The Mandie Collection (13 page)

“It seem Missy Polly gwine to have him over fo' dinnuh when y'all leaves tomorruh,” Liza replied.

Mandie looked at the Negro girl questioningly. “Are you sure, Liza?” she asked, feeling her anger return.

“Sho I be sho. Aftuh all, I knows Missy likes de doctuh boy, and I has to watch out fo' Missy's innerests. Now if I wuz you, I'd walk right up to de doctuh boy an' ask him where he gwine to eat dinnuh tomorruh,” the girl advised.

Mandie struggled with her thoughts. Joe was jealous about Tommy, yet here he was, planning to have dinner with Polly.

“That's all right, Liza,” she said after a moment. “I've decided to forget about Joe and just have a good time while I'm gone. If he wants to eat dinner with Polly and keep it a secret from me, then I might just do something and keep it a secret from him.”

“Now, Missy, don't you be goin' doin' things you gwine to regret,” Liza warned. “I knows de doctuh boy be sweet on you. But I also knows Missy Polly she be sweet on de doctuh boy, and she don't want you should know.”

“Thank you for telling me, Liza, but I'm not going to let it worry me,” Mandie assured her. “Nothing is going to spoil this trip.”

Aunt Lou thrust her head through the doorway from the kitchen. “Liza! Git dem dishes in heah! Right now!” the old woman yelled.

Liza almost dropped the dishpan but hurried along, gathering up dirty dishes from the table.

“Thanks, Liza,” Mandie called as her friend scurried into the kitchen.

So
, Mandie thought to herself,
as soon as I'm out of sight, Joe is chasing Polly, huh?
She went up to her room to get the dress for Hilda. Well, not exactly chasing Polly, she admitted, but allowing Polly to chase him. Yet he was throwing a fit because she was going to visit Tommy and his family.

Taking a lavender organdy dress from its hanger, she hurried back downstairs to the parlor, where everyone sat quietly talking.

Mandie sighed as she entered the room. She had thought she could get away from Joe for the evening, but he sat slouched in the corner chair again.

She turned to her mother. “May I give this dress to Hilda?” she asked.

“Yes, that will be fine,” Elizabeth said.

Mandie handed the dress to Dr. Woodard and sat down in a big chair in the opposite corner from Joe. He glared at her, but she pretended not to see him.

Uncle John was talking to Dr. Woodard. “You and Joe are welcome to stay here as long as you wish, of course,” he said.

“I know that, John, but I reckon we'll be heading home tomorrow,” Dr. Woodard replied. “We've been gone long enough.”

Joe sat up straight and scowled. “We're going home tomorrow? But I figured we wouldn't be leaving until the day after tomorrow.”

“That's what I thought, too, son, but I finished all my calls today except one. I have to see Mrs. Gaines early tomorrow morning, and then we'll leave,” he replied.

“We will?” Joe looked pale.

Mandie smiled inwardly. So he would miss having dinner with Polly.

“In that case I'd better get my things together,” Joe said, jumping to his feet.

Elizabeth smiled at him. “We'll see you in the morning, Joe. We have to get back to our packing, too, in a few minutes,” she said.

“Yes, ma'am,” Joe replied. “Good night, everybody.” He hurried out of the room.

Mandie rose slowly from her chair. “I think I'll go finish my packing, too.”

“I'll be with you in a few minutes, dear,” Elizabeth told her.

Mandie ran upstairs. Inside her room, she blew out the oil lamp and watched from the window. In a minute she saw Joe slip out into the yard and head for the Cornwallises' house. She laughed when she saw Liza sneaking along behind him.

It was funny. Joe's plans had been changed but hers would go ahead as scheduled.

When Mandie heard her mother coming up the stairs, she hastily relighted the oil lamp and turned to the open trunk at the foot of the bed.

Elizabeth entered the bedroom and looked around. “It looks like you're almost ready, but be sure you take your parasols, dear. It's always much warmer in Charleston than it is here, and we don't want the sun to make freckles pop out on that pretty nose, do we?” Elizabeth said, putting her arm around her daughter.

“Oh, I wouldn't mind if I had one or two. It'd be something different, Mother,” Mandie said, laughing.

“Well, I mind, dear. Freckles would spoil your face, so just be sure you pack enough sun bonnets and parasols.”

