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Maria Thins puffed on her pipe and chuckled. ‘That’s right, girl. You keep your thoughts to yourself here. So, you’re to work for my daughter. She’s out now, at the shops. Tanneke here will show you around and explain your duties.’
I nodded. ‘Yes, madam.’
Tanneke, who had been standing at the old woman’s side, pushed past me. I followed, Maria Thins’ eyes branding my back. I heard her chuckling again.
Tanneke took me first to the back of the house, where there were cooking and washing kitchens and two storage rooms. The washing kitchen led out to a tiny courtyard full of drying white laundry.
‘This needs ironing, for a start,’ Tanneke said. I said nothing, though it looked as if the laundry had not yet been bleached properly by the midday sun.
She led me back inside and pointed to a hole in the floor of one of the storage rooms, a ladder leading down into it. ‘You’re to sleep there,’ she announced. ‘Drop your things there now and you can sort yourself out later.’
I reluctantly let my bundle drop into the dim hole, thinking of the stones Agnes and Frans and I had thrown into the canal to seek out the monsters. My things thudded on to the dirt floor. I felt like an apple tree losing its fruit.
I followed Tanneke back along the hallway, which all the rooms opened off – many more rooms than in our house. Next to the Crucifixion room where Maria Thins sat, towards the front of the house, was a smaller room with children’s beds, chamberpots, small chairs and a table, on it various earthenware, candlesticks, snuffers and clothing, all in a jumble.
‘The girls sleep here,’ Tanneke mumbled, perhaps embarrassed by the mess.
She turned up the hallway again and opened a door into a large room, where light streamed in from the front windows and across the red and grey tiled floor. ‘The great hall,’ she muttered. ‘Master and mistress sleep here.’
Their bed was hung with green silk curtains. There was other furniture in the room – a large cupboard inlaid with ebony, a whitewood table pushed up to the windows with several Spanish leather chairs arranged around it. But again it was the paintings that struck me. More hung in this room than anywhere else. I counted to nineteen silently. Most were portraits – they appeared to be members of both families. There was also a painting of the Virgin Mary, and one of the three kings worshipping the Christ Child. I gazed at both uneasily.
‘Now, upstairs.’ Tanneke went first up the steep stairs, then put a finger to her lips. I climbed as quietly as I could. At the top I looked around and saw the closed door. Behind it was a silence that I knew was him.
I stood, my eyes fixed on the door, not daring to move in case it opened and he came out.
Tanneke leaned towards me and whispered, ‘You’ll be cleaning in there, which the young mistress will explain to you later. And these rooms—’ she pointed to doors towards the back of the house ‘—are my mistress’ rooms. Only I go in there to clean.’
We crept downstairs again. When we were back in the washing kitchen Tanneke said, ‘You’re to take on the laundry for the house.’ She pointed to a great mound of clothes – they had fallen far behind with their washing. I would struggle to catch up. ‘There’s a cistern in the cooking kitchen but you’d best get your water for washing from the canal – it’s clean enough in this part of town.’
‘Tanneke,’ I said in a low voice, ‘have you been doing all this yourself? The cooking and cleaning and washing for the house?’
I had chosen the right words. ‘And some of the shopping.’ Tanneke puffed up with pride at her own industry. ‘Young mistress does most of it, of course, but she goes off raw meat and fish when she’s carrying a child. And that’s often,’ she added in a whisper. ‘You’re to go to the Meat Hall and the fish stalls too. That will be another of your duties.’
With that she left me to the laundry. Including me there were ten of us now in the house, one a baby who would dirty more clothes than the rest. I would be laundering every day, my hands chapped and cracked from the soap and water, my face red from standing over the steam, my back aching from lifting wet cloth, my arms burned by the iron. But I was new and I was young – it was to be expected I would have the hardest tasks.
The laundry needed to soak for a day before I could wash it. In the storage room that led down to the cellar I found two pewter waterpots and a copper kettle. I took the pots with me and walked up the long hallway to the front door.
The girls were still sitting on the bench. Now Lisbeth had the bubble blower while Maertge fed baby Johannes bread softened with milk. Cornelia and Aleydis were chasing bubbles. When I appeared they all stopped what they were doing and looked at me expectantly.
