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: