Chapter SEVEN: I

Mrs. Kennedy made no preparation for going to work that day. She suffered from a strange, an inexplicable malady. She didn’t want to go to bed. She sat upright in a rocking-chair, still in her night-dress, staring at the kitchen wall before her with a faint little frown.

Angelica washed and dressed herself neatly, and got ready some breakfast--not very quickly, for she wasn’t accustomed to cooking, but with the care and deftness that were so natural to her. It was, when done, a daintier and better meal than her mother had ever served.

"Now, mommer!" she said. "Come on! Sit down!"

"I can’t eat, Angelica."

"You can drink some coffee, anyway."

And she took her mother by the hand and led her to the table--a poor, frail, barefooted little thing, with her gray hair hanging about her haggard face.

"Sit down," said Angelica again. "Now, then!"

Her mother drank a cup of coffee greedily, and gave her familiar little sigh.

"That _was_ nice!" she said.

Her daughter succeeded in making her eat a little as well.

"Now you got to lie down," she said.

"I can’t. I’ve got to clean the halls."

"I’ll do it, mommer."

"Nonsense, Angelica! You don’t know a thing about it."

"I guess I can learn. Go on, mommer, lie down!"

She straightened the bed and patted the thin little pillow.

"Now, mommer, tell me! How do you do it? Where do you start?"

"Angie, I can’t let you. You’re tired to death, child. I’m more used to it."

But Angelica would not listen to her. She went out, resolutely, with the pail and the cloth and the scrubbing-brush, to do for her mother for one day what her mother had done for her for nineteen years.

It was not Angelica’s disposition to enjoy martyrdom. She never felt sorry for herself; she didn’t now. It was work which must be done, and she was anxious to do it properly. She was in that state of intense fatigue when one craves more and more physical activity. She scrubbed all the stone stairs, mopped the corridor, went on working and working and thinking and thinking.

She came down-stairs at one o’clock and went out to buy something for lunch.

"What is there to do this afternoon?" she asked.

"Nothing," said Mrs. Kennedy. "I haven’t got half the work to do in this place that I had in the old one--only three washings."

"I know. Well, mommer, I suppose we’ll have to get some more money from somewhere. I’ll go out and look for a job, I guess."

She found one without much trouble. Her sort of job--unskilled, transitory, ill-paid--was plentiful.

"I’m starting in to-morrow morning," she told her mother, when she came home. "Now, if there’s any ink, I guess I’ll write to Eddie."

"Why?" asked her mother.

"Well, it seems he don’t know anything about--what happened, and I guess we’ll be married after all."

"You mean to say you’re still set on that, Angie?" cried her mother. "It’s wicked--downright _wicked_--to deceive a good man so."

"I don’t think so," Angelica replied. "What I did was bad enough, but I don’t think it’s wicked not to tell about it. If you’d been in prison you wouldn’t go around telling every one about it, would you?"

"That isn’t the same at all, Angie. I don’t want you to tell ‘every one’; only the man you’re going to marry."

"He wouldn’t be the man I’m going to marry very long, if I tell him. He’d never speak to me again. I know Eddie! And he’s too good to lose," she added. "Of course, something may go wrong, but I don’t think so. I think I’ve got him!"

So she wrote:

DEAR EDDIE:

I guess you think it is very queer not hearing from me for nearly a
year. I did not think I would write to you, because when I thought
it over I thought I better not marry you. I thought maybe we could
not get on, on account of being so different, but I have changed my
mind, and now I will if you still want. Let me know if you feel the
same about it, and then I will write again and tell you all about
how I am getting along. I have not got any letters from you,
because we moved away from the old place, and I was sick a long
time, and did not go up there to see if there were any letters, and
then when I got well and did go the woman there was very cranky and
said she gave them all back to the postman because I did not leave
any address behind.

Well, let me hear how you feel about this.

ANGELICA.

"Now!" she said as she dropped it into the box. "Now, if only, _only_ I can have my chance!"

