Mandie Collection, The: 4 (66 page)

“Oh, I’d like to learn to do that,” Mandie commented.

“Me too,” Celia said.

“It is not hard to learn, but Anna does not understand English. You would have to learn in Dutch,” Gretchen said.

“Does sign language vary for the different languages?” Jonathan asked.

“I am not sure, but I also form words with my lips to help her to understand,” Gretchen said. “Now, if you will come with me...Dieter must have your luggage in your rooms by now. And Anna will have your meal ready within the hour.”

The house only had two stories and was not huge like the other places in which they had stayed on their journey through Europe. Mandie, Celia, and Jonathan took in every detail as they went along the corridors. Gretchen first showed Mrs. Taft her rooms, which consisted of a small sitting room and a large bedroom. “The gentleman will be in the rooms next door to madam,” Gretchen told Mrs. Taft.

At that moment, Senator Morton came out of the next room. “We ’ve finished bringing in all the luggage,” he said. William and Dieter followed him out into the hallway.

“I will be taking a room in the barn, madam,” William said. “If you need me, all you have to do is send the maid.” He bowed slightly and turned to walk down the corridor.

Dieter smiled and followed him.

“Now, you, misses, will have a room together at the end of the hallway.” Gretchen pointed to her left as she spoke. “And you, young man, will have a room at the other end of the hallway.” She pointed to her right.

Mandie and Celia quickly inspected the room the maid had showed them.

“At least we have a bathroom. Snowball needs that when we go out and leave him,” Mandie remarked as she held tightly to the white kitten. Turning to Gretchen she asked, “Would it be possible for the manservant to get a box of sand and put it in our bathroom for Snowball?”

“Of course, miss. We did not know you would be bringing an animal,” Gretchen said, smiling. “I will have that done immediately.” She left to take care of it.

Once the door was shut, Mandie let Snowball down, and he roamed the room. She went to the heavy draperies and pulled them back to look outside. The girls were in a corner room with windows on both sides.

“Celia, look! I can see the windmill that William must have been talking about. Way over there. See it?” she said, pointing across the fields behind the house. The blades of the windmill were barely visible in the distance.

“Maybe we could go over for a closer look,” Celia suggested as she leaned forward and squinted her eyes.

“William said the miller and his family live to the west, by the windmill, remember?” Mandie said. “And a widow and her son live to the east. I don’t think we can see the east side from here. If we are on the west side of the house, then Jonathan would be on the east. We’ll have to ask him if he can see the lady’s house.”

“Right now we’d better clean up and change clothes,” Celia reminded her as she went to her trunk, unlocked it, and lifted the lid. “I’m going to hang up some of these clothes so they won’t be so wrinkled.” She took out dresses and hung them in the huge wardrobe.

“I guess I’d better hang my dresses, too,” Mandie said. As she quickly hung each one, she said, “I still wonder where that girl and young man who left the parade went.”

“Mandie, I don’t imagine we’ll ever find that out,” Celia said, slipping out of her traveling suit and pulling on a fresh, green voile dress. “We don’t even know who they were.”

“Well, you never know,” Mandie replied as she buttoned up her pale blue dress. “I know Grandmother will take us sightseeing here, because she always does wherever we go. We might just run into them somewhere. I would know their faces if I saw them again.”

The evening meal was served in a dining room that was about half the size of other places they had dined. Mandie looked around the table. It was still not as small as their dining room back home, but it was much more comfortable than the huge rooms they’d been in while in other countries.

“I think I’m going to like Holland,” Mandie remarked as Gretchen began serving the meal. “I feel more at home here.”

“Well, yes, I suppose you would,” Mrs. Taft replied from the end of the table. “But, remember, we are in the country. This is a country house. There are much more impressive places in the cities.” She turned back to converse with Senator Morton.

Mandie leaned toward Jonathan across the table and asked in a low voice, “Can you see the widow lady’s house, that William told us about, from your window? We saw the windmill and the place where the miller lives from ours.”

Jonathan nodded. “I saw a small cottage way off in the distance. I suppose that’s the one William referred to,” Jonathan told her. Then he asked, “Did you notice what position the windmill blades were in?”

