The Language of Paradise: A Novel

by Barbara Klein Moss

  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

  GIDEON 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?”

  “I don’t know. The way he said my name—as though he owned it. He’s too sure of himself, too forward. Assuming we would have him for a friend . . .” She turned away, shoulders drooping, and he saw that however she felt, she would give in.

  “Those overgrown sorts may look like scarecrows, but they eat enough for an army. I wouldn’t be surprised if a good number of them harbor worms.” Fanny had installed herself at the loom, and she pumped the treadle for emphasis.

  GIDEON ENDURED THE MORNING at his desk, his thoughts as scattered and feckless as they’d been concentrated the night before. The sermon was still unfinished, but it was already past noon, and he was anxious to get away before Sophy came to ask if he would join them at table. The idea of the visit had come to him with such force that it seemed crucial to carry out his plan without further interruption.

  He threw on his coat and began to walk at a fast trot through the softening snow, slowing his pace when the house was safely behind him. He was genuinely curious about Solloway’s methods—few of the other masters had lasted more than a year—but was reluctant to invade the classroom while school was in session. Hedge had considered such visits a pastoral duty, and relished arriving unannounced, ostensibly to catechize the students, but also to observe the teacher at work; a letter, enumerating the poor pedagogue’s weaknesses and prescribing Scriptural correctives, would soon follow. Gideon had no desire to strike fear in the hearts of youth. If anything, he was terrified of young people, not individually, but en masse. He wondered what would have become of the shy, precocious boy he had been if his mother hadn’t tutored him—how he would have fared in a classroom like the one he was about to enter, with pupils of all ages and backgrounds shut in together.

  When the schoolhouse came in sight, he halted. The building wasn’t identical to the ones his mother had taught in, but it was similar enough; he recognized the gray wood showing through peeling paint, the straight, plain flanks, the tarnished bell over the door. Here, too, the narrow windows, whose small panes would fracture the view of fields spreading out on either side. Even at this distance he could recall the smell of the rooms he had been banished to as a boy during the mill owner’s visits: an effluvial bleakness of damp wool, cold ash in the stove, and year upon year of unwashed bodies in close confinement. It was possible that all schoolrooms had this odor. Scrubbing could never quite expunge it.

  The girl had been so lazy that she had kicked the pail with her toe to move it along, inch by indifferent inch. She rarely troubled him now. There was no room for her in his mind, or in his life, and since he hadn’t told a living soul about her, it was as if she never existed at all. Still, Gideon was grateful for the black clothes that weighed too heavy on a day as mild as this one. They bespoke his position, the man he had become.

  As he walked up the muddy path, he could hear the schoolmaster’s ringing question: Who will spin the globe today? The response was immediate, a confusion of voices proclaiming that Annie had her turn last week, Eben’s spelling had improved, Caleb had helped clean the classroom two days in a row. Gideon waited until the din subsided before knocking.

  Leander Solloway opened the door himself. “Pastor Birdsall! Marvelous!” His body was too big for the miserly proportions of the doorframe; his head jutted forward to avoid grazing the top. He gazed at Gideon for a moment, his eyes bright, before turning back to his pupils. “We have a guest, ladies and gentlemen. Will you rise and give Pastor Birdsall your warmest greeting?”

  The students were seated in a semicircle, with the youngest at each end and the tallest in the middle. Gideon judged that their ages ranged from six or seven to at least sixteen; a couple of the older boys had nascent beards and were almost as tall as Solloway. Yet they all rose as one, like a well-trained chorus, and parroted, “Good afternoon, Pastor Birdsall.”

  “Good afternoon . . . children.” He could not bring himself to address this ragtag bunch as their teacher had; in his mouth the words might seem like mockery. “Please continue with your class. I am only here to observe.” Solloway indicated that he should sit on a mangy velvet couch wedged into a corner.

  “We are just about to begin our geography lesson—the last class of the day, and the one where we travel farthest—if . . . Clara Hooper will spin the globe for us and send us on our way.”

