But because she had always been delicate and Death was supposed to be hovering, because it had been like that for so many years that it had almost become like a member of the family . we had thought it would continue to hover. Instead of which it had swooped down and carried her away.
We missed her very much and it was then that I realized how much painting meant to both my father and myself, for although we were desolate in our grief, when we were in the studio we could forget for a while, for at such times there was nothing for either of us but our painting.
Evie was very sad. My mother had been in her special care for so long. She was at that time thirty-three years of age and she had given up seventeen of those years to us.
Two years earlier Evie had become engaged to be married. The news had sent us into a flutter of dismay. We wavered between our pleasure in Evie’s happiness and our consternation in contemplating what life would be like without her.
There had been no imminent danger as Evie’s fiance was Tames Callum, the curate at our vicarage. He was the same age as Evie and they were to be married as soon as he acquired a living of his own.
My mother used to say: “Pray God he never will. ” And then quickly:
“What a selfish creature I am, Kate. I hope you won’t grow up to be like me. Never fear. You won’t, you’re one of the sturdy ones. But really what should we … what should do without Evie.”
She did not have to face that problem. When she died the curate was still without a living, so her prayers were answered in a way.
Evie tried to console me.
“You’re growing up now, Kate,” she said.
“You’d soon find someone else.”
“There’d be no one like you, Evie. You’re irreplaceable.”
She smiled at me and was torn between her fears for us and her longing to be married.
I knew in my heart that one day Evie would have to leave us. Change was in the air—and I did not want change.
The months passed and still James Callum did not find a living. Evie declared that she had little to do since my mother’s death and spent hours preserving fruit and making herbal concoctions as though she were stocking up the household for the time when she was no longer with us.
We settled down into our daily routine. My father refused to consider Evie’s possible departure. He was the sort of man who lived from day to day and reminded me of someone crossing a tightrope who gets along because he never looks down at possible disasters in the valley below.
He goes on and on, unaware of them, and for this reason travels safely across.
But there can come a time when some impassable object forces a halt and as he is unable to go on he must pause and consider where he is.
We worked constantly together in perfect harmony in the studio on those days when the light was right. We depended on that for we did a great deal of restoration of old manuscripts. I now regarded myself as a fully fledged painter. I had even accompanied my father to one or two houses where restoration work was needed. He always explained my presence: “My daughter helps me in my work.” I know they imagined that I prepared the tools of the trade, washed his brushes and looked after his creature comforts. That rankled. I was proud of my work and more and more he was allowing me to take over.
We were in the studio one day when I saw that he was holding a magnifying glass in one hand and his brush in the. other.
I was astonished because he had always said: “It is never good to use a magnifying glass. If you train your eyes they will do the work for you. A limner has special eyes. He would not be a limner if he had not.”
He saw that I was regarding him with surprise and putting down the glass, said: “A very delicate piece of work. I wanted to make sure I hadn’t miscalculated.”
It was some weeks later. We had had a manuscript sent to us from a religious order in the north of England. Some of the fine drawings on the pages had become faint and slightly damaged, and one of the branches of our work was to restore such manuscripts. If they were very valuable, which a number of them were, dating from as far back as the eleventh century, my father would have to go to the monastery to do the work on the spot, but there were occasions when the less valuable ones could be brought to us. I had done a great deal of work on these recently, which was my father’s way of telling me that I was now a painter of skill. If my work was not sood enough it was easy to discard a piece of vellum or ivory, but only a sure hand could be allowed to touch these priceless manuscripts.
On that June day my father had the manuscript before him and was trying to get the necessary shade of red. It was never easy, for this had to match the red pigment called minium which had been used long ago and was in fact the very word from which the name miniature had been derived.
I watched him, his brush hovering over the small palette. Then he put it down with a helplessness which astonished me.
I went over to him and said: “Is anything wrong?”
He did not answer me but leaned forward and covered his face with his hands.
That was a frightening moment with the blazing sun outside and the strong light falling on the ancient manuscript and the sudden knowledge that something terrible was about to happen.
I bent over him and laid my hand on his shoulder.
“What is it, Father?” I asked.
He dropped his hands and looked at me with those blue eyes which were full of tragedy.
“It’s no use, Kate,” he said.
“I’ve got to tell someone. I’m going blind.”
I stared at him. It couldn’t be true. His precious eyes . they were the gateway to his art, to his contentment. How could he exist without his work for which above all he needed his eyes? It was the whole meaning of existence to him.
“No,” I whispered.
“That… can’t be.”
“It is so,” he said.
“But…” I stammered.
“You are all right. You can see.”
He shook his head.
“Not as I once could. Not as I used to. It’s going to get worse. Not suddenly … gradually. I know.
I’ve been to a specialist. It was when I was on my last trip went to London. He told me. “
“How long ago?”
“Three weeks.”
“And you kept it to yourself for so long?”
