The Awakening Page 6

  She frowned at Dr. Montgomery’s back. His questions were beginning to bother her. He was making her wonder what Taylor had planned for them. She knew when the wedding was to be—when Taylor felt she was ready and not before. And at the rate she was going in doing what he wanted her to do with Dr. Montgomery, she was never going to be ready to be married.

  She walked just behind him the rest of the way into town and breathed a sigh of relief when she saw the limousine waiting in front of the Opera House. But to her chagrin, Dr. Montgomery turned away from the car. “Here it is,” she called, hoping that perhaps he just hadn’t seen it.

  He ignored her and kept walking toward a restaurant. Amanda dodged two old Ford pickups and crossed the street after him. He had to go back to the ranch for luncheon because she had to pick up the schedule for the afternoon.

  At the restaurant, he held the door open for her.

  “Luncheon will be waiting for us at home,” she said.

  “Why drive all the way back there? Besides, it might do you good to eat somewhere else.” He firmly took her arm and led her inside the cool restaurant, where the smell of years of meals permeated the place.

  Amanda couldn’t remember the last time she had eaten out. It had been here with her mother and she had been wearing white gloves. A waitress handed them menus and Amanda read of rolled fillets of veal, rib roasts, leg of lamb and stuffed chicken breasts. The selection made her mouth water, but she knew there was nothing of which Taylor would approve.

  She put the menu down.

  “Made up your mind already?” Hank asked.

  “I’m not eating here.”

  Angrily, he slapped his menu down on the table. “What is it you have against food with flavor? Or is it that you’re too good to eat in a public place?”

  Again, that little feeling of anger rose in her. “It is neither. It is just that I do not wish to get fat.”

  He gaped at her, openmouthed. “Fat? You’d have to gain twenty pounds to be considered thin.” He picked up her menu and handed it to her. “I’m your guest and you’re supposed to keep me happy, remember? I want you to eat.”

  She felt very frustrated. She wasn’t supposed to get fat; Taylor didn’t like fat women. But, too, Taylor wanted her to entertain Dr. Montgomery. Only Dr. Montgomery didn’t like museums or tours of the ranch or healthy food. He liked to talk to women in parks and hold children, and walk, and eat. He seemed to like eating best of all.

  Amanda tried to choose the least fattening thing on the menu, but when the waitress came, Dr. Montgomery chose for her: chicken breasts stuffed with creamed spinach, spiced peaches, sage dressing, watercress salad, yeast rolls and butter.

  “Miss Caulden,” he said, “if I swear not to run away or interfere in your father’s business, tomorrow could we spare each other our company?”

  “I…I don’t know,” she answered. What would Taylor say? She was to go with Dr. Montgomery to see where he went. But she was also supposed to make him like the Cauldens and she wasn’t doing very well at that, was she? Taylor said he would be in awe of their house and ranch, but so far nothing seemed to awe him. She didn’t know what to do. “Do you have any plans of your own?” she asked. Maybe he meant to stay at the house.

  “I want to get in my car and drive. After that, I have no idea what I want to do.” Except get away from this woman who unsettled him and made him alternately nervous and angry.

  Amanda felt a moment of panic. Taylor would be angry if he went away by himself. “Would you possibly like to read tomorrow? If I repulse you I’m sure I could occupy myself elsewhere.”

  Damn, damn, damn, he thought. Honey, you don’t repulse me. You drive me crazy. That hair of yours. Those big, sad eyes. That body that would be real nice with some meat on it. How could the interior of such a beautiful package be so awful?

  “I do have some essays to grade and some letters to write,” he said at last. “I’ll stick around the house tomorrow.”

  She looked so relieved that he thought she might cry, and just for an instant he thought that she might get into trouble if he didn’t do what she wanted. But that couldn’t be. She was an ice lady or she wouldn’t have fallen for stone-faced Driscoll. They were a perfect match. Maybe they made love to each other by reading love sonnets aloud.

  The waitress put their plates of food on the table, and the expression on Amanda’s face made Hank smile.

