by Jan Karon
ASAP. Collect.
No truck and no little brother.
They drove up the mountain, silent.
“I’m taking you to see a sunset.”
“I love sunsets!”
“... in the pickup truck.”
She pulled on her fleece jacket with the hood. “I love pickup trucks.”
He laughed. “What don’t you love, Kavanagh?”
“Twenty-five-watt bulbs in reading lamps, cats that throw up on the rug after devouring a mouse, age spots ...”
“The usual,” he said.
“Just look!” She showed him the backs of her hands.
“Freckles,” he said. “Trust me.”
He was positively light-headed at the thought of sitting on the stone wall with Cynthia, the one with whom he most wanted to share this extraordinary view. And next, of course, Dooley—he’ d bring Dooley up here on his long summer break. And Puny and the grans, the whole caboodle . . .
“I’ll help you in every way,” she said as they bumped across the creek and up the lane on the other side. “Just please don’t make me do spaghetti suppers.”
“Holy Trinity isn’t a spaghetti supper kind of place.”
“What kind of place is it?”
“You’ll see.”
They sat on the wall and held hands, marveling.
“And this is only a spring sunset,” she said. “Just wait ’til fall! How will we bear such beauty?”
He was glad the church door was locked; he wouldn’t wish to divide the joy of the spectacle before them.
They walked to the truck, hand in hand in the gathering dusk.
“So what kind of place do you think it is?” he asked.
She looked at him, happy and expectant. “A dinner-on-the-grounds kind of place!”
“Bingo!” exclaimed the vicar.
In a cold, driving rain, he met the locksmith at Holy Trinity, where he saw no sign of anyone else. Indeed, the door was again locked.
The smith hunkered over the escutcheon while Father Tim attempted to fend off the rain with an umbrella.
“No way can I make a key for this sucker. Th’ lock case must’ve been put on when George Washin’ton cut down th’ cherry tree. I ain’t got equipment t’ handle makin’ a key like this.”
“So what can we do?”
“Change th’ lock. Ain’t nothin’ else’ll work.”
“Today? Now?”
“Have to go back to town an’ get what I need, I can meet you here tomorrow mornin’ around eight, eight-thirty.”
“So be it,” he said. “But try to find something with an antique finish, nothing brassy.”
On the way to the farm, he realized he didn’t feel right about this idea.
Whoever was accustomed to taking such tender care of Holy Trinity would be locked out; indeed, he would be the interloper, not they.
He called the locksmith at home and left a message.
“Buster, this is Tim Kavanagh. Don’t go up to Holy Trinity in the morning, I’d like to hold off a few days. Hope this is no inconvenience. I’ll be in touch.”
In the meantime, how was he supposed to hook up with whoever had appointed themselves Holy Trinity’s sexton?
The answer that presented itself was simple, if not altogether mindless. He would leave a note.
Dear Friend, he wrote on a piece of Meadowgate Farm stationery, May our Lord bless you generously for your concern for Holy Trinity’s welfare. You have done a splendid job!
Bishop Stuart Cullen has appointed me vicar of Holy Trinity, with a vision toward the revival of a flourishing local congregation.
To this end, I must have a key made. Unfortunately, my locksmith is not equipped to make a key for such a very old lock, and we are required, perforce, to have the lock changed.
If you would kindly call me at the number below, I would enjoy discussing this and other details of HT’s impending renewal with you.
In Him Who loved us first,
He penned his name with the sign of the cross.
Father Timothy A. Kavanagh t
He tossed the roll of Scotch tape that he’d use to affix the note to the door into the truck.
He looked up. Red sky at morning, sailor take warning ...
There was no red sky this morning, so perhaps there would be no weather to ruin his scribbled communique.
Leaving Barnabas asleep, he hauled west along the valley floor, then up the winding mountain road and across the still-bold creek through the tunnel of budding trees and around the bend by the oak and into the parking lot.
Twelve point six miles. Twenty-one point nine minutes.
He hurried to the church, and found the doors open. Ha! He wouldn’t have to tape the note, after all.
“Hello!” His excitement mounted as he stepped into the nave.
“Hello!” he called again.
No answer.
“Blast!”
He spied the rope hanging to the right of the door and gave it a yank.
In the steeple above his head, the bell thunked pathetically. This would take a mightier pull than he’d thought . . .
Bong!
There, by George! He grabbed the rope more tightly still and gave another hard pull.
Bong!
The sound pealed forth across the great bowl of the gorge and returned to him, shimmering and lovely.
Bong!
He didn’t have a hundred years to get this job done, he had ’til next April, and no time to lollygag.
Bong!
He was getting the hang of it now.
Bong!
The rope shot up, he clung on and pulled it again; the sound rang out....
Bong!
Maybe this would round up the mysterious sexton. In any case, it was a darned good way to warm up on a cold morning.
Bong!
Enough.
He wiped his perspiring forehead with a handkerchief. Right up there with chopping wood ...
He strode along the aisle and peered to either side of the altar for a light switch, found one, and flipped it. Aha! A small chandelier with three bulbs illumined the nave, albeit weakly. And over there to the left, a door. He’d missed that earlier. Should be the sacristy....
