Wicked Angel

by Taylor Caldwell

  “What?” said Mark. He wished Kathy would not strive so desperately to be what someone had called her in her girlhood—“radiant.” She was thirty-nine, yet she still made her eyes big and round, and actually could manage to send a beam from her forehead and lips, and would show all her pretty white teeth and throw her body around vivaciously. It must be wearing, was Mark’s uncharitable comment to himself. Why doesn’t she let herself go and take her age gracefully? For Mark had discovered, inadvertently, his wife’s actual age, though he was too kind to let her know.

  “Well,” said Kathy, and bent youthfully from her waist, and clasped her hands together and pushed them between her knees. She ran the tip of her red tongue over her lips and looked up at Mark with the expression of a girl of fifteen, and a delighted one at that. “Bertie told the ageney she’d been poisoned! Poisoned! Right here in this wonderful home of ours! Honestly! I’m not exaggerating, Mark, so don’t look so astonished. Did you ever hear anything like that?”

  Mark did not know why, but a tiny cold finger touched his heart. “She must have been crazy,” he said. He made himself laugh. “Which one was Bertie, and how long did she stay, and what was the matter with her?”

  Kathy flung herself with the abandon of a child into the nearest chair. She looked at her son, who was listening avidly, and grinning. “Angel, you shouldn’t hear this. It’s too stupid, too mad. You aren’t old enough to know such things about such dreadful people. Do go downstairs and drink your chocolate; your own special little mug is right there on the kitchen table: I put it there myself. And don’t eat too much of that delicious cake!”

  “Sure, Mum,” responded the boy, in the indulgent voice of a man humoring a child. He left his bedroom and closed the door behind him softly.

  “Such a darling,” said Kathy, with yearning, after following him with her eyes. “Oh, Bertie. She was the tall thin one, you know, with glasses, and her hair in curls on the top of her head. You remember? Forty-four, she said, though she was at least ten years older.”

  “I remember now,” said Mark. “She was very well educated; she had had two years of college in some small town in Michigan, and took a home science course for a year after that. And she was only forty-four; I paid her Social Security and saw her records. She was the best cook we ever had. Wasn’t she with us for two weeks or more?”

  “Almost three. I don’t care what her Security card said!

  I can guess women’s ages within a year, so don’t be petty, Mark. Educated? She was the most stupid of the whole stupid crowd of them. You remember how Angel detested her from the beginning.”

  Again the cold minute finger touched Mark’s heart. “I didn’t know,” he said slowly. All at once a heaviness came to him and he sat down.

  “Well, he did, and no wonder. She wasn’t here a day before she showed that she detested The Children. She was a widow, and had a daughter in some cow college somewhere, and how she had a girl that young at her age I don’t know, and she told me distinctly when I hired her that she loved The Children, all children, or I’d never have hired her at all. She was the most awful liar. Angel came home from school—she hadn’t seen him before—and I introduced her to him, and he was a perfect little gentleman as always. And then when he’d gone into the kitchen for his after-school snack—I was interviewing her in the breakfast room—she looked at the door he’d gone through with big crazy eyes behind her glasses. I just thought, then, that she was captivated with him, as everyone else is. But she wasn’t. She hated him from that very minute, and he hated her, though he never showed it, of course. I ought to have known! Oh, there was never a word between them! You know how courteous Angel is with all the help, even with old Sue who does the laundry, and he never raised his voice to Bertie. He’d even get up and open the door for her when she was carrying a tray or something heavy.”

  “Please get to the point, Kathy,” said Mark. Was it stuffy in the room? It was a little hard to breathe. “What did Bertie tell the agency?”

  “I told you! She said she’d been poisoned! The very afternoon of the night she left, creeping out of the house like a thief.”

  “How?” demanded Mark.

