The Awakening (Montgomery/Taggert 11)

“I tried my best to keep to the schedule, but Dr. Montgomery doesn’t like museums.”

Taylor’s eyes were cold and angry. “Perhaps you didn’t make them interesting to him. Perhaps you weren’t concerned enough with the welfare of the ranch to study enough to make the visits interesting.”

It was all so very unfair. If Taylor loved her, didn’t he care what her father had just said to her? She had rarely been allowed out of her room before Dr. Montgomery came, and then, without asking her, they had thrust him upon her and expected her to know how to handle a man who stared at her legs and kissed her and shoved chocolate cake in her face. How was a lifetime of study supposed to prepare her for this man?

“Your laziness is going to cost us the ranch,” Taylor said. “The unionists will take it away from us. The hops will rot in the fields with no one to pick them, and it will all be your fault.”

“I did the best I could.” Tears of frustration sprang to Amanda’s eyes. She hoped Dr. Montgomery ran off a cliff in that car of his and no one ever had to see him again.

“Your best was not good enough,” Taylor said with a half sneer on his lip. “I want you to spend the day in your room. Do not come out until tomorrow morning, while I try to think of some remedy for what you have caused. And since you seem to find calculus so easy, let us see how well you remember your Greek. I want you to begin translating Moby Dick into Greek.” He stepped away from the door. “Now go, and do not let me see you again for twenty-four hours.”

Amanda went, but instead of feeling contrite she felt angry. Taylor had not been fair at all. He didn’t know what Dr. Montgomery was like. He had no idea what she’d been through with that dreadful man.

But wait! she told herself. Taylor was good; he wasn’t wrong. She had failed in the task he’d given her. For whatever reason she’d failed, the result was the same, and he had a right to punish her.

By the time she got to her room she had convinced herself that Taylor was absolutely right, and she did her best not to think of what her father had said. But as the day wore on, some of her original conviction left her. It was hot in her room, and her dress of heavy silk broadcloth was stiff and made her even hotter. Lunch time came and went and she was famished. Twice she glanced toward her windows as if she expected Dr. Montgomery to come into her room bearing canvas bags full of food. But the house was quiet and no one came to interrupt her study.

By two o’clock she was faint with hunger and she was oddly restless. She couldn’t seem to keep her mind on her translation. Instead, she kept remembering last night at the dance. She remembered the music, the champagne, the couples dancing. She pushed her chair back and began to try to imitate the dancers’ steps. What would she have thought if she’d gone to a dance alone

or with a woman and met Dr. Montgomery there? When he wasn’t being an utterly obnoxious man, he was awfully good-looking. Would he have asked her to dance? Would he have been interested in her as a woman and not just as a specimen to study and change?

She whirled about the room, then felt so dizzy she had to sit down on the bed. She put her hand to her head for a moment as the dizziness passed. This is ridiculous, she thought. As Dr. Montgomery said, she was twenty-two years old and she was still being punished as if she were a schoolgirl.

She kept her head high and ignored her pounding heart as she left her room and went down the stairs to the dining room. Perhaps she could find a maid to bring her a sandwich that she could secrete back up to her room. To her chagrin, her father sat alone at the head of the dining table, a huge meal of roast beef, about eight vegetables, a pork pie, three kinds of bread and two salads spread before him. Amanda stared at the food for so long she didn’t have time to get away before J. Harker saw her.

“Well?” Harker said belligerently.

“May I join you?” she heard herself saying, then practically floated to the table before he could answer. A maid set a plate and utensils before her.

“Did you come to explain or apologize?” he asked.

“I merely wanted to eat,” Amanda said, heaping her plate full. She wanted to eat with her hands from the platters, but she managed to control herself.

Harker watched her for a moment, and for the first time in years he looked at his daughter as a human being. She usually acted like such a little know-it-all and this made him feel every year of his neglected education. “So why did the professor leave?”

Amanda dug into candied carrots. “He didn’t like being put on a schedule. He likes motion pictures and dances and picnics. He did not like museums or lectures on Eugenics. Nor was he impressed by the size of our house or cars.” Amanda couldn’t believe she was talking this way to her father, but perhaps it was the delicious food that was her main interest.

Harker considered this for a moment. “And you couldn’t bring yourself to go to a dance with him?”

“I am an engaged woman and, besides, I had enough trouble fitting the museums in with my other studies.” The peas with little pearl onions were heavenly.

Harker was watching her. Usually the meals he’d seen her eat were tiny and extremely unappetizing, but today she was eating like a mule train driver. Taylor had blamed Amanda for Montgomery’s leaving, but at this moment Harker wondered whether Amanda had perhaps been responsible for the young professor staying as long as he had. As a child she’d been headstrong and willful—just like her mother—but he’d hired Taylor and within months Amanda had settled down. At first Harker had been relieved, but as the years went by and he saw Amanda turn into a prim and proper little machine, he began to wish she’d pull some prank. But he had too much work to do to concern himself with the education of a daughter. It was only when she got to be about twenty and she was still reciting verses like a ten-year-old that he was unable to bear the sight of her.

Now as he watched her eat like a field hand, he sensed that something was different. This morning Grace, who usually avoided him like the plague and had pretty much hated him since Taylor had arrived, smiled at him. And Harker had been looking at Taylor differently lately. He was no longer in awe of Taylor’s education and had begun to wonder if the man knew as much as either one of them thought he did. Years ago, when Grace had demanded that Harker get rid of Taylor, Harker had refused on sheer principle if for no other reason. He’d made his decision and he was sticking to it—right or wrong—and even if Grace did refuse to sleep with him until Taylor was gone, he wasn’t going to let that influence him. But this morning, when Grace had smiled at him, he’d remembered what a damned good-looking woman she was and he’d wondered at the way he’d chosen Taylor over a beautiful wife.

“Bring some of that peach pie,” Harker said to the maid. “My daughter is hungry.”

Amanda gave him a weak smile. “You don’t think I’ll get fat?”

“I like women with a little meat on their bones.”

“That’s what…I mean…” she stumbled, remembering what Dr. Montgomery had said. “Thank you, I’d like some pie.”

Involuntarily, Amanda looked at the empty seat opposite her and thought, I miss him. She told herself that was a stupid thought and utterly incorrect but remembered the punishment work she had upstairs, and she wished she could go on a picnic with Dr. Montgomery. No! with Taylor, she corrected herself.

She tried to imagine Taylor stretched out on a cloth on the ground, tried to imagine him driving a car like the Mercer. She wanted to think of Taylor washing her hair, then kissing her, but none of the images would come to her.

J. Harker saw her looking at the empty chair as if she were seeing a ghost. “You, ah, like that professor?”