Chapter TWO: I

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

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; she _had_ to go!

Once in the street, her self-confidence returned. She was always best in a crowd, in any position where she had to fight 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.

II

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.

"I _look_ like 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 unknown women 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 sharp nose 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 a suit 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 for _foreigners_.

"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 have SOME!" 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 she _wouldn’t_ say 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.