Angelica had gone running up the street to a drug-store on Sixth Avenue,
where she knew there was a telephone booth. It was a place of doubtful
repute. There was always a group there of young Italian-Americans,
flashily dressed youths of immense assurance, who were interested in
every woman that entered the store; but they didn’t care for Angelica in
her slatternly dress, with her fierce and haggard face.
One of them made a coarse jest about her, which she answered with an
oath; then she went into the booth and pulled the door to behind her.
Her heart was beating frantically; she was scarcely able to speak, her
hoarse voice came out with an unfamiliar sound.
"I want to speak to Mr. Vincent!" she said.
"Who is it?"
"Call him quick! It’s a message from his brother." A silly ruse, but she
was capable of nothing better. Then, after a long pause, she heard his
voice.
"What is it?"
"It’s me--Angelica. Vincent, don’t you _dare_ to write to Eddie! Don’t
you dare ever to let him know!"
"My dear child, I’ve already done so. I’ve just put the letter in the
box, not ten minutes ago."
"No!" she cried. "No! You must get it back!"
He laughed.
"When once a letter is posted----”
She gave a sort of wail. He was still speaking, but she didn’t care what
he said. She hung up the receiver and went out into the street again.
Somehow this seemed to her the very worst blow that had fallen on her,
the greatest cruelty of her destiny. To have got, in the blackness of
her despair, this glorious hope, and to have it destroyed almost before
it had breathed!
It occurred to her that there was one more desperate chance. She went
hurrying home again.
"Mommer!" she said. "Where’s your money?"
"I haven’t any money, Angie, as well you know."
"You have!"
"Only just the bit that’s to last us through the week."
"Give it to me, quick!"
She snatched up the flat little purse and rushed out again, pushing her
hair up under her hat as she ran. She didn’t quite know where to look.
She sought in vain along Sixth Avenue, then crossed to Fifth, and found
there what she wanted--an empty taxicab, cruising along Madison Square.
"Say!" she called. "Taxi!"
The man stopped and looked at her suspiciously. A queer-looking thing
she was to hail a cab!
"I want to go out to Baycliff," she said.
"You better walk, then," he said. "It’s cheaper."
"Oh, you’ll get paid, all right!" said Angelica. "The people out
there’ll pay you good and give you a tip."
He shook his head.
"I guess not," he said doubtfully. "You better find some one else. I’m
married. I can’t afford to take no chances. Where’d I be, if I wasn’t to
get paid? A long run like that, and got to come back empty!"
Angelica recalled something which had been mentioned in one of Mrs.
Russell’s long stories.
"Look here!" she said. "It’s the law. You got to take passengers."
"Not outside the city limits I haven’t," said the man.
They were both a little uneasy, as neither of them felt at all sure as
to what laws there might or might not be; but Angelica in her
desperation was resourceful.
"You let me in," she said, "and I’ll fix it up with the people out
there. See, I’ll give you two dollars now, but I won’t tell them I gave
you anything, and they’ll pay you and give you a tip, too. I’m the
waitress out there, and they’ll be darned glad to see me back. You
didn’t ought to worry. You’d ought to know I wouldn’t risk getting
locked up just for the sake of a ride. No one would take a chance like
that."
"Well, they do, all the same," said the driver. "It wouldn’t do me no
good to get you locked up--not if you didn’t have no money."
"It’s only people out on a joy ride that do that," said she. "Where’d be
the sense in me doing that--taking a ride all alone and then getting
locked up?"
He wavered, and she hurriedly got out the two dollars--earned by long
hours of scrubbing by Mrs. Kennedy--and gave them to the chauffeur. He
was now practically won; her insistence overcame his weak will, her two
dollars charmed him. Moreover, he liked her, she was so frank and so
much in earnest.
"All right," he said. "Get in! Now mind you treat me fair--I’m taking a
big risk for you!"
She was a strange enough figure, sitting there in her dusty clothes, her
battered old hat, while the cab sped on, through and out of the city,
along dark country roads lined with trees, past fields, past marshes,
past desolate buildings, past friendly lighted houses. She was consumed
with a fever of haste, burning with anxiety, looking over the driver’s
shoulders at the road before her, which seemed so endless.