‘You’re the new maid,’ the girl with the bright red hair declared.
‘Yes, Cornelia.’
Cornelia picked up a pebble and threw it across the road into the canal. There were long scratches up and down her arm – she must have been bothering the house cat.
‘Where will you sleep?’ Maertge asked, wiping mushy fingers on her apron.
‘In the cellar.’
‘We like it down there,’ Cornelia said. ‘Let’s go and play there now!’
She darted inside but did not go far. When no one followed her she came back out, her face cross.
‘Aleydis,’ I said, extending my hand to the youngest girl, ‘will you show me where to get water from the canal?’
She took my hand and looked up at me. Her eyes were like two shiny grey coins. We crossed the street, Cornelia and Lisbeth following. Aleydis led me to stairs that descended to the water. As we peeked over I tightened my grip on her hand, as I had done years before with Frans and Agnes whenever we stood next to water.
‘You stand back from the edge,’ I ordered. Aleydis obediently took a step back. But Cornelia followed close behind me as I carried the pots down the steps.
‘Cornelia, are you going to help me carry the water? If not, go back up to your sisters.’
She looked at me, and then she did the worst thing. If she had sulked or shouted, I would know I had mastered her. Instead she laughed.
I reached over and slapped her. Her face turned red, but she did not cry. She ran back up the steps. Aleydis and Lisbeth peered down at me solemnly.
I had a feeling then. This is how it will be with her mother, I thought, except that I will not be able to slap her.
I filled the pots and carried them to the top of the steps. Cornelia had disappeared. Maertge was still sitting with Johannes. I took one of the pots inside and back to the cooking kitchen, where I built up the fire, filled the copper kettle, and put it on to heat.
When I came back Cornelia was outside again, her face still flushed. The girls were playing with tops on the grey and white tiles. None of them looked up at me.
The pot I had left was missing. I looked into the canal and saw it floating, upside down, just out of reach of the stairs.
‘Yes, you will be a handful,’ I murmured. I looked around for a stick to fish it out with but could find none. I filled the other pot again and carried it inside, turning my head so that the girls could not see my face. I set the pot next to the kettle on the fire. Then I went outside again, this time with a broom.
Cornelia was throwing stones at the pot, probably hoping to sink it.
‘I’ll slap you again if you don’t stop.’
‘I’ll tell our mother. Maids don’t slap us.’ Cornelia threw another stone.
‘Shall I tell your grandmother what you’ve done?’
A fearful look crossed Cornelia’s face. She dropped the stones she held.
A boat was moving along the canal from the direction of the Town Hall. I recognised the man poling from earlier that day – he had delivered his load of bricks and the boat was riding much higher. He grinned when he saw me.
I blushed. ‘Please, sir,’ I began, ‘can you help me get that pot?’
‘Oh, you’re looking at me now that you want something from me, are you? There’s a change!’
Cornelia was watching me curiously.
I swallowed. ‘I can’t reach the pot from here. Perhaps you could—’
The man leaned over, fished out the pot, dumped the water from it, and held it out to me. I ran down the steps and took it from him. ‘Thank you. I’m most grateful.’
He did not let go of the pot. ‘Is that all I get? No kiss?’ He reached over and pulled my sleeve. I jerked my arm away and wrestled the pot from him.
‘Not this time,’ I said as lightly as I could. I was never good at that sort of talk.
He laughed. ‘I’ll be looking for pots every time I pass here now, won’t I, young miss?’ He winked at Cornelia. ‘Pots and kisses.’ He took up his pole and pushed off.
As I climbed the steps back to the street I thought I saw a movement in the middle window on the first floor, the room where he was. I stared but could see nothing except the reflected sky.
Catharina returned while I was taking down laundry in the courtyard. I first heard her keys jangling in the hallway. They hung in a great bunch just below her waist, bouncing against her hip. Although they looked uncomfortable to me, she wore them with great pride. I then heard her in the cooking kitchen, ordering about Tanneke and the boy who had carried things from the shops for her. She spoke harshly to both.
I continued to pull down and fold bedsheets, napkins, pillowcases, tablecloths, shirts, chemises, aprons, handkerchiefs, collars, caps. They had been hung carelessly, bunched in places so that patches of cloth were still damp. And they had not been shaken first, so there were creases everywhere. I would be ironing much of the day to make them presentable.
