The Golden Tulip (36 page)

“You may write that one letter to him, putting an end to meetings and any further correspondence, and I shall read what you have written before it is sealed.”

“This is intolerable. If you think I’ll submit to censorship—”

Geetruyd cut in. “It only applies to this one letter. I’ve no wish to act as a gorgon toward you. Everything can be perfectly harmonious during your time with me if you simply take notice of the rules I expect you to obey.”

Angrily Francesca opened the door and hastened away up to her room. There she paced the floor, thumping her fist in fury against a bedpost and anything else that came into range as she struggled to come to terms with the conditions by which she was being forced to live. She felt trapped! Caged like an animal. All the joy with which she had approached this time of coming to Delft had evaporated. With everything falling to pieces around her would she find other setbacks waiting for her at Vermeer’s studio? What if he should prove to be as temperamental as her father? Suppose he had only taken her on as a pupil for the money and not because he believed her work had promise. He had had no experience as a tutor and might find it impossible to convey his knowledge through no fault of his own. Not once had she contemplated any of these aspects of her apprenticeship. Instead she had seen it as a blissful fulfillment of her dreams, never imagining that anything could go seriously wrong.

Again she thumped her fist, this time on the top rail of a chair, and she followed it up with another against the window frame. She scarcely dared to allow herself to think of Pieter, whose visits were now banned. Downstairs in the east parlor she had been confident at first that Hendrick would not want these restrictions on her exercised for any real length of time, but if he should have become slightly crazed by his melancholia would he ever consider her case logically?

She came to a standstill and drew a deep breath. Losing her temper was no solution to solving what she had to face. Always she had tried to be practical when meeting difficulties and it was particularly important now. She would write to Pieter as Geetruyd had directed, but follow it up with a second letter explaining the situation. Later when Hendrick began to emerge from his dark state of mind, which she was sure he would with time, she could enlist her sisters’ help and Willem’s to get her released from her bonds. Even then it was likely Hendrick would have to be pressed continually to get results. Kind at heart, he would genuinely intend to do as he was asked, but if absorbed in a current painting he would have no thought for anything else. In a cheerful frame of mind he would toss off matters that he took to be exaggerated—as when he was told tradesmen would wait no longer for their bills to be settled—and it was highly likely he would regard the restrictions imposed on his daughter in Delft in the same light. There was also the hurdle of his not liking to write letters. It was to be hoped that Aletta would compose the necessary letter to Geetruyd and that he would sign it. She had been surprised upon seeing how fully he had written to the widow. A few hastily scrawled lines were all she had ever seen from his hand before.

A tap came on the door. She whipped it open and saw a very small, nervous-looking woman, no longer young, who was full of little fluttery movements, twitching at her collar and then at her rings. Once she must have had reasonably good looks, but the passing years had darkened the pigmentation about her sunken eyes and flecked her complexion as well as the back of her hands. Her wispy hair, showing beneath her starched cap, showed traces of pale gold amid the gray.

“I’m Clara Huys.” Her shyness was such that it gave her a cowed look as if she expected constant hostility on all sides. “I hope you’re going to be happy during your time with us.”

“I thank you, but I’m afraid certain things will have to change before that is possible.” Francesca stood aside for her to enter, but she declined.

“I’ve come to call you to dinner.”

“I’m not sure that I’ll be welcome at table.”

“But you will! When my cousin Geetruyd has had her say she doesn’t keep on about it.”

Francesca knew that Clara was supposed to be watching over her, but there seemed to be no malice in the woman and even an apparent wish to be friendly. “Then I’ll come,” she said. “It’s an old tradition that troubles should be put aside when sitting down at table and I’ll abide by that.”

“That’s sensible behavior. Try always to do what is right in this house and then all is peaceful.”

At dinner, which was good and plentiful, Geetruyd chatted as naturally as if the scene between Francesca and her had not taken place. It was obvious she had no wish for sustained unpleasantness and what had happened was an incident on its own. Francesca maintained her courtesy and talked in return. Only Clara did not open her mouth, except to say “Please” and “I thank you” like an obedient child when a dish was offered to her. It was too early yet to be sure, but it seemed to Francesca that Clara had surrendered her whole personality and, being a gentle person, had been molded by her more dominant employer into the role of a shadow in this house.

After dinner Francesca wrote to Pieter, telling him of the new rules about their relationship that she was forced to obey. She had propped her drawing of him, done on the night when he had brought the hyacinth to her home, against the vase of violets, the fragrance of which made her feel close to him, although the words she was writing were to keep him away. She hoped he would read between the lines and realize the letter had been written for another pair of eyes.

Mercifully Geetruyd did not devour the contents of the letter, but only glanced through it in a crisp, businesslike way. “That’s well done.” Then she sealed it. “I shall see it’s dispatched tomorrow. You can look forward to the first day of your apprenticeship without any other task being put on you. Now good night and sleep well.”

As soon as Francesca had gone to her own room Geetruyd sat back in her chair and gave a little sigh. It was never easy during the first weeks of looking after someone’s wayward daughter in need of discipline.

Yet, if she judged rightly, Francesca was more intelligent than most of the girls that had been in her charge, some of whom she had had incarcerated for their own good. Moreover, Francesca had a dedicated purpose for being in Delft and would be sensible enough to avoid any folly that might interrupt her apprenticeship. It should not take long before there was submission to the rules of the house and then all would run smoothly for the rest of her stay.

There was nothing unusual in Ludolf’s messenger coming to give such short notice about the girl. It was usually a crisis that triggered off the banishing of a daughter to more capable hands. Since Ludolf was the patron of the artist concerned, it was natural that he should have been called upon to help arrange stricter accommodation after some sudden alarm on the father’s part over Pieter van Doorne, whom Francesca had been most anxious to see. And unchaperoned, indeed!

