The Awakening

by Jude Deveraux

  As Amanda started down the stairs again, she vowed she’d try harder to please Dr. Montgomery and therefore please Taylor.

  Chapter Four

  Hank was late for dinner and he felt Taylor’s cold displeasure as soon as he walked in the door. Was this house run like a military school? Again, J. Harker did not appear and it was just the three of them eating. If you could call what was on the plate eating. He’d been wrong about the menu. It was boiled chicken, boiled rice and boiled beets.

  He couldn’t keep his mouth shut. “You feed your hands this well? No wonder unionists are choosing you to picket.”

  Taylor gave him a look to freeze. “It is better for the body to eat lightly. Amanda and I constantly fight gluttony.”

  “You’ve won,” Hank said and pushed his plate away. “You mind if I’m excused? I have some reading to do.”

  “Amanda is finished also,” Taylor said. “She would like to show you the almond orchard.”

  “That’s all right. I’ve seen a lot of the ranch today.” He got out of his chair and started toward the door.

  Taylor gave Amanda a glare that let her know she was to follow the professor. With a yearning look toward her half-eaten food, she followed Dr. Montgomery.

  Hank stopped when he heard her behind him. “Afraid I’ll see something I shouldn’t?”

  “I have no idea what you mean, Dr. Montgomery,” she said honestly.

  “You wouldn’t know where the kitchen was, would you?”

  “Through there,” she said, pointing, then followed him. She had not been in the kitchen for years, not since Taylor had found her there one day eating milk and cookies. He had been horrified at her impending obesity.

  In the center of the big kitchen was an oak table covered with many dishes: roast beef, gravy, at least five vegetables, yeast rolls, butter, fruit salad, green salad, and on a counter were three kinds of cake. The servants were sitting down to dinner, food halfway to their mouths when they stopped at the sight of Hank and Amanda.

  “Miss Amanda!” the cook gasped and sprang to her feet.

  Hank just gaped at the food. “Mind if I join you?”

  “No!” Amanda said, knowing that Taylor would be furious with her if she allowed him to sit with the servants. “I mean—”

  The cook, who had been with the family since Amanda was a baby, knew a great deal of what was going on. She also knew what this big, strapping, healthy Dr. Montgomery had been given to eat today. “I’ll fix you a plate,” she said to Hank.

  “Yes,” was all he could say, his mouth watering. “And from now on, I want real meals.”

  She smiled at him. “If Mr. Taylor will allow—”

  “I will allow it,” Hank said, taking the heaping platter of food from her.

  “Miss Amanda?” the cook said, holding out an empty plate.

  Amanda didn’t remember having seen so much food in her life and she felt fairly faint for wanting it. But Taylor wouldn’t approve; he didn’t like plump women. “No, thank you,” she said at last.

  “All right,” Hank said, “take me to the almond orchard or someplace where I can sit down.”

  Amanda went out the back door behind Hank, leaving the delicious smells behind her and following his fragrant plate like a hungry dog.

  “There,” Hank said, his mouth full and pointing with a loaded fork toward the little summerhouse. It was a floor, a roof and four latticed posts, and inside seats all around.

  She followed him into the summerhouse and sat opposite him and all she was aware of was the smell of the food.

  “You aren’t going to tell me when this was built?” Hank asked, wolfing down roast beef. “Or what kind of wood this is?”

  “It was built in 1903, right after my parents and I moved here. It is made of cypress and is an exact copy of an English gazebo my mother saw in a magazine.”

  “Oh. Sorry. I guess you don’t like to talk about your mother.”

  She was surprised that he knew. Everyone else in Kingman knew, so why not this stranger? He was eating a buttered roll. Taylor did not believe in bread and certainly not butter. “I’d rather not talk about her.”

  “I understand. When did she die?”

  “Die?” Amanda asked. “My mother is not dead.”

  “But she doesn’t live with you, then?”

  “My mother stays in her room. Perhaps, Dr. Montgomery, we should change the subject.”

