Kate was so far a true prophet that the Berties did return, but not till
Christmas, and then only for a few days. For the first time during the
Autumn and early Winter, time hung heavy upon the hands of the little
household. Their innocent routine of life, which had supported them so
pleasantly hitherto, supplying a course of gentle duties and
necessities, broke down now, no one could tell why. Routine is one of
the pleasantest stays of monotonous life, so long as no agitating
influence has come into it. It makes existence more supportable to
millions of people who have ceased to be excited by the vicissitudes of
life, or who have not yet left the pleasant creeks and bays of youth for
the more agitated and stormy sea; but when that first interruption has
come, without bringing either satisfaction or happiness with it, the
bond of routine becomes terrible. All the succession of duties and
pleasures which had seemed to her as the course of nature a few months
before--as unchangeable as the succession of day and night, and as
necessary--became now a burden to Ombra, under which her nerves, her
temper, her very life gave way. She asked herself, and often asked the
others, why they should do the same things every day?--what was the good
of it? The studies which she shared with her cousin, the little
charities they did--visits to this poor woman or the other, expeditions
with the small round basket, which held a bit of chicken, or some jelly,
or a pudding for a sick pensioner; the walks they took for exercise,
their sketchings and practisings, and all the graceful details of their
innocent life--what was the good of them? ‘The poor people don’t want
our puddings and things. I daresay they throw them away when we are
gone,’ said Ombra. ‘They don’t want to be interfered with--I should not,
if I were in their place; and if we go on sketching till the end of
time, we never shall make a tolerable picture--you could buy a better
for five shillings; and the poorest pianist in a concert-room would play
better than we could, though we spent half the day practising. What is
the good of it? Oh! if you only knew how sick I am of it all!’
‘But, dear, you could not sit idle all day--you could not read all day.
You must do something,’ said poor Mrs. Anderson, not knowing how to meet
this terrible criticism, ‘for your own sake.’
‘For my own sake!’ said Ombra. ‘Ah! that is just what makes it so
dreadful, so disgusting! I am to go on with all this mass of nonsense
for my own sake. Not that it is, or ever will be, of use to any one; not
that there is any need to do it, or any good in doing it; but for my own
sake! Oh! mamma, don’t you see what a satire it is? No man, nobody who
criticises women, ever said worse than you have just said. We are so
useless to the world, so little wanted by the world, that we are obliged
to furbish up little silly, senseless occupations, simply to keep us
from yawning ourselves to death--for our own sakes!’
‘Indeed, Ombra, I do not understand what you mean, or what you would
have,’ Mrs. Anderson would answer, all but crying, the vexation of being
unable to answer categorically, increasing her distress at her
daughter’s contradictoriness; for, to be sure, when you anatomized all
these simple habits of life, what Ombra said was true enough. The music
and the drawing were done for occupation rather than for results. The
visits to the poor did but little practical service, though the whole
routine had made up a pleasant life, gently busy, and full of kindly
interchanges.
Mrs. Anderson felt that she herself had not been a useless member of
society, or one whose withdrawal would have made no difference to the
world; but in what words was she to say so? She was partially affronted,
vexed, and distressed. Even when she reflected on the subject, she did
not know in what words to reply to her argumentative child. She could
justify her own existence to herself--for was not she the head and
centre of this house, upon whom five other persons depended for comfort
and guidance. ‘Five persons,’ Mrs. Anderson said to herself. ‘Even
Ombra--what would she do without me? And Kate would have no home, if I
were not here to make one for her; and those maids who eat our bread!’
All this she repeated to herself, feeling that she was not, even now,
without use in the world; but how could she have said it to her
daughter? Probably Ombra would have answered that the whole household
might be swept off the face of the earth without harm to any one--that
there was no use in them;--a proposition which it was impossible either
to refute or to accept.
Thus the household had changed its character, no one knew how. When Kate
arranged the last winterly bouquets of chrysanthemums and Autumnal
leaves in the flat dishes which she had once filled with primroses, her
sentiments were almost as different as the season. She was nipped by a
subtle cold more penetrating than that which blew about the Cottage in
the November winds, and tried to get entrance through the closed
windows. She was made uncomfortable in all her habits, unsettled in her
youthful opinions. Sometimes a refreshing little breeze of impatience
crossed her mind, but generally she was depressed by the change, without
well knowing why.
‘If we are all as useless as Ombra says, it would be better to be a cook
or a housemaid; but then the cook and the housemaid are of use only to
help us useless creatures, so they are no good either!’ This was the
style of reasoning which Ombra’s vagaries brought into fashion. But
these vagaries probably never would have occurred at all, had not
something happened to Ombra which disturbed the whole edifice of her
young life. Had she accepted the love which was offered to her, no doubt
every circumstance around her would have worn a sweet perfection and
appropriateness to her eyes; or had she been utterly fancy-free, and
untouched by the new thing which had been so suddenly thrust upon her,
the pleasant routine might have continued, and all things gone on as
before. But the light of a new life had gleamed upon Ombra, and
foolishly, hastily, she had put it away from her. She had put it
away--but she could not forget that sudden and rapid gleam which had
lighted up the whole landscape. When she looked out over that landscape
now, the distances were blurred, the foreground had grown vague and dim
with mists, the old sober light which dwelt there had gone for ever,
following that sudden, evanescent, momentary gleam. What was the good?
