The Mandie Collection (39 page)

“Yessum,” Uncle Cal replied.

Miss Prudence turned back to Elizabeth. “Do come in, Elizabeth—all of you,” she said, leading the way.

They followed the woman through the doorway into a large center hallway. Mandie stared upward. Delicate plaster-of-Paris angels and roses decorated the high white ceiling. Across the hall a huge
chandelier, which seemed to hold a hundred candles, hung near the curved staircase leading to a second-story balcony. Dark wooden wainscoting covered the lower third of the wallpapered walls.

Miss Prudence led them off to the right into an alcove furnished with huge tapestry-covered chairs. A large flower arrangement sat on a marble-topped table.

They sat down in big, comfortable chairs.

Elizabeth leaned forward. “John and I will be taking the train home this afternoon,” she said.

“Oh? You aren't staying at your mother's?” Miss Prudence asked.

“No, she's out of town,” Elizabeth answered.

She's always out of town when we come to Asheville
, Mandie thought.
Maybe she is still angry with Uncle John for reuniting Mother and me after she went to so much trouble to separate us
.

Mandie hardly looked up when a maid came in to serve cold lemonade. Mandie's mother and Miss Prudence continued their conversation, but Mandie didn't hear it. She was deep in her own thoughts.

She still couldn't understand why her father hadn't revealed the truth about her mother and stepmother. Her stepmother had been so unkind. Without Uncle Ned, her father's old Cherokee friend, Mandie wouldn't have found her Uncle John and her real mother.
Maybe Grandmother doesn't want me because my father was half Cherokee
, she thought.

Suddenly Mandie realized that someone was talking to her. “I'm sorry, Mother, I didn't understand what you said,” she apologized.

“Miss Prudence was saying that we may use the guest room on this floor to freshen up. It'll soon be time to go to the dining room,” her mother explained.

Mandie quickly rose. “Yes, ma'am. That would be a good idea.”

Miss Prudence led the way down the hallway. “Right this way,” she said. “Of course, Elizabeth, you know where it is. I don't think
we've changed a thing since you were a student here. We haven't even installed those new electric lights everyone is talking about.”

She stopped at the guest-room doorway. “I'll meet you in the dining room at twelve sharp. The other girls have already arrived. We can accommodate only twenty at the table at a time, so we have two sittings.”

“Then you have twice as many girls now as you did when I was here.” Elizabeth smiled. “We'll be prompt.”

The guest room was beautifully decorated. A handsome four-poster bed stood in the middle of the floor. Clean towels and a large ceramic bowl and pitcher of water waited on a washstand in the corner. But going to a door in the far wall by the fireplace, Elizabeth found a bathroom, complete with water tank high on the wall, and a chain to pull for flushing the commode. There was a bathtub standing on four feet that looked like claws, and an enormous marble lavatory with cut glass handles on the faucets.

“This is lovely. I should be out shortly,” Elizabeth said, closing the bathroom door behind her.

Uncle John sat down in a velvet-covered chair near the bed. “I'll rest here,” he said.

“Me too,” Mandie added. Plopping down onto a footstool, she removed her bonnet and gloves, and discarded her small purse on the floor. She was wearing a very proper traveling dress of brown silk and matching buttoned shoes, white silk stockings under the long, full skirt, and white gloves with tiny pearl buttons. The outfit was only one of many that her mother had a seamstress make for Mandie's school term. Mandie was already tired of the fancy clothes. She sighed, propped her elbow on her knee, and rested her chin in her hand.

“Tired?” Uncle John asked.

“I'm so tired and disgusted already!” Mandie told him in a shaky voice. She fought back the tears.

“Come now, dear,” he said, reaching to pat her blonde head. “You promised us you would at least try it.”

“I know, Uncle John. It's just all so strange.” She took a deep breath to steady her voice. “I've never been in a place like this before.”

“It'll take time. But before you know it you'll be home for a holiday and telling us how much you like the school.”

“I'll try. But please tell Uncle Ned not to forget his promise to visit me on the first full moon. That will be Thursday of next week.”