Locked. The smith would have a prosperous time of it up here.
He darted along the aisle and down the steps, and checked out the north side of the church. No outside door into the locked room....
And no toilet, of course. That would have been typical of the old mission churches. They’d have to bring in a Porta John.
He returned to the nave and took a notebook and pen from his jacket pocket, and sat in the front pew on the epistle side.
He’d need to order prayer books and hymnals and, of course, kneelers. The kneelers didn’t have to be anything stitched in gold by an ECW crowd, he’d seen a catalog with a Naugahyde number that was going for around fifty bucks. A chalice and paten . . . fair linen . . . a couple of vases for altar flowers . . .
Ha! Of course! A pulpit! Pretty important piece of business, a pulpit. And a lectern for the lessons . . .
He paused in his scribbling and gazed at the chandelier. How in the dickens would anyone be able to read by that pitiful wattage? On a rainy or overcast day, they’d all need pocket flashlights!
What else? Communion bread, which he or Cynthia could bake from the recipe he’d cobbled together as a curate. A basin and water jug for the sacristy . . .
This was like setting up housekeeping.Where most priests would be given a fine building loaded with top-of-the-line accoutrements, he’d be starting from scratch.
Starting from scratch! Had a nice ring, once one got over the shock of it.
And music . . . what could be done about music? Maybe a sign at the post office would reel in a free piano. Then again, probably not. Perhaps he’d try to drum up a piano in Mitford . . .
In the meantime, he’d leave notices at the post office and country store, announcing that Holy Trinity would so
on be open for business, as it were, and then, he’d call the county agent who’d probably help get the word out.
Though all that was well and good, the real key would be home visitation, no two ways about it. After Dooley left for school on Saturday, he’d hop right to it.
He looked around the nave toward the spot on the north wall where a stovepipe had once funneled smoke onto frigid winter air. He expected they’d need a stove again, for he saw no returns or vents that suggested Holy Trinity had been upfitted in the heating department. In any case, they’d cross that bridge when they came to it.
His mind wandered to Lord’s Chapel, and the choir of twentyplus well-rehearsed voices, and Richard hammering away at the pipe organ, all of it making his hair stand on end, Sunday after Sunday. And the stained glass windows, set into the chestnut walls of the nave and sanctuary like rare jewels . . . Jesus in the turquoise pool beneath the descending dove and St. John in his loincloth, looking blasted out of his earthly senses by the wondrous appearance of the Divine Son of God, not to mention his own cousin....
He remembered being worn from weeks of attention to endless dozens of details, only to experience once more the exultation of processing with the choir and congregation from the frozen churchyard into the warm nave, from Lent into Easter, all voices joined with that of a trumpet in the glorious hymn he’d loved since a boy.
Jesus Christ is risen today
Al ... le ... lu ... ia!
Our triumphant holy day,
Al ... le ... lu ... ia!
He was startled to find himself standing in the hush of Holy Trinity, as if awakened from a dream.
He glanced at his notes. Yes! Home visitation.
But where did people live up here, anyway? He didn’t recall seeing houses on this side of the creek. A few on the other side maybe. Maybe.
He sighed. Stuart had said this would be a challenge, so why was he surprised? He bowed his head and closed his eyes and lifted his palms in silent supplication. Lord!
“Father?”
He startled. “Yes?”
A woman, cast into silhouette by the strong morning light at her back, stood in the doorway.
She moved toward him, and though he couldn’t discern her face, he was drawn at once to her and hurried to greet the one whom the bell had summoned. He observed that she was tall and quick, though bent and using a cane, and as she stepped into the light from the window above the altar, he saw that her countenance was radiant with feeling.
She smiled and extended her hand, and with deep humility, he took it, aware that it trembled slightly in his own.
“Father, I’m Agnes Merton—one of the last of the faithful remnant.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Agnes
“Mrs. Merton, I’m Timothy Kavanagh.”
“Please. Call me Agnes.”
They shook hands slowly, as if there were all the time in the world.
“Bishop Cullen has asked me to be vicar of Holy Trinity.”
“We’ve waited many years for you, Father Kavanagh. God is faithful. He told us He would send someone.”
“And here I am,” he said, still shaking her hand. “Agnes! I’ve always liked that name. Are you the one who’s looked after this place so faithfully?”
“My son, Clarence, and I. For more than thirty years.”
“Thirty years! Such an endeavor boggles the mind!”
“We do it a little at a time, Father. Week by week, year by year. To the honor and glory of the One Who loves us daily.”
“An extraordinary act of devotion.”
“I do only the small things now. It’s Clarence who repaired and painted the roof, and replaced the rotten beams, and installed the windowpanes broken over the years. And so much more, of course. He is a fine and gifted son.”
“I’d be grateful,” he said, “if you’d tell me everything. I come to Holy Trinity as innocent as a babe. All I know is that I’m to get it up and running. And I find that you and your son have already done the worst, if not the best, of it!”
She smiled. “‘A deed begun is a deed half done.’”
“Horace.”
“Yes!”
