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.