The Awakening

by Jude Deveraux

  “Yes, I know, but I was up all night studying and everything has been off since then. What’s for breakfast?” She sailed past him and didn’t see the way his mouth dropped open as he watched her.

  Taylor closed his mouth. Yesterday the kissing and now she was off schedule. He had to get her back under control.

  Amanda looked down at her poached egg and dry toast and nearly recoiled. She was so very, very hungry and this wasn’t enough to fill a rabbit’s belly. But she wanted to get back to her safe little world and this meager breakfast was part of it. She picked up her spoon.

  “Well, Amanda, are you going to start this morning’s conversation or must I?”

  “I’m sorry, what did you say? Oh yes, the conversation. I’m afraid I forgot what’s on the schedule. It has been a most hectic morning.” She looked up as the maids began carrying in one covered dish after another for Dr. Montgomery’s breakfast and set them on the sideboard. Amanda’s stomach let its yearning for the food be known to her. She gazed at the silver dishes with longing.

  “Amanda!” Taylor said. “What do you mean, you didn’t read this morning’s schedule?”

  “I read it; I just don’t remember it. Perhaps if you told me what was planned I could start the conversation.”

  Taylor didn’t have time to recover from his astonishment because J. Harker burst into the room, a cigar jammed into the corner of his mouth.

  “He’s gone,” Harker announced without greeting. “That professor and his fancy car are gone.”

  Both Taylor and J. Harker turned toward Amanda, their eyes accusing.

  “I did the best I could,” she said. “He didn’t like having his days scheduled for him.”

  Harker turned to Taylor. “You put him on one of those damned schedules of yours? What’d you do? Tack it to his door? You tell him when he was allowed to pee?”

  Taylor kept his back rigid. “I did not. Amanda was to stay with him, that is all. I merely suggested a few amusements for them.”

  J. Harker switched the cigar to the other side of his mouth. He’d always been in awe of Taylor’s education, but right now he wondered if Taylor’s brain was a book, with no common sense in it. “What kind of amusements? Libraries? Museums? He have to listen to Amanda reeling off facts?”

  Amanda’s face turned red at this, but neither man looked at her.

  “Dr. Montgomery is a professor. I’m sure he enjoyed—”

  “Enjoyed, hell!” J. Harker spat. “I was afraid to trust you on this. I didn’t think you knew what you were doing. I told you not to send Amanda out with him. Montgomery is a big, strapping stallion, not a broken-down old gelding. Damn! Why did I trust you? Now he’s gone, and instead of getting him on our side, he’ll probably run to the unionists.”

  “I doubt that. We have shown him every hospitality. He had someone of intelligence to converse with. Just this morning Amanda made a perfect score on a calculus test.”

  For a moment, Harker could only sputter. “You expected a young animal like Montgomery to sit around with a pretty girl and talk about…about book learnin’? Have you got ice water in your veins? For God’s sake, I can’t stand to be around a little prude like Amanda for more than ten minutes, and she’s my own daughter, so how can I expect a hot-blooded man like Montgomery to be able to stand her?”

  No one saw the way the blood left Amanda’s face.

  “I’m sure Amanda made every effort to entertain Dr. Montgomery. Perhaps some family emergency drew him away.”

  “Yeah, some emergency like fear of dying of boredom.” Harker put his cigar between his fingers and pointed it at Taylor. “You want this ranch, boy, you gotta do somethin’ besides run my daughter’s life. Those unionists cause me the loss of even a penny and I’ll set you out of here on your ear. You understand me?” He stormed out of the room.

  Taylor stood where he was, while Amanda remained seated, looking at her empty cup. Now Dr. Montgomery had caused her father to say these awful things about her. In the short time since that man had arrived, Taylor had shown he had no physical desire for her, and her father had admitted he couldn’t stand to be near her. Some part of her had wondered why her father never ate breakfast with her and Taylor or why he never joined them in the parlor after dinner. But she’d never dreamed it was because he didn’t want to be near her.

