The Project Gutenberg eBook ofAngelicaThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: AngelicaAuthor: Elisabeth Sanxay HoldingRelease date: August 21, 2022 [eBook #68800]Most recently updated: October 19, 2024Language: EnglishOriginal publication: United States: George H. Doran, 1921Credits: Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images available at The Internet Archive)*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANGELICA ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: AngelicaAuthor: Elisabeth Sanxay HoldingRelease date: August 21, 2022 [eBook #68800]Most recently updated: October 19, 2024Language: EnglishOriginal publication: United States: George H. Doran, 1921Credits: Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images available at The Internet Archive)
Title: Angelica
Author: Elisabeth Sanxay Holding
Author: Elisabeth Sanxay Holding
Release date: August 21, 2022 [eBook #68800]Most recently updated: October 19, 2024
Language: English
Original publication: United States: George H. Doran, 1921
Credits: Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images available at The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ANGELICA ***
Contents.Part oneChapter one,two,three,four,five,six,seven,eight,nine,ten,eleven,twelve,thirteen,fourteen,fifteen,sixteen,Part twoChapter one,two,three,four,five,six,seven,eight,nine,ten,eleven,twelve,thirteen,fourteen,fifteen.Some typographical errors have been corrected;a list follows the text.(etext transcriber's note)
Contents.
Some typographical errors have been corrected;a list follows the text.
(etext transcriber's note)
ANGELICA
ELISABETH SANXAY HOLDING
ByElisabeth Sanxay Holding
ANGELICAROSALEEN AMONG THE ARTISTSINVINCIBLE MINNIE
George H. Doran CompanyNew York
ANGELICABYELISABETH SANXAY HOLDING
BYELISABETH SANXAY HOLDING
NEWYORKGEORGE H. DORAN COMPANYCOPYRIGHT, 1921,BY ELISABETH SANXAY HOLDINGPRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
TOG.RESTLESS SEEKER FOR ROMANCEIS DEDICATED THIS STORYOF THE END OF AROMANCE
TOG.RESTLESS SEEKER FOR ROMANCEIS DEDICATED THIS STORYOF THE END OF AROMANCE
Mrs. Kennedy got up from her knees, wrung out the filthy and dripping cloth in her hands, and looked back with a sigh over the stairs she had just cleaned.
"It’ll have to do," she said, "until to-morrow."
Then, pail in hand, she descended to the basement and pushed open with her foot the door of her flat—three black little rooms with barred windows on a lugubrious air-shaft, where great ash-cans stood and cats prowled and tradesmen went whistling by with bags and bottles. A tiny jet of gas flickered in the passage to light her as she staggered along to the kitchen, there to set down the heavy pail with a jerk that sent a flood of dirty water over her feet.
"Oh, Lord!" she sighed again, patiently.
She lit the gas and looked about her. There in the sink were the dishes from breakfast; and across the tin covers of the wash-tubs scurried a multitude of roaches, disturbed as they feasted on the crumbs there. All this deeply disturbed her, for she was a good housewife, and a neat little body altogether; but she knew herself to be blameless. It couldn’t be helped.
As janitress of this Harlem apartment-house, she was permitted to live rent free in exchange for certain services, and her honour was engaged. She had to keep up the appearance of the place. She had to scrub the stairs, the corridors, the vestibule, to clean the windows on the five landings. She had also to sweep the vacant flats and display them to any one who came to look at them.
After this was done, there was still her living to make. She did "charing" by the day and half-day; she took home washing to be done at night; she did all those dirty and unpleasant tasks which even the shabby tenants of this shabby house couldn’t endure to do for themselves. There were many days when she left her dismal little place early in the morning and wasn’t able to re-enter it until after dark. It gave her a feeling of terrible discouragement to come home to it like this, all in disorder and sordid confusion. The thought of it would haunt her all day as she worked.
It was late, as she saw by the clock, but she felt obliged to rest, just for a minute. She sat down and closed her eyes. She couldn’t really rest until fatigue was gone and she was refreshed; the best she might expect was some little respite from her labour.
She was a thin little woman of limitless endurance; she could suffer everything; but her drawn, hollow-cheeked face, her faded eyes, gave testimony to the cost of her dreadful and heroic struggle. She was forty, but she looked sixty. She had a blurred look, like a partially erased drawing. She seemed literally worn out, rubbed thin, part of her vanished.
The clock struck six, and she jumped up.
"Oh, Lord!" she sighed again. "Well, I’ll make myself a cup of tea first thing; then I’ll run out to the corner and get a bite of something for Angelica’s supper."
The tea did her good. She felt warmed and comforted, and a little less reluctant to undertake more work. Then, with a shawl over her head, she hurried out into the windy March street, to the little grocer’s on the corner.
It was a sore temptation to linger there, where it was warm and brightly lighted, and there were people to talk with, and the young man was so agreeable to her. She was a favouriteof his, in spite of her buying so little, for she was a civil little woman who gave no trouble and always had her mind made up before coming into the shop. But, with her usual little sigh, she tore herself away, bade the young man good night, and hurried home again.
To her eyes even Eighth Avenue, with the tawdry little shops crowded with the very poor, or the very careless, buying their dinners at the last instant, looked festive, looked enticing. She didn’t get out much; she hadn’t even a window through which she could see the street. She thought to herself that it would be nice to take a walk after supper with Angelica, to look in the windows to see what the fruit-seller had to offer, to view the absorbing display in the five-and-ten-cent store; but she was quite sure that Angelica couldn’t be induced to do any such thing.Sherequired something better than that!
It was the spur of Angelica’s requirements that drove forward the weary Mrs. Kennedy. If she didn’t have things nice, Angelica would rearrange and do over until she was suited. She didn’t complain much, but wasn’t she exacting! Like a man, her mother used to say. She’d never be satisfied with a cup of tea and some little thing you’d maybe have left from the day before. Plenty of variety there must be, and a clean cloth, too.
She was brisk and deft about her preparations when she got home; but she wasn’t quite prepared when the bell rang three times, by way of announcement only, as the door was always unlatched, and into the kitchen came her daughter Angelica—her only child.
