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.