One reaction after another made up the program of Wellington, and
directly after the big practice game, at which Judith turned her ankle,
Jane was confronted again with Helen’s plea that she be allowed to
withdraw from college. All the minor anxieties of the little Polish
girl cemented now into the one great obstacle of terror—that a girl
should have called her mad!
“Mad! Mad!” Helen kept repeating, and so great was her distress that
Jane actually feared for a collapse of nerves, if not for some real
mental disturbance.
“We must go to Mrs. Weatherbee,” Jane insisted, as Helen sobbed and
sighed in her room, declining to be comforted and refusing to go out
for any exercise. “I must talk it over with her. She is motherly and
kind, and will know best what to do.”
“But please no!” begged Helen. “I would not that you ask Mrs.
Weatherbee. It would mean so much trouble, and I cannot stand more.”
“But, Helen dear, it is our only way of bringing those hateful girls to
their senses. I will not agree that they go along unpunished, when they
deliberately take every occasion to cause you fear and anxiety. We
cannot stop them if——”
“Oh, but my dearest friend!” begged Helen. “You will not do that! I
could not stay at Wellington if you ask for any action by the faculty.”
Jane was baffled. Why did Helen always insist upon secrecy? Why could
she not go to Mrs. Weatherbee and demand that Marian and her followers
be compelled to desist? For a moment or two she pondered: then decided
to ask Helen outright.
“Helen dear, can you not tell Jane, why you do not want any assistance
from the faculty? Why do you always—seem to fear—something?”
It was extremely difficult for Jane to express herself so directly to
the very much alarmed little Helen, but the time had come, Jane felt,
when the question should be put straightforward and frankly.
Helen looked like someone about to be executed—or as one might imagine
such an unfortunate looking. Her big dark eyes fairly blazed, and she
put her two hands up in a most tragic pose.
“My friend! My benefactress!” she exclaimed. “You will not ask me—all
now. I will tell you with gladness soon—I hope, but for a little time
wait—till poor Helka can speak,” and she fell in a heap, crumpled and
miserable at Jane’s feet. Never had Jane seen anything so like tragedy
enacted in a school girl’s room. Never before had she witnessed such a
scene as this, so wrought with dark and mysterious foreboding. She
pressed a kind hand on the black head that lay upon her knee, then
raised the tear-stained face.
“Helen dear, I believe you!” she whispered. “Whatever may be the real
motive, I know it is an honest one, and I shall do as you ask. Of
course, I feel helpless to assist you, as I should like, as I am
prevented from asking the aid of those empowered to help us all at
Wellington, nevertheless, I guess we can do something. We girls are as
strong at least as our opponents, and we have right on our side. So
cheer up, Helen dear! Come out, try to pretend you are over your
nervous spell, so that they will have less chance to criticise. You
must promise me something, too, little girl! See, I have promised you!”
“Oh, yes, Jane dear, ask and I promise!”
“That you will not ask to leave Wellington!”
From a look of fear and horror, gradually there stole into the dark
misty eyes an expression of determination. With it the proud head again
assumed its poise, Jane had so often thought to be almost regal, and
the flaming cheeks composed now into a mold of beauty and dignity.
“I shall agree to the wish!” declared Helen, taking Jane’s hand, and
pressing it to her lips. “As you ask it I shall give it. I will not go
away from the dear Wellington.”
“There, that’s the spirit, Helen. If you take that attitude you will
conquer all comers,” she said rather irreverently, considering Helen’s
meager store of paraphrased English.
“Yes, I will try! It is more noble to stand up than to—fall!” answered
Helen, thus betraying her actual knowledge of Jane’s argument. “I will
not be a coward—I will fight as my—father—my brother. They did not lay
down at Warsaw! They fought to death!”
Again Jane was conscious of the atmosphere of tragedy. Somehow Helen
was very unusual, and Jane confessed to herself just now, rather
difficult. Notwithstanding these drawbacks, however, Jane was still
firm as ever in her belief that Helka Podonsky was a persecuted girl,
an artist, and probably a born aristocrat. Surely all this was
guarantee of her worth and reliability.