  She looked up at Taylor as he stood paralyzed, staring at the doorway. Was he upset at what Harker had said to his daughter? Amanda didn’t think so. She knew that it was fear on his face, fear of losing the ranch.

  But Dr. Montgomery would be angry about J. Harker’s words about his daughter, she thought, then squelched the thought.

  She stood. “I am going to my room,” she said softly and started toward the door, but Taylor beat her there.

  He closed the door, then put his back to it, barricading them in. “What did you do to offend him? Why did he leave?”

  Amanda’s head reeled with answers. She offended him by doing what Taylor wanted her to do. She pleased Dr. Montgomery only when she ate what wasn’t on the schedule, went places not scheduled and did scandalous things like attend a dance. But she couldn’t say any of those things to Taylor.

  “I am waiting, Amanda,” Taylor said.

  “I tried my best to keep to the schedule, but Dr. Montgomery doesn’t like museums.”

  Taylor’s eyes were cold and angry. “Perhaps you didn’t make them interesting to him. Perhaps you weren’t concerned enough with the welfare of the ranch to study enough to make the visits interesting.”

  It was all so very unfair. If Taylor loved her, didn’t he care what her father had just said to her? She had rarely been allowed out of her room before Dr. Montgomery came, and then, without asking her, they had thrust him upon her and expected her to know how to handle a man who stared at her legs and kissed her and shoved chocolate cake in her face. How was a lifetime of study supposed to prepare her for this man?

  “Your laziness is going to cost us the ranch,” Taylor said. “The unionists will take it away from us. The hops will rot in the fields with no one to pick them, and it will all be your fault.”

  “I did the best I could.” Tears of frustration sprang to Amanda’s eyes. She hoped Dr. Montgomery ran off a cliff in that car of his and no one ever had to see him again.

  “Your best was not good enough,” Taylor said with a half sneer on his lip. “I want you to spend the day in your room. Do not come out until tomorrow morning, while I try to think of some remedy for what you have caused. And since you seem to find calculus so easy, let us see how well you remember your Greek. I want you to begin translating Moby Dick into Greek.” He stepped away from the door. “Now go, and do not let me see you again for twenty-four hours.”

  Amanda went, but instead of feeling contrite she felt angry. Taylor had not been fair at all. He didn’t know what Dr. Montgomery was like. He had no idea what she’d been through with that dreadful man.

  But wait! she told herself. Taylor was good; he wasn’t wrong. She had failed in the task he’d given her. For whatever reason she’d failed, the result was the same, and he had a right to punish her.

  By the time she got to her room she had convinced herself that Taylor was absolutely right, and she did her best not to think of what her father had said. But as the day wore on, some of her original conviction left her. It was hot in her room, and her dress of heavy silk broadcloth was stiff and made her even hotter. Lunch time came and went and she was famished. Twice she glanced toward her windows as if she expected Dr. Montgomery to come into her room bearing canvas bags full of food. But the house was quiet and no one came to interrupt her study.

  By two o’clock she was faint with hunger and she was oddly restless. She couldn’t seem to keep her mind on her translation. Instead, she kept remembering last night at the dance. She remembered the music, the champagne, the couples dancing. She pushed her chair back and began to try to imitate the dancers’ steps. What would she have thought if she’d gone to a dance alone
or with a woman and met Dr. Montgomery there? When he wasn’t being an utterly obnoxious man, he was awfully good-looking. Would he have asked her to dance? Would he have been interested in her as a woman and not just as a specimen to study and change?

  She whirled about the room, then felt so dizzy she had to sit down on the bed. She put her hand to her head for a moment as the dizziness passed. This is ridiculous, she thought. As Dr. Montgomery said, she was twenty-two years old and she was still being punished as if she were a schoolgirl.

  She kept her head high and ignored her pounding heart as she left her room and went down the stairs to the dining room. Perhaps she could find a maid to bring her a sandwich that she could secrete back up to her room. To her chagrin, her father sat alone at the head of the dining table, a huge meal of roast beef, about eight vegetables, a pork pie, three kinds of bread and two salads spread before him. Amanda stared at the food for so long she didn’t have time to get away before J. Harker saw her.

