The Demon Lover

Summons to the Chateau

It was a hot June day when I discovered my father’s secret which was to change the whole course of my life, as well as his. I shall never forget the horror that gripped me. The sun was brilliant, merciless, it seemed. It had been the hottest June for years. I sat there watching him. He seemed to have grown ten years older in the space of a few minutes, and as he turned his eyes to me I saw the despair in them, the sudden releasing of pretence. He knew that he could no longer hide this tragedy from me.

It was inevitable that I should be the one to discover it. I had always been closer to him than anyone else even my mother when she had been alive. I understood him in all his moods. I knew the exultation of the creative artist, the striving, the frustrations. The man I knew in this studio was different from the gentle, rather uncomplicated human being he became outside it. Of course it was the studio which claimed the greater part of him. It was his life. He had been brought up to it. From the age of five, in this very house -which had been the home of the Collisons for a hundred years he had come to the studio to watch his own father work. There was a story in the family that when he was four years old they had thought he was lost and his nurse had found him here painting on a piece of vellum with one of his father’s finest sable brushes.

Collison was a name in the art world. It was always associated with the painting of miniatures, and there could not be a collection of any note in Europe which did not contain at least one Collison.

The painting of miniatures was a tradition in our family. My father had said that it was a talent which was passed down through the generations and to become a great painter one must begin in one’s cradle. So it had been with the Collisons. They had been painting miniatures since the seventeenth century. Our ancestor had been a pupil of Isaac Oliver, who in his turn had been a pupil of none other than the famous Elizabethan miniaturist Nicolas Hilliard.

Until this generation there had always been a son to follow his father and carry on not only the tradition but the name. My father had failed in this; and all he had been able to produce was a daughter-myself.

It must have been a great disappointment to him, although he never mentioned it. He was a very gentle man outside the studio, as I have said, and was always conscious of other people’s feelings; he was rather slow of speech because he weighed his words before uttering them and considered the effect they would have on others. It was different when he worked. Then he was completely possessed; he forgot meal times, appointments, commitments of any sort. Sometimes I thought he worked feverishly because he believed he was going to be the last of the Collisons. Now he was beginning to realize that this might not be so, for I too had discovered the fascination of the brush, the vellum and the ivory. I was teaching myself to carry on the family tradition. I was going to show my father that a daughter was not to be despised and could do as well as any son. That was one of the reasons why I gave myself up to the joy of painting. The other far more important was because, irrespective of my sex, I had inherited the desire to produce that intricate limning. I had the urge and I ventured to think the talent to compete with any of my ancestors.

My father, at this time, was in his late forties. He looked younger because of his very clear blue eyes and untidy hair. He was tall I had heard him called lanky and very thin, which made him seem a trifle ungainly. It surprised people, I think, that from this rather clumsy man could come those delicate miniatures.

His name was Kendal. There had been Kendals in the family for generations. Years ago a girl from the Lake District had married into the family and the name came from her birthplace. It was a tradition that all the men should have names beginning with K and the letters KC. etched in a corner so small that they were barely perceptible were the hallmark of those famous miniatures. It had caused a certain amount of confusion as to which Collison had executed the painting, and it had often been necessary to work out the date from the period and the subject.

My father had remained unmarried until he was thirty. He was the sort of man who was inclined to thrust aside anything that might distract him from his work. Thus, with marriage, too, although he was well aware of his duty rather like that of a monarch to produce the heir to carry on the family tradition.

It was only when he went to the seat of the Earl of Langston in Gloucestershire that the desire to marry became something other than a duty to the family. He had been engaged by the Earl to paint miniatures of the Countess and her two daughters, Lady Jane and Lady Katherine known as Lady Kitty. He always said that the miniature of Lady Kitty was the best work he had ever done.

“There was love in it,” he commented. He was very sentimental.

Well, the outcome was romantic but of course the Earl had other ideas for his daughter. He had no appreciation of art; he merely wanted a Collison miniature because he had heard that “This Collison is a good man’.

“A Philistine,” my father had called him. He thought artists were servants to be patronized by men of wealth. Moreover, he had hopes of a duke for his daughter.