What had been startling was the news that Ludolf sent, together with his urgent request for her to take the girl in, that Amalia had finally died. Her immediate thought had been that he was free at last! When his aim for political power and position were fulfilled, he and she would be able to take up again where they had left off and on a very different basis.

It was a long time since they had first met and too long since she had last seen him, although they were in touch through what might be called business matters. It was due to his generous payments that she was able to enjoy some of the luxuries of life, although at the same time she was proud that everything she owned came from her own hard work. Nothing had come to her easily.

Her brute of a father had married her off when she was fourteen, neither knowing nor caring how she would fare with her old husband in Rotterdam. Dirck Wolff had been parsimonious to the extreme, begrudging money for everything. She was his third wife and soon became no more than a housekeeper, poorly clothed and poorly fed, and he kept a stick at hand with which to beat her if she spent a stiver more than he had allowed at market.

She was twenty-five and had been married to Dirck for eleven wretched years when she had met Ludolf, suntanned from seafaring and well dressed, being ashore again after months at sea. The attraction between them had been instant.

It had been so easy to meet. Her old husband liked to keep at the fireside or shut himself away counting his money. There was a hostelry with a rear entrance in an alley where she could enter with little chance of being seen. It was where Ludolf had taken her for the first time. Never before had she seen a man in red silk undergarments and she had been amazed to learn that such male finery could be had in several magnificent colors. It further astonished her when he removed everything he had on before making love to her and expected her to do the same, which she had done quite shamelessly. All that had happened had been a revelation to her, including her response to him, and before she left his arms she was in love with him.

Often he was away for a year or two at a stretch, although there were also times when his ship needed repair or some other cause had arisen when he could reappear after three or four months, which meant that every day she awoke in the knowledge that she might see him again before nightfall. It had sustained her through the bleakness of her marriage and it was he who had eventually rid her of her old husband. She had admitted him into the house after dark while Dirck snored by the fire. Ludolf, entering the room silently, had slit his throat. She felt faint with horror once the deed was done but had kept her head, her own alibi well prepared. As soon as Ludolf was well away from the house and she could be sure he had reached the safety of his ship, which was sailing at dawn, she began screaming and rousing the neighborhood.

In the will she had been left only the house and half its contents; the rest, with all Dirck’s money, went to his adult children, whom she had never seen. Having previously arranged with Ludolf where he could find her again, she left Rotterdam and moved to Delft, where she rented the house in Kromstraat. There she had set out to establish herself as a respectable member of the community.

It was a far more natural state to her and suited her temperament, for respectability brought its own strength and protection. There was nothing hypocritical in her service to the community, for she had always had a sense of duty drilled into her, first through filial obedience to her father and then, still young enough to be malleable, by her husband’s demands that put her at his beck and call.

It had been no surprise when Ludolf had married Amalia, because she understood his motive. At the time she had been agonizingly jealous, but throughout the years he had made intermittent visits to see her and their passion was undiminished. Then, when they had set up their line of work together, it had been advisable for him to stay away and not to correspond, although she did send him reports by those whom they could both trust.

“I bid you good night, Geetruyd.” Clara had put her head into the room.

Geetruyd stirred in her chair. “Are you still about? You need your rest. Don’t forget you have to escort Francesca in the morning.”

“I’m looking forward to it.”

As Clara went up to the next floor, Geetruyd went downstairs to check that all was securely locked for the night. One of her first actions upon coming to Delft had been to take Clara as a companion, not caring to live alone, for at that time she had dreamed too often of that horrific occasion in Rotterdam. She had plucked Clara from an orphanage where she had grown to adulthood from birth and ostentatiously given her a home. Her charity had not gone unmarked by the board of regentesses and had stood her in good stead later. Clara, a meek creature, already cowed by a particularly strict regime, had been easy to manage from the start and was gratefully loyal for having been removed from institutional life.

Going upstairs to bed, Geetruyd paused by Francesca’s door. There was no sound of tears. Some girls cried themselves to sleep for nights after first leaving home. Stifling a yawn, she went into her room.

Francesca had not heard footsteps pause outside her door. She had expected to lie awake, but after climbing into bed and sinking down between the lavender-scented linen into the soft feather mattress, she had realized for the first time how exhausted she was, not only from the journey but from the stress of all that had happened since her arrival. It was as if she had only just closed her eyes when Weintje came clumping into the room with a container of hot water to put on the tile-topped table.

“It’s six o’clock,
mejuffrouw.
Breakfast is at half past,” she said on her way out.

Francesca leapt from the bed, stripping off her night shift as she went. Today was the day! All her doubts and trepidations had vanished with a good night’s sleep. She bathed herself with the hot water, put on fresh undergarments and then dressed her hair before putting on one of her new and practical gowns in violet and deep blue.

When ready she went downstairs to the dining hall. As at dinner the previous evening, Geetruyd was perfectly amiable throughout breakfast. Again Clara said nothing, but she was waiting by the entrance door when Francesca came with her tapestry bag holding a clean smock, palette and brushes. Remarking on the fine weather, they fell into step, Francesca looking about her with interest. They turned into the opposite direction to that by which Francesca had entered Kromstraat with Geetruyd the previous afternoon and came into a street that led them across a bridge over the canal at Oude Langendijk and then on into the large market square. At the east side was the great New Church, looming in its mellow hues with the tower piercing the sky, while facing it to the west was the magnificent Town Hall with its giltwork aglitter in the sun, its bloodred shutters flung wide at all its many windows. Gabled houses, many of some grandeur and others with shops at ground level, lined the north and south sides. As in Dam Square in Francesca’s own home city there was a busy scene with stalls set up and people thronging around them.