Before she could answer, Unsworth shifted the conversation in a different direction. “Garrison is to speak at a rally in Boston next Saturday. Pritchard and I are going down, and I hope at least one of you will join us. The more voices heard, the better.” He turned to Gideon with a tight smile. “What about you, Mr. Birdsall? I know we have many friends at the seminary. What cause could be holier to a praying man? We would welcome some company on the journey.”
Gideon was caught off guard. It was true that the slavery question was much spoken of at seminary, but he had paid little attention. Though, in theory, he was in favor of abolition, the issues of the day took up little space in his thoughts. Politics had no appeal for him: worldly affairs were transient, external to his longings. The idea of attending a rally, of merging with others in support of a cause, however noble, was foreign to his nature. From earliest childhood, his instinct had been to shy away from mobs of any sort; groups of rowdy children sent him running for his mother’s skirts. He couldn’t help suspecting that Unsworth had somehow divined this weakness and extended the invitation only to embarrass him. Gideon sensed that the boarder didn’t like him—perhaps saw him as a usurper. When Reverend Hedge singled Gideon out for conversation, Unsworth had withdrawn too quickly, receding with a sullen deference. After the parson’s rebuke, he’d abruptly turned affable and talkative, his gratification all too evident. There was something heavy about the man: a calculation that made even his loosest gestures seem contrived.
Gideon was about to plead his studies, but James rescued him. “Well, I can’t go. I have enough to do, getting ready for Caroline, and the farm won’t run itself. It’s not as if I have a moment to spare for the next month.”
“We can’t just take a day off,” Reuben echoed. “Besides, Garrison is a troublemaker, isn’t he, Pa?” He leaned back, smirking, an anticipatory glitter in his eye. It was obvious that he was hoping for a tussle.
The Reverend looked sternly at his son. “You never heard me say so, Reuben. I hope I’m kinder than to attach such labels to my fellow creatures. Mr. Garrison is a powerful orator, in thrall to a just cause. I don’t question his motives, only his method. His words inflame, but to what end? Any student of history knows what happens when rhetoric overcomes reason. The slave owners must be courted and gradually won over. Liberia held up as the city on a hill. In time they’ll see that resettlement is the only logical solution.” He made a steeple of his fingers and regarded the construction soberly. “You are all well acquainted with my views; I’m happy to discuss them further any other evening. On this day, it is more profitable to fix our minds on eternal truths. Mr. Birdsall, shall we retreat to my study for a little Hebrew?”
CHAPTER 4
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CELESTIAL GUEST
SOPHY WONDERS IF, AMONG THE BOOKS MAMA HAS PASSED on to her—The Female Friend, Means and Ends, The Sphere and Duties of Woman—there is anywhere a chapter on the etiquette for entertaining an angelic visitor. Reuben plagued her while she was washing the dishes, making sheep-eyes and talking in a fluting voice. “Oh, Mr. Birdsall, won’t you please sit in my rocker? I do believe it’s the nicest one of all!” Mama shushed him, but with a smile. “I’m glad you spoke up, Sophy,” she said. “It’s about time you acquired some conversation.”
She has at last escaped to her easel, and is trying to lose herself in the English country scene that she started last week. The charm of the picture was all in her mind: her greenery is muddy, her thatch-roofed cottage is a woodshed wearing a wig. Usually she expends some Christian zeal on her poorer efforts—ye downtrodden one, I will lift ye up—but this afternoon her attention strays. The painting’s flaws are no match for the shining countenance of their guest, whose blue eyes have surely dwelled on celestial vistas.
The day has been filled with revelations. Sophy has read in the Bible that angels walk among us in the guise of men, but where is it written that they have surnames and hearty appetites? She’d fled from him this morning, hardly knowing why, and when he reappeared at church and spoke to her, she was like Micah, words frozen in her throat, thawing finally in humblest form. Asparagus was all she could offer, laying it at his altar like the poor gawking farmers at the Manger, giving what they had. It took all the courage she had to look into those eyes, but once she did, she knew they’d keep each other’s secrets: he would never tell about her dancing and she would never tell about his disguise. On the way home, Papa preached at his prize pupil, making a public show of him, and she thought, O foolish mortal, you know not who comes to your door.