II

One might imagine that her mother would be pleased with the new and complete change that came over Angelica--her third phase, so to speak; but she wasn’t. This cool, quiet resolution seemed to Mrs. Kennedy more profoundly immoral than all her daughter’s past wildness. It would be a horrible thing, it would upset all her universe, if she were forced to see such guilt as Angelica’s going undiscovered and forgotten.

Even a sinful life would have seemed to her more hopeful, for it would have presupposed a girl driven to desperation by shame and remorse; but Angelica going off to her work in the morning, neat and alert, her old-time swagger supplanted by a steely self-assurance, was an outrage. She was actually ambitious, too; she didn’t seem to know that her life was ruined and ended. She studied in the evening, writing exercises, learning things by heart, going at the English tongue, spelling, composition, and literature as the books decreed, fiercely concentrated upon her work. She wouldn’t go to the movies, or to take a walk; she wouldn’t even talk; she just sat there, with her books.

Her efforts at self-improvement were not touching, had nothing of stumbling pathos about them. She was too clever, too careful. She learned to dress with quiet precision, without paint, without flamboyant allure. She learned to speak better, she stopped swearing, except under great provocation; she even learned to control her temper to a degree that alarmed her mother. The hot, sudden anger was there--it came as readily as ever; but it was still now. She didn’t "fly out." And all this disturbed and exasperated Mrs. Kennedy. She had no sympathy for any of it.

"Whatever in the world do you expect to _do_?" she asked irritably, one evening, while Angelica sat reading a paper book on etiquette.

"I’m going to be as good as the best of them," said Angelica. "Why shouldn’t I be?"

"Plenty of reason why you shouldn’t!" said her mother tartly.

But the wicked continued to prosper, until Mrs. Kennedy almost believed that God gave no justice.

One day a letter came for Angelica. This startled her mother, for they never got letters.

"It’s from him," she thought. "Bad news, maybe!"

But it was postmarked New York; it couldn’t be from Eddie.

"Now, whoever in the world can be writing to Angie!" she thought, alarmed and uneasy, as she always was over the girl’s mysterious activities. However she might regard Angelica’s moral shortcomings, she loved her only child. She knew that she deserved punishment, but she would have given her own life to save her from it.

Directly Angie came in from work she handed her the letter.

"Oh, Gawd!" she muttered. "Mommer! It’s from her--the one that’s got the baby."

Her face was ghastly. Perhaps, after all, she hadn’t escaped so easily as her mother imagined. Perhaps, after all, she longed for her child and missed it with immeasurable bitterness, like any human mother.

Angelica couldn’t bear to open the letter. For what other reason would Polly write to her but to tell her of the baby’s illness or death? She had warmly urged Angelica to come whenever she wished to see the child, but Angelica had refused. She didn’t want to see him there with Polly. She wished to--she must--look upon him as utterly lost to her. Once in a while she was overcome with longing, and would telephone simply to ask after him, and, reassured, would resolutely turn her mind away. But if he were really gone, no longer in the world!

She opened the letter at last, and the very sight of it, before her brain had grasped its meaning, comforted her--the neatly formed letters, the friendly look of the page:

DEAR ANGELICA:

Dress yourself in your very nicest and go to see Miss Sillon in her
shop, "Fine Feathers," on the south side of Washington Square. I
spoke to her about you, and I believe there is a very good
opportunity there for you. They want a milliner--some one to take a
small salary and a share in the profits. They are nice girls, and
you’ll enjoy being with them. I really think it is just what you
want. Anyway, try it, won’t you? And let me know if it suits.

Your friend, as always,

POLLY GERALDINE.
P. S.--He is doing splendidly.

Angelica read the letter to her mother, all but the signature, and ate her supper in silence.

"Sit down, mommer," she said. "I’ll wash the dishes. I guess I’ll lay off for a while to-morrow and go and see about this thing."

III

It was Angelica at her newest and best who walked across Fourth Street the next morning. She had for a long time sternly withheld most of her wages from her mother, who needed the money for vital necessities, and had bought herself a decent outfit, to go with her new soul. She was plainly dressed, but no longer with a trace of shabbiness. She wore a neat dark suit, a black sailor hat, good boots and gloves. Her swagger was gone, and so was her provocative and insolent glance; she had a sobriety and decorum quite beyond reproach.

