The Language of Paradise: A Novel (51 page)

Reuben and Caroline descend on opposite sides of the stairway, Reuben stepping ahead as his wife manages her gown. He has a hard glitter now, but his fine clothes haven’t civilized him. Sophy recognizes the swagger, the crooked smile that turns anything he says into a mockery.

“At long last! I never thought I would see family in this hall. I don’t count Sam, who is not saddled with convictions. It’s enough to make a man feel sentimental.” He busses Sophy on one cheek, claps Micah’s shoulder, nods at Gideon and pumps his hand. “And who is this?” Before Sophy can protest, he has plucked Aleph from her arms, tossed him into the air, and caught him neatly. The baby is too astonished to cry. Even Uncle Micah isn’t so bold.

“It’s just as well we don’t have little ones,” Caroline says, speaking up for the first time. “Reuben would surely kill them before their first birthday.”

She is older, or perhaps only stiffer. Her famous tumbling curls are sugar icing, her cheek powdered to waxen smoothness, her waist cinched. Her taffeta dress whispers when she moves, a discreet sound like the gossip of servants.

“Sam promised he would send a note,” Sophy says. “I hope it reached you?”

Reuben speaks for his wife. “No, but no matter. There’s plenty of time to kill the fatted calf. Dear, would you inform cook we’ll dine early tonight? These folks look as if they could do with a decent meal.”

“Usually we are never at table before eight,” Caroline says weakly. “But under the circumstances . . .”

THE DINING ROOM
is large, and a pair of enormous gilt-framed mirrors on facing walls magnifies its grandeur. “Florentine,” Reuben says. “Got ’em at auction. I was neck and neck with a slick fellow from New York. I won.” He has already taken Sophy and Micah on a house tour and given them the provenance of other conquests. For her part, Sophy believes she would eat with more enjoyment if her confusion over the forks was not thrown back at her from the glass. The food is sumptuous; Micah hasn’t lifted his face from his plate, and even Gideon shows an appetite. If Caroline is chagrined to entertain such unfashionable guests, Reuben is in high good humor, raising his glass again and again. Perhaps it’s simply that their company makes the table livelier. Sophy can imagine what it must be like when just the two of them dine, he seated at one end, she at the other, twelve feet of gleaming mahogany between them.

They are in a pleasant stupor, nursing coffee rich with cream, when Reuben recovers his bluntness. “Where do you intend to go when you run out of kin to visit?”

He addresses the question to Micah, without a glance at Gideon. Her little brother has always been a pet among the Hedges, indulged with fondness, loved and protected by all. Now, as Gideon recedes, he has become the man of her family. Young as he is, there is no one else.

“W-w-we thought of heading n-n-north. I-I want to s-s-start a shop. F-for my furniture, and the like.”

Sophy is agog at his poise, the ready ease of his reply. They have never talked about a shop. Their whole bent has been simply to get away, to travel until a destination revealed itself. North is only a direction.

Reuben reaches behind him for a leather box on the sideboard. He opens the monogrammed lid, removes a cigar and offers one to Micah, who shakes his head. “So, you fancy yourself a masterhand. What d’you call it? An artisan. You and Sophy are cut from the same cloth.”

“S-soph is the artist. I j-just like to m-m-make things.”

Reuben takes a luxuriant puff, sends a plume of smoke across the table to his wife. Her nostrils pinch in disgust, but only for a second before she resumes her mask. All evening Sophy has been pondering Caroline’s immobility, wondering what became of the arch, flighty creature who was always in motion, sipping first from one flower, then another. If that girl is alive at all, she is buried very deep, somewhere behind the eyes.

“Now I admire that,” Reuben says. “I don’t make things myself. Not directly, if you know what I mean. Pa sat on his investments. I keep them moving. Oh, I’m plenty industrious, but what I do strikes most folks as a kind of hocus-pocus. See a man here, see a man there, shake a few hands, twist an arm if I must, and . . .” He waves, scribbling smoke about the room, inviting them all to marvel at the abundance that came from nothing. “I’m thinking you should stay awhile. We can’t have you wandering into the north country in the middle of winter, can we? I might have some work for you here.”

Sophy, with a glance at Caroline, is about to demur. Reuben cuts her off with another wave.

