CHAPTER XI.
MISS KLING TELEGRAPHICALLY BAFFLED.
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ISS BETSY KLING was quite uneasy in her mind about this time, not only because the Torpedo refused to see himself in the light of that other self, and fled whenever he saw her approaching, but also because some subtle instinct told her, that under her very nose, was going on something of which the details were unknown to her, and that listen as she would, could not be ascertained. This good-looking young man, who had so suddenly appeared on Mrs. Simonson's premises who and what was he? From Mrs. Simonson she learned that he was an old friend of Quimby's; that she believed he was also an old friend of Miss Archer's, or Miss Rogers', or of both, and that his father was very wealthy,
"Humph!" said Miss Kling, with a suspicious sniffle. "Strange that he should room with Quimby if his father is so wealthy? Why does he not have a room of his own?"
"He and Quimby are such friends, you see!" Mrs. Simonson explained.
Miss Kling gave another sniffle, this time of contempt, at such a reason being possible.
"Miss Rogers is in here about all her time when she isn't at the office, is she not?" was the next question.
"She is very intimate with Miss Archer," Mrs. Simonson replied.
"And I suppose he and that Quimby are in there with them every evening, are they not?" pursued Miss Kling.
They called quite often, Mrs. Simonson acknowledged, as did Mr. Norton, and Miss Fishblate.
"They seem to have good times, too," added kindly Mrs. Simonson. "Young folks will be young folks, you know. And why not? Bless you! we never can enjoy ourselves again as we do when young. There are too many cares and worries when we get to our age."
Miss Kling rose stiffly; this allusion to "our age" disgusted and offended her beyond pardon, and she flew into a spasm of sneezing.
"Well, I, for one, do not think such conduct is proper," she said, as soon as possible. "I was brought up to understand that young ladies should never receive the visits of gentlemen except in the presence of older people!"
Mrs. Simonson only laughed a little forced laugh she had when she did not know exactly what to say. For her own part, although not willing to offend Miss Kling by saying so, she was glad to see her lodgers enjoying themselves; more than glad to have Clem there, as on his arrival she had promptly tacked an extra dollar on the room rent, under the plea that the wear and tear on furniture was greater with two in a room.
Miss Kling, fearing, perhaps, another reference to "our age," left her, and next attacked Celeste Fishblate, having long ago discovered Nattie to be impregnable to the process known as "pumping," a fact that had augmented her ever-increasing dislike towards her lodger.
From Celeste, she learned that they had "such nice times!" that Mr. Stanwood was "so splendid!" and that "Miss Archer was just dead in love with him, and he with her!"
"Humph!" thought Miss Kling with a sneeze.
"It's that Miss Archer then, is it?" Her next move was to arrest poor Quimby in the hall, intending to put him through a series of interrogations regarding the antecedents of his friend, and the length of his acquaintance with Miss Archer. But in this she was baffled, for at the first question, Quimby exclaimed,
"I—I don't know! Don't ask me!" and fled.
Miss Kling, much to her dissatisfaction, was therefore compelled to make the little she had gathered go as far as it would, for the present. But she lived in hopes.
It was perhaps not wonderful, that Miss Kling sitting lonely by her fireside, and pining for her other self, should feel envious because her lodger, whom she took ostensibly for company, was enjoying herself over the way evening after evening, and telling her absolutely nothing about it, but confining their intercourse to the necessary civilities.
Undoubtedly the few weeks that had passed since Clem's appearance on the scene ought to have been the happiest in Nattie's hitherto lonely life, happier even than those in which she talked to the then unseen "C," and speculated about him with Cyn. But yet—she sometimes felt that a certain something that had been on the wire was lacking now; that Clem, while realizing all her old expectations of "C," was not exactly what "C" had been to her. One reason of this she knew was her own inability to conquer a sort of timidity she felt in his presence, a timidity from which Cyn was certainly free. Well aware that beside the gay and brilliant Cyn she was nowhere, Nattie had a sensitive fear that he might be disappointed in her. But she did not yet know that the foundation of all these uneasy misgivings of hers was a selfish emotion, the same that had prompted that jealous pang at Cyn's "we" the day he first discovered himself, and this was, that on the wire "C" had been all hers, but in Clem, Cyn seemed to have the largest share.
Twice he had called on Nattie at the office, but neither time could stop, and as it happened on each occasion, she was in the midst of a rush of business, that left no chance for conversation. But one rainy Saturday afternoon, when a general dullness prevailed, and she was fervently wishing the hands of the clock might move on faster towards six, Clem, holding a very wet umbrella, and with water dripping from his curly locks, presented himself. If he was not, he certainly ought to have been flattered by the blush with which Nattie involuntarily welcomed him.
"Did you rain down?" she hastily exclaimed, hoping by this trite commonplace to distract attention from the blush, of which she was conscious.
