I
Behold Mrs. Kennedy answering an advertisement for a janitress, far over
on the lower West Side, in the Chelsea district.
"I have the best of references," she told Mr. Steinberg, the landlord.
"I’ve been where I am now for twelve years, and no complaints."
"Den vy do you leaf?"
"I don’t like living ’way up there," she answered calmly. "I’ve got more
friends down around here. And my married daughter’s coming to live with
me, and she’d rather be down here. She’s real lonely, now her husband’s
gone to the war."
This was her ruse to preserve that respectability which no one valued or
even observed.
She got the place, because of her decency and her references. There was
nothing to be said against her in any quarter. What is more, Mr.
Steinberg felt from the look of her that she was a hard worker. Like her
other place, it was a "cold water" flat; there was a man to look after
the furnace, but everything else was to be done by her, for her rent and
an incredibly small stipend. She agreed. Her sole asset was her
readiness to undertake hard and unremitting labour. There was not a
thing which she could do better than the average woman, so that her
boast, her credit, must be that she did _more_.
"My married daughter’s thinking of taking in sewing," she said. "Maybe
you could put a little work in her way."
"Ve’ll see," said Mr. Steinberg, "later on, maybe."
Now that she had secured a refuge, where Angelica might assume
respectability among complete strangers, the poor woman’s next
preoccupation was to find some way of having her pitiful furniture
moved. She went about for days, trying to drive bargains with any one
who possessed a cart; but war-time prices and conditions prevailed, and
no one cared to accept so unprofitable a task.
In the end she found an Italian who sold ice, coal, and wood in a
near-by cellar, and who agreed to do what she wished. She paid him at
least six visits, trying to persuade him to take less money, or to
promise great care with her scanty belongings, or to reassure herself
that he really understood the new address. In order to pay him and to
settle her few little bills, she was obliged to sell her parlour
furniture, blue lamp and all.
Winter was beginning to set in when they moved. It was a raw and bitter
day, blankly gray overhead. Mrs. Kennedy lingered in the old flat where
she had lived for twelve years, watching the Italian carry out her
things, her heart sick with shame to be leaving the place in this
fashion, her parlour furniture sold, her daughter "in trouble." There
was nothing left now but the barest essentials--things to sleep on, to
be covered with, to cook with, and a chair or two.
Angelica had gone by surface-car to the new home, to await the arrival
of the cart. For the moment each of them was alone in a dismal bare
flat, hopelessly similar. It was a day of gloom. The removal had brought
home to them most forcibly their desperate position, their helplessness,
their desolation. They had only each other--no other friend, no other
resource.
They set to work at once, in the dusk, to arrange their furniture; and
when a barren sort of order had been achieved, Mrs. Kennedy went out in
search of the usual little shop where she might buy a bite for
Angelica’s supper. She tried her best to be calm, resolute, strong; but
her heart was like lead as she hurried through the unfamiliar streets,
chilled by a cold wind from the river, and by a far colder and bleaker
apprehension.
She caught sight of a brightly lighted little grocery-store, and she
went in. Another pang! Here she was no one; simply a poorly dressed
stranger with a paltry handful of change. She remembered her own
cheerful young grocer with positive anguish. It was almost the last
straw.
She came back, half running, with her little bag under her arm, entered
the strange doorway, rang the strange bell. Her daughter admitted her.
"I didn’t do much," Angelica said. "I started to scrub the shelves, but
I felt tired. Anyway, what does it matter?"
She had been sitting in a dreadful apathy in the forlorn kitchen; she
sank down again on the old step-ladder chair.
"If only I had a bit of linoleum for the floor!" began Mrs. Kennedy,
looking down at the filthy boards. "A nice check pattern, like Mrs.
Stone had----”
Angelica stopped her.
"I prayed," she said.
"Oh, my deary! I’m so glad. God’ll hear you and----”
"I prayed it would die."
"_Angie!_"
"You didn’t think I wanted it, did you?"
"You’ll feel different when it’s here."
"I sha’n’t. Lots of people don’t. It’s a curse to me, a _curse_! A
baby--me with a living to earn the rest of my life! No--I’ll hate it. I
do now. I’d have to hate any child with _his_ blood in it. I hope it’ll
die!"
"That’s a wicked, wicked thing to say, Angie."
"Maybe you’d be surprised to know how wicked I feel. My Gawd, what I’ve
done! The chance I’ve thrown away!"
"That’s not like you, my deary."
"_I’m_ not like me--not like the me I thought I was. I thought I
was--oh, I don’t know--kind of a wonder; and after all, I’m nothing
but--this. Going to have a baby--pretending to be married--not a cent!
It’s a grand end, all right!"
"End, Angie?"
"Yes, end. I’m done--finished!"