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He had a guest upstairs – I heard two male voices as they climbed up. Later when I heard them coming down I peeked around the door to watch them go out. The man with him was plump and wore a long white feather in his hat.
When it got dark we lit candles, and Tanneke and I had bread and cheese and beer with the children in the Crucifixion room while the others ate tongue in the great hall. I was careful to sit with my back to the Crucifixion scene. I was so exhausted I could hardly think. At home I had worked just as hard but it was never so tiring as in a strange house where everything was new and I was always tense and serious. At home I had been able to laugh with my mother or Agnes or Frans. Here there was no one to laugh with.
I had not yet been down to the cellar where I was to sleep. I took a candle with me but was too tired to look around beyond finding a bed, pillow and blanket. Leaving the trap door of the cellar open so that cool, fresh air could reach me, I took off my shoes, cap, apron and dress, prayed briefly, and lay down. I was about to blow out the candle when I noticed the painting hanging at the foot of my bed. I sat up, wide awake now. It was another picture of Christ on the Cross, smaller than the one upstairs but even more disturbing. Christ had thrown his head back in pain, and Mary Magdalene’s eyes were rolling. I lay back gingerly, unable to take my eyes off it. I could not imagine sleeping in the room with the painting. I wanted to take it down but did not dare. Finally I blew out the candle – I could not afford to waste candles on my first day in the new house. I lay back again, my eyes fixed to the place where I knew the painting hung.
I slept badly that night, tired as I was. I woke often and looked for the painting. Though I could see nothing on the wall, every detail was fixed in my mind. Finally, when it was beginning to grow light, the painting appeared again and I was sure the Virgin Mary was looking down at me.
When I got up in the morning I tried not to look at the painting, instead studying the contents of the cellar in the dim light that fell through the window in the storage room above me. There was not much to see – several tapestry-covered chairs piled up, a few other broken chairs, a mirror, and two more paintings, both still lifes, leaning against the wall. Would anyone notice if I replaced the Crucifixion with a still life?
Cornelia would. And she would tell her mother.
I did not know what Catharina – or any of them – thought of my being Protestant. It was a curious feeling, having to be aware of it myself. I had never before been outnumbered.
I turned my back on the painting and climbed the ladder. Catharina’s keys were clinking at the front of the house and I went to find her. She moved slowly, as if she were half asleep, but she made an effort to draw herself up when she saw me. She led me up the stairs, climbing slowly, holding tightly to the rail to pull her bulk up.
At the studio she searched among the keys, then unlocked and pushed open the door. The room was dark, the shutters closed – I could make out only a little from the cracks of light streaming in between them. The room gave off a clean, sharp odour of linseed oil that reminded me of my father’s clothes when he had returned from the tile factory at night. It smelled like wood and fresh-cut hay mixed together.
Catharina remained on the threshold. I did not dare enter before her. After an awkward moment she ordered, ‘Open the shutters, then. Not the window on the left. Just the middle and far windows. And only the lower part of the middle window.’
I crossed the room, edging around an easel and chair to the middle window. I pulled open the lower window, then opened out the shutters. I did not look at the painting on the easel, not while Catharina was watching me from the doorway.
A table had been pushed up against the window on the right, with a chair set in the corner. The chair’s back and seat were of leather tooled with yellow flowers and leaves.
‘Don’t move anything over there,’ Catharina reminded me. ‘That is what he is painting.’
Even if I stood on my toes I was too small to reach the upper window and shutters. I would have to stand on the chair, but did not want to do so in front of her. She made me nervous, waiting in the doorway for me to make a mistake.
I considered what to do.
It was the baby who saved me – he began wailing downstairs. Catharina shifted from one hip to the other. As I hesitated she grew impatient and finally left to tend to Johannes.
I quickly climbed up and stood carefully on the wooden frame of the chair, pulled open the upper window, leaned out and pushed the shutters open. Peeking down at the street below, I spied Tanneke scrubbing the tiles in front of the house. She did not see me, but a cat padding across the wet tiles behind her paused and looked up.
I opened the lower window and shutters and got down from the chair. Something moved in front of me and I froze. The movement stopped. It was me, reflected in a mirror that hung on the wall between the two windows. I gazed at myself. Although I had an anxious, guilty expression, my face was also bathed in light, making my skin glow. I stared, surprised, then stepped away.
Now that I had a moment I surveyed the room. It was a large, square space, not as long as the great hall downstairs. With the windows open it was bright and airy, with whitewashed walls, and grey and white marble tiles on the floor, the darker tiles set in a pattern of square crosses. A row of Delft tiles painted with cupids lined the bottom of the walls to protect the whitewash from our mops. They were not my father’s.
