ON THE MAPS given away by gasoline companies, the town of Topswell is indicated by neither a circle nor a star, but by the merest decimal of a dot. And the macadam road that winds down from Hartfield becomes a dusty soft-shouldered thing long before it reaches a dead end at the Gates of Heaven Cemetery, two miles east of town. In ordinary times not a hundred cars a year make the trip to the burying ground. But on a certain May afternoon in 1931, the road was so snarled with traffic that Father Owen Starkey had to park his Ford a half mile down the road, and make his way on foot to the iron gates of the cemetery.
Bright drops of perspiration beaded Father Owen’s forehead, and buttercup pollen made a yellow dust on his shoes when he reached the entrance. Around the open gates surged a tide of automobiles; a dozen cars were parked inside. Disapproving wrinkles corrugated Father Owen’s brow. As overseer of cemeteries he felt a certain responsibility for this undignified traffic. Joe Dockery, the grounds keeper, should have kept the gates closed. The man would have to do some tall explaining.
But where was Joe Dockery? Father Owen rapped at the door of the grounds keeper’s lodge. “Joe … Joe Dockery,” he cried. No answer. Must be down at the grave, thought the young overseer. Maybe I’d better go down, and take a look for myself.
He fell in with the stream of foot traffic winding down an alley of copper beeches—dark, good-looking trees that were the only distinguishing feature of the cemetery. For the rest there was little of quality: the plots were small, unfenced; the monuments, if they could be called by so grand a name, were markers of no style or period. On the headstones were carved proud tribe names borne by former kings of Ireland: Flaherty, Dignan, Boyle, and O’Connor. “‘Requiescat in pace aeterna,’” murmured Father Owen. “If,” he added, “they’ll let you.”
In the lee of the tool house—a low green shed with a Dutch door—he saw Joe Dockery. A clay pipe, black with age, jutted from the grounds keeper’s mouth, and his legs were crossed in the relaxed manner of an Irish squire surveying his estate. He arose as Father Owen approached and touched the visor of his leather cap with easy respect.
“A good afternoon to you, Father. A good warm afternoon to you. Sit down out of the heat here, while I draw a cooling draught from the spring of Tubber Tintye.” He turned the faucet of a pipe at his elbow, and handed the priest an iron mugful of tap water.
“Thanks, Mr. Dockery.” Owen Starkey needed that drink. He had another, then sat down on the bench beside the grounds keeper.
“What do you think of the crowd we’re gathering, Father?” asked Joe. “Eighty-two cars yesterday. Ninety-six so far today. They’re beginning to come in now.”
Father Owen started to choose stern words and ended by uttering characteristic mild ones. “I scarcely know what to think, Joe. Before I can form an opinion, I’ll have to hear more. All the Bishop gets is rumor—and he wants very much to learn the facts.” Stephen’s secretary waved a hand at the dusty procession. “How did all this start, anyway?”
Joe Dockery’s smile had a benign “all-in-good-time-if-you’re-patient” quality about it. “You’ve heard the beginning of it … about Tom O’Doul’s arthritis, that is?”
“I’ve heard nothing.”
“Would you have the tale from O’Doul himself?”
“If you think he can tell it better than you, yes.”
Joe Dockery put two fingers in his mouth and whistled the first three notes of “The Hearty O’Doul.” “That’ll rouse him.”
The vibration had scarcely died when a sepulchral male came out from behind a grassy mound. The brush hook in his hand predicated weed cutting of some kind, but everything else about him suggested chronic fatigue. He stepped charily as if begrudging his joints the drop of oil they needed for movement. The hearty O’Doul touched his cap to the cloth, and waited for Dockery’s instructions.
“Tom,” said the grounds keeper, “tell Father Starkey just how all this began. Start with the Friday I put you on the lawn mower.”
Thus briefed, O’Doul entered upon his tale: “Like Joe says, he took me off the sickle that Friday and put me on the lawn mower, cutting grass on some plots under the blasted elm. I was a sufferer from arthritis,” explained O’Doul in the voice of a professional testifier. “Untractable pain it caused in my principal joints—ankle, knee, elbow, shoulder, and hip socket.”
“It was that bad,” said Joe, “his fingers were caking up with chalk.”