  She turned her head away and Hank sat there, eating, and watched her. Seeing her profile in the moonlight made him remember his first impression of her, as if she came from another time and place, as if he’d known her before. But her coldness, her haughtiness, her snobbery made him know he was mistaken. He wondered if her thin little body was capable of emotion.

  He turned at a noise and saw the cook coming through the darkness and bearing two plates, each heaped high with three slices of cake.

  “Thought you might like a little something else,” she said, setting the desserts down and taking Hank’s empty plate, then leaving.

  Hank offered a plateful to Amanda, but she shook her head. “Suit yourself, but it’s awfully good.” Little prude, he thought, too cool to even accept a piece of cake. No doubt she thought her purity would be threatened if she touched devil’s food cake. He wondered if she and Taylor kissed at all. Probably it would be a kiss as tasteless as that afternoon’s fish.

  Amanda didn’t dare look at him while he was eating the cake. Her stomach was rumbling and the smell was making her mouth water. But she didn’t dare eat any because Taylor might smell it on her breath or see bits of chocolate between her teeth. He wouldn’t like her if she were so weak-willed as to eat cake that wasn’t on the schedule.

  “Better,” Hank said as he put his cleaned plate aside and leaned back against the post, his legs stretched out. “What do you have planned for us tomorrow? I assume you do have my day planned.”

  She frowned at his tone then began to quote Taylor’s schedule. “We go to the Kingman Museum in the morning, then home for luncheon, and then a scenic tour of the area. That should take us to dinner time.”

  “What do you do for fun?”

  “I do watercolors and sew,” she answered, smiling to herself. Taylor gave her excellent grades on the watercolors and they were used as a reward for other subjects well done.

  “How do you stand the excitement?” he murmured. “What do you and your lover do on nights on the town?”

  “We do not go into town,” she said, confused. Taylor said Kingman was too provincial to be worthy of his time, that he’d not visit a city smaller than San Francisco, where he went once a year to buy clothes and other necessary items. Other than those two weeks, he rarely left the ranch.

  “Too good for it, are you?” Hank asked and realized he was getting nasty. Something about her primness, her smugness, her refusal to even bend enough to eat a piece of chocolate cake, brought out the worst in him.

  He stood. “I’m going to bed. You coming in?”

  “Yes,” she said softly, and gave one last look at the shadow that she knew was the second plateful of cake.

  Moments later she was in her room, and on her desk were pages of notes on the history of Kingman that she was to commit to memory before going to bed. She sat down heavily in her chair and wished for the thousandth time that Dr. Montgomery had never come. For some reason he seemed to dislike her a great deal, more with each passing minute, and to earn this dislike she was having to work twice as hard, miss meals, and repeatedly incur Taylor’s wrath.

  So tonight she would have to stay up late studying, and tomorrow she’d have to take him to a museum, and no matter how hard she’d try to be a good guide, she’d no doubt displease him. Why was he so hard to please and Taylor so easy? If she did what Taylor had written down, in the exact order, exactly on time, Taylor was happy. Perhaps she should ask Dr. Montgomery what he wanted of her. But no, that wasn’t a good idea, because if it conflicted with Taylor’s schedule, she’d have to ignore Dr
. Montgomery’s wishes.

  She glanced at the clock on the wall and thought she’d better stop pondering and get to work.

  Hank stood on the cool balcony, looking at the stars and smelling the rich fragrances of the night, and wished he had a whiskey. To his left was Amanda’s room and he could see a light through the curtains, could even see the shadow of her sitting at her desk. He knew he could step off the balcony onto the verandah roof and walk right across to her window.

  And then what, he thought. Have Miss Amanda tell him how many feet it was from his balcony to her window? He wondered what she’d do if he kissed her. Tell him the history of kissing?

  He went back into his room, took off his clothes and climbed into bed. He went to sleep right away, but a couple of hours later he woke and, on impulse, put on his robe and went to the balcony. Amanda’s light was still on and she was still hunched over her desk.

