The Awakening (Montgomery/Taggert 11)

She frowned. “Yes, of course. It is what I do. Doesn’t your schedule list what you are to do?”

Hank didn’t answer but he let out his breath. “And your schedule also includes what you wear?”

“Yes.”

“What you eat?”

“Yes.”

“Even when the bathroom is yours?”

She looked away, blushing. “It makes for an orderly household.”

Hank stood and looked at her for a long while, looked at her profile, the curve of her neck. When he’d first seen her he had thought she had sad eyes and now he knew the reason for the sadness. At fourteen she had been a butterfly just starting to emerge from a cocoon, but her father had snapped her up and hired a butterfly killer—ol’ Taylor—to push her back into the cocoon. And there she had remained.

He wanted to take her in his arms and hold her and tell her that now things would be all right, but that wouldn’t help, because, the truth was, Amanda didn’t know there was anything wrong that needed righting.

“Amanda,” he said patiently, the way one would speak to a shy child. “You are being held prisoner. Just as your father mistreats the people who work for him, so is this Driscoll misusing you. Other people don’t have a schedule; other people are free to eat what they want, go to the bathroom when they want. Driscoll has taken all your freedom from you, and freedom is something that is granted to everyone under the American Constitution. Come with me now, Amanda, and I will take you away from here. I will see that you never again have to live by a schedule.” He held out his hands, palms up, beseeching her.

Amanda was so stunned that for a few moments she couldn’t speak. She looked up through the bright sunlight at this tall, handsome man who at this moment looked like an evangelist trying to save sinners from their wicked ways, and the anger that she had been feeling since he arrived erupted in a volcanic mass.

“How dare you presume to tell me about my life,” she said through teeth clamped tightly shut. “How dare you criticize my father and my fiancé.” She took a step toward him and her rage seemed to make her taller—or him shorter—as she looked him in the eye. “What do you know of me or my life? You come to my home as a guest and you have done nothing but sneer at us and look down your nose at us. For your information, I happen to like my life. I like orderliness. I like the feeling of accomplishing things, and most of all, I love my father and my fiancé. And as for your American freedom, I believe it also means a citizen has the right to choose, and I happen to choose to give some direction to my life. Now, Dr. Montgomery, I suggest you get in your fast little car and speed away as quickly as its wheels will turn. I will walk back to my home, and when I get there the first thing I will do is see that your clothes are sent to you.”

With her back stiff, she stepped around him and started walking down the road, her every step showing her anger.

In a state of shock, Hank stood where he was, listening to her angry steps behind him. He felt like a fool. Since the moment he saw her, he had felt that there was something between them. He had been angry at her for not seeing it. He had been jealous of Taylor and he had looked for a reason to believe she didn’t really love Taylor. He felt like a vain, strutting fool, so vain that he couldn’t believe she would love someone other than him. He could feel his face turning red as he remembered his arrogance in telling her he was going to rescue her and save her from big, bad Taylor.

He ran his hand over his face and wiped away the sweat. Ever since he’d met Amanda he hadn’t been himself. He’d been behaving like a schoolboy who gave presents to the girl he liked then an hour later he was hitting her. Looking back at the last few days, he was mortified at his behavior. He remembered walking down streets and leaving her behind, making snide comments and sometimes downright rude ones. He had forcibly kissed her, something he’d certainly never done before.

And what had Amanda done to deserve such treatment? Nothing but be herself. She had taken him to museums and he had sneered. She had offered to talk with him on subjects she thought might interest him and he had been contemptuous. She had even let him join in a simple after-dinner reading of poetry and he had ridiculed her by reciting a licentious poem.

He had never felt so small in his life.

He turned and walked down the road toward her, halting her by standing in front of her. “Miss Caulden,” he said before she could speak, “there is nothing I can say that will fully express the depths of my apology. You are right in everything you said to me. My behavior has been abysmal, beyond any level of decency. I do not expect you to forgive me, so I will leave your house at once, but please, may I drive you back to your home?”

Amanda’s anger was beginning to cool now and she thought of Taylor’s fury when she told him she had screeched at Dr. Montgomery to leave her house at once.

“I should apologize to you,” she said, knowing she was lying but also knowing that her future marriage to Taylor might depend on this lie. “My behavior, too, has been inexcusable. Please do not leave.”

Please, he thought. She looked at him with those big eyes that exuded sadness and said, please. He should go; he knew that. He knew she wasn’t good for him. She was as tempting as cake to a fat person, as irresistible as liquor to an alcoholic. Yet he knew he couldn’t leave her. He was going to stay and he was going to learn to leave her alone. He had a job to do with the unionists and he was going to do it.

“Yes, I’ll stay,” he said at last. “Will you come back to the car with me and wait in the shade while I finish changing the tire? I’ll take you into Terrill City for your lecture and I promise I won’t drive fast.”

S

he murmured consent and sat under a tree while he changed the tire. She had been right in what she’d said. Every word, every syllable had been right, but she kept hearing his words. Was it true that other people didn’t have schedules? Were people free to eat when and what they wanted?

She tried to push the thoughts from her head. She was choosing to follow Taylor’s schedule.

Chapter Seven

Hank drove ten miles an hour to Terrill City. The town was about three times the size of Kingman and much more modern, with many stores and places of interest, and the people on the streets were more fashionably dressed, several of the women wearing cosmetics.

Some of the women eyed Hank appreciatively in his sporty yellow car, but he was too glum to notice them. He stopped before the Masonic Hall where Amanda’s lecture was being held, got out and opened the door for her.

“What time will it be over?” he asked in a dead voice.

“At one. You aren’t coming?”