Angelica was not regarded by her peers as beautiful, for the quality of her beauty was not obvious. She was looked at, stared at, fiercely desired; she was often enough followed in the street; and yet not one of these admirers would have called her beautiful. There was "something about her," that was all—something not to be resisted. She herself was only dimly aware of it. She knew well enough that she wasalluring, that she possessed some enchantment to enthrall men. She knew by some instinct how to use her charm, but she didn’t comprehend it or appreciate it. She regarded herself with a pleased and wondering interest. A pale, narrow face with strange black eyes, not quite alike; a rich, scornfully curling mouth; the mysterious, adorable languor of an old Italian Madonna—an exciting languor, like that of a drowsy panther; and with this curious and touching beauty went a swaggering impudence, the speech, the gestures of a thorough gamine. Then there was her walk, the exaggerated suppleness of her thin young body, the rakish tilt of her broad-brimmed hat, the movement of her skirts, and a naïve wickedness that seemed shocking, almost blasphemous, in conjunction with that wonderful face.
And it was this air of bravado, this gamine swagger, which she fancied was her charm. The poetry of her, the exquisite subtleness of her face, she didn’t recognize. Her mother alone had some inexpressible and formless idea of this. She saw something rare and heart-breaking in her child, something that robbed her of any pretense of authority.
"Tired?" she asked her now.
"No!" said Angelica scornfully. "Bacon? That’s nice. Have it good and crisp, mommer. No, I’m not tired—only sort ofsickof things."
She sat down before the table and waited, her chin on her hand, somber, frowning, in a mood which her mother knew well and dreaded. She put the plates on the table and stood, waiting, too nervous to eat. She could see that Angelica had something on her mind, and there would be no peace till she had got rid of it.
"Hurry up and eat, mommer," she said impatiently; "so we can go to the movies after."
"I haven’t any money, deary."
"I’ll pay."
Her mother was startled. How could Angelica have money to spare on a Thursday?
"I got paid off," said Angelica.
"Discharged, Angie? I thought you were doing so well——”
"Discharged nothing! I quit."
"But what in the world—— It was a good job, wasn’t it? You said it was."
A sudden and vivid expression of disgust lit up her child’s face.
"My Gawd, mommer! I got sosickof it! Sitting at that machine, all day and every day. Those girls—and the fellers! So blame sick of it, mommer!Idon’t know—I got thinking. It seems to me maybe I could do better somewhere else."
"They’re all about the same, I guess—those factories. I can’t see what good it’ll do you to be changing so often, Angelica. The girls are all the same; unless maybe you could get into one of the big stores, and they don’t pay near as much."
"What’s the good of that? Just as bad. No, mommer, I want—something different. Oh, mommer, I want to get somethingoutof life!"
Her mother looked at her in silence. She comprehended her perfectly. Hadn’t she been like that herself long, long ago—restless, hungry for life, forever seeking something new? Not, of course, in this foreign and vehement way. She had never been capable of speaking so crudely, so violently, as her child; but though they hadn’t a feature, a gesture, an intonation alike, they partook of the same indomitable spirit.
"Iknow!" she said. "It’s hard—terrible hard; but it’s only worse if you’re always fighting against it. There’s no chance for people like us, and we’ve got to put up with it. We can’t get what we want. Whatever kind of work you choose, it’ll be just as hard."
Angelica, her head in her hands, was looking straight before her.
"I don’t see," she began, "why I shouldn’ttry, anyway, to go up instead of down."
"There’s no call to go down," said her mother; "but you’ll find it hard enough just to keep the same. You’ve got to be—well, Angelica, as my mother used to say she’d been taught in the old country—you’ve got to be contented to stay in the station where it has pleased God to put you."
"God made a mistake, then. He’s put me in the wrong station, and I won’t stay in it. And anyway, mommer, haven’t you ever thought? We’re not staying—we’re going down, down, all the time. You’re not where your mother was, and I’m not where you used to be."
"You’ve got more brains than me, and——”
"I’m not talking about brains. You’rebetterthan me; you talk better, and you’ve got nicer ways. You’re——” She flushed a little. "You’re more like a—lady than me."
Mrs. Kennedy flushed, too, but couldn’t deny it. She had before her mind’s eye the descent of her family—how she had sunk below her parents’ level, just as Angelica had grown up coarser and more ignorant than herself. Unaccountably there came to her the memory of another afternoon when she had been scrubbing stairs, like to-day, but in the home of her girlhood; a summer afternoon, long, long ago. She remembered that she had complained of being tired out, and her mother had bidden her go up-stairs and lie down. And she remembered—how well!—stretching herself out on the bed in the neat, darkened room, and her stout, kindly mother bringing her up a cup of tea.
Her thoughts lingered with her mother, a sober Scotch-woman, living out her life in the shelter of her own home. A nice home, too; a little frame house in Brooklyn, comfortably furnished, modest, but not without dignity. The suppers there, her mother, her sandy-haired, anxious little father—assistant to a grocer—and herself, sitting at thelittle round table covered with a red checked cloth, with the bland light of the lamp on their faces—she saw it painfully, bitterly well; and her father asking who was that young chap who had walked home from the chapel with her, and her mother pretending to frown. They were so proud and pleased with her prettiness and briskness, so hopeful for her!
For just a moment she passionately resented her rôle of parent, forever giving and giving. She wanted to have one person on earth concerned withherfatigue,hersorrow. She sat quite still before her little supper, lost in her thought. Then some slight movement of her child’s brought her back to life, and she looked up with her little sigh.
Poor, poor Angelica! Poor lovely, unhappy thing, working in a factory! Wouldn’t that have shocked her grandparents? Wouldn’t they have been shocked at Angelica, anyway—her swagger, her language, her point of view! Her heart melted with pity for her child.
"I don’t blame you, Angelica," she said. "I know how hard it is to get on with that sort; but, deary, what better can you do? One job’s as bad as another. The thing is to do your best and trust in Providence. I’ll do the best I can to make things happy for you here at home. We’ll have our little treats. We’ve always been happy together, haven’t we? It’s our lot in life to have to work hard and get very little. We’ve got to put up with it, and just be as happy as we can."
"No, I’m not like that. I’m—no, Iwon’t!"
She wasn’t able to express her rebellion, her vehement longings, but her mother understood her very well.
"I was just like you," she said mournfully; "restless—always after something new—anything for a change. I wanted—the Lord knowswhatI wanted!"
