The Language of Paradise: A Novel (11 page)

GIDEON ARRIVED AT
the meetinghouse just as the congregation was rising for the final hymn. The abrupt swish of black-clad backs rebuked him. He stood at attention behind the last row of pews and tried to join in, but his voice was ragged; he had walked all the way in the rain, and was soaked to the skin. The Reverend Hedge looked past him as he processed down the aisle, sanctioning the effect of public shunning.

In the churchyard, Gideon kept to himself, feeling as much the outsider as he had on the first Sunday he had worshiped there. A few of the parishioners nodded to him in passing, but no one stopped to talk. He could not blame them. Whatever they might think of his lateness, the weather was hardly conducive to conversation. By now the rain had thinned to a morose drizzle. The sky had lightened without brightening, casting a sooty monochrome over the churchyard and everyone in it. Gideon could see its effect in the curve of the old people’s backs, the way the men crushed their hats down over their foreheads and the women huddled under their cloaks. He thought of his mother’s perennial warning: “You’ll catch your death in this weather!” “Not me. I’m too fast,” he’d taunted her, ashamed even then of her superstitions, but now he had to acknowledge the truth in the old saw. How could you escape something so amorphous? It crept into the bones like damp, and once inside, it made itself at home.

Hedge was in his element. Adversity, be it atmospheric or circumstantial, infused him with resounding good humor. He reached deep in himself and pulled up an extra measure of vigor, to be applied, like liniment, where it was most needed: a revitalizing handshake, a clap upon a sagging shoulder. He inquired about people’s health, asked after their families and their crops, offered scraps of Scripture and miniature homilies. “We must not let the weather dampen our spirits,” he said again and again. “The Lord is inviting us to turn our gaze inward, to loosen our hold on worldly things. How ingenious are His ways! He arranges that we reap the harvest in our souls as the earth drinks its fill. ‘For He watereth the hills from His chambers . . . ’”

Gideon heard more than one disgruntled farmer, at a safe distance from the parson’s geniality, mutter about mildew and rot. The rain they had prayed for all summer had come too late.

James was the first of the family to emerge from the church, his fiancée on his arm. Caroline Mills was dimpled and buxom, her face framed in yellow ringlets that peeked out from her bonnet with artful symmetry, like an extra ruffle. For her debut in her future husband’s parish, she had arrayed herself in a flowery lace-trimmed frock with matching parasol—more suitable for a garden party than a Congregational service on a dank day like this one, Gideon thought. But he had to admit that she shone in this crowd of drab women like a butterfly among moths. He could see why James had courted her; she was all circles to his mother’s bony angles, a bed of pillows for a man to rest on. James’s face showed his pride as he introduced her around. He was as open and straight as Reuben was sly, and humble enough to be dazzled by his own good fortune. A dutiful son, he had departed from the paternal model only once. He had put aside utility to marry for love.

“No one will blame you for sleeping in on a morning like this,” he said to Gideon. “Allow me to present Miss Mills. I don’t mind telling you I’m jealous. She’s told me she thinks you’re good-looking.”

“James, I never did! Don’t listen to him, Mr. Birdsall.” The lady looked up at Gideon with prim coquetry, her small mouth pursed prettily. It was plain that she was used to being admired, and had developed a set of stock airs and attitudes that served her well on most occasions.

“A pleasure. I’ve heard so much about you. When is the happy day?”

Gideon managed an agreeable smile, although his mind was raging. This was the object of Unsworth’s desire? How cheap, how trite, was his idea of beauty! Confection, indeed. In a few years she would be fat, her pert features drowned in blown-out cheeks and extra chins. The schoolmaster had departed earlier in the week, absolving Gideon of the necessity of murdering him, but his insults still stung. It was no surprise that the lout would find this coy creature superior to Sophy. She was miles beyond the likes of him.

Gideon listened with half an ear as the couple, oblivious as only those pledged to each other can be, gave him a detailed summary of their preparations for married life. The merits of stone fireplaces versus brick. The impossibility of finding decent lace. As Caroline prattled on about her epic quest for trim for the gown she was making—“I promise you, there is nothing to be had outside of Boston, nothing!”—his eyes wandered to the church doorway, where Mrs. Hedge chatted with a shopkeeper’s wife. Sophy stood nearby, but in the open, her chin upraised to the rain as if each drop on her face were a balm to be savored. She wore a mole-colored cloak that seemed, in its refusal to declare itself either gray or brown, expressly woven to blend with the weather.

