Good Heavens

by Margaret A. Graham

  I looked around trying to find Evelyn but didn’t see her. “Lenora, do you know where Evelyn is?”

  “She was in the bathroom.”

  “Throwing up?”

  “I think so.”

  Well, I didn’t have time to deal with that. “When you see her, ask her to start folding the laundry, if she feels up to it.” I was thinking I could slip in there and have a good talk with Evelyn in the laundry room.

  In the parlor, Ringstaff had his head inside the open piano, examining the works.

  “How you coming?” I asked.

  He raised his head and smiled. “As I expected, we need to replace strings, and it looks like we may have some trouble with the hammer shanks.” He sat on the piano bench and touched one of the keys. “Strings vibrate with measurable cycles,” he explained. “The pitch of a concert grand is usually such that the middle A string vibrates at 440 cycles per second.”

  I didn’t understand anything he was saying, but it’s a good sign a man is an expert when he enjoys talking about his work.

  “Mr. Ringstaff, would you like some coffee?”

  He smiled. “Only if you call me by my name.”

  It was hard for me to do that, even though he insisted, so I laughed and asked Lenora, “Do you call this man by his first name?”

  Rearranging the books, she did not so much as turn away from the shelves. “That all depends,” she said.

  I laughed. “That goes for me, too,” I said and went to fix the coffee.

  In the dining room there was a cabinet with china in it that was used only for company. Surely, serving this gentleman who knew maestros and such called for putting on the ritz. As well as taking out cups and saucers, I got plates for serving my fried apple pies. There was a silver tray in there that someone must have donated, and in a drawer were linen napkins. I warmed the pie, filled a cream pitcher with milk, and found a matching sugar bowl to serve the sugar in. I tell you, after I got that tray fixed, room service at the Waldorf couldn’t look any swankier.

  When I brought in the tray, Mr. Ringstaff was bent over the piano works, his long, slim fingers poking around in there. “Ah!” he said and straightened up.

  I made sure he was comfortable on the couch before I went back to the kitchen to get coffee for Lenora and me. There were a couple more pies left over from breakfast. I figured it would help Lenora’s figure to eat another one and that I might as well keep her company. After all, a body that carries as much lard as mine can easy handle another pound.

  It was a wonderful morning. Mr. Ringstaff couldn’t get over raving about my fried apple pie. He even asked me to let him know the next time I made them. He was such a good talker. I was enjoying his stories about big shots with foreign names who play the piano, and was really sorry when he turned the conversation to Priscilla Home. He wanted to hear all about its history, and when I was done telling him that, he asked about our program, our schedule, and our plans for the garden.

  After I was talked out, to my surprise, he was able to draw Lenora into the conversation. “Lenora, when last I heard, you were becoming quite a recording artist.”

  “Oh, Al—Mr. Ringstaff, that was a long time ago.”

  “Albert. My name is Albert, remember? We miss you on the concert stage.”

  “I guess you heard?”

  He nodded. “Yours is a common experience among artists. Hours of rehearsal, the pressure of performing, the endless traveling. And, I suppose worst of all, after the applause one goes back to an empty hotel room.”

  “Yes,” she said, her voice so low, so full of misery I could hardly hear her. “That was the worst of it. After a concert, after the aficionados, the parties . . . all the falderal, one goes back to a hotel room in a foreign city alone.” She put the cup back on the tray and got up to go back to the shelves.

  “Please, don’t go,” he begged.

  “Lenora, those books can wait!” I added.

  Reluctantly, she sat down again, and Ringstaff spoke to her very softly. “I know of no career as demanding as that of a concert pianist, but Lenora, you have given the world great pleasure—lasting pleasure. You communicate music in a marvelous way. I shall never forget your triumph at the Mozart Festival in Vienna. That was a joyous occasion. Do you remember how many encores?”

  “The audience was very kind,” she said, “but that’s all behind me now.” She sighed. “Right now, Albert,” she said, her voice shaking, “all I want is a drink.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “Let’s have some more coffee,” I said and picked up the tray.

