Amanda couldn’t bear any more. “I am too tired to go to the library, and the bill for the sandwiches can be taken out of the money that’s been saved over the years from all the meals I’ve missed. Now, please excuse me, I am going to bed.”
Amanda was too tired to think how revolutionary her words were. Behind her she left a stunned Taylor and a mother who was smiling broadly. Once inside her room, she pulled off her dress and hose and fell into bed, not bothering to put on her nightgown.
Mrs. Gunston gave her usual quick knock the next morning and walked into Amanda’s bedroom. The room was a mess; clothes on the floor, shoes kicked into far corners, hose draped on a chair. The bedclothes were half on the floor, and sprawled in the middle of the bed was a nude Amanda, on her stomach, one foot hanging over the side.
For a moment Mrs. Gunston was too astonished to speak. “Get up from there!” she shouted at last. “How dare you throw your clothes about? How dare you—”
&
nbsp; “Go away!” Amanda said angrily, turning over, the sheet pulled across her breasts. “Go on, get out of here, and tell Martha to bring me some coffee. Strong coffee.”
Mrs. Gunston obeyed.
Amanda sat up and put her hand to her head. It was aching, and the woman’s shrill voice hadn’t helped any. She looked up to see Taylor standing in her doorway. Now he comes to my bedroom, she thought. Not when she begged him to pay attention to her, but now when another man had…had touched her.
“I do not like this,” Taylor said. “Ladies do not shout.”
Amanda at last saw some interest in his eyes as she sat in her bed with just a sheet under her arms. And something about his interest made her a little sick. “I need to dress to go to work. Would you mind closing the door?”
Taylor stepped further into the room. “Amanda, I cannot allow you to go back to that place today. The chauffeur said it was full of filthy people.”
“The chauffeur’s name is James and yes they are filthy people, but it’s because they have no money—or food or a place to sleep.”
“Amanda,” Taylor said firmly, “I forbid you to go. Last night you looked as disreputable as one of the field workers, and this morning—” He broke off and stared at her.
“And this morning, what? This morning I don’t look like your pupil? Oh, Taylor, please go before we have a fight. I must get dressed, and please don’t say you forbid me to go because then I’ll have to defy you. Wait until the hops are in, when everyone is gone, then we’ll talk again, but please don’t make me say something now that I’ll regret later.”
Taylor didn’t seem to know what to say as he backed out of the room and closed the door.
Amanda leaned back against the headboard. It was as if another person were inside her body. She’d yelled at Mrs. Gunston, who’d always terrified her, and told Taylor she was not going to do what he told her to do.
She reached over to her desk and there lay a new schedule, freshly made out by Taylor. Right now she was supposed to be downstairs wearing her pink-and-white-striped silk that made her look as if she were eight years old and eating two poached eggs and one piece of dry toast.
She tossed the schedule back on the desk. It seemed so frivolous to stay here studying when so many people needed help. Frivolous, she thought, a word she’d often used to describe Hank.
“Hank,” she said aloud, trying it on for size. It didn’t seem to suit him. It was too new, too modern, too unromantic. What was the name on his books? She took one out of the bookshelf beside the bed and opened to the copyright page. Dr. Henry Raine Montgomery.
“Raine,” she whispered. It sounded like a knight of old, a strong, virile man who might fight for the common people. Raine, she thought, Sir Raine. Better yet, Lord Raine.
She got out of bed, scratching and yawning, and put on a blue suit. It was too dark, too severe for her taste, and she thought that today she might stop by her dressmaker’s and choose a few new pieces of clothing, something Raine, er, ah, Hank might like.
She went to the bathroom—at the wrong time according to today’s schedule—and on impulse, knocked on the door to the room where her mother spent her days and invited her mother to breakfast. “Father eats about this time. Perhaps we can eat together, just the three of us.”
“Like we used to, before—” Grace said but broke off. She didn’t need to add, before Taylor came.
It was a pleasant breakfast, and Amanda didn’t say much as her parents seemed to have hours’ worth to say to each other. Amanda occupied herself with thoughts of last night. Perhaps she’d been hasty in her judgments; maybe Raine—she meant Hank—did want her. Maybe she wasn’t just another woman to him.
With her mind occupied, she bid her parents goodbye, unaware of how different she seemed with every step. Taylor was waiting for her by the car and she braced herself for the coming argument.
“I would like to ask you not to go,” he said softly.
“I’m needed there,” she answered.
“And you’re needed here.”
“Here no one knows I’m alive. I stay in my room all day with my books and papers. I’ve hardly seen my own parents in years. Please don’t make this harder for me, Taylor. I want to feel that I’m useful to someone.”
Taylor put his hands on her upper arms. “You are useful to me,” he said, and there was desperation in his voice.