Leppard, Lois Gladys - [Mandie 04] (2 page)

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.

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.”

At first Mandie thought the task was impossible. Then she learned to go very slowly and hold her breath.

The next lesson was how to stoop properly to pick up something from the floor.

“A lady never bends forward with her posterior in the
air,” Miss Cameron informed them. “You must always bend your knees and slowly lower your body until your hand can reach the desired object. Then you slowly straighten up, smoothing your skirts as you stand.”

This exercise made Mandie feel like an old lady too feeble to bend.

And then Miss Cameron offered instructions on how a lady controls her voice. “A lady never, never shouts,” she said. “Even when she is angry, she keeps her voice under control. A lady never talks loudly to someone too far away to hear normal conversation. She walks over to the person to talk to them, rather than yelling from a distance.”

Such silly stuff
, Mandie thought. She was thoroughly disgusted with the school.
How could I ever endure it without God’s help?
she wondered.

At the noon meal Miss Prudence introduced a new girl who had just arrived. She sat on the other side of Mandie.

“Young ladies, this is Celia Hamilton from Richmond,” Miss Prudence told them. “She will occupy the small vacant room on the third floor.”

Mandie turned to the tall, slender girl with thick, curly auburn hair and looked into the saddest eyes she had ever seen.

Mandie’s heart went out to her. She smiled and said, “Welcome.”

“Thank you,” Celia answered with a faraway look in her green eyes.

Neither said anything more, and when Miss Prudence dismissed them after the meal, Mandie had to go on to the next class on her list.

Celia didn’t show up for supper. Miss Prudence announced that the new girl was tired from her trip and was excused from the evening meal so that she could retire early.

After the dining room had been cleared, Mandie and the others went out onto the veranda. Mandie sat alone while the other girls talked in small groups. After a while, Mandie went to the kitchen to get a drink of water.

As she pushed open the swinging door, Mandie almost collided with an old Negro woman who was tidying up the kitchen.

“I’m sorry,” she quickly apologized.

The woman stopped working and stared at her. “Lawsy mercy, if you ain’t Miz Lizbeth all over agin.”

Mandie smiled and held out her hand.

“You must be Aunt Phoebe, Uncle Cal’s wife. He said you’d say that when you saw me.” Mandie giggled. “I’m Amanda Shaw, Elizabeth Shaw’s daughter. They call me Mandie.”

“And why ain’t dat man tole me Miz Lizbeth’s got a daughter and dat she be right heah under my nose.” Aunt Phoebe put her arm around the girl and gave her a big squeeze. “Lawsy mercy, Missy Manda. I sho’ am proud to have you heah.”

“I’m not so glad to be here, Aunt Phoebe,” Mandie confided.

“Heah, lemme git you a glass of dis heah milk I’se puttin’ ’way and you set right down theah and tell old Phoebe what be wrong.”

The woman quickly poured a glass of milk from the pitcher on the sideboard and handed it to Mandie. She motioned to the table in the corner. They sat down, and soon Mandie was opening her heart to Aunt Phoebe and telling her all her troubles.

“So, you see, Aunt Phoebe, I really don’t want to be here,” Mandie admitted. “I think it’s a prissy school. I don’t care about learning all those silly things they’ve been teaching
us today. I’m not that kind of person. I love to live the way God intended we should—walk, chase butterflies, watch birds, and maybe even climb trees,” she added with a big grin.

“Missy Manda, you sho’ not like yo’ mother when she yo’ age. She liked to dress up and act like a lady.”

“But my mother was brought up that way. I wasn’t. I lived in the mountains in a log cabin almost all my life, and my friends are not society people. Why, my best friends are Indians and country people who would make fun of these put-on airs.” Mandie whirled the empty glass on the table.

“But now you live wid yo’ mother. You got to live de way she do,” Aunt Phoebe reminded her. “Her pa was a rich man. And now she be married to Mistuh John Shaw. He be de richest man dis side o’ Richmon’.”

Mandie laughed. “That’s exactly what Liza said about Uncle John.”

“And who be Liza?”

“Liza is my friend. She works at Uncle John’s house in Franklin.” Mandie smiled. “She’s always getting into trouble with Aunt Lou. Aunt Lou is the boss. She runs the house for Uncle John.”

“Dey be my kind o’ people? Dark skinned?”

“Yes, Aunt Phoebe. Why, you even remind me of Aunt Lou, except that she is much fatter,” Mandie teased.

“Well, you say Aunt Lou be de boss theah, den I be de boss heah,” the old woman said, rising from the table. “It be time fo’ you to go to yo’ room. It soon be ten o’clock and you don’t wanta git in bad wid Miz Prudence, leastways not whilst you still new.”

“I didn’t realize it was so late.” Mandie quickly embraced the old woman. “Good night. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Young ladies not ’llowed in de kitchen, and I don’t go in de dinin’ room. I does de cookin’. Millie does de waitin’ on de table.”

“But you have a house in the backyard, don’t you? I’ll come back there to visit you.”

“I don’ know ’bout dat. Ain’t nobody ever done dat ’fore. It might not be ’llowed.”

“Well, I won’t ask.” Mandie grinned. “I’ll see you as soon as I can find a chance.”

Hurrying up the stairs to her room, Mandie found the other girls in their nightgowns, talking or reading in bed. April lay reading, propped up with both pillows. She looked up. Mandie quickly entered the room, took her nightgown from her designated drawer in the huge bureau, and ran for the bathroom to undress.

When Mandie returned in her nightgown, carrying her clothes, April looked up again.

“What’s the matter? You afraid to undress in front of the other girls?” April asked.

“Of course not,” Mandie replied, hanging her dress on the hook assigned to her. “I took a quick bath.”

“Bath? You have to get a time on the schedule to do that. The rest of us have already made up a list,” April informed her.

“A list?” Mandie went to the side of the bed to get in. “What do you mean?”

“With eight girls to a bathroom, we had to decide who was going to take a bath when. So, four of us will be taking baths at night and four in the morning,” April explained. “Each girl will have just ten minutes in the bathroom. The only ten minutes left is from six-twenty to six-thirty in the morning. No one wanted to get up that early.” April grinned. “And since you weren’t here when we made up the schedule, you’ll have to take your bath then.”

Silence fell over the room. The other girls watched for Mandie’s reaction.

“That’s fine with me.” Mandie gave a little laugh as she slid between the sheets. “I like to get up early. I’ve been doing that all my life.”

“You’ll get tired of it,” April said.

Mandie reached for a pillow behind April and gave it a yank. “I believe you have my pillow. There’s only one pillow for each girl.”

April pressed backward, trying to prevent her from pulling it away, but Mandie succeeded. She plumped up the pillow and lay down.

“Humph!” April said, rearranging the pillow that was left.

Suddenly a loud bell rang from somewhere nearby. The girls looked startled. Mandie sat up in bed.

April laughed. “That’s the huge bell in the backyard. It’s ten o’clock. They want to be sure we know it.” She stuck the book she was reading under the mattress and blew out the oil lamp by the bed. The other girls quickly extinguished their lights, and the room became dark.

Mandie lay very still, not wishing to disturb the haughty girl sharing her bed. But the other girls continued whispering and giggling.

After a while April raised her voice to them. “All right, maybe you aren’t sleepy but I am, and I want quiet in this room,” she ordered. “Remember, they will wake us up at the ungodly hour of seven o’clock and those taking morning baths have to be up before that. So stop the noise and go to sleep,” she commanded.