O'hara's Choice - Leon Uris [48]
Daisy allowed Laveda a fairly free hand to run things, fearing that otherwise she might leave. Horace was a bit twisted about the matter, but it was women’s business, so long as peace prevailed in his kingdom.
However, his concern soon deepened. He became disturbed when Willow spoke or acted as if she did not know her place or when he saw Amanda at home among the Negroes. The longer the situation went on, the worse it grew.
A growing number of awkward moments came when the girls needed to be separated on social occasions. They sensed and learned where the lines had been drawn, yet remained inseparable friends, believing most of the world was rather silly.
One day, a realization hit Horace like a bombshell. He was reading the paper on the veranda in his rocker, with the girls playing nearby. Horace blinked, shocked that Willow was so bright, actually better with words and keener with logic than Amanda. He observed Willow for several days and realized she was as intelligent as her late father.
How could this be? Wasn’t Matthew Fancy the exception . . . for all Negroes? It was not so, then. Fancy’s daughter was the brightest child he had ever seen. Good Lord, what could such a thing mean?
Separation, here and now, was in order. Horace came up with a splendid idea. Daisy was interviewing tutors so Amanda could begin her proper education.
At the same time he had a one-room school set up for the half-dozen Negro children on the estate. The two girls might fuss in the beginning over their separation, but it would soon become normal for Willow and Amanda to go to their own teachers.
Amanda was nearing seven when she was advised of this by her father. That night, she and Willow disappeared. Though desperate, Horace did not want to bring the authorities in too soon for fear it would trigger a scandal, but an all-night search proved fruitless.
The girls had run as far as their legs would carry them, then climbed up a tree and clung to each other.
By dawn’s light, bloodhounds were brought in, damned good trackers, the heirs of sires and bitches who had run down a thousand runaway slaves.
Amanda and Willow were soon found, still on the manor grounds, two miles from the main house. The dogs clawed at the trunk of the tree where the girls were hidden, and yowled crazily. When the hounds were removed, the girls threatened to hurl themselves to the ground from thirty-five feet.
By late afternoon, hunger and fear had overtaken them and some firemen were able to snatch them and safely bring them down.
Amanda was placed in her apartment, doors and windows guarded. She locked herself in a closet and refused to come out. The door was broken down, she was dragged out, restrained, then force-fed.
As quickly as the food and water was put into her, she’d spit it out. By the third night, Amanda lay quite ill and listless, but her will was unbroken.
Amanda was only the second person ever to make Horace Kerr totally capitulate. Matthew Fancy had been the first. Horace allowed that the girls could be tutored together.
Amanda stood fast for her freedom, and was a clever and stubborn force when provoked. An armistice prevailed. Horace was having enough problems with his failing relationships with Emily and Upton.
Daring her father as she became a teenager, Amanda carved out a second life, studying art, music, and poetry away from Inverness in the small but thriving cultural salons of Baltimore and Washington. She was often in the company of writers and intellectuals, many tilting toward the “bohemian.”
A long time had passed since Amanda climbed that tree with Willow, but Horace Kerr was not blessed with a short memory. He yielded reluctantly to her whims, always aware that someday there had to be a showdown.
For the time being, his Pinkertons shadowed Amanda whenever she left the grounds. Amanda made a sport out of ducking them.