Once, for a moment, what seemed to be the better, the best, had shone
upon her. It fled, and even the homelier good fled with it. Blankness,
futility, an existence which meant nothing, and could come to nothing,
was what remained to her now.
So Ombra thought; perhaps a girl of higher mind, or more generous heart,
would not have done so--but it is hard to take a wide or generous view
of life at nineteen, when one thinks one has thrown away all that makes
existence most sweet. The loss; the terrible disappointment; the sense
of folly and guilt--for was it not all her own fault?--made such a
mixture of bitterness to Ombra as it is difficult to describe. If she
had been simply ‘crossed in love,’ as people say, there would have been
some solace possible; there would have been the visionary fidelity, the
melancholy delight of resignation, or even self-sacrifice; but here
there was nothing to comfort her--it was herself only who was to blame,
and that in so ridiculous and childish a way. Therefore, every time she
thought of it (and she thought of it for ever), the reflection made her
heart sick with self-disgust, and cast her down into despair. The tide
had come to her, as it comes always in the affairs of men, but she had
not caught it, and now was left ashore, a maiden wreck upon the beach,
for ever and ever. So Ombra thought--and this thought in her was to all
the household as though a cloud hung over it. Mrs. Anderson was
miserable, and Kate depressed, she could not tell why.
‘We are getting as dull as the old women in the almshouses,’ the latter
said, one day, with a sigh. And then, after a pause--‘a great deal
duller, for they chatter about everything or nothing. They are cheery
old souls; they look as if they had expected it all their lives, and
liked it now they are there.’
‘And so they did, I suppose. Not expected it, but hoped for it, and were
anxious about it, and used all the influence they could get to be
elected. Of course they looked forward to it as the very best thing that
could happen----’
‘To live in the almshouses?’ said Kate, with looks aghast. ‘Look forward
to it! Oh, auntie, what a terrible idea!’
‘My dear,’ Mrs. Anderson said, somewhat subdued, ‘their expectations and
ours are different.’
‘That means,’ said Ombra, ‘that most of us have not even almshouses to
look forward to; nothing but futility, past and present--caring for
nothing and desiring nothing.’
‘Ombra, I do not know what you will say next,’ cried the poor mother,
baffled and vexed, and ready to burst into tears. Her child plagued her
to the last verge of a mother’s patience, setting her on edge in a
hundred ways. And Kate looked on with open eyes, and sometimes shared
her aunt’s impatience; but chiefly, as she still admired and adored
Ombra, allowed that young woman’s painful mania to oppress her, and was
melancholy for company. I do not suppose, however, that Kate’s
melancholy was of a painful nature, or did her much harm. And, besides
her mother, the person who suffered most through Ombra was poor Mr.
Sugden, who watched her till his eyes grew large and hollow in his
honest countenance; till his very soul glowed with indignation against
the Berties. The determination to find out which it was who had ruined
her happiness, and to seek him out even at the end of the world, and
exact a terrible punishment, grew stronger and stronger in him during
those dreary days of Winter. ‘As if I were her brother; though, God
knows, that is not what I would have wished,’ the Curate said to
himself. This was his theory of the matter. He gave up with a sad heart
the hope of being able to move her now to love himself. He would never
vex her even, with his hopeless love, he decided; never weary her with
bootless protestations; never injure the confidential position he had
gained by asking more than could ever be given to him; but one day he
would find out which was the culprit, and then Ombra should be avenged.
Gleams of excitement began to shoot across the tranquil cheeriness of
the Winter, when it was known that the two were coming again; and then
other changes occurred, which made a diversion which was anything but
agreeable in the Cottage. Ombra said nothing to any one about her
feelings, but she became irritable, impatient, and unreasonable, as only
those whose nerves are kept in a state of painful agitation can be. The
Berties stayed but a few days; they made one call at the Cottage, which
was formal and constrained, and they were present one evening at the
Rectory to meet the old yachting-party, which had been so merry and so
friendly in the Summer. But it was merry no longer. The two young men
seemed to have lost their gaiety; they had gone in for work, they said,
both in a breath, with a forced laugh, by way of apology for themselves.
They said little to any one, and next to nothing to Ombra, who sat in a
corner all the evening, and furtively watched them, reddening and
growing pale as they moved about from one to another. The day after they
left she had almost a quarrel with her mother and cousin, to such a
pitch had her irritability reached; and then, for the first time, she
burst into wild tears, and repented and reproached herself, till Mrs.
Anderson and Kate cried their eyes out, in pitiful and wondering
sympathy. But poor Ombra never quite recovered herself after this
outburst. She gave herself up, and no longer made a stand against the
_sourd_ irritation and misery that consumed her. It affected her health,
after a time, and filled the house with anxiety, and depression, and
pain. And thus the Winter went by, and Spring came, and Kate Courtenay,
developing unawares, like her favourite primroses, blossomed into the
flowery season, and completed her eighteenth year.