ACHIEVEMENT
Mrs. Muir of course heard often from her sister, and was satisfied
with the general assurance that she was better and steadily improving.
Madge, however, was rather indefinite in her information. As time
passed, the idea of giving her friends in the East a surprise took
possession of her fancy. She instinctively felt that she needed every
incentive to pursue the course she had resolved upon, since she often
suffered from fits of depression hard to combat. The hope of appearing
like a new being to her relatives was another innocent motive for her
long-prolonged effort. Circumstances had never developed epistolary
tastes in the sisters, and they were content with brief missives
containing general assurances that all was well. Mrs. Muir was one of
those ladies who become engrossed with the actual and the present. Had
Madge been in her old room she would have been looked after with daily
solicitude; being absent, she was loved none the less, but was simply
crowded from thought and memory by swarms of little cares. She was
doing well, and her sister was satisfied. "'It's a wonderful climate,'
Madge writes," she would say, "so even and dry. Madge doesn't take
cold as she did here, and can go out nearly every day. Perhaps we
ought to become reconciled to the fact that she will have to live
there always, since here, with our sudden changes, she could scarcely
live at all."
With the kindliest intentions Graydon had sought to initiate a
vigorous correspondence. He had learned with immense relief of Madge's
improvement through change of residence, and he felt that a series of
jolly letters might bring aid and hopefulness. Her responses were not
very encouraging, however, and business cares, with the novelty
of foreign life, gradually absorbed his thoughts and time until
correspondence languished and died.
"It's the old story," he thought, with a shade of irritation. "Letters
cost effort, and she is not equal to effort, or thinks she is not."
If he could have seen Madge at that moment riding like the wind on a
spirited horse he would have been more astonished than by any of the
wonders of the old world.
To Madge his letters were a source of mingled pain and pleasure, but
the former predominated. In every line they breathed an affection
which could never satisfy. Coldness or indifference could not have
so assured her that her love was hopeless; and when she sat down to
reply, the language of her heart was so unlike that which she must
write as to make her feel almost guilty of deliberate deception.
Correspondence made him too vividly present, and she was learning that
she had the power, not of forgetting him, but of so occupying her
mind with tasks for his sake as to attain serenity. The days were
made short by efforts of which he deemed her incapable, and weariness
brought rest at night. But when she sat down with her pen, confronting
him and not what she sought to do for him, her heart sank. He was too
near and dear, yet too remote, even for hope.
This emotion is, however, the most hardy of plants, and although she
had often assured herself that she had never entertained it or had any
reason to do so, almost before she was aware she found it growing in
her heart. Business still kept Graydon abroad, although a year had
passed. There were no indications that he was pressing his suit with
Miss Wildmere, and our heroine's mirror and the eyes of others began
to tell her that the confident belle would not now bestow a glance so
cold and indifferent as to mean, "You can be nothing to him or to any
one." Moreover, Miss Wildmere's coveted beauty might prove an ally.
One so attractive would be sought, perhaps won, before Graydon
returned, and absence might have taught him that his regard had been
little more than admiration. Naturally Madge would not be inclined
to think well of one who had brought so cruel an experience into her
life; but, prejudice apart, the society girl had given evidence of a
type of womanhood not very high. Even Graydon, in his allusions, had
suggested a character repulsive to Madge. A woman "as hard to capture
and hold as a 'Bedouin'" was not at all her ideal. The words presented
to her one who was either calculating or capricious, either heartless
or fickle.
"Truly," she thought, "if there was ever a man who merited
whole-hearted, lifelong constancy, it is Graydon Muir; and if he even
imagines Miss Wildmere incapable of this, why should he think further
of her? Perhaps while beyond the spell of her beauty he has formed a
truer estimate of her character, and has abandoned all thought of her
as a mocking dream. Perhaps--"
Of what possibilities will not a young girl dream at the dictation
of her heart? And as she saw the sharp lines of her profile softening
into loveliness, the color fluctuating in her cheeks even at her
thoughts, her thin, feeble arms growing white and firm, and the
rounded grace of womanhood appearing in all her form, she began to
hope that she could endure comparison with Miss Wildmere, even on
her lower plane of material beauty. But Madge had too much mind to
be content with Miss Wildmere's standard. She coveted outward
attractiveness chiefly that the casket might secure attention to its
gems. The days of languid, desultory reading and study were over, and
she determined to know at least a few things well.