  “Well?” Harker said belligerently.

  “May I join you?” she heard herself saying, then practically floated to the table before he could answer. A maid set a plate and utensils before her.

  “Did you come to explain or apologize?” he asked.

  “I merely wanted to eat,” Amanda said, heaping her plate full. She wanted to eat with her hands from the platters, but she managed to control herself.

  Harker watched her for a moment, and for the first time in years he looked at his daughter as a human being. She usually acted like such a little know-it-all and this made him feel every year of his neglected education. “So why did the professor leave?”

  Amanda dug into candied carrots. “He didn’t like being put on a schedule. He likes motion pictures and dances and picnics. He did not like museums or lectures on Eugenics. Nor was he impressed by the size of our house or cars.” Amanda couldn’t believe she was talking this way to her father, but perhaps it was the delicious food that was her main interest.

  Harker considered this for a moment. “And you couldn’t bring yourself to go to a dance with him?”

  “I am an engaged woman and, besides, I had enough trouble fitting the museums in with my other studies.” The peas with little pearl onions were heavenly.

  Harker was watching her. Usually the meals he’d seen her eat were tiny and extremely unappetizing, but today she was eating like a mule train driver. Taylor had blamed Amanda for Montgomery’s leaving, but at this moment Harker wondered whether Amanda had perhaps been responsible for the young professor staying as long as he had. As a child she’d been headstrong and willful—just like her mother—but he’d hired Taylor and within months Amanda had settled down. At first Harker had been relieved, but as the years went by and he saw Amanda turn into a prim and proper little machine, he began to wish she’d pull some prank. But he had too much work to do to concern himself with the education of a daughter. It was only when she got to be about twenty and she was still reciting verses like a ten-year-old that he was unable to bear the sight of her.

  Now as he watched her eat like a field hand, he sensed that something was different. This morning Grace, who usually avoided him like the plague and had pretty much hated him since Taylor had arrived, smiled at him. And Harker had been looking at Taylor differently lately. He was no longer in awe of Taylor’s education and had begun to wonder if the man knew as much as either one of them thought he did. Years ago, when Grace had demanded that Harker get rid of Taylor, Harker had refused on sheer principle if for no other reason. He’d made his decision and he was sticking to it—right or wrong—and even if Grace did refuse to sleep with him until Taylor was gone, he wasn’t going to let that influence him. But this morning, when Grace had smiled at him, he’d remembered what a damned good-looking woman she was and he’d wondered at the way he’d chosen Taylor over a beautiful wife.

  “Bring some of that peach pie,” Harker said to the maid. “My daughter is hungry.”

  Amanda gave him a weak smile. “You don’t think I’ll get fat?”

  “I like women with a little meat on their bones.”

  “That’s what…I mean…” she stumbled, remembering what Dr. Montgomery had said. “Thank you, I’d like some pie.”

  Involuntarily, Amanda looked at the empty seat opposite her and thought, I miss him. She told herself that was a stupid thought and utterly incorrect but remembered the punishment work she had upstairs, and she wished she could go on a picnic with Dr. Montgomery. No! with Taylor, she corrected herself.

  She tried to imagine Taylor stretched out on a cloth on the ground, tried to imagine him driving a car like the Mercer. She wanted to think of Taylor washing her hair, then kissing her, but none of the images would come to her.

  J. Harker saw her looking at the empty chair as if she were seeing a ghost. “You, ah, like that professor?”

  Amanda straightened in her chair. “He was a—” She started to say that he was a frivolous man, but he had cared about her and the way he’d answered the mathematics questions showed he wasn’t uneducated. “He was an unusual man,” she said at last. “Completely unpredictable. One never knew what he’d do from one moment to the next.”

  “No schedules, huh?” J. Harker asked, watching her.

  Amanda smiled in delight. “Dr. Montgomery doesn’t even understand the concept of schedules. He believes in personal freedom for everyone.”

