Until the Colours Fade by Tim Jeal

could save it?’
    His calmness disconcerted her. She had supposed that he would fly to the defence of portraiture but he had merely returned her questions to her.
    ‘Is it dying?’ she insisted.
    ‘Compare daguerreotypes and painted portraits and your ladyship can judge as well as I.’
    She rose and looked at him imperiously.
    ‘I asked for your opinion, Mr Strickland, I need not inquire of you for my own.’
    She walked to the nearest window and gazed across the lawn to where a gardener was sweeping leaves. She felt dissatisfied and annoyed; she had intended to be courteous and now she had been rude. She had attacked his livelihood and he had cleverly avoided arguing with her; behaviour she had rewarded with bullying. She thought he would not answer, but a moment later heard him say:
    ‘The camera records each detail just the same, each one with perfect accuracy. The value of an artist’s work is its imperfections .He stresses some things and ignores others.’
    She turned and smiled.
    ‘You mean if my nose is large, you will enhance my eyes if they are nicely shaped?’
    She detected confusion and surprise in his face, as though he could not understand why she seemed determined to misinterpret him. She told herself that it was ridiculous to bother about what he felt or thought, but could not help herself. Perhaps the commission would be important to him. It was not his fault that she disliked Braithwaite; before his arrival she had not thought of him as anything other than a means of annoying the mill-owner. Now the recollection troubled her. She had not been Lady Goodchild long enough to have forgotten a poor childhood. Her mother, a naval officer’s widow, had only received a small pension and Helen well remembered the condescension of children in the larger houses in the neighbourhood, and mothers who used their position to give them immunity from plain-speaking. She also recalled with embarrassment how her own mother had considered the worst offenders to be those women who had married above them. Revenge for past affronts, when not so happily situated, had been her explanation; that and a feeling that it was necessary to prove themselves equal to their exalted role. Helen realised with embarrassment that Strickland had been speaking. She caught something about the eye selecting and not taking in everything like a lens.
    ‘The daguerreotype freezes the sitter in a momentary attitude. The painter hopes to find an expression that conveys several moods. When I see a face, I see many faces … just as I have while watching your ladyship. I have to try to convey as much of this as I can on a single canvas. I select details not to flatter but to be truthful. The eye is no camera.’
    As he finished she lowered her eyes unable to think of any argument to use against what he had said, and not wishing to contradict him any more. His manner was so unassuming and his voice so gentle, that she wondered why she had not abandoned her earlier hostility at the outset. The argument with Harry, she supposed, still feeling anger when she thought of it. She moved closer to Strickland and said briskly:
    ‘You have brought work for me to see?’
    ‘Yes, in the hall. I didn’t like to bring it up in case….’ He fell silent, evidently uncertain how to frame what he had been going to say.
    ‘In case I sent you about your business after a few words? I cansee that an artist would prefer his person to be rejected, rather than his work.’ She was pleased by his smile of gratitude. Her guess had obviously been a good one. He got up, but did not move towards the door. She had not rung for a servant to collect his portfolio and wondered whether he felt insulted. Her motive had been the simple fear that a footman would take far longer to find it. He was still holding his hat.
    ‘You may put it down, you know,’ she murmured.
    He did so absently.
    ‘I was wondering,’ he said hesitantly, ‘whether it might be better for me to