“On this particular Friday, after I cut the grass on a certain grave, I felt queer. Good queer. I said to myself, Tom, the pain’s gone.’”
“Flew,” said Joe Dockery, opening his hand as if releasing a bird. “But it came back, Tom?”
“It did, Joe. A day or so after.”
“Tell Father Starkey what you did then. You don’t mind, Father, if Tom sits down on the tub?”
“Not at all … sit down, Tom.”
Gingerly, O’Doul settled his bony posterior on an overturned tub, and proceeded with his tale. “In a spare hour I went back to the grave, trimmed it a little around the edges, and sure enough …”
Joe Dockery opened his hand in the bird-releasing act. “Off it flew again,” he said.
“Like a crow off a pine tree,” testified O’Doul. “And it hasn’t come back since.”
They both looked at Father Starkey. “Whose grave was it?” he asked.
“Tell him, Tom.”
“There was a headstone on the grave all cracked and weathered. When I scraped away some of the moss I could make out the lettering. ‘Here lies the body of Reverend William J. Flynn, 1805–1877, a priest forever according to the order of McChisideck.’”
“Melchisidec,” corrected Father Starkey absently. He turned to Joe Dockery. “Did you check it in the records?”
“I did, Father. The cemetery books show that a Reverend William Flynn was once pastor here. My mother, God rest her soul, used to speak of him with awe.”
Owen Starkey wet his handkerchief under the faucet of Tubber Tintye and cooled his face and hands. “I’d like to see more,” he said. “Let’s go down to Father Flynn’s grave.”
“RESTING COMFORTABLY,” ran the official bulletin on Bishop Fermoyle’s condition four days after his operation. “The patient is doing as well as can be expected,” said the bulletin three days later. “Some improvement noted.” “Surgeon hopeful.” “Bishop recuperating slowly.” “Temporary setbacks to be expected.” These and other canting medicalisms were handed to the press in lieu of the sad truth that Bishop Fermoyle was having a rugged postoperative time.
The pain wasn’t so bad; morphine could control that, and since no well-established mortality figures existed for this type of operation, one had to face the possibility of death with Christian resignation. The thing that bothered Stephen most was the gaunt tension in Dr. John Byrne’s facial muscles. Having done all that a creative surgeon could do, John Byrne was now undergoing the special torment of waiting for nature to do the rest. He had made a gambler’s throw. Stakes? Stephen’s power of self-locomotion. At the end of a week the coin was still in the air.
When the bandages came off, the coin would fall.
Till then, in some suspended fashion, life had to go on. With complications, of course—financial, administrative, personal, and disciplinary judicial. Money complications first, as always. In the second year of the depression, with sixteen million unemployed persons in the United States and two hundred thousand of them in Hartfield, dollars were scarcer than ox bile. Ill-housed, ill-clothed, ill-nourished, the people were pleading for food, shelter, and medical attention that only local charity could provide.
From the heap of documents on the low table beside his bed in St. Andrew’s Hospital, Stephen selected a long cardboard tube, unscrewed the metal cap, and examined a roll of blueprints. The plans for a new wing on the Diocesan House of Refuge. Good plans, too. Father Jed Boylan’s plans. Father Jed would be in pleading for them again tomorrow. Stephen could hear him now. “But, Bishop, where’ll we put the people? They’re broke, sick, hungry—and bitter. We’ve got to take care of them. Let’s start building anyway … we’ll get the money somewhere.”
Hard-working Jed, a wonderful director of charities. Too bad he’d have to take no for an answer. “Sorry, Jed. The Diocese is strapped. The banks won’t lend us the money. Next spring, perhaps. Jed, you heard me. I said ‘no.’”
It would be no to Mother Alicia, who was tired of shoveling coal into the firebox of the Poor Clares’ wornout boiler. It would be no to Brother Gregor Potocki, who needed fertilizer for his tobacco co-operatives. Always no. Stephen rolled up the blueprints, slipped them back into the cardboard tube, and wondered whether two legs would really be better than one in begging or borrowing money for his down-at-the-heel Diocese.
