Wicked Angel (3 page)

She regarded Alice, troubled. She was a strong, short girl, clean-looking and with an air of self-respect, and her brown hair was neatly combed and her brown eyes were firm and without guile. Alice sighed, and looked at the floor between her feet. Elsie was the best maid Kathy had had to date, a deft and knowing cook, a good worker, and possessed of dignity and pride.

“All right,” said Alice. “Of course, you must do what’s best for yourself. I understand.” She hesitated. “If you want me to, Elsie, I’ll write the reference for you.”

The two girls regarded each other straightly, and with comprehension. Elsie nodded, and her mouth quivered for a moment. “I haven’t told Mrs. Saint yet. I’m going to give her a week’s notice tonight. But honest, Miss Knowles, I don’t know how I’m going to stand another week! I do like Mr. Saint. He’s a real nice man, and considerate, and he always talks to me like I’m a human being, and Mrs. Saint don’t. And I thought she was so wonderful when I took the job three weeks ago! That’s the kind of a fool I was. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t—”

Alice looked about the immaculate kitchen. Every room in the house was immaculate and shining, polished and gleaming. Kathy received her money’s worth from her maids and her cleaning women, and she was tireless herself and had a remarkable sense for line and color and decoration. She was the admiration and terror of interior decorators. Everything was of the best quality, unique and distinctive. Like Kathy herself, the house was charming.

Her words might be banal, her intellect not too dazzling, but her taste was flawless. Alice sometimes thought of her sturdy parents, who preferred red velvet draperies and mohair, heavy furniture, and brown thick carpets, and she wondered where Kathy had acquired her flair for the fine, the noble, the appropriate. The girl smoothed her gray linen dress with her hands and pondered. She herself, as she readily admitted, had no such flair as Kathy’s.

The older woman returned to the kitchen, laughing, and showing all her small white teeth in delight. “He’s growing up, my little baby! He won’t let me stay with him any more when he’s on the potty! My big, big boy!”

“He certainly is,” said Alice wryly. “I’m glad you’ve remembered that. He’ll be in kindergarten in less than a year, or perhaps in first grade, if he ever learns to control himself.”

Kathy’s face changed. “Alicia. You don’t know anything about children, and that’s bad for The Children. I have a new book on child psychology; I wish you’d read it. All psychiatrists are unanimous in saving that children get tremendous pleasure from soiling themselves, even when they’re older than Angel. And parents shouldn’t deprive them of that pleasure too soon. You can ruin a child’s life, inflict a trauma on his emotional nature, if you force toilet training on him too soon. Ask any psychiatrist!”

“No,” said Alice. “I prefer to ask people who have common sense. Angelo’s past four: if he were my child I’d whack him until he stung for hours, and he’d remember after that.”

Kathy shrugged, and smiled. “I pity The Children in your class.”

“I can tell you one thing.” said Alice. “They don’t come equipped with diapers. Not even children almost as young as Angelo. No teacher would stand it for a minute, and the other kids would teach him a sound lesson the very first time.”

“No wonder so many poor children are suffering mental blocks and have emotional difficulties,” said Kathy, with a sentimental sigh. “And have to suppress hostile feelings, and have conflicts. And no wonder we have so many juvenile delinquents.”

“Kathy, don’t be such a fool, repeating that psychiatric jargon all the time. You know hardly any more about children than the psychiatrists do. You were Mark’s stenographer, remember? And a good one, and you’re a fine housekeeper and the world’s best cook. Stay within your limits. Now, don’t glare at me. I’ve really got to go.”

“Oh, but I want you to see my new bedroom draperies!” cried Kathy, waving away her sister’s words as puerile. “Wonderful material. And you couldn’t guess what it cost me to have them made up. I’m almost ashamed to tell you.”

“I’m sure you got the advantage of Mrs. Sears,” said Alice, with no expression on her face. “You always do. She doesn’t make a cent, doing your work. What do you do? Hypnotize her, or something? Or do you give her lessons in child psychiatry free? She supports two grandchildren, doesn’t she?”

“She gets her biggest benefit from the reputation she has of working for the Saints!” snapped Kathy. “And don’t think she doesn’t brag about it.” But there was no color of embarrassment on her cheeks. “And what harm is there in driving a good bargain and getting your money’s worth, or a little more?”

“I’ll see the draperies another time,” said Alice, turning away. “Besides, isn’t it getting late for Angelo’s precious little snack? He’s been on the pot for some time now.”

