The Language of Paradise: A Novel (8 page)

Gideon suspected that a stately graded descent might be more to the parson’s taste than a long tumble; it was difficult to picture him, even in extremity, plummeting heels over head, limbs askew.

“It pains me to think of you sinking so low, sir,” he said. “I hope you won’t mind my asking how you . . . recovered yourself.” He had neatly avoided the word “saved,” though the symmetry of the sermon to come was already obvious. The tripartite fall could only mean that the Holy Trinity was waiting on the front line, prepared to retrieve the fallen soldier. But Reverend Hedge surprised him again.

“That, too, came in stages. The first step was making a chest for my father. A small one, to hold his pipes.” Hedge reached for the tray and ran his fingers through the Hebrew letters, sifting them. He flipped one into his palm—a
Lamed
, Gideon noted—and palpated it with his thumb. “I’d done nothing for months. The torpor of my mind was such that study was impossible; I’d taken leave from the College and come home, and spent the better part of each day lying on a couch with a cloth over my eyes. My poor mother and father must have plotted between them to contrive some project to divert me. I still remember how timidly they approached me, asking if I felt well enough to consider the
vexing
problem of the stray pipes . . .”

He smiled, his face softening at the recollection. “I doubt that I will ever lift anything heavier than that first piece of wood. The task seemed gargantuan, but it drew me out of myself and back into the world. Reflect on it, Mr. Birdsall—I had thought to stretch my mind to the far reaches of the cosmos, and now my whole being was concentrated on a little box! You will say it is a diminution. Yet I can tell you that this box was the opposite of Pandora’s, for all my blessings came out of it. My good wife—perhaps not so fair of form as my first love, but far better suited to the rigors of the clerical life. My family. My calling itself. And this, the humble but useful work of my hands.” He swept out both his arms in a gesture meant to encompass not only the study, but the house, the garden, the orchard, the spreading field. “How great is our God, and how infinite His mercies!”

“Indeed,” said Gideon. “An inspiring story.” The Reverend’s cautionary tale had caused his mood to plunge as swiftly as one of Hedge’s falling angels. What was a man of vision to aspire to, then? Growing a superior squash? Making a chair? “But I think you will agree, sir,” he said, “that the fault is not with language, which was God’s gift to us in Eden. I hope you haven’t forsaken poetry altogether.”

“‘Forsaken’ is the wrong word. Rather, I’ve diverted the stream.” Hedge sounded suddenly weary. Sharpness had crept into his voice. “I’m told my sermons are more varied and numerous than those produced by any of my colleagues. My lectures you are familiar with. My correspondence alone is of such volume that I often pray to the Lord for patience.” He took up his glass and twisted the stem between two fingers. “I do undertake the occasional poem of a sacred nature—eulogies and moral lessons and the like. Only last month, I was moved to commemorate the hanging of a local blacksmith, a drunkard who murdered his wife; I printed copies of the verse for my congregation, with an illustration of the sad event, and the demand was such that I exhausted my supply. But I’m a better man when I confine myself to the practical crafts. There’s a purity about them that the higher arts lack. They turn the imagination to wholesome ends. Given your own susceptibilities, you could do worse than follow my example.”

“I’m no artist,” Gideon said, stung again. “But I can’t agree that creating beauty, or seeking it, or contemplating it, leads to sin. If that is so, why do you hang a painting above your desk?”

Hedge regarded him coldly. “You are no artist, Mr. Birdsall, and I hope you’ll agree that I am no Philistine. The painting is Sophy’s; I saw you looking at it earlier. She has some ability, I think, though this isn’t one of her better efforts. The sentiment behind it compensates for its shortcomings. She painted it for my birthday, and I display it to please her.”

“I think it’s quite good. She’s taken such care with the details.” Remembering Sophy’s wish for a centerpiece for her garden, Gideon felt a sudden surge of tenderness for the fountain’s lack of scale. The Reverend would never see, as he did, that she had enhanced it in measure to her longing. “Mrs. Hedge believes Sophy has inherited your talents,” he said.