“Yes, Mother,” Mandie promised, her mind occupied with what Joe was doing.

“I guess I'll say good-night to you now. When you finish, you had better go right to bed and get plenty of rest.” Her mother started to leave the room. “I'll wake you early in the morning. Good night, dear.”

“I'll probably be awake before you are, Mother. In fact, I probably won't sleep all night,” Mandie replied.

As soon as her mother closed the door, Mandie blew out the lamp again and huddled on the window seat to watch for Joe to return. But as tired as she was from the other trip, she soon fell asleep. Awakening later in the night, she stumbled sleepily into bed and went right back to sleep.

Morning came sunshiny and bright. But everyone was up before daylight, bustling about until it was time to go to the depot. Throughout all the preparations, Mandie had managed to avoid Joe, but she couldn't get Liza alone until the last minute.

“I saw you last night, Liza,” Mandie whispered to the Negro maid as they started down the stairway together. Snowball snuggled on Mandie's shoulder.

“I follow de doctuh boy. He tell Missy Polly his pa say he got to go home today and he can't have no dinnuh wid huh,” Liza whispered.

“I thought so,” Mandie answered softly.

“But he also say he gwine to have dinnuh wid huh next time he come to town,” Liza added.

Mandie stopped in her tracks. Well, how do you like that? she thought. He does plan to have dinner with Polly eventually.

“Amanda,” Elizabeth called from the downstairs hall.

“You have a good time, Missy,” Liza told her as they reached the bottom of the stairs.

“Thank you, Liza. You keep watch for me while I'm gone.”

Liza grinned and nodded.

“Amanda,” Elizabeth said, “I do hope the Pattons don't mind our bringing Snowball with us. Some people don't like cats, you know.”

“They won't mind, Mother. Snowball isn't like most cats. He's smart,” Mandie said, following her out onto the porch.

Mr. Bond waited in the rig to take the Shaws to the train depot. Dr. Woodard and all of the servants lined up along the bannister to say goodbye, but Joe sat in the porch swing alone.

“Goodbye, everybody!” Mandie called out quickly, running to board the rig. She waved her hand around in the air to include everyone, but she avoided looking at Joe.

A chorus of goodbyes rang out as Elizabeth and John hurried down the porch steps to join her.

Out of the corner of her eye, Mandie saw Joe just sitting there on the swing, his arms folded. She sat back and settled Snowball in her lap as Mr. Bond whipped up the horse.

Uncle John winked at Mandie. “Well, we're on our way,” he said.

“Yes, we're finally on our way, and I intend to have a wonderful time!” Mandie exclaimed, stroking Snowball's soft fur. She squared her shoulders and lifted her head, trying to put Joe out of her mind.
I'm going to forget all about everything here and enjoy my trip
, she determined.

But in her stomach, she felt a little quake at the thought of Joe's silent parting.

CHAPTER THREE

TO CHARLESTON AT LAST!

The journey to Charleston was long. Mandie excitedly wished the time away until she would finally get there. Although they had a layover in the city of Columbia, the capital of South Carolina, there was not enough time to see the town.

After they again boarded the train for the second part of their journey, Elizabeth put her arm on Mandie's shoulder. “This is our last stop, Amanda. We'll go straight to Charleston on this train.”

Mandie quickly took a seat by the window in front of her mother and Uncle John. Giving Snowball a little squeeze, she smiled. “Then we'll soon see the ocean,” she said with a sigh.

“No, actually we won't be able to see the ocean from the train on the way into Charleston,” Uncle John explained. “The Pattons will probably be waiting for us at the depot, and we'll go to their house first.”

The train jerked forward, picked up speed, and began a steady roaring motion.

“Then we'll just ask them to take us to see it,” Mandie said. “I hope this train goes faster than the one we were just on.”

But the train didn't seem any faster. In fact it seemed to crawl at first. Then the landscape began to change, and Mandie became interested in the scenery. There were huge forests of tall pines. Then the land gave
way to swamps. Pools of stagnant water stood everywhere alongside the railroad tracks. Water lilies grew in some places, and sometimes the train traveled on a trestle high above the swampland.

Mandie noticed something growing on the trees. “Look! What is that on those trees?” she exclaimed, turning to look back at her mother and Uncle John. “It's a funny gray color, and it looks like giant spiderwebs.”