She poured out another cup of tea.
"Eat a bit more," she said. "You’re tired and worked up like. Yes!" she added. "I was like you, Angelica; and you can see what it did for me. I was a nice-looking girlin those days. There was more than one young fellow who wanted to marry me; but I wouldn’t have any of them. I thought they weren’t good enough. I was a great one for reading books, and my head was full of nonsense.
"Then I met your father. He was a fine-looking man, Angelica. You can’t remember him when he was well. He was a big, handsome man, a barber. My folks were terrible set against it, and I don’t wonder. There he was, an I-talian, and twenty years older than me, and nothing in the world but a barber, and a kind of a Socialist. He was always talking about killing the rich people. I think he’d have been willing enough to do something like that with his own hands, he used to get so worked up. He was a queer man, Angelica. And yet, for all his talk about killing, and the awful things he’d say against religion and churches, why, he wasn’t a bad man. He was generous. He’d share his last penny with a friend. He often did; we’d have to go without ourselves if one of his precious ‘comrades’ was in a tight corner. He was a smart man, too. He spent all his spare time in the free library, reading; but that never gets you anywhere, Angelica. He had no knack for earning money, and he never could save. What’s more, he wasn’t fond of work. He’d rather read or talk. He could talk all night, I do believe.
"It nearly broke my mother’s heart when I went off with Angelo. My father, he said he’d never speak to me again, nor have my name spoken in the house, on account of my marrying an atheist, you see. But I didn’t seem to care. There was something about him——”
She was silent for a time, recalling her startling foreign lover, with his caressing voice, his mandolin-playing, his anti-clerical passions, and the brisk, pretty young girl who had been herself.
"I was terrible headstrong. I wouldn’t listen to any one. Iwouldhave him, and I did. Well, I was punished for my folly and wickedness, I can tell you. It’s alwaysthe way when you won’t listen to your own dear parents and those that are wiser than yourself. We never got on. From the very day we were married—you don’t know what it’s like, Angelica. We were always owing money. He wouldn’t hand what he made over to me, for me to manage. I never knew where we stood. All of a sudden he’d say, ‘No more money!’ and there we’d be, without a penny. We had to live in such a mean, poor way that I lost my health. One time we were turned out of our rooms, out into the street, bag and baggage, with all the neighbors looking on.
"When you were born, I’d hardly so much as a blanket to wrap you in. I never had a bow of ribbon or a thing to dress you up pretty, like the other little babies. And when your father took sick, there wasn’t even a fresh sheet for him. ‘Take him off to the hospital,’ says the doctor. ‘He can’t be looked after in a place like this. He’ll die.’ ‘Very good, I die!’ says he. ‘But I die home!’ Poor man! There he lay, so hot and wretched, and you in a clothes-basket beside him fretting all day and all night, so he couldn’t get any rest and peace. We’d only the one room.
"Well, when he was taken sick, of course there was no money at all coming in. His precious ‘comrades’ never came near him, least of all the ones that owed him money; so I began going out by the day, and I left an old I-talian woman to take care of you and him. Every morning, when I’d go out, I’d feel sure and certain neither of you’d be alive and safe when I got back. Both of you sick, and no good food or proper care! And I’d think of her setting the place on fire, or leaving the gas turned on. Then I’d come home, tired as a dog, and not a soul to speak to: you a tiny little baby crying in your basket, and your poor father moaning in his bed; everything dirty and upset. You can’t think what it was like.
"I’m not blaming your poor father, Angelica. I’m only telling you this to show you how those high-flown notions—where they’ll lead you. In this world, you’ve got to be sensible, and not follow your own notions."
Not follow romance was what she meant, and what Angelica understood; for wasn’t that what she had done? And had won it, to see it perish in a long agony, as romance must always perish, whether won or lost. She wanted so passionately to make it all clear to her child, to tell her how she had seen the hard, the dull, the greedy, attain their heart’s desire; but the romantic, the generous, never. She wanted to tell her how hideous is the death of illusion, how merciless is the world. How her splendid hero, black-eyed Angelo with the flashing smile, had fallen from splendour—had, so to speak, dwindled into a miserable invalid, duped by his friends, and deprived of all courage by the knowledge of their treachery. How she had seen her youth go by unnoticed, unappreciated, in that struggle for bread; of the loneliness and the frightful indignities of poverty.
"It was a mistake," she said. "The whole thing was a big mistake!"
"I don’t know," said Angelica. "Maybe you wouldn’t have been any happier with a different man."
"I’d certainly have been happier with enough to eat. If I’d listened to my parents, I’d taken a sober, hard-working——”
"Bah!" cried Angelica, with the sudden fierceness that always startled her mother. "You married the man you wanted, didn’t you? He didn’t make any money, so you were poor. Well, what of it? You’ve—anyway you’ve got a memory of him, to look back at, haven’t you?"
And her mother hadn’t the heart to tell her the truth—that even in memory the ardent, enchanting lover was supplanted by the querulous and unshaven sufferer who lay dying for months and months of some disease which they didn’t understand, and which the busy doctor didn’t trouble to explain to them.
"I hope you’ll be sensible, Angelica," she said.
She saw well enough that her story had made no sort of impression upon her child. Angelica was still so young that what happened to other people and what happened to her had no connection in her mind. She fancied that all her experiences, as well as all her ideas, were unique. Her mother could read in her face that she was thinking now, not of her mother’s past, but of her own future.
"I hope you’ll be sensible," she said again. "Try to learn to be satisfied with your lot in life. That’s how all my troubles began—being discontented. Try to be satisfied."
"No, I shan’t," said her rebellious child. "Listen, mommer!"
"Well?"
"I was thinking. I don’t know—but I thought—maybe there’s something in this."
She handed her mother a scrap torn from a newspaper.
CHEERFUL young lady wanted as companion for invalid; experience unnecessary. Apply Thursday morning to Mrs. Russell, Buena Vista, Baycliff, Westchester.
CHEERFUL young lady wanted as companion for invalid; experience unnecessary. Apply Thursday morning to Mrs. Russell, Buena Vista, Baycliff, Westchester.
"But, deary, don’t you see?" cried her mother, startled. "You don’t mean thatyou’dtry for that?"
"Why not, mother?" demanded Angelica, flushing.
