Page 134 of Oddity of the Ton
“Hardly,” she replied, laughing. “The proportions of the steeple are all wrong—see?”
“Why do you always do that?”
“What?”
“Talk yourself down whenever someone compliments you. Can you not accept praise with grace?”
“I’m only speaking the truth,” she said. “I’ve made the steeple too tall, which means the angle of the roof is out of proportion.”
He sighed. “Perhaps you consider yourself unworthy of kind words? I often wonder what your life was like before you came to Sandcombe to make you distrust the praise of others.” He gestured to the space beside her on the bench. “May I?”
“We’re inyourgarden, reverend—which happens to have the finest view of the church.”
He sat beside her. “In that I agree with you. The building’s at its best in the spring, when the May trees are in bloom. You must come and paint it then—that is, if you’re still in Sandcombe.”
“I’ve no intention of leaving, reverend.”
He tutted. “I thought I said not to call mereverend. I’d prefer Mr. Staines, or”—he hesitated, and she could swear she saw a faint blush on his cheeks—“perhaps, in an informal setting such as this, I might prevail upon you to call me Andrew.”
She averted her gaze at his familiarity.
“How do you manage to depict the walls?” he asked. “There must be hundreds—nay,thousands—of stones. Do you paint them all? I wouldn’t have the patience.”
“Neither would I.” She laughed. “Art isn’t about replicating a subject—it’s about depicting what we see. Much like your sermons, a work of art exists to challenge the observer.”
“In what way?”
She gestured to her canvas. “What do you see when you look at the walls of the building?”
“Stones,” he said. “Hundreds of stones.”
“But, if you look closer, you’ll see that I’ve depicted only a few stones here and there. Everywhere else, I’ve merely given the impression of stones by blending the colors.”
He leaned closer, then nodded. “Remarkable—how did I not see that before?”
“Because your eye fills in the detail. With your sermons, you select verses that mean something to you, rather than merely reciting what’s in your Bible. That way, you permit your congregants to take whatever message feels right for them.”
He drew in a sharp breath, then shook his head in disbelief. “You understand! In fact, I believe you may be the only soul in Sandcombe who does. It’s what I believe my vocation to be—to give guidance and understanding, rather than enforcement and instruction.”
Eleanor dipped her brush into the jar once more, then wiped it on a rag and closed her paintbox.
“Forgive me,” he said, “I didn’t mean to disturb you.”
“You could never be a disturbance, Mr. Staines. Besides, I must let the canvas dry before painting the foreground.”
“Which do you prefer?” he asked. “Portraits or landscapes?”
“It depends on the subject,” she said. “A portrait is more challenging because the smallest flaw in proportion renders the subject unrecognizable.”
“Is that why you’ve painted so many portraits of me?” he asked, laughing. “Even Mrs. Ham has one of your pencil drawings of me on her wall at the inn.”
Dear Mrs. Ham had taken pity on Eleanor at first, purchasing her sketches for a shilling each. But now, she adorned the walls of her guest rooms with Eleanor’s seascapes with the intention of attracting the interest—and custom—of travelers, from which Eleanor had managed to earn a modest, but steady, income.
“Mrs. Ham has portraits ofeveryoneon her wall,” Eleanor said. “There’s one of her terrier beneath one of the candle sconces in the bar.”
“Don’t you find faces difficult to draw?”
She nodded. “The trick is to see a face as areas of light and dark, with the bone structure beneath as planes and angles. When I’m drawing a nose, for example, I see shadows and curves. I don’t see anose.”