The tapping at Jane’s door, for some moments left unanswered, became
more insistent, and satisfying herself that Helen had regained her
composure, Jane now proceeded to answer the summons.
As the door opened two blue eyes blazed in.
“Jane Allen!” sang out Clarisse Cummings, she known as the prettiest
freshie. “We are having an awful time; and I have been appointed a
committee of one to come to your highness (this with a jerk of a
curtsy) to beg arbitration.”
“Come in, Clarisse,” Jane interrupted. “I have not much time before
class, but I shall be glad to help you if I can.”
“Oh, you surely can. Hello, Nellie!” to Helen. “Where ever have you
been? Sick?”
“Just nerves,” assisted Jane, as Helen smiled a “non vult” to the
charge. “Helen has been working very hard with her violin, and
sometimes out of doors at that. Strange we have so little understanding
of the artistic temperament.”
“Oh, yes—of course,” faltered Clarisse, and her manner gave clue to
Jane that the “arbitration” requested might have something to do with
Helen.
“I knew you must be sick, Nell,” purred the pretty one, “and I insisted
you should not be put out until we had heard your side.”
“Put out?” asked Helen, awakening at last to a sign of interest.
“Yes, you know you have not been to drill for days, and we have to have
the show before the sophs get ahead of us. They always have their show
right in the glories of Hallowe’en, and the witches get all played
out——”
“And tangled up in their broom sticks, until the very best hair
dressers among us cannot untangle the wigs,” finished Jane. “You are
perfectly right, Clarisse. You youngsters have been working hard at
your show for weeks, and you cannot allow the sophs to get the barn
first. What’s the real difficulty?”
Clarisse squatted down on the big floor cushion, her skirt just
touching her knees by the scantest rim. She doubled her feet backward
in regular style of the Jap-Turk-Indian, etc. Pencil threatening her
red lips with poisonous smudges and “eyes right” as her squad would
have described it, the pretty one attempted to impart to Jane
information certainly not intended for Helen’s ears. Seeing her
confusion Jane mercifully attempted to relieve it.
“Suppose you rest this afternoon, Helen,” she said. “I shall take your
excuse in, if you wish.”
“Oh, thank you, but I am sure I feel all right now,” replied Helen,
taking the cue signalling her departure. “I always feel refreshed when
I have talked with my very good friend.”
“That’s nice of you, dear,” Jane accepted, opening the door. “Run in
again after two thirty. I shall be at leisure and glad to see you
again. By that time you will know exactly how you feel about taking a
furlough.”
The military term was one with which the Polish girl was entirely
familiar, and she guessed rightly that Jane had used it to convey the
idea of a possible “furlough” from class work. Helen was still very
shaky, still far from being convinced that her persecutors would be
silenced with their insidious gossip, and until all this could be
satisfactorily straightened out, Helen might find it necessary to
remain away from the general assemblages.
Smiling, she withdrew. Then Clarissa untwined her ankles and assumed
the aggressive.
“Oh, Jane—Miss Allen!”
“Jane is better, Clara. What can I do for the prettiest little freshie
of them all?”
“Now don’t tease, please,” and blue eyes vied with dimples as star
attractions. “I am so excited——”
“I see you are!”
“Miss Allen!” quite severely. “Are you really laughing at me?”
“Why, Clara, my dear, cannot an old friend tease just a little bit to
show her love for the Babes? You know, Clara, sometimes I am so sorry I
have to grow up.”
Reassured, and again smiling, Clarisse took on still another attitude,
determined to emphatically emphasize the seriousness of her mission.
She could not guess that Jane’s apparent joking had a motive, if not
sinister, then deeply planned. Jane was stalling. She was using up time
to kill time, and she played against time for time. All of which
college girls are supposed to understand as within the ethics of school
girl diplomacy.
“Well, Janie, it is this way,” again attempted the persistent freshman.
“We have our show all planned. It is entirely original—we wrote every
word of it and Nellie composed the music. Did you know that?”
