The Awakening Read online

  “Reva Eiler,” he said.

  For a moment Amanda didn’t place the name, then slowly she began to remember her fights with Reva. Was that Amanda the same person she was today? Thank heaven Taylor had saved her from what she was.

  “Don’t remember her?” Dr. Montgomery asked. “She remembered you, black eye and all.”

  In spite of herself, Amanda smiled. “Yes, I remember her. I felt sorry for her, but she stopped that. She always—”

  “What?” he coaxed.

  “Always seemed to want what I had. If I wore a blue dress with little hearts on it, two days later she’d show up with a blue dress with hearts on it. Once Mother put a big pink-and-white-striped ribbon in my hair and the next day Reva wore a ribbon just like it. I…” She trailed off.

  “You what?”

  “I threw my ribbon in the river.”

  He smiled at her in the darkness. “I’m taking Reva to a dance on Saturday,” he blurted before he thought.

  “Good,” Amanda said. “Reva has had too little joy in her life.”

  “Unlike you,” he couldn’t resist saying. She was so damned pretty in the moonlight, looking a bit like a fairy maiden, somehow ethereal, with her white dress and her pale oval of a face.

  She stiffened. “I have had a great deal of happiness in my life. I have my family, my fiancé, my books. It is all one could ask for.”

  It probably was enough for her, he thought, but for most women it wouldn’t be. “Why don’t you and Taylor come to the dance with us and make it a double date?”

  “I hardly think so,” she said and couldn’t imagine Taylor dancing. She stood, gathered her notebook and pen and started toward the doorway. “I think I better go in.”

  As quickly as a cat, he blocked her way. He was standing very close to her and he could smell the fragrance of her. Without thinking what he was doing, he reached out to touch the hair at her temple. “Don’t go,” he whispered. “Stay here with me.”

  Amanda swallowed hard. He was looking at her the same way he had when he’d quoted that poem to her, the poem about loosening thighs. No man had ever looked at her this way or spoken to her this way. It was frightening, yet at the same time she couldn’t move away.

  “How long is your hair?” he whispered.

  “Long?” she asked stupidly. “To my waist. It is difficult to keep neat.”

  “I’d like to see it not neat. I’d like to see it long and full and thick.”

  Amanda was feeling quite strange. Perhaps it was the missed meal. Perhaps it was several missed meals over the last few weeks, but she did indeed feel light-headed and limp-limbed. “Dr. Montgomery, I don’t think…” she began but trailed off as she took a step backward and he stepped forward.

  “What are your shoulders like, Amanda? As white and as smooth as the skin of your cheek?” He touched her cheek with the back of his fingers.

  Definitely strange, she thought, her eyes locked with his. His words were not right, she thought, and he shouldn’t say these things to her. Perhaps she should cry for help. But she only took another step backward and he took one forward.

  “Those eyes of yours could eat a man alive,” he said, his voice pouring over her like something hot and thick and creamy. “And lips. Lips made to be kissed. Lips made to whisper love words. Lips made to kiss a man’s skin.”

  Oh my, she thought, but no words came out. Oh my, oh my, oh my. She was afraid of him, and that’s why she didn’t scream or run from him. Only this emotion didn’t feel like fear, it felt…There was nothing to describe it or compare it to.

  “Amanda,” he whispered and put his hands on her neck, his thumbs caressing the line of her jaw.

  She had never been touched like this and it was as if she were starving. She closed her eyes, leaned her head back and let herself feel his hands on her face.

  Then, one minute he was there and the next he was gone. For a moment she stood there, all alone in the night, and wondered if she’d dreamed it all, but then she heard the door of the house shut noisily and she knew he’d gone inside.

  Heavily, she sat down on the seat, her pad and pen, which she’d clasped to her the whole time, falling to her lap. Wrong, she thought. This was absolutely, completely wrong. It was wrong to have done and even more wrong to have felt.