  “You look like you’re about to worship it rather than eat it. Dig in. Enjoy.”

  It had been years since Amanda had eaten food like this. Taylor said the body was a temple and must be treated with reverence, therefore it was not to be filled with unhealthy, greasy food.

  Her first bite was heaven, absolute, sheer heaven. She closed her eyes and chewed and let the flavor roll about in her mouth.

  Hank looked up from his plate to see Amanda with her eyes closed and wearing an expression that he had only seen on a woman’s face when he was making love to her. He dropped his fork and her eyes flew open.

  “Like”—his voice broke—“like the food?”

  “Yes, thank you, I do.”

  She went back to eating, her eyes open, thank God, but Hank had a little trouble swallowing. Calm down, Montgomery, he told himself. She’s just a pretty girl, that’s all. You came here to talk to the union leaders, not get yourself in trouble like you did with Blythe Woodley.

  “Miss Caulden, could you tell me a little about Kingman?”

  Like a little box that you put a nickel in, she began to spout facts. She told about the five railroad tracks (one main one and four sidings) and the seven mail deliveries a day. She told about the Digger Indians, the Spanish land grants, the copper mines. She told about the Donner Party arriving just east of Kingman at the Johnson Ranch and she rattled off facts and dates about the rescue parties and the number of survivors and deaths. She told of dates when the town flooded and when it was burned down. She told of dams built, bridges built. She gave numbers of population, dates schools built, dates—

  “Stop!” he said, gasping for air. She was a wind-up toy that never ran down, but at least his ardor was cooled. Taylor Driscoll could have her. She was all looks and nothing else. “Eat your cherry pie,” he said, pushing the plate toward her. He smiled at the way she cleaned her plate. For someone who was worried about getting fat, she sure could pack it away.

  Chapter Five

  Taylor Driscoll stood behind the desk in the library staring intently out the window toward the front of the house. He looked at his watch again. 2:13. Where was she? He had given her a schedule this morning and she was to return by noon, so why was she over two hours late?

  He looked at his watch again. 2:14. Still no sign of the car. Damn her! he thought. Damn her for making him feel like this. He cursed her and he cursed himself for caring so much. He’d sworn long ago that he’d never love another woman—women were too untrust-worthy. They said they loved you and then they deserted you.

  As he stared out the window he seemed to be transported back to his childhood when he used to stand by the window and wait for his mother to come home. She’d come staggering up the steps, two young men holding her up, her red-dyed hair frothy about her face, her big breasts heaving, her fat hips swaying, with a man now and then squeezing an ample buttock and making her laugh raucously. Young Taylor used to watch as his father, who always waited up for his wife, came out the front door and helped her inside. The young men would make taunting remarks to Mr. Driscoll but he never seemed to hear them.

  Taylor would leave the window and go back to bed, but he’d lie there, his little fists clenched at his sides, and hate both his parents: her for being the fat, loud, stupid, uncaring woman she was and him for being refined, educated, and for stupidly loving this unworthy woman.

  Taylor spent every moment he had reading and studying, trying to get away from his mother, who lolled about on a sofa and ate chocolates and never lifted a finger to help manage the household servants or even to talk to the chil
d who was her son. Sometimes Taylor would stand in the doorway and glare at his mother, but this would make her laugh at him, so mainly he stayed in his room. His books came to represent love to him, for there was no love anywhere else in his house. His mother openly admitted she had married his father for his money, and her main concern was rich food, revealing dresses covered with flounces, and “having a good time,” which involved whiskey and good-looking young men.

  Taylor’s father’s only concern was suffering and feeling miserable because he loved a woman like his wife. He seemed to regard loving her as an incurable disease that he’d contracted.

  When Taylor was twelve his father had died, and within a year his mother had spent every penny he’d left to both of them. Without regret, Taylor had packed a bag of dirty clothes—all the servants had left months ago—and had taken a hundred dollars he’d managed to steal when his mother was drunk and gone in search of his father’s relatives.

