Wings over Delft (15 page)

They emerged from the hidden church to leaden skies, but Louise had her own inner glow. In the distance the carillon on the Nieuwe Kirk finished on a single strike. Was it really just an hour after noon? So much had happened already today. They reached the Markt, both so absorbed in their own thoughts that their arrival took them by surprise. They had their duties, Pieter to help Kathenka, Louise to assist at home. But there was so much to say, so much to settle, Louise thought. They must meet again today; she couldn’t bear the uncertainty any longer.

‘Pieter … you remember Mr Midas?’ He nodded. ‘Well, I met Master Fabritius this morning,’ Louise could feel the colour invading her face and hurried on. ‘Mr Midas has escaped. I said I would look for him. Could you help me search?’

‘I’m really very busy, you know.’ Louise was taken aback, but Pieter could never dissemble long, and his laugh was already echoing through the square. He was teasing her. She wanted to hug him there and then. ‘I’ll see you here on the chime of four,’ she said.

He was there for her as the last bell chimed, and they walked side by side through the Sunday streets. By instinct they followed the route to the town walls that they had so often taken that summer. Sometimes they were drawn together, at other times, as if by mutual assent, they walked apart. Louise told him how Annie had let slip that it was she who had asked the apprentices to deliver what was
intended
as a harmless warning to Pieter. She told him how Reynier had lied, not only to Annie, but also to his father, saying that he and Louise were secretly betrothed. The more Louise explained, the more she found she had to
explain
. Each layer of Reynier’s deceit seemed to expose
another
. Even private things had to come out, like the fact that she had been prepared to accept Reynier so that the
potteries
could merge and Father could do the work he loved. As she talked, she began to see her behaviour as Pieter must have seen it and the demon’s claws ran down her back again. A little rich girl flirting with him…using him to fill in the time until her wealthy fiancé got back from abroad. The thought that Reynier had waylaid her into deceiving Pieter, of all people, literally stopped her in her tracks. She turned.

‘Pieter,’ she said, choosing her words very carefully. ‘If at any time I have shown you any marks of respect or
affection
, I want you to know that these have always been genuine and from my heart. I do not withdraw them now that I am free. I cannot withdraw them; they are yours
forever
, however you feel about me. If you want to walk away now, I won’t try to stop you, but my affection goes with you … always.’

She faced him, trying to stop her lower lip from
trembling
. She had put everything on the line. Now it was up to him.

Pieter took his time in answering her, and when he did it was with the same formality, preceded by a smile, a bow, and a gesture that reminded her of Father.

‘Miss Louise,’ he said. ‘I never have had any expectations. You must remember that I am just an apprentice without resources, while you are the heiress to a great fortune. Your friendship is all that I could ever look for, but that for me is a pearl of great price.’

She looked at him and thought: yes, they are alike, Father and he, not in looks but in understanding. She held out her hand and he took it, and they walked on towards the walls, side by side, newly vulnerable after their formal
declarations
to each other.

When they arrived at the now familiar steps, Louise knew better than to keep hold of Pieter’s hand, they would both be safer on their own. Once up, she waited anxiously for him to arrive, looking out over the wall. The weather was clearing now, the sun shouldering its way through ragged rifts in the cloud. So much had happened since she had stormed from her house that morning. She felt in her pocket and extricated the little flower she had tried to throw into the canal in an act of rejection; it had become mixed up in Mr Fabritius’s birdseed. This time however the canal accepted her offering and her thanks in a spatter of seed.
When Pieter arrived they looked out together over the exhausted fields where the lapwings tossed as they searched for grubs among the stubble. The wind was still cold and Louise wanted to move close to Pieter for shelter, but she felt suddenly shy. All summer Reynier had stood as a barrier between them. Now that he was gone, she felt suddenly exposed. Pieter seemed no better. Sentences came, and died stillborn; they found themselves mimicking each other’s small but helpless gestures. The barrier between them had been replaced with a void. Pieter seemed to be even more tongue-tied than she, so it was up to her to break the silence. She remembered searching for a tune on her lute, absently running her fingers over the strings until some chance chord would spark the tune in her mind.

‘Pieter?’ she said over the fragile space that separated them. ‘This morning while I sat in the back of your beautiful little church, I had a strange experience.’

‘I hope it had nothing to do with Little Frans? I should have warned you.’ She smiled.

‘Oh no, Frans and I got on well. This was something
different
.’ She looked out over the still landscape. No one worked in the fields on a Sunday: no horses, no carts, only the sails of the unattended water-pumps flickered as they lifted water from the fields, ultimately to pump it back into the sea whence it came. Pieter had his eyes half-closed and she guessed that he was preserving all this in his mind. It was a good sign. She would try another chord. ‘Do you remember your empty glass?’ she asked.

‘How could I forget it?’