She disguises herself in dull feathers, he thought. She believes she is invisible. Free to look where she pleases, but safe from other’s eyes.

Gideon was certain of one thing. For all the press of family and her public life as a minister’s daughter, Sophy was as solitary as he. Loved, yes, protected and modestly indulged, but a stranger to those who had raised her. Mrs. Hedge was merely uncomprehending—she would do no harm—but the parson’s tie to his adopted child was blood-deep; he would never rest until he had tamed her nature as he’d tamed his own. As long as Sophy lived under his roof, she would be expected to conform to the name he had chosen, her every playful impulse doomed to be slain in infancy and laid on the altar of the goddess of wisdom. It was no surprise that the girl had been driven into the field to express herself. What would she think, he wondered, if she knew that he was more than a casual observer? That he could see through her dun-colored layers as clearly as he had seen through the clotted paint of her fountain, to the heart of her and the longings stored there?

“
YOU LOOK PEAKY
,” Mrs. Hedge pronounced. “You had better sit by the fire. But not in those wet things—you will spoil the finish on the chair.” Gideon was now clothed neck to ankles in Hedge motley: an old shirt of James’s; one of the Reverend’s vests, too tight to button; and a pair of Reuben’s trousers that bagged on him like pantaloons, the sight of which would surely give Reuben joy. Though the day was humid, Mrs. Hedge took a shawl from a peg by the back door and insisted on swaddling him in its folds. It was one of those homely garments that most likely belonged to no one and anyone, a castoff to be thrown on before going out to the garden. But he was pleased to think that the last shoulders it had warmed might have been Sophy’s.

Grateful as he was to be ordered to sit, Gideon hesitated over the rocking chairs. Was there one set apart for guests? It seemed rude, even blasphemous, to occupy the Hedges’ designated seats; he would sooner have reclined on the Pope’s throne than the parson’s straight-backed rocker. Micah came in and, seeing his dilemma, dragged his oldest brother’s chair from another corner of the room. Gideon took note of the feckless Sam’s Scripture; he had expected a verse about the Prodigal Son, and could not help feeling smug when he saw that it was something bland from Ecclesiastes. So much for the Reverend’s gift for prophecy.

“They’ve made an old woman of me,” he told Micah, who had dropped into his own chair and was stretching his damp boot soles to the fire. The boy’s feet and hands were enormous, like a half-grown puppy’s. He looked at Gideon and laughed softly, shaking his head, as if to say, “What a piece of good fortune that the two of us can be ridiculous together!” There was not an ounce of guile in him; Reuben had gotten it all. Gideon was comfortable in his presence and believed Micah felt the same about him. Since their first awkward encounter, they had managed to communicate without relying on the back-and-forth of ordinary talk, and by now a companionable silence had grown between them. Gideon felt free to wrap the shawl closer about him, fit his back to the admirable contours of the chair and shut his eyes. He needed to rest a little to make up for his fitful sleep the night before.

The dinner bell startled him. He could not have been dozing long, but he had slept deeply, a white sleep unmarked by dreams. His body was stiff, his joints aching. Rising out of the chair was a conscious effort; he had to fight the urge to grab Micah’s strong arm. Every muscle ached, and there was a thickness in his throat. When he opened his mouth to speak the blessing (Hedge’s revenge on him for missing the sermon), he could manage only a croak.

“Don’t tell me you’re sickening for something,” the parson said. “Not on this day of all days, when we cross the border into a new land. I don’t favor one letter over another, any more than I favor one of my children, but
Beth
is a pleasant country. I think you will enjoy your travels there. Rally yourself, Mr. Birdsall! We are moving forward! We are on the march!”