  “You don’t have to shout, Mark, though I don’t blame you. I really don’t blame you. You know how sort of pale and thin she was, though she was a good worker, I admit. She kept a bottle of iron-something in the refrigerator, though I didn’t like it there—germs. She took three spoonfuls a day, I think. Well, that afternoon was rainy, or I wouldn’t have been home; it was the monthly meeting of the Mothers Against Polio. I thought I’d write some letters, and I was at the desk in the living room—I think I was writing to Alicia—when I heard Bertie scream. I thought it was a burglar, or some other kind of criminal, breaking into the house, and my heart jumped right into my throat. I ran into the kitchen, and she was sitting there at the table, her eyes popping right out of her head, and glaring, and then, all at once—the disgusting thing!—she vomited right on the newly washed kitchen floor! And kept right on sitting there, vomiting, clutching the table, though I shook her hard and told her to stop it at once. She did it deliberately, she was so contemptible. And it served her right that the last throw-up was stained with blood, from straining like that and being so hysterical.”

  Mark said nothing. He thought, dimly, that the room was very hot; his forehead was sweating, and yet the sweat was cold.

  “I made her wash up her mess and then go to her room to lie down. When it was time to get dinner she refused to come downstairs. She had locked her door! So I had to get all the dinner myself. Don’t you remember? And the next morning she wasn’t there, the awful, crazy wretch. And telling that story to the agency, too. That’s why they wouldn’t send me any other help after that.”

  “What was the name of the agency?” asked Mark.

  “The Acme!”

  “I see,” said Mark dully. He did not know it was instinct that made him get quickly and noiselessly to his feet and tiptoe, running, to the door and throw it open. Angelo stood there. He smiled at his father. “I guess I’ll go to bed now,” he said. “I drank my chocolate and ate my cake. I washed out the pan, too.”

  “Good boy!” cried Kathy, clapping her hands. “And now to beddy-bye. Mark, will you excuse us? Angel and I have something very, very special to talk to each other about, alone, and we don’t want you listening!” She peeked up at her husband archly. “After all, it’s almost Christmas.”

  Mark went down to the kitchen, walking very slowly, as if half asleep. He looked at Angelo’s mug. It was standing on the sink. Mark put his finger inside it; it had been rinsed out. Stop it, he said to himself. He looked at the big chocolate cake on its decorated plate. A piece had been cut. He looked into the garbage pail, but nothing was there. Then he went into the powder room. He turned on the light and looked about, for what he did not know. But he found a crumb of dark cake on the floor. Angelo had not drunk the chocolate or eaten the cake. He had not had the time. But he had known he must leave some lying evidence that he had drunk and eaten quickly, and after he had he’d stolen upstairs to listen at his door.

  “My God,” said Mark, in a dull voice. But he did not think of the “mad” Bertie. He was seeing, again, a desperate girl clinging to a wooden stake and hanging over a deadly gulf of air and sunshine.

  “No, no, I mustn’t start all that again, after over two years of peace,” he said. But he knew he must.

  Four o’clock the next afternoon Mark Saint was sitting in the sun room of a pleasant home in another suburb, talking with Bertha Symes. The lady of the house had discreetly left, after Mark had identified himself and explained that there was something he wished to ask his former employee. “I hope it isn’t anything serious,” she had said mildly. “We’re very fond of Bertie, and she likes us.”

  “It’s nothing serious,” Mark had said, forcing a smile. “It’s just that I had some papers at home, some blueprints, and I can’t find them. Bertie was always very tidy, and she may have put them
away too well.”

  The Acme Agency had been suspicious, too. And cold to Mark. The woman in charge vehemently insisted not only on Bertie’s sanity but on her competence and character. Bertie had been with her “last family” fifteen years before she had gone to the Saints; if the lady hadn’t died, she would have been with them still.

  “If Bertie said she had been poisoned at your house,” said the woman, “then she had. I’d believe anything Bertie said, without a stack of Bibles.”

  “But it’s preposterous!” said Mark. “Who would poison Bertie, and why? This is insane! If she thought that, why didn’t she call the police, and a doctor?”

  The woman hesitated, and moved a pencil in her fingers. “She did call her doctor and he was out of town. And she said she was afraid to wait downstairs and call another one. She locked her door, and then left that night. But Bertie is very intelligent. She went into your kitchen for her bottle of tonic and it wasn’t where she kept it. She looked everywhere. You see, she was going to give it to the police to be examined. After she told me about it, I urged her to go to the police anyway; she was still very weak and sick. But she said she’d thought it over; she liked you, Mr. Saint. She didn’t want you to be upset.”