“I’m in need of a chair for my library. A nice high-backed rocker like you used to make at home. I’ve got chairs a-plenty and each one has a pedigree, but they’re murder to a man’s back, no good for having a smoke in at the end of a long day. It’s no wonder our ancestors were always in a temper, riding off to war at the first opportunity.” He taps ash onto his plate. “And while you’re occupied, the artist can do me a service, if she’s willing. She can paint me a portrait of my lady wife to go over this mantel. You see how empty it looks, there, above her head.”

Caroline’s mask does not alter, but two pink spots appear in the porcelain of her cheeks and her eyes mist over. Sophy feels a twinge of disgust for her brother. His pleasure in the torment is so open and casual; he savors his wife’s humiliation along with his port, and thinks no more of it than if he were teasing a dog.

“I haven’t lifted a brush for months,” she tells him. “A beautiful woman like Caroline deserves a true artist to do her justice. I’m sure there are many painters in this city who would be honored to have her sit for them.”

It is an odd thing to watch a face bloom. Caroline lifts her chin. “Nonsense, Sophy,” she says, with a touch of her old coquetry. “You’ll do fine. What chats we’ll have, we sisters! It will be like old times.”

MONEY IS ITS OWN MAGIC
. Easel, paints, and canvas appear, all first-quality. “Do a good job and I’ll see that you have something better to travel in than that old rattletrap of a wagon,” Reuben says. “How well you paint decides how well you ride.”

Caroline plans an excursion to the Art Gallery at the Athenaeum—to get ideas for costumes and poses, she says. More likely, she hopes a bit of expertise will rub off on her country relation. She loans Sophy a dress for the occasion, one of her plainer frocks. Sophy feels like a dressmaker’s dummy, pins everywhere; still, it is great fun to play the lady for the afternoon. She sweeps through the doors of the great mansion on Pearl Street as if she belongs there but can’t repress a gasp when they enter the Gallery. Her scant knowledge of the Art called Fine comes from Papa; she’s seen few examples for herself. She wonders now why Papa ever indulged her, for how could her father’s God—a practical Yankee craftsman, if there ever was one—surpass the cold perfection of these sculptures, the richness and scale of the paintings? It seems, on first sight, that the flower of civilization must be contained in this long room. There is a high beauty here, but it is purely of this world, and the hunger it kindles in Sophy is earthly.
I want to make this. I will never make this. Let me try
. Caroline keeps nudging her, making remarks behind her hand. “Have you ever seen so many pictures of old men? Oh, here’s Venus! Wouldn’t Reuben like it if I dressed like her!” Sophy scarcely hears, having long ago succumbed to awe. She ought to be casting a critical eye, observing technique, and all she can do is take the paintings in whole. It seems the height of ingratitude to dissect such sublimity.

In the carriage on the way home, Caroline says: “It’s no use taking you anywhere, Sophy. You’re such a dreamer. I don’t believe you were paying attention at all.”

AFTER A CIRCUIT
of the house, she and Caroline are quick to choose a sunny corner of the music room as the perfect background. Selecting a gown takes an entire day. Frock after billowy frock is heaped on the canopy bed, and Caroline must model each one, and Sophy must offer her opinion, and pass judgment on this neckline and that sleeve, whether this style fulfills Caroline’s dire suspicions and makes her look plump. Sophy soon loses all power of discernment, but eventually truth is revealed in the form of a simple blue satin trimmed with lace. Both agree that the gown must not overwhelm the subject, that the blue is the exact color of Caroline’s eyes.

Aleph, though a favorite of the housemaids, will stay in the room while Sophy works. Caroline calls him her dark-eyed Spanish boy and adores him from a sanitary distance. “I have such a heart for children,” she confides to Sophy, “but I can’t risk having one of my own. My nerves wouldn’t stand it.”

Each morning after breakfast they retire to the music room. Sophy has dissuaded Caroline from sitting at the pianoforte, pleading her own ineptitude and the strain of the pose, and Caroline has graciously settled for a sheet of music in one hand. Sophy is surprised at how natural it feels to paint again. She had expected days of struggle, reluctant fingers wielding a clumsy brush, but she’d swear she’s more fluent than before, as if dormancy only sharpened her powers. The sketching goes quickly, and soon she is absorbed in the task. While she paints, Caroline talks, never pausing for reply. Though the motions of her mouth change her face, Sophy doesn’t ask her to stop. The lineament of Caroline is in the pencil sketch. Her words do what the paint does: add flesh to the bones.

Your brother is a harsh man. I don’t say it to hurt you, but I am quite broken. You can see the strain I’m under. It’s aged me, I know it has . . .

