The Mandie Collection (59 page)

“Sure is a big church,” the old man commented as he walked around.

“Let's go up in the gallery,” Mandie suggested.

“I'll stay down here,” Mr. Bond said, sitting down in a nearby pew. “Just don't get into anything up there now.”

“Come on, Celia!” Mandie led the way to a door at the back of the church. Opening the door, she started up the steps to the gallery, and Celia followed.

At the top of the stairs, Mandie surveyed the rows and rows of benches. “I've never been up here before,” she said.

“I don't see any bells. How do we get to them?” Celia asked.

As the girls looked around, they spotted another door at the end of the gallery. They hurried over to open it. There, high above their heads, hung the huge bells in the belfry. Heavy ropes dangled down in various places.

“How can we get up there?” Mandie asked. “There aren't any steps going up to the bells.”

“It looks awfully high from down here,” Celia noted.

Mandie touched the ropes carefully for fear she would cause the bells to ring. Then she saw that some of the rope was actually a rope
ladder extending up into the belfry. “Here!” she exclaimed, shaking the rope. “We have to go up this ladder.”

Celia looked at the rope in fright. “Go up a rope ladder? We can't do that, Mandie.”

“Yes, we can,” Mandie assured her. “It won't be any worse than walking over a swinging bridge, and I've done that lots of times without falling.”

“But I've never been on a swinging bridge,” Celia protested. “That thing will swing around and we could fall off.”

“We won't if we're careful to hold on real tight,” Mandie said. Quickly removing her cape and gloves, she threw them on a nearby bench and grasped the first rung of the rope ladder. “Come on.”

Celia slowly removed her cape as she stood watching. “I'll get all dizzy and fall,” she argued.

“No you won't,” Mandie assured her. “Just don't look down. Keep looking up. Come on.” She swung onto the next rung of the ladder and began to make her way up.

Celia nervously watched the ladder swing with Mandie's weight. She didn't move.

Reaching the top, Mandie stepped into the belfry and looked around at the huge bells. “Come on, Celia. You can see the whole town from up here,” she called down to her friend. “You won't fall if you hold on with all your might. Come on.”

“Well, all right. I'll try,” Celia finally agreed. As she reached up and grasped the first rung of the ladder, it swung around and she stopped. Her heart beat wildly and her hands grew clammy.

Mandie knelt down on the floor of the belfry at the top of the ladder. “Reach up for the next rung, Celia,” she called. “Keep looking up. Don't look down.”

Celia took a deep breath and did what her friend said. Slowly, carefully, she made her way up the ropes. After several minutes she grasped the top rung and started to reach for Mandie's extended hand, but then she looked down. “Oh!” she gasped, shaking with fright. “Look how far it is down to the floor!”

Mandie grabbed Celia's hand and gave her such a hard pull that Celia sprawled onto the floor of the belfry beside her.

Celia closed her eyes. “I just know I'll never make it back down,” she moaned.

“Come on. Get up,” Mandie said, helping her to her feet. “Look outside. You can see everywhere from up here.”

There were rafters running every which way. The only floor to walk on was a small piece supporting the bells, and a narrow walkway around the outer edge of the belfry. Celia held onto Mandie's hand as they carefully made their way around the narrow walkway to peer outside at the town.

“I thought you were the one who got dizzy-headed from heights,” Celia reminded Mandie. “Remember telling me about the widow's walk at Tommy's house in Charleston?”

“But that was completely outside, where if you slipped, you could fall all the way down to the ground,” Mandie explained. “Up here we have these walls to protect us.” She pointed down to the road. “Look, there's Ben in the rig down there.”

Celia quickly turned back to look at the huge bells. “Let's get this exploration over with,” she begged. “Just what are we looking for anyway?”

“Anything we can find,” Mandie replied. As she stepped back over to the bells, Celia followed slowly and carefully.

Mandie's eyes searched the walls of the belfry. “Where are the connections to the clock?” she wondered aloud. “Where is the clock located from here?”

“Do you think the clock on the outside is as far up as the bells are?” Celia asked. “The clock is on the front side, remember?”