  Clara, a thin, freckled girl of about ten, frowning to conceal her pleasure, made her way to the center of the room, where the globe was enthroned atop a carved pedestal that looked, Gideon thought, as if it ought to hold a bust of Homer. It was a handsome globe suspended in a brass meridian, the continents discreetly colored on a background of old vellum—as fine as any Gideon had seen at college. Clara, standing at a respectful distance, stretched out her arm and applied one forefinger, a timid attempt resulting in a wobbly half-circuit, but, with her classmates urging her to “give it some go,” propelled the sphere into such a frantic spin that it creaked on its axis. “Now!” Solloway commanded, and the girl shut her eyes, and with a firm touch, stopped what she had set in motion. Gently he lifted the finger she had pasted on the globe’s surface. “New South Wales! Well done, Clara. You have taken us to the other side of the world, where even the weather is reversed. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, at this very moment the duckbill and the laughing kookaburra-bird sport in the summer sun, and our brother Aboriginals launch their canoes on white beaches, sweating while we shiver. How appealing it seems, does it not? Perhaps one or two of you are even sailing southward in your thoughts—but I warn you, my friends, take care how you get there!”

  For the next hour Gideon listened, as enthralled as any of the children, as Solloway emoted the story of a land few had heard of and none were likely ever to see. In between kookaburra calls and terrifying descriptions of convict ships, he managed to insert nuggets of solid history: Captain Cook, the penal colonies, the Aborigines’ intricate tales of how the world began. Periodically, he paused to draw out a pupil’s thoughts or opinions, breaking the question down into smaller and smaller components until even the slowest student was able to offer some response. When, after glancing at the clock, he tapped the globe sharply with two fingers—as if boisterous New South Wales must be summoned home and put to bed within its outline—the entire class stayed seated, rising only gradually, one by one, and shuffling to the door. Gideon felt pity in his heart for the children; some, he knew, must walk miles to isolated farms or cottages through snow higher than their boots after spending a glorious hour in the sun. One hulking boy lingered to line the chairs neatly against a wall and sweep the floor.

  “I have nothing more for you today, Lem,” his teacher said, “but come early tomorrow and we’ll hang some of the pictures I told you about.” He put an arm around the boy’s shoulders. “You’ll enjoy that, won’t you?”

  Lem’s look of gratitude was so ardent that Gideon was startled, unsure whether he ought to be moved or embarrassed. “Your acolyte?” he asked, after the boy had gone.

  Solloway knelt to feed another log to the stove. “My adversar
y, at first. I was warned against him before I ever met him. Lem and his brother had been intimidating schoolmasters for years, with some success. My predecessor was one of several who were driven away. The boys were taught to speak with their fists; it is the only language they know. The brother is long gone, but there was Lem on my first day, sprawled in the front row, emitting great snorting yawns and tipping his chair back into the lap of the boy behind him. I knew it would do no good to rebuke him. Very softly I asked him what he liked to do. Kill chickens, he said, making a wringing motion with his hands. With those arms I took you for a wrestler, I told him, and he brightened right up: he had done some ‘wrassling’ with his brother. I mentioned, in the most modest way, that I had some skills in that area myself. When class was dismissed I found him waiting for me outside. I won’t belabor you with brute details, Pastor. I’ll just say that he had strength but no skill. I pinned him easily enough, but he thrashed in my grip like a big fish. I hurt him only as much as I had to.” The teacher stood and brushed off his trousers. “He’s been a lamb ever since. I treat him with affection and respect, and praise him when he does his little tasks. You’ve seen how devoted he is.”

  “And do you still speak the language of fists with him?” Gideon moved to make room for Solloway, who had settled on the couch beside him.

  “I give him what I give the others, and hope he takes some of it in. Poor boy, he hasn’t much of a brain left. What can one expect, when his father has been clapping him on the head since he was old enough to crawl? You would be appalled at how many of the children are disciplined in that brutal way. I do what I can—which is little enough. My knowledge is broad, but not deep. I tell them stories about the world. I try to make them understand there is something larger than the patch of earth they were born on.”