  Back in the kitchen, I had to heat the coffee, and while I waited, I was replaying all that conversation. I told myself I should have guessed that Lenora was more than some honky-tonk piano player. I wonder if Ursula knows she was a concert pianist? I didn’t believe she did because she usually told me things like that.

  When I came back in the parlor, Ringstaff was asking Lenora, “They tell me you’ve been playing in New York supper clubs. Is that right?”

  “Yes, supper clubs,” she said, as if she despised it. “When I could no longer be counted on to show up for concert engagements, my agent quit. Nobody else would represent me. I came back to New York, and the only work I could find was in supper clubs.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said softly.

  “They put up with drunks in places like that . . . but they do have their requirements. They would have me play nothing but the old standards . . . I had none of them in my repertoire.”

  “Could you not play adaptations of the classics by moderns? Rachmaninoff?”

  She shook her head. “They would have nothing but the standards. I now have a repertoire of two thousand or more. Oh, Albert, it was wretched. That music does nothing but entertain.”

  “True, it entertains, but it doesn’t satisfy, does it? . . . Yet, Lenora, as you said before, even classical music that does satisfy doesn’t give one a life. It’s life you want, isn’t it, Lenora?”

  “It’s too late for me now.”

  “It’s never too late to have life—a complete life.”

  “Please, Albert, I know what you mean. You’re a spiritual man. I envy you for that. I haven’t forgotten that you were intrigued with the Bible and spoke in churches, all of that. I tried to find spirituality. I tried Eastern mystics, other religions, but they did nothing for me . . .”

  I knew I should excuse myself and give them privacy, but I couldn’t very well do that without being rude.

  “May I tell you something?” she was saying. “When I failed at taking my own life, I remembered you and I decided to try one more religion. I looked for a Christian place, hoping I would find here at Priscilla Home the kind of life you have.”

  That stabbed a knife in my heart because I didn’t much think she had found what she was looking for at Priscilla Home. Lenora probably sensed my embarrassment because she added, “We enjoy our Praise and Prayer sessions. There is one young lady here who asks provocative questions.”

  “You mean Linda?” I asked.

  “Yes, Linda.”

  “Oh, she does. She has stumped me with questions about the Trinity, the Bible, you know—why it’s the Word of God. And who knows what she’ll come up with next.”

  “Miss E., that was an interesting question she asked this morning. Tell Albert.”

  I put down my cup and tried to repeat the question as best I could. “Linda asked me why couldn’t God forgive us without Jesus having to die on the cross. Wasn’t that what she meant, Lenora? Why couldn’t God just forgive us when we ask him to? Well, Mr. Ringstaff, I mean, Albert, I done my best to answer, telling her about the sacrifices and everything, but that didn’t satisfy her.”

  “I see. Well, the answer isn’t as complicated as it may seem. Let’s see if this will help. What if you were murdered, and the murderer was convicted for killing you. Would a judge be just if he acquitted that criminal? Could he take the liberty of saying to the murderer, ‘I forgive you; you
may go free’?”

  “No. Of course, not,” Lenora said.

  “Neither can God arbitrarily forgive us our wrongdoing. If he did, he would not be the just God we know him to be.”

  “But Albert, God is a God of love, or so they say. If Jesus was his Son, how could he allow him to suffer such ignominy?”

  Albert removed his glasses and cleaned them with his handkerchief. “Lenora, if you or Esmeralda . . . if one of you slapped me and I forgave you, it would mean that I would not hold you responsible for what you’ve done to me. But at the same time, I would have to suffer the insult of being slapped as well as suffer the smarting of my cheek.” He folded his handkerchief, put it back in his pocket, and adjusted his glasses. “When we sin, we sin against God. We insult and injure him.”

  “Yes, I can see that.”

  “Well, Lenora, unlike the wrong we do to each other with finite results, sin against God is infinite. Nothing finite can make things right between ourselves and God. No finite redress is sufficient. It takes an infinite sacrifice to atone for sin.”