"But, deary, don’t you see? It’s—they’ll—they wouldn’t want a girl like you."
"Why not?" she asked again, still more fiercely.
But her mother wouldn’t say it. Anyway, she knew that Angelica understood her meaning perfectly.
"A waste of carfare," she said. "All that money—there’s no sense at all in your going. There’ll be dozens after the place—girls that—that’ll suit better."
Her object was to spare her child the humiliation she foresaw for her—a factory girl, a bold-eyed, ignorant young thing in the cheapest sort of clothes, offering herself to a lady as a companion! Herself brought up in a quite different way, accustomed to recognizing, without snobbery and without resentment, that there were in the world groups of people better and groups worse than her own sort, she could not comprehend Angelica’s attitude. Angelica envied without admiring. In fact, she despised "rich people" almost as much as her father had, but her ambition in life was to be one of them.
"I’ll risk the carfare," she said. "I’m going to try, anyway. You know, mommer, maybe they’re sick of those silly little dolls—‘ladies’—especially if it’s an invalid. They said ‘cheerful,’ you know."
"All ladies aren’t silly dolls," said Mrs. Kennedy, displeased. "And I don’t know as you’re so cheerful, Angelica."
"I could be, if I wanted. Anyway, I’m going to try. I’ll just take the fare. I’ll give you all the rest, mommer."
She took out a shabby little purse, counted her money, put some back, and laid the rest on the tub tops. Such a pitiful sum! It hurt her mother.
"It’s all yours," she said. "You’ve worked for it. Do as you please. If you really want to go—— I’m sure I hope you’ll get the place."
After a moment she added:
"I hope you know, Angie, that I want you to have the best—the very best there is. I think you deserve it. Only, deary, I don’t want you to be disappointed; and I don’t see how you can help being. I want you to know, deary, that I’m——”
She couldn’t think of a word. She stood anxiously frowning, looking at the ground for a minute.
"I’m always—on your side," she ended.
Angelica sprang up from the table and seized her mother in a fierce embrace.
"Mamma mia!" she whispered, as her father had taught her, long ago.
Her mother was curiously thrilled and touched. She looked up with brimming eyes at the dark and foreign face bending above her.
"What’s that he used to say—feeliar, or something?" she murmured, embarrassed. "You’re a good girl, Angelica. I hope you’ll be lucky!"
In spite of an air of complete self-assurance, Angelica was very nervous the next morning. She lingered over her breakfast with a sort of languor well-known to her mother, for wasn’t that, hadn’t that always been, her air of desperation and defiance? She saw that Angelica had no idea of changing her mind, and also that, upon thinking it over, she had realized to some extent how daring was her project, and was frightened.
Mrs. Kennedy had to put in a day washing for one of the tenants, and was in a hurry. She stooped over the table to print on a piece of wrapping-paper the usual note to be pinned on her door:
JANITRESS WILL BE FOUND IN APT. 12
JANITRESS WILL BE FOUND IN APT. 12
JANITRESS WILL BE FOUND IN APT. 12
Then, straightening up, she looked anxiously at her child.
"Well, deary! If you’ve made up your mind—good luck to you!"
Angelica smiled faintly. When the door had closed after her mother, she rose herself and went into the black little bedroom, where a small jet of gas showed her a shadowy face in a broken mirror. She put on her hat, very carefully, and her jacket, but lingered still; until ringing across the cement floor of the cellar came a heavy and familiar step—Oscar, the furnace man, going out for his morning beer. That meant nine o’clock; shehadto go!
Once in the street, her self-confidence returned. She was always best in a crowd, in any position where she had tofight her way. The glances that followed her warmed her heart, assured her of her alluring and devilish charm. She liked it all—liked to turn with terrible scorn upon any one who ventured to jostle her, liked to disconcert with a long, insolent stare any man who might presume to look too long at her.
She was a child of the streets; she loved them as an Arab loves the desert, or a sailor the sea. She had been brought up in the streets. There, in rough games, she had learned to hold her own; there, running the gauntlet of a mob of jeering boys, she had learned to endure valiantly, without longing for sympathy. Her mother had always tried her best to keep the child off the streets, but could not. On her way home from school, whenever she was sent on an errand, Angelica would seize the chance to linger in that violent and exciting life. And then, later, when she was a young girl, came those curious sidewalk flirtations, so hostile in mood, so brutally chaste. She wouldn’t stand any nonsense!
After all, her life within the house with her mother was nothing, only interludes of rest in her vehement existence. It was out there, in the streets, that she had become Angelica.
She had never yet traveled by railway, though she had often enough gone to the Grand Central Terminal with girl friends and pretended, rather pitifully, to be going on a journey. They would stand near the gateway of a train, and say good-by, and perhaps walk forward a few steps with the crowd. She was tremendously proud really to be going off now.
In the tunnel she took the opportunity to study her reflection in the darkened window, and it pleased and encouraged her—the great, shadowy eyes, the pallor of her face, the big hat framing it. It seemed to her that she looked romantic, and not at all what she was. She began to imagine that she might hoodwink this Mrs. Russell, that she might pass muster even among ladies.
She never forgot her first sight of that house, and never afterward did it really look otherwise to her. In rain, in snow, in summer or winter, it was always to her as she had first seen it on that breezy spring morning.
It was a big stone house on a wide, sunny hill, and it had somehow a festive air, with its striped awnings, the white curtains fluttering at open windows, and a flag flying on a pole on the summit of the hill. It put her in mind of a picture she had seen in an old school copy of "Ivanhoe," of a medieval castle on the day of a tournament.
She was profoundly impressed. The complacency she had felt on the train melted away, and she began to realize how preposterous her idea was. She entered the iron gate and began walking up the long gravel path which led up the hill to the house, a solitary figure, with bare, sunny lawns on either side of her, behind her the highroad where motor-cars were spinning past, before her the august, the unknown house. Altogether an alien world where she felt mean and pitiful in her cheap clothes, her worn, shapeless boots.
"Ilooklike a factory girl," she reflected bitterly. "Any one would know. Perhaps they won’t even let me in."
The maid who opened the door was certainly not encouraging. She looked Angelica up and down.
"I don’t know whether Mrs. Russell ’ll see any more of you," she said. "Such a crowd all morning! Come in, though."