"It appears like it, doesn't it?" he answered merrily, giving himself a little shake, and placing his wet umbrella and hat in a corner. "It was so dull at the store, I thought I would run around to the scene of former exploits. Do you not sometimes wish I was back at X n to keep you company such days as these?"
Without thinking twice before she spoke once, Nattie answered candidly, as she placed a chair for her visitor,
"Yes, I believe I do, often."
"I do not know whether to take that as a compliment or otherwise," Clem said, looking at her as if half vexed.
Nattie glanced up inquiringly,
"It certainly is a compliment to my abilities for making myself agreeable at a distance. But—" said Clem, with a shrug of his shoulders, "a poor fellow does not like to feel as if the farther away he is, the better he is liked!"
"Oh! I did not mean it that way at all!" exclaimed Nattie, in hasty explanation. "Only, you know, I had more of your company on the wire!"
Clem looked pleased.
"If that is the trouble" he began, but Nattie interrupted, her face very red.
"I did not mean that, either; I meant it was in such a different way, you know—and I—I could talk more easily, and—I do not believe I know what I do mean!" stopping short in embarrassment.
Clem looked at her and smiled.
"Let us see if it is any easier talking on the wire," he said; and taking the key, he wrote,
"Good P m, will you please tell me truly, and relieve my mind, if you like me as well as you thought you would?"
Taking the key he relinquished, and without looking at him, she replied, "Yes; and suppose I ask you the same question, what would you say, politeness aside?"
"I should answer," wrote Clem, his eyes on the sounder, "that I have found the very little girl I expected!"
And then their eyes met, and Nattie hastily rose and walked to the window, for no ostensible purpose, and Clem said, going after her,
"It is nicer talking on the wire, isn't it?"
Nattie was saved the necessity of replying by some one down the line who just then inquired,
"Who was that talking soft nonsense just now? We don't allow that sort of thing here!"
"How impertinent!" exclaimed Nattie.
"Possibly our red-headed friend is somewhere about," Clem said; then taking the key, responded to the unknown questioner,
"Don't trouble yourself; I shall not talk soft nonsense to you!"
"That sounds like 'C's' writing! Is it?" was asked quickly.
"My style must be very peculiar to be so readily detected," Clem said to Nattie, laughingly; then replied on the wire, "If you will sign I will tell you."
"Em."
"Ah!" said Clem, and immediately acknowledged himself. Then followed a short chat with "Em," in which she endeavored to make him confess what office he was then sending from, which he persistently refused to do.
Having bade "Em" good-by, and closed the key, he said to Nattie, verbally, "We ought to have a private wire of our own, since a wire is so necessary to our happiness! I see," glancing around the office, "that you have an extra key and sounder here."
"Yes;" Nattie replied, "we had at one time a railroad wire, and when it was taken out, the instruments were left, and have been here ever since."
"Do you suppose you could take them home—to practice on, say?" queried Clem, a sparkle in his brown eyes.
"Doubtless, if I asked permission, they would allow me that privilege; why?" asked Nattie, curiously.
"I have a brilliant idea!" replied Clem, gayly.
"But do not be alarmed, I am used to it, as Quimby would say; it is this. I myself have a key and sounder, relics of college days, beauties, too, and if you can take home those over there, we will have telegraphic communication from your room to ours, immediately. The wire and battery I will fix all right, and when Cyn is out, and you can't come over, and at odd times, we will have some of our old chats."
"But," said Nattie, hesitatingly, although evidently delighted with the idea, "Miss Kling will never"
"Hang Miss Kling!" interrupted Clem, emphatically; "excuse the expression, but she deserves it; she never need know. I will undertake to arrange everything, and keep the secret from her. To account for the instruments in your room, tell her you are going to practice at home, and have a pupil. Cyn, I know, will be delighted to amuse herself by learning."
"I should like it very much," acknowledged Nattie, "but"
"I allow no buts," Clem interrupted with gay decision; "you get the instruments, tell me the first time Miss Kling goes out to spend the day, and leave the rest to me."
Nattie needed little urging, being only too willing to have some more of those old confidential chats with "C,"—which nobody could share—and the required promise was given.
Strange it is, how circumstances alter cases. Coming to the office that morning, Nattie had found it disagreeable and hard enough to buffet the storm, and had growled at herself all the way, because she was not smart enough to get on in the world, even so far as to be able to stay at home in such weather For storms of nature, like storms of life, are hardest to a woman, trammeled as she is in the one by long skirts, that will drag in the mud, and clothes that every gust of wind catches, and in the other by prejudices and impediments of every kind, that the world, in consideration, doubtless, for her so-called "weakness," throws in her way. But now, on her way home, Nattie minded not the wind, and rather enjoyed the rain; it may be that this total change in her sentiments was due to the fact that Clem held the umbrella.