  She thought of Taylor and her chest tightened. He trusted her so much, he believed in her so much, yet she’d betrayed him as if she were a wanton creature with no morals. How could she ever be worthy of Taylor if she acted like this toward this stranger who was toying with her? Dr. Montgomery might seem like a man of high character, what with his degrees and all, but he wasn’t. He quoted vulgar poems and drove too fast and invited women he didn’t know to dances, then made improper advances to an engaged woman practically under her fiancé’s nose. This was not the behavior of a man of high moral character such as Taylor was. Taylor never drove too fast (or drove at all, for that matter). Taylor didn’t indulge in unseemly pastimes like dancing, and Taylor would never, never drive out in the middle of the night and meet someone like Reva Eiler. And he didn’t make improper advances, not even to the woman he was to marry. Taylor didn’t tell a woman her lips were made to be kissed, or to whisper love words or to kiss a man’s skin.

  Kiss a man’s skin, she thought. To kiss his bare shoulder or his throat or even the palm of his hand or his—No! she told herself, put those thoughts from your mind. Or at least, when she thought them, she was to imagine kissing Taylor’s bare shoulder and not Dr. Montgomery’s as she was doing. But for the life of her she couldn’t even imagine Taylor in his shirt sleeves, much less bare-chested.

  As she started back toward the house, she knew she had never been so confused in her life, and once again she wished Dr. Montgomery had never come. From now on she was going to do her best to stay away from him.

  Hank didn’t sleep much that night. He didn’t know if it was guilt or just plain old-fashioned lust that kept him awake. Why did he always seem to want the women he shouldn’t have? He hadn’t been the least interested in Blythe Woodley while she was his student, but the minute she was engaged to another man, he couldn’t keep his hands off of her.

  Now here was Amanda, not at all the sort of woman to inspire great passion, yet he couldn’t keep away from her. She was pretty but there were lots of women prettier. She was too thin, too perfectly proper, too much of a little old maid. So why was she driving him stark, raving crazy?

  He got out of bed, and before he could change his mind he packed his clothes. Tomorrow he would leave the Caulden house and go into Kingman to stay. That would be better anyway, because the unionists would be able to reach him there. He’d stay at the Kingman Arms and every night he’d go out with a different woman, a warm, real, flesh and blood woman, one who ate pork chops and drank beer and didn’t believe dancing was a mortal sin. He’d find a woman he could talk to.

  It was three A.M. before he fell asleep.

  “Amanda,” Taylor said sternly. They were in the dining room, waiting for Dr. Montgomery to join them for breakfast. “Mrs. Gunston says his bag is packed, that he means to leave today.”

  Amanda swallowed guiltily. It was her fault that Dr. Montgomery was leaving.

  “Perhaps you don’t understand what this means. This Dr. Montgomery is practically a socialist. All his writings indicate that he believes in giving everything to the poor people. He wants to take away your house, your pretty clothes. Amanda, he wants you to work in the fields, to be a servant. Would you like that, Amanda?”

  She remembered the meal of roast beef and mashed potatoes the servants had been eating in the kitchen, but she pushed that vision away. “No, I wouldn’t,” she said solemnly.

  “It may happen if Dr. Montgomery has his way. When these union men come, they will go to him and he will side with them and he will incite them to strike.”

  Amanda looked down at her hands. And if that happens, it will be my fault, she thought heavily, but she couldn’t figure out what to do. On
e minute Dr. Montgomery seemed to detest her and the next he was making improper advances to her.

  “Amanda!” Taylor said sharply. “Why is your hair in disarray?”

  A strand had fallen from the tight bun she wore. She pushed it back into place. “I was rushed this morning because Dr. Montgomery was in the bathroom.” Suddenly her restraint broke. “Oh, Taylor, I wish you’d give him a schedule. He is so erratic! He comes and goes at the oddest times, goes into the bathroom whenever he wants, eats when he’s hungry and eats whatever he wants. He makes life difficult for everyone else.”

  Taylor was startled and disapproving of her outburst at first but then he smiled. Here was proof that Amanda was a woman who understood logic. She was never going to come home at two A.M. staggering from drink, or sleep until noon, or disappear for three days at a time. Amanda would never abandon her children or her husband.

  To Amanda’s utter disbelief, Taylor bent slightly and kissed her forehead. He had never kissed her before.