It was to music, however, that she gave her chief attention, since she
believed that for this art she had some positive talent A German in
the pursuit of health had drifted to the remote southern city. He was
past middle age, but had retained through numberless disappointments
and discouragements the one enthusiasm of his life; and in Madge he
found a pupil after his own heart. While his voice had lost much of
its freshness and power, his taste was pure and refined. He kindled
in the young girl's mind something of his own love and reverence for
music on its own account. To Madge, however, it would always remain
a method of expression rather than a science or an art, and the old
professor at last learned to recognize her limitations. She would be
excellent in only those phases of music which were in accord with her
own feeling and thought. She would not, perhaps could not, study it
as he had done, for her woman's nature and the growing purpose of her
life were ever in the ascendant; but under his guidance her taste grew
purer and her knowledge and power increased rapidly. What she did
she learned to do well. Even Herr Brachmann was often charmed by the
delicate originality of her touch, which proved that her own thought
and feeling were infused into the music before her.
But her voice delighted him most. With her increasing vigor was gained
the ability to use her vocal organs in sustained effort. He guarded
her carefully against over-exertion, and her advance was assured
and safe. Note after note, true, sweet, and strong, was added to the
compass of her voice, and this exercise reacted with increased benefit
on her general health. One can scarcely become a vocalist without
toning up the vital organs, and in learning to sing Madge provided
an antidote against consumptive tendencies. Her gift of song at
last began to attract attention. Strangers loitered near the Wayland
Cottage during warm, quiet evenings, and in society she was importuned
by those who had heard her before. She usually complied, for she was
training herself to sing before an audience of one who was familiar
with the best musical talent of the world. Not that she wished to
invite comparisons with this kind of talent, but merely to sing with
such simple sweetness and truth that Graydon would forget the trained
professional in the unaffected charm of the natural girl.
The manner of those who listened stimulated her hope. At the first
notes of her song all conversation ceased. Even the unappreciative
were impressed by a certain pathos, an appealing minor tone, which
touched the heart while pleasing the ear.
During the long summer that followed her first winter at Santa Barbara
the little town sank into a semi-torpid state. Strangers disappeared.
With many of the permanent residents to kill time was the main object
of languid effort. To Madge the season brought varied opportunity. The
old professor gave her much of his time. While others slept she read
and studied. The heat, tempered by the vast Pacific, was never
great, and the air had a vitality that proved a constant aid to her
controlling motive. In the morning she rode or took some form of
skilled exercise in which she knew Graydon to be proficient, and she
rarely missed her ocean bath. Such health was she acquiring that it
was becoming a joy in itself. As with all earnest, constant natures,
however, her supreme motive grew stronger with time.
In August she received tidings from the East that caused much
solicitude and depression. Graydon had returned for a brief visit,
and had joined Mr. and Mrs. Muir at a seaside inn. "A Miss Wildmere
is staying here also," her sister wrote, "and, somewhat to Mr. Muir's
disapproval, Graydon seems not only well acquainted with her, but
unusually friendly. Mr. Muir says that if she is like her father she
is a 'speculator'; and from the attention she receives and the way she
receives it one would think he was right. Graydon, however, seems to
be her favorite, and if he could remain long enough it is not hard to
see what might happen. But she is a great belle and a coquette too,
I should imagine, and she has a large enough following to turn any
girl's head. I don't wonder at it either, for she is the most lovely
creature I ever saw, and yet she doesn't make a pleasant impression
on me. The men are just wild about her. Mr. Muir looks askance at
Graydon's devotion, and mutters 'speculator' when Miss Wildmere's name
is mentioned. Graydon returns to Europe next week. He inquires often
after you, and his questions make me feel that I don't know as much
about you and what you are doing as I should. You write often, but
somehow you seem remote in more senses than one. I suppose, however,
you are reading as usual, and just floating along down stream with
time. Well, no matter, dear. You write that you are better and
stronger, and have no more of your old dreadful colds. You must spend
next summer with us, even if you have to go back to Santa Barbara in
the winter."