He picked up The Hartfield Item. The usual melancholy grist of news. Banks failing all over the country, people jumping out of windows in New York, marathon dancers entering their thirty-second day. Would the papers ever print good news again? A front-page box caught his eye:
“New Miracles Reported at Topswell Cemetery”
Grounds Keeper Dockery Makes Statement
Almost, this Dockery persuadeth me, gritted Stephen, flinging the paper aside. If Owen Starkey’s report warranted disciplinary action, Dockery would be relieved. And what, incidentally, was delaying Father Starkey? The usually punctual secretary should have been back an hour ago. Bishop Fermoyle opened his mouth to accept the clinical thermometer from Sister Frances Veronica’s cool, waxen fingers. Her noncommittal glance at the column of mercury told him he was running a temperature again. She was expostulating on the folly of trying to manage a diocese from a sickbed when Father Starkey, dust-grimed and sweaty, came through the half-open door.
“What news from the miracle mart, Ownie?”
“A tale of great wonder, Your Excellency. It will make your hair stand up like the porpentines.” Without prologue Owen plunged into his report. Rapidly condensing the Dockery-O’Doul dialogue, he came to his inspection of Father Flynn’s grave.
“It’s an ordinary single plot with a thin slab of marble for a headstone. Nothing to distinguish it from a thousand other graves—except …”
“Except what?”
“Except,” said Owen Starkey, “that a hundred people, mostly cripples of one kind or another, came to kneel around it today. If Dockery’s estimates are correct, there’ll be two hundred tomorrow and two thousand next week.”
“How are they behaving themselves?”
“Not very well, I’m sorry to say. They’ve ripped all the sod off the grave and now they’re carrying away little bags of earth.” From his pocket Owen drew a cheesecloth affair somewhat resembling a tea bag, and handed it to his superior.
Stephen fingered the earth-filled packet. “Whose idea was this?”
“Dockery’s. He calls it a soil-conservation measure. His point is that everyone gets the same amount of earth, no matter how much money they throw into the tub.”
“Money?” Stephen sat bolt upright. “Tub?”
Father Owen struggled for lucidity. “Well, you see, Bishop, people were tossing coins and bills all over the grave, so Joe Dockery put a washtub by the headstone. Not counting the coins, about eighty-five dollars was thrown into it yesterday.”
“What becomes of this money? Does Mr. Dockery pocket it personally?”
“No. He realizes that the money isn’t his. He seems to think, though, that it should be spent in building a shrine—like Lourdes or St. Anne de Beaupré.” At the incredulous lift of his Bishop’s eyebrows, Owen Starkey went on. “Something’s got to be done, Your Excellency. The crutches are piling up fast.”
This piece of information sent Stephen’s eyebrows still higher. If the lame and the halt were discarding crutches, walking away under their own power, the events taking place at Father Flynn’s grave must be viewed in a new light. He fingered the cheesecloth bag thoughtfully. Did the dust of this obscure priest, dead for fifty years, really have miraculous power? Or was the whole affair another example of mass hysteria?
Stephen’s self-addressed questions were interrupted by the appearance of Amby Cannell in the doorway. The Vicar-General, buffer and liaison officer between the Bishop’s cot and the outer world, removed his meerschaum from its customary station. “The gentlemen of the press are here,” he announced. “A.P. and U.P., complete with photographers. They want a feature story on the ‘Gates of Heaven Miracles.’”
“I’ll give them features, Amby—bedside features. Bring them in and have a stenographer take down what I say. Free press means free fancy to some of these chaps.”
The leader of the press delegation, a veteran correspondent named Hotchkiss, made a frank opening. “Bishop Fermoyle,” he began, “miracles are news. This Gates of Heaven business looks like a Grade A miracle—and, you’ll pardon me for saying so—a gold mine. Before things get off on the wrong track, won’t you, as Bishop of Hartfield, make a statement?”
“The only statement I can make,” said Stephen, “is that I can’t make a statement until every aspect of the Gates of Heaven situation is carefully investigated. Until the findings are sifted, weighed, and interpreted, I must be silent.” Stephen smiled. “I trust, gentlemen, that you will respect that silence.”
The press spent a glum five seconds. Then a cynical voice spoke up. “That’s fine, Bishop. But who gets the money? There’s going to be boodles of it.”
Stephen was candid. “By canon law, the bishop has sole responsibility for, and title to, all monies collected in his diocese.”
They wrote that down. Then the U.P. man piped up. “Grounds Keeper Dockery says there’s going to be a shrine at the Gates of Heaven. He’s given out a story that Father Flynn’s skeleton will be dug up and put in a glass casket.”
“Mr. Dockery has an active imagination and persuasive powers of speech,” said Stephen. “As a private citizen he may give free rein to both. As grounds keeper of the Gates of Heaven he is not, however, the final voice in diocesan matters.”
A flash bulb snapped. “No pictures,” said Stephen.
“Aw, Bishop, what’s the harm in a little picture?”
Stephen disregarded the plea. “Monsignor Cannell, get that plate,” he said firmly. “I don’t mean to be arbitrary, gentlemen, but this is not a circus. If pictures are needed, my office will give you glossy proofs of the official photograph.”
“One more question, Bishop Fermoyle.” Hotchkiss was speaking. “What form will your investigation take?”
“The usual form prescribed by the Church. My assistants will interview persons allegedly cured and take written testimony from them. If miraculous cures are discovered, competent medical authority will pass upon the facts. The process may take some time.”
Hotchkiss was a ferret for news. “You say it’ll take some time, Bishop. Pending the outcome of your investigation, mightn’t it be wise to close the cemetery?”
The query was fair enough; Stephen answered it thoughtfully. “If the events taking place at the Gates of Heaven are truly miraculous—if God in His wisdom has bestowed the power of healing on the dust of this obscure priest—I would be guilty of a great sin in opposing His intentions. Not until all the facts have been studied can I risk a decision.”
“May we quote you on that?”
“You may. I’m afraid you won’t get it right, and that many of your readers won’t understand. But you may quote me.”
The reporters filed out. Amby Cannell had barely closed the door behind them when Stephen issued a general directive. “Round up a dozen of the smartest, most active priests in the Diocese,” he ordered. “Get them in here immediately; I’ll brief them myself. We’re going to dig and dig, sift and sift, weigh and weigh, till the facts give us something to go on.”
Stephen turned to his secretary. “You’re in charge of field operations, Ownie. Your first assignment is to tell Joe Dockery that I shall hold him personally responsible for the maintenance of order and a full accounting of all monies collected at the Gates of Heaven Cemetery.”
FIFTEEN DAYS after the operation, Dr. John Byrne removed the bandages from Stephen’s leg. Two things were obvious; the long, curving incision showed no signs of infection, and the circumference of the leg was normal. Stephen uttered an aspiration of thanksgiving and gripped the surgeon’s hand. “Physician most worthy!” The neat sutures fascinated him. “What a dressmaker you’d have been!”
No smile relieved the tension at the corners of John Byrne’s eyes. “It looks fairly clean to me, Steve, but we’re not out of the woods yet. The real test will come when you put your weight on it.”
“When will that be?”
“No telling. We’ve got to be sure that the lymphatic processes between skin and muscle are re-established. Meanwhile, immobility, bed rest—and no cheating on either for another two weeks.”
“Afraid I’ll spoil your case if I get out of bed?”
Dr. Byrne shook a sober jaw. “The only thing I’m afraid of, Steve, is the danger of infection. You see, the lymphatic system is the body’s chief defense against bacterial invasion. If a single streptococcus gets into that wound, your leg comes off at the groin.”
“I’ll stay in bed,” promised Stephen.
Diocesan activities took a bullish turn for the next ten days; Stephen’s hospital room became an executive chamber as heads of departments swarmed in with wire baskets of unfinished business. On his crowded calendar of appointments Stephen made a special place for progress reports brought in daily by Owen Starkey. The Gates of Heaven investigation had taken Owen and his assistants into all parts of the Diocese. By May 15 the list of completed interviews, signed and attested by lay and medical witnesses, numbered well over two hundred.
Stephen glanced at the mass of papers in Owen Starkey’s brief case. “Pick me out a typical case, Ownie,” he said.
Father Starkey selected a neatly typewritten sheet from his collection, and handed it to his superior. “Here’s about the way they run, Your Excellency.”
