Patient she was, but not content. It was scarcely possible. Nevertheless she quitted Miss Vanbrugh with smiles; and when she again sought her mother's chamber, it was with smiles too—or, at least, with that soft sweetness which was in Olive like a smile. When she had left Mrs. Rothesay to take her afternoon's sleep, she thought what she was to do to pass away the hours that, in spite of herself, dragged very wearily. This day was so different to what she had hoped. No eager delighted “last touches” to her beloved picture; no exhibiting it in its best light, in all the glory of the frame. It lay neglected below—she could not bear to look at it. The day was clear and bright—just the sort of day for painting; but Olive felt that the very sight of the poor picture would be more than she could bear. She did not go near it, but put on her bonnet and walked out.
“Courage! hope!” sang the larks to her, high up above the green lanes; but her heart was too sad to hear them. A year, a whole year, lost!—a whole year to wait for the next hope! And a year seems so long when one has scarcely counted twenty. Afterwards, how fast it flies!
“Perhaps,” she said, her thoughts taking their colour from the general weariness of her spirits, “perhaps Miss Vanbrugh was right, and I might have had the picture returned. It cannot be very good, or it would not have taken such long and constant labour. Genius, they say, never toils—all comes by inspiration. It may be that I have no genius; well, then, where is the use of my labouring to excel!—indeed, where is the use of my living at all?”
“Alas! how little is known of the struggles of young, half-formed genius! struggles not only with the world, but with itself; a hopeless, miserable bearing-down; a sense of utter unworthiness and self-contempt. At times, when the inner life, the soul's lamp, burns dimly, there rises the piteous moan, 'Fool, fool! why strivest thou in vain? Thou hast deceived thyself: thou art no better than any brainless ass that plods through life.' And then the world grows so dull, and one's life seems so worthless, that one would fain blot it out at once.”
Olive walked beneath this bitter cloud. She said to herself that if her picture had been a work of genius, it would have been finished long ere the time; and that if she were destined to be an artist, there would not have come this cross. No! all fates were against her. She must be patient and submit, but she felt as if she should never have courage to paint again. And now, when her work had become the chief aim and joy of her life, how hard this seemed!
She came home, drearily enough; for the sunny day had changed to rain, and she was thoroughly wet. But even this was, as Meliora would have expressed it, “for the best,” since it made her feel the sweetness of having a tender mother to take off her dripping garments, and smooth her hair, and make her sit down before the bright fire. And then Olive laid her head in her mother's lap, and thought how wrong—nay, wicked—she had been. She was thinking thus, even with a few quiet tears, when Miss Meliora burst, like a stream of sunshine, into the room.
“Good news—good news!”
“What? Mr. Vanbrugh has sold his picture, as you hoped to Mr.——.”
“No, not yet!” and the least possible shadow troubled the sister's face: “but perhaps he will. And, meanwhile, what think you? Something has happened quite as good; at least for somebody else. Guess!”
“Indeed, I cannot!”