The grace he said moved her to tears. Papa’s students usually rambled on and on, adding dollops of Scripture to impress the professor, but Mr. Birdsall’s words had been simple and sincere. She had been touched by the image of the poor wanderer gazing with longing at lighted windows. Who would imagine that a higher nature could be lonely for the homely comforts of ordinary men? But how poignant—how piercing to the heart—that it should be so!
His appetite at dinner stirred her in another way. He had devoured two plates of stewed chicken and a thick slice of pork, and sampled every dish that Mama offered him with fervent thanks. (Very mannerly, Mama had called him afterward.) Sophy isn’t sure why watching him eat was a cause for wonder. The sensible part of her knows that if Mr. Birdsall relishes food, he must have, inside his ethereal casing, innards and organs like other men. Yet, he wears his body as carelessly as he wears his clothes. After years of Sunday sermons, she’s learned to distrust words like “spirit”—limp and thin like much-fingered cloth—but if anyone possesses the elusive quality, Mr. Birdsall does. It’s as though he deigns to hunger, and having been humbled with needs, takes an innocent delight in their satisfaction.
Sophy will never understand what prompted her to speak to him at dinner. Mama seated him directly across from her, and every time he looked her way, she blushed to think that he’d seen her as no one else ever had—as shameless as Salome and, in one sense, nearly as bare. After their awkward exchange in her garden, she’d tried to make herself invisible, but the words were out of her mouth before the thought was in her head. Her rocking chair, of all subjects. He’d asked her to point it out after dinner. A casual gesture, requiring minimal motion on Sophy’s part, yet since she’s been sitting here, she’s contrived at least eight different ways to accomplish it.
Sophy gazes out the window. Over two hours have passed since Papa took him to the study. A half-hour is the usual allotment, measured to the minute by the Reverend’s pocket watch, and then the dazed scholar is sent on his way, laden with books and cautions. A sobering thought comes to her. Mr. Birdsall probably left long ago, his head full of Hebrew. He had come to see Papa, after all. Why should he remember a casual politeness to the Reverend’s daughter?
Grimly, she returns to her painting. A second look confirms that it’s one of the damned, beyond reclaiming. Tomorrow she’ll cover the canvas with white and start again. She is about to get up when she hears footsteps behind her.
“Working, are we? Ah, a vernal scene. Very pretty!”
Mr. Unsworth, creeping up on her again. He has an irritating habit of addressing her in the plural, as if she were an infant or a cat. Mr. Unsworth’s chief attribute is persistence, a quality native to snails and other creatures that leave traces. She doesn’t have to look at him to feel his eyes, heavy-lidded, clinging to her back. In the flush of her disappointment, she swirls her brush in green and attacks the foliage with such vigor that Mr. Unsworth, muttering “Well, I see you’re busy,” has no choice but to withdraw.
CHAPTER 5
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IN THE REVEREND’S STUDY
THE REVEREND HEDGE HAD OFFERED HEBREW AS OTHER men suggested a postprandial dram of brandy. Gideon was surprised when the parson took a bottle down from the shelf. He had been led to expect sustenance, but not in the harder form.
“Do you indulge, Mr. Birdsall? This won’t do you harm. It’s the last of our blackberry cordial, and there’ll be no more once it�
�s gone. My wife and I have been making wine since the first year of our marriage—experimenting, I should say, for we were quite the alchemists in the early days, mixing all manner of fruit with every kind of vegetable and herb. No combination was beyond us. Peaches and parsnips sweetened with syrup. Damsons and rhubarb with a pinch of lavender. Oh, we were sly! Not all of our unions were blessed—some were downright sulfurous—but practice is all, our results refined with time. I don’t mind saying I’ll regret giving it up. The biblical precedent is substantial, and I have little natural sympathy with the temperance folk. Their rhetoric seems hardly more palatable than Mr. Garrison’s!” He measured a couple of inches of dark liquid into two wine glasses. “But I can’t deny the abuse—I see enough in my own parish. A preacher and his family must be exemplars. As you will discover, our lives are not our own.”
“I’ll enjoy the last fruits, then.” Gideon knew nothing about wine. The cordial seemed a good place to start, though it looked suspiciously like the tonics he’d been dosed with in his childhood. Excessively sweet going down, it lingered after he swallowed, leaving a rich aftertaste on his tongue. After only a couple of sips he felt pleasantly relaxed. He suspected an infusion of Mrs. Hedge’s wily herbs.