Angelica followed her into a large hall with a polished floor, where upon chairs ranged along the wall sat a row of women, beginning in darkness at the farther end of the hall, and ending in sunshine near the door, where Angelica took her seat.
She sat for some minutes in a frozen quiet, until her awe of the great house and the severe servant and the unknownwomen ebbed away, and her natural curiosity came flowing back. Then she turned her head a little and saw them all, the whole row, staring at her. Her spine stiffened instinctively, and she began a deliberate survey of her rivals.
The first two she couldn’t see, because they sat under the stairs in utter darkness. Then came a portly old lady with an immense alligator-skin bag; then a very composed, handsome woman in black. She got no further, for the servant came hurrying back across the slippery floor, to let in still another applicant.
Angelica now joined with the others in staring at this new one—a blonde, superior young person, tightly corseted. She sat down next to Angelica, and once more the line composed itself to waiting. A quarter of an hour went by; then the old lady with the alligator bag began whispering to her neighbor in the dark, and that started a sort of general conversation in whispers. The information was passed along the line that "she"—the first one, under the stairs—had been there two hours.
"I came here before about a month ago," whispered the one before Angelica. "She advertised, but she changed her mind and sent us all away."
Angelica was surprised at the timidity of this person who was so obviously a lady, if a rather faded one. It gave her courage. Being a lady wasn’t the whole thing, then, after all. She was on the point of answering, when once more the parlour maid hurried past, to admit an extraordinary object.
She was a tall, bony woman of perhaps fifty, dressed in a checked coat and riding-breeches, with a derby hat jammed down over her face and a confusion of red hair streaming from under it. As she crossed the hall, the last pin seemed to give way, and it all fell down about her shoulders. She made a helpless sort of gesture to put it right, found she couldn’t, and went on, with a long stride. Her face was overshadowed by her hat, but there were visible a sharpnose and a pointed chin. Her voice was unexpectedly soft and agreeable.
"Good morning!" she said. "Who’s first?"
The young blonde jumped up.
"I, please!" she said.
They were all struck dumb for a minute; then Angelica said boldly:
"You’re not!"
The lady in breeches turned her head briskly.
"Never mind!" she said pleasantly. "I’ll see you first anyway. You’ll each have your turn; don’t worry!"
The young woman followed her into a room across the hall, and the door was closed.
"Well, I never!" cried a voice from the darkness.
It was the woman who had waited two hours. An indignant and subdued chorus began, which ended only when the blond young lady reappeared, smiling falsely, and walked past them all to the front door. She had failure written upon her face; and she knew it, and was very anxious to be gone. But the front door would not open; she was obliged to stand there, fumbling with the lock, raked by the eyes of those whom she had defrauded.
"She didn’t stay long!" observed the old lady. "Well, I didn’t think she’d suit."
"Of course not!" said another.
"Such tricks never bring any good luck," said the old lady. "After all, there is such a thing as justice in this world, and no——”
The red-haired lady returned and opened the front door.
"Now then!" she said, beckoning to Angelica.
Angelica shook her head.
"No—I’m the last," she replied.
"It doesn’t matter about the order. Please come in."
So Angelica followed her into a dark little paneled room, where an orange-shaded lamp glowed from the top of a piano, showing carved chairs, a soft, dull rug, a harp, and asuit of armour that glistened from a corner. It seemed an enchanted room, like a scene from a play, or a dream. Angelica really didn’t worry now about getting the position; it was worth while having come, just to have got inside of this house and this room.
The extraordinary lady sat down upon a divan and crossed her long legs. She had a pencil in her hand, and a little notebook, and she was most businesslike.
"Your name?" she inquired.
"Angelica Kennedy."
It wasn’t really Angelica’s name; Kennedy was her mother’s name, but they had both agreed that Donallotti was an impossible and unseemly patronymic, and might cause them to be taken forforeigners.
"Your age?"
"Nineteen."
Angelica felt terribly at a disadvantage, standing there to be questioned. She could hear her own voice, rather hoarse, and her vulgar accent. She was conscious of being ungloved, of being awkward and despised. She felt herself lost, she was in despair, she longed to run away and be done with this misery; but the lady went on pleasantly.
"Your address?"
Her heart sank still lower as she saw written down the obscure and sordid street.
"Could you give me any social references?"
That finished her.
"No!" she said curtly.
"Oh! Can’t you?" said the nice voice, disappointed. "What about experience, then? What have you done?"
"You said experience was unnecessary."
"Yes, I know; but can’t you give me some sort of idea, you know—something about yourself?"
Angelica was obstinately silent.
"What made you come? What did you think your qualifications were?" the other asked, less pleasantly.
"I could be useful," said Angelica sullenly. "I can sew—trim hats—I worked with a milliner once. Whatever else you wanted I could learn, and I wouldn’t expect much pay while I was learning."
The lady interrupted her.
"How much would you expect?" she asked, with sudden interest.
"I don’t care. Just enough to help—mother. And I’m real quick to learn. I could——”
"There isn’t anything to learn, my dear," said the red-haired one. With an astounding change of manner, she suddenly became confidential and garrulous. "You see, it’s for my daughter-in-law, Mrs. Geraldine. She must have some one with her. The doctor says she’s not to be left alone. She’s been through a dreadful experience. She lost her sweet little baby six weeks ago. Isn’t that dreadful?"
Angelica agreed briefly that it was.
"Well, I want some one just to be about with her, you know. No work; it’s really an ideal life. I said to my husband I’d absolutely love to do it myself, if I had the time. She’s the dearest soul—a little depressed now, naturally. How much would you expect?"
"What do you want to give?"
"You see, it has to come out of my own pocket. I’m doing it for her, to make her happy. I’ll pay, but she’ll have the benefit; and of course I’m not able to—I’ll give you twenty dollars."
"A week?"
"A month."
Angelica was quiet for a moment. It was perfectly apparent to her that cheapness was her only asset; that if she didn’t come cheap and very cheap, she wouldn’t be considered. She reflected, and grew more and more convinced that here was a stepping-stone.
"All right," she said. "That’s not much pay, but I’ll take it."
"And what about references?" asked Mrs. Russell.
This was an attempt to regain a lost advantage. If she was getting Angelica cheap, she must make her feel and see that she was cheap.
"I haven’t any."
