The Mandie Collection (54 page)

“That's some greeting for a friend you haven't seen for so long,” Joe teased, as he stood up.

“You know I'm always glad to see you, Joe,” Mandie told him, reaching to take his hand.

“I know, but I always like for you to tell me so,” Joe said, squeezing her hand.

Celia watched Mandie and Joe with amusement. “Would y'all like for me to go somewhere and come back later?” she asked.

“Of course not, Celia,” Mandie said quickly.

“It's nice to see you again, Celia,” Joe said.

Just then Snowball jumped down and landed on the swing. Mandie reached for him.

“Mandie, please don't let him get away,” Joe warned. “I'd hate to have to track him down.”

Mandie captured the kitten and held him tightly.

“Me, too,” Celia added. “Remember when he got loose in this house and we found him with the girl in the attic?”

“Speaking of attics, Joe—” Mandie guided the conversation. “Come on. We want to show you that old trunk in the attic.” She turned to enter the house.

“The one Hilda was trying to open?” he asked, following the girls into the hallway inside.

“That's the one,” Mandie replied.

The three quietly made their way up to the attic. Mandie, taking the lead, pushed open the door and stood back for Joe and Celia to go inside.

“Wow!” Joe exclaimed, looking around. “Some attic! There's enough furniture up here to furnish ten houses!”

“Not quite,” Mandie replied. “There's the trunk over there.”

She pointed to the one thing in the attic that remained locked. Celia led the way through the jumbled mess of everything they had opened and started to sort the day before. Mandie stood by the trunk with her arms crossed and a disgusted look on her face.

“You see, it's locked and we can't find a key to fit it,” Mandie said, banging the lock with her fist.

“You can't find a key anywhere?” Joe asked.

“No,” Celia replied. “Uncle Cal had the keys to everything else, but not to this trunk.”

“How are you going to find out what's in it?” Joe asked. Then a grin spread across his face. “I suppose that's what you're planning now,” he said. “Always poking and investigating and getting into trouble, both of you.”

“I'll have you to know, we have permission to open anything in the attic,” Mandie said smugly. “You see, Miss Prudence gave us the job of cleaning this place up—with a little help from Uncle Cal. Now if you could just figure out some way to get this thing open, then we could see what's inside it.”

“So that's why you really brought me up here. Well, I'm not a magician. If you don't have a key, there's no way I know to get it open,” Joe told her.

“You could break the lock,” Celia suggested.

“Break the lock? And get
myself
in trouble?” Joe asked.

“Look! There are Uncle Cal's tools,” Mandie said. She bent behind the trunk to pick up a screwdriver and a hammer. “Couldn't you use these to pry it open?”

“Mandie, you're asking for trouble,” Joe warned.

“Miss Hope said we could open anything in the attic. If you're careful and don't damage the trunk, I think it would be all right to force open the lock,” Mandie argued. She turned to Celia. “Don't you think it would be all right for us to use these to open it?”

Celia hesitated for a moment and then replied, “I suppose it would be all right. Like Mandie said, Joe, Miss Hope told us we could open anything in the attic.”

“Well, then give me those tools,” Joe finally agreed. “I'm not even sure these will work. That lock looks all rusted.”

“Joe, please hurry,” Mandie urged. “We have less than two hours before we have to go to the dining room.”

“And my father is coming to get me at twelve o'clock,” the boy replied, bending over the trunk with the hammer and screwdriver. The girls hovered near with Snowball perched on Mandie's shoulder. Joe carefully stuck the tip of the screwdriver under the edge of the metal around the keyhole and softly tapped the screwdriver with the hammer. Nothing happened. The strong metal wouldn't yield.

With a sigh, Joe stood up and looked at the trunk and then at the girls.

“Hit it hard,” Celia told him.

“What if that metal breaks all up when I hit it real hard? The trunk would be ruined and we'd be in trouble,” he reasoned.

“I think it's just stuck with rust,” Mandie said. “If we just had something to lubricate it with . . .”

“Just where would you get anything like that?” Joe asked.

“The oil in our lamp!” Mandie said. “Celia, will you go down to our room and get it?”