“I tried not to believe it. At first I thought… Well, I did know what to think. I just could not see as clearly … n clearly enough . Have you noticed I’ve been leaving liti things to you?”
“I thought you did that to encourage me … to give r confidence.”
“Dear Kate, you don’t need confidence. You have all y< need. You’re an artist. You’re as good as your ancestors.”
“Tell me about the doctor … what he said. Tell n everything.”
“I’ve got what they call a cataract in each eye. The doct says it’s small white spots on the lens-capsule in the centre the pupils. They are slight at the moment, but they will grc bigger. It might be some time before I lose the sight of eyes … but it could be rapid.”
“There must be something they could do?”
“Yes, an operation. But it is a risk, and my eyes would never be good enough for my sort of work, even if it we successful. You know what sight we need … how we seem develop extra power. You know, Kate.
You have it. But th . blindness . Oh, don’t you see. It’s everything . “
I was overwhelmed by the tragedy of it. His life was h work and it was to be denied him. It was the most trag thing that could have happened to him. i’:
I did not know how to comfort him, but somehow I did; At least he had told me. I chided him gently for not tell it me before, “I don’t want anyone to know yet, Kate,” he insisted.
“R our secret, eh?” i “Yes,” I said, ‘if that is what you wish. It is our secret. ” |
Then I put my arm round him and held him against me. I heard him whisper: “You comfort me, Kate.”
&n
bsp; One cannot remain in a state of shock indefinitely. At first I had been overwhelmed by the news and it seemed as though disaster stared us in the face; but after some reflection my natural optimism came to my aid^and I began to see that this was not yet the end. For one thing the process was gradual. At the moment my father simply could not see as well as he once had. He would not be able to do his finest work.
But he could still paint. He would just have to change his style. It seemed impossible that a Collison should not be able to paint miniatures, but why shouldn’t he work on a bigger scale? Why shouldn’t a canvas take the place of painting on ivory and metals?
On consideration his burden seemed to have lightened. We talked a great deal up there in the studio.
“You must be my eyes, Kate,” he said.
“You must watch me. Sometimes I think I can see well enough… but I am not sure. You know how one false stroke can be disastrous.”
I said: “You have told me now. You should never have kept it to yourself. It isn’t as though you are suddenly smitten with blindness.
You have had a long warning. and time to prepare yourself. “
He listened to me almost like a child, hanging on my words. I felt very tender towards him.
“Don’t forget,” he reminded me.
“For the time being… not a word to anyone.”
I agreed with that. I had a ridiculous hope, which I know to be groundless, that he might recover and the obstruction go away.
“Bless you, Kate’ he said.
“I thank God for you. Your work is as good as anything I ever did … and it’s getting better. It would not surprise me if you surpassed every Collison. That would be my consolation if you did.”
So we talked and worked together and I made sure that I did the finest work on those manuscripts so that he should not have to put his eyes to the test. There was no doubt that all this had given me an added spur and I really believed that my touch was more sure than it had been previously.
A few days passed. It was wonderful what time did, and I believed that his nature was such that in time he would become reconciled. He would always see everything through an artist’s eyes and he would always paint. The work he had particularly loved would be denied him . but he was not going to lose everything. not yet, at least. That was what I told him.
It was a week or so after when I heard the news.
We had returned from a dinner-party at the doctor’s house. Evie was always included in these invitations for she was regarded, throughout the neighbourhood, as a member of the family. Even the socially minded Lady Farringdon invited her, for after all Evie was a connection of that family which contained an Earl!
It had been an evening like any other. The vicarage family had been at the doctor’s house. There was the Reverend John Meadows with his two grown-up children, Dick and Frances. Dick was studying for the Church and Frances, since her mother had died, had kept house for her father.
I knew the family well. Before I had a governess I had been to the vicarage every day to be taught by the curate not Evie’s but his predecessor, a middle-aged serious old gentleman who bore witness to the fact that curates could sometimes remain in that lowly state during their entire careers.
We had been warmly greeted by Dr. and Mrs. Camborne and their twin daughters. The twins looked so much alike that I could only on rare occasions tell the difference. They interested me. When I was with them I always wondered what one would feel to have another person who looked almost exactly the same and was so close. They had been named with a certain irony, I thought, Faith and Hope. My father said:
“What a pity they were not triplets, then Charity could have been included.”
Hope was the bolder of the two; she was the one who spoke up when they were addressed. Faith relied on her completely. She always looked to her sister for support before she spoke, even. She was of a nervous temperament but there was a degree of boldness about Hope. It often seemed to me as though the human virtues and failings had been neatly divided and distributed between those two.
Hope was clever at her lessons and always helped Faith, who was much slower and found great difficulty in learning. Faith was neat and tidy and always cleared up after Hope, so their mother told me. Faith was good working with her hands; Hope was clumsy in that respect.
“I am so glad they are fond of each other,” their mother told my father.
