Agathe had been Father Lenoir’s housekeeper for nearly thirty years, and over that time their mutual regard had grown into a comfortable friendship. Well aware of her common sense and respecting her judgement, the priest occasionally asked her opinion on parish matters. Agathe always considered her answers carefully, and always spoke to him with the formality due to his cloth. In public Father Lenoir treated her with the same respect, but in private he had used her Christian name and there was a genuine affection between them.

Now he was dying, and as she kept watch at his bedside, she considered her life without him. Father Thomas had been dismayed that Father Lenoir should confide parish affairs to his housekeeper and had long ago decided that when he had his own parish, there would be no such impropriety. Discussion of such business with a mere layperson – and a woman into the bargain – would never happen when he was in charge. He had been shocked that the old priest had allowed her to sit with him in his last hours, but when he, Father Thomas, had tried to dismiss her from the bedroom, the old man had opened his eyes and murmured, ‘Leave us alone! She can stay. She’s my friend.’

His friend indeed! She was his housekeeper, a paid employee! What right had she to be the one to see him into eternity? Father Thomas, now clearly excluded, withdrew from the room, every line of his body rigid with indignation.

Father Thomas will be an exacting man to work for, Agathe thought as she sat at the bedside and listened to the old man’s ragged breathing. Perhaps it was time to leave the Clergy House, but, after so many years, where would she go? She had no home of her own, her only family an estranged sister, and very few friends.

Maybe, she thought suddenly, the bishop will send another priest to take over the church of St Jacques. After all, Father Thomas is still young; perhaps he’ll be considered too inexperienced to take on the responsibility of such a large parish.

The thought raised her spirits a little. She closed her eyes for a moment or two, but jerked awake as there was a slight movement in the bed. She realised that Father Lenoir’s eyes were open again, gazing unseeing into the air. Then his face relaxed in a smile and the rasp of his breath was silent.

Agathe leaned forward and gently closed his eyes. She tried to pray for his departing soul, but somehow the words would not come and she simply sat in the silence of the empty room.

*

Once the funeral was over, Father Thomas took over the parish, the Clergy House and the lives of the two women who looked after him. Madame Sauze continued as housekeeper, assisted by Annette, the orphan she had rescued some years earlier, with Father Lenoir’s blessing, from St Luke’s orphanage to train as a housemaid. The young priest was determined to show his bishop that he was perfectly capable of running the parish, and the bishop, taking the easy route, made no move to appoint a new, more experienced parish priest. For a while Father Thomas’s future hung in the air, but after several weeks he was summoned to the bishop’s office and told that for the present, at least, he was responsible for the parish. He was no longer a curate, but a parish priest with responsibility for a church, a congregation and the souls of men. A person of importance.