Kathy rushed to the refrigerator to bring out the daintily decorated cottage cheese mold, the gelatine, pink and shining, and the glass of milk in the gay little jug, for her son. While she was busy laying them out on the kitchen table, Alice smiled at Elsie and went into the large hall, where it was so pleasantly cool, the marble so perfectly polished, the great curving stairway floating up to the second floor. The girl paused a moment to enjoy what she had most willingly left, but still regretted. The walls, of painted ivory, bore a few excellent modern originals in bright and vivid colors, framed exquisitely. At another wall stood a Chippendale mirror mounted over a beautiful console. It was on this console that Alice had laid her purse. It was not there now.

“Do wait a minute,” called Kathy, from the kitchen. “I want to tell you something Alicia.”

“All right,” said Alice. She was certain she had left her purse there. Her books still remained on the console; she had put her purse upon them. She glanced at the authentic Chippendale chair near the staircase. But her purse was not to be seen. She frowned. Something caught her eye near the grilled glass door leading outside. The powder room door, to the right, was slightly open. She went to it at once, saying, “Angelo, have you taken my purse?” She knocked on the door, and it swung inward at her touch. The pretty room was empty. Angelo was not there, but on the black-tiled floor lay Alicia’s purse.

She looked at it with incredulous shock. It had been opened, and all its contents were scattered on the floor, and all had been methodically ruined. The lipstick had been wrenched from its gilt holder, the holder flattened, the lipstick ground into the tiles. The silver compact, which Mark had given Alice for Christmas, was open, the glass broken, the powder poured out. Its curved lid had been battered by a strong heel and wrecked. The sunglasses had been smashed against the basin, and the plastic twisted and left in a full two inches of water. The little jeweled comb, of which Alice was so proud, floated in the toilet. Her wallet had been opened, the bills thrown about, some in the bowl. One or two had been torn into shreds. Her change purse yawned open; a litter of silver and copper lay on the floor. Her lace handkerchief had been befouled. Her tiny perfume holder lay splintered in fragments in a corner, and the room smelled strongly of the precious and hoarded French scent.

Aghast, and now trembling, Alice sat down on her heels and looked upon the bestial vandalism her nephew had committed against her. What she saw was his rage that she knew all about him: she saw his hatred of her perspicacity, and of herself. This was not simply childish malice, done unthinkingly. It was a horrifying display of something too evil to be thought of. of a malignance too unchildlike. Alice shuddered. She did not hear the hall door open, and she fell forward on her knees as a masculine voice called to her heartily. “Alice! What are you doing there, saving your prayers?”

She was too sick to reply for a moment. There was a huge salt lump in her throat, and a dimness before her eyes. A shiver of desperate coldness ran over her flesh.

Then, still kneeling, she put out her hands to cover, to hide, from Mark Saint, what she did not in mercy wish him to see. She said in a shaking voice, not looking at him:

“Oh, it’s too stupid. I—I dropped my purse, and look what happened!”

“What a mess,” he said sympathetically, in his kind, strong voice which she loved so deeply. He knelt down beside her. “Let me help you.” He tossed his briefcase aside. Then he whistled. He picked up the compact, and examined it. His face changed, darkened, and Alice said quickly, “When it all fell out, I stepped on the poor compact!”

His shoulder was against hers, his dark flannel shoulder, and she wanted to burst into tears. She scrabbled blindly at the ruin of her possessions, and tried to laugh. The sound was almost a moan.

“And I suppose you also tore up those bills,” said Mark, in a strange tone, “and threw your comb in the toilet, and ground your lipstick into the tiles, and broke and twisted your glasses and tossed them into the washbowl.”

“Please,” murmured Alice. “Please, Mark. It doesn’t matter, really it doesn’t.”

“Oh, Mark!” cried Kathy, in a gay voice. “Aren’t you home early? What are you both doing there on the floor inside the powder room? Oh, I see. You dropped your purse, Alicia. What a shame.”

Mark raised himself on his knees and twisted his body toward his wife, while Alice hastily rescued what she could and thrust it into her purse. She cut her finger on a sliver of glass. Childishly, she thrust the finger into her mouth, and her eves burned with salt.

“Where’s Angelo?” asked Mark quietly. His dark thin face, with its well-cut features and vivid hazel eyes, was set and remote.

“Yes, yes, where’s my Angel!” exclaimed Kathy. looking closer into the powder room, and then about the hall. “Oh, that little rascal! He must have gone upstairs.” She went to the stairway and put her hand on the banister and sang upwards, “Darling, sweetheart, where are you? Your nice little snack is ready.”

