The Language of Paradise: A Novel (18 page)

Since Hedge was unlikely to return before term ended, his reader would likely be Mr. Satterfield, one of the few professors who was not ordained, a specialist in church history who had taken over the Reverend’s Hebrew classes—reluctantly, Gideon suspected, to secure his shaky berth at the school. A plump fellow with a lisp that lent itself to parody, Satterfield was not popular with his students or his peers. Perhaps to compensate for the indignities that nature had inflicted, he spoke with excessive formality: Hebrew in his mouth sounded like an obscure branch of Gaelic. He was no less sententious in English. His periodic pronouncements on the condition of “your respected master and my esteemed colleague, the Reverend Hedge” were so lugubrious that he might have been reading from a prepared obituary.

On a Tuesday in early March, Satterfield had just delivered one of these morose reports, filled with details of the Reverend’s continuing travails, when he stopped Gideon at the end of class and put a sealed note into his hand. “It came for you this morning, with a bundle of books Mrs. Hedge was kind enough to send me,” Satterfield said, raising his eyebrows ominously. “I fear the Reverend may be reaching the end of his mortal struggles. If your presence is requested, you must go, of course. I’ve had no news since Thursday last.”

Gideon stumbled out of the hall and walked blindly across the snow-covered green. The day was mild, patches of earth already showing under the trees. He thought, I will remember all this later: the feel of the air, the look of the sky, how indifferent the world was as Reverend Hedge departed from it. He could not decide where to read the note. The solitude of his cluttered room seemed intolerable, but sharing the news in company would be even worse. Finally he took shelter under a roofed side entrance of the chapel; there were no services today, little danger of being disturbed. As icicles dripped from the eaves, he pulled the letter from his pocket and broke the seal.

“My Dear Mr. Birdsall,” he read. The script was forceful, though the lines lurched upward as if written on a vertical surface. “I trust that this finds you Well and Immersed in your Studies. It has been some time since we have had the Pleasure of your Company, Circumstances having Prevented, but a glance out the window today tells me we may anticipate a Thaw. May we also anticipate a Visit? I would not distract you from your Labours, but I believe that you and I have Much to Discuss.”

Gideon read almost to the scrawled signature before he fully understood that Lazarus had risen and taken up his pen. The hostile mood that he had nursed for days lifted from him whole. In the fervor of his relief, he could not imagine sitting down and composing a reply. But in the end, he wrote, and was invited to come late on Sunday afternoon.

FANNY HEDGE GREETED HIM
at the door. She folded both his hands in her own, warm as always, though Gideon sensed a nervousness that was new. There was the usual barrage of words, but her eyes darted away from him as she spoke, and he wondered if she was listening for a signal from her husband.

“I would have given you a proper dinner, but who is here to eat it? The children wander to the four corners, and the Reverend and I live like mice, ferreting bits of cheese from the larder. Reuben is in Boston, seeing to business, and James has gone to Duxbury to look at a horse and taken Micah with him for company. Did you know about our poor Zeke? Lame from gallivanting on the Woeful Night, and had to be released. Not one of us but Reuben had the heart to do it. Where do you stand on the redemption of animals, Mr. Birdsall? I see no reason why a good beast should be less precious to the Lord than a good man, though the Reverend thinks otherwise. Silent servants, they are, and—I’ll say to you what I could not to him—Heaven would be a duller place without them.”

“My thoughts, exactly.” Gideon spoke with as much finality as he could muster. He waited, hoping she would continue the family chronicle, but she only smiled at him in a fixed way, as if he were a stranger come to seek her husband’s counsel. “And Sophy?” he said. “Is she at home?”

“Ah, Sophy!” From Mrs. Hedge’s tone, Gideon might have concluded that she had a dozen daughters, all scattered to the winds. “Now
she
is with her brother Sam in Lowell. His wife has just produced her fourth girl, and Sophy has gone to help with the other three. A full day’s work for most mortals, but she
would
take her paints and easel. With so many little ones to watch over, I only hope she doesn’t get lost in a daydream and misplace one.” She gave him one of her arch looks. “I oughtn’t to keep you from the Reverend. I think you’ll be pleased to see how well he’s mending.”