Mandie turned back to the front of the belfry. “No, I believe the clock is lower than the bells.”

Celia found some wires and ropes coming out of the front wall. “Here it is!” she exclaimed. “The clock is on the outside of these wires and things. See? They go on over to the bells.”

“You're right,” Mandie agreed, carefully moving over to examine what Celia had found.

“But how does the clock make the bells ring, Mandie?” Celia asked.

“Well, I guess it's sort of like that big grandfather clock that my grandmother has. The pendulum trips something inside the clock and makes it chime,” Mandie explained, tracing the wires.

“But how does the clock know how many times to strike?” Celia was baffled.

“Oh, Celia, I don't know everything,” Mandie fussed as she traced the wires. “It just does somehow. The insides are made with one notch, two notches, or whatever, I suppose, to allow the clock to strike as it rotates—or something. Anyhow, these wires do go to the bells. See?”

Celia watched as Mandie followed the length of the wires to the bells. “I don't see anything wrong with them, do you?” she asked.

“No, they're all connected,” Mandie replied.

Suddenly the girls felt the floor beneath their feet tremble slightly. Then there was a hard thud from somewhere below. They grabbed each other's hand.

“What was that?” Celia gasped.

“The whole place shook!” Mandie exclaimed.

“I think we'd better go back down,” Celia decided.

“Yes, I suppose we'd better for now,” Mandie agreed. “But we'll have to come back later. You go down the ladder first.”

Celia sat down on the floor to grasp the rope ladder swinging below. After a few tries she finally got into a position to slide down onto the first rung. She held her breath and looked up at Mandie.

“Now don't look down,” Mandie cautioned her from above.

At that moment one of Celia's hands missed a rung, and she grasped wildly into the air. Her hand found a rope hanging down from above.

She grabbed it and hung on with all her might. Suddenly the bells started ringing. She was so frightened she slid down the rope and landed in a heap on the floor below. When she let go, the bells stopped ringing.

“Oh, Celia, are you all right?” Mandie called to her as she quickly came down to her. “I guess that rope is there to ring the bells by hand.”

“At least it gave me some way to get down,” Celia answered, trying to get her breath.

Just then they heard Mr. Bond's voice. “What are you girls doing up there?” he called from below. “I think you'd better get down here fast.”

“We're coming,” Mandie called back.

They grabbed their cloaks and gloves, and scurried around the gallery to the steps leading down into the sanctuary.

“We still don't know what was shaking everything or what that noise was,” Celia reminded her friend as they reached the bottom of the stairs.

“I know, but we'll come back and find out,” Mandie promised. “Anyway, we know what everything looks like up there now. Maybe Joe can help us when he gets here this weekend.”

Mr. Bond was waiting for them at the bottom of the steps. “You know you'll have the whole town here in a minute, ringing those bells that way,” he scolded. “What on earth were you doing up there?”

“I'm sorry, Mr. Bond,” Celia apologized. “It was my fault. I slipped on the ladder and caught hold of the extra rope. I didn't know it would ring the bells.”

“What ladder?” Mr. Bond wanted to know.

Celia glanced at Mandie. “The ladder to the belfry,” she answered slowly.

“Now don't you girls go climbing any more ladders while you're in my care,” the old man said. “Let's go outside and get going.”

“Thanks for coming with us, Mr. Jason,” Mandie said as they stepped into the rig where Ben was waiting.

Ben shook the reins, and the horses started off. “Did y'all find out whut makin' dem bells ring de wrong number at de wrong time?” he asked.

“No, but we will,” Mandie promised.

“You hope,” Celia whispered to her friend.

As they sped around the corner in the rig, the bells on the church rang three times. Everyone looked at each other.

“They rang three times, but it is really two o'clock,” Celia said. “I have an idea someone went up there as soon as we left,” Mandie whispered.

“Thank goodness they didn't come up there while we were there,” Celia replied.

“But we might have caught them if they had,” Mandie reminded her.