  For years he’d begged for an education. He had developed a strong sense of pride when he was living in his parents’ house—he needed it to survive the abuse, shame and degradation—but he put his pride aside as he asked for a little from this relative, a little from that one. After a few years, they began to regard him as an obligation, and they knew that if they didn’t send money or letters of introduction, or whatever Taylor was requesting, they would be bombarded with letters from Taylor and from other relatives who he had asked to intercede.

  By the time he was twenty and was graduating summa cum laude, each relative was taking full credit for having put him through school and having encouraged him when Taylor would have given up.

  After college, he tried one job after another, but nothing appealed to him and he was considering going back to school to get his Ph.D. and teach when he got a letter from a distant cousin-by-marriage, J. Harker Caulden. Caulden said he had a wayward daughter who he was afraid was getting out of control. Her mother was useless at discipline and he hadn’t the time. He wanted Taylor to come and privately tutor the girl until she was of marriageable age.

  Taylor had immediately visualized his mother and had imagined a fourteen-year-old harridan who sneaked out the window at night to go to parties. Taylor hoped he could save her, and, if he were strict enough, he might be able to prevent another being such as his mother from developing.

  He accepted J. Harker’s offer and went to California and the huge Caulden Ranch to start his taming of young Miss Amanda.

  Taylor almost laughed when he saw Amanda. He had expected a young version of his mother and instead he saw a tall, gangly, almost-pretty girl who looked at him with big, eager eyes. And it took only two days to find out that she had an excellent brain—a brain empty of learning but stuffed full of clothes and boys and gossip and other frivolous things.

  At once he saw the potential. She was as malleable as a piece of clay. He could make Amanda into a lady, into the exact opposite of his mother. He could teach her so that she could converse on something besides the latest dances. He could dress her in a refined, sedate style. She would never be fat under his guidance.

  She was an excellent pupil, so eager to learn, so eager to please. He didn’t mind the hours he spent writing out her daily schedules because then he knew where she was. Amanda would never have time to leave him.

  As the years passed, Amanda grew into a very pretty young lady who wasn’t remotely like his mother. And he began to fall in love with her. He didn’t want to and fought it at first, because women were unfaithful creatures who used you when they knew you loved them. So he had kept his love for her to himself but he had bound her to him so she couldn’t get away, and someday, when the idea didn’t frighten him so much, he planned to marry her. Right now he feared that if he married her, she might change, she might become his drunken, fat, stupid mother.

  He looked at his watch again. 2:18. Still no sign of her. He hated allowing her to go out with that barbarian Montgomery but he had no choice. Montgomery could cause a great deal of trouble on the ranch and he needed to be kept away, and Amanda was the only one available to do it. The ranch had come to be very important to Taylor, for J. Harker had said it was someday to be his. Amanda was Harker’s only child and he meant to leave everything to Taylor through her. The security of money was something Taylor needed. His childhood, especially after his father died, had been one long time of begging for money, books, tuition, shoes, clothes. The years of begging for even necessities had deeply hurt his pride.

  So now he was torn between doing what he could for the ranch and keeping Amanda isolated.

  He almost allowed himself to smile when he remembered Amanda saying she thought Dr. Montgomery didn’t like her. Didn’t like Amanda? A woman who could converse on nearly any intellectual subject in four languages? Not likely. But then perhaps he was one of those lower-natured men who preferred scullery maids and night-club floozies.

  It was 2:22 now and still no sign of Amanda.

  He stared out the window so hard his head began to ache.

  Amanda’s feet were hurting and she was so worried about being off her schedule that her stomach was feeling a little queasy. Dr. Montgomery wanted to walk around the town of Kingman and look in shop windows and talk to people and, in general, waste time. Taylor had repeatedly told Amanda how precious time was and that it was not to be wasted on frivolous matters, yet here she was doing nothing to improve her mind. And also, Taylor had told her what awful people the citizens of Kingman were. Hadn’t they ostracized her mother? They didn’t like the Cauldens and she was better off not associating with them. Yet here she was, standing behind Dr. Montgomery and nodding in recognition to passing people, some of whom knew her name.