Paint the brittle surface, but let the old Caroline show through. Both are true. Smooth the brow and that little sack under the chin. Bring up the blush beneath the powder, blur the lines around the mouth to coax a rose from a pinched bud. Loosen those curls, give them a little freedom to wander.

Papa wouldn’t see me for the longest while, but we are reconciled now. He knows how I suffer. If it weren’t for him and dear Mama, I would go mad. I have no society here. The ladies are very uppish and treat me like a country bumpkin though I live better than they do. Reuben is generous, I’ll say that for him. But there’s no love in it. It’s all show.

Get the sheen of the satin, the richness. Give the bosom its own sheen, but subtle; her breasts haven’t aged, she still has them to barter with. Hands are difficult, make the lace trim a little longer. Do these stick figures look like musical notes? Do later.

Sophy, I have no right to ask, but . . . how is James? Not a day goes by that I don’t think of him. I am very sorry. I would tell him so if it would do any good. I was a silly girl, what did I know of love? I deserve my misery. I’m resigned to it. Oh, Sophy, if he knew how my heart breaks he would pity me. Do you think he would?

Leave the eyes as they are. She’s earned them.

THE AFTERNOONS ARE
for Gideon. On sunny days she and Micah take him for excursions in Reuben’s carriage, up Beacon Hill and around the Common. Sophy tries to tempt him with Lyceum lectures, bookstores, the Athenaeum, but he shows little enthusiasm. One bright Saturday she plots with Micah to bring him to Cambridge, hoping that the sight of his college will spark memories of the promising young scholar. She plans to tell him when they arrive that a classmate of his, Joshua Sturgis, is lecturing at the Divinity School.

The journey is their longest since arriving in Boston. The December landscape has its own stark beauty, and Sophy is exhilarated to be in the country again. She wishes she could ride in front with Micah, feel the wind sting her cheeks. Gideon gazes out the window with a pleasant, neutral expression. He has seemed a little more engaged today, and she imagines that he will be as excited to see his old haunts as she is to view them for the first time.

When they reach the bridge, he stares down at the murky Charles. “Cambridge? Why are you taking me here?”

“I thought you would enjoy seeing Harvard again. You used to speak of it so often, and Papa said—”

“If you had told me, I would have spared you the trip. It’s a part of the past. I have no sentiment about it.” He had raised his voice, and now he starts to cough, putting a hand to his chest as he searches for his handkerchief.

For once, she lets him struggle on his own. “Since you don’t care about the college, or much else, Micah and I will take a little tour ourselves. Reverend Sturgis is speaking today. You’ve mentioned him, I think? Perhaps you can sit in an alcove while we listen to his talk. I’ve no mind for theology, but I like to improve myself.”

They are silent until Harvard College comes into sight, the red-brick buildings set back on the green (which in this season doesn’t merit the name), looking just as they do in the painting Papa made. Papa had enclosed the scene in an oval with valedictory scrolls sprouting from the borders. Sophy is momentarily startled to see how far this citadel of learning actually extends, the field of knowledge vaster than she had ever dreamed as a child.

Gideon reaches for her hand. “Sophy, you do so much for me, you always have. You deserve better. But there’s so little of me left. It’s painful for me to be among men like Sturgis, who cut a figure in the world. What have I to offer? A broken man who’s failed at everything.”

“You’re young, Gideon! You still have your good mind. If only you would take advantage of the riches here, you might be inspired to work again. Why shouldn’t your greatest accomplishments be before you?” She looks away as she exhorts him, afraid of what his eyes will tell her. “Come for a walk with us. A short one. Show us where you lived and studied.”

Sophy and Micah stand close on either side of him, letting him set the pace. She thinks of Papa on his crutches, strong young Gideon alert to catch him if he fell. Now he walks slowly, gazing around him with a dazed expression, a ghost at his own funeral. Sophy wonders if he’s pondering the same thing she is: What became of the driven young man with his armload of books, plotting his future as he rushed to his next class? She prods him with questions and he points out his dormitory, the halls where he studied Greek and ancient history, the notorious Rebellion Tree where the effigy of President Quincy was hanged in ’34. If he is remote, she is carried away, imagining what a banquet it would be to study at such a place. When Gideon spoke of Harvard, it was often to tell tales on his fellow students, spoiled ingrates who squandered their days and nights drinking and carousing, harassing their tutors for having the impertinence to teach them. But Sophy is thinking that she must find a way to send Aleph here.