The Awakening (Montgomery/Taggert 11)

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?”