vicissitude

/vəˈsisəˌt(y)o͞od/
noun

1. a change of circumstances or fortune, typically one that is unwelcome or unpleasant
2. (literary) alternation between opposite or contrasting things

But from fifteen to seventeen she was in training for a heroine; she read all such works as heroines must read to supply their memories with those quotations which are so serviceable and so soothing in the vicissitudes of their eventful lives.

– Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey