Mandie Collection, The: 4 (52 page)

“Daddy! Daddy!” Mandie exclaimed as her eyes filled with tears. “I love you, Daddy!”

Suddenly Mandie woke to find Celia shaking her. Mandie rubbed her eyes and sat up. The dream of her father had been so real and now here she was in the hotel in Belgium.

“Mandie, you must have been dreaming,” Celia told her as she sat down on the side of Mandie’s bed.

“Oh, Celia, I was dreaming of my father. I wish I could go back to sleep and see him again,” Mandie cried, her blue eyes brimming with tears.

Celia reached for her hand. “I know,” she said. “You were talking to him in your sleep. I dream of my father, too, sometimes. It’s a jolt to wake up and find that it was all a dream.”

“He was telling me to forgive. It was just like he knew I had an argument with my grandmother,” Mandie said, sitting up on the bed. “And, Celia, I’ve thought a lot about what happened to my mother and father because of my grandmother when she separated them. I suppose my father forgave Grandmother but, you know, he never even told me a thing about all that.”

“I know. Uncle Ned told you about your Uncle John when your father died and then your Uncle John told you about your mother,” Celia replied.

“I know I have to forgive Grandmother for what she said to me today, but it’s awfully hard to figure out how to forgive,” Mandie said, drying her eyes with the hem of her long skirt.

“The way I do it, Mandie, I make the decision to forgive whoever it is and then I ask their forgiveness. But you really have to mean it when you do this. You have to feel in your heart that you can forget and that you won’t let whatever it was come up in your feelings toward that person again,” Celia said.

“That’s hard for me to do,” Mandie said. “I have to keep telling myself that I must forgive because I have done things, too, to other people. And I sure wouldn’t want them to hold things against me for the rest of my life.”

Celia stood up. “It’s time we got dressed, Mandie.” She looked at the clock. “We only have three quarters of an hour to be ready.”

Mandie jumped off the bed and said, “I have to hurry because I want to talk to my grandmother before we go out to eat.”

The girls chose clean dresses from the wardrobe and took turns in the bathroom. Celia allowed Mandie to go first so she could have time to see her grandmother.

Mandie quickly buttoned up her pale blue silk dress and tied the cream-colored lace Bertha collar at the front. She brushed out her long blond hair and tied it back with a blue ribbon, leaving the ends swinging free. Looking through her hat box, she selected a cream-colored lacy bonnet and laid it on a nearby table.

Then turning to Celia who was putting on a pea green silk dress, she said, “I’ll be back in a few minutes. I’m going to see Grandmother.”

“I’ll wait here until you get back,” Celia replied as she shook out her long skirt.

As Mandie opened the door to the hallway, she came face-to-face with a maid who was about to knock.

“Food for the kitty,” the young girl said as she stood there with a bowl in her hand.

“Oh, thank you. Please put it in the bathroom for him,” Mandie told her and hurried down the hallway to her grandmother’s suite.

Mrs. Taft was so slow in answering her knock that Mandie was beginning to think her grandmother might have gone out. Finally she opened the door enough to see who it was. She just stood there looking at Mandie.

“May I come in, Grandmother?” Mandie asked. She noticed her grandmother was fully dressed and ready to leave.

Mrs. Taft didn’t answer but opened the door wide. Mandie stepped inside. She thought her grandmother was acting awfully strange. The woman had not said a word but was evidently waiting for Mandie to explain why she had come to her grandmother’s rooms.

“Grandmother,” Mandie began hesitantly as she stood before her.

“Yes,” Mrs. Taft said, waiting for Mandie to go on.

Mandie tried hard to ask her grandmother’s forgiveness, but the words choked in her throat. Even though she knew she should put past acts of her grandmother out of her mind, she was numb and speechless. Mrs. Taft looked as though she was still angry with Mandie.

“Well?” Mrs. Taft said.

Mandie quickly swallowed and turned to leave the room. “Celia and I are ready to go,” she said as she stepped into the hallway.

“All right, Amanda,” Mrs. Taft replied. “As soon as Senator Morton lets me know we’ll be by your rooms.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Mandie quickly said and hurried back down the hallway.