The document consisted of two parts: a description of the interviewee and a signed affidavit reciting the facts of the case. Stephen read the following:
Agnes Leenan, widow, age 46, occupation part-time domestic. Type of illness: persistent backache dating from birth of sixth child, 14 years ago. Other ailments: dizziness, spots before eyes, palpitations, ringing in ears, hot flushes [sic], swelling ankles, nightmares, rash on back of hands, distress after eating greasy foods. Subject wept throughout interview, apologized for odor of liquor on breath, quoted “wine for the stomach’s sake,” then offered interviewer bottle beer “for his parch.”
Résumé of statement made by Mrs. Leenan: has always been a churchgoer, never misses Mass, contributes generously to the support of pastor when there is any money in the house. Special devotions: Rosary and Stations of the Cross. Treated by several physicians without beneficial result. Got some relief from a chiropractor in 1929. First heard of cures at Gates of Heaven five weeks ago. Visited grave of Father Flynn, said Rosary kneeling on grass beside grave, took a small bag of earth home after leaving fifty-cent piece on grave. Felt “airy” for a week; pain in back seemed to decrease. Now wears earth-filled bag around her neck. Says it gives “blessed relief.” Intends to make another visit to cemetery because back pain is gradually returning. Has no doubt that grave has miraculous powers, or that she will ultimately be cured.
I have read the above and declare it to be a true and accurate statement made by me.
(Signed) Agnes Leenan
Attached to the statement was a note on the letterhead of a Hartfield physician. “I have examined Mrs. Agnes Leenan on two occasions in my office and diagnosed her principal ailment as a low back-pain syndrome, probably due to displacement of internal organs.”
Stephen looked up in wry dismay. “Are they all like this, Ownie?”
“Pretty much, Your Excellency.”
“It’s not the stuff that miracles are based on, would you say?”
Owen Starkey turned optimistic. “There’s one pretty good case here. Harold Trudeau’s the name.” He handed Stephen the paper containing Trudeau’s history. “Infantile paralysis at age of ten. Wore braces and crutches; unable to work for livelihood. Visited grave March 15, threw down crutches, and walked home. Now gainfully employed by the Hart-field Telephone Company.”
“This is something,” cried Stephen, examining the medical affidavits attached to Trudeau’s statement.
“I’m glad you think so, Bishop. The man is sober, fairly intelligent, and quite obviously cured. One leg is shorter than the other, but he gets around on it.”
Stephen curbed his enthusiasm. “He might be a hysteric. …”
“It’s possible, of course.”
“Could you bring him in here? I’d like to see the man personally.”
Harold Trudeau turned out to be a sallowish young man whose simpering diction and gaudy taste in cravats were clear compensations for the orthopedic boot he wore on his right foot. At the Bishop’s invitation he sat down and recited a fairly straightforward story of childhood paralysis and partial atrophy of the lower limbs. During adolescence made painful by his deformity he had worn leg braces, but had discarded them at the age of twenty. Thereafter he had depended wholly on crutches for support and locomotion until the day he visited Father Flynn’s grave.
“I went to the cemetery to visit my mother’s grave—she died last spring,” said Trudeau. “While there, I saw a number of people kneeling around Father Flynn’s grave. I knelt down, said three Hail Marys, and rubbed a handful of earth onto my knee. When I got up I didn’t need my crutches.”
“And you haven’t used them since?”
“That’s right, Bishop. I can even dance now.”
“Splendid,” said Stephen. “When did you start dancing?”
The witness flushed. “Well, you see, Bishop, I’ve been kind of crazy about a girl for a long time, but she wouldn’t have anything to do with me, on account of—of my crutches. Soon as I got rid of them, I began to make time with her.”
“I see.” Stephen tried not to glance at Owen Starkey. “And how are things turning out?”
“Swell. We’re getting engaged as soon as I can save up enough for a ring.”
“My congratulations, Mr. Trudeau,” said Stephen. “And thank you very much for coming.”
When Harold Trudeau had limped out, Stephen fingered a dubious lip. “I wouldn’t call him a convincing peg to hang a miracle on, would you, Ownie?”
“Scarcely. It was keen of you to pick up that dancing clue.”