“That's Spanish moss, Amanda,” Uncle John told her.

“It sure looks like it must grow awfully fast. It's everywhere,” Mandie replied. She leaned against the half-open window for a closer look as the train chugged along through the eerie-looking scene.

“It does grow fast,” said Uncle John. “You might want to take a piece of it back home and see if it'll grow on a tree there. Sometimes you can get it to hang on for a while before it shrivels and dies. Our climate at home gets too cold for it.”

“No thanks!” Mandie suddenly shoved the window down. “Whew! It smells awful out there!” she exclaimed, holding her nose.

“That's the sulphur in the swamps that you smell, Amanda,” her mother explained. “Charleston will definitely have a different odor than our fresh, clean mountain air at home.”

“Don't tell me it's going to smell bad the whole time we're there!” Mandie moaned.

“It's a different smell, but after you've been there for a few hours, you won't even notice it,” Elizabeth said. “Besides, you'll have too much to see to bother about what you smell.”

Mandie laughed. “Tommy never told me about the odor. He just told me the nice things about his hometown.”

“He probably thought you wouldn't notice it.” Uncle John chuckled. “He'll keep you entertained so well you'll never realize that things don't smell exactly like they do back home.”

“I hope so,” Mandie said.

After what seemed an eternity, a huge body of water came into view. Mandie quickly pushed the window back up to see out. “Look at all that water!” she cried.

“That's the Ashley River, dear,” Elizabeth told her. “We'll also see the Cooper River on our left as we get closer.”

“It sure is a big river,” Mandie exclaimed.

“It's actually a lot bigger than what you can see right here,” Uncle John said. “In fact, after we get to the Pattons' home, we'll take a ferryboat across the Cooper River to the Isle of Palms. The Isle of Palms is on the Atlantic Ocean.”

“Oh, I just can't wait to get my first look at the ocean!” Mandie squealed.

“I'm afraid you're going to have to wait,” Elizabeth teased.

Soon the bare, swampy landscape gave way to farms, and buildings, and houses—they were approaching the city of Charleston.

Mandie had never seen such a big city with so many, many houses and buildings. Palm trees grew everywhere. She sat motionless as her big blue eyes took it all in.

Finally, the train crawled to a stop in the depot, and Mandie spied Tommy waiting with his family on the platform. “There's Tommy, right there, Mother,” she said, pointing.

“Yes, dear, now get your bag and let's go to meet them,” Elizabeth said, taking her own bag down from the rack above. Uncle John carried the two largest bags.

Mandie quickly pushed her long blonde hair back under her bonnet and smoothed the long skirt of her wine-colored traveling suit. She felt self-conscious meeting Tommy face-to-face in his own territory.

Holding Snowball securely, she hung her purse on her arm and picked up her small traveling bag. She followed her mother and Uncle John out onto the platform of the train and down the steps to greet the waiting Pattons.

The tall, nicely dressed man and elegant woman standing beside Tommy came forward, followed by a young girl with glasses.

“Lucille! George! It's so good to see you again,” Elizabeth said as she set down her bag and gave the woman a tight squeeze.

“You look wonderful, Elizabeth,” Lucille Patton replied. “You, too, John.”

“Thanks, Lucille,” Uncle John said. “How are you, George?”

George Patton shook John's hand. “We're glad y'all could come,” he said. Turning, he looked at Mandie. “So this is Amanda. Welcome to Charleston and the great big ocean, young lady.” He reached out to rub Snowball's head as the cat clung to Mandie's shoulder. “I see
you brought your cat,” he said, a little uncertainly. “Tommy has told us all about Snowball.”

“Thank you for having us, sir,” Mandie said, smiling up at him.

Mr. Patton was about the tallest man Mandie had ever seen.
No wonder Tommy is so tall
, she thought. Mr. Patton had a friendly smile and Mandie liked him at once.

“We're glad to have you with us.” Lucille Patton repeated the welcome but seemed to shy away from the cat. “We hope you enjoy your visit.”

“Thank you, ma'am. I know I shall,” Mandie replied in her best ladylike language. Apparently there was some use for the silly things she was learning at the Misses Heathwood's School for Girls in Asheville, North Carolina. She supposed it was for people like this.