Though it was a big room, it held little furniture. There was the easel and chair set in front of the middle window, and the table placed in front of the window in the right corner. Besides the chair I had stood on there was another by the table, of plain leather nailed on with brass studs, and two lion heads carved into the tops of the posts. Against the far wall, behind the chair and easel, was a small cupboard, its drawers closed, several brushes and a knife with a diamond-shaped blade arranged on top next to clean palettes. Beside the cupboard was a desk on which were papers and books and prints. Two more lion-head chairs had been set against the wall near the doorway.
It was an orderly room, empty of the clutter of everyday life. It felt different from the rest of the house, almost as if it were in another house altogether. When the door was closed it would be difficult to hear the shouts of the children, the jangle of Catharina’s keys, the sweeping of our brooms.
I took up my broom, bucket of water and dustcloth and began to clean. I started in the corner where the scene of the painting had been set up, where I knew I must not move a thing. I kneeled on the chair to dust the window I had struggled to open, and the yellow curtain that hung to one side of it in the corner, touching it lightly so that I would not disturb its folds. The panes of glass were dirty and needed scrubbing with warm water, but I was not sure if he wanted them clean. I would have to ask Catharina.
I dusted the chairs, polishing the brass studs and lion heads. The table had not been cleaned properly in some time. Someone had wiped around the objects placed there – a powderbrush, a pewter bowl, a letter, a black ceramic pot, blue cloth heaped to one side and hanging over the edge – but they had to be moved for the table really to be cleaned. As my mother had said, I would have to find a way to move things yet put them back exactly as if they had not been touched.
The letter lay close to the corner of the table. If I placed my thumb along one edge of the paper, my second finger along another, and anchored my hand with my smallest finger hooked to the table edge, I should be able to move the letter, dust there, and replace it where my hand indicated.
I laid my fingers against the edges and drew in my breath, then removed the letter, dusted, and replaced it all in one quick movement. I was not sure why I felt I had to do it quickly. I stood back from the table. The letter seemed to be in the right place, though only he would really know.
Still, if this was to be my test, I had best get it done.
From the letter I measured with my hand to the powderbrush, then placed my fingers at various points around one side of the brush. I removed it, dusted, replaced it, and measured the space between it and the letter. I did the same with the bowl.
This was how I cleaned without seeming to move anything. I measured each thing in relation to the objects around it and the space between them. The small things on the table were easy, the furniture harder – I used my feet, my knees, sometimes my shoulders and chin with the chairs.
I did not know what to do with the blue cloth heaped messily on the table. I would not be able to get the folds exact if I moved the cloth. For now I left it alone, hoping that for a day or two he would not notice until I had found a way to clean it.
With the rest of the room I could be less careful. I dusted and swept and mopped – the floor, the walls, the windows, the furniture – with the satisfaction of tackling a room in need of a good cleaning. In the far corner, opposite the table and window, a door led to a storeroom, filled with paintings and canvases, chairs, chests, dishes, bedpans, a coat rack and a row of books. I cleaned in there too, tidying the things away so that there was more order to the room.
All the while I had avoided cleaning around the easel. I did not know why, but I was nervous about seeing the painting that sat on it. At last, though, there was nothing left to do. I dusted the chair in front of the easel, then began to dust the easel itself, trying not to look at the painting.
When I glimpsed the yellow satin, however, I had to stop.
I was still staring at the painting when Maria Thins spoke.
‘Not a common sight, now, is it?’
I had not heard her come in. She stood inside the doorway, slightly stooped, wearing a fine black dress and lace collar.
I did not know what to say, and I couldn’t help it – I turned back to the painting.
Maria Thins laughed. ‘You’re not the only one to forget your manners in front of one of his paintings, girl.’ She came over to stand beside me. ‘Yes, he’s managed this one well. That’s van Ruijven’s wife.’ I recognised the name as the patron my father had mentioned. ‘She’s not beautiful but he makes her so,’ she added. ‘It will fetch a good price.’
Because it was the first painting of his I was to see, I always remembered it better than the others, even those I saw grow from the first layer of underpaint to the final highlights.
A woman stood in front of a table, turned towards a mirror on the wall so that she was in profile. She wore a mantle of rich yellow satin trimmed with white ermine, and a fashionable five-pointed red ribbon in her hair. A window lit her from the left, falling across her face and tracing the delicate curve of her forehead and nose. She was tying a string of pearls round her neck, holding the ribbons up, her hands suspended in the air. Entranced with herself in the mirror, she did not seem to be aware that anyone was looking at her. Behind her on a bright white wall was an old map, in the dark foreground the table with the letter on it, the powderbrush and the other things I had dusted around.
I wanted to wear the mantle and the pearls. I wanted to know the man who painted her like that.
I thought of me looking at my reflection in the mirror earlier and was ashamed.