Celia hurried out of the attic and quickly returned, holding the oil lamp that usually sat on the table by their bed.

“Here. Let's take the shade off and unscrew this metal thing holding the wick,” Mandie told her, taking the lamp apart and giving the pieces to Celia. Then she held up the base with the kerosene in it.

Celia frowned. “Don't use it all up, Mandie, or we won't have any light tonight,” Celia warned her.

“If we just pour a little of this on the lock, maybe it will limber up,” Mandie said, bending to drip a few drops of the oil on the lock.

At that moment Snowball chose to jump down from Mandie's shoulder. As he did, he hit the lamp base Mandie was holding, and the oil splattered all over the top of the trunk.

Celia snatched a handful of cleaning rags lying nearby and threw one to Joe.

“Quick! Let's clean it off!” she cried, wiping furiously at the oil on the trunk.

Joe helped, but muttered to himself all the while.

“Look!” Mandie exclaimed. “The oil is cleaning the trunk. See how nice it looks where you've rubbed the oil off.” Suddenly, bending closer, she gasped. “Why there's a big letter
H
on the lid. Look!”

The three heads bent together to look.

“
H
. That could stand for Hope,” Celia suggested.

“Do you suppose this trunk belongs to Miss Hope?” Mandie asked. “But she said the things up here mostly belonged to the lady who lived here before.”

“
H
could also stand for Heathwood—or for anything,” Joe said. “There's no telling what's in this trunk, Mandie, or who it belonged to.”

“Miss Hope said we could open anything,” Celia reminded them. “If there was something she didn't want us to open, she would have said so.”

“Right,” Mandie agreed. “Try it again, Joe.”

“If you say so,” Joe muttered, his thin face giving them an exasperated look.

The girls watched anxiously as Joe picked up the tools and began tapping the screwdriver harder to force the lock. Snowball roamed through the attic.

“Uncle Cal hit it real hard when he tried to knock it open, like this,” Mandie said, hitting the lock with her hand.

“That won't work,” Joe said.

“Maybe this will,” Mandie suggested. She climbed upon the top of the trunk and stood there. “You stick the screwdriver under the lock and hit it with the hammer. At the same time I'll jump up and stomp down hard on the lid.”

“Mandie, please be careful,” the boy told her, bending to do as she said. “Here we go—one, two, three, jump!”

The first time they were not together for their assault on the trunk.

Snowball quickly moved away from the noise and stood watching. The second time Joe and Mandie succeeded. The old lock flipped loose from the bottom plate in the trunk lid, and the three of them cheered and laughed.

“It worked!” Mandie cried, jumping down from the trunk. “Help me get the lid up. Those hooks there are holding it.”

Celia and Joe released the hooks, and Mandie pushed the heavy lid up. Snowball immediately jumped up on the edge of the opened trunk. As he looked inside he hissed and hunched his back.

The three young people gasped in horror as they stared into the opened trunk.

Celia jumped back.

“What is it?” she cried.

“They're animals or something—all furry!” Mandie cringed.

Joe bent down for a closer look. “If they're animals, they're all dead,” he said. Reaching for an old poker which stood against the wall, he poked the contents of the trunk.

“Joe, what are you doing?” Celia cried.

Joe reached into the trunk and began pulling out long pieces of fur. Swinging them in the air, he laughed. “Look! Just old furs!” he declared.

The two girls drew closer to inspect what he had in his hands. Snowball ducked out of the way of the swinging furs and huddled against Mandie's ankles.

“You're right!” Mandie laughed. “They're someone's old furs. And here are some fur hats.”

When she pulled the hats out of the trunk, something caught her eye. “There's something metal down under here,” she said, digging beneath the furs.

Celia and Joe helped empty the trunk, throwing the furs and hats onto the floor. Finally Joe pulled out an old metal candy box and handed it to Mandie.

“All tied up with pink ribbons!” Mandie exclaimed. She pulled the faded ribbons from around the box labeled
Baker's Chocolates
, and lifted the lid, revealing stacks of old letters.

“Oh, look!” Mandie said, sitting down on the floor to empty the contents of the box. Joe and Celia sat down beside her while Snowball nosed through the pile of papers.

