Light of Her Own

by Callaghan, Carrie

  “So are we to compete for the space?”

  She shook her head. “Neither of us can afford that.”

  “Indeed.”

  A silence fell between them. Nearby, a dog barked, and a boy cursed at it.

  “I suppose I’ll have to pray for some guidance then,” he said finally.

  “If you think you need it. Me, I’d like to rent this room.”

  He laughed. “And if I still do, as well?”

  “I think you’ll be a gentleman, and let the lady have her way.” She smiled.

  He sighed and shook his head. “I was hoping to convince you. It would have saved us both a good deal of money. But, fine. I have another possibility, to tell the truth. More light, but more money. Someone else asked me to share that one.”

  A flame of envy flickered in her chest. Should she consider sharing the other space, wherever it was? No. This light here, the soft blanket—this was destined for her. All alone, to arrange as she pleased and manage as she liked. She would make her finances work. She knew she could. As long as she started painting soon.

  “Thank you, Jan. It was a good idea. Now, if I may?” She gestured toward the shop’s closed door.

  He sighed again. “Go on.”

  She nodded and knocked on the linen-seller’s door. A grin tugged at the corner of her mouth while she waited, and behind her, Jan walked away. No matter the circumstances, she enjoyed talking to him. Even more when she got what she wanted. When Chrispijn opened the door, she forced a small frown onto her face.

  “I’d like to discuss terms,” she said.

  Chapter 8

  MARIA SPENT A DAY CONFINED to her room where she huddled, ashamed and trembling, her body wound into a ball on her bed. She only offered a few words of greeting when Judith returned that night. But at least the act of speaking, of pretending to be normal, helped brush away some of the terror. She fell asleep, and woke to hear Judith’s soft snoring in the dark. By dawn the next morning, Maria had molded her fear into something close to a story, a sequence of events she could follow, and by doing so, she tamed her terrors a little. The man came, he touched her, and he left. He was gone.

  She stood and glanced over at Judith, still sleeping. Once, shortly after Judith had arrived at the De Grebber house, the two young girls faced down a small cluster of stone-throwing boys. Maria could not remember why the boys had started pursuing them, although in the tale she and Judith later recited, it was because the boys had called Maria, then fifteen, some names. Judith, only thirteen, tossed a rock at them, which unleashed a volley in return. But Judith was undeterred, and Maria, girded by her young companion’s courage, joined her in throwing rocks back at the boys. They, in turn, were so shocked to see their female targets return fire they scuttled away. When Maria exhaled and looked at her friend, Judith was beaming and reaching for her hand. For weeks, they retold the story of their joint bravery. Maria let Judith shape the tale, for she understood this recitation would form part of the bedrock of their friendship, and she never corrected Judith when the girl boasted about how bold Maria had been in repulsing the boys.

  It was years now since they had reminisced about that early adventure. Maria wondered what Judith would make of yester-day’s assault. She couldn’t tell her, though. She couldn’t tell anyone, especially not Samuel or her father. That she had experienced something so shameful made her want to dissolve into the muck of the street.

  Now Maria needed these scarce, quiet minutes. She had little time before Shrovetide and Samuel’s arrival, a week and a half away, and she knew she needed this painting to fortify herself before the debaucheries of the pre-Lenten excess. She silently picked up her package of azurite from her chest of clothes and tiptoed down to the workshop. There she ground the pigment, working her wrist and fingers until they ached, and blended it with linseed oil to make a paste. The work let her forget anything except the force in her hands.

  The blue paint glowed like a piece of the Virgin’s sacred gown snipped and placed upon her palette. She had done well in making a small amount, only what she would need to add a touch of luminescence to the space between the flame and the woman’s head. Nothing a casual observer would ever identify as blue, but enough to hint the sapphire hope existed.

  With her eyes squinting and her hand still and slow, Maria applied the tone. To her right, she heard a yawn. Judith had entered the workshop, but she said nothing to Maria. Careful to demonstrate she was not peeping, Judith walked in front of Maria’s panel over to her small workspace, on Maria’s left, where she tapped her small palette against the easel, as though considering what project to turn to.