“I will, Mandie. We all love that old Indian. I'm sure he'll keep his word to your father when he died to watch over you. He'll be here. You can depend on him.”

The sound of laughter and talking drifted down the hall. Uncle John looked at his pocket watch.

“Wash up, Mandie, and get your mother. It's time to eat.”

A few minutes later, Elizabeth led the way to the huge dining room where several girls stood behind chairs around the long table. Sparkling red glass dishes lay on the crisp white tablecloth, ready for the meal. The Shaws hesitated just inside the French doors. Miss Prudence entered from the opposite side of the room and motioned for them to sit near her at the head of the table.

Mandie reluctantly took her place behind the chair next to Uncle John. On the other side of her, a tall girl with black hair and deep black eyes stared at her without speaking, or even smiling.

Miss Prudence shook a little silver bell as she stood at the head of the table. “Young ladies,” she announced, “we will return our thanks.” Miss Prudence watched to see that every head was bowed and then spoke, “Our Gracious Heavenly Father, we thank Thee for this food of which we are about to partake, and ask Thy blessings on it and on all who are present. Amen. Please be seated.”

There was a scraping of chairs as they all sat down.

“Since everyone has arrived now,” Miss Prudence continued, “we would like you to get acquainted. Please introduce yourselves and tell us where you are from. We will begin with Etrulia and go around the table.”

The introductions began, but Mandie was too tense to remember the names.

Then the girl next to her spoke. “I'm April Snow,” the black-haired girl said in a rebellious tone, “and I'm from Nashville, Tennessee.”

There was silence and Mandie realized they were waiting for her to speak.

“My name is Amanda Shaw, Mandie for short, and I'm from Franklin,” she said, twisting her fingers together.

“And, young ladies,” Miss Prudence added, “these are Amanda's parents, Mr. and Mrs. John Shaw.”

John and Elizabeth smiled, but Mandie caught her breath. These were not her parents, plural. She had only one real parent—her mother. Miss Prudence knew that Uncle John was not Mandie's father. How could she say such a thing? Mandie wanted all the world to know that her dear father was Jim Shaw and that he was in heaven now. Mandie didn't dare speak up, but she realized it would be difficult to untangle Miss Prudence's remark.

At the end of the meal Miss Prudence stood again and rang the bell.

“Since classes don't begin until tomorrow,” she announced, “you may have the rest of the day to unpack and get to know one another.”

Everyone left quickly so that the table could be cleared and reset for the second seating. Miss Prudence took the opportunity to show the Shaws around.

On the main floor, they toured the dining room, kitchen, parlor, music room, library, and two classrooms. Miss Prudence's and Miss Hope's rooms were on this floor. A connecting room also served as the school office.

On the second floor, there were more classrooms, two huge bedrooms and two baths. Each bedroom had four double beds to accommodate eight girls. Mandie's room was on the third floor where the new students lived. There were three bedrooms with four double beds, two bathrooms, and more classrooms.

When they entered the last bedroom, Mandie was alarmed to find her trunk and bags standing at the foot of a huge bed.

“This is the room you will live in, Amanda,” Miss Prudence informed her. “You will share this bed with April Snow, and there will be six others rooming with you.”

Mandie cringed.
There's no privacy
, she thought,
not even to say my prayers!

Minutes later, in the alcove downstairs, Mandie tearfully kissed her mother and Uncle John good-bye. Then Uncle Cal took them back to the train station.

Mandie sat alone in the alcove for a long time, trying to compose herself before encountering any of the other girls. She whispered a prayer asking God to see her mother and Uncle John safely home, and to give her the strength to live up to her mother's wishes.

Finally she slipped down the hall and into the guest bathroom to bathe her face. Still not wanting to talk to anyone, she went out onto the veranda and sat in the swing. But April Snow found her anyway.

Standing squarely in front of Mandie, she said, “I would suggest that you get busy and unpack your things, or do something with them. They are in the way. Everyone else has finished unpacking.”

Mandie stood up quickly. “Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't stop to think—”

“There's no time to stop and think around here,” April interrupted. She sauntered off to the other side of the porch.

