Light From Heaven (11 page)

“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.

“Though Jessie and I worked hard to gain everyone’s trust, it was Bertie’s way with people that brought them out, and their children with them, so that in time, all of us became family, all of us who lived then in this world above the clouds.

“We arrived here in September, having survived the long journey from Maine, and learned there had been serious floods.

“There we were, motoring up these narrow mountain tracks in a Buick Town Car, which my father had given the church as a charitable contribution! We had all our possessions in that old automobile, and oh, my, we were a sight for sore eyes. Pots and pans rattling about, and a baby cradle and steamer trunk lashed on top.

“Wilson’s Creek was so swollen, it was running like a river, and we couldn’t ford it. We lived in our car for two days, waiting for the water to subside. Then, one of the neighbors found us, and took us to their home. They fed us heartily and insisted we sleep in their bed while they slept on hardback chairs pushed together.

“Over the years, there have been bridges over Wilson’s Creek. One of steel, Father. Steel, mind you! And the floods came and washed them all downstream, never to be seen again. The plain truth is, many of those left up here don’t really want a bridge. Most of us use the one at McClellanville, two miles upstream.

“In any case, a lot of families have gone to live in Mitford or Wesley or Johnson City—adding yet another blow to the mission churches. Shifting demographics, they call it. Young people leave, old people die . . .”

“Roads get washed away,” he said, “bridges disappear downstream.” He lifted the thermos. “Agnes?”

“Please, Father. Thank you.”

He refilled both their mugs as the light slanted through the windows, and the cardinal sang in his bush by the door. “Should I call you Deaconess Merton or Deaconess Agnes?”

“Please. Call me Agnes.”

“And you may certainly call me Tim.”

“No, indeed, Father, I have never called a priest by his first name, and never shall.”

They lifted their cups in amused agreement.

“I won’t forget that dark night, on the eve of yet another fearsome storm, when we drove up at last to our rude little cabin, where we lived before the schoolhouse was built.

“We made our beds and ate our supper by the light of a lantern—there was no electric here until 1954—and lay down, frightened out of our wits. It didn’t seem an adventure anymore for two educated girls from Maine; it was suddenly a very real and terrifying scrape we’d gotten ourselves into.

“I remember the great shadows that flickered on the walls, cast by the lamp light. And the bats, Father, it was dreadful! The bats flew about our heads and swooped around the room, and then the storm rolled in upon us and we believed our time had come.”

She took a long, reflective draft of her tea. “Have you tasted sassafras before?”

“I have. I’m a Mississippi country boy.”

“It comes from a bush behind the schoolhouse, and the mint grows wild on the banks.”

“The schoolhouse is still standing, then!”

“Oh, yes. Like a rock, and just a short walk through the rhododendron grove. It’s been our home for many years. It was purchased from the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America.”

They laughed easily together.

“In all the years I’ve lived here, I can’t remember a rain so torrential, nor winds so fierce. The wind tore the roof off the cabin and flung it into the trees, and all the heavens opened above our heads.

“The rain came down with great force, beating upon us like hailstones, and because the lantern had been doused at once, we were thrown into utter darkness.”

Agnes gazed toward the altar as she spoke, as if she was viewing a film.

“I can’t begin to express our dreadful fear. We were completely disoriented, and ran barefoot over the broken glass of the lantern globe. We left the cabin and tried to find our car, but couldn’t—and through all this, I remember Little Bertie screaming with terror.

“I also remember crying out to God, and as I did, I realized for the first time that I didn’t know Him at all, that I had never surrendered anything of myself to God. I had reserved my heart and my soul as my own.”

She turned her gaze to the vicar.

“Jessie and I called our introduction to these mountains the Great Baptizing, and yet I had been baptized only upon my stubborn and willful head. It would be years, Father, before I knew the One True Baptism in my heart. You might say I grew into faith as a child grows into shoes bought too large.”

“And Jessie?”

“Jessie used to say that before we came to the ridge, she had been on speaking terms with Him. But after the storm, He became her best friend. I’m sure He remained so for the rest of her days.”

Agnes was pensive for a time, sipping her tea.

“I suppose you lost your wonderful automobile ...”

“Indeed, God protected it! He knew how we would rely on it for years to come, and it rode through that dreadful storm with barely a scratch.

“My gracious,” she said, suddenly contrite. “I’ll wear you to a frazzle going on like this!”

“Can’t be done. Not when there’s a good story at hand!”

“I’ve talked far too much about Agnes Merton. What are your plans, Father, for Holy Trinity?”

“We’ll have our hands full, getting things up to speed. I’ve just been making a list.”

“A list!” She removed a pair of glasses from her sweater pocket. “And what’s on it, may I ask?”

“Everything but the kitchen sink. A stove. A pulpit. A lectern. Fair linen. The whole nine yards. Kneelers. Prayer books. Hymnals ...”

“Thirty-seven prayer books are on the shelves of our old school.”

“You don’t mean it!”

“Do you use the 1928?”

“I grew up on it, but haven’t used it in years. I’m certainly willing, however.” He’d long wanted to refresh his knowledge of the much-venerated 1928 edition of the Book of Common Prayer.

“And hymnals.We have forty-one of those.”

“Forty-one!”

“They were bought only months before the church was closed; they’re in lovely condition.”

“Now, don’t tell me you have a pulpit and a woodstove.” He was jesting, of course.

“The pulpit is stored in our loft; Clarence waxes it every fall, to keep it from drying out in winter; he made it from oak off the mountain. And the stove is in our back room, which used to be the infirmary. It only needs oiling.”

“Agnes . . .”

“Yes, Father?”

“Is this a dream?”

“It certainly seems a dream to me. There were times when Clarence and I had given up utterly, but God always encouraged us. It’s hard to wait.”

“Very hard.”

“What are you waiting for, Father?”

He reflected, but only for a moment.

“For Kenny Barlowe to be found.” God forbid that Sammy might be lost yet again.

“Kenny Barlowe. I’ll commit to wait and pray with you.”

“Thank you, Agnes. Now, look what you’ve done. You’ve gone and made things easy for your new vicar.”

Smiling, she put on her glasses, and peered at his open notebook. “What else is on your list?”

“Fair linen.”

“In my bottom bureau drawer, wrapped in tissue paper. They say tissue keeps linen from yellowing.”