  That dear man leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, and said in the simplest, sweetest way ever a man spoke, “Lenora, Jesus, being eternal, is our infinite sacrifice for sin. By being executed, the Son of God bore the insult and the injury of all our sins against himself. Justice has been served; the righteous Judge can acquit us.”

  I just sat there with my mouth open. I had never heard it explained as good as that. Sitting there with the sun streaming through the windows, I knew I would never forget that morning in the parlor with Albert Ringstaff.

  “Thank you, Albert,” Lenora said and started collecting the cups. “I really must get back to work.”

  “And I as well,” he said.

  Can you guess the thought that came to me? Albert Ringstaff might well be the Bible teacher I’d been praying for.

  18

  In the next few weeks, things were working out very well. I had suggested to Ursula that we ask Mr. Ringstaff if he would be our Bible teacher, and she said we must get board approval before we asked him. Roger Elmwood, the president, true to his stuffed-shirt self, didn’t think it was a good idea, especially since Ringstaff was a Presbyterian. I said, “Good heavens, what’s that got to do with it? The man loves the Lord!”

  Elmwood was a peacock who liked to show his feathers, and he was about as narrow-minded as they come. Like Splurgeon says, “He that is full of himself is very empty.” So I suggested something to Ursula. “Dr. Elsie knows Mr. Ringstaff—he lives up there near her place. She’s the board secretary, why don’t you call and ask her what she thinks?”

  Ursula jumped on the phone and asked Elmwood to put in a conference call to Dr. Elsie, who was still in Vermont.

  Dr. Elsie must have give Elmwood an earful! Ursula said she lit right in, telling him how during the Cold War Ringstaff got Bibles into the Soviet Union and how he took every opportunity to speak about the Lord to concert piano players and other famous people. But despite all that, Elmwood said, “Well, we’ll take him on a trial basis and see how he does.” When he said that, Dr. Elsie must have blew her stack! Ursula repeated what she said to him. “Esmeralda, Dr. Elsie told him, ‘Roger Elmwood, it’s no favor to Albert Ringstaff to ask him to teach for us. If he accepts the invitation it’s you who should get down on your knees and thank him!’”

  Ursula was so disgusted with Elmwood she said, “He must have fallen off a turnip truck!”

  And I nearly fell out of my tree!

  Well, it was Ursula who did the asking, and Ringstaff said he would pray about it. I had no doubt in my mind but what it was the Lord’s will that he come, so I made out a schedule that gave him prime time. While Ringstaff worked on the piano in the mornings, we would have Praise and Prayer, then do our chores, and after lunch, have the Bible class. Ursula thought one of us, either she or me, should sit in on his classes, and boy, that tickled me pink!

  Was that man ever smart! He knew the Bible forward and backward. Linda must have sat up all night thinking of questions to ask him. It was plain to see she was out to shock him when she said she didn’t believe “all that stuff about Mary being a virgin when Jesus was born.” Well, Ringstaff was not ruffled in the least. He listened with both ears, then took pains to give her reasons for believing Jesus was born of a virgin.

  I doubt Linda understood everything he said, but they talked back and forth until she ran out of comebacks.

  It warmed my heart the way Ringstaff went through the Scriptures, explaining things like that. I asked him to tell the girls, the way he had told me, why Jesus had to die in order to forgive us. Hearing it the second time, I took notes, and that helped me get that down pat.

  A few days later I wrote Beatrice in care of General Delivery, Albuquerque, New Mexico, and sent her copies of my notes. It was like I told her in that letter, Albert Ringstaff was a fine Christian and the sweetest, dearest man a body could ever meet. There was not a woman at Priscilla Home who didn’t sit up and take notice when he was around. Especially Lenora. I believed that she was starting to live again. She fixed her hair, put on lipstick and a little blush. I told myself that the day she laughed, I’d know she was altogether alive.

  Since Ringstaff always went on about my fried apple pies, I saw that he got a fresh one every morning when we served him coffee. I’d get up real early so I could make the pies before Brenda and Melba came down to do the cooking. Now, the kitchen window opened onto the front porch, and I’d open it first thing to get some fresh air. At that hour, everybody in the house was sound asleep, so I could sing to my heart’s content. One morning I was singing “Power in the Blood.” I love them words:

  There is power, power, wonder working power

  In the blood of the Lamb.