"Oh, but you must haveSOME!" said Mrs. Russell.
She was determined that Angelica should give her references, even if they were obviously false ones. She knew she would be questioned in regard to this, and she preferred to say that she had been deceived. That would absolve her from blame. It would even add to her merit, showing her to be trusting and kindly.
"The rector of your church, perhaps?" she suggested.
"Haven’t any church."
"Didn’t you say that you’d worked for a milliner?" "Wouldn’t she——”
"Not on your life! My Lord! I don’t know what shewouldn’tsay about me! She hated the sight of me. Jealous! No, there’s no one; but if you want to know more about me, you could go and see my mother."
"I might do that," said Mrs. Russell slowly. It was a good idea; she would certainly be praised for going to all this trouble in investigating the character of Polly’s companion. "Yes, I will. I’ll go down to the city and fetch you to-morrow morning. And be ready for me early, won’t you?—for I have so very little time." She went to the door, followed by Angelica; then out into the hall, where the patient row still sat, waiting for the turns she had promised them.
"I’m sorry," she told them, with an affable smile, "but the place is taken. Good morning!"
They all stared at her incredulously for a moment. Then, as she held open the front door, they got up, surged out together, and went down the hill in a straggling parade, all so shabby in the sunlight. The one who had been waiting so very long, in the dark under the stairs—a wan little thing in a befeathered hat—turned upon Angelica a dreadful look.
Angelica was ready by nine o’clock the next morning, with a bag in which was packed every decent thing she owned. The people in the flat above had been astounded by the sound of Mrs. Kennedy’s sewing-machine at two o’clock in the morning, for she and her child had sat up nearly all night, making ready. It was a melancholy, a heart-breaking work for the poor mother.Shewasn’t going away. She had no adventure to excite her, no ambition, no hope, nothing but the bitter certainty of loneliness and poverty. She tried to be—not cheerful, for that she never was, but calm and reasonable, while all the time she had before her the spectre of the evening when she would come home to empty rooms, to eat her supper alone. A groan escaped her, which she tried to turn into a sigh.
"It’s the very, very worst that can happen to any one in this wide world," she thought; "to be left all alone, and getting old!"
She hadn’t been able to keep her eyes from Angelica, sitting bent over a blouse she was finishing, with her hair, just washed, hanging down her back, wet, straight, and heavy, drying about her face in a sort of mist of feathery tendrils.
Angelica was glad, she was delighted to go. She certainly loved her mother, but a separation of a week, a month, a year, didn’t trouble her, didn’t cause her a pang. She knew in theory that life is terribly uncertain, but she didn’t really believe it. She felt sure that no matter where she went, or how long she stayed, her mother would be there at home, absolutely unchanged.
She was the child who has never been burnt, sitting before the glowing fire. Having as yet never lost anything, she didn’t value anything. In that enticing future toward which she looked, she expected to live once more with her mother. In the meantime it didn’t matter.
"Well!" said Mrs. Kennedy. "I’ll have no one to go to the movies with now."
"You wait!" said Angelica. "One of these days I’ll take you to arealshow, mommer!"
Already she saw herself the benefactor. She had forgotten, or perhaps didn’t even know, how limitlessly she had received.
They went to bed in the early morning, and Angelica slept, while her weary mother lay awake at her side in the narrow bed they shared. The room was too dark for her to see anything, but she could hear the breathing of her dear child, and with a furtive hand feel that soft, slippery hair, still fresh and redolent of white soap.
"I’ve got to expect it!" she told herself over and over. "I’ve got to expect it! They all go, for one reason or another. We’ve got to make up our minds to lose everything in this world."
She got up again at six, and set to work cleaning her little flat from end to end, so that it should be ready for Mrs. Russell’s inspection. Angelica insisted upon helping her.
"Oh, mommer, for Gawd’s sake! I won’t get tired, and I won’t get dirty. She won’t come before ten, anyway—prob’ly later. I bet she has her breakfast in bed!"
"She must be a queer one," said Mrs. Kennedy, "from what you tell me."
"A freak! I wish you could have seen her—with pants on and her hair coming down her back. And there’s something mean about her, too. I don’t like her—telling them all they’d get their turns, and then putting them out, that way. And look at what she’s paying me!"
"Angie, if you’re going to work for her," said Mrs. Kennedy gravely, "you’d better hold your tongue about her. If you can take her money——”
"I only wish I had a chance to take a little more of it! I don’t see how you’ll get along, mommer."
"Oh, I’ll manage," said her mother.
She might have mentioned that she had supported her child for many, many years, and that even after Angelica had become a wage-earner she had taken very little of the girl’s money—only what had to be used to conform to Angie’s ever more and more exacting standards.
At ten o’clock Mrs. Russell hadn’t come yet, and Mrs. Kennedy couldn’t wait any longer. She was obliged to go out and scrub the halls. She had her best black silk blouse on, too, and she was dreadfully nervous about splashing. Every half-hour or so she ran down-stairs to her child, to see if the lady hadn’t come yet, and found Angelica scornfully waiting, reading a magazine.
At one o’clock they sat down in the kitchen to a hurried meal of tea and bread, ready to hide all traces of it at the first sound of the door-bell.
"I promised Mrs. Schell I’d do her kitchen floor this afternoon," said Mrs. Kennedy, with an anxious frown. "What do you want me to do about it, Angie?"
"Go ahead! If she comes, I’ll run up and get you."
She spent a miserable afternoon. She scrubbed with conscientious vigour, but with an absent mind. She thought the same thoughts over and over—first, how disappointed Angie would be if the lady never came; then that perhaps, after all, she wasn’t going to lose her.
"Maybe we’ll have supper together again this very night!" she would think hopefully.
Upon the heels of her hope came the certainty that if Angelica didn’t go away now, she would later. It was sure to come; no chance whatever that such a girl would stop there, underground, with her.
When she came down again for the last time, at six o’clock, Angelica was in the little parlour, now black as the pit, and she was so very still that her mother felt disturbed. She was afraid that the poor, proud thing was grieving, and she went in to her, noiseless in her thin old shoes; but when she had lighted the lamp, she saw that Angelica was sleeping, stretched out limp and childish in the big rocking-chair.
Mrs. Kennedy hurried away breathlessly to the grocer’s, to buy a little treat; for weren’t they going to have supper together again after all?