Walking to the back of the house, Gideon felt a growing unease. Its source was obvious. He was retracing the steps he’d taken on the Woeful Night, as Mrs. Hedge had aptly named it, and the dread he’d suppressed then was having its revenge on him now.

The bedroom door was partly open, but Gideon rapped lightly with his knuckles to announce his presence. “Come in, Mr. Birdsall,” he heard. “You are expected. You will forgive me for receiving you like this.
Couchant
is my natural posture these days.” Reverend Hedge sounded like himself, and yet not himself. The old crisp authority was still there, but softened to unctuousness, like an apple stewed in its own juices.

“It’s good to see you restored, sir,” Gideon said. In fact, Hedge’s appearance was so startling that the salutation almost died on his lips. The parson sat in state upon his bed, draped in a voluminous purple robe that covered him from neck to ankles. His injured leg had been elevated on a pillow of the same rich velvet. Gideon’s first impression was of a gouty king receiving courtiers in his boudoir. Never had a garment been contrived that was more alien to its wearer. Hedge’s walnut head, streaked with black hairs across the pate, was an incongruous topping for such royal raiment. His slight frame was enveloped in the very luxury he shunned, his hands lost in the folds of the sleeves. Could he be in costume? The idea was ridiculous; yet the whole visit had a staged quality that made it almost credible. The dramatic summons, Mrs. Hedge’s odd manner, the absence of the rest of the clan—all seemed to herald some theatrical event to be performed for his benefit. Gideon’s mouth was stretching in an involuntary grin, and only a series of desperate facial contortions kept his features in line.

The Reverend was not a blushing man, but Gideon thought he saw color in the pallid cheeks. “My wife found some draperies in an old chest,” he said. “Trousers won’t fit over the splints, you see, and she wanted me to be warm and comfortable. The style is perhaps more ostentatious than I am used to, but it performs its function admirably.” He wiggled his toes to demonstrate his freedom. “At times, the Lord scourges our proud souls with the kindness of others.”

Hedge gestured to a chair by the bed. Gideon recognized it as the one that had held the beaver hat on the day of the accident. “So, bring me some news of seminary. I confess I’m pining for the old halls. He who said habits die hard did not lie. And your thesis—how is that shaping?”

Gideon rambled on for a few minutes, making sure to mention Satterfield’s Gaelic Hebrew. Hedge waggled a chastising finger—“Unkind, Mr. Birdsall!”—but his pleasure showed in his eyes. Gideon had just begun to talk about his research when Mrs. Hedge sailed in with a tray of freshly baked gingerbread and tea. She filled their cups, passed the plate, prodded the spitting log on the grate, and was gone before he finished thanking her. Gideon inhaled, savoring the aroma of mingled spices, which warmed the room more thoroughly than the feeble heat from the fireplace. He teased his hunger with a bite of sugared crust, his thoughts benignly blasphemous. The sacrament of Home. What comforts could Heaven offer to exceed this?

The atmosphere in the room changed. Hedge was staring at him, cup gripped in his left hand, his elbow crooked sharply. He pursed his lips, sipped long and loud, and set the cup clattering back into its saucer.

“It has been some time since you came to us, has it not, Mr. Birdsall?”

Gideon agreed that it had. He licked crumbs from his mouth and prepared to launch into the requisite appreciation, but the Reverend didn’t pause.

“Mrs. Hedge and I have opened our house to other young men over the years. Most have benefited from our hospitality, and offered some small service in return. You recall Mr. Unsworth? Not a generous nature, nor an agreeable one, but where is it written that we should reserve our better instincts for those who are easy to love? You, on the other hand, made a favorable impression from the beginning.”

“I’m happy to hear that,” Gideon murmured. After a second’s hesitation, he rescued the cup and saucer from the parson’s precarious grip, and returned them to the tray.

“Your facility in the classroom did not escape my notice. I won’t call it brilliance—that term is used far too loosely these days—but your work showed intellect, and enough discipline and ambition to make use of it. I told you once that I saw in you an incarnation of my younger self. The passion for language, and, yes, the excesses that such passion is disposed to. When I took you on as my amanuensis, I hoped to be an influence for moderation in your life. Who better than one who had passed through the fire before you?”