Amby Cannell came in with the latest edition of The Hartfield Item. “Latest communiqué from the miracle front,” he said humorously. Stephen glanced at the front-page photographs of Joe Dockery, showing newsmen the site of the new Gates of Heaven shrine. “Estimated cost to run into six figures” was the caption under the picture.
“I hate to snap the axle off Joe Dockery’s dream cart,” said Stephen, turning toward his secretary. “But tomorrow morning, Ownie, I want you to go down to the cemetery and tell our enterprising grounds keeper that the show’s been called off. Bid him lock the gates and put up a sign, ‘No miracles till further notice.’”
NEXT FORENOON (it was a Saturday), Father Owen Starkey battled his way on foot through the disorderly mob swirling about the gates of the cemetery. Overnight, the miracle rush had taken on a carnival aspect. Popcorn vendors cried their wares; at hastily constructed booths one could buy balloons, apples on sticks, gilt rosary beads, conch shells bearing decalcomania likenesses of Father Flynn, and any quantity of holy pictures and hot dogs. Between the entrance pillars, two currents clashed in a fierce tide rip as incoming miracle seekers collided with the outgoing horde that had already visited Father Flynn’s grave. Buffeted by these eddies, Owen Starkey reached the cemetery tool house, arranged his disheveled clothing, and rapped at the Dutch door.
“Enter without knocking,” cried a voice from within. Father Starkey pushed open the upper half of the door and saw Joe Dockery engaged in the pleasantest of all tasks—the counting of money. His occupation had transformed him: gone was the clay pipe and leather cap. On the grounds keeper’s head a derby was tilted, and a gold-banded cigar jutted not too aromatically from his mouth. Sickles and lawn mowers no longer concerned Mr. Dockery. Metal more attractive dripped from his fists as he scooped double handfuls of silver coins from a washtub and poured them into a burlap bag on the table.
Proprietary magnificence streamed from his person. He was ducal as he offered Father Starkey a cigar; viceregal as he tied the neck of a money sack with a twist of twine. “It comes in so fast, we bag it raw,” he explained to his visitor. “If this keeps up, I’ll have to hire someone to count it.”
Owen Starkey let the news fall. “It’s not going to keep up, Joe. The orders are to close the cemetery gates.”
“Orders?” Dockery started filling another bag with coins. “Whose orders?”
“Bishop Fermoyle’s.” Father Starkey was trying hard to be firm. “The whole business has gotten out of hand, Joe. You must close the gates at once.”
Exceeding pelf had made Joe Dockery bold. And jocular. “You’re kidding, Father.”
“I’m not kidding, Joe. Bishop Fermoyle doubts the authenticity of these cures. …”
“He can’t doubt the authenticity of this—can he?” Joe pointed to the tubfuls of hard and soft money lying about the premises.
“The money’s secondary. The important thing is to stop the unseemly brawl going on here.” Father Owen spoke as sharply as his temperament permitted. “Start clearing the grounds; we’re locking the place up.”
Torn between respect for the clergy and still greater respect for cash literally in hand, Joe Dockery temporized. “Orders are orders, Father, but I can’t lock the gates just on your say-so. It’d be like”—he struck a happy smile—“like your telling me to set fire to a barnful of twenty-dollar bills. I’ve got to see the orders in writing, with the Bishop’s signature and seal at the bottom of the paper.”
“You’re laying yourself open to charges of disobedience, Mr. Dockery.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t call it that, Father. Just get some little sign of authority from the Bishop—and click”—Joe made a turnkey motion with his hand—“I’ll lock up the place like that.”
“You’re risking the wrath,” warned Owen Starkey.
FIERCE AMAZEMENT gathered like thunderheads in Bishop Fermoyle’s eyes as Father Starkey tried to explain the grounds keeper’s lesè majesté.
“Do I hear you correctly, Father?” Stephen sat upright in his hospital bed. “Are you trying to tell me that Joe Dockery refused to close the cemetery?”
“He didn’t actually refuse, Your Excellency. He just wants written confirmation of your order. ‘Some little sign of authority,’ as he said.”
Anger exploded in Stephen’s voice. “I’ll give him a ‘sign of authority.’” He tossed aside the coverlet, leapt out of bed. “Is there no one who can execute an order in this Diocese? Hand me my crutches, Father. Fetch me my clothes. This man Dockery must be curbed.”