But it turned out that Lady Kitty was a girl who liked to have her own way and she had fallen as deeply in love with the artist as he had with her. So they eloped and Lady Kitty was informed by her irate father that the gates of Langston Castle were closed to her forever more. Since she had had the folly to become Kitty Collison, she would have no further connection with The family of Langston.

Lady Kitty thereupon snapped her fingers and prepared for what, to her, must have been the humble life at Collison House.

A year after the marriage I made my dramatic entrance into the world, causing a great deal of trouble and costing Lady Kitty her never very robust health. When she became a semi-invalid and unable to bear more children, the disastrous truth had to be faced: the only one was a girl and it seemed as though that was the end of the Collison line.

Not that I was ever allowed to feel that I was a disappointment. I discovered it for myself when I learned of the family traditions and became familiar with the big studio and its enormous windows placed so as to catch the strong and searching north light.

I learned a great deal from servants’ gossip, for I was an avid listener and I quickly realized that I could learn more of what I wanted to know through them than I ever could by asking my parents.

“The Langstons always had a job getting sons. My niece is up there in service with some cousins of theirs. She says it’s a grand place.

Fifty servants . no less . and that just for the country. Her ladyship wasn’t meant for this sort of life. “

“Do you think she has regrets?”

“Oh, I reckon. Must do. All them balls and titles and things … Why, she could have married a duke.”

“Yet, he’s a true gentleman … I will say that for him.”

“Oh yes, I’ll grant you that. But he’s just a sort of tradesman … selling things. Oh, I know they’re pictures and that’s somehow supposed to be different… but they’re still things … and he’s selling them. It never works … stepping outside. Class and all that. And there’s no son, is there? All they’ve got is that Miss Kate.”

“She’s got her wits about her, no mistake. A bit of a madam, that one.”

“Don’t really take after either of them.”

“Do you know what I reckon? He ought to have married a strong young woman … his own class … A lady, of course … squire’s daughter or something … He went too high, he did. Then she could have had a baby every year till she got this son what could learn all about painting. That’s how it ought to have been. It’s what you get for marrying out of your class.”

“Do you think he minds.” “Course he minds. He wanted a son. And between you and me her ladyship don’t think all that much of this painting. Well, if it hadn’t been for the painting he’d never have met her, would he? And who’s to say that mightn’t have been for the bes;.?”

So I learned.

At the time I discovered the secret a year had passed since my mother had died. That was a great blow to our household. She had been very beautiful and both my father and I had been content to sit and look at her. She had worn blues which matched her eyes and her tea gowns were draperies most becomingly trimmed with lace and ribbons. Because she had been a semi-invalid since my birth, I felt a certain responsibility for that; but I consoled myself that she enjoyed lying on her sofa and receiving people, like a queen at her coucher. She had what she called her ‘good days’; then she would play the piano or arrange flowers and sometimes entertain people from the neighbourhood mostly.

There were the Farringdons who lived in the Manor and owned most of the land round about, the vicar and the doctor with their families. Everyone was honoured by an invitation from Lady Kitty, even Lady Farringdors, for social status was a great concern others and although the Farringdons were rich, Sir Frederick was only a second-generation baronet and Lady Farringdon was somewhat impressed by the daughter of an Earl.

My mother made no attempt to manage the household. That was all achieved by Evie, without whom our lives would have been a great deal less comfortable. Evie had been only seventeen when she came to us.

That was at the time when I was about a year old and my mother had by that time slipped gracefully into invalidism. Evie was a distant cousin of my mother’s one of that army of poor relations which so often exists on the fringe of wealthy families. Some distant female member of that family had married beneath her, which meant against the family’s wishes, and so took a leap into obscurity. Evie was a bud from one of those branches, but she had for some reason kept in touch and, during family emergencies, had been called upon for help.

She and my mother had been fond of each other and when the beautiful Lady Kitty found that she would spend a certain time of her life reclining on sofas it occurred to her that Evie was just the person needed to come and take charge.

So Evie came and never regretted it. Nor did we. We depended on Evie.

She managed the household and the servants, was a companion and lady’s maid to my mother, an efficient housekeeper, a mother to me and all this while she made sure that my father was able to work without distraction.