  “I didn’t have a chance to tell you the other night,” Maria said. “Your brother came by again. Two days ago, the day before I . . . got sick. He was looking for you.”

  “He was?” Judith pulled a dirty smock over her black, wool dress. It was chilly in the workshop, but neither woman bothered to light a fire; they were too anxious to seize the dim scrapings of light coming down from the high windows. Then Judith paused and smacked the heel of her hand against the easel. The panel rattled.

  “What is it?” Maria took a step back from her painting.

  “He was probably looking to pick up the money I promised him. Oh, Lord in Heaven.” She rubbed her fists into her eyes. “I forgot about that. I need that money, though, now that I’ve signed a lease, and I have to pay a sitter’s fee . . . I’m sure he was exaggerating about his landlord. Don’t you think?”

  “Wait, you’ve signed a lease agreement? You didn’t tell me. And you’re hiring a model?”

  Judith quickly pressed her lips together and regarded Maria. Her brown eyes turned flat. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  Maria tapped the wooden handle of her brush gently against her wrist, careful not to spatter any paint. “Please, tell me.”

  Judith exhaled. “I’ve earned a commission. It’s an unconventional arrangement, but I’ll be needing a model, a particular model, and I’ll have to pay him. But since I’ve signed a rental agreement for the workshop and given my savings over in deposit, I can’t spare the guilders.” She shook her head.

  “A commission, congratulations! Have you told my father?”

  Judith’s eyes flashed. “No. I can’t tell him, Maria. It’s bad enough I already . . .”

  “You already what?” Maria’s stomach sank.

  Judith lifted her chin. “Already sold one painting to this man. One that I painted here. I can’t mention this other piece to your father. Though,” she hurried to add, “I’ll be buying new supplies for my workshop, so this commission won’t cost him anything. I can’t share the profit with him.”

  “You sold a painting? One you did here? But Judith, that’s stealing.” A dark sensation washed over her, as if a cloud of bats had swooped over her head. Judith wouldn’t steal, not from Maria’s father.

  “No, I’m entitled to sell my own labor.”

  “That’s not what I’m talking about.” Maria glanced at her own painting, at the ridge of blue that rose up over the black. “I mean the materials, the pigments. Even the brushes.”

  Judith picked up a long brush and started running the bristles over her lips, a habit that irritated Frans de Grebber.

  “I didn’t steal. Don’t you see? I used materials given to me in the course of my responsibilities as an apprentice painter in this workshop. And I spent my pitiful savings on the rare colors and the wooden support. That work was mine, Maria. I had to sell it. I need the money for my workshop. And I’m still paying to live here. I’m being fair, Maria. But I need this commission. I don’t want to hurt your father. But how else can I be independent?”

  Maria scrutinized her painting and could not bring herself to look at her friend’s face. Judith’s ambition astonished her, though she had been hearing of it for years. No woman had her own workshop. No woman was a full member of the Guild. Maria nodded and returned to her painting, but her concentration had
evaporated. After a few minutes, she covered the panel and left.

  Chapter 9

  JUDITH UNPINNED THE PAIR OF linen sleeves from the wind-chilled line in the rear courtyard and tossed them into the small basket, where the sleeves crossed over the pile of clothes like defiant arms. Appropriate enough. Earlier that afternoon she had told Frans de Grebber that she would have her own painting space soon, and would apply for master status whenever she could find the coins. She didn’t mention the commission, though looking at his vein-crossed hands, she promised herself again she would pay for all the supplies herself. “Do you think you’re ready?” he had said, his brush paused for a moment. Judith wanted to pinch her lips in irritation, but she kept her face still. The last two senior journeymen in his workshop had left at age twenty-two, off to set up their workshops in Amsterdam, and now Judith was well past twenty-three. “I hope so,” was all she said.