There was no doubt that there was some mystic bond between them, which is often found in identical twins. They looked alike and yet were so different. I thought it would be interesting to paint them and see what came out, for often when one was engaged on a miniature facets of a sitter’s character would be revealed as if by some miracle.
Dick Meadows talked a great deal about himself. He had nearly finished his training and would be looking for a living soon. A bright young man, I thought, he would surely be chosen before Evie’s James.
Frances Meadows was her usual sensible self-content, it seemed, to devote her life to church matters and the careful running of the vicarage household.
It was just one of those evenings of which there had been so many. As we walked home I was thinking how conventional my life was . and the life of all of us. I could imagine Frances keeping house at the vicarage until she was a middle-aged woman. That was her life—already mapped out for her. And myself? Was I going to spend mine in a little village my social life more or less confined to dinners such as this one tonight? Pleasant enough, of course, and shared with people of whom I was fond-but would it go on and on| until I was middle-aged? | I was very pensive considering it. Sometimes, looking back, I wonder whether even then I was subconsciously| aware of the events which were about to break over me-| disrupting my peaceful life forever. :j I was certainly already becoming restive. When my father^ came home from his visits abroad, I questioned him avidly about what he had seen. He had been to the Courts of Prussia] and Denmark and most grand of all, that of Napoleon the Third and his fascinating wife the Empress Eugenic. He described the grandeurs of those Courts and the manners. and customs of the people who inhabited them. He talked in colours and made me see the rich purple and gold of royal vestments, the soft pastel shades of the French houses and the less subtle ones of the German Courts.
I had always felt a longing to see these things for myself, and one of my secret dreams was that I should be recognized as a great painter as my father was and that these invitations would come to me. If only I had been born a man I could look. forward to that. But here I was shut in imprisoned in my sex, really-in a world which men had created for themselves. Women had their uses in that world. They were necessary for the reproduction of the race and they could do this most important of all tasks while providing a very agreeable diversion; they could grace a man’s household and table; they could even help him on his way, stand beside him but always a little in the background, always being careful to make sure that the limelight fell on him.
It was for Art that I cared, but when I realized that my miniatures could bring as great a reward as those of my father-but only because they were believed to be his was maddened by the unfairness and stupidity of the world; and I could understand why some women were refusing to toe the line and accept the assumption of masculine superiority.
When we arrived back at the house on that night it was to find James Callum there.
“You must forgive me for calling at such an hour, Mr. Collison,” he said.
“But I had to see Evie.”
He was so excited that he could scarcely speak. Evie went to him and laid a calming hand on his arm.
“What is it, James. Not… a living!”
“Well, hardly that. It’s a … a proposition. It depends on what Evie says …”
“It might be a good idea to ask me and find out,” Evie pointed out in that practical way others.
“It’s this, Evie I’ve been asked to go to Africa … as a missionary.”
“James!”
“Yes
, and they think I should have a wife to take with me.”
I saw the joy in Evie’s face but I did not look at my father. I knew he would be battling with his emotions.
I heard him say: “Evie … That’s wonderful. You’ll be superb … and keep them all in order.”
“Evie,” faltered James.
“You haven’t said.”
Evie was smiling.
“When do we leave?” she asked.
“There’s not much time, I’m afraid. They’ve suggested in a month if that’s possible.”
“You’ll have to get the banns up right away,” put in my father.
“I think that takes three weeks. “
I went to Evie and embraced her.
“It’s going to be awful for us without you, but you’ll be wonderfully happy. It’s just right for you.
Oh Evie, you deserve everything of the best. “
We clung together. It was one of those rare moments when Evie allowed herself to show the depth other feelings.
Being Evie, she made our problem hers, and in the midst of all her happiness and the bustle of getting ready at such short notice she did not forget us.
I had never seen her as excited as she was at this time. She read a great deal about Africa and was determined to make a success of this job for James and herself.
“You see, he’s taking someone else’s place. The previous one came home on holiday and developed chest trouble. He can’t go back. That has given James his chance.”
“He deserves it-and so do you.”
“It’s all worked out very well in many ways. Jack Meadows can give his father a hand until something is settled. Isn’t it miraculous? The only thing that worries me is you … but I’ve been thinking and Clare came into my mind.”
“Who’s Clare?”
“Clare Massie. Would you like me to write to her? Do you know, I believe she is the answer. I haven’t seen her for some years but she has kept in touch. We write to each other every Christmas.”
“Do tell me about her.”
“Well, I thought she might come here. Last Christmas she wrote that her mother had died. She’d been looking after her for years. You know the sort of thing … the younger daughter … it’s expected of her. The others all have their own lives to lead and there’s nothing for her but to look after ageing parents. There was a sister. She married and went abroad. Clare rarely hears from her. But she was saying last Christmas that she might have to find some post…”
The Demon Lover Page 2