  Frowning, he went back to bed. However much a prude she was, she was certainly diligent at whatever she did.

  When he woke the next morning it was late and he sensed that people were already up and at work. He dressed hurriedly, then raced down the stairs. Amanda and Taylor were standing in the doorway to the dining room, Taylor looking at his pocket watch, Amanda obediently behind him.

  “I guess I’m late again,” he said without concern, and walked past them into the dining room. On the sideboard were silver servers full of scrambled eggs, biscuits, gravy, ham, sliced pineapple, waffles and syrup. “Ah,” he said in the tone of a hungry man confronted with delicious food.

  He filled a plate and sat down, then looked up to see Taylor and Amanda watching him. There was a sneer of disgust on Taylor’s coldly perfect features but on Amanda’s…It was just fleeting, but he almost thought he saw wistfulness or maybe it was true hunger, but the look was gone instantly and she looked down at the watery poached egg in her cup.

  After breakfast the limousine and chauffeur were waiting and Hank almost groaned. Another day of touring and lectures.

  An hour later they were standing in the Kingman Museum, which, as far as Hank could tell, was a tribute to the Caulden family.

  “My father bought four ranches at one time,” Amanda was saying. “They were very inexpensive because the silt from the mines nearby had caused the Glass River to flood and deposit the silt over the land. At great expense, my father dredged the silt off the land and exposed the rich soil underneath. He also put a stop to the mining.”

  “I bet he did,” Hank murmured.

  “Then he irrigated the land and—”

  “Became rich,” Hank put in.

  Amanda looked away. Again he was making it clear that he didn’t like her or her family.

  “When did your father buy this museum?” he asked on a hunch.

  “Two years ago.” She didn’t understand why he laughed at that.

  “Come on, I’ve had enough. Let’s go outside.”

  “But it isn’t time yet. We still have forty-two minutes in here.”

  “I plan to spend forty-two minutes enjoying the out-of-doors.”

  Reluctantly, she followed him outside. She hoped Taylor wouldn’t find out that they had left the museum early. And now what was she to do with him? She started toward the waiting limousine but he wasn’t with her. She turned and looked at him standing there with his hands in his pockets, looking more like a very large little boy than a man. She did so wish he would stand up straight like…like Taylor did.

  “How far is it to town?” he asked.

  “Two and a quarter miles,” she answered.

  “Somehow, I thought you’d know. I’ll walk. I’ll meet you at the Opera House.”

  Amanda felt a moment of panic. She just knew he’d never show up at the Opera House and she had a hideous vision of having to tell Taylor that she had “lost” Dr. Montgomery. “The driver can—” she began, then stopped because he was walking rapidly toward town. With a sigh, she told the driver where to meet them, then, holding her hat on, she hurried after Dr. Montgomery.

  When the car went by and he saw she wasn’t in it, he turned back to see her scurrying along after him. Impatiently, he waited. You’d think I’d want a beautiful young woman along, he thought. But Amanda was about as real as a magazine photo. “I don’t guess I’m to be trusted alone, am I? Might meet with some union leaders and do something awful, right?”

  Amanda suddenly felt very tired, tired from staying up most of the night trying to learn what she needed to know for this man, tired of missed meals, tired of his snide comments. “I am doing my best to make your stay pleasurable, Dr. Montgomery. I’m sorry if I’m failing.” She kept her shoulders back in the posture Taylor had taught her—taught her with the help of a steel brace.

  He relented. Maybe she couldn’t help being a cold little prig any more than he could help being what he was. It wasn’t right to be angry with her because she wasn’t what he wanted her to be. So she walked as stiffly as a poker with two legs, so she pulled her hair back so tight her eyes were stretched, so she spoke only in facts, so she dressed like somebody’s mother, so she had no humor, no warmth, no passion about her. It wasn’t his business.

  “I apologize, Miss Caulden, I have been rude to you. It’s just that I haven’t had my days planned for me since I left my mother’s house, and I’m afraid I’m too old to start over again. Look, there are some children playing. Couldn’t we just sit still for a while and smell the roses, so to speak?”

