now except for her family; Sophy is chagrined at the oafish look of them, staring narrow-eyed at the newcomer like hill folk who come to town twice a year. “We must talk. I have no proper place to entertain at present—I am living in the schoolhouse, and believe me, I’ve set my pallet down in worse places—but I can offer you a seat by the stove and a bowl of soup, if you would not be offended.”

If Mr. Solloway is such a peasant, why does he speak like a prince, Sophy wonders? Each word chiseled to its perfect shape, vowels fully rounded, consonants sharp-cut. A slight fuzzing of the
w
’s—as if, were the schoolmaster less vigilant, they would settle for being
v
’s.

“I am never offended by simplicity.” Gideon’s eyes seek the schoolmaster’s, and some current passes between them. Sophy notes it, and thinks that the laundress may be right after all. “But you must come to us,” Gideon says, in a hearty, ministerial voice that doesn’t belong to him. “My wife will tell you I am always eager for conversation. She is a fine cook. Aren’t you, Sophia?”

“Ah, Sophia!” Solloway looks upon her from his great height, delight dawning on his face. As he inclines his shaggy head, she has a fancy that he will hoist her up in his arms and tickle her under the chin. Her cheeks are burning because Gideon called her by her full name, as if she were a different wife altogether, and lied about her cooking. The newcomer’s scrutiny makes her blush deeper. Solloway bows low, touching his hand to his brow in a courtier’s salute and bringing it to his heart. “When Mr. Wordsworth wrote ‘Wisdom is oft times nearer when we stoop than when we soar,’ he might have had the present case in mind. Certainly his words apply most beautifully.” He winks at her. “Though I suspect Mr. Wordsworth intended a different meaning.”

“Or a different object,” Sophy says. Is he making a joke of her? “Those who know me can testify I am not wise at all. Even the domestic arts are beyond me.” She is suddenly furious—at Solloway for his expression of playful amusement, at Gideon for ingratiating himself with this gangly stranger at her expense.

“Then we won’t put you to the test! I will come for the pleasure of a civilized conversation. Food for the gods, and no less for my humble self.” Solloway takes her free hand and Gideon’s, and enfolds them between his own large mitts. His flesh is warm, as though he generates his own heat.

“Etiquette requires that I call you Pastor,” he says to Gideon. “I hope one day to have the honor of calling you Friend.”

He turns away while they are still absorbing this overture, leaving them to gape at the easy, loping stride that takes him straight across the churchyard to greet the Hedges, who are huddled together where they have stood this last half-hour. Mama and the boys must be frozen in place by now, Sophy thinks. Their faces are so stiff that their emotions cannot easily be calculated. Not so the temperature of the schoolmaster’s smile.

CHAPTER 23

____

LEANDER

G
IDEON WENT LATE TO BED ON TUESDAY, HAVING WRITTEN
half his sermon without stopping, and dreamed of a city of minarets and golden stone baking in the sun. He woke the next morning to that same honeyed light drizzling through a gap in the curtains, the back of winter broken in some silent tussle overnight. Frost had beaded into droplets on the windowpane, and the frail young birch whose branches scraped at the glass with every gust of wind was as peaceful as a palm in an oasis. The sight of the tree gave him courage to open the latch. He stood in his nightshirt, basking in the mild, moist air. It was only the January thaw, not likely to last more than a day or two, but even a sham spring was enough to infect him with a mix of languor and restlessness.

In the kitchen he helped himself to bread and cheese, and ate standing as the dog, drunk on earthy smells long withheld, rolled and whimpered at his feet. Fanny and Sophy came in just as he finished. Wednesday was their morning for making calls to struggling families in the parish. He had watched as they approached the house, swinging their empty basket between them like a pair of schoolgirls.

Sophy tore off her bonnet and shawl and dropped them to the floor with a dramatic flourish. “You can’t imagine how warm it is. Go out and enjoy it, sleepyhead.”

Fanny would admit no exuberance. “I suppose those pies I put in the blanket chest will spoil, and we’ll have nothing but dried apples to see us through the winter.” She frowned at Gideon as if he had ordered the weather. “And how do you intend to use what is left of the day?”

“Once I finish my sermon, I’ll stroll to the schoolhouse as a reward. It’s time I observed the controversial Mr. Solloway in his habitat and judged his methods for myself. Meeting him at church pricked my curiosity.” Until he spoke the words, Gideon hadn’t formed a conscious intention to pay such a visit, but he plunged ahead as if he’d been planning one for days. “Shall we do a good deed and invite the poor bachelor to dine with us on Sunday? Save him from his solitary soup? It will be good for his body, and his soul, too. With such an incentive, he’ll be bound to come to service a second time.”

Sophy hung her garments on the peg. “If Mr. Solitary Sollaway is alone, then he deserves to be. You know what people say about him. I suppose he’ll want to mesmerize us after dinner. Not me—I prophesy a headache.”

Gideon grimaced. “You’re being childish, Sophy. Have we sunk so low that we give credence to idle gossip? He seemed a pleasant enough fellow, and better educated than most around here. What do you have against him?”