Mandie Collection, The: 4 (20 page)

“No, madam. They preferred to have something in their rooms, so they could rest,” the housekeeper explained. “They will be down tonight.”

The young maid who had taken Snowball to the kitchen returned without the kitten. Mrs. Taft assured Mrs. Hedgewick that everything was fine, so the housekeeper left the room.

The maids hovered around the table, serving the food and filling cups, so that Mandie and her friends were hesitant to say much to each other during the meal. Even Mrs. Taft seemed unusually quiet, and

Senator Morton, who never had much to say, was silent. Uncle Ned, still in his deerskin jacket, quietly observed everything.

Mandie, unable to determine what some of the food was, ate only familiar foods and hot rolls, and Celia only nibbled at certain things. Mandie noticed Jonathan partook of everything that was offered to him.

Uncle Ned spoke to Mandie across the table, “We eat, then we talk, Papoose.”

Mandie quickly smiled at him and said, “Oh, yes, Uncle Ned. As soon as we are finished eating we can talk.”

Mrs. Taft, overhearing them, said, “I thought we could all go for a walk after this wonderful meal. Unless you have something important to discuss with Amanda, Uncle Ned.”

“No. We talk later. Walk first,” Uncle Ned agreed. He smiled and sipped his coffee.

Mandie sighed in disappointment. She knew her Indian friend must have something important to talk about, or he wouldn’t have made a point of mentioning it to her. But they wouldn’t have a chance to talk privately with her grandmother around. She’d just have to wait.

Mrs. Taft glanced around the table. “If everyone is finished, shall we go outside?”

Everyone got up, and Mandie asked the maid for Snowball.

“I will have him here in a whisk,” the girl told her as she left the room.

Mandie felt her ribbon slip from her hair as she stood. As she reached for it, her hair loosened.

“Grandmother, I need to re-pin my hair,” Mandie said, as the maid came back with Snowball and Mandie took his leash.

“Go ahead, dear, we’ll be right outside the front door, waiting,” Mrs. Taft told her, as she and Senator Morton started to leave the room.

“I’ll go with her,” Celia said, following Mandie through the doorway.

“I think I’ll run up to my room a minute, too,” Jonathan added.

Mrs. Taft looked at the young people and shook her head. “Now be sure you all get back down in a few minutes. We will be waiting.” Turning to Uncle Ned, she said, “Come on, Uncle Ned, let’s get some fresh air.”

Taking no time to talk along the way, Mandie, Celia, and Jonathan
hurried toward their rooms. Nearing Jonathan’s door, they found the door to the strangers’ suite partly open. They slowed their steps as they approached the door and heard talking inside the room.

“Well, at least we got inside the house,” the man was saying.

“Yes, but it may not do us any good because of the other guests,” said the woman.

The three young people stopped in their tracks.

The man continued, “I don’t think that makes any difference. They are Americans, after all.”

Snowball lurched unexpectedly, jerking the leash out of Mandie’s hand. She went after him.

“Snowball, come back here!” she called.

Jonathan and Celia followed, hearing the strangers’ door close as they passed it. Snowball got to the end of the hall and stopped.

Jonathan opened the door to his suite. “I’ll be out in a minute. I’ll wait for you girls here in the hall.”

“All right,” Mandie said as she and Celia entered their suite. Mandie went to the mirror, picked up her comb, and began working on her hair.

“What do you think they were talking about, Celia?” Mandie asked.

“Us, I guess,” Celia said.

“I know that,” Mandie said, pushing a hairpin into her hair. “But it sounded to me like they were up to something.”

“Yes, it did,” Celia agreed. “Let’s hurry and discuss it with Jonathan”

“Yes, let’s do,” Mandie said, shoving the last hairpin into her thick blond hair.

Jonathan was waiting for them in the hallway, and the three hurried back toward the stairs. Mandie held tightly to Snowball’s leash.

“If Snowball hadn’t run away, we’d probably have heard more,” Mandie said.

“We’ll just have to keep our eyes and ears open,” Jonathan said.

“We sure will. I believe those people are up to something, and I’m going to find out what it is,” Mandie said.

“Maybe,” Jonathan teased.

Mandie tossed her head and led the way down the stairs.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE ROOM AT THE TOP

Halfway down the stairs Mandie stopped suddenly, causing Celia and Jonathan to bump into her.

“I’m sorry,” she said in a low voice. “Jonathan, we need to talk to you.”