Hedge cocked his head and glanced at Gideon from beneath drooping lids, his expression improbably coy. “You know my fondness for mixing diverse elements—I believe you sampled the last of our experiments with wine. And I’m not above seasoning my sermons with the odd classical reference, if only to illustrate the fulfillment of pagan wisdom in Scripture. What you may not know is that I sometimes apply these same methods to the human dilemma. In the case of a certain young scholar of my acquaintance, I thought that a dose of wholesome family life, coupled with honest labor in the lexical vineyards, might steady a flighty soul. There’s nothing like digging up roots to bring us back to earth, Mr. Birdsall! Reminds us of what we’re made of, I always think.”

The emotions that Gideon had indulged while working on his thesis came back to him now in force. The pompous old bag of wind! Had Hedge really convinced himself that Gideon’s year of solitary drudgery in service of his pet project was an act of benevolence? That the hours he had expended on the Lexicon were some sort of tonic concocted for his spiritual health? He remembered Unsworth’s remarks about slavery, and thought of the boarder with new respect. What might he have accomplished had he spent those months pursuing his own work?

“Since you’re making such progress, you’ll soon be able to return to the Lexicon with renewed vigor,” Gideon said. “No doubt I’m much improved for having worked on it, but I will be leaving soon to make my way. Time to put your investment in me to practical use.” Sarcasm floated on top of his words like cream; he couldn’t help himself.

The Reverend receded into silence. The lively engagement in his face faded, his features stiffened into a mask; he seemed to compose himself around his core. Now he really did look like a king, Gideon thought: a withered mandarin clasping his hands beneath pendant sleeves.

“Please don’t think I’m ungrateful, sir.” Gideon was instantly repentant. “I’ve learned so much from you. The Hedges—all of you—will always be with me, wherever life takes me.” For the first time since entering the room, he thought of Sophy. “I may not go far,” he added. “Who knows, we may be neighbors. If so, I can only hope you won’t get weary of an old student knocking at your door.”

“I thought you understood,” Hedge said, as if he hadn’t heard. “Is it possible you have not?”

It was Gideon’s turn to be silent. He felt as he had once or twice in class when Hedge fired a question at him—as if the required answer was suspended somewhere in the immediate universe, accessible but perversely out of his reach.

“The night of my accident. The text you chanted.”

Hedge was prompting him, but to what end? “I was in such a state, sir. I hardly knew what I was saying, the Hebrew just kept coming. It . . . at the time, it seemed quite miraculous.”

“
Seemed
, Mr. Birdsall? There is no question in my mind that the Lord used you as a vessel to speak to me in the language we both love. How many times have I read Isaiah? A hundred. Two hundred. How many times have I sermonized on the Suffering Servant and the verses that follow? Thirty, maybe more. I thought I knew that text as well as I know my own children’s names—yet I never felt its meaning till I heard it from your mouth. It was as if I had no skin—as if the words went directly to my heart.
All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way
. . . ”

As he intoned the verse, bearing down on the last syllables of each line to emphasize the nursery rhythm, Hedge milled his gingerbread between two fingers, filling his napkin with crumbs.

“How was the Lord to deal with a man of the cloth who went his own way, not once, but twice? Who set such a high value on worldly security that he risked his modest income—the sustenance of his family and the future of his sons—for the sole purpose of making more? Who
dabbled
, Mr. Birdsall! He saw the path I was on, and upset the wagon to divert me from it. You see before you a man crippled in body and in business, all earthly prospects destroyed. Yet, in His mercy, He has given me reason to believe that the bones He has broken will rejoice.”

The parson’s eyes searched Gideon’s with the same restless ardor as on the night of the accident. There was no condemnation in his gaze—yet, Gideon thought, Hedge must surely be aware that the wondrous outpouring of Hebrew was a regurgitation of the passages from Isaiah he’d translated all those months ago. The only miracle—if so it could be called—was how deeply the chapters had engraved themselves in his memory, how fluently they’d poured out at a time of stress. Gideon had known the truth, but he hadn’t confronted it until Hedge recited the verse to him, reduced in English to rhyming doggerel. He felt a familiar pang of loss. Often, after leaving his own work to return to daily tasks, he’d had to shake off this poignant longing, for which he had no name. It was like homesickness, but for something more primal than his past. For mystery itself. The numinous lurking in the mundane world. He lowered his head, surrendering to his disappointment.