CHAPTER TWO

STRANGERS IN THE CHURCH

Mandie and Celia were awake before daylight the next morning, excited because Mrs. Taft had promised them they could go back to the church. They lay there in the warm bed discussing the mystery of the bells. The wind was blowing cold and hard outside and rattling the shutters. Annie had not yet come to start the fire in the fireplace in the room. “What are we going to do this time when we go to the church?” Celia asked.

“I thought we could just stay there a while and watch to see if anyone comes into the church, especially when the clock strikes twelve noon,” Mandie replied, pushing up her pillow so she could sit up in bed.

Celia did likewise and the two tugged at the heavy quilts to cover their shoulders.

“But if somebody comes into the church, what will we do?” Celia asked.

“We won't let them see us,” Mandie replied. “We'll just hide somewhere where they can't see us but we can see them.”

“That'll be hard to do in that big church,” Celia noted. “It's so wide open.”

“There are draperies on each side of the place where the choir sits, and there's a low short curtain that runs across the platform behind
where the preacher stands. The pews are so tall we might be able to hide between some of them, too,” Mandie suggested.

“Well, what do we do if someone does come in?”

“We'll wait to see what they do, and then we'll just come out and ask them who they are, I suppose,” Mandie answered.

“I sure hope no criminals come into the church while we're there.” The way the bed was placed in the room the girls were facing the door directly. Celia was looking that way when the door softly and slowly came open. She moved closer to Mandie and gasped. As Annie appeared through the doorway, Mandie laughed and said, “It's Annie.”

“Mornin,' Missies,” Annie greeted them as she went over to the fireplace. “Y'all awake nice and early. I'll jes' git dis heah fire goin' now, and it'll be warm in heah in no time, it will.”

“Thanks, Annie,” Mandie said. “It is cold in here.”

The maid quickly cleaned out the ashes and put them in the bucket on the hearth. Then, after laying kindling for a new fire, she took a match from the pocket of her long white apron and lit the wood. The fire spread quickly and the logs crackled.

“I heard my grandmother tell my mother that she was going to have that steam heat put in, Annie,” Mandie said. “You know, the kind of heat that you just turn a knob on this thing standing in the room and the heat comes right out. Then you won't have to build fires in the fireplaces anymore.”

“Steam heat? Whut kinda heat be dat, Missy?” Annie stooped and fanned the fire with her apron to make it burn better.

“Like they have in Edwards' Dry Goods Store downtown,” Mandie replied. “You know how warm it always is in there.”

“Oh, you mean dem big hot metal things whut stand up on de floor?” Annie rose from the hearth. “Well, dey ain't 'zackly magic. Dey gotta have a fire goin' somewheres to make 'em git hot.”

“I know,” Mandie agreed, sliding out of bed and reaching for her slippers. “But I think it's just one big fire that makes them hot, probably in the basement, so you'd have only one fire to tend to.” She hurried to stand in front of the warm fireplace as she quickly put on her robe.

Celia followed. “That's the kind of heat we have at home,” she said, wrapping her robe around her. “Just about everybody in Richmond has that kind of heat now, but I don't know for sure how it works.”

“Well, right now we ain't got it,” Annie said, turning to leave the room, “so I'se got to go build more fires.”

“Don't forget, Annie. Grandmother said you could go with us to the church this morning,” Mandie reminded her.

“Lawsy mercy, Missy,” Annie sighed. “I don't be knowin' why y'all wants to go traipsin' down to dat spooky church. Dem spooks down there is liable to git us.”

“Oh, Annie, there's no such things as spooks,” Mandie replied, smiling. “You wait and see. All that trouble with the bells is being caused by some good, solid human being—not something you can't catch hold of.”

“Well, I sho' hopes dem bad human bein's don't git ahold of us,” Annie mumbled as she went out the door.

“I do believe Annie is afraid to go with us,” Mandie said, laughing as she and Celia sat on the rug by the fire.

“But, Mandie, it could be something—or someone—we should be afraid of,” Celia reminded her.

At that moment the girls heard the church bells ringing in the distance. Silently, they counted to seven, and looked at the clock on the mantel.