‘While I sat in your church this morning, I had a vision.’ Pieter’s eyebrows shot up. ‘No, don’t look alarmed,’ she smiled. ‘I’m afraid it had nothing to do with saints, not even with Little Frans. But while I sat there at the back, I began to see the church, the building, the people, even the priest in his robes, as if it was all a painting. The colours were like the fragments of light on your empty glass – remember?’ He was watching her closely now.

She hurried on. ‘But I had a role because it was in my eyes that this picture was forming. Remember what the Master said, about how a picture is never finished, how it has to be recreated in the mind of the viewer?’ Captivated by her new idea, she didn’t notice the amusement in his smile. ‘Religions are masterpieces, Pieter: stories, paintings, music, architecture – sacred all –’ at last she faltered, because something strange seemed to be happening to the space between them. However he had done it, Pieter had crossed the divide. She heard her voice, far off, repeating, ‘sacred all…’ but it didn’t seem to matter now. That was just the original chord. What mattered now was the new tune that seemed to be welling up inside them, and around them, over them. She could see her reflection in Pieter’s eyes and wondered what he was seeing. But in her heart she knew; he was seeing everything that was Louise, from her wind-blown hair, to her heart’s core, the good the bad, and … but the new tune was filling her head and there was no time for thought. She could feel his arm in the small of her back, and her face tipped up towards him.

The last thing she saw before she closed her eyes was a flight of geese, flying high, in a perfect ‘V’ against the cold blue sky.

Their kiss lasted no longer than a long breath. Louise stepped back, startled. In a town where any public expression of affection was frowned upon, this was not the place to be; it was too public. She wanted to be alone with Pieter, but there was nowhere that they could go. She had to do something, so gathering her skirts about her, she set off down the steps. When she got to the bottom she turned to watch Pieter safely down. He was two or three steps from the bottom when he suddenly pointed to something over her shoulder.

‘Look,’ he said. ‘Surely that’s Mr Fabritius’s little bird!’

‘Mr Midas!’ Louise exclaimed. She had forgotten all about him. She turned to look; it was a moment or two before she spotted him, sitting on a fence post. In turning, she missed the moment when Pieter walked off into space from three steps up. She got him to his feet, dusted him down, and they set off after the now startled Mr Midas like two schoolchildren.

They followed the little bird from house to house down the Oosterplantsden, the long straight road that bounds the town to the east. The high wall blocked off all view of the Schiekanaal and the country beyond. Streets opened at intervals on the right but the goldfinch ignored these,
fluttering
along the base of the wall, as if he sensed the
freedom that lay beyond it. At the end the road swung to the right. A windmill stood on the wall here but its sails were idle, feathered for the day of rest. Just around the corner was the Oosterport, the east gate of the town. There was a water gate here where barges could turn off the Schiekanaal, and passing under an arch, enter into the town’s system of canals. Road traffic had to cross a bridge and then pass through the arch of the Oosterport. If Mr Midas wanted to escape, this was the place he would do it, where he could see the fields of freedom beyond the arch. Just for the moment, however, he had developed an
interest
in his pursuers. Long years of captivity had made him a domestic little bird.

‘Don’t move,’ Louise whispered, holding Pieter back. ‘If he crosses the Schiekanaal we’ll never see him again.’ They assessed the situation. Ahead of them and to their left was the water gate where Mr Midas was sitting on the gutter watching them and waiting to see what they would do next. Beyond him was the Oosterport. Two black slated towers rose on each side; the pale brick of the arch was glowing in the late afternoon sunlight, which reflected off the windows of the rooms above the arch.

‘I’ll try to get past him and out onto the bridge beyond,’ Louise said. ‘Then if he sees me I may be able to turn him back. Perhaps he’ll come down for you here. He seems to prefer men.’ She sniffed, and gave Pieter some of Mr
Fabritius’s
seed from her pocket. With one eye on Mr Midas she walked past the water gate, under the arch, and out on to the bridge. Relaxed conversation emerged from the guards
in the guardroom as she passed. She turned; she could see the little bird now, a dot on the ground in front of Pieter. I knew he’d be good at this, she thought proudly. At that moment, the guardroom door flew open with a crash and, in a gale of laughter, two very tipsy members of the
gate-watch
reeled out into the road.

‘Arrest that man!’ one of them roared and then bellowed with laughter. Louise had to jump up to see over them. Pieter was pointing up towards the towers. She ran back onto the bridge and was just in time to see the little bird shoot over the high roof above the archway. Perhaps he was daunted by the unfamiliar sight of empty fields beyond the town, but he turned, fluttered back, and perched on the head of the statue that occupied the niche above the archway. Louise dared not move. She studied the statue: a watchman,
complete
with spear, lantern, horn, and dog. A tiny trickle of birdlime ran down his stone helmet. Mr Midas tried one more brief foray in her direction, then looped back and
disappeared
up into one of the sloping portals designed to take chains for a now defunct drawbridge. Louise tiptoed back to consult with Pieter.