It was eight o’clock when Mrs. Russell came. Finding the door unlocked, she walked in without permission, as one is surely privileged to do in so mean a home. They were in the kitchen, with the water running in the sink, and they didn’t hear her come down the hall, didn’t know that she was standing in the door, watching them.
"Well, are you ready?" she demanded.
They both turned and regarded her with just the same look—a fine indignation, a stern surprise—Mrs. Kennedy with both hands plunged in the dish-pan, Angelica holding a dish which she was wiping. They resented the intrusion, and they showed it.
"Yes, I’m ready," said Angelica slowly.
She stood regarding Mrs. Russell with a steady, level gaze, not devoid of insolence, for she knew no other way to meet the careless condescension of that lady.
Although she was young and lovely, and in spite of Mrs.Russell’s slovenliness and egotism, Angelica felt her own inferiority. She hadn’t what Mrs. Russell had—Mrs. Russell standing there in a dreadful green tweed suit, with a mannish sort of felt hat on her wild red hair, with her great flat feet and her mechanical smile. That manner, and above all, that voice, clear, cool, soft! Quite unconsciously, Angelica had a profound Latin admiration forsangfroid. She couldn’t be coolly self-possessed; couldn’t be anything more or less than rude.
"Get your things on, then, won’t you please?" said Mrs. Russell.
Angelica was on the point of saying that she would first finish the task in hand, but her mother pushed her gently away.
"Go along!" she said.
There was but one course open to a proud soul. It was essential to keep Mrs. Russell waiting as long as possible, and that Angelica did. She could hear voices from the parlour—her mother’s, subdued and monotonous, and Mrs. Russell’s, light, gay, and sweet. While she dawdled before the mirror there came a new voice, shouting reproachfully through the open front door:
"Now then, Mrs. Russell! It’s late!"
Angelica looked out and saw in their little hall a chauffeur in livery. Mrs. Russell was also looking out.
"Very well, Courtland," she said soothingly. "Come in and get the young lady’s luggage. Where is it, please?"
"Here!" said Angelica, pointing to a little pasteboard suitcase, painted to look like leather.
The chauffeur regarded it in silence for a minute; then he picked it up disdainfully, swung it in the air to emphasize its lightness, and went out.
"Don’t be all night!" he called back.
His effrontery was amazing to Mrs. Kennedy. She couldn’t help but feel suspicious of a lady whose servants spoke to her so disrespectfully.
Mrs. Russell, instead of being angry, seemed alarmed.
"Make haste, please!" she said. "It’s late."
She beckoned to Angelica, who followed at her heels. They went out, and the front door closed after them.
Mrs. Kennedy sank into the rocking-chair and put her head down on her folded arms, on the table. She had an odd and horrible sensation, such as a fast-walking man might feel at coming suddenly up against a high wall. She was at the end—the end of something. She was like a tired, mercilessly driven horse whose rider has jumped off. Those twenty years of drudgery, the struggle to "keep up a home," the debts so painfully met, the persecutions and indignities endured, all for that girl who had gone off with only a smile over her shoulder! She groaned—a sound which startled even herself. It was all so wasted, so utterly done with now!
Then like a whirlwind came Angelica back again, seized the little woman in her arms, and strained her against her thin body.
"Mommer!" she cried with a sob. "Dear, dear darling old mommer! I had to come—just to say good-by alone. Don’t be sad, deary mommer, please! It’s only for a little while, you know!"
"No!" said her mother’s heart. "You will never come back. I have lost you!"
"It can’t be the same night!" said Angelica to herself. "It can’t be only an hour ago that I was in the kitchen at home!"
For here she was now, in a soft little nest of a room, furnished in mahogany and dull blue, with every sort of convenience and luxury, with a gleaming white bathroom of its own, with long mirrors, shaded lamps, easy chairs. It amazed her. She had locked the door and got undressed, but she couldn’t persuade herself to go to bed. Barefooted, in a sturdy cotton night-dress her mother had made, she wandered about, examining everything like a happy child.
Then, not for the first time, she sat down before the dressing-table and studied her own reflection in the triple mirror—the profile with the long, delicate nose, the narrow cheek, the soft fullness of the chin. Then she looked straight before her, at her dark and solemn face, her long black hair, parted in the middle, making her more than ever like a Madonna, sorrowful, spiritual.
She was vaguely aware of the rare and exotic quality of her charm, and she was dissatisfied with herself because her thoughts were so incongruous. She couldn’t help wondering how much the lace bedspread cost, and where it had been bought. She had seen furnishings like these in the shops, and she began to compute how much the whole thing must have cost.
"For Gawd’s sake!" she cried impatiently. "Why can’t I just enjoy it, and not be so——”
She had no word for her meaning. She got up, andfrom behind the curtains looked out upon the clear and chilly May night, down below, across the road, over a woodland of delicate young trees, scarcely stirring in a faint wind. That august loveliness disturbed her. She turned away, back to the shelter of the dainty room, puzzled and angry because she couldn’t enjoy it with simplicity; because there was something, in the night outside—or was it within herself?—that distressed and hurt her.
Undine waiting for a soul!
There was a knock at the door, and she flew across the room, alarmed. Who knew what customs these rich people had? A little clock told her that it was just ten; she was sure they didn’t go to bed then. She knew, indeed, from the Sunday papers, that they turned night into day. Perhaps they had a meal now, and she was expected to be ready for it.
"What is it?" she asked, through the closed door.
"Mrs. Russell wants you at once in her room," said a sharp voice.
So she put on her shrunken, faded little kimono and went out into the hall. A light burned there, showing a double row of closed doors. In what possible way was she to know Mrs. Russell’s? She was daunted; she didn’t even know who composed the household; couldn’t imagine who might be behind those closed doors.
There wasn’t a sound in the house. She advanced a little, and stopped again, frowning at her own distress, her own fast-beating heart.
"I’m only doing what I’m paid to do!" she reassured herself. "If I can’t find her, I’m a fool. I will! I’ll knock at every single door!"
She began with a firm rap on the door next her own.There was no response, so she tried the next, and at once that agreeable voice called out:
"Come in!"
