The Golden Tulip

by Rosalind Laker

  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 wit
h 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.

  “There’s Master Vermeer’s house!” Clara pointed to a corner house on the north side of the square close to the church. “The narrow alleyway running alongside, leading out of the square, opens into the little street of Voldersgracht, where he was born. He can look out of his back windows into it.”

  “It’s a large house,” Francesca remarked as they approached it across the square. “At least double the frontage of its neighbor.”

  “That’s because half of it is the tavern, known as the Mechelin, and the residential half on the corner side is usually referred to as Mechelin Huis. Master Vermeer’s late father, Reynier, was a silk worker and dealt in art as a sideline. The family went through hard times, but eventually Reynier prospered and he bought the Mechelin and turned it into a thriving tavern. Probably whoever built the house originally had lived in the town of Mechelin, or why else should that place name be in the pediment?”

  It was clear that the little woman enjoyed passing on all this information. Her face was animated with bright spots of color in her cheeks as if she were blushing at this position of importance her role as guide was giving her.

  “Do you remember Reynier Vermeer?” Francesca wanted to know.

  “Indeed I do!” Clara’s hands flapped at the memory. “Such a boisterous man! He would use his fists to deal with troublemakers in his taproom and then toss them out into the square. His son had to help him at times.”

  The house and the tavern each had its own entrance. By the lack of symmetry it was apparent that the latter had been inserted when the property was first turned to a commercial purpose. The door was painted green like the shutters and stood open, a buzz of voices from within showing that business was already in progress. The residential half had a very fine old door of dark oak, its bronze knocker gleaming. The white stoop was damp from its morning scrub, as was the individual pavement of gray tiles that fronted the property, those of the tavern no less clean.

  “I was told before I came that Master Vermeer rents out the tavern,” Francesca said after Clara had knocked and they stood waiting.

  “That is correct. He gave up everything to do with it after his father died, which was shortly before his marriage.”

  The maidservant who admitted them was an amiable-looking young woman, her hair hidden under a white kerchief knotted at the back, while her blue apron showed that she had been engaged in the usual morning routine of washing every floor throughout the house.

  “The master is not in at the moment, Juffrouw Huys,” she said to Clara while her bright eyes took in Francesca from head to foot with a surreptitious side glance. “He has gone to send a picture by canalboat to Leiden, but my mistress wishes me to take Juffrouw Visser straight to her.”

  “Very well, Elizabeth.” Clara turned to Francesca. “I’ll leave you now, but I’ll be back at six when your day here ends.”

  The door was shut after her. Elizabeth bobbed as she said, “This way, if you please, mejuffrouw.”

  The house seemed so light and bright after the one in which Francesca had awakened that morning that she almost blinked. It was well furnished in the sparse Dutch style that set off each piece to advantage with pastel walls hung with maps and paintings, checkered marble floors and bronze chandeliers suspended from white plastered ceilings with black crossbeams. There were the usual steps between different levels on the ground floor and a maze of corridors through which Elizabeth led her before stopping to tap on a door. A woman’s voice replied from within.

  “Enter!”

  Elizabeth opened the door for Francesca, who went into the room
alone. Catharina Vermeer sat serenely suckling her baby, at whom she was gazing. With her blue bodice unlaced to reveal the whiteness of her chemise and the pale curve of her naked breast, she could have been posing for a painting of the Madonna and Child. An aura of light from the window shone about her neatly dressed head, giving a sheen to her light brown hair and touching the down on the infant’s head. Slowly she looked up and for a moment the illusion held, for her expression was one of sweet contentment. Then, like an awakening sleeper, she emerged from the euphoria of single-minded motherhood and became alert again to her other duties as mistress of the house, her face animated and smiling.

  “You’re here! I hadn’t heard you arrive. I’m Catharina. There’s no need for any formality between us. Come and sit down. Have you breakfasted? You can’t paint on an empty stomach and I can send to the kitchen—Oh, you have eaten. I’ve heard Vrouw Wolff keeps a good table. Jan won’t be long. Oh yes, I call him Jan, although he is Johannes to most of those who have known him longer than I. That’s eighteen years and we’ve been married for seventeen of them. Our elder son is named Johannes too.”

  Francesca had warmed to her immediately, for she exuded an open friendliness that was entirely without guile. She had a round face with a creamy complexion, very sparkling brown eyes under arched brows, a pretty nose with a slight tilt and when her smile was wide it curved her mouth like a crescent moon lying horizontally. In all it was a well-formed, expressive face that any artist would want to paint, and Francesca thought it not surprising Willem had said that Catharina was her husband’s favorite model.