Wicked Angel Read Free

baptized,” said Alice bluntly. “Never mind. Go on.”
    “Yes, I have the laundress!” Kathy clattered a spoon on the sink, with vexation. “But in this weather, really! I don’t want Angel’s clothing to get the least bit musty, and I do change him so often!”
    The boy, outside, hearing his beloved name, lifted his head alertly and tried to follow the conversation.
    “But—Katherine—you know that you told Elsie, as you tell all the maids, that they never have to do any laundry. Or heavy cleaning. It isn’t fair to demand that they do, after you hire them. And Elsie is such a good cook, and so competent and responsible. And you pay her so little. I often wonder how you get them, honestly!”
    But Alice knew. A prospective maid was invariably fascinated by Kathy’s air of innocent sweetness, her tender words, her look of melting trust, her promises, her trilling laughter, her affectionate demands that if Mary or Jane or Elsie took the “position,” she must, she really must, consider herself “one of the family.” Under this spell of sisterly democracy, and the wealth of promises, the hint of not too burdensome work, the selected girl always accepted the position. She remained not more than a month, or perhaps only a week, to leave in indignation and disillusion and sometimes in hatred. If she were foolish enough to give Kathy’s name as reference to another employer, Kathy made it her “duty” to enlighten the woman about the maid’s incompetence, insolence and sloth, and would even hint of missing lingerie or linen or silver, and all this in such a sighing, suffering voice that the girl was never hired. No one knew of this but Alice, who usually warned the girl quietly not to give her sister’s name as a reference.
    She herself would write out an appreciative note, and slip a bill into the envelope.
    The boy outside scowled, and kicked his stuffed bear, for he did not hear his name. When Alice spoke, he put his hands over his ears, and felt again that spiteful urge to soil himself, and then remembered, again, the one or two occasions when Alice, who watched him between maids when Kathy and Mark were away at dinner, had thrashed him for his incontinence. SHE was talking again, and he writhed a little on the step.
    “Do try and keep Elsie,” said Alice, while Kathy covered the soup pan with the hushed care of one handling a holy thing. “She’s very good.”
    “Let’s change the subject,” said Kathy, in her natural voice, which was hard and flat. “You asked me what I wanted for my birthday. You have only your salary, and you’re spending your first year’s savings at the university, and heavens know why! Well. I’d like an automatic fryer.”
    “That’s about thirty-five dollars,” said Alice, in an expressionless tone.
    “Yes. Very cheap, isn’t it?” Alice thought of the small sum remaining in the bank. This was only the middle of August. She would not receive her first paycheck for over a month. Of course, she thought, I can always charge it, and pay for it in October.
    “An automatic fryer, then, it is,” she said. Her eyes, a blue much darker than Kathy’s, and filled with the radiance of intellect, clouded a little. She detested being reminded of her sister’s native avarice. Kathy gave her a peeping glance.
    “You really should get married, dear,” she said. “You’ll soon be nineteen, and it’s time for you to be looking around for someone substantial and responsible, like Mark. You’ll never realize the joy of marriage until you have a child like Angel!”
    “I thought the joy of marriage was in the husband,” said Alice dryly.
    “Don’t quibble. Mark’s a darling, of course. But marriage means children.”
    “Why don’t you have another, then?” asked Alice. She was distressed to hear a faint taunting note in her own voice, but she was thinking of Mark, who existed, in Cathy’s mind, as the father of her child and the provider of his comforts and the means