  The woman looked at him steadily. “Why don’t you talk to Bertie herself? I’ll give you the address where she is working now. I’m sorry, Mr. Saint. You know, it could be a mistake after all. Perhaps the tonic had gone bad.” But her tone was doubtful. She would not say anything more.

  Mark had then driven to this house in another suburb, certain he was not awake but dreaming some dreadful dream. And now he was sitting near Bertie and questioning her. She looked at him with large violet eyes in which intelligence and sanity beamed without flaw, and she was very sober and very neat in her white uniform.

  “When my doctor came back, Mr. Saint, I did go to him, and he was furious because I hadn’t called another doctor immediately, to examine what I’d vomited and take a sample. And I couldn’t find my iron tonic anywhere. I know I’d put it back after I had taken a dose after lunch; I had to move a milk bottle so it was out of sight. Mrs. Saint didn’t like to see it there. And just before I left—it was after two in the morning—I looked everywhere for it. I even went into the garage and looked into the garbage pails. Mr. Saint”—and her voice dropped—“I’m glad now that I didn’t find it, that it was earlier taken away and destroyed.”

  A silence like a malignant presence stood between them. Mark had to make a physical effort to break it, finally.

  “Why, Bertie? Why are you glad you couldn’t find the bottle for the police?”

  “Mr. Saint, I’d rather not talk about it anymore. Suppose we just leave it like this.”

  “No, Bertie, we can’t. I’ve got to know. Who was in the house that day?”

  “No one but Mrs. Saint and I.” Then, “Please, Mr. Saint, I have a roast in the stove.” But he caught her wrist, gently, as she tried to rise. “What did the doctor think might have been in your tonic, Bertie?”

  She answered, reluctantly, “He thought it might have been arsenic.” She hesitated. “You know, while I was in the garage, looking into the pails, I saw that rat killer on the shelf. It said it contained arsenic, and was poisonous.” She waited a moment, then went on, “I forgot my tonic after breakfast. I took it after a big lunch. The doctor said that that saved my life, probably. And my vomiting. I have a very sensitive stomach. I vomit very easily.”

  It was all shadowy, unsubstantial. “I vomit very easily.” Mark could breathe with a little less difficulty now. “Didn’t you notice any wrong taste, Bertie?”

  “I thought I did. I thought the medicine was a little gritty, too. But when it’s down that low the ingredients, some of them, sometimes precipitate. It was two-thirds gone.”

  “It could have spoiled, Bertie. Those tonics sometimes do.”

  “Yes, yes,” she said, with too much eagerness, her pitying eyes on his face. “That must be it. In fact, the next day I thought of it myself, and that is why I didn’t go to the police. It would have been so embarrassing for you, and you were always so kind to me, Mr. Saint, and so generous. And I had no proof at all.”

  Mark twisted his hat in his hands and looked at it. “Bertie, how did you get along with Angelo?”

  Again the malignant silence stood between them. Then Bertie said, honestly, “We never said much to each other, Mr. Saint. I like children, I really do. I like them around; I wouldn’t work where there were no children; I raised the children of my last family. But, somehow, Angelo and I didn’t hit it off at all. He was always polite to me. Perhaps I’m getting a little impatient, but I’d snap at him once or twice for suddenly appearing right behind me in the kitchen, without making a sound. And he’d just laugh. He’d just laugh.” Her face was eloquent.

  “You didn’t like each other,” Mark’s voice was without inflection.

  “You can put it that way if you like, Mr. Saint. You know how it is; you sometimes look at a stranger and dislike him at sight. I’m afraid that was the way between Angelo and me. At first, I was ashamed for—disliking—a little boy. And then I began to think he wasn’t a little boy at all. Now, isn’t that silly?”

  “Everyone else seems to love my son,” said Mark with an effort. “But you didn’t.”