For once, Gideon had little appetite. It was a labor to chew and a painful trial to swallow. He might have been encased in wax for all the connection he felt to the rest of them; still, he was aware of an unusual restraint at the table that had nothing to do with his dulled senses. Although James had been betrothed for some time, he had, perhaps wisely, kept his fiancée to himself. Caroline’s first appearance at a family gathering was a rehearsal for the months they were all about to spend together. Gideon knew that beneath the tranquil surface of Sunday dinner, the members of Clan Hedge were nervous, even agitated, trying to assimilate this foreign element introduced into their midst.

Gideon was predisposed to dislike Caroline; yet he couldn’t help but feel compassion for her when he saw how hard she was trying. She was an only daughter, a late-life gift to a prosperous farmer who had married in middle age. It was evident from her manner that affection and approval had been bestowed on her from the cradle. She had never had to earn the esteem that she must now court from each member of this peculiar family, so different from her own. Her cheeks were pink from the exertion. Her high, thin voice, intended by nature to burble like a woodland stream, swooped and fell with exaggerated emotion.

“Do please let me help!” she implored Mrs. Hedge. “I will be very distressed if you treat me like a guest!”

The parson’s wife was unmoved. “The rule of the house is, no work on the first visit,” she said in her flattest tone. “After today you may help all you please.” She collected the plates with ruthless efficiency and bore the towering stack off to the kitchen. Her discomfort was evident in the set of her shoulders. Her home was her province, and now she must learn to share it with this frivolous girl whose domestic skills were confined to flower arranging and needlework. Not the wife she would have chosen for her most dependable son, Gideon thought. If she had hoped for a like-minded daughter, Caroline would not suffice.

This afternoon, as if to make amends, Sophy followed in Fanny’s footsteps as a novice follows a mother superior, alert to help wherever she could. Gideon suspected that Sophy’s industry had a motive: she must be desperate to escape the effusions of her sister-in-law-to-be. Seated next to Caroline, she might be mistaken for a nun in her dark, simply cut dress with her hair drawn over her ears like a wimple. The more Caroline put herself forward, the more Sophy receded, spurring Caroline to ever more strenuous efforts to draw her out. “I think it is
charming
to be so shy and modest. I should be more that way myself. But you must promise not to be shy with
me
. We’ll be sisters soon! Think of the good times we’ll have, the secrets we’ll tell behind the backs of all these men.” She looked archly at James, who sat at attention beside her, stiff with discomfort. “Will you promise me that, Sophy dear?”

Gideon did not miss the note of condescension in Caroline’s trills. She used the same cajoling tones with Sophy as she did with Micah, rather as if they were children who needed to be fussed over for an obligatory moment before being hidden away in the nursery. She must already have decided that James’s quiet mouse of a sister was no threat to her—and, Gideon guessed, no true companion either. He suspected that once her own household was established, Caroline would metamorphose from village belle to society matron, and Sophy would be left behind like a curio on a side table.

By the time dessert was set down—a frosted cake instead of the usual slapdash bruised-fruit tart—he was longing for the refuge of the study. No one would miss him if he slipped away a little early. Caroline was having some luck exercising her charms on Reuben, who—ever competitive with his brother—was teasing her and telling her outlandish stories that made her laugh. “James, he is too comical! Tell him to stop!” she pleaded, but she seemed to be enjoying herself for the first time.

“If you will excuse me, I had better get to work,” Gideon said, standing. The close atmosphere in the room had become intolerable. His head felt too heavy for his body. For a second he thought he would topple over; he grabbed the back of the chair, pretending to retrieve the shawl. Rain or no, he needed to get into the open air.

“You’d do better to get to bed,” Mrs. Hedge muttered, and Sophy, at her heels, said. “I’ll bring you a slice of cake later, and a nice big cup of tea.”

The Reverend was unable to repress a look of envy. His face had grown longer and more saturnine as the meal progressed. He had informed Gideon earlier that he would not be available to, as he put it, “plant the flag in fresh earth”; he must take this opportunity, long overdue, to instruct the fledgling couple in the sacred nature and multiple responsibilities of the marital bond, a lecture he gave to all the young people of his parish before agreeing to unite them.

Gideon wondered if Hedge regretted the match. He was fatherly toward Caroline, even courtly in an old-fashioned way—and no doubt mindful of the respected family she came from and the inheritance she would bring with her. But she was a living antithesis to all he valued. How could he not be troubled by her lack of substance?