Miss Kling saw them come into the hotel together, wet and merry, and scowled. Perhaps in former days she had gone home under an umbrella with somebody—a possible other self—and so knew all about the enjoyability of the experience. But Nattie did not even notice her landlady's acrimonious glance, and sang a gay song as she changed her bedrabbled dress.
Cyn, who was of course immediately informed about the projected private wire, was delighted with the idea, and began studying the Morse alphabet at once.
"And the best of all is that we are going to get the better of that argus-eyed Dragon!" said Cyn
"If we can!" Nattie replied with emphasis.
"Oh! but Clem is sure of that part!" Cyn said with great confidence.
But Nattie shook her head dubiously.
"She is so inquisitive!" she remarked.
"Yes, and the most despicable character on earth to me, is a person whose chief object in life is gossip! why, life is too short to take care of our own affairs in! I wish you would leave her, and come and room with me!" exclaimed Cyn indignantly.
"Mrs. Simonson would not dare have me. She is afraid of Miss Kling, you know. But I wish I might, for I am tired of being here," Nattie replied discontentedly.
"Well, we will have our wire at all events, and for once something shall be that Miss Kling will not know," said Cyn exultantly.
Unconsciously the dreaded individual favored them, shortly after, by going to spend the evening with friends after her own heart—very genteel, but in reduced circumstances—and as the instruments were all ready, and they had only been waiting for her absence, Clem went to work. He was assisted by the willing Jo, who argued that running a wire was solid work, and not romantic, and by Quimby, who viewed the arrangement as another formidable link in the chain of his rival, and clamored wildly for a "telephone," because "anybody could use a telephone." But that, as Clem said, was exactly what they did not want! Consequently, Quimby, as he lent his aid, felt himself a very martyr. However, he was, by this time, "used to it, you know,"—as he would have said—having viewed himself in that light since his unwitting resurrection of "C." Still, he sometimes fancied he saw a dim light shining ahead through the gloom—a hope that Clem might be fascinated by Cyn. Many were, Quimby argued, so why should not Clem be? and certainly he talked with her more than he did with Nattie!
In Nattie's room, they placed the instruments on a small shelf put up for the purpose, just outside her closet, and run the wire through the closet into the hall outside, and thence along, so close to the wall that it was not noticeable, except to those who knew, and then into Mrs. Simonson's apartments. Here, no concealment was necessary, as Mrs. Simonson had been informed of the plan, and, although trembling lest the vials of Miss Kling's wrath would be poured on her head, should that lady discover the arrangement, had no objections to offer, if they were positive "the electricity on the wire would not wear out the carpet, or injure the table"—which was the terminus in Quimby and Clem's room.
Having satisfied her on this point, they deemed it expedient not to show her the battery in their closet, fearing alarm lest it might eat through the room and overpower her.
"And now," said Clem, gayly, when all was finished, and fortunately without attracting attention, not even Celeste being in the secret; "now, Quimby, we can dispense with that alarm clock we were intending to buy."
"I—I beg pardon, but I—I don't quite catch your meaning," the martyr replied, in evident surprise.
"Why, Nat is to be our alarm clock!" explained Clem, laughing. "She is, from necessity, an early riser, and I shall depend on her to call on our wire at precisely six thirty every morning, and continue calling until I answer."
"I certainly will," Nattie replied. "But I will venture to predict that both you and Quimby will privately call me all sorts of names for doing it. It makes people so very cross to be aroused from a morning nap, you know!"
"It doesn't make me cross, I—I assure you; it—it will be a pleasure!" quickly exclaimed Quimby, who was delighted with this idea of the alarm clock.
"I will report him if he shows the least symptom of growling, after that assertion!" Clem said to Nattie, somewhat to Quimby's internal agitation, for, to tell the truth, he was not really quite certain of being in a state of rapture at six thirty every morning, even when awoke by the clatter of a sounder, of which the motive power was his innamorata.
"And now, to christen our wire!" Nattie, who was in high spirits, said gayly, and she ran over to her room, and a half hour's chat with "C" followed before she went to bed. For a week after, however, she lived, as it were, on thorns, and came home every night half expecting an explosion.
None came, however. Miss Kling's eyes were not as good as they once had been, what with their long service watching for that other self, and overlooking her neighbors; the hall was dark; she had no duplicate key to Nattie's always-locked room; and the small wire, nestling close to the wall, was undiscovered; of course, she heard the clatter of the sounder, but this Nattie explained on the score of "practice."
"Well, I am sure!" said Miss Kling, snappishly, "I should think you would get 'practice' enough at the office, without sitting up nights to do it!"
At which Nattie turned away to hide a blush, aware that "C" and she sometimes talked even into the small hours, in their zeal, doubtless, that the new wire should not rust out for lack of using.
