A Puritan Bohemia/Chapter 7
CHAPTER VII
Helen Wistar put away her pretty gowns, and sent home for a hat that was three years old. An inexperienced seamstress made her an unbecoming gray serge dress. Helen looked down at her clumsily fashioned skirt as a martyr might look at his flames. It meant fulfilment of her mission, but it hurt.
She practised the severest economy, even refusing herself sufficient food, in order to taste the sweets of poverty. The money thus saved—for Helen had money in plenty, she confessed to herself with reluctance—was to be devoted to struggling women. But the struggling women were hard to find. They looked exasperatingly well cared for and even happy, the teachers, artists, doctors, and musicians who passed through the Square with their little black bags. Helen was grieved by their self-sufficiency. She was ready to carry the burden of the world, but she could not find it.
Often the sight of black-clad matrons on the street, a glimpse of lace curtains in drawing-room windows, or the fragrance of tea in her own studio, brought back a sudden sense of home. Remorse for her desertion always mingled with thankfulness for her escape.
"I can never go back," she said often to herself, "to waste my days in planning clothes and making formal calls."
Bravely persisting in her search for service, she joined the Women's League. She employed every pretext for making the acquaintance of the artists in the building, and, in a fit of renunciation, she gave her sealskin cape to Annabel.
Annabel had become a familiar figure in her world. One afternoon, when the three friends were talking in Anne Bradford's studio, the child entered and put down her bundle with an air of great importance.
"I can't bring your laundry on Saturday nights any longer, Miss Bradford. Will you mind if I bring it on Friday?"
"Not in the least."
Annabel seated herself in the largest chair in the studio and folded her hands.
"I'm a-going to a art school. It's Mr. Stanton. Ain't he lovely? I'm going to be a artist. I can make beautiful pictures now, and I ain't been at all."
The child was excited. Three pairs of eyes were looking at her, and her dramatic instinct rose to the occasion.
She told them how Mr. Stanton had appeared one morning at her mother's door; how he had said that she, Annabel, had undoubted talent for art and ought to be sent to school. Finally he had offered to come to board with Mrs. Orr, thus enabling her to pay for Annabel's tuition.
"So he's coming next week Monday at nine o'clock," said Annabel impressively. "He's a-going to have the front room and three chairs and a table."
"Annabel has a great deal of manner, hasn't she?" said Mrs. Kent with a smile, when the child had gone.
"'All the repose that stamps the caste of Vere de Vere," Anne replied. "A queen might envy Annabel's savoir faire; but a queen should not be blamed for not having it. She could never have Annabel's opportunity for knowing the world."
"Isn't that rather fine in Mr. Stanton?" said Helen.
"Why, you didn't believe that, did you?" cried Anne. "That is one of Annabel's yarns. Next time she will tell you what Mr. Stanton says and what he eats. By the next time she will have forgotten it entirely."
"But the child spoke so earnestly," remonstrated Mrs. Kent.
"The earnestness is always in direct proportion to the size of her fiction," said Anne. "I could almost have believed her if it had not been for the three chairs and the table. Annabel is especially exact when she lies."
"Anyway, it would be like Mr. Stanton," maintained Helen.
"It would be like him to plan to do it," corrected Anne. "I used to call him 'John-a-Dreams.'"
"That isn't fair!" cried Helen hotly. "I don't see how any one could try harder to carry out his ideas."
"He has changed a little," Anne admitted. "Something has given focus to his energy."
"Why is he interested in the poor?" asked Mrs. Kent.
"He said one day last winter," answered Helen, growing rather red, "that some rather bitter experience had shown him the selfishness of trying to get the things you want, and had made him think about the things that other people want."
"Did he say that?" asked Anne. It was her turn to flush. "Oh, Mr. Stanton is very modern," she said carelessly. "He is blasé about some things, thoroughly disillusioned, but busy making new illusions as fast as possible."
Helen slipped away. The conversation was not to her mind.
Mrs. Kent looked troubled. "There is something morbid in that girl's intensity," she said. "She is under strong emotional tension all the time."
"Isn't there a little dash of longing for excitement in Helen's yearning to do good?" asked Anne. "The Lord made her for great crises, but unkindly forgot to make any crises for her."
"You are all like that," answered Mrs. Kent demurely. "I don't understand the mental and moral and spiritual restlessness of the young of to-day. Perhaps it is only the uneasiness of those who have not yet found their places in the ranks. You go about with an expectant air, as if imagining that some ineffable thought or experience will tell you the next minute all there is to know."
Anne laughed.
"We aren't all quite so much at sea as Helen is. She has been developed a little on too many sides. Did the woman's college do that? She is impotent because of too many good but contradictory ideas. She wishes to 'amount to something,' but finds it hard to decide what to do. Just think," Anne's gray eyes twinkled, "of wanting to amount to something without knowing what you want to amount to!"
Outside, in the Square, Helen was cooling her cheeks in a dense fog. It was all so baffling! If she could only tell what to do! Here, as if in answer to her question, Mr. Stanton appeared.
"I was trying to find you," he said, turning to walk with her. "I have a great favour to ask."
The girl's eyes shone.
"I am planning a picture. It is my first serious attempt to give my message to the world. I want to ask you, if I dare, to pose as the chief figure in it. Miss Bradford has kindly consented to let me do the work in her studio."
"It will be a very great pleasure," said Helen. "I shall feel that I am helping."
Howard looked down at the girl. An indefinable change had come over her with the putting on of her altruistic clothes.
"Aren't you well?" he asked anxiously.
"Perfectly."
They walked round and round the Square. Moisture clung in little beads to their hair and their clothing, but they did not notice. Mr. Stanton outlined his plans for the future. It was sweet to have his ardent belief in his theories confirmed by Helen's ardent belief in him. He was going to start a course of lectures on art for workingmen, and a night school for factory girls.
As he talked, the sound of bells floated up to them from the city buried in mist. Helen's courage came back to her in great throbs.