“I haven’t discouraged her,” the parson said. “Quite the contrary. I’ve taught her what little I know, though it’s never enough for her. It’s in the blood, you see. For good or ill, the artistic strain runs in my family, a thin line, but persistent. Her mother was my only sister—a great favorite of mine. Mary was a blithe spirit, the bright star of our sober brood, always making up rhymes and songs and stories. I used to think she must be a changeling—that the midwife had spirited off the true Hedge and left this sunny creature instead.” He sighed. “She assumed all men were as open-hearted as she was. Far too fanciful for this hard world, and the world took advantage of her, as is its way. She didn’t tarry here for long.”

Hedge paused, hand on chin, contemplating the painting. “Mary would have named her daughter for one of the Muses—I believe Calliope had been mentioned.” He raised his eyebrows. “When she died, the task fell to us. I never saw such a mite as that infant was! I tell you without exaggeration, my own were giants compared to her. The midwife doubted she would survive, but I sensed a will there, and my Consort, bless her, was untiring in her efforts. It was my idea to call the baby Sophia. I thought wisdom would be a tree of life to her, after such a precarious beginning. If my sister had possessed more of it, she might be among us still.” He turned to Gideon, his eyes misted over with an old sorrow. “Next month Sophy turns eighteen. A good girl, but flighty, and willful in her way. Time will tell whether the name has tempered her nature.”

THEY WALKED BACK
to the house in silence. Though Hedge had exhausted his store of words, he had endowed Gideon with a number of his written works as compensation: A discourse on “The Peculiar Nature of Time and Tense in Ancient Hebrew.” An essay roguishly titled “An Eye for an Eye: Some In-sights into the Function of the Letter
Ayin
.” And the only remaining copy of “The Blacksmith’s Lament: The Last Words of Abner Turnbull Upon the Occasion of his Execution for the Heinous Murder of His Wife (With Illustrations from Life).”

Gideon was glad to be released from the study. This was his favorite time of day. Late-afternoon light glazed the fields and painted the yellow house a rich ochre—the color of blessing, he had always thought. The Hedge homestead looked as natural in this setting as if it had grown from seed, as cozily eternal as a village in a Dutch landscape.

“The day has gotten away from us,” Hedge said, “pleasurable as it was. Will you take some supper before you go?”

“I’ve imposed on your hospitality enough,” Gideon said quickly. “But if you can tolerate me a little longer, I’d like to see some of Micah’s handiwork. He has a quality that’s quite remarkable.”

“I’m glad you sense it. Micah has a depth that is missing in his brothers. I wish my firstborn had a tenth of his seriousness. Sam was once handsome to look at, agreeable in company, but a shallow stream. At seminary he lasted less than a year. Instead of attending to his studies, he entangled himself with a clothier’s daughter, and now he’s locked in a hasty marriage, working in her father’s shop in Lowell.” The parson took off his hat and fanned at a circling bee. “The education I gave to Sam would have been better spent on Micah, but to what end? He will never preach.” Hedge’s voice was too flat for bitterness, but his face clenched as if the bee had stung him. “At times I’m weak enough to cry out about his condition. The sins of the fathers, Mr. Birdsall. I know all too well why the Lord hobbled his tongue.”

The dog was waiting at the door, and Reverend Hedge took his leave of Gideon there; he had to help his sons with evening chores. “Micah will be out,” he said, “but my wife will show you a few of his pieces. Or Sophia. She loves to trumpet her brother’s talents.”

CHAPTER 6

____

A SINGLE EYE

G
IDEON WALKED THROUGH THE HALL ON THE BALLS OF
his feet, trying to keep from pressing too loudly on the floorboards. He hoped Mrs. Hedge was busy elsewhere. She would insist on giving him a complete tour of the house and its contents, and he would never get away before nightfall.