But this telegraphic arrangement came hardest on poor Quimby, who, between his jealousy when the two were communicating, his inability to understand what was being said, and the impossibility of sleeping with such a clatter in the room, lost his appetite, and invoked anything but blessings on the head of "that Morse man," who had made such things possible.
Cyn had no intention of being left out in the cold, and making Jo join her, began the study of telegraphy, and the two hammered away incessantly. It began to be observable, about this time, that Jo was very willing to be led about by the nose by Cyn. Why, was not so apparent; perhaps because there was no romance in it.
Cyn learned the quicker of the two, and she was soon able, slowly and uncertainly, to "call" Nattie, ask her to come over, or impart any little information, but was always driven frantic by the attempt to make out Nattie's reply, however slowly written. Cyn tried to induce Quimby to overcome the horrors of those little black marks, the alphabet and their sounds, but he recoiled from the effort as hopeless.
However, whenever they made candy, as they often did, he had an opportunity of distinguishing himself, that he did not fail to improve. On the first occasion, so uneasy was he about a quiet conversation Clem and Nattie were having, that he absently put the mass of candy he had been pulling, into his pocket to cool. It did cool, but he sold the coat afterwards, to a boy at the office.
Next time, he forgot to grease his hands, and stuck himself so together, that they had the utmost difficulty in getting him apart, but, as he said,
"It's no matter, I—I am used to it, you know!"
He capped the climax, however, by accidentally dropping a large handful, warm, on top of Celeste's head, aggravating the offense by telling her to "go quick and soak her head;" which, although it was what she eventually did, was too much like a certain slang phrase much in vogue, for human nature to endure; and giving him an angry look, the only one on record ever given by her to a man, she rushed from the room, and was seen no more that evening.
After this exploit, whenever molasses candy was on the programme, they made a rule that Quimby should sit in the corner, on the old familiar stool, and not move until all was over—a rule to which he submitted meekly.
But he was not happy. In truth, all his joys in these days were mixed with alloy, between the pointed monopoly of Celeste—who, of late, and since she had given up every one else as hopeless, had devoted herself entirely to him—and his secret jealousy of Clem.
Strangely enough, with the exception of Cyn, no one was aware of the exact state of his mind. Clem was as unconscious of it as a child, for any peculiarity in his behavior was laid to his well-known idiosyncrasies; Celeste suspected he was in love, but was blindly determined to believe she was the chief attraction in his eyes. Nattie, if she thought about it at all, imagined he was entirely cured of that former "foolishness," as she termed his one attempt to put his devotion into words. And as for Jo, being so opposed to anything of a sentimental nature himself, naturally he was unwilling to observe any indications of the kind in another, and any glaring revelations that forced themselves on his notice, he, in common with Clem, decided was "only Quimby's way."
Oh, Dear, no! Jo could see nothing but plain unromantic facts. It was no sentiment, or anything of the sort on Jo's part, of course, that made him reproduce the handsome, brilliant face of Cyn, in so many of his recent pictures. Oh, no! she was a good "study," that was all! Nor that caused him to seek her society in preference to all others, to listen entranced when she sang, and to be exceedingly annoyed—a rare thing once for good-humored Jo—when Clem was given more than his share of her attention. Again oh, no! Cyn was a fellow Bohemian, a congenial spirit, that was all. Neither in the least sentimental or jealous was Jo!
But for all that, and for some unexplained reason, he was not quite so even in his spirits as he was wont to be, sometimes being very happy, and then terribly depressed. Did he eat too much, or too little, which? For if it was not the first commencement of a first love—and of course it was not—it must have been his digestion that ailed him!
Had Miss Betsey Kling known of these little uneasy undercurrents amidst the gayety that so annoyed her, the knowledge would doubtless have given her much satisfaction, besides, possibly, the inkling she could not now obtain of what was "going on." It was a source of great distress to her that she could not ascertain whether it was Cyn or Nattie with whom Clem was "flirting." For she was positive he was trifling with the affections of one or the other, and that matters would end in some kind of a horrible scandal. But for all her listening and prying around, she could not seem to gain much information, except that everybody but herself—and perhaps the old gentleman Fishblate—was having a good time Nor could she get hold of anything "dreadful," which was the greatest disappointment of all.
One night, however, listening at her own door as Nattie bade Cyn "good night," over the way, Miss Kling heard Clem call out from within, something that made her very hair stand on end. It was this:
"Please wake me up earlier than usual to-morrow morning, will you, Nattie?"
"Wake him up, indeed!" thought the outraged but happy Miss Kling, as she wended her way back to her own room. "Pretty goings on! and I know I heard that machine clatter when she was not in, one day! Machines do not clatter without a human agency somewhere! There is something wrong here! and I will find it out, or my name is not Betsey Kling 'Wake him up,' indeed!"