Now they were going up the hill to the house--the very house.
"You wait a while," she said. "The longer you wait the more you’ll get
paid."
The front door stood open, with only a screen door across the aperture,
and a faint light from the hall shone out on the roadway. There didn’t
seem to be any one about. She stood outside, peering through the screen
into the hall, listening. Not a sound!
She was obliged to ring the bell; and who should open the door but the
doctor? He didn’t see who it was until he had let her in; then he was
frightened at the unexpectedness of her coming, at the wild disorder of
her appearance.
"What do you want?" he asked.
"I want to speak to Vincent," she answered. "Where is he?"
"He may be busy. I’d better----”
"_Where is he?_" she demanded.
When the doctor didn’t answer, she pushed by him and ran up-stairs.
Vincent was lying back in an armchair, in a bath-robe, his slender bare
feet on a second chair. He was eating biscuits and cheese from a plate
balanced on his knees, and reading a magazine, in the greatest possible
comfort, physical and mental, when without an instant’s warning Angelica
entered, wild, savage, relentless as a Fury.
He sat up, drawing the bath-robe tightly about him, and tried to frown
at her; but he felt, and he appeared, at a horrible disadvantage.
"What do you want?" he demanded.
She couldn’t speak for a moment. She only looked at him with her fierce
black eyes, pressing a hand against her breast, as if to stifle by force
the tumult there. He was alarmed, really, although he tried so
desperately to look scornful.
"Well?" he asked again. "What did you come here for?"
"That letter!" she said. "That letter to Eddie! You shan’t send it!"
"I have," he answered.
"No!" she cried. "No! You haven’t."
"I tell you I have!" he answered definitely. "I told you so over the
telephone."
She stood motionless, staring past him, oblivious of his uneasy
bewilderment. Thoughts were running through her brain like fire through
parched grass. She remembered things she had heard--of the English
suffragettes pouring acid into mail-boxes to destroy their contents. But
what did they use, and where to get it?
Her vigorous and subtle brain was never quite without resource. She
thought and thought, with passionate intensity, and at last, suddenly,
an idea came to her. She went out of the room abruptly, so swiftly and
silently that Vincent was astonished and more than ever alarmed. What in
Heaven’s name was that damnable girl up to now? He knew she wouldn’t
stop at anything.
He went on tiptoe to the door and peered cautiously out into the hall.
She wasn’t there. Where was she? He was certain that she hadn’t given up
and gone away. She was after that letter, and she wouldn’t go without
it.
"She’s ill, though," he muttered. "Beastly--savage! Forcing her way in
like this! My God, I’ll _never_ be rid of her! What the devil was the
matter with me, to get mixed up with a girl like that? I wish she’d
break her neck. I wish I had the courage to wring it!"
He stopped suddenly and turned pale; for there on the mantelpiece,
before his eyes, was the letter. Courtland had forgotten to mail it!
He flew at it and tore it into bits, like a criminal concealing some
trace of his guilt. He was actually capable of imagining that, by this,
he had got the better of Angelica.
V
Angelica ran down-stairs to the kitchen, which was deserted, but quite
brightly lighted. There, on the back of the coal range, stood what she
had expected to see--the teakettle, gently steaming.
She lifted it, and went to the back door. There was a couple--probably
Annie and her young man--sitting in the dark on the steps. She turned
back, went through the laundry and out of a side door; down the hill,
through the grass, where she wouldn’t make a sound. Once she stumbled,
and a few drops of scalding water spilled upon her instep. She smothered
a shriek of pain, and hurried on.
There wasn’t a soul in sight; the road was quite empty even of passing
motors. She crossed to the other side, where the post-box stood, and,
raising herself on tiptoe, she poured into it the entire contents of the
kettle.
Then she ran into the woods behind the box, and hid the kettle in a
clump of thick bushes. She was satisfied that the letter must be
destroyed, together with anything else the box may have contained. Her
conscience did not reproach her in the least for this possible injury to
others.
"There couldn’t be any one," she reflected, "who could want any one else
to get a letter as much as I _don’t_ want Eddie to get that one!"