So we had Evie. She arranged little parties for my mother and made sure that everything went smoothly when visitors called at the house about commissions for my father’s work. When he had to go away which he did fairly frequently he could go, knowing that we were well looked after.

My mother loved to hear of my father’s adventures when he returned home. She liked to think of him as a famous painter in great demand, although she was not really interested in what he was doing. I had seen her eyes glaze over when he was talking enthusiastically but knew what he was talking about, for I had the Collison blood in my veins and I was never happier than when I had a fine sable brush in my hands and was making those faint sure strokes on a piece of ivory or vellum.

I was Katherine too, but called Kate to distinguish me from Kitty. I did not look in the least like my mother or father. I was considerably darker than either of them.

“A throw-back to the sixteenth century,” said my father, who was naturally an authority on faces.

“Some long-ago Collison must have looked exactly like you, Kate. Those high cheekbones and that touch of red in your hair. Your eyes are tawny too. That colour would be very difficult to capture. You’d have to mix paints very carefully to get it. I never like that for delicate work … The result can be messy.”

I often laughed at the way his work always seemed to creep into his conversation.

I must have been about six years old when I made a vow. It was after I had heard the servants talking about my being a girl and a disappointment to my father.

I went into the studio and standing in the glare of the light which came through the high window, I said: “I am going to be a great painter. My miniatures are going to be the best that have ever been known.”

And being a very serious child and having a passionate devotion to my father as well as an inborn knowledge that this was what I had been born for, I set about carrying out my intention. At first my father had been amused, but he had shown me how to stretch vellum over a stiff white card and press it between sheets of paper, leaving it under a weight to be pressed.

“The skin is greasy,” he told me, ‘so we have to do a little pouncing.

Do you know what pouncing is? “

I soon did, and learned how to rub the surface with a mixture of French chalk and powdered pumice.

Then he taught me how to use oil, tempera and gouache. | “But water-colours are the most satisfactory for the smallest work,” he said.

When I had my first brush I was delighted; and I was filled with joy when I saw my father’s face after I had painted my first miniature.

He had put his arms round me and held me close to him so that I should not see the tears in his eyes. My father was a very emotional man.

He cried: “You’ve got it, Kate. You’re one of us.”

My mother was shown my first effort.

“It’s very good,” she said.

“Oh, Kate, are you going to be a genius too? And here am I… so surely not one!”

“You don’t have to be,” I told her.

“You just have to be beautiful.”

It was a happy home. My father and I grew closer through our work, and I spent hours in the studio. I had a governess until I was seventeen.

My father did not want me to go away to school because that would interrupt the time I spent in the studio.

“To be a great painter, you work every day,” he said.

“You do not wait until you feel in the mood. You do not wait until you feel ready to entertain inspiration. You are there waiting when she deigns to call.”

I understood completely. How could I have borne to be away from the studio? My resolve to be as great-no greater-than any of my ancestors had stayed with me. I knew that I was good.

My father often went abroad and would sometimes be away for a month or two at a time. He had even visited several of the European courts and painted miniatures for royalty.

“I should like to take you with me, Kate,” he often said.

“You’re as capable as I am. But I don’t know what they would think of a woman.

They wouldn’t believe the work was good . it it had been done by a member of the female sex. “

“But surely they could see for themselves.”

“People don’t always see what their eyes tell them is there. They see what they have made up their minds to see, and I’m afraid they might make up their minds that something done by a woman could not possibly be as good as that done by a man.”

“That’s nonsense and it makes me angry,” I cried.

“They must be fools.”

“Many people are,” sighed my father.

We painted miniatures for jewellers to sell all over the country. I had done many of those. They were signed with the initials KC.

Everyone said, “That’s a Collison.” They didn’t know, of course, that it was the work of Kate not Kendal Collison.

When I was a child it had sometimes seemed that my mother and father inhabited different worlds. There was my father, the absentminded artist whose work was his life, and my mother the beautiful and interestingly delicate hostess, who liked to have people around her.

One of her greatest pleasures was holding court while admirers revolved about her, so delighted to be entertained by the daughter of an Earl even though she was merely the wife of an artist.

When tea was dispensed I would often be there to help her entertain her guests. In the evenings she sometimes gave small dinner-parties and played whist afterwards, or there was music. She herself played the piano exquisitely for her guests.