  “Come, my dear,” he said softly. “Perhaps you’d like a little strawberry jam this morning, and in a few weeks, when the hops are picked and Dr. Montgomery and the unionists are gone, perhaps we can talk about our marriage plans.”

  Amanda was too stunned to speak. What had she said? What had she done? A moment ago he was upset because she was not doing what he wanted with Dr. Montgomery and now he was planning their marriage.

  Amanda sat down at the table. Whatever had happened, she was glad of it. She put jam on her toast and, as she had done at lunch with Dr. Montgomery, she closed her eyes and let the taste flow down her throat.

  It was Taylor’s turn to be shocked. “Amanda!” he gasped.

  “I’m…I’m sorry,” she said, opening her eyes. “It just tastes so good.”

  He moved the jam jar to the other side of the table as if he were moving a liquor decanter away from an alcoholic, and Amanda tried not to look at it with longing.

  Hank felt rotten when he woke, so he went to the bathroom and half filled the tub with icy cold water then sat in it. His teeth chattered and his skin tightened like a bandage about his body, but it did wake him up—and it helped him forget his dreams about Amanda.

  One more meal with her, he thought, then he’d leave this strange household where four people lived but he saw only two of them.

  Dressed, he started down the stairs but paused, his hand on the rail. Across the stairwell that extended to the first floor was the door to Amanda’s room and it was ajar. To his left, behind the wall, he could hear the faint, descending steps of a maid on the back stairs. He was alone upstairs.

  Without thinking about what he was doing, he walked the few steps to Amanda’s room and pushed the door open. He didn’t know why it surprised him, but the room had less character than a drawing of a model room for a magazine. There was nothing wrong with the room; it had furniture and pictures on the walls and curtains at the windows, but there was nothing personal in it. Guest rooms in his mother’s house had tatted lace on the tables, a bright-colored shawl to spread across your legs if you wanted to read at night. She put embroidered pillows on every chair, novels by the bed, fresh flowers wherever she could and little scented pillows on the dresser.

  But Amanda’s room had none of these things. The surfaces of all furniture were bare. The bed with its blue cotton spread looked spartan, with no lacy little pillows heaped on top. The pictures were dull etchings of scenery that was too perfect to be real. The curtains were dark blue, not a deep, rich blue that could give some character to the room but a plain, boring, nondescript blue.

  He walked to the far end of the room to the desk where he’d seen Amanda silhouetted during the night. There was nothing on top of the desk. He opened the right-hand desk drawer and the contents were as neat as the outside. On top was a handwritten piece of paper headed: Schedule, and below that, today’s date. Below that was a minute-by-minute account of where Amanda was to take Dr. Montgomery, what she was to talk to him about, even what she was to feed him and what to wear while doing it.

  He shut the drawer in disgust. What a controlling little bitch, he thought. She not only had to put her own life into perfect order so that she had no freedom, she had to do the same for everyone else. Suddenly Hank felt sympathy for Taylor and wondered if he knew what he was getting into. Would Amanda make out a schedule for Taylor when he was her husband? 11:01 P.M.: fourth attempt to breed a child. If he failed in six attempts would she throw him out? He didn’t imagine Amanda would put 11:01 P.M.: feel passion on her schedule.

  He walked out of the room and left the door open, not caring about covering his tracks. Another couple of hours and he’d be out of this place.

  In the dining room Amanda and Taylor were already seated and eating, and after a curt greeting, Hank filled his plate from the silver dishes on the sideboard. He tried to control his anger but it wasn’t easy. He felt like a free animal that had been caught and put in a zoo and a strict feeding schedule made out. She put him on a schedule; did she put Taylor on one too? If he didn’t keep to it, was his punishment loss of the ranch? Marry me and do exactly what I say, to the minute, and the ranch is yours. Is that what she said to him?

  Poor guy, Hank thought, glancing at Taylor with some sympathy. She didn’t allow dancing or parties; she snubbed women who were once her friends.