Mandie took a deep breath to control her anger and headed for her new sleeping quarters. She met some of the girls coming down the stairs, and when she got to the bedroom she realized that the others had indeed finished.

At the evening meal everyone seemed to be talking to everyone else. No one spoke to Mandie. She silently pushed the food around on her plate until Miss Prudence rang the bell and stood to recite the rules.

“Young ladies,” the schoolmistress began. “All lamps will be extinguished at ten o'clock each night. No one is allowed out of the room after that. Aunt Phoebe, Uncle Cal's wife, will knock on your
doors at seven in the morning to wake you. First breakfast sitting will be at seven-thirty. You are dismissed for the day now.”

Mandie spent the evening by herself in a rocker at the end of the veranda. No one approached her for conversation, and she was glad to be left alone in her misery.

When bedtime came, April informed Mandie which side of the bed she could have and demanded that Mandie not wriggle around, snore, or talk in her sleep. Mandie numbly agreed and crawled into her side of the bed—next to the wall.

Unable to sleep, Mandie lay very still, not wanting to disturb April. She wondered what her mother and Uncle John were doing. She missed her friends back home. The girl next door, Polly Cornwallis, had been sent to a school in Nashville. Mandie wondered if Polly liked her school.
I can't wait until next week
, she thought.
Then Uncle Ned will be here
. He truly cared about her. And he would give her a report on her other Indian friends and relatives. She hoped he would also have news from her special friend, Joe, Dr. Woodard's son.

Mandie turned her head on the pillow. She was worried about her kitten, Snowball, too. She had never left him before.

After what seemed like hours, Mandie could hear the girls' slow, even breathing around the room, and she decided that everyone else was asleep. Slowly and quietly, she crept out of the end of the bed. She slipped out into the hallway, barefooted and in her nightgown. She remembered seeing a window seat at the other end of the hall. On tiptoe she made her way there where she could sit, and look at the stars, and talk to God.

There was not one minute of privacy in this place.

Near the window seat Mandie noticed a small bedroom with only one bed. The room was right next to the stairs to the attic and the servants' stairway going down. Mandie wished she could have that room.

She thought of when she lived with her father and stepmother on the farm at Charley Gap. Everything was fine until her father died and her stepmother quickly remarried. She couldn't get rid
of Mandie soon enough. Uncle Ned had helped her find her Uncle John. She didn't even know about him until then. Mandie remembered the first time she met her mother. And then when Uncle John and her mother married, Mandie was excited to be part of a real family again.

Suddenly Mandie heard a sound of metal clanging and boards squeaking. The noise seemed to be coming from the attic above her. She froze, holding her breath and listening. But nothing else happened.

Maybe one of the servants sleeps in an attic room
, she thought. But then she remembered that Miss Prudence had said Uncle Cal and Aunt Phoebe had their own little cottage in the backyard. The other servants lived in town and came in during the day.
Oh, well, maybe it was a rat
. She took a deep breath, trying to dismiss her concern.

There! It did it again! The same noise. It couldn't be a rat
. Mandie wasn't going to wait to hear the noise again. She ran quietly back to her room.

Slipping into bed she lay awake, listening. Would she hear the noise again, or was her room too far away? The only sound was the deep breathing of the other girls.

With her thoughts still on the noise, she finally drifted off to sleep. Someday she would have to sneak up to the attic and investigate.

CHAPTER TWO

SILLY LESSONS

The next morning, Mandie dressed and appeared for breakfast. The other girls ignored her, but Mandie was content to be left alone.

The morning was spent in the classrooms with two young lady teachers who lived in town. When Mandie heard about the so-called social graces the girls were expected to learn, she silently rebelled.

“Each girl will practice walking up and down the hallway, balancing a book on her head,” Miss Cameron instructed. “This will correct your posture and develop that dainty step that all ladies have.”

The girls laughed.

Miss Cameron tapped her pencil on her desk. “That is not conduct becoming to a lady. You will show proper courtesy toward adults,” she said sternly. “And I assure you that carrying a book on your head without its falling is not easy, however frivolous it may sound.”