“About what?” Jonathan asked.

“I’ll explain later. My grandmother will be wondering where we are,” Mandie said, rushing on down the stairs with Snowball in her arms.

When they got outside, Mrs. Taft, Senator Morton, and Uncle Ned were admiring the house from where they stood near the driveway.

“It’s such an interesting structure,” Mrs. Taft was saying as Mandie approached her. She turned. “Don’t y’all agree?”

“Yes, ma’am, it is,” Mandie replied. She set Snowball down and held on to his leash. “I think it’s awfully interesting,” she added, giving a knowing smile to her friends.
If Grandmother just knew how interesting the three of us really think it is!

Senator Morton and Mrs. Taft led the way down a crooked path, and Mandie tugged at Uncle Ned’s sleeve to get his attention as they followed.

Mandie whispered, “We need to talk!”

“Soon,” the old Indian said, smiling down at her.

“Real soon, please, Uncle Ned,” Mandie said in a low voice.

“Yes,” Uncle Ned promised.

After the group had followed the pathway a distance from the chalet, the ground became rough and steep and Mrs. Taft stopped ahead of them.

“I think we’d better turn around and go back,” she said. “There’s a down-slope ahead.”

The others caught up with her to take a look. Mandie thought it looked awfully steep, but she wanted to get away from everyone and talk with Uncle Ned. She purposely released Snowball’s leash.

“Amanda! Snowball is loose!” Mrs. Taft said, turning suddenly to her granddaughter as the white kitten raced past her long skirts and on down the steep trail.

“Snowball!” Mandie called, as she watched him scamper away.

“Amanda, you’d better go get him,” Mrs. Taft sighed. “I must find a place to sit and rest. Please be careful!”

“I don’t believe there’s a place to sit until we go back up the pathway,” Senator Morton told her.

“Uncle Ned, would you please help Amanda catch her cat? I’m afraid she might fall on that steep bank,” Mrs. Taft told him.

“I go.” Uncle Ned nodded and hurried after Mandie.

Jonathan and Celia followed, too, while Mrs. Taft and Senator Morton walked back the way they had come.

Snowball scampered down the pathway, stopping now and then to look back at his mistress. Finally his leash, trailing loose from the harness, caught on a bush and brought him to a sudden halt near a retaining wall.

“Aha! I caught you,” Mandie said, rushing forward to pick him up.

“Sit,” Uncle Ned said to the young people as he gestured toward the low wall. “We talk.”

As soon as they sat down, everyone started to talk at once. Uncle Ned raised his hand. “Wait!” Turning to Mandie, he asked, “Did Papoose tell Jonathan boy about last night?”

“No, Uncle Ned. I’m sorry, but I forgot all about it,” Mandie replied, as she hooked Snowball’s leash onto a bush.

“Tell me what?” Jonathan quickly asked.

“About last night,” Mandie said, and with Celia’s help she told him
about the noises they had heard. She watched his face, as Uncle Ned had suggested earlier. Jonathan seemed truly surprised.

“Why didn’t you knock on my door or call me or something?” the boy asked.

“Because we were afraid to go out into the hallway,” Mandie said.

“Well, if anything like this happens again, just open your door and yell loud as you can. I think I’d be able to hear you,” Jonathan told the girls. “But I think this needs looking in to. Have you told anyone else about it?”

“No, we don’t know any of the servants really,” Mandie replied. “And if I told my grandmother, it would only upset her, or she wouldn’t believe us.”

“But it really did happen! Both of us heard the noises and saw the doorknob move,” Celia added.

“I stay next door, Papoose. I wait. I watch,” Uncle Ned promised. “I find who make noise.” He stood up to go.

“Wait, Uncle Ned,” Mandie said, motioning for him to sit down again. “We have more to tell you.”

“Must hurry,” the Indian said, sitting down.

The three related what they had overheard from the new guests.

“I think they’re up to something,” Mandie said.

Uncle Ned listened thoughtfully, then said, “May be right. But Papoose leave this to me. I find out what going on.”

“We won’t tell anyone else, Uncle Ned, but we’re going to be watching and listening,” Mandie said. “Now that we’ve told you everything we know, tell us what the mystery is about this place. What were you talking about when you told us in Italy that there was a mystery about this house?”

Uncle Ned cleared his throat and looked from one to the other as the three waited.