She saw the shop, and entered. It was a small private house, dilapidated and moribund, fitted out with purple and white striped curtains at the windows and a great sign-board over the front gate--a wooden peacock, brilliantly colored, with ‘Fine Feathers’ painted in bold black letters across it. The shop was what had once been a front parlour--a long, narrow room with a marble mantelpiece and an ornate ceiling. It was furnished now, with great audacity, solely by four kitchen chairs painted white, with round purple cushions on them, a table on which were strewn original designs for wraps and dresses done in crayons, and a fine pair of black velvet portières concealing the back room. Four long mirrors were set into the walls.

The owners were both poor and clever. They knew well that this childish brightness would be thought artistic, original, and distinguished by the greatly desirable bourgeoisie, and that the more sophisticated would be amused. As for Angelica, she was impressed.

A tall young girl with fluffy red hair hastened in from the back room.

"Yes?" she asked, with non-committal amiability.

"Mrs. Geraldine sent me," said Angelica, "I’d like to see Miss Sillon, please."

"Oh! I’m Miss Devery, but I’ll do. I’m the partner. I’ve heard about you. Millinery, isn’t it?"

"Yes," said Angelica, confidently.

"Sit down, won’t you? We can talk it over a bit. Miss Sillon will be in presently. You see, Miss Sillon and I just started this place six months ago, but we’re doing so well that we feel justified in branching out a bit. So we thought of a millinery department. We were speaking of it to Mrs. Geraldine--she’s one of our oldest customers, you know--and she said she knew just the person. She said you were a wonder at hats."

Angelica smiled a little. She was surprised and delighted by this pretty red-haired girl with her naïve air and babyish voice--a lady, if ever there was one, and yet so simple and friendly with Angelica. She wanted greatly to work in that purple and white room with her.

"Now," said Miss Devery, "I’ll tell you what we can do. We’d let you have both the windows, to display your hats; and that’s worth something. Then we’d give you ten per cent of all the sales you make, and provide the materials as well. We have lots of scraps and odds and ends; so you’d be under no expense at all."

"But I’d have to have a salary to start with."

Miss Devery bit her lip doubtfully.

"Well, you see," she said candidly, "we’re rather short of cash. We’ve made quite a bit, but after we’ve paid our living expenses we turn it all back into the business. We’re growing fast, and if you come in with us now you’ll really have a splendid chance. We have a perfectly fine connection, you know--some of the very nicest people."

"But----” began Angelica, and stopped short. "I’d like to think it over," she said. "How long can I take?"

"Why, a week, if you wish; but I hope you’ll come. You’re just the sort of girl we want. We don’t commercialize the thing. We want to keep it _nice_."

Angelica smiled again with a dreary sort of triumph. So she had fooled one of the nice ones, anyway!

"Of course," went on Miss Devery, "if you’d rather, you could provide a little capital and your own materials, and we’d let you right in with us. Miss Sillon would show you the books and so on."

Angelica had risen. She could see her own reflection in one of the long mirrors, and she could not help feeling that she really looked more of a lady than the girl who actually was one.

"I’ll let you know," she said, carefully. She was fearfully tempted to try, just for once, to talk as they did. "It’s awfully attractive," she said. "I’d love to go into it with you; but I want to talk it over with mother."

It succeeded! Miss Devery noticed nothing at all strange in her tone or her words.

"Telephone just as soon as you decide, won’t you?" she said.

IV

Mrs. Kennedy wasn’t in the flat when Angelica got home. She was up-stairs, cleaning a vacant flat, and thither Angelica followed her. She was scrubbing the pan of a gas-stove--a vilely dirty thing, heavily incrusted with grease and slime, in which were embedded dead matches and bits of food.

"Mother!"

The unaccustomed word surprised her. She turned to look into Angelica’s face smiling down at her.

"Mother, will you support me for a while?"

"Why, child, of course! I’ll do whatever I can for you. Have you lost your job?"

"No, but I’m going to try something new. It may not bring in anything much for quite a while, but I think after a time it’ll be a regular gold-mine. And it’s very _nice_. I know Eddie would like me to do it!"