  “Roses?” she asked. “There are no roses in the schoolyard.”

  He groaned, then took her elbow and began to lead her toward the fenced schoolyard. School was out now, but there were three young children playing on the swings and seesaws, and a pretty young mother standing nearby. He left Amanda near a bench under a giant oak tree and walked toward the group. More than anything in the world, he wanted to see a friendly face.

  “Hello,” he said, and the woman turned. She was indeed pretty and she smiled at him. It seemed to be ages since a woman had smiled at him.

  “Hello,” she answered.

  “I’m—”

  “No, don’t tell me.” She looked past him to Amanda sitting primly on the bench. “You must be the Cauldens’ guest. Some teacher or something, right?”

  “Close enough,” he answered, holding out his hand, which she shook. “Hank Montgomery.” He nodded toward the children. “Good-looking bunch. Father still alive?”

  She laughed. “He was an hour ago.”

  “My loss,” Hank said with a sigh.

  She walked away toward the swings and her little girl and Hank followed her. “What’s it like up there?” she asked softly, motioning her head toward Amanda. “The Cauldens treating you right? You here to teach Amanda?”

  “It’s all right, and Amanda seems to be teaching me.” He paused a moment. “You know her?”

  “I did. We went to elementary school together, but her father took her out of school just about the time she started liking boys, you know?”

  Hank couldn’t imagine Amanda liking anyone, but he nodded. “He hired her a tutor?”

  “That man Driscoll. I’ve only seen him a couple of times. He doesn’t come into Kingman, but I’ve seen him ride through in the back of a car. Not my type,” she said, smiling more broadly at Hank.

  Not mine either, Hank thought. So, Amanda was going to marry her tutor. That made sense, what with her little mind being nothing but a catalog of information.

  The woman started to say more, but the little girl fell off the swing and started to scream and the woman picked her up. She didn’t seem to be really hurt, just scared, and she kept peeping around her mother at Hank.

  Hank put out his arms to her and the child went to him.

  “Flirt!” her mother said, laughing.

  Hank held the little girl and they studied each other. He liked children and hoped someday to have several of his own.

  “Miss your kids?” the woman asked, prying for information.

  “No kids; no
wife.”

  “Are you and Amanda…?”

  “Heavens no!” he said before he thought. “I mean, she’s engaged to her tutor, Taylor Driscoll. I figured everybody in town would know. Usually in small towns doesn’t everybody know everybody else’s business?”

  “Not the Cauldens’,” she said, again lowering her voice. “They may be rich as Croesus but there are some things that can’t be bought. Not that I care, but to my mother’s generation it mattered a lot.”

  “What did?” Hank asked.

  The woman looked past him and he saw Amanda approaching. She took her child and stopped her confidences.

  “Hello, Amanda,” she said.

  “Hello,” Amanda answered, and by her blank face it was easy to tell that she had no idea who the woman was.

  “Lily Webster. We went to school together.”

  “Yes, of course,” Amanda said. “How are you?”

  “Overworked. Well, I better be going. Nice to meet you, Hank.”

  “Same here,” he said, and smiled as she walked away, all three children hovering around her. Hank turned back to Amanda. “You ready to go?” He paused, for she was staring after the woman as if she’d seen a ghost. “You all right?” he asked.

  Amanda recovered herself. “Yes, I’m ready.” She remembered Lily. When they were in the fourth grade together they had sneaked into the cloakroom and tied and buttoned every piece of clothing together. They had just finished when the teacher caught them and made them unfasten everything then stand for two hours with their noses in a circle on the chalk-board. When her father heard of it he had been horrified but her mother had laughed delightedly.

  But that had happened before Taylor came. Sometimes she didn’t seem to remember anything that existed before Taylor came. It was as if his presence blotted out everything that had happened before his arrival.

  Now her fellow prankster, Lily, was married and had three little children and Amanda didn’t even know when her own wedding was to be.