Neither the shortness of his visit nor the fascinations of Miss
Wildmere prevented Graydon from writing Madge a cordial note full
of regret that he should not see her. "You have indeed," he wrote,
"vanished like a ghost, and become but a haunting memory. It is a year
and a half since I have seen you, and I did not succeed in beguiling
you into a correspondence. Like the good Indians, you have followed
the setting sun into some region as vague and distant as the 'happy
hunting-ground.' Mary says that you will come East next summer. The
idea! Is there anything of you to come that is corporate and real? If
I had the time I would go to you and see. I find Miss Wildmere just
about where I left her, only more beautiful and fascinating, and
besieged by a host. Absence makes my chance slight indeed, but I do
not despair. She so evidently enjoys a defensive warfare, wherein it
is the besiegers who capitulate, that she may maintain it until
my exile abroad is over. This is to my mind a more rational
interpretation of her freedom than that she is waiting for me; and
thus I reveal to you that modesty is my most prominent trait. She may
be married before I see her again; and should this prove to be the
case I will show you what a model of heroic equanimity I can be."
Madge read this letter with a sigh of intense relief, and was not long
in resolving that when he came again she would enter the lists with
Miss Wildmere and do what her nature permitted before her chance
of happiness passed irrevocably. Graydon's letter kindled her hope
greatly. It seemed to her that she was to have a chance--that her
patient effort might receive the highest reward after all. She thanked
God for the hope. Her love was a sacred thing. It was the natural,
uncalculating outgrowth of her womanhood, and was inciting her toward
all womanly grace.
Madge did not believe her motive, her purpose, to be unwomanly. Should
the opportunity offer, she did not intend to win Graydon by angling
for him, by arts, blandishments, or one unmaidenly advance. She would
try to be so admirable that he would admire her, so true that he would
trust her, and so fascinating that he would woo her with a devotion
that would leave no chance for "equanimity" were it possible for
him to fail. If in her desperate weakness, in the chaos of her
first self-knowledge, she could hide her secret, she smiled at the
possibility of revealing it now that she had been schooled and trained
into strength and self-control.
In her brief letter of reply to Graydon she wrote:
"That I still exist and shall continue to live is proved by my one
trait which you regard as encouraging--curiosity. Please send me some
books that will tell me about Europe, or, rather, will present Europe
as nearly as possible in its real aspect. I may never travel, but am
foolish enough to imagine that I can see the world from the standpoint
of this sleepy old town."
"Poor little wraith!" said Graydon, as he read the words. "What
a queer, shadowy world her fancy will create, even from the most
realistic descriptions I can send her!" But he good-naturedly made
up a large bundle of books, in which fiction predominated, for he
believed that she would read nothing else.
The days gilded on, autumn merged into winter, and strangers came
again. Madge was acquiring an experience of which at one time she had
never dreamed. She found herself in Miss Wildmere's position. Every
day she was put more and more on the defensive. Gentlemen eagerly
sought her society, and her situation was often truly embarrassing,
for she had as little desire that the besiegers should capitulate
as she had intention of surrendering herself. In this respect Miss
Wildmere's tactics were easier to carry out. _She_ was not in the
least annoyed by any number of abject and committed slaves, and she
was approaching the period when she proposed to surrender with great
discretion, but to whom was not a settled point.
Madge was beginning to make victims also, but she made them by being
simply what she was, and those who suffered most had to admit to
themselves that she was almost as elusive as a spirit of the air.
In the spring visitors to the health resort, returning to the East,
brought to the Muirs rumors of Madge's beauty, fascination, and
accomplishments. They were a little puzzled, but concluded that
Madge had appeared well in a rendezvous of invalids, and were glad to
believe that she was much better. Prudent Mrs. Muir wrote, however,
"Do not think of returning till the last of May. Then we shall soon
go to the mountains. This will be another change, and change in your
case, you know, has proved so beneficial! We expect Graydon soon. He
is tired of residence abroad, and has so arranged the business that a
confidential clerk can take his place."
Madge smiled and sighed. The test of her patient endeavor was about to
come.