Sophy was in the sitting room, at her easel by the window, blessedly alone. She looked up brightly when he came in, as if she were surprised to see him. “There you are, Mr. Birdsall! I’ve been waiting all day to show you my chair, but you took so long with Papa that I worked on my picture instead.”

“May I see it? I’ve just been admiring your fountain.” He stood at a respectful distance, wary of coming closer with only the two of them in the room. The canvas was clearly visible: a hut under a low-hanging fog of foliage, vaguely suggested in thick strokes of green.

“Please don’t look. You mustn’t, it’s not finished.” She stood and blocked the easel with her body: a gesture that struck him as too functional to be coy. “It needs a cow, I think. I’m very fond of cows, but I never can get them right. Mine always look like barrels with tails.”

Gideon laughed, relieved that he wouldn’t have to conjure up profound remarks about the painting. Her dancing was far superior to her artwork, but he understood that he must make no reference to it. “Then I’ll have to settle for Micah’s chair,” he said.

Sophy wasn’t as pristine as she’d appeared that morning: a ribbon of hair had come loose and broken the symmetry of her face, and a smudge of green marred one cheek—a suitable emblem, Gideon thought: the elf in her coming to the surface. But even these flaws were a charm.

She showed him a chest of drawers first, and then a clock that Micah and the Reverend were building—a labor of love, she explained; the intricate works still claimed their evenings, though the case had been completed months ago. Proudly she pointed out fine details in the carving, little flourishes that differentiated her brother’s style from the father’s. “And they’ve asked me to decorate the face,” she said. “Isn’t that trusting of them? I’ve already made some sketches. I wish my hand were as sure as Micah’s. The design is in my head, but what I paint is so far from what I dream.”

“I’ve had the same experience with my translations,” Gideon said. “But the important thing is to
have
a dream, don’t you think? It’s like a compass. It points us in the direction we’re meant to go.”

The thought seemed to delight her. “I’ll think of myself as traveling, then,” she said, “and not be so unhappy that I haven’t arrived. I can tell that you’re a very determined person, Mr. Birdsall. You will surely reach your destination.”

Sophy’s chair was made of oak like the others, but Micah had managed to infuse some of her airy spirit into the wood. The finials were birds on the wing caught in mid-soar; in their beaks they held the corners of a scroll that stretched between them, forming the back post. “Matthew 6:22” had been carved on the post in an elegant hand.

“I ought to know the verse from the citation, but I don’t,” Gideon said. “Will you share it with a stranger?”

“Oh, it’s very mysterious.” She traced the inscription with a finger as if it would open at her touch. “
The light of the body is the eye
.
If therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light
. What do you suppose it means? I haven’t any idea what use a single eye would be to anyone. Unless you have the misfortune to be born a Cyclops.”

Gideon wasn’t about to offer an exegesis. “I wonder why your father chose that passage.”

“Even Papa can’t tell you. He prays over the chair and a verse comes to him. He has faith that the Lord will tell him what we need to know.”

And Hedge had accused
him
of mysticism, Gideon thought. How was Sophy to profit from a verse she couldn’t understand? He remembered the passage now, and the even stranger one that followed it.
But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be filled with darkness
.
If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!
When he first read the verses as a boy, his orderly mind had rebelled at the odd diametric of “single” and “evil.” But he had thrilled, too, at the whiff of paganism that the words gave off—incantations and the black arts infiltrating the familiar neighborhood of the Golden Rule. Could the good shepherd that Gideon and his mother prayed to each night really have inflicted such a dire prophecy? The exclamation point at the end had filled him with pleasurable terror: he had imagined a hooded Druid priest poising his long knife over a bound sacrifice. It seemed a travesty that Sophy’s slender back should rest against such an enigma night after night, with only her innocence to shield her.

She had left him to his meditations on the chair and was looking out the window. “Mama is coming back from the garden,” she reported. “Mr. Unsworth is carrying her basket. He reminds me of an old dog, the way he follows behind.”