The parson had set up his study next to his shop, in an outbuilding a short distance from the house. It was easy to imagine that, having been admitted to his teacher’s inner sanctum, Gideon was now privy to the contents of his mind, for in this concentrated space were all the innovations Hedge had trumpeted in class. The three-sided desk: one wing devoted to Latin, the other to Greek, the center reserved for his beloved Hebrew. The wall cabinet with revolving
shelves stacked with books instead of crockery or condiments. The famous reversible table designed for engraving.
“I do my drawing and tracing on the flat surface,” Hedge explained. “When the time comes to cut, I rotate, and presto! A box to catch the chips! Try it yourself, if you like.” He looked on with transparent delight as Gideon flipped the table from one side to the other. “A simple device, but adequate for my purposes. As usual, necessity dictated, and ingenuity followed, limping, in its wake. Do you notice the lock? That did require a bit of thought.”
“I believe you mentioned a book for children,” Gideon said, hoping to nudge the conversation in a less mechanical direction.
“My Alphabetical Bestiary. Have I spoken of it in class? That was premature of me. I’m only now sketching the Dromedary, but the project is dear to my heart. There’ll be an Old Testament animal for each letter, and the letters themselves I am etching in English and Hebrew. My hope is that a sharp-eyed child will look beyond the illustrations and see beasts lurking in the ancient characters. At times, when I’m cutting, I fancy they’re coming to life under my hands.”
Hedge took a tray from a shelf and set it on the table. It was filled with small woodblocks of the Hebrew letters. “The ox’s head in Aleph isn’t easy to make out, even if you know it’s there. I see it best with my thumb.” He ran a finger over the raised surface of the letter, tracing its curves. “Here are the ears, and here the patient head. Nun’s serpent is not so subtle. See how it arches up? As if a snake charmer were piping at it. In just such a posture the creature must have whispered to Eve.”
Gideon was struck by how finely made his teacher’s hands were, the fingers tapering like a gentleman’s in spite of all his manual work. In class Hedge used them to drive his lessons home: the students were all too familiar with his admonitory forefinger. Who would have thought that he had it in him to touch a thing so tenderly, with such a lingering caress? Gideon knew now that the Reverend wasn’t Sophy’s father, but for the first time, he could almost imagine him in that role. A man who could show ardor for a bunch of wooden letters might logically have produced the girl in the meadow.
“I love the heft of Hebrew,” Hedge was saying. “The shapeliness of it. The words are as dense in the mouth as earth in the hand—as substantial, in their way, as the objects they name. And why should we be surprised? Isn’t Adam’s breath still in them?” He came closer and peered into Gideon’s eyes. “Tell me, Mr. Birdsall, why did God choose the Jews?”
Gideon had a moment of sinking panic. His mind was a blank. Had he been dozing in class when Hedge lectured on the subject?
“Prophets of matter!” Hedge thundered. “Geniuses of the concrete! The Lord intended the Hebrews to keep His spirit alive in earthen vessels, but that stubborn tribe refused to see beyond the clay. Think of their fabled financial acumen. What is it but a perversion of their great natural gift? Profits of another sort, is it not so? I always say, scratch a sin and you will find a talent suppurating underneath. Ah, the Jews . . . ” Hedge inhaled deeply and breathed the Chosen People out like aromatic smoke. “What a subject! Forgive me if I go on, but I have made them my special burden. I pray for them—not, I confess, with much hope. I like to think that reading Scripture in the language of the forefathers is itself a form of prayer.”
The parson let loose another sigh and put the tray of letters back on the shelf—alongside the perplexing Hebrews, Gideon could not help feeling. “And now we must get to your translation. But first, let me show you my Behemoth. I had to consult Berwick’s Quadrupeds about the length of the trunk, but once I got the features down, I added a few touches of my own. I think this big fellow came out rather well, don’t you?”
