“I have. Surely you wouldn’t force me to abide by such a thoughtless whim?”
“No, I won’t, Francesca. Nobody shall remove you from my studio. You’ll be a member of the Guild before that happens.” Then, as she closed her eyes in her immense relief, he added, “Would you like to send word of your own decision to your father, explaining why you want to stay, by the messenger who brought his letter here?”
“Who came?”
Jan indicated the aperture high in the wall and saw shock register in her face. Ludolf was resting both hands on the rounded top of the balustrade, his expression dark. He was not angry with her, only exasperated that she had made everything much more difficult for him than it had needed to be. She had taken a few steps forward as she looked up at him, her head tilted back.
“What on earth are you doing up there?” she demanded fiercely.
“It will be a lengthy explanation,” he stated crisply. “I’ve voiced my reasons for being here once in this house already. I’d prefer to talk to you on your own elsewhere.”
Jan had looked from Francesca to Ludolf and back again. “How well do you know this man?”
“He’s my father’s patron,” she gave back impatiently. “Come down from up there, Ludolf. If you wish, you may walk back to Kromstraat with Clara and me. My working day is about at its end.” Then, as he disappeared from view, she turned to Jan. “Why did he have to be there? You wouldn’t have agreed to it without just cause.”
Briefly he told her all that had taken place.
When she emerged from the house there was no sign of Clara, but her sister was waiting with Ludolf. Aletta explained why she was there. “Vrouw Wolff has invited Heer van Deventer and me to her house for dinner this evening and afterward we are to attend a concert.”
“Are we?” Francesca spoke sharply. She had had enough of everybody exerting pressure on her from all sides. This latest whim of her father’s to switch her apprenticeship had exhausted her patience. “Well, Ludolf, let me hear your promised explanation for supporting Hendrick’s mad scheme to get me back to Amsterdam. I have heard from Master Vermeer that you pressed him most strongly and wrathfully for my release.” She set a swift pace for Kromstraat and he and Aletta fell quickly into step with her.
He answered her as sharply as she had spoken to him. “I had promised your father that I’d do everything in my power to see that his wishes were fulfilled. Why should I not? I told you long ago I held a patriarchal attitude toward Hendrick that included his family.”
“Maybe you also wanted me back in Amsterdam yourself!” she challenged hotly.
“I’ll not deny it. Don’t be so uppish with me, Francesca, because I’m in no mood for that. In the gallery I lost my temper with Vermeer. It was the last thing I intended to have happen, but he riled me, as I did him. It’s understandable that Hendrick should miss you and wish you apprenticed nearer home.”
She came to an abrupt halt. “I’m nobody’s chattel! When will you and my father realize that? I’ll not be moved about like a chess piece!”
He raised his hands placatingly. “Calm down! This is getting out of control. You want to stay in Delft and Master Vermeer has every lawful right to keep you. There’s the end of it. I’ve other places to visit after Delft and by the time I return to Amsterdam your father may well have forgotten all about his idea to switch you back there.”
Aletta thought that Ludolf had shown a keen insight into Hendrick’s character. “That’s most likely,” she agreed.
Francesca made a weary gesture. “I’m sure you’re right.”
Aletta put her arm about her sister’s shoulders and the three of them walked on together to Geetruyd’s house.
Over dinner, which was served on silver dishes kept for special occasions, conversation flowed normally. Aletta asked Ludolf if he had seen Sybylla before leaving Amsterdam.
“No. I’ve not been to your home since my return from Antwerp. Your father came to see me about calling in at Delft and seeing Master Vermeer on his behalf.” He had already told Geetruyd about this during the first course of oysters.
Aletta did not want that subject brought up again, for her sister had become silent and very straight-backed as she had been before. Quickly she looked toward Geetruyd, who sat at the head of the table in a flattering gown of deep lilac-blue silk. “Had you and Heer van Deventer ever met before today?”
Geetruyd took a sip from her glass. “Yes. Through a mutual acquaintance some years ago. Isn’t that so, Ludolf?”
“Indeed it is,” he replied blandly before turning to Aletta. “How do you like living in Delft?”
“I’ve settled down very well. The Vermeers have been extremely kind to me, but it’s high time I found somewhere else to work. I only went there on a temporary basis.”
Francesca smiled meaningfully across at her sister. “I’m so glad you could be spared from nursery chores to be with us this evening.”
“Catharina was very willing that I should come. The two older girls are so efficient at helping put