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.