“Oh, shucks,” Mandie said with a sigh. “I forgot all about that. But I’ll look when we go back to our room.” She looked at her grandmother, who was deep in conversation with the senator. “And as soon as we get a chance, I’d like to go down there and look at it.” She took a bite of the freshly baked bread.

Celia spoke up. “Your grandmother will take us sightseeing and we can see lots of windmills then.”

“But that’s not the same. We’re practically living on the same property as the windmill,” Mandie said.

“Be sure to look every chance you get to see what position the blades are in. Just tell me, and I’ll help you interpret what they mean,” Jonathan said.

“Do you think we could visit the miller and his family and get him to show us the windmill?” Mandie asked, laying down her fork.

“With or without your grandmother?” Jonathan teased.

“Well, you know, if we went by ourselves—” Mandie began.

Mrs. Taft interrupted, “Went where by yourselves, Amanda?”

Mandie felt a flush come over her face. She had thought her grandmother was absorbed in conversation with Senator Morton. She tried to explain. “You know that windmill near the home of the miller and
his family that William told us about? Well, we can see it from our bedroom window, and we thought if you and Senator Morton were too busy, we could go over there by ourselves and see it,” she said all in a rush.

“We’ll see about that,” Mrs. Taft said. “I do want you girls to see and learn everything you can about this country. I know Jonathan has lived here, and is well-informed because his ancestors came from here. But, Amanda, did I ever tell you that you are a descendant from a Pilgrim who sailed from Delfshaven Port not far from here? I intend to take you all over there.”

Mandie’s blue eyes lit with excitement as she replied, “But, Grandmother, how could that be? I’ve never heard that before.”

“You are descended through my mother’s family from way back, several great, great, great—offhand I can’t remember how many—grandmothers to the young Pilgrim girl who was our ancestor,” Mrs. Taft explained, and then added quickly, “You and I need to spend a lot more time together when we get back to North Carolina. There are lots of things I would like you to know about the family, things that your mother could care less about. I think you will someday write our family history.” She smiled at Mandie.

“Me? Write the family history? But, Grandmother, I wouldn’t know how to begin such a thing,” Mandie said in surprise.

“All you have to do is write down everything you see, hear, or read about our family. That will be a good beginning,” Mrs. Taft replied. She turned back to the senator.

“Sounds like an awfully big job,” Mandie said, looking at her friends.

“Not really,” Jonathan said. “I know people who have compiled our family history, and they work just as your grandmother said—recording everything.” He paused, then grinned as he said, “With your nose for mystery, I think you’d be great at it.” He took a sip of his hot tea.

“Jonathan, I do not have a
nose
for mystery,” Mandie told him curtly. “I have an analytical mind.” She drummed on her glass with her fingers.

“Whatever you call it, Mandie, I agree with Jonathan that you’d be good at it,” Celia told her around a mouthful of potatoes.

“And just think of all those family skeletons you’ll find. You’ll know all the family secrets,” Jonathan teased.

“Family skeletons? In the graveyard?” Mandie asked.

“No. Family skeletons are things that the family would like to keep hidden—maybe a bad deed someone has done, or an illegitimate child, or even a murder, maybe,” Jonathan told her.

“A murder?” Mandie was shocked. “In our family?”

“Now, I didn’t say there
was
one in your family,” Jonathan quickly responded. “But some people do uncover such things when tracing their ancestors.”

“Well, I don’t think I’ll be tracing my ancestors. I know my Cherokee kinpeople and that’s all I care about,” Mandie said. “Jonathan, do you have any relatives here in Holland?” She began eating the fish on her plate.

“Oh, no, they’re all dead. Our family came to the United States over a hundred years ago,” Jonathan explained. He took a bite of bread and washed it down with more tea. “This bread is absolutely the best I’ve had in Europe.”

“I agree,” Celia said, eating a piece herself.

Mrs. Taft spoke from the end of the table, “How about less talk and more eating? I’d like to go for a walk as soon as we’re finished.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the three chorused as they quickly cleaned off their plates.

After they had finished the meal, Mrs. Taft and Senator Morton led the way down narrow lanes that wound through the fields full of colorful flowers and shrubs toward the widow’s cottage. The three young people followed, bending now and then to smell or admire a particular flower.