  Judith hefted the basket up and waddled into the house and up the two flights of stairs to her loft. And as she began to fold her meager set of clothes into her trunk, the furrow between her brows eased. No matter Frans de Grebber’s concerns, there was an order to this world. Clean clothes belonged in a box, folded neatly. Painters, once their skills were sufficient, needed to work on their own.

  Downstairs, someone knocked at the door. Judith stood, but crouched back down. She didn’t need to answer every door, and the household would have to get used to her absence.

  After a long silence, the knock sounded again, and finally she heard a pair of male voices. Judith pressed her hand to a brown linen bodice, her favorite one for painting in, and placed it on the top of the pile. Easily accessible. She closed the wooden lid just as footsteps clomped on the stairs outside her door.

  “Judith, you in there?”

  She raised her eyebrows in surprise. Abraham rarely visited her at the De Grebber house. She suspected he felt out of place, though she never asked, since she didn’t want to embarrass him. She opened the door.

  “Come in,” she said. Elsewhere in the house a few voices joined in bawdy song. The boys must have started their evening early today.

  Abraham came inside and ran his hand over his damp hair. He seemed too large for the space she shared with Maria, though Judith had never thought of her skinny younger brother as a big man. Perhaps he had grown.

  “Very tidy,” he said. Then he blushed, as if there were something indecent about commenting on a woman’s room.

  “We aren’t here much,” Judith said. “I wasn’t expecting you. Should we go pour a little ale?”

  He shook his head. “I’d rather talk up here, if you don’t mind.”

  She sat on the flat top of the trunk, with her legs tucked under to stay warm, and pointed at Maria’s. He hesitated, then sat. There was a small table to his left, which held their family

  Bible and a fist-sized box.

  “What’s in there?” he asked.

  “You can look.” She wondered if he had come to ask for more money. A few days earlier she had given him what coins she could, and as it was, she had to borrow from Maria to make her first rental payment. She had nothing left over to buy an easel, so would have to convince the linen-seller to lend her a table.

  He opened the box and lifted out a small metal sphere hung on a chain. The jewelry was the size of a plum and made of curving openwork, like birds’ wings punched into the silver.

  “Maria gave me that pomander,” she said. “Are the cloves still fresh? I put some in last month.”

  He held the orb to his nose and inhaled. He nodded, but seemed distracted.

  “What is it, Abraham?” She probably didn’t want to know, but she understood he needed her to ask.

  “I’m not at the dock anymore. Hans had me unloading with Paulje, and we dropped a crate. Cinnamon.”

  “That doesn’t sound horrible, dropping cinnamon,” she said. She twisted a bit of her skirt in her finger, and the faded red threads strained, revealing darker ones below.

  He shook his head. “Hans said it wasn’t the crate, but that I was the youngest one at the dock, had been there the least time. So if someone had to go . . .”

  She sighed. She couldn’t tell if bad luck followed him from job to job, like one of the gulls that trailed the fishing ships pulling into the dock, or if he had earned his misfortune. She knew what the preacher would say.

  “And then I ran into Bartol. You remember him? It’s been years since I’ve seen him, and he didn’t say much, just asked after me. But it had me thinking.”

  “Abraham, you can’t be thinking about that. Bartol is only going to get his neck stretched one of these days, you know it. You promised me you wouldn’t get involved with him again.”

  He nodded, his eyes on the floor. “I wanted to hear you say it.”

  “I’ll say it any time you want,” she said and smiled. “Come on. A bit of ale?”

  He exhaled loudly and then stood. “No, I shouldn’t. Thanks though, Judith. I’ll let myself out.” He stepped through the door and then turned back to face her.

  “Have you ever painted a tulip, Judith?”

  She laughed in surprise. “No, it’s not what we do here. More like scenes, merrymaking and such. Others do flowers.”

  “But you’d be good at it, wouldn’t you?”

  “That’s kind of you, Abraham. But I don’t know. I suppose if I had a tulip to look at, it couldn’t be that different from painting a tankard or a lute. A bit lovelier. Though ten times as expensive, Abraham, so I don’t expect to have the chance to practice soon.”

  He nodded. “Maybe someday. You can paint anything, Judith. I know you can.”