“Old tales,” he began. “Villagers say young papoose die with broken heart. Not allowed to marry true love. Her mother and father think love is not good. Some say papoose jumped from window of tower, kill herself. They hear her singing still—at night.”

As Uncle Ned related the story, the three young people sat with open mouths and wide eyes. Then everyone tried to speak at once.

“I heard singing last night!” Celia said.

“So did I, but I thought I was dreaming,” Mandie said.

“Well, I heard the singing, too, but I figured it was one of the servants off on a lark,” Jonathan said.

“The tower!” Mandie exclaimed. “Uncle Ned, Eckart, the stable boy, told us the tower was haunted, but then he wouldn’t talk about it. And we’ve tried to find out how to get into it, but there just doesn’t seem to be any way.”

Uncle Ned looked at Mandie and said sternly, “Papoose must not snoop around strange house. Private business.”

“But if we could solve the mystery then the village people would stop telling tales about the house!” Mandie said.

“I’d think the owners would be grateful for a solution to the problem,” Jonathan added.

“And the servants wouldn’t be afraid anymore,” Celia said.

Uncle Ned got up and warned them, “Must not do dangerous things. Grandmother not like either, Papoose. We go now.”

Mandie took Snowball’s leash from the bush and picked him up. “We’ll just keep our eyes and ears open,” Mandie said, as they started back up the steep path.

“Papoose must behave,” Uncle Ned admonished her. “And you, and you, too,” he said, turning to Celia and Jonathan.

As they passed a huge tree along the path, Mandie caught a glimpse of a man who seemed to be watching them. Evidently seeing her look at him, he quickly ran off into the woods.

“A man was watching us,” Mandie gasped, pointing toward the tree.

“I know,” Celia and Jonathan both said.

“Man work here,” Uncle Ned said simply.

“He works here?” Mandie asked.

“Plant flowers,” the Indian added, taking Mandie’s hand to help her over a rocky place in the path.

Jonathan and Celia were holding hands to keep from slipping on the rough terrain.

“I wonder why he was watching us and how long he’d been standing there. Maybe he heard what we were talking about,” Mandie said.

Finally they came within sight of Mrs. Taft and Senator Morton, who had found a bench beside a flower bed.

“How did you know who he was, Uncle Ned?” Celia asked.

“See him plant flowers when we go down path,” Uncle Ned replied.

“We didn’t even notice him,” Mandie said. “You see everything, Uncle Ned.”

“Not everything, Papoose,” Uncle Ned said, smiling.

When they reached Mrs. Taft and the senator, they all started back toward the chalet. As they approached the front door, Mrs. Taft said, “It must be getting near teatime, and I’d like to meet the other guests. Let’s look for the maid.”

Everyone agreed and they went inside. “I’m anxious to get a closer look at the strangers,” Jonathan remarked.

“And I’m anxious to find out how to get into the tower,” Mandie said softly.

“Remember what Uncle Ned said,” Celia reminded her.

“I will,” Mandie assured her.

The housekeeper was in the front hallway and she hurried toward Mrs. Taft. “Would madam like tea now?”

“Oh, yes, please,” Mrs. Taft said.

Mrs. Hedgewick led the way to the parlor, and left them to order tea. Mandie closed the huge double doors in order to allow Snowball to roam.

As they waited for tea they all discussed their tours through Europe so far. They had docked in London and had traveled to Paris and Rome. From Switzerland they would go to visit a baroness who had invited them to her castle in Germany.

“Oh, Grandmother, I am having such a wonderful time!” Mandie exclaimed, but then grew solemn as she added, “But I do wonder what my mother and Uncle John are doing while I’m gone.”

Mrs. Taft was sitting on a dark red velvet sofa with Senator Morton. “I’m sure your mother is fine, dear. Your Uncle John has taken good care of her since their marriage, and I know they’re both happy.”

“Yes, and with the new baby they probably don’t even miss me,” Mandie said, straightening her long skirt and looking down at her feet. Celia, sitting by her side, drew in a deep breath. She knew it was a touchy subject—that new baby.

“Amanda, you shouldn’t say things like that,” Mrs. Taft reprimanded her. “When will you realize that your mother and your Uncle John don’t love you one iota less since that baby came?”

“I know. I’m sorry, Grandmother. I guess I just miss my mother,” Mandie said, and then she quickly added, “But I can’t have everything; I had to leave my mother to come on this journey. I’ll really try to love the baby when I get back home.”