A much-shaken secretary was rummaging in the closet for his Bishop’s trousers when the wax-lily face of Sister Frances Veronica appeared in the doorway. At the sight of her patient hobbling about on his bandaged leg, she lost her composure for the first time in twenty-three years. “Bishop, Bishop,” she pleaded. “You mustn’t pound about so. Get back into bed. Dr. Byrne will be very angry when I tell him.”
“Not so angry as I’m going to be for the next hour or two,” said Stephen. “Will you kindly get out of here, Sister, while Father Starkey helps me get dressed.”
Sister Frances retired like a figurine folding backward into a Swiss clock. “The Bishop’s mad,” she whispered to Sister Mercedes in the corridor.
“Angry mad?” asked Sister Mercedes.
“No, the other kind. If he walks on that leg”—the idea undid her—“O merciful saints, protect him. Ssh—ssh, here he comes now.” The nuns cowered into an alcove as the Bishop, trailed by Father Starkey, hobbled past on his crutches.
It was not quite madness of “the other kind” that possessed the Bishop of Hartfield. True, the blaze of anger, touched off by Joe Dockery’s disobedience, crackled toward the powder keg that all Fermoyles kept locked in their endocrine system. Stephen doused it just in time—not, however, until he found himself riding with Amby Cannell and Owen Starkey on a disciplinary tour of duty to the Gates of Heaven Cemetery.
Police outriders, summoned by Monsignor Cannell, cleared the Bishop’s way on motorcycles. And fortunately, too, because the dirt road between Topswell and the cemetery was clogged with a tooting tide of curiosity seekers inching toward the grave from whence sprang dangerous hysteria and unwarranted hope. Father Starkey, noting the tight seam of disapproval sewing the Bishop’s lips, wondered what would happen when His Excellency saw the gimcrack booths at the entrance to the cemetery. As the episcopal Buick slowed down to a crawl, dirty-aproned vendors began leaping onto its running boards. “Hot franks? Peanuts? Holy pictures, Mister? Get your sacred clam shells … only a quarter.”
Sacred clam shells! The seam in Stephen’s lips grew tighter. Disobedience compounded into sacrilege! Ecclesiastic discipline scorned, and the majesty of death defiled!
“Roll up the windows,” said Stephen.
When the Bishop’s car halted at the granite pillars of the cemetery, the hysterical throng witnessed something of a spectacle. They saw a tall pallid man robed in vestments customarily worn by a Bishop making a canonical visitation step gingerly to the ground. On his head sat a biretta; from his shoulders fell the cappa magna in brocaded folds. Before him walked a cross-bearer; at his side, supporting his elbow, was the Vicar-General of the Diocese.
The Bishop himself was on crutches.
Seeing the robed figure, the pious rabble made a natural mistake. They thought the Bishop had come to get his share of the miracle-working dust. As he hobbled through the gates of the cemetery and proceeded down the tree-lined path, an impromptu procession fell in behind him. This was the genuine thing in piety—the Bishop himself leading his flock to the healing shrine.
Marchers in the procession were somewhat surprised when the Bishop stopped at a low green shed, obviously a tool house, and beat upon the door, first with a crutch, then with a long curved staff that one of his clerics handed him. The staff was, in fact, a crozier, the supreme sign of episcopal authority, and the watchers thought that either the door or the staff must break under the Bishop’s pounding.
“Enter without knocking,” said a voice inside the shed. “Come in, I say! I’ll lose my count if you keep up that racket.”
The knocking persisted. “Must I come out and get you?” roared Dockery. He flung open the upper half of the Dutch door, and stood framed there: an opulent figure, derby hat tilted backward, a canvas bag of silver in one hand, and a cigar in the other.
As to what next followed, no two accounts agree. Eyewitnesses say that in trying to remove his hat, hide the silver, and dispose of the cigar, Joe Dockery got all three inextricably mixed. Others aver that he froze rigid with terror and could make no move of reverence, defense, or flight. Some contend that he took off his derby, put the bag of silver on his head, and swallowed his cigar. But whatever he did, his actions dwindled into unimportance when compared with the answers he made to the Bishop’s questions.