Mandie was angry with herself. Why couldn’t she bring herself to ask for her grandmother’s forgiveness? Her heart fluttered as she thought,
Am I becoming so hardhearted I can’t forgive anymore? Oh, I need Uncle Ned to talk to! I wish he’d hurry up and get here
. And most of all she wished she could talk to her father again, even though in a dream. But then she remembered her reaction to her father’s advice while she was dreaming. She had not answered him at all that she could remember.

Celia was waiting. Snowball was licking his paws after gobbling down the food the maid had brought. Mandie walked into the room and sat on a nearby chair. She didn’t know what to say to Celia because she had not accomplished a thing by going to her grandmother’s room.

“Grandmother will be by after us as soon as Senator Morton lets her know he is ready,” Mandie remarked as she jumped up and walked around the room.

Celia looked at her friend and said, “I hope we go somewhere nice to eat, but I also hope they have food that I know what I’m eating.” She laughed.

Mandie smiled at her, plopped down on the settee by her, and replied, “That will be one wonderful thing about getting back home, won’t it? No one cooks like Aunt Lou and Jenny, and they have promised to teach me as soon as I have time.”

“I know,” Celia said, pushing back her long auburn curls. “My mother wants me to learn, too, someday.”

“If we didn’t have to go to school in Asheville and live there all the school year, we’d have a whole lot more time to do other things, wouldn’t we?” Mandie said.

“Yes, but my mother says school is more important than anything else, especially Misses Heathwood’s School that we board in,” Celia replied.

There was a knock at their door and Celia ran to open it. Jonathan stood there, in fresh clothes, with his dark hair washed and dried, grinning mischievously.

“Oh, hello, I thought you would be Mandie’s grandmother,” Celia told him as she pushed the door wide open.

“She and Senator Morton are on the way. I am to give you girls instructions to get your bonnets on. We’re off to a restaurant somewhere,” Jonathan said teasingly.

Mandie and Celia quickly put on their bonnets, straightened their long skirts, and joined Jonathan in the hallway after Mandie shut Snowball in the bathroom. They caught up with Mrs. Taft and Senator Morton down the corridor as they headed for the elevator. Although Mandie really preferred the steps since the elevator always made her stomach turn over, she didn’t say a word as they all stepped inside. She looked at her grandmother, who seemed to have ears only for the senator as
he discussed some sightseeing suggestions. Mandie held her stomach and closed her eyes as the elevator descended with a jerky motion.

The young people were silent until they went through the huge front door of the hotel. Then the senator told them, “The restaurant where we plan to dine is within walking distance so I didn’t engage a carriage. We’ll walk in this direction.” He turned left up the avenue.

Mrs. Taft, alongside the senator, cautioned the young people, “Please be sure you stay right behind us now.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the three chorused.

“When do you girls want to go back to that old boat?” Jonathan asked under his breath.

“As soon as we get a chance,” Mandie replied. “I have been thinking about how we can get on that boat and you know, I believe I remember seeing a rope hanging over the edge of it, do y’all?”

Celia shook her head. “No, I don’t.”

Jonathan thought for a moment and said, “You may be right. With all that tumble I took I don’t know for sure. What good would a rope on the boat do?”

Mandie said softly as she noted the adults were conversing between themselves, “If we could reach it we could swing on it over to the boat.”

“If there is a rope it may not be secured at the other end, Mandie. Besides, I don’t know how we would reach it,” Jonathan said.

“If we could find something long enough to reach over and poke it, we might be able to pull it to us,” Mandie said. “After all, the boat isn’t that far away from the pier.”

“I’m not sure it’s possible but we can always try,” Jonathan said softly. “But when?”

“If it isn’t too late when we return to the hotel and if it isn’t too dark, we could run down there and see what we could do,” Mandie whispered.

“Mandie!” Celia said. “This is a strange town to us and we shouldn’t go wandering around at night.”

“You don’t have to go, Celia,” Mandie said, smiling at her friend. “I won’t get mad.”

“You know if you insist on solving things, I always have to go with you, just to be sure that you don’t get in trouble for one thing,” Celia said, laughing softly as she looked at Mandie.

The adults suddenly slowed down in front of them and Mrs. Taft turned back to say, “This is the restaurant. It’s a well-known exclusive place so please be on your best behavior, all three of you.”