Only the deepening shadows in the room told Gideon how much time had passed. He had admired other fauna of Hedge’s alphabetical kingdom, and been introduced to the pastor’s great work-in-progress, the Philosophical Hebrew Lexicon. He had reentered the thicket of his translation with Hedge as his guide, emerging with the feeling that his teacher respected the work more than he disliked it. The day had been very full, and he was looking forward to savoring its best moments on his long, solitary walk back to seminary. He wasn’t used to spending so much time in company.
“I can’t thank you enough,” he began, half-rising. But the Reverend motioned him back into his chair.
“I spoke harshly to you earlier. I would be remiss if I didn’t offer a word of explanation.”
Gideon took a second to absorb the astonishing fact that Hedge, the unshakable pillar of righteousness, was about to justify himself to a student.
“I assure you, sir, none is required,” he said. “Only an ingrate would have taken offense. It’s not easy to speak of such experiences, and I did so awkwardly. I’m afraid you took me by surprise. Our earlier conversation led me to believe that my discoveries were congenial to you.”
“Con-gen-i-al.” Hedge lingered so long over each syllable that Gideon wondered if he was being mocked. “What an apt choice of word, Mr. Birdsall. Perhaps you know that genius is at the heart of it? And deeper still, the lurking demon: the genie who drives us to abuse our God-given talents. He may not wield a pitchfork, but his jabs are just as sharp! You remind me of a young man I knew. Another zealous student whose affinities enticed him to breach walls.”
The pastor had been looking into Gideon’s eyes, but now his glance turned inward. Gideon thought he might be praying again.
“From boyhood I have had a love for languages. When I was not yet seven, Father began to teach me Latin.” He smiled, with a touch of self-satisfaction, and looked up. “He was surprised at how quickly I learned. I had a gift, you see, coupled with an adventurous spirit. Mastering the native tongue was a way to claim places I longed to explore—planting the flag, if you will. Greek and my beloved Hebrew were major excursions, French and Italian amusing day trips. German I left until college because the sounds didn’t please me, but soon enough I could make my way through Goethe.”
“And did you discover your New Found Land?” Gideon kept his tone light, though the pulse in his neck throbbed so energetically he was sure the parson must notice.
“What I discovered,” Hedge said, “was Poetry.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand.” Gideon was vaguely disappointed; he wondered if the professor had d
eparted from his usual plain speech to take refuge in metaphor.
Hedge seemed to anticipate his reaction. “I began to write verse around the age of sixteen, and threw myself into it heart and soul. In those days I was the sort of young man who would spend hours gazing at the night sky, questioning the universe and dreaming of other worlds. Maybe all that Hebrew had gotten into my bones—I was forever poking at the ineffable with my pen, trying to trap it on the page.”
“To be a poet is a high calling,” Gideon said. “It’s not an unusual ambition when one is young.”
He was starting to feel restless, a state that would have seemed impossible a few hours ago. The narrative had taken a mundane turn, and in any case, how much more of the Reverend could he absorb in one sitting? His attention wandered to a single painting on the wall: a fountain, a baroque affair with an elaborate scalloped base from which geysers spurted up, deluging a small bed of flowers beneath. Some effort had been made to render the plumes of water transparent, but the paint had been laid on too thickly. It was as if the floodgates of heaven had opened to irrigate a daisy.
Hedge did not appear to notice his distraction. “A high calling,” he went on, “but only if it comes from above. I left for Harvard convinced I was about to make my mark on the world—a Dante in embryo, or at very least, a Bunyan. My magnum opus was already begun: a long visionary poem transposing the legend of Orpheus to a biblical setting. Night after night I stayed up to work on it, contending so long and hard that the words, when at last I managed to subdue them, seemed to bleed upon the page. Let my classmates spend their evenings carousing. The romance of creation was intoxicant enough for me! I was afloat in my own ether, forever trembling on the edge of revelation. What did it matter that I was putting an intolerable strain on my eyes and mind? If only I had taken a lesson from my subject matter, Mr. Birdsall. Soon enough, I began to fall.” His voice had taken on a dismal, ringing tone. He made a fist and tolled the progress of his undoing into the palm of his other hand. “Primus, into worship of my own powers. Secundus, into a state I called love, with a young woman I knew to be far beyond me. Tertius, when she spurned me, into the deepest darkness I’ve yet known. The fall from grace doesn’t happen all at once, you know. That privilege is reserved for the angels.”
The Language of Paradise: A Novel Page 5