  “Dr. Montgomery,” Taylor was saying, “Amanda would so like to go into Terrill City today and hear a lecture on Eugenics. She can’t possibly go alone, and I have accounts to do. Would you mind terribly accompanying her?”

  Hank opened his mouth to say no, but then he knew he wanted to tell her just what he thought of her manipulation of the people around her.

  “I would love to,” he said, looking across the table at Amanda, every bit of the anger he felt showing in his eyes.

  Amanda looked at him, and when she saw the anger in his face she almost said she didn’t want to go anywhere with him, but it was too soon after Taylor had mentioned their marriage to risk angering him. But something about the way Dr. Montgomery looked at her made the hair on the back of her neck stand up.

  After breakfast she waited for him by the car—for thirty minutes she waited, until at last he sauntered outside.

  “Mess up your schedule, missy?” he said nastily.

  She backed away from him, away from the rage she could feel coming from him. “We…were to leave earlier, yes,” she said tentatively.

  “Then what’s to keep us from going?” He turned to the chauffeur. “We won’t need you today.” He looked back at Amanda, his eyes glittering. “Either we go in my car or not at all.”

  “All right,” she answered softly, and rather liked the idea of traveling in his pretty, open car.

  “That’s not on your schedule either, is it?” he said with anger, then stomped past her to the garage.

  She stood still for a moment, looking toward the back of him. Had Taylor given him a copy of today’s schedule? Perhaps Dr. Montgomery was angry at himself because he saw how late he was or because he’d been in the bathroom when it wasn’t on the schedule.

  He went through the complicated motions of starting his little yellow car, then backed it out of the garage and quickly moved it so close to her that he almost ran over her toes.

  “Get in!” he commanded.

  Amanda was only too happy to obey. There was something wonderful about the little car, and she smiled as she sank into the black leather of the passenger seat then held on to her hat as Dr. Montgomery let out on the clutch and they started moving. But it wasn’t moving like the limousine moved. She watched, fascinated, as he began to shift gears. The car began to accelerate. She had never traveled faster than 15 mph before and that had seemed fast, but now, with the wind tearing at her hair and face, her eyes batting quickly to keep bugs from flying in them—for there was no windshield except for a circle of glass before the driver—she knew she was traveling very, very fast. And she liked it. Oh yes, she liked it very much, liked the wind,
the openness of the car, liked the way the trees and fields tore past them at lightning speed.

  They hadn’t gone very far, not as far as Amanda would have liked, when there was a loud sound and the car swerved quickly to the right. There was an angry expletive from Dr. Montgomery, and Amanda watched with interest as he fought the wheel of the car and began to slow it down. He kept his eyes, his feet and his hands busy and never once did she feel that he had lost control.

  When, at long last, the car was under control, Dr. Montgomery turned and looked at her, his face, if possible, even more angry. “A blowout. This should mess up your little schedule real well.”

  Since the objective was to get Dr. Montgomery out of Kingman for the day, Amanda hoped Taylor wouldn’t mind if they were late for the lecture. As for Amanda, she just wanted to ride in this fast car some more.

  She leaned her head back against the seat, closed her eyes and smiled in memory.

  Before she knew what was happening to her, he grabbed her from the seat and pulled her into his arms and then he was kissing her. Kissing her hard and passionately, just the way he drove.

  She was so stunned she couldn’t react. She didn’t even have time to close her eyes, but just when she was beginning to realize what was happening to her and thinking she rather liked this, he thrust her from him so violently that her back slammed into the side of the car.

  She put the back of her hand to her lips and stared at him wide-eyed.

  “Was that on your schedule, Little Miss Prim and Proper? Did the ride scare you? Was something like speed too much for your perfect little world? You may think you can command every man around you but you can’t. You may have poor old Taylor in your palm because he wants your daddy’s ranch, but you don’t rule all of us.”

  Furiously, he turned toward the back of the car and jerked one of the two spares off it and began to change the tire.

  Amanda stood where she was. His speech, his kiss, indeed, his actions, were incomprehensible to her. She had no idea in the world what he was talking about and for a moment she was afraid of him. They were alone on a dirt road, ten miles out of Kingman, and there wasn’t a house or car in sight.