  There is power, power, wonder working power

  In the precious blood of the Lamb.

  After I stopped singing, I heard somebody get up from a rocker on the porch and open the front door. Uh-oh. Who can that be? After wiping the flour off my hands, I turned to see Dora leaning against the doorframe of the kitchen. “Oh, so it’s you, Dora?” I turned to slide the pies on the grill. “Guess you heard me and thought there was a screech owl let loose in here.” I laughed. “Well, it wasn’t no screech owl. It was me and what I call singing.”

  “I like hearin’ you sing,” she said and straddled the stool on the other side of the counter. “There’s naught of music in Angela’s singing, however high and sharp it be. Your singing comes from having heart. It comes from a bubbling spring in the heart of yon hills and streams down in falling water a-tumbling over rocks a-findin’ its troublesome way—a-splashin’ white water an’ a-tossin’ drops ever’ whichaway to catch the sun.”

  I stood there with my mouth open. “Say that again?” She ignored me and propped her elbows on the counter.

  I poured us both a cup of coffee. “You’re up early,” I said.

  “In my holler, a body who ain’t up afore sunup is bound to be sick unto death, ready to be laid out.”

  I laughed. “Well, whether or not a body gets up before sunup, he’s supposed to have three score years and ten before he leaves the planet.”

  I kept messing around in the kitchen, waiting to turn over the pies. I figured Dora had something more she wanted to say. I figured she was putting her words together as she sat there with her hands around her mug of coffee. Once she was ready, she drank that hot coffee straight down. It would have scalded me!

  “Miss E.,” she said, “when I been a-readin’ them words wrote by John, there’s come a flicker or two of foxfire, but this morning, a-settin’ in the day room a-readin’, there come a big flash. It lit that stub of a candle inside o’ me, an’ it’s a-flickerin’ still. I set on the porch a spell, thinking about what was a-happenin’, and I don’t yet know. Maybe tomorrer there’ll come a steady blaze to set my soul afire for good.”

  I knew exactly what Dora was talking about. Maybe that meant I was wicky-wacky, but I knew good and
well she was telling me the Spirit was shedding light on her and bringing her closer to Jesus.

  After that, whenever I came out of my room of a morning, I’d check the day room, and, sure enough, Dora was always in there reading her Bible. I knew better than to ask her if that “steady blaze” had set her soul on fire. We would all know when it did.

  The Lord knew I needed encouragement, and letting me see how he was working in Dora was not the only way he blessed me. I was seeing a change in Ursula too. The girls told me that when it was her turn to sit in on Ringstaff’s class, she sometimes asked a question, and they said in counseling sessions she was using the Bible more.

  I even saw a change in Linda; she was actually learning the memory verses Ringstaff gave the class. I assigned her laundry duty so that while the clothes were in the dryer she could spend that time learning verses.

  These encouragements was such good news, I couldn’t wait for the Willing Workers to pay us a visit so they could hear all the good stuff going on at Priscilla Home. Clara had called and said that she, Thelma, and Mabel could come the middle of the week for two or three nights, if that would be convenient. Of course, it was convenient. Ursula said two of them could sleep in the guest room downstairs and one could sleep on the studio couch in her apartment.

  During Praise and Prayer I told the girls that three of my friends from Live Oaks were coming to pay us a visit, and I got kind of carried away telling them how much the W.W.s had meant in my life. “I really want to show them a good time,” I said. “You got any ideas?”

  Well, of course, they did. They had been wanting to go to Grandfather Mountain, and having visitors was a good excuse for going. Sounded like a good idea to me.

  After Praise and Prayer, Portia followed me upstairs. I was surprised. She was so cowed, so browbeat, I couldn’t imagine her following me. At the top of the stairs I turned around, and she just stood there. “Portia, you not going outside with the others to smoke?”