They realized in the same instant that they were still clasping hands. They drew back, laughing.
“Please—let’s sit, shall we?”
She carefully lowered herself onto the seat of the front pew, and propped her cane beside the armrest.
“Your cane. May I look?”
A finely detailed lamb for the handle above a polished brass ferule. “Very beautiful!”
“My son carved it. Lamb is said to be one of the Greek meanings for Agnes. ”
“Ah, Agnes!” he said, thumping down beside her. “I’m thanking God for you already!”
“And I for you!”
Agnes Merton’s white hair was drawn back into a knot and fastened with pins, though wisps had escaped around her face. It was a lively and intelligent face, he thought, with good, strong bones beneath finely lined skin as pale as the petals of a moonflower. Older than himself, perhaps late seventies, he reckoned, and while the long dress beneath her brown cardigan was faded and worn, her appearance smacked of a certain elegance.
In truth, she looked like someone he’d known all his life, but he couldn’t think who it might be.
“It’s a long story, Father.”
“I have a long time to hear it.” He checked his watch. “At least ’til five this evening when I must be home. Our boy is bringing his lovely consort to supper.”
“You have a boy?” Her eyes brightened.
“A gift directly from God. Dooley was left on my doorstep when he was eleven, and just last month, he turned twenty-one.”
“What would we do without our sons?”
“I can’t imagine. He’s among the great joys of my life. But I’ll tell you more about Dooley later. This is your story.”
“I’ve brought us a thermos of tea, Father. It’s by the door, if you wouldn’t mind. . . .”
“Hallelujah!” He rose and hurried up the aisle. A thermos of tea! Blessing upon blessing.
He hefted the basket and trotted back to their pew as happy as any child. A long story and a thermos of tea . . .
“Permit me,” he said, unscrewing the cap while Agnes brought forth two stoneware mugs. As he poured, the spicy scent of sassafras and mint rose to lift his spirits.
“In times past,” she said, “Holy Trinity has been broken into by vandals, and the bell rung to celebrate their devilry. When I heard the bell today, I felt at once an unspeakable joy.” She was silent for a moment. “I knew our prayers had at last been answered.”
He was uncommonly touched by this confession.
“And so I made tea.” She smiled, warming her hands around the mug. “I suppose I should begin at the beginning?”
“Always a good idea.”
“When I was twenty-six years old, I came to these mountains from Rangeley, Maine, under the auspices of the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America.” She drew a breath. “What a mouthful! No wonder we adopted the nickname the Episcopal Church!
“I remember the proper name very well because I required myself to write it five hundred times, thinking it would help make me saintly! After college, I taught school, then took my training as a deaconess. I wished with all my heart to go forth and save the world.
“I had read about these mountains being the oldest on earth, and I’d read, too, about the terrible poverty here. Dorothea Lange and Doris Ulmann had both photographed families in Appalachia, and I found myself deeply moved and even tormented by the images they captured.
“I didn’t know the One True Light at that time, Father, not at all, though I’d sworn my vows and professed my faith, and trained as a deaconess.Yet down from the woods of Maine I came, armed with the most extraordinary self-importance, and with the blessing, however grudging, of my father. I had lost my dear mother when I was fourteen, and
so had no hand to guide me, which turned out in the end to contain its own benediction.
“Jessie Bennett came with me; she had also trained as a deaconess. The church in those days often sent two deaconesses to a mission. In addition to the circuit priest who came once a month, deaconesses lived in the community and ministered to the flock.”
He sipped his hot tea, contented.
“The church built us a school, where Jessie and I taught and made our home—indeed, it became a true home for everyone along this ridge. We also nursed the sick and distributed food and clothing that were free to anyone who asked; we had regular Bible studies, and community suppers on the big trestle table that Moses McKinney built.
“In winter, of course, we kept the fireplace and cook stove going all day, which made the schoolhouse a snug place for our neighbors to gather on our long and frigid evenings. Some quilted; some played music; all told stories.
“And Christmas! Oh, how I wish you could have been here to see the old schoolhouse on Christmas Eve. Moses always cut a tree whose top touched our eleven-foot ceiling, and the parishioners came trooping in with their ornaments—pinecones and dried yarrow and life everlasting and scraps of ribbon and yarn and fruit and buttons and birds’ nests—why, you never saw such a jumble on a tree, and yet we thought it the prettiest sight this broken world ever beheld.
“Jessie and I worked for months making gifts—we wanted everyone on the ridge to find a remembrance, however modest, under that majestic tree.”
He found himself thoroughly enchanted.
“The priest came to us on Christmas Day only once every four years, so the services were usually up to Jessie and myself. I remember always wanting to read the Epistle from Titus, ‘The grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men. . . .”’
Agnes Merton’s face was wreathed with smiles.
“It was a happy time for Jessie and me, and for Little Bertie.”
“Little Bertie?”
“Bertie was Jessie’s niece. Jessie’s sister and brother-in-law had perished in a boating accident, and Jessie became Bertie’s legal guardian. Oh, she was the merriest child you’d ever wish to see! Such bright, happy eyes, and a great chatterbox with everyone, including perfect strangers.