Mrs. Russell lay in bed with her eyes closed, in a lace cap and negligée. Her little rose-shaded lamp gave only a dim light, by which she looked oddly young and pretty; even her tousled hair was charming. The rest of the big room was shadowy, with here and there a glint from glass or silver.
There was absolute silence; Mrs. Russell didn’t stir. Angelica felt herself at a great disadvantage in her kimono, standing at the bedside, waiting for orders. It nettled her.
"Well!" she demanded, with a boldness that surprised even herself.
But Mrs. Russell didn’t notice it, or at least didn’t appear to notice it. She opened her eyes and smiled affably.
"I’m horribly selfish, aren’t I? But I’m such a miserable sleeper, and I felt—won’t you read to me a bit?"
"All right!" said Angelica; but though she spoke so carelessly, she felt suddenly quite sick. "What shall I read?"
"Here’s my book. I suppose you don’t read French, do you?"
Angelica reddened.
"Yes, of course!" she answered. "Nothing but French spoken in the factory, you know!"
"We’ll stick to English, then," said Mrs. Russell, with just the same smile. "And hand me my cigarette-case, won’t you?"
Angelica did so, and nervously opened the book at a marked page; but Mrs. Russell stopped her.
"Just a minute please! I want to ask you something. I’ll have to explain things a little. I told you, didn’t I, that I really engaged you for my daughter-in-law? She’s in a terrible state, poor soul! She lost her little boy. He died of pneumonia six weeks ago. Do you know, I’ve always thought that that poor little creature caught the disease froma friend of Polly’s, whose husband was just getting over it when she came here. My husband insists that it’s awfully contagious, or infectious, or whichever it is. And this woman, my dear, was so heartless about that poor man! She said, when I asked after him, ‘Oh, nothing willeverkill him!’ Did you ever? But as far as that goes, she’s never made the slightest pretense of caring for him. But I think—don’t you?—that you can be decent without being hypocritical. She simply tells every one that she married him for his money, and that now she’s got it, she’s going to spend it. Of course, I’ve known her for years, but her husband’s more or less of a stranger—a Canadian, I think; and really very nice—too nice, I tell her. I don’t make any pretense about it. I simply tell her she’s a heartless little beast, and extravagant. It’s incredible!"
Angelica was bewildered by this volubility. She saw no point in it, and yet she couldn’t believe that any words spoken in so beautiful a voice, and with so just and well-bred an accent, were mere nonsense. She sat staring at the red-haired lady until she came back to her subject.
"But about Polly. She’s the dearest creature in all the world, but she’s rather peculiar in some ways. She’s—well, exacting. She can’t see—she wants every instant of my time. Of course I’m willing—I’m glad to be with her; but after all, one has one’s own life, and there’s my husband. But if ever I suggest a companion! My dear! We have the most miserable time. She never says a word, but she lets you see....
"But I simply cannot stop in that room all day long. I’m frightfully dependent upon exercise. If I don’t get plenty of it, I go all to pieces. I can’t sit still there hour after hour. I’m terribly sorry about her child, and all that, but really, what is the good in talking and talking about it? It only upsets her. And yet, if you try to talk of anything else, you can see she considers you cruel and unfeeling. She simply broods over the thing. She’s so morbidly sensitivethat it’s painful to be with her. And I’m not particularly good with sick people myself. I’m too nervous. My dear, you’ll remember all this, won’t you, and be tactful with the poor soul?"
"When will I see her?"
"That’s the point. You see, it would never do to bring you in as a companion. She says she couldn’t stand a hired companion, when she’s in such a state. She doesn’t seem to understand that I’ve got to have some sort of relief. That’s why I’m paying you out of my own pocket; but it won’t do to let her know. That’s why I’ve given you that little guest-room. I want to tell her you’re the daughter of an old friend, and that you’ve come to visit me—until she gets used to you. Do you see?"
"Yes," said Angelica. "But do you think she’ll believe it?"
"Don’t worry, my dear. I understand Polly. All you’ve got to do is to sit with her and listen to her if she wants to talk. She won’t ask you any questions; she’s too indifferent. That’s really the trouble with the poor girl—she’s so self-centered. She lies there, brooding. Of course, it’s hard for her; but after all, we all have our troubles to bear. Now, to-morrow morning I’ll take you in there and introduce you to her, and you must——”
She stopped abruptly and yawned. It was a disconcerting habit she had, as if her incredibly frivolous mind wore itself down by its own erratic movements.
"Now read, won’t you?" she asked.
Angelica began, took up the book, and plunged into it, concentrating her mind fiercely on the words alone. She had no idea what the book was about; what she read conveyed no impression to her mind. Her sole thought was not to expose herself, not to make mistakes, and of course she did. There came words upon words which she couldn’t pronounce.
"What?" Mrs. Russell would ask with an amused frown,and Angelica would have to stop and spell the word and be corrected.
For days they stayed in her head to torment her, those words, those sounds which she repeated after Mrs. Russell. They danced before her eyes, rang in her ears at night.
It was a horrible hour. Angelica couldn’t make any sort of counter-attack, couldn’t assert herself, could only go on, and make outrageous blunders, and humbly repeat the corrections.
Came a long French phrase, not one word of which she could manage. She stopped short.
"Go on!" said Mrs. Russell.
Angelica flew at the thing, desperately and recklessly. Mrs. Russell couldn’t stop laughing. She lay back on her pillows and covered her eyes with her hands.
"Oh, my dear! That’s really—— You mustn’t mind my laughing, will you?"
"I don’t," said Angelica.
But she did—she hated and dreaded that laughter with all her heart. If she had planned it carefully, Mrs. Russell couldn’t have devised a better method for subduing her.
Yet all her recollections of this nightmare of shame and distress were permeated by the mystic atmosphere that so enthralled her—the rose-shaded light, the nonchalant, red-haired lady in bed, the sweet smoke of the cigarettes; all the softness, the seclusion, the luxury, all the amazing fascination of a dream come true—except, of course, that she should have been in Mrs. Russell’s place.
"All right! Never mind! Don’t bother any more!" murmured Mrs. Russell at last. "It’s a stupid story, anyway; and I suppose you’re getting sleepy. If you’ll go down-stairs and fetch me another book, I’ll read myself to sleep.There’s a package of new books Eddie brought home. Pick out something that looks bright and jolly, will you? They’re on the table in the library."