Sometimes she would be talkative and tell me about her early life in Langston Castle. Did she mind leaving it for what must be a very small house compared with the castle? I asked her once.

“No, Kate,” she answered.

“Here I am the Queen. There I was just one of the princesses-of no real importance. I was just there to make the right marriage … which would be one my family wanted and which I most likely did not.”

“You must be very happy,” I said, ‘for you have the best husband anyone could have. “

She looked at me quizzically and said: “You are very fond of your father, aren’t you?”

“I love you both,” I told her truthfully.

I went to kiss her and she said: “Don’t ruffle my hair, darling.” Then she took my hand and pressed it.

“I’m glad you love him so much. He is more deserving than I am.”

She puzzled me. But she was always kind and tender and really pleased that I spent so much time with my father. Oh yes, it had been an extremely happy home until that day when Evie, taking my mother’s morning chocolate to her bedroom, found her dead.

She had had a cold which had developed into something worse. All my life I had heard that we had to take care of my mother’s health. She had rarely gone out and when she did it would be in the carriage only as far as Farringdon Hall. Then she would be helped out of the carriage and almost carried in by the Farringdon footman.

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.”

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…”

“If she’s a friend of yours …”

“She’s a distant connection … cousin so many times removed that we’ve lost count. She must have been about fourteen when I last saw her. It was at the funeral of a great-aunt. She seemed to be such a good-natured girl and already she was looking after her mother. Shall I write?”

“Oh yes, please do.”

“If I could get her to come before I left I could show her a few things.”

“Evie, you’re a wonder. In the midst of all this excitement you can think of others. Please write. If she is related to you I am sure we shall love her.”

“I will… immediately. Of course, it may be that she has found something by now …”

“We’ll hope,” I said.

It was only two weeks after that conversation that Clare Massie arrived. She had accepted the offer with alacrity and Evie was delighted.

“It is just right for you and just right for Clare,” she said; and she was in a state of bliss. Not only was she marrying her dear James but she had settled us and her distant relative Clare at the same time.

I went with Evie in the dog-cart to the station to meet Clare and my first glimpse other was on the platform with her bags around her. She had looked quite forlorn and I felt an immediate sympathy for her.

What should feel, facing a new life among people I had never met before with only a distant cousin to help me over the first days and that prop soon to be removed?p>

Evie swept down on Clare. They embraced.

“Kate, this is Clare Massie. Clare, Kate Collison.”

We shook hands and I looked into a pair of large brown eyes in a rather pale, heart-shaped face. The light brown hair was smoothed down on either side of her head to end in a neat knob. Her straw hat was brown with one yellow daisy in it and her coat was brown too. She looked nervous . fearful of giving offence. She must have been about twenty-eight or thirty.

I tried to reassure her and told her how glad we were that she had come. Evie had told us so much about her.

“Oh yes,” she said.

“Evie has been very good.”

“We could have the luggage sent on,” said Evie, practical as ever.

“Then we could all go in the dog-cart quite comfortably. Bring a small bag. Have you got one? Oh yes, just the things you’ll need immediately.”

“I hope you are going to be happy here,” I said.

“Of course she will,” said Evie.

“I only hope I shall be able to …”

Evie silenced her.

“Everything will be just right,” she said firmly.

We talked about Evie’s marriage and imminent departure.

“I’m glad you’ll be here for it,” I said.

Thus we brought Clare home, and soon after that Evie was married. My father gave her away, the vicar performed the ceremony and afterwards we had a reception for her at Collison House with just a few friends and neighbours. Later that day the bride and bridegroom left on the first lap of their journey to Africa.

Clare quickly fitted into the household. She devoted herself to us with such assiduous care and determination to please that if she were not quite Evie and we had convinced ourselves that nobody could be that-she was undoubtedly the next best thing.

She was extremely gentle and easy to get along with, which made us realize that, wonderful as Evie had been, she could at times imply a little criticism to those who did not conform to her own high standards which of course none of us did.

Perhaps the house was not quite so well cared for. Perhaps the servants were not quite so prompt to answer our calls, and there was certainly an easing of discipline; but we were soon all very fond of Clare and delighted that she had come.