“No, I did not!” admitted Jane, now showing interest.
“Of course you didn’t. It was all a deep secret. But just when we were
ready to drop the girls down the chimney—oh, that was another secret——”
“Trust me. I shall never disclose the dark, dire secret,” Jane assured
her.
“No, I am sure you will not. You see, the story called for two girls to
come down the barn chimney——”
“Barn swallows,” suggested Jane.
“No, chimney sweeps,” corrected Clarisse. “The story was laid in
London, and we had Mad Madge of Moscow. Of course that was Nellie
because she had to play the violin—just fiddle away all the time.” Jane
was beginning to see light. Mad Madge for Helen in the face of the
perfidious gossip declaring her really mad!
“It all went perfectly beautiful,” Clarisse declared, “until some girls
said—well, they said it was so easy for Nellie to act the mad part she
must be—what the other girls said she was.” Little Clarisse was too
childlike, and too well bred to bolt out with the accusation that Helen
had been called mad. But Jane sensed the story as clearly as if it had
been actually screened before her eyes. Yes, in all Helen’s school
affairs, this gossip was now injecting its poison. Even so absurd a
story gained credence with action like rolling a snowball, growing as
it turns.
“But why let such foolish talk influence you?” asked Jane.
“Oh, we didn’t! Indeed we didn’t!” This with wide-eyed consternation.
“But the trouble was with the tickets. When we went to the campus house
all along the other side not a girl would accept a ticket——”
“Don’t you think that was just a case of boycott?” suggested Jane.
“Well, maybe so. But we had to have the Flip-Flops. You know we call
those girls who are always changing quarters the Flip-Flops. Isn’t that
a dreadful name? But Dickey Ripple stuck it on.”
“They are changeable, to say the least, and they do stunts very like
the Flip-Flop,” Jane agreed, “still it is not a pretty title to sail
under.”
“No, I realize that,” apologized the gullible Clarisse, “and I didn’t
mean to use the horrid word again. First thing we know it will slip out
in faculty hearing, then we will be disciplined. Well, anyway, where
was I at?”
“At distributing your invitations. You said they were refused. On what
grounds, Clara?”
“First, because we had Nellie in the cast, and second, because they
said she might get—flighty and land knows only what. I am sure they
could not have meant she might get dangerous.”
Rare sense for a freshman, Jane decided. All the other flings at
helpless little Helen could not include that of being “dangerous at
large.” Jane considered for a moment. Clarisse waited, eager and
hopeful.
“And just what was it you wanted me to do?” asked Jane finally.
“Why, to call a meeting, and announce our play, and put Helen down as a
special attraction. Her violin is wonderful, and you know it is the
very first time she has consented to play in public.”
Clarisse was quite breathless now, and Jane fell back bewildered. After
all, the little girls demanded nothing extraordinary, but simple as the
request was, Jane could not promise to grant it.
“I fear Helen would not like that,” she replied carefully. “You know
artists are very queer about any publicity previous to their grand
debut. And Helen has such a wonderful concert planned for her real
coming out,” said Jane.
“Oh, but just here in school couldn’t matter. Really, Miss Allen, we
will be completely lost if you do not assist us,” and again the dimples
melted into little leaks, that threatened to overflow at the mouth
ends.
“All right, dear. I will see if I can arrange it,” assented Jane, “but
you know I have to consult the executive committee about calling a
meeting. We might do it more simply, and more effectively, some other
way. At any rate, you may count on us. We won’t see our little freshman
outclassed by such underhand methods.”
“That’s just it. Why don’t you tell Mrs. Weatherbee?”
“Oh, it seems too silly! And besides you recall our pledge not to carry
tales to the faculty! You wouldn’t have your president be the first to
break the very rule she was most insistent upon adopting?”
“Oh, no, that’s so,” agreed Clarisse. “I remember now, you did say we
were not to carry tales. Very well, I am satisfied. I think, as a
committee of one I have been quite a success, thanks to our president,”
and she made a perky bow.