“I do wish Grandmother had gone in the direction of the windmill,” Mandie said to her friends. Snowball walked along at the end of his red leash.

“But, Mandie, it will be dark soon. We’ll see it tomorrow in the daylight,” Celia reminded her.

“We could at least have had a closer glimpse of it,” Mandie replied.

“Has your grandmother made plans for tomorrow yet?” Jonathan asked.

“I don’t know,” Mandie said. “She mentioned the Delfshaven Port at the table tonight, you know, and I remember hearing her say something while we were in Belgium about the Delftware factory here.”

“They both sound like interesting places,” Celia said as they trailed along.

“At least more interesting than those stuffy old museums we always have to visit,” Jonathan said with a smile.

“Don’t count on it. We may still have to visit another one,” Mandie said. “As far as I am concerned, I don’t give a flip for all those antique paintings done by people who died so many years ago. I’m more interested in the here and now, and the future.”

“But Mrs. Taft was nice enough to bring us on this journey to Europe, so we have to go wherever she wants to,” Celia reminded the other two.

“Now wait a minute. She didn’t bring me to Europe,” Jonathan corrected her. “I came on my own.”

“But she agreed to take you with us until your father comes to get you. Besides, when we met up with you, you were on one of
her
ships, remember?” Mandie said.

Jonathan smiled and said, “I know. I owe her a lot. I do hope my aunt and uncle in Paris stay home there long enough for me to visit them when you all go back to the United States.”

Mandie suddenly stopped and squinted. There was someone walking through the flowers a long way ahead.

“Look! I see someone up ahead,” she told her friends, pointing.

Celia and Jonathan paused to look.

“Well, what’s so unusual about that?” Jonathan asked.

“He’s coming this way,” Mandie said, excitedly walking on down the trail. Snowball tried to race ahead on his leash.

Mrs. Taft and Senator Morton were a long way ahead of them now, because the young people had stopped so often to examine the flowers and to talk.

Celia and Jonathan looked at each other and then followed Mandie. Mrs. Taft turned to glance back and motioned for them to come ahead.

As Mandie watched the figure, he seemed to zigzag across the field, sometimes coming toward them, and then turning the other way. Finally she was near enough to recognize the young man. He was the one who had left the parade! She hurried toward him and raised her free hand to wave. The man stopped in surprise, took a good look at the three young people, and then turned and ran in the other direction.

Mandie stopped. “Now why did he run away?” she asked as she watched the figure disappear among the flowers.

“It was the man from the parade, wasn’t it?” Celia asked as she stopped by Mandie’s side.

“Yes, it was, and I can’t figure out why he turned back the other way when he saw us,” Mandie said, holding on to Snowball’s leash. “He acted like he didn’t want to get near us.”

“Are you
sure
he was the man from the parade?” Jonathan asked.

“Yes, he was. Celia thought so, too, didn’t you, Celia?” Mandie asked.

“I’m positive,” Celia replied.

“He’s gone now,” Jonathan said.

“He acted awfully strange. Maybe he didn’t want us to see him for some reason, but I can’t imagine why,” Mandie said as the three walked on to catch up with the adults. “I’ll have to think about that. Maybe we’ll see him again.”

CHAPTER THREE

WINDMILL BLADES IN THE WRONG POSITION

They circled the fields and returned to the house as the sun slipped away. Mrs. Taft and Senator Morton walked ahead.

At the doorway, Mrs. Taft turned to say, “I think we should all go to our rooms and get some sleep. We will be going to Delfshaven Port tomorrow—and whatever else there is time for.”

“Could we have a cup of tea before we retire?” Mandie asked as they entered the front door and stood by the open doorway to the parlor.

“You’d like some tea?” Mrs. Taft questioned with surprise. Mandie was a coffee drinker and usually spurned tea.

“Yes, ma’am,” the three young people chorused.

Gretchen had entered the hallway and overheard their conversation. “Yes, yes, good idea! I will have some brewing for you. Sit in the parlor and I will be right back with it,” she said with a big smile as she went through a doorway at the end of the hallway.