Mark got to his feet, and looked at his wife across the black and white marble of the floor. “Kathy,” he said. She turned a bemused and radiant face in his direction, and then her expression became pettish.

“What is it, Mark?” she asked impatiently. “Oh. dear. I’ll have to go up and find that little teaser. He does play tricks, sometimes.”

“Yes,” said Mark, still quietly. “He plays tricks. Come here, Kathy. I want you to look at this. This isn’t a trick. This is a display of—I don’t want to say it, Kathy. I just want you to look at what your son has done to Alice.”

“What are you talking about?” demanded Kathy, and her voice was shrill. She tapped across the marble, her skirts swishing all about her like the skirts of a ballet dancer. “What do you mean? What has our baby done?”

“This isn’t the work of a baby,” said Mark. Gently, he lifted Alice’s trembling hands from the floor, and held them tightly in his own. “Look, Kathy. Angelo did this. I can guess why. I don’t want to say it, I tell you.”

Kathy, with a murmur of annoyance, bent and looked at the wreckage. Her eyes widened. She bit her lip. Then she looked at Alice, and the look was charged with enormous dislike. “What did you say to the poor child, Alicia?” she asked, in a harsh voice. “When you tried to come in here? It must have been awful! Oh, the poor baby.”

“Please,” said Alice, struggling to keep down a dry sob. “It doesn’t matter. Please, Mark.” But she let him retain her hands. They were standing close together now, and Alice let her eyes rise only to Mark’s tanned chin, and her heart shook.

“What did you say to him?” cried Kathy. “What terrible thing did you say?”

“He wasn’t here when I opened the door,” said Alice, through quivering lips. “Please don’t be upset. It was just a childish prank.”

“Why, of course, it was just a childish prank,” said Kathy. “After all, he’s only a baby. Are you sure you didn’t just drop your purse, Alicia?”

“Don’t be a fool, Kathy,” said Mark. He had never before spoken to her like this. “Look in the toilet; look in the washbowl. I suppose you’ll next be asking Alice if she didn’t really do this herself.”

“Just a prank,” insisted Kathy. Her face was quite pink.

“Yes, yes,” said her sister. “I think we’re all making a fuss—”

Then Mark said in a lashing voice like the crack of a whip. “Get that boy, Kathy! Do you hear me? I want him down here at once. He’s out of hand now. I’ve been warning you about this, and now it’s happened. Now that he’s acted like a devil, he’s going to be punished like a devil, and he’s going to get the first thrashing of his life. And from me!”

But Angelo suddenly materialized behind his mother, a beautiful tall boy with an engaging wide smile and big innocent eyes. “Here I am, Daddy,” he said, and lifted his truly angelic face up to his father. Mark dropped Alice’s hands. Involuntarily he stepped back a pace. “Did you call me, Daddy?” Angelo asked with much of Kathy’s sweetness in his childish voice.

Kathy caught him against her skirts, and put her arm about his shoulders. There was something vicious glinting in her eyes as she stared, not at Mark, but at Alice.

“He’s just a baby!” she said. “Alicia, you must have said something terrible—”

But Mark put his hands on his knees and bent his legs and faced his son. His features were stern and fixed. He said, “Angelo, why did you do this?”

“I didn’t!” screamed Angelo suddenly. “I didn’t, I didn’t!” And he buried his face against his mother’s skirts and beat her arms with clenched fists. “I hate her, I hate her, I hate her!”

“There, you see,” said Kathy, in a significant tone. “Oh, dear, now he’s perspiring and shaking. He’ll be sick all night.”

“Son,” repeated Mark, but Angelo howled. Alice tucked her purse under her arm, and looked at the door despairingly. But Mark stood between her and flight. She said, “I wish you wouldn’t be—like this. It doesn’t matter. Children do all sorts of things. I’m a teacher, and I know.”

“He’s been overstimulated, overexcited!” said Kathy. “Feel his forehead, Mark, and his neck. All wet and hot. Perhaps he has a fever.”

“She stim-late me, she ‘cite me!” shrieked Angelo, from the protection of his mother’s arms.

Mark stretched out his arm and plucked his son from his mother. He swung the boy to face him, while Angelo, still screaming, held out his arms to Kathy for succor. Then Mark seized his shoulders and shook him violently, and Kathy uttered a wild, loud cry as if assaulted, and grasped one of the small and flailing arms. Her face was suddenly white and sweating, her eyes leaping in their sockets, her mouth open. She tugged at Angelo’s arm, trying to release him from Mark’s grasp.