Angelica had shown this to Eddie, and he had at once ordered the motor for her and given her twenty-five dollars for any urgent expenses.
"Get everything that’s necessary," he told her. "If she’s very ill, be sure to get a nurse. Don’t overtax yourself. And here’s my office telephone number; I’ll expect to hear from you this afternoon."
Angelica had got a doctor from the neighborhood. He had declared her mother’s illness to be a sort of indigestion, and had ordered a cessation of boiled tea, a strengthening diet, a number of medicines, and a week’s complete rest; and now Mrs. Kennedy was enjoying the rest.
Angelica had set to work with terrific energy; had gone flying in and out of the flat, using Eddie’s money to great advantage. She bought her mother two new night-dresses, a bag of oranges, a drinking-glass—they had had nothing but cups for a long time—and two new saucepans for cooking the food she was to enjoy. Her last purchases had included extension screens for the windows and a wire "fly-swatter," with which she had pursued and deftly crushed every fly in the flat.
After lunch she intended to clean the rooms properly, to scrub, to sweep, to dust, to wash. She rather looked forward to it. Her mother wasn’t seriously ill, and she had had the extreme satisfaction of making her happy and comfortable. She had left her lying neat and peaceful in the dark little cell, with her hair brushed and braided and her mind at peace.
Mrs. Kennedy had said that it was better than medicine to see her child again, and it was—above all, to see her child so triumphantly happy. Letters had told her very little, for Angelica was not good at writing, and her brief notes had given her mother plenty of scope for anxiety. She hadn’t thought it possible that her child had actually held her own there among the rich people. She wanted to ask innumerable questions, to talk at great length; but Angelica made use of the doctor’s recommendation.
"He said for you to be very quiet and not talk much," she stated.
"You talk and I’ll listen," said her mother.
"No, that’ll excite you," Angelica replied. "You just keep quiet, mommer, till you’re better."
She could not talk to Mrs. Kennedy; she felt absolutely obliged to go off alone where she could think of Vincent. All the morning, even through her great anxiety before she had got to her mother, all the while she was working to make her patient comfortable, that delight had glowed in her heart. She had scarcely closed her eyes the night before, but she was not in any way tired. She was in a sort of continuous rapture; she was filled with energy, vigour, an immeasurable good-will.