The young people all chorused, “Yes, ma’am,” and followed the adults through a fancy arched doorway into a huge dining room. Crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling over white linen-covered tables. Massive green draperies covered the floor-length windows surrounding the room. At the far end three musicians were playing classical music.

The host showed them to a table near a window. Potted plants hovered around the room and created a little privacy for tables here and there. But when Mandie sat down she discovered she had a clear view of the other diners. Jonathan and Celia were seated on either side of her, with the adults across the table.

When Senator Morton translated the menu for them, Mandie was delighted to find the restaurant had listed fried chicken with hot rolls.

“Fried chicken!” she exclaimed. “I’ll have that.”

“Me too,” Celia quickly added.

“And I suppose me, too,” Jonathan said. “It sounds like the best thing on the menu.”

Senator Morton told them, “I’d better explain something to y’all. You know people in different countries don’t cook like everyone else so you may not get what we called fried chicken back home.”

“That’s all right as long as it’s chicken,” Mandie said. “At least I’ll know what I’m eating.”

Her friends agreed. The senator and Mrs. Taft decided to try it, too. When the waiter had left with their order, Mrs. Taft looked at the young people and asked, “Did y’all get some rest this afternoon?”

“Yes, ma’am,” the three chorused. Mandie dropped her gaze. Jonathan grinned mischievously and Celia smiled.

“Do y’all feel up to walking a mile or two after we eat?” Mrs. Taft asked. “Senator Morton says there’s a beautiful park about that far up the avenue and I thought some exercise after eating would be good for us.”

“A park?” Jonathan questioned.

Senator Morton explained, “Oh, it’s full of things to do, swings, carousels, and trails through flower beds and that sort of thing. I think y’all would enjoy it.” He smiled at them.

“Oh yes,” Mandie agreed.

“That would be fun,” Celia added.

“That’s better than sightseeing,” Jonathan said.

“Since you young people don’t seem interested in exploring the city, I thought the park might get your attention,” Mrs. Taft said, smiling at Jonathan. Then she glanced at Mandie. Mandie tried a feeble smile and then dropped her gaze.

When the waiter returned with the food, the young people were delighted to find the fried chicken was really fried chicken even though it did have a faintly different taste from what they got back home. And the rolls were delicious. The three ate as though they hadn’t been fed in a week.

The host came by their table to check on their food, and Mandie told him, “This fried chicken is the best food I’ve had since I left home.”

The tall dark-haired man smiled and said, “It is practically from your back home. Our cook is American. She married one of our men and came here to live.”

“That’s wonderful!” Mrs. Taft spoke up. “We’ll have to come back again while we’re in Antwerp.”

“Yes, she does a lot of American cooking for us,” the man said. “I appreciate that you enjoy it. I will tell her.”

No time was wasted dawdling over food. The young people cleaned their plates and were ready to go. As soon as Mrs. Taft and Senator Morton were finished they left for the park.

There wasn’t a chance to talk among themselves as they walked up the avenue because Senator Morton kept acting like a tour guide and pointing out famous landmarks along the way. With other plans on their minds the young people didn’t absorb much of the information. But when they saw the park with its many attractions and beautiful flowers and shrubs, the three immediately became interested.

“We’ll just walk around a little while, and then the senator and I will sit somewhere while you three enjoy the attractions,” Mrs. Taft told them as she and Senator Morton led the group down a winding pathway.

Mandie and her friends were enchanted with the beautiful flowers, the fish ponds, the arched bridges over flowing streams, and the alcoves for sitting and resting.

“Oh, this is like a fairy tale!” Mandie exclaimed, following the adults.

“Yes, it is,” Celia agreed.

“Since I don’t read fairy tales, I wouldn’t know, but I can see some swings and a carousel through the bushes over there,” Jonathan said, pointing to their left.

Mrs. Taft turned back to say, “We’re going in that direction but the pathway is winding. The senator and I will rest on some seats over there and you three may swing or ride the carousel. But please remember, you are not to get out of our sight, is that understood?”

“Yes, ma’am,” the three agreed.

As they came into the opening Mandie and her friends hurried ahead to the swings. Mrs. Taft and Senator Morton sat down nearby within view.