  “No, Mr. Saint. I didn’t. Please don’t ask me why. And now, I’ve really got to look at that roast.”

  Mark went home, driving slowly in a fine sleet, and in the early darkness. He went directly to the kitchen where Betty was alone, preparing dinner. She gave him a look of pleasant greeting. She was young and red-cheeked, with blonde hair.

  They chaffed each other for a moment, then Mark said idly, “Betty, I hope you’ll stay with us. We like you very much. I hope you like us.”

  Her face clouded a little. “Well, Mr. Saint, you know I’m not supposed to do a lot of things that I do. But I like you all. And I love Angelo. He’s a darling.”

  So, thought Mark, Betty is safe. And he was struck with terror that he could think this, and he wondered if he were losing his mind.

  CHAPTER TEN

  “Well,” said Kathy, one spring evening over a year later, “it’s wonderful the way you show so much interest in your child, considering that other fathers don’t, always, but you look so tired, Mark, and perhaps you’d better not go to the spring party at the school tonight. Come to think of it, I’m not feeling so chipper myself lately.”

  Her doctor had told her frankly, yesterday, that her symptoms were probably those of the menopause, for she did not lie about her age to him. But she had been annoyed. Here she was, only forty, and the fool thought just over forty middle-aged! He was getting senile. She would have to think about going to that nice Dr. Hauser all the girls loved so much. It had been a very gay and strenuous winter, and she had done a lot of entertaining—she was famous for her parties and dinners. Her feeling of heaviness, her sour stomach, her sudden sweats, her occasional nausea, were just the results of a season that had been more active than usual. But she looked at Mark with affectionate concern. He was very thin; he had never been overweight, but now he was positively emaciated! Why hadn’t she noticed it before? And the shadows under his eyes were a deep gray, and his skin looked unhealthy. She was alarmed, not only because she loved him as much as she could, but because Angelo needed him.

  “Did you go to the doctor?” asked Mark. “You said you were going.”

  “Oh, Dr. Bowes!” cried Kathy airily. “You know how he is. He dismisses everything unless you have TB or cancer or diabetes or a broken leg. He isn’t interested in anything else but those.”

  She was rapidly working herself up to what Mark was beginning to call her “Katherine mood,” bubbling, effervescent, radiant, with a fixed bright stare and a fixed bright smile. Her voice was already taking on the “Katherine” sound, murmurous, effusive, and sympathetic. Did she practice it just before emerging in public? Mark asked himself, and hated himself for the uncharitable question. He re
membered that when he was going with her before marriage she was like this; a month or two of marriage had brought out her real nature, which was practical, avaricious, cynical, and pragmatic. Though she was only talking with him here in the house, the mood was absorbing her; in her mind’s eye she was meeting Angelo’s teachers and impressing them with her profound sweetness, her eagerness to understand their problems, her anxious, smiling willingness to be informed. Oh, Kathy, thought Mark, with tiredness. It must be a heavy burden now for you to pretend to the vivacity of youth, the abundant spirits of youth, the hopefulness of youth. Why can’t you relax and be the middle-aged woman you are? No one expects a woman of your age to be enthused and buoyant. I’m sorry. You were too old, at thirty, to have your first child. I should have insisted that we have a child when you were still young, so that now, when you are in the company of women much younger than yourself with children Angelo’s age, you would not be at such an exhausting disadvantage. You are not young, Kathy; many women of your age are grandmothers. Your son should be in college now, seriously concerned with the profession he will follow in a year or two; you should not be the mother of a young boy.

  Kathy was dressed in a beautiful spring outfit, consisting of a light blue silk dress with the usual swirling skirts which concealed her swelling buttocks and massive legs. But fine lines webbed her delicate face; her hair was still vivid auburn, but Mark suspected this was partly art emanating from her beauty salon. There were gray marks of strain under her blue eyes. At first glance, Kathy appeared young; at second glance, she appeared even older than she was. Her breasts were beginning to have a heavy sag; her throat, never beautiful, was a saffron color now and grooved with lines, and had a twisted look. And her feet were puffed and thick in the dark blue shoes.