  When she smiled like that Harker was reminded so strongly of Grace that he felt quite weak-kneed. He had carried a grudge against his wife for so long that he’d been able to almost forget about her. How dare she tell him who he could and could not hire! Especially after she’d betrayed him by not telling him she’d been a dancer before they’d married. And he’d bragged all over town about how her family had come across on the Mayflower, then they’d all laughed at him.

  But now, looking at Amanda, he remembered Grace’s lean, firm body in his bed. She’d been wonderful in bed but he’d given it up when she’d demanded he fire Taylor. Right now he felt that his stubborn pride had cost him his wife and his daughter.

  “Do you know where your mother is this afternoon?” he asked abruptly.

  “Why, no, I don’t see her too often.” Not since I asked her advice when I kissed Taylor, she thought, and the memory made her face turn pink.

  J. Harker pushed back his chair and stood. “I think I’ll go find her.” He started for the door, then turned. “Maybe you’ll have dinner with me tonight.”

  “Yes,” she said, astonished. “I would like that.”

  When she was alone in the room, she gave a puzzled look at the empty chair. Somehow, this invitation was caused by Dr. Montgomery. He had caused her to be nearly raped, true, but he’d also brought about her father seeking out her mother and her father asking his daughter to dinner. Of course, she thought with a grimace, he was also the cause of her having to translate Moby Dick into Greek. At least now, with a full belly, she’d be able to get something done. Slowly, she went upstairs to her hot room.

  “And you found this in her room?” Taylor asked Mrs. Gunston as he held the torn white satin dress in his hands, the crystal beads glistening in the sunlight.

  “I knew she was hiding something,” Mrs. Gunston said in a self-righteous way. “I saw her arm inside the closet, so when she went downstairs I searched. She had it wrapped in tissue paper and hidden inside a hatbox. It’s not a dress you bought her, and you can see that it’s torn right across the front. She’s been doing something she’s not supposed to, and it’s my guess it has to do with that Dr. Montgomery. There’s been strange things going on in this house since he came. I found a dirty plate hidden in her room, and one day—”

  “That’s enough!” Taylor said sharply, wadding the dress up in his hands. “You may go now.”

  “But there’s more.”

  Taylor was getting sick of her sneaking ways. “That’s all. Go now.”

  With a grimace of disgust, the big woman left Taylor alone in the library, sliding
the door closed after she left.

  Taylor stood still for a long while, staring sightlessly out the windows, and all his old fear came back to him. It was as if everything he’d ever worked for was collapsing about his head. Harker was threatening to kick him off the ranch; Amanda was doing things in secret, possibly with another man.

  He looked at the satin dress. When? How? Where? What had she done? Was she so miserable before that she wanted to get away from him?

  Yesterday she’d kissed him and he’d been very angry about it, but today he wondered if he should have been. Maybe she needed a different kind of attention than he was giving her. Maybe she needed to be…to be courted.

  Amanda was a sensible young woman and she’d never be fooled by the bravado of someone like Dr. Montgomery, but then she was, after all, a woman, and women did like that sort of thing.

  What sort of thing? he asked himself. Exactly how did one court a woman? With flowers and candy? He swallowed. Certainly not with Greek translation assignments. Was Montgomery courting her? Was the white dress part of his courting? Perhaps Amanda had ripped it apart, then hidden it until she could find time to discard it.

  The more he thought about courting, the more sure he was that he should do it. In fact, he should have done it long ago. He would court Amanda for a few weeks—flowers, candy, hand kissing, all that—then they’d set the marriage date, which would be as soon as possible. After they were married the ranch would safely be his and Amanda would also be his. He’d keep her in his room where he could watch her all the time and she’d never be able to receive beaded dresses from other men.

  He wrapped his fist around the dress and the tension began to leave his body. He hadn’t planned on the courting, since Amanda was already engaged to him, but now he seemed to remember that men were supposed to court women, so perhaps Amanda was somewhat disappointed that he hadn’t done so.

  When he thought of the engagement, he remembered that he’d never bought her a ring. He thrust the dress in the bottom drawer of the desk, then went outside to the garage. He’d have the chauffeur take him into Kingman and he’d buy Amanda a diamond, nothing gaudy, but something refined and elegant.