Light From Heaven (10 page)

“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!

He penned his name with the sign of the cross.

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 . . .

There, by George! He grabbed the rope more tightly still and gave another hard pull.

The sound pealed forth across the great bowl of the gorge and returned to him, shimmering and lovely.

He didn’t have a hundred years to get this job done, he had ’til next April, and no time to lollygag.

He was getting the hang of it now.

The rope shot up, he clung on and pulled it again; the sound rang out....

Maybe this would round up the mysterious sexton. In any case, it was a darned good way to warm up on a cold morning.

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 soon 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.

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.”

“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.”