“Let's see whose letters these are,” Mandie said.

Celia shuffled the envelopes. “There's no name on any that I can see,” she replied. “They're all addressed to ‘My One and Only Love.' That's all that's on the envelopes.”

“Well, let's look inside,” Mandie urged.

Each of the young people opened one of the envelopes. The letter paper had turned to a brownish hue and the handwriting was barely readable.

Joe looked up from the letter he held in his hand. “This one is addressed to ‘My One and Only Love,' and it's signed ‘Your Truelove,' “ he said. “How mushy!”

“So is this one!” Mandie told him.

“And this one, too,” Celia added.

“Maybe if we read them we could tell who they belong to,” said Mandie.

Joe objected. “Mandie, these are someone's personal property,” he said. “You wouldn't want someone reading your private letters, would you?”

“Oh, Joe, these are so old that whoever wrote them is ancient by now,” Mandie argued. “They may not even be alive. I don't see any year on any of them, just the month and the day, but the paper is so old it's crumbling around the edges.” Mandie returned to reading the letter in her hand.

“Miss Hope said we could open anything in the attic,” Celia reminded him again. “Besides, if we fold these up and put them back in the box, who will ever know we read them? We just won't talk about it to anyone.”

Mandie looked up. “Listen to this,” she said, beginning to read. “ ‘I waited in vain until midnight last night in the cabin in the woods where we always meet, my love. My poor heart cried for you so loudly, I shouldn't be surprised if your dear heart heard its cry. I know you cannot always manage to keep our tryst—' ”

“Mandie!” Joe interrupted. “What do you want to read all that sickening rigamarole for?”

“If these two people met in a cabin in the woods, it must have been a forbidden love affair,” Mandie reasoned. “I wonder where the cabin in the woods is.”

Celia gasped. “This one says ‘the place where the diamonds are hidden must be changed.' ”

“Diamonds!” Joe repeated. “Let me see what you're reading.”

Celia handed him the letter, indicating the paragraph. Joe quickly scanned the page.

“Well, if there are diamonds hidden somewhere, I say let's find them!” Joe exclaimed.

Mandie sighed with relief. They had won Joe over. She moved closer to look at the letter he was holding.

“But there isn't any kind of a clue about where to look,” Mandie said.

“We haven't read all of them yet,” Celia reminded her. “Maybe we can find something in another letter.” She reached for another envelope and slipped out the folded sheets of paper.

“We'd better hurry,” Mandie warned. “I'm sure the bell's going to ring soon.”

The three hastily read the letters, stuffing each one back into its envelope when they were finished. Snowball played nearby with the ribbon from the box.

“This one mentions a ‘dangerous enemy,' ” Mandie said. “This is some mystery.”

Joe looked up from the letter in his hand. “Whoever this person was writing to must have been adopted,” he said. “This one says, ‘I am sure your real mother and father would have approved of our courtship. Your adopted parents treat you as though you were twelve years old instead of seventeen,' ” he read. “Well, now we know that the person who received these letters was seventeen years old and had two sets of parents.”

“Here's more in this letter,” Celia said. “This says, ‘I pray to God every day that we will be allowed to marry. We must have faith, my love, and trust in Him to lead us and guide us in the right pathway.' ” Celia put down the letter. “Oh, how sad! Two people in love who are not allowed to marry.”

“Here's that ‘dangerous enemy' again,” said Mandie. “It says, ‘We must be ever watchful for my dangerous enemy. He could cause us great heartache if he learned of our secret meetings, my love. He is so desperately in love with you, and he knows that you scorn his attention. I am afraid to imagine what he might do if he found out about us, especially since he knows your parents favor
him to be your husband.' ” Mandie's eyes widened. “Listen. It gets even better.”

Dramatically, she read on. “ ‘It fills my heart with great satisfaction to know that his lips have never touched yours, his hands have never held yours. My heart is humble, my love, to know that you prefer my lowly existence over his wealth and power. My heart is forever yours. For the rest of this world and on into the next, I am forever Your Truelove.' ” Mandie sighed. “Oh, if I only knew who wrote these letters! This is all so mysterious. No names are mentioned anywhere.”