Catharina appeared at the door, looking hot and tired, though the sun was not yet at its highest. Her chemise puffed out messily from the top of her blue dress, and the green housecoat she wore over it was already crumpled. Her blonde hair was frizzier than ever, especially as she wore no cap to smooth it. The curls fought against the combs that held them in a bun.
She looked as if she needed to sit quietly for a moment by the canal, where the sight of the water might calm and cool her.
I was not sure how I should be with her – I had never been a maid, nor had we ever had one in our house. There were no servants on our street. No one could afford one. I placed the laundry I was folding in a basket, then nodded at her. ‘Good morning, madam.’
She frowned and I realised I should have let her speak first. I would have to take more care with her.
‘Tanneke has taken you around the house?’ she said.
‘Yes, madam.’
‘Well, then, you will know what to do and you will do it.’ She hesitated, as if at a loss for words, and it came to me that she knew little more about being my mistress than I did about being her maid. Tanneke had probably been trained by Maria Thins and still followed her orders, whatever Catharina said to her.
I would have to help her without seeming to.
‘Tanneke has explained that besides the laundry you want me to go for the meat and fish, madam,’ I suggested gently.
Catharina brightened. ‘Yes. She will take you when you finish with the washing here. After that you will go every day yourself. And on other errands as I need you,’ she added.
‘Yes, madam.’ I waited. When she said nothing else I reached up to pull a man’s linen shirt from the line.
Catharina stared at the shirt. ‘Tomorrow,’ she announced as I was folding it, ‘I will show you upstairs where you are to clean. Early – first thing in the morning.’ Before I could reply she disappeared inside.
After I brought in the laundry I found the iron, cleaned it, and set it in the fire to heat. I had just begun ironing when Tanneke came and handed me a shopping pail. ‘We’re going to the butcher’s now,’ she said. ‘I’ll need the meat soon.’ I had heard her clattering in the cooking kitchen and had smelled parsnips roasting.
Out in front Catharina sat on the bench, with Lisbeth on a stool by her feet and Johannes asleep in a cradle. She was combing Lisbeth’s hair and searching for lice. Next to her Cornelia and Aleydis were sewing. ‘No, Aleydis,’ Catharina was saying, ‘pull the thread tight, that’s too loose. You show her, Cornelia.’
I had not thought they could all be so calm together.
Maertge ran over from the canal. ‘Are you going to the butcher’s? May I go too, Mama?’
‘Only if you stay with Tanneke and mind her.’
I was glad that Maertge came with us. Tanneke was still wary of me, but Maertge was merry and quick and that made it easier for us to be friendly.
I asked Tanneke how long she had worked for Maria Thins.
‘Oh, many years,’ she said. ‘A few before master and young mistress were married and came to live here. I started when I was no older than you. How old are you, then?’
‘Sixteen.’
‘I began when I was fourteen,’ Tanneke countered triumphantly. ‘Half my life I’ve worked here.’
I would not have said such a thing with pride. Her work had worn her so that she looked older than her twenty-eight years.
The Meat Hall was just behind the Town Hall, south and to the west of Market Square. Inside were thirty-two stalls – there had been thirty-two butchers in Delft for generations. It was busy with housewives and maids choosing, bartering and buying for their families, and men carrying carcasses back and forth. Sawdust on the floor soaked up blood and clung to shoes and hems of dresses. There was a tang of blood in the air that always made me shiver, though at one time I had gone there every week and ought to have grown used to the smell. Still, I was pleased to be in a familiar place. As we passed between the stalls the butcher we used to buy our meat from before my father’s accident called out to me. I smiled at him, relieved to see a face I knew. It was the first time I had smiled all day.
It was strange to meet so many new people and see so many new things in one morning, and to do so apart from all the familiar things that made up my life. Before, if I met someone new I was always surrounded by family and neighbours. If I went to a new place I was with Frans or my mother or father and felt no threat. The new was woven in with the old, like the darning in a sock.
Frans told me not long after he began his apprenticeship that he had almost run away, not from the hard work, but because he could not face the strangeness day after day. What kept him there was knowing that our father had spent all his savings on the apprentice fee, and would have sent him right back if he had come home. Besides, he would find much more strangeness out in the world if he went elsewhere.