  She walked over and kissed his cheek. “Thank you, brother.”

  He whispered something that she couldn’t make out, and he walked down the steps before she could ask him to repeat it. She closed the door behind him. After listening to his footsteps disappear into the house, she opened her trunk and thought about refolding the last blouse, but closed the lid again. Then she glanced over to her small table. The pomander’s box was still open, so she went to close it. But when she looked inside, the silver ball was gone. And then she figured out what it was he had whispered.

  “I’m sorry.”

  Chapter 10

  JUDITH RAN DOWN THE STAIRS from her room and out into the street without pausing to grab a cloak. But an icy rain cut down from the sky, and the street was filled with muck. She ran only the length of two houses calling Abraham’s name before she gave up, damp and shivering. It was nearly dark, and she would be mad to run after him now.

  She slammed the door to Frans de Grebber’s house and stood in the entry hall shaking. Why would he take her pomander? It wasn’t very valuable. The orb was small, and its openwork was so broad that there was hardly any silver gilding to it, and the chain it had hung from was clumsily made and short. Barely the length to tie to her belt, if she had been the sort to perfume herself. Maria had bought it for her when they were first becoming friends. Maria had saved her coins for months to buy the pomander, and for a girl of fifteen, it was an expensive luxury. Now, though, it would earn Abraham a couple of stuivers at most. She couldn’t understand why he would steal it.

  Tomorrow she would find him. If she had time in the evening, she realized. Tomorrow, her work began.

  THE NEXT DAY, Judith opened the workshop door and invited the red-nosed man inside. Her workshop and her first model. She tried not to grin like some foolish milkmaid, but it was difficult. Gerard Snellings reached up to finger the white clay pipe tucked into his hatband. Then he stomped his boots, sprinkling Judith’s bare, wheat-colored floor with raindrops and mud.

  “Miserable as a fisherman’s breeches out there,” he said and shook his arms to spray the water from his linen sleeves. She suspected he might take his outer sleeves off, and wondered if she should invite him to do so. After a moment’s thought, she handed him a clean rag to use to dry his face. When he finished, she held the dam
p cloth and looked around her empty space, wondering where she could put it. The room had only two tables and two stools, one each for her and the model. She had propped her wooden painting surface against two heavy jars and a broken piece of loom, all borrowed from the linen-seller. Her few surfaces were covered with painting materials or props, with no room for a dirty rag. When Gerard wasn’t looking, she dropped the rag on the floor and kicked it under her table.

  “I’ve only got a few hours,” he said as he glanced around. “Sorry about that. But the rhetoricians are meeting tonight, and I’ve got to be there.” He cleared his throat, as though he was going to say more, but instead folded his hands in front of his burgundy doublet and fell silent.

  Judith frowned at the mention of the rhetoricians. It was a club for men, the elite painters like Frans Hals and Salomon de Bray. They met at the tavern De Pellicaen, where they claimed to pursue rarified heights of speech and art, but, in truth, they spent the evenings chasing the bottoms of their tankards. Or so people said. As a woman, she was forbidden from entering. A drunkard like Gerard, though, was not only welcomed but sought out for the entertainment he provided. Such uninhibited drinkers served as a polished measuring stick for respectable debauchery. Judith busied herself gathering her brushes for a moment. The crockery shard from Lachine rested next to the pewter plate holding her brushes, and she straightened it so the shadows turned the sharp edge dull.

  “I’d like you to sit there, at that table. No, on the side closest to the window. Yes, thank you. Would you like some water?” She had filled a pitcher earlier in the day and gestured to it, a lovely cornflower-blue and white piece.

  “Who was it you said requested my portrait? Or character, or however you call it.” He flashed a jolly smile that Judith supposed was intended to represent Peecklhaering.

  She hesitated a moment. He might balk if he knew, but she couldn’t bring herself to lie.

  “He called himself Lachine.”

  Gerard shrugged. “Don’t know him. There must be plenty of people out there who want to be reminded of me. How I act, I mean. You want me to hold this tankard? Like this?”