Reverend of Silence

by Pamela Sparkman

  “Papa,” I started.

  He held up his palm. “Your mother is right. Come sit down. You never had anything to eat for supper.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  Papa stared at me over his spectacles. It was his I wasn’t asking look, so I clamped my mouth shut and marched myself over to my usual seat at the table.

  Mother took her cue and went over to the kettle and began dipping the contents of it from a ladle into a dish. Setting it down in front of me, she said, “Beef stew, one of your favorites.” Then she pushed a plate of bread and butter close to me. “Eat.”

  My stomach growled smelling the savory meat and vegetables, and when Mama heard it, she smiled. And just like that, for that one tiny moment, all the problems of the day fell away, and I was at peace.

  “When Noah returns to school, I’ll be taking him as well,” Papa said, disrupting my peace.

  “What?”

  “It’ll only be for three weeks. After that, you and Noah can go back to walking to and from school.”

  “Why only three weeks?”

  “Because,” Papa said, “Mr. Clive has indicated that Fredrick will be leaving at the end of the month.”

  “Leaving?” I asked. “Going where?”

  “My understanding is Boston,” Papa said.

  “As in Massachusetts?”

  “That’s the one.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Why?”

  We were all seated at our usual places at the table. When Mama reached over and placed her hand over Papa’s, a look passed between them.

  “Well, after you left to go check on Noah, Mr. Clive and I had a rather artless conversation.”

  I looked down at my bowl of beef stew, not wanting either of my parents to know that I had listened to part of that artless conversation. “What did he say?”

  “I won’t discuss the particulars with you, Sam. I’ll just say that Mr. Clive exposed a weakness to me, and I used it against him.”

  My head popped up. “What weakness?”

  “College.”

  “College?”

  Papa nodded and shoved his chair back, causing it to scrape against the wood floors. He walked over to the fireplace, picked up a poker from its cradle, and began shifting logs around with it. “He wants to send Fredrick to college. He named the school he wished to send him. I may not own half the buildings in town as he does, but I know people.” Papa continued to shift and rearrange the burning wood like he needed something to do with his hands. “Reverend Talcott, Reverend Palpat, Reverend Holley, and others. I didn’t give him any names, of course. But all these men have relatives or have close ties to people who sit on the boards of some of the finest colleges in the land.” Papa placed the poker back in its cradle but kept his back to us. “I let him know that a letter from me and I could make it very difficult for Fredrick to be accepted into the college he wishes to attend. I could make it difficult for him to be accepted into most colleges.” Papa turned to face us then. “And I would do it unless he agreed to do one thing.”

  “What?” I asked, truly surprised by my father.

  “Send Fredrick to live with his relatives in Boston until the time came for his son to leave for higher learning.”

  “How did you know they had family in Boston?”

  “Mr. Clive likes to boast when he’s trying to intimidate, and he lets a whole host of information free.”

  “I bet he was furious with you,” I said.

  “Indeed.”

  “But he agreed?”

  “He agreed.” Papa was not smiling.

  “Why do you look like you came out on the losing side?” I asked.

  “There are no winners here, Sam. Not in this. Finish your stew. I’m going to go up and ready myself for bed. It’s been a long day.” He put his hand upon my shoulder as he passed by.

  “Papa?”

  “Yes, Son?”

  “I love you.”

  “I love you too.”

  I listened as my father climbed the stairs to bed, his footfalls heavy, familiar, comforting. Mama kept me company while I finished eating, and then I followed Papa’s lead and headed off to bed.

  “Don’t forget this,” Mama said, handing me the purchase Papa and I had made earlier at the bookshop.

  “I forgot all about this. Thank you.”

  After brushing my teeth and doing the usual nighttime routine, I opened Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage by Lord Byron and held the candle close to the pages so I could read it, flipping to the back to read one of the parts Mr. Goulrich had read during class. And then I read it again. And again. And again. Each time, my mind tripped over what my father had said to me.

  “You are assuming poems are supposed to be brilliant and special. Why are they supposed to be anything other than a thing made created by their ‘thing maker’?”

  Indeed.

  And for whatever reason, this thing made spoke to me. Deeply, personally, spiritually. It spoke to me—about this place I called home. Maybe I was making too much of it, but I couldn’t help how it made me feel. And I was grateful to its “thing maker,” for it felt as though someone out there understood something—something that I was unqualified to put into words.

  I closed the book and blew out the candle, thankful for the first time since Lucy left that she wasn’t here. She was better off where she was. This town wasn’t ready for someone as good as Lucy Hallison. And maybe it never would be. Or maybe it would. Only time would tell.

  But for now, I thought the best way to describe Lucy would be to refer to Byron’s poem.

  Simply put—she was the music in the roar.

  Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage

  CLXXVIII - CLXXIX

  There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,

  There is a rapture on the lonely shore,

  There is society where none intrudes,

  By the deep Sea, and music in its roar:

  I love not Man the less, but Nature more,

  From these our interviews, in which I steal

  From all I may be, or have been before,

  To mingle with the Universe, and feel

  What I can ne’er express, yet cannot all conceal.

  Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean—roll!

  Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;

  Man marks the earth with ruin—his control

  Stops with the shore; —upon the watery plain

  The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain

  A shadow of man’s ravage, save his own,

  When for a moment, like a drop of rain,

  He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,

  Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.

  His steps are not upon thy paths, —thy fields

  Are not a spoil for him, —thou dost arise

  And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields

  For earth’s destruction thou dost all despise,

  Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies,

  And send’st him, shivering in thy playful spray

  And howling, to his gods, where haply lies

  His petty hope in some near port or bay,

  And dashest him again to earth: —there let him lay.

  I awoke early one morning. Something outside had stirred me to consciousness. I rubbed my eyes and tried to blink away the fog and sat up. It was barely dawn. The sound of a horse neighing had caused me to stand on two feet. But the sound of several horses neighing had caused me to rush to my window and look down at the scene below.

  My mother had entered my room about that time and bid me to get dressed and come down for breakfast, saying it as breezily as though it were every day a coach-and-four occupied our drive at the break of dawn.

  “We’re going somewhere?” I’d asked.

  “Maybe,” was all she’d said. Though there was a teasing quality to her voice.

  I’d stood there, dumbfounded, for a minute after she’d closed the door, trying to imagine wh
ere we’d be off to. Papa wouldn’t think of leaving his flock. At least, not for very long.

  I know I haven’t painted a very attractive picture of our townsfolk, and you’re probably wondering why my father would sacrifice so much of himself for them. Well, perhaps for the same reason I had chosen to also become a pastor. Or had I decided that? I don’t think that’s the sort of decision one makes, come to think of it. It’s a calling one has. You can either answer that call or not.

  But we’ll get to that soon enough. As for my father, he could see the good in the bad. He could see the heart of a man, hear the sincerity in one’s voice, know the passion one spoke. He knew that if someone felt hopeless, one needed to offer hope. He understood that darkness could not drive out darkness. He would stand guard over his sheep and he would try to save them from their own ignorance. Because he understood what it meant to feel helpless against a foe, against evil, against the world . . . against circumstances. And he would not abandon them. He would be their hope, their light, and their shepherd. It did not matter if they deserved him. For we did not deserve Jesus’s Hope, Jesus’s Light, and Jesus as our Shepherd.

  I knew this about him because I had asked that very same question once. And that had been his answer.

  Having this knowledge about my father, it was why I continued to stand in my bedclothes, dumbfounded, for another minute or two, wondering where we could possibly be off to.

  Turned out, my parents, the Hallisons, and Noah had gotten together to surprise Lucy and me with a trip to Hartford. Neither of us knew about it. Noah had been the one to tell me, and I had gotten rather emotional, unable to talk for several minutes. All I could do was nod at the appropriate moments as Noah rattled off about how his parents were waiting inside the coach and how my parents had snuck him inside the house to hide so he could be the one to give me the news.

  He had nearly stopped my heart when he jumped out at me from behind a door when I’d come downstairs and had yelled, “SURPRISE!” I had been holding my shoes. I threw one at him. Luckily, Noah had good reflexes and had ducked just in time to avoid being walloped in the head with it. After my heart had regained its normal rhythm, he explained we would share the coach to Hartford. The journey would take us a little over five hours, and we would stay one night and come home by the following evening. When I realized I could be having lunch with Lucy, that very day, my feet started to move, and I pushed Noah toward the door.

  He’d just laughed.

  But here was the thing about that day—the thing I would always remember.

  Life, at that moment, was beautiful. I was on my way to see Lucy with the people I loved most in the world. We didn’t get many days like that. Ones where we were completely free of worry and we were truly happy. Or maybe we did have them, and we just didn’t recognize them for what they were until we recollected on them later. But I knew when we pulled away from our house that day, I was living a memory that would last me a lifetime.

  I just didn’t know I would need the memory to get me through some of the worst days of my life.

  So, to my mother and father, Mr. and Mrs. Hallison, to Noah . . . and to you, Lucy—thank you. Thank you for giving me some of the greatest memories of my life.

  I will always cherish them. Always.

  Hartford, Connecticut

  1820

  I leave to learned fingers, and wise hands,

  The artist and his ape, to teach and to tell

  How well his connoisseurship understands

  The graceful bend, and the voluptuous swell:

  Let these describe the indescribable:

  I would not their vile breath should crisp the stream

  Wherein that image shall forever dwell;

  The unruffled mirror of the loveliest dream

  That ever left the sky on the deep soul to beam.

  Lord Byron

  Child Harold’s Pilgrimage,

  LIII.

  Sam

  We arrived in Hartford just before noon and we were promptly shown to a small, unoccupied classroom inside the American Asylum for the Deaf where Mr. Thomas Gallaudet, the principal, was waiting for us. I felt I already knew this man, since Lucy had written to me about him. He was seated behind a desk when we entered, reading something, and upon entering, he looked up. He was just as Lucy described him: kind eyes, energetic face. He promptly stood and waved us forward.

  “Do come in. Please sit.” He gestured toward the rows of wood-planked desks and bench seats in front of him. “Normally, I would have family meet in my office, but there were too many of you, so I felt this room would be better suited.”