My father commented: “I think perhaps that although we like the effect of highly powered efficiency we feel ourselves unable to compete with it and a little slackness gives us a self-congratulatory glow of comfort.”

And I agreed with him.

Clare made friends quickly and seemed to get on particularly well with the Camborne twins. My father was quite amused. He said that Faith was beginning to look to Clare almost as much as she did to Hope.

“Two rocks to cling to now,” he commented.

Clare began to show a great respect for our work and asked my father if she might see his collection of miniatures, which delighted him. It was a considerable collection. It was mainly Collisons, but he did have a Hilliard and two Isaac Olivers, which I thought were even better than the Hilliard though possibly of not the same market value.

One of his greatest treasures was a small miniature by the French artist, Jean Pucelle, who had been a leading member of a group of miniaturists at the Court of Burgundy in Paris during the fourteenth century. My father used to say that this collection was our fortune.

Not that he would ever think of selling one piece. They had been in the family for generations and there they must stay.

Clare’s brown eyes shone with pleasure as she surveyed these treasures and my father explained to her the differences in tempera and gouache.

Even Evie had not understood about the paintings and secretly I believe had had a faint contempt for such work. But for the fact that my father earned a living by doing it I am sure she would have dismissed it as a rather frivolous occupation.

But Clare really did have a feeling for paint and admitted that she had tried her hand at a little oil painting.

It was clear that Clare was going to be a very successful addition to our household. The servants liked her; she was less definite than Evie but that could mean that she was not didactic and domineering.

There was about Clare a certain femininity which made people feel the need to be gentle with her. The servants sensed this and whereas they might have been resentful of a housekeeper-which I suppose in a way she was they all helped Clare to step into Evie’s shoes.

And that was what she did. She was different; she was gentler; and if she lacked that complete efficiency which we had found in Evie, we were prepared to accept something less from one who was so eager to please.

After a while she began to confide in me and when she talked about her mother she would be overcome with emotion.

“I loved her dearly,” she said.

“She was my life because I had looked after her through her illness. Oh, Kate, I hope you never have to see one you love suffer. It is heartrending. There were years of it…”

I knew she had an elder sister who had married and gone abroad and that her father had died when Clare was quite a child. It seemed that her mother had dominated her life, and that it had been a hard life I had no doubt. She had done a little painting herself, so she was excited to be in a household like ours.

“My mother thought my painting was a waste of time,” she said.

I guessed that her mother had not been easy to live with, although Clare never said so and always spoke of her with the utmost affection.

There was about her an air of one who has escaped to freedom; and my father and I were particularly pleased to have her in our home.

And then the commission came.

It threw my father into a state bordering on panic, exultation, apprehension, excitement and uncertainty.

It was the moment of decision for him. Here was one of the most important commissions of his life. Could he, in his present state, take it?

As soon as we were alone in the studio he explained to me. He was holding a heavily embossed piece of paper.

“This is from the steward of the Baron de Centeville. It’s in Normandy not so far from Paris. It’s a commission from the Baron although naturally it comes through his steward. Apparently he is to marry and he wants a miniature painted of himself for his fiancee, the Princesse de Crespigny. And when that is done, if the results are pleasing, I am to visit the lady and paint one of her, so that in accordance with the custom, miniatures can be exchanged between the happy pair. Kate, it’s the opportunity of a lifetime. If he is pleased … if my miniatures are seen in such quarters … I could be painting the Empress Eugenic herself before long.” His eyes were glowing. For the moment he had forgotten his affliction. I watched him with a terrible pity and desolation in my heart as he remembered and the joy faded from his face. I had never seen him look so despairing.

Then suddenly his expression changed.

“We could do it, Kate,” he said.

“You could do it.”

I thought my heartbeats would suffocate me. It was what I had longed for: to be commissioned by some glittering personage . to travel beyond our little world . across a continent, to visit foreign Courts, to live among people who made history.

Of all the Courts of Europe, the most glittering was that of France.

The Court of our own Queen was sombre in comparison. She was still mourning the death of her Consort who had died of typhoid a few years previously. Since then the Queen had shut herself away and scarcely shown herself. The Prince of Wales seemed to live a very merry life but that was not the same thing. Charles Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, son of Louis Bonaparte who had been brother of the great Napoleon who had almost succeeded in conquering the world, had married the beautiful Eugenie Marie de Montijo, and between them they had made their Court the centre of Europe.