  “Hasn’t hurt you to speak to a few of the common folk yet, has it?” Dr. Montgomery said in an angry tone to her when she mentioned returning to the ranch.

  And another thing that made this outing so unpleasant was this stranger’s attitude toward her. He smiled at passing women but at her he glared and frowned and made very disagreeable remarks. She wanted to go home to the safety of Taylor and her books.

  She almost bumped into Dr. Montgomery when he stopped in front of the drugstore. There was a sign there telling of a dance next Saturday.

  “You and Mr. Taylor going?” he asked her. “Planning to paint the town red?”

  She understood his meaning if not the slang. “We do not attend dances,” she said stiffly.

  “Is it the dances or the townspeople who aren’t good enough for you?”

  Again she felt anger. “Dancing is a waste of time, and as for the townspeople—” She was on the verge of telling him about her mother but she didn’t. She was not going to be rude merely because he was. “Dr. Montgomery, I would like to return home now. It is late and there are other things to do.”

  “You go back, then,” he said angrily, thinking that he had to get away from her and the whole Caulden clan. The two cold fishes of Amanda and Taylor, the rude, belligerent J. Harker and the mother who was locked away somewhere and spoken of in mysterious half-sentences, was more than he could bear.

  But as he looked at Amanda, standing there absolutely straight, her thin little shoulders thrown back, her eyes with just a spark of fire in them, he knew he couldn’t leave. Something was holding him.

  “All right,” he said, “we’ll go back.”

  Amanda could have cried with relief as they walked back to the waiting limousine. He didn’t speak to her on the drive back and she was grateful. She needed to gather her strength for the coming meeting with Taylor.

  Once in the house, Taylor came to the hall to meet them, and Amanda could tell he was angry. He waited for Dr. Montgomery to go upstairs, then he called her into the library.

  For a moment he stood with his back to her, then he turned on his heel and faced her, his dark eyes glittering, his cheeks pulled in in fury. “I am disappointed in you, Amanda. Very disappointed. You knew you were to be back here at noon, yet you were not. No! Do not give me excuses,
I will listen to none of them. Don’t you realize how important your assignment is? If unionists come here and make trouble, we could lose this year’s crop altogether. And all because you did not keep to the schedule.”

  Amanda looked down at her hands. How could she keep Dr. Montgomery to the schedule? Somehow she had to. It seemed that everything—the whole future of the ranch—depended on her.

  “Now, go to your room and think on what you have done. Do not come to dinner tonight, but later come to the parlor and read for Dr. Montgomery. Perhaps if you are here with me you can keep on schedule.” And I will not be worried about you, Taylor thought, frowning at her bowed head. “Go on, Amanda,” he said, controlling the anger in his voice.

  Amanda went up the stairs slowly, feeling as if she had gained fifty pounds. Mrs. Gunston was waiting for her. Amanda was to go to the basement to do her exercises, then a bath, no dinner, and reading for Dr. Montgomery in the evening. She was beginning to despise that man!

  Hank stayed in his room until dinner, trying his best to read a couple of his students’ essays. Sometimes when a student had done well, but not as well as he liked, Hank allowed him or her to raise his grade with a research paper. So, between terms, Hank sometimes had papers to grade. But he couldn’t keep his mind on the papers; all he could think about was Amanda. He wasn’t sure what about her infuriated him so much, but something did. He remembered the way she had looked at lunch, her eyes closed, that look of sublime happiness on her face. “I wish I could cause her to look like that,” he muttered and turned back to the essay.

  Amanda didn’t come out of her room for dinner, and Hank was sure it was because she couldn’t bear his company. He sat in unnatural silence beside ol’ stiff-necked Taylor, eating veal cutlets while Taylor ate more boiled fish. Hank wondered what Amanda ate in her room when she was out of Taylor’s sight. Boiled fish or perhaps fried chicken?

  After dinner, just as the clocks all over the house chimed 7:15, Amanda appeared in the parlor. Hank looked around his newspaper, nodded curtly to her, then hid behind his paper again. He wondered if she’d leave when she found her beloved Taylor wasn’t alone.