‘I will come and see you,’ I whispered to the butcher, ‘when I am alone.’ Then I hurried to catch up with Tanneke and Maertge.
They had stopped at a stall further along. The butcher there was a handsome man, with greying blond curls and bright blue eyes.
‘Pieter, this is Griet,’ Tanneke said. ‘She will be fetching the meat for us now. You’re to add it to our account as usual.’
I tried to keep my eyes on his face, but I could not help glancing down at his blood-splattered apron. Our butcher always wore a clean apron when he was selling, changing it whenever he got blood on it.
‘Ah.’ Pieter looked me over as if I were a plump chicken he was considering roasting. ‘What would you like today, Griet?’
I turned to Tanneke. ‘Four pounds of chops and a pound of tongue,’ she ordered.
Pieter smiled. ‘And what do you think of that, miss?’ he addressed Maertge. ‘Don’t I sell the best tongue in Delft?’
Maertge nodded and giggled as she gazed at the display of joints, chops, tongue, pigs’ feet, sausages.
‘You’ll find, Griet, that I have the best meat and the most honest scales in the hall,’ Pieter remarked as he weighed the tongue. ‘You’ll have no complaints about me.’
I stared at his apron and swallowed. Pieter put the chops and tongue into the pail I carried, winked at me and turned to serve the next customer.
We went next to the fish stalls, just beside the Meat Hall. Seagulls hovered above the stalls, waiting for the fishheads and innards the fishmongers threw into the canal. Tanneke introduced me to their fishmonger – also different from ours. I was to alternate each day between meat and fish.
When we left I did not want to go back to the house, to Catharina and the children on the bench. I wanted to walk home. I wanted to step into my mother’s kitchen and hand her the pailful of chops. We had not eaten meat in months.
Catharina was combing through Cornelia’s hair when we returned. They paid no attention to me. I helped Tanneke with dinner, turning the meat on the grill, fetching things for the table in the great hall, cutting the bread.
When the meal was ready the girls came in, Maertge joining Tanneke in the cooking kitchen while the others sat down in the great hall. I had just placed the tongue in the meat barrel in one of the storage rooms – Tanneke had left it out and the cat had almost got to it – when he appeared from outside, standing in the doorway at the end of the long hall, wearing his hat and cloak. I stood still and he paused, the light behind him so that I could not see his face. I did not know if he was looking down the hallway at me. After a moment he disappeared into the great hall.
Tanneke and Maertge served while I looked after the baby in the Crucifixion room. When Tanneke was done she joined me and we ate and drank what the family did – chops, parsnips, bread, and mugs of beer. Although Pieter’s meat was no better than our family butcher’s, it was a welcome taste after going so long without. The bread was rye rather than the cheaper brown bread we had been eating, and the beer was not so watery either.
I did not wait on the family at that dinner and so I did not see him. Occasionally I heard his voice, usually along with Maria Thins’. From their tones it was clear they got on well.
After dinner Tanneke and I cleared up, then mopped the floors of the kitchens and storage rooms. The walls of each kitchen were tiled in white, and the fireplace in blue and white Delft tiles painted with birds in one section, ships in another, and soldiers in another. I studied them carefully, but none had been painted by my father.
I spent most of the rest of the day ironing in the washing kitchen, occasionally stopping to build up the fire, fetch wood, or step into the courtyard to escape the heat. The girls played in and out of the house, sometimes coming in to watch me and poke at the fire, another time to tease Tanneke when they found her asleep next door in the cooking kitchen, Johannes crawling around her feet. They were a little uneasy with me – perhaps they thought I might slap them. Cornelia scowled at me and did not stay long in the room, but Maertge and Lisbeth took the clothes I had ironed and put them away for me in the cupboard in the great hall. Their mother was asleep there. ‘The last month before the baby comes she’ll stay in bed much of the day,’ Tanneke confided, ‘propped up with pillows all around her.’
Maria Thins had gone to her upstairs rooms after dinner. Once, though, I heard her in the hallway and when I looked up she was standing in the doorway, watching me. She said nothing, so I turned back to my ironing and pretended she wasn’t there. After a moment out of the corner of my eye I saw her nod and shuffle off.