“You are Joseph Dockery, grounds keeper of this cemetery?” asked Stephen.
“Yes, Your Excellency.”
“You have given unauthorized interviews which in part are responsible for the present undignified and un-Christian status of affairs here?”
“Yes, Your Excellency.”
“And this morning you refused to obey my orders to shut the cemetery gates?”
“Y-yes, Your Excellency.”
“At that time you demanded some little sign of authority?” Stephen paused for the answer that Joe Dockery could not choke up. “I hereby produce for your benefit, Mr. Dockery, this crozier, this ring, and this pectoral cross. You recognize these, do you, as symbols of the episcopal authority vested in me?”
Joe Dockery found his voice again. “I do, Your Excellency.”
“Good.” Stephen felt sorry for the man. “I have no wish to persecute you, Mr. Dockery. All I want you to do is to obey such legitimate orders as I may give you in the future. Will you promise me that?”
Tears were making quite unmagnificent runnels down Joe Dockery’s face as he nodded, “Yes.”
“Go to the gates,” said Stephen, “and wait there till I come.”
The Bishop turned to his people. “I beg you all to leave these precincts of the dead in dignified and orderly fashion. To those who have come here sincerely hoping for a cure, I urge no weakening of faith in God’s power to suspend miraculously the operation of natural law. I ask that such persons be patient until God’s intention be clearly shown here. At the proper time, and in accordance with ecclesiastic law, you will learn the meaning of what has happened at the grave of Father Flynn.”
Stephen edged his voice with contempt. “And to those who have come through idle curiosity or to vend inappropriate wares, I say—leave this holy place before I invoke action by the public authorities.”
At four o’clock the dead were resting in peace again. Joe Dockery closed the gates in person; news bulbs flashed as he handed the key to his Bishop. And next morning every paper in the United States carried a headline:
Bishop Fermoyle Disavows Gates of Heaven Miracles
Leaves Sickbed to Restore Order in Cemetery
Dr. John Byrne came in around noon next day to find his patient walking about with no sign of limp or hobble. The surgeon’s clinical eyes and fingers searched Stephen’s leg. “Everything clean and healthy.” He bent the leg at the knee. “Good flexure.” He popped a thermometer into Stephen’s mouth. “Temperature normal.” Whereupon Dr. Byrne exulted in the manner of surgeons who have obtained what is known to the trade as “a satisfactory result.”
“Wait till the Harvard people hear about this,” he exclaimed. “Twenty-one days after a major lymphoidectomy the patient puts his entire weight on the leg, walks a quarter of a mile, exposes wound to dangerous infection …” John Byrne broke off his scientific dithyrambics and grinned wonderingly at his brother-in-law. “You can disavow all the graveyard miracles you want, Steve, but you’re standing on one right now. For heaven’s sake, man, get back into bed before God changes His mind.”
A FEW DAYS LATER, while gathering together his personal belongings before leaving the hospital, the Bishop of Hartfield came upon two apparently unrelated articles. One was a little cheesecloth bag containing a spoonful of earth from the grave of Father Flynn. The other was a copy of The New England Medical Journal containing an article entitled “Surgical Management of Chronic Lymphatic Disorders.”
What, if anything, was the relationship between the bag of earth and the scientific article? Must they (Stephen asked himself) necessarily stand in opposition to each other? Was it not conceivable that each in its own way expressed some syllable of the healing Word—that both were manifestations of God’s wondrously inscrutable love for His creature, man?
Offhand, the Bishop of Hartfield was unable to answer these questions. But the more he thought about his own cure, the more he was inclined to distribute credit equally. After some weeks he settled the problem in a manner befitting his financial means and condition of soul. From the money turned over by Joe Dockery (who was allowed to keep his job) Stephen contributed one thousand dollars to the Harvard Medical School for the study of lymphatic disorders. And he spent an equal sum in erecting a modest fieldstone grotto over the dust of Father William J. Flynn.
When the Gates of Heaven Cemetery reopened, all unseemly hysteria had evaporated. A few people came to pray at Father Flynn’s grave; departing, they left an occasional coin or crutch behind. The dead slept in majesty under their copper beeches, and in the outside world the miracle of daily life went on.