  “This room is fine,” Mr. Hallison said, stretching out his hand to Mr. Gallaudet. “It’s good to see you again.” Placing his hand at the small of Mrs. Hallison’s back, he said, “I’d like you to meet my wife and Lucy’s mother.”

  Mrs. Hallison stepped forward and held out her hand. “Pleased to meet you.”

  “Likewise. Indeed.”

  “I’m Reverend Burke,” my father said, introducing himself. “Pleased to meet you as well. My wife and I,”—he pulled my mother to his side—“aren’t exactly family. However, we feel as though we are. My son, Sam,”—he pointed to me—“he and Lucy are . . . well . . . they are quite close. We all are. We’ve all missed Lucy very much.”

  Mr. Gallaudet smiled broadly, causing his eyes to crinkle around the edges. “Lucy is a sweet girl, and we’ve been happy to have her with us. How lucky she is to have this many people who love her.” He looked over all our faces and landed on Noah’s. “And who do we have here?”

  “I’m Noah, Lucy’s brother.” He grinned and sketched a bow.

  Mr. Gallaudet bowed his greeting in return with smiling eyes. “Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you, Noah,” he replied.

  “Likewise.”

  “Lucy has two older sisters and another older brother,” Mrs. Hallison explained. “But we all couldn’t come on this trip. They miss her terribly, though.”

  “I have no doubt they do. Please, everyone, sit,” Mr. Gallaudet said, gesturing again to the seats before him. He waited for all of us to take our seats, and then he said, “I’ve sent Mr. Clerc to collect Lucy. But before she arrives, I wanted to let you all know how well Lucy has been doing in the time she’s been with us. Clerc, he is our deaf instructor I brought back with me from France. Everyone here loves him. He has taught your daughter fingerspelling. She may have written to you about that?” We nodded in confirmation. “Good. Then you know fingerspelling is the alphabet signed by hand so she can spell your names, or foods, streets, towns, you get the idea. We can teach you before your visit comes to an end and then you can go home and practice.” He looked over the top of his spectacles. “When she goes home, the more you learn to sign, the easier it will be to communicate with her. I hope this is something you wish to do?”

  “It certainly is,” Mrs. Hallison said.

  “Excellent,” Mr. Gallaudet said. “She has also learned many new sign words. But I must commend you on the education Lucy came here with. It has been a joy to Clerc, me, and the other instructors to expand on her knowledge.” He looked at my mother. “I understand Lydia Huntley helped you, Mrs. Burke, on the instruction of teaching Lucy?”

  “That’s right,” my mother said.

  “She’s one of our teachers here now. Wonderful lady. She taught Alice Cogswell to read and write. I assume you met Alice when you were here?” Mama nodded, and Mr. Gallaudet said, “Alice is the reason this school exists today. Her father believed the deaf should have a proper education, and lobbied to bring this school into existence. He sent me to Europe to learn the methods of sign language. It was there where I met Mr. Laurent Clerc. He was teaching at the Institution Nationale des Sourds-Muets in Paris. He agreed to give me private lessons, and after three months, I realized I needed more time learning from him, so I offered to bring him back with me and help establish this school.” Mr. Gallaudet spread out his hands in a sweeping gesture. “And Clerc
accepted—even though he didn’t speak English and was taking a huge leap of faith in coming here.”

  “He didn’t speak English?” I asked.

  “No, not a word of it. We made a deal with each other. I agreed to teach him to read and write in English and he agreed to teach me everything he knew about signing.”

  Books crashing to the ground, the sound of Lucy’s excited shriek, followed by running footsteps interrupted our conversation. It had come from the hallway, as though no one had told Lucy we were there until that moment.

  We stood just as she entered the classroom, and a man I assumed to be Mr. Clerc was one step behind, grinning. Lucy’s big, expressive, honey-colored eyes took us in as she walked fast to the front of the room.

  Mrs. Hallison was the first of us to move as she met Lucy halfway. The two held each other as if it had been years instead of months since their separation.

  “I missed you, I missed you, I missed you,” Mrs. Hallison muttered into Lucy’s hair.

  Mr. Gallaudet stepped from behind his desk, tapping Lucy on the shoulder, signing and speaking at the same time. “Introduce Clerc to your family, Lucy. I will translate for them.”

  Lucy and Mrs. Hallison separated, wiped each other’s tears, and then Lucy turned to Mr. Clerc and signed, “My mama.”

  “Happy to meet you,” Mr. Clerc signed. He had a warm, friendly face. Or maybe it was his eyes that spoke of kindness. But there was a softness to him. Like Mama’s smile. Though I couldn’t help noticing the scar on his cheek and wondered how he’d gotten it.

  Lucy held her mother’s hand and led her back to the rest of us where we all stood together at the front of the classroom in a sort of a haphazard semicircle. Mrs. Hallison went to her husband’s side, where she tucked her arm inside his and sidled up close to him.

  Lucy came to my mother first for the next introduction. Mr. Clerc’s eyes were alert and attentive as he waited. Mr. Gallaudet had assumed the role of interpreter and only spoke when either Lucy or Mr. Clerc spoke, or signed as the case may be.