How I longed to see it! But of course these invitations did not come for me. They were for my father. And when he said:

“We could do it…” he had given me a glimmer of what was forming in his mind.

I said quietly: “You will have to refuse.”

“Yes,” he replied, but I could see that that was not the end of the matter.

I went on: “You will have to let it be known now. This must decide you.”

“You could do it, Kate.”

“They would never accept a woman.”

“No,” he agreed, ‘of course not. “

He was looking at me intently. Then he said slowly: “I could accept this commission …”

“Your eyes might fail you. That would be quite disastrous.”

“You would be my eyes, Kate.”

“Do you mean that I would go with you?”

He nodded slowly.

“I should be allowed to take you with me. I need a travelling companion. I am not as young as I was. You would be of use to me. They would think … perhaps to mix the paints … clean my brushes, my palettes … So they would think. And you would watch over me, Kate.”

“Yes,” I said.

“I could do that.”

“I wish I could say to them: ” My daughter is a great painter. She will do your miniatures. ” But they would never accept it.”

“The world is unfair to women,” I said angrily.

“The world is unfair to all at times. No, Kate, we cannot go unless we go together. I, because I need you to be my eyes; you, because you are a woman. When the miniatures are done, if they arc successful, I will say to this Baron: “This is the work of my daughter. You have admired it… accepted it… Now accept her for the painter she is.” Kate, this might be your chance.

It might be fate working in a mysterious way. “

My eyes were shining. I could scarcely bear to look at him.

“Yes,” I said.

“We are going.”

A mood of wild excitement and exultation took possession of me. I had never felt so jubilant before in all my life. I knew I could paint a miniature to compare with the greatest artists. My senses tingled and my whole being yearned to begin.

Then I was ashamed of my happiness because it came to me through my father’s misfortune.

He understood. I heard him laugh softly, tenderly.

“Don’t deny your art, Kate,” he said.

“You are an artist first of all.

If you weren’t you would not be a great artist. This could be your chance. Strike a blow for Art and Womanhood at the same time. Listen to me. I am going to accept this commission. We are going together to this chateau in Normandy. You are going to paint as you never did before. I can see it all so clearly. “

“There will have to be sittings .. and the sitter will know.”

“That is not insurmountable. You will be there during the sittings.

You will watch. I will paint and you will do your miniature when the sitter is absent. You will have seen him and have mine to work from.

It is only the fine strokes which are beyond me. We’ll work it, Kate.

Oh, this is going to be the most exciting adventure. “

“Show me the letter.”

I held it in my hands. It was like a talisman, a passport to glory. I often wondered afterwards why we do not have premonitions in life. to warn us. to guide us. But no, the important moments in our life slip by with no special seeming significance. If only I had known then that this letter was going to change the whole course of my life, what should I have done?

“Shall you write?” I asked.

“Today,” replied my father.

“Shouldn’t you wait awhile … consider …”

“I have considered. Have you?”

“Yes, I have.”

“It’s going to work, Kate. We’re going to make it work.”

It was a long time since I had seen my father so happy. We were like two children preparing for the treat of our lives. We refused to see the difficulties. We preferred to live in our euphoric dream convincing ourselves that everything would work out as we had planned.

“If I saw you accepted as you should be,” said my father, “I think I could become reconciled.”

We talked to Clare. Did she feel capable of taking on the responsibilities of the household after such a short time?

She replied earnestly that she would do everything within her power to justify our trust in her.

“I feel I have good friends here,” she said.

“They are so kind at the Manor and the vicarage, and I have the Camborne twins. Oh yes, I certainly do feel that I am among friends. I am sure that if there are any difficulties while you are away-which I don’t really anticipate - I shall have plenty of friends to help me out of them.”

“We are not quite sure how long this commission will take to carry out. It depends so much on the subject. Then, when we have finished in Normandy we may have to go on to Paris.”

“You can rest happy that all will be taken care of here,” Clare assured us.

So in less than two weeks after my father had received the invitation he and I were setting out for the Chateau de Centeville in Normandy.