CHAPTER XVIII—THE WOES OF “ALIAS HELEN

A fall evening, dark, dreary and drizzling.

The amount of work to be prepared for next day seemed heavier and more difficult than usual and Jane Allen, humanly responsive, felt keenly the natural reaction of the wild week of honors and excitement.

It was almost time to “call it a day” when a very timid tap at the door, brought the bronze head up with welcome attention.

“Come!”

It was Helen—teary, and distrait. Helen with tie askew and hair tousled. Helen with eyes too bright and cheeks too red, and breath too short for normal.

“Oh, Helen, do come in! What is the matter?”

Jane brushed the papers from the wicker chair, and Helen sank in it. The red eyes were pressed with a small wet ball, and the unsympathetic curls from her forehead dug into teary lashes with pure teasing persistency.

“Child, why do you cry?” asked Jane with a precision of manner suitable for an occasion such as this. Helen regarded abrupt speech as a mark of indifference, and Jane surmised this was no time for indifference.

“Oh, my dear friend!” sobbed the crestfallen Helen. “It—is too much, I cannot to—stand it!”

“What, Helen? What has happened? Tell your own Janey!” and with a caress, unmistakable in its sincerity, Jane dropped on a stool at the feet of the sobbing Polish girl.

“I thought not to tell you—it is too much that I should be like a baby,” went on Helen, endeavoring with poor result, to check her choking sobs, “but to-night, I feel I must go!”

“Why, child! Go where?”

“That is what is too hard. I cannot know where, but to go—Oh, I must, Jane darling! I can no longer stand it all!”

“Now, Helen, tell me about it. You know it cannot be so serious that we shall not find a remedy,” Jane coaxed.

“First, when I came here you know I heard many words—of anger that I, Helen Podonsky, should be at an American college.” Something like triumph rang in the voice that now spoke the Polish name. “But I did not protest, I had the very good friends, and I loved them dearly.” The brown curly head tossed with unmistakable pride, and Jane was surprised and charmed at the note evolving in the hitherto docile little Helen.

“Very many times,” continued Helen in even tones, “I would have told you about that detestable girl—she who goes about at my heels, and listens at my door, until my dear roommate, Dicky Ripple, told Mrs. Weatherbee all about it.”

“Dicky told Mrs. Weatherbee about whom?” asked Jane in surprise.

“I hate the name too much to utter it. To-night you must pardon me, my dear Jane, but I am indignant, and I feel the Podonsky power breaking in all my veins.” An eloquent gesture, two arms thrust out with power unmistakable, accompanied this assertion. Surely, Helen was betraying a new attribute—she was dramatically indignant! Something had aroused her slumbering pride, something had awakened her dormant lineal glory. Helen Powderly was not at the moment Helka Podonsky. It was a new Helka, all Polish, all artist, all self confident, that confronted Jane.

“Oh, you mean Marian Seaton?” Jane was glad to insert. “I have had so much trouble from that girl, Helen dear, that I am now immune, that is, it no longer gives sorrow or worry. I just expect it like bad storms and other calamities.”

“But when a girl is a sneak, when she makes trouble, so one cannot go to sleep, when she hisses into other girls’ ears such things as are—lies—then, what would you do?”

“She has done all of that to me, Helen. My first year here was a nightmare, in spots,” and Jane tried to inject a little mirth into the fast-growing seriousness of the conversation. “But I got over it (she might have said ‘rose above it,’ but Jane was humble). Yes, Helen, I did suffer just as you have described, and now you see the other girls are my friends, and she is losing all her companions.”

“For you, yes, that is all good. You are the president of our class, and much loved, much honored, Jane Allen. But for Helen Powderly, who has a wrong name, who got to college by tricks, who is perhaps some spy! Ugh! It is too much!”

That surely was foreign. No American girl could indulge in that sort of melodrama, and hope to retain her reputation as a well-bred member of society. It was too impassioned, too effusive, too altogether out of harmony. Yet Jane was secretly admitting it was sincere! It rang true! And it was gloriously frank! She admired the spirit, if she did somewhat discount the tone of voice.

“Now, Helen dear, I am sure you are just a little bit mistaken. Even the hateful Marian would not do such injustice as to pile all that dishonor on your pretty head. Don’t you think something has made your nerves—too tight, and they hurt the way you are stretching them?” Jane realized this was a weak simile, but it was not easy to give Helen a clear understanding always, and the intricacies of this conversation taxed even Jane’s ready flow of speech.

“Nerves! nerves!” repeated Helen with something like a sneer. “We do not grow nerves in Poland, my dear friend. We must work hard for our art, and every hardship puts its foot on the squirming nerves. No artist can grow big, with those nerves biting her power.”

Another revelation! Helen had her own psychology. This “killing of nerves” for the good of talent, was quite philosophical, if a trifle vague in the abstract. Jane bethought herself a nerveless career was, indeed, idealistic.

“But what has happened just now?” pressed Jane. “What has Marian been doing to so distress you?”

Helen sank again into an attitude of polite concentration. She even smiled into the gray eyes that compelled her love, and confidence.

“I was out in the far grove, under the trees,” she began. “I go there to hear the wild wind shriek and wail, so I may make those notes on my violin. Last night the wind howled like some awful frightened spirit, and I knew our masters made their wonderful music from such inspiration. I was sitting in a low branch, the wind rocked me like a playmate, and up in the trees, those shrieking, wonderful notes, oh—if I can only catch them!” she paused, and in the interval Jane visioned Helen up in that tree—as Judith would have said, “she had a life-sized picture” of the girl and her violin, in the tree, under the shrieking night winds, strong enough last night to blow girl and violin into realms of inspiration she so coveted. Presently as Jane nodded:

“It was too lovely to be there, and gently draw from my beloved violin the echo of that wind music. But the hateful girl! She had followed, and when I was so happy, with one magic strain, when she laughed out loud, horrible! She hissed and—made the noise to destroy my inspiration, to frighten away my beloved notes, and their little graces.”

“Oh, that was too bad, surely, Helen,” considered the rather bewildered Jane. She knew very well what effect the “movie” in the tree would naturally have on a girl like Marian. “But you must understand she knows nothing of the art or its inspirations,” finished Jane.

“That I know also, and I could forgive the ignorance. But she mocks me,” declared the unhappy girl, “she says vile things—she says—I am—mad!”

“Oh!”

That was it! Marian had taunted Helen with being mad! This was really serious, and Jane showed her apprehension by a complete silence. To prevent the little foreigner from a precipitous withdrawal from Wellington was now her problem.