Maria Thins seemed content to stand with me and contemplate the painting. It was odd to look at it with the setting just behind it. Already from my dusting I knew all of the objects on the table, and their relation to one another – the letter by the corner, the powderbrush lying casually next to the pewter bowl, the blue cloth bunched around the dark pot. Everything seemed to be exactly the same, except cleaner and purer. It made a mockery of my own cleaning.
Then I saw a difference. I drew in my breath.
‘What is it, girl?’
‘In the painting there are no lion heads on the chair next to the woman,’ I said.
‘No. There was once a lute sitting on that chair as well. He makes plenty of changes. He doesn’t paint just what he sees, but what will suit. Tell me, girl, do you think this painting is done?’
I stared at her. Her question must be a trick but I could not imagine any change that would make it better.
‘Isn’t it?’ I faltered.
Maria Thins snorted. ‘He’s been working on it for three months. I expect he’ll do so for two more months. He will change things. You’ll see.’ She looked around. ‘Done your cleaning, have you? Well, then, go on, girl – go to your other tasks. He’ll come soon to see how you’ve done.’
I looked at the painting one last time, but by studying it so hard I felt something slip away. It was like looking at a star in the night sky – if I looked at one directly I could barely see it, but if I looked from the corner of my eye it became much brighter.
I gathered my broom and bucket and cloth. When I left the room, Maria Thins was still standing in front of the painting.
I filled the pots from the canal and set them on the fire, then went to find Tanneke. She was in the room where the girls slept, helping Cornelia to dress while Maertge helped Aleydis and Lisbeth helped herself. Tanneke was not in good spirits, glancing at me only to ignore me as I tried to speak to her. Finally I stood directly in front of her so that she had to look at me. ‘Tanneke, I’ll go to the fish stalls now. What would you like today?’
‘Going so early? We always go later in the day.’ Tanneke still did not look at me. She was tying white ribbons into five-pointed stars in Cornelia’s hair.
‘I’m free while the water is heating and thought I would go now,’ I replied simply. I did not add that the best cuts were to be had early, even if the butcher or fishmonger promised to set aside things for the family. She should know that. ‘What would you like?’
‘Don’t fancy fish today. Go to the butcher’s for a mutton joint.’ Tanneke finished with the ribbons and Cornelia jumped up and pushed past me. Tanneke turned away and opened a chest to search for something. I watched her broad back for a moment, the greyish-brown dress pulled tight across it.
She was jealous of me. I had cleaned the studio, where she was not allowed, where no one, it seemed, could go except me and Maria Thins.
When Tanneke straightened, a bonnet in her hand, she said, ‘The master painted me once, you know. Painted me pouring milk. Everyone said it was his best painting.’
‘I’d like to see it,’ I responded. ‘Is it still here?’
‘Oh no, van Ruijven bought it.’
I thought for a moment. ‘So one of Delft’s wealthiest men takes pleasure in looking at you each day.’
Tanneke grinned, her pocked face growing even wider. The right words changed her mood in a moment. It was simply up to me to find the words.
I turned to go before her mood could sour. ‘May I come with you?’ Maertge asked.
‘And me?’ Lisbeth added.
‘Not today,’ I said firmly. ‘You have something to eat and help Tanneke.’ I did not want it to become habit for the girls to accompany me. I would use it as a reward for minding me.
I was also longing to walk in familiar streets on my own, not to have a constant reminder of my new life chattering at my side. As I stepped into Market Square, leaving Papists’ Corner behind, I breathed in deeply. I had not realised that I had been holding myself in tight all the time I was with the family.
Before going to Pieter’s stall I stopped at the butcher I knew, who beamed when he saw me. ‘At last you decide to say hello! What, yesterday you were too grand for the likes of me?’ he teased.
I started to explain my new situation but he interrupted me. ‘Of course I know. Everyone is talking – Jan the tiler’s daughter has gone to work for the painter Vermeer. And then I see after one day she is already too proud to speak to old friends!’
‘I have nothing to be so proud of, becoming a maid. My father is ashamed.’
‘Your father was simply unlucky. No one is blaming him. There is no need for you to be ashamed, my dear. Except of course that you are not buying your meat from me.’
‘I have no choice, I’m afraid. That’s for my mistress to decide.’
‘Oh, it is, is it? So your buying from Pieter has nothing to do with his handsome son?’
I frowned. ‘I have not seen his son.’
The butcher laughed. ‘You will, you will. Off you go. When you see your mother next tell her to come and see me. I will set aside something for her.’
I thanked him and passed along the stalls to Pieter’s. He seemed surprised to see me. ‘Here already, are you? Couldn’t wait to get here for more of that tongue?’
‘I’d like a joint of mutton today, please.’
‘Now tell me, Griet, was that not the best tongue you have had?’
I refused to give him the compliment he craved. ‘The master and mistress ate it. They did not remark on it.’
Behind Pieter a young man turned round – he had been cutting into a side of beef at a table behind the stall. He must have been the son, for though he was taller than his father, he had the same bright blue eyes. His blond hair was long and thick with curls, framing a face that made me think of apricots. Only his bloody apron was displeasing to the eye.
His eyes came to rest on me like a butterfly on a flower and I could not keep from blushing. I repeated my request for mutton, keeping my eyes on his father. Pieter rummaged through his meat and pulled out a joint for me, laying it on the counter. Two sets of eyes watched me.
The joint was grey at the edges. I sniffed the meat. ‘This is not fresh,’ I said bluntly. ‘Mistress will be none too pleased that you expect her family to eat meat such as this.’ My tone was haughtier than I had intended. Perhaps it needed to be.
Father and son stared at me. I held the gaze of the father, trying to ignore the son.
At last Pieter turned to his son. ‘Pieter, get me that joint set aside on the cart.’
‘But that’s meant for—’ Pieter the son stopped. He disappeared, returning with another joint, which I could immediately see was superior. I nodded. ‘That’s better.’
Pieter the son wrapped the joint and placed it in my pail. I thanked him. As I turned to go I caught the glance that passed between father and son. Even then I knew somehow what it meant, and what it would mean for me.
Catharina was sitting on the bench when I got back, feeding Johannes. I showed her the joint and she nodded. As I was about to go in she said in a low voice, ‘My husband has inspected the studio and found the cleaning suited him.’ She did not look at me.
‘Thank you, madam.’ I stepped inside, glanced at a still life of fruits and a lobster, and thought, So, I really am to stay.
The rest of the day passed much as the first had, and as the days to follow would. Once I had cleaned the studio and gone to the fish stalls or the Meat Hall I began again on the laundry, one day sorting, soaking and working on stains, another day scrubbing, rinsing, boiling and wringing before hanging things to dry and be bleached in the noon sun, another day ironing and mending and folding. At some point I always stopped to help Tanneke with the midday meal. Afterwards we cleaned up, and then I had a little time free to rest and sew on the bench out front, or back in the courtyard. After that I finished whatever I had been doing in the morning, then helped Tanneke with the late meal. The last thing we did was to mop the floors once more so that they would be fresh and clean for the morning.
At night I covered the Crucifixion hanging at the foot of my bed with the apron I had worn that day. I slept better then. The next day I added the apron to the day’s wash.
While Catharina was unlocking the studio door on the second morning I asked her if I should clean the windows.
‘Why not?’ she answered sharply. ‘You do not need to ask me such petty things.’
‘Because of the light, madam,’ I explained. ‘It might change the painting if I clean them. You see?’
She did not see. She would not or could not come into the room to look at the painting. It seemed she never entered the studio. When Tanneke was in the right mood I would have to ask her why. Catharina went downstairs to ask him and called up to me to leave the windows.
When I cleaned the studio I saw nothing to indicate that he had been there at all. Nothing had been moved, the palettes were clean, the painting itself appeared no different. But I could feel that he had been there.
I had seen very little of him the first two days I was in the house on the Oude Langendijck. I heard him sometimes, on the stairs, in the hallway, chuckling with his children, talking softly to Catharina. Hearing his voice made me feel as if I were walking along the edge of a canal and unsure of my steps. I did not know how he would treat me in his own house, whether or not he would pay attention to the vegetables I chopped in his kitchen.
No gentleman had ever taken such an interest in me before.
I came face to face with him on my third day in the house. Just before dinner I went to find a plate that Lisbeth had left outside and almost ran into him as he carried Aleydis in his arms down the hallway.
I stepped back. He and Aleydis regarded me with the same grey eyes. He neither smiled nor did not smile at me. It was hard to meet his eyes. I thought of the woman looking at herself in the painting upstairs, of wearing pearls and yellow satin. She would have no trouble meeting the gaze of a gentleman. When I managed to lift my eyes to his he was no longer looking at me.
The next day I saw the woman herself. On my way back from the butcher a man and woman walked ahead of me on the Oude Langendijck. At our door he turned to her and bowed, then walked on. There was a long white feather in his hat – he must have been the visitor from a few days earlier. From the brief glimpse I caught of his profile I saw that he had a moustache, and a plump face to match his body. He smiled as if he were about to pay a flattering but false compliment. The woman turned into the house before I could see her face but I did see the five-pointed red ribbon in her hair. I held back, waiting by the doorway until I heard her go up the stairs.
Later I was putting away some clothes in the cupboard in the great hall when she came back down. I stood up as she entered. She was carrying the yellow mantle in her arms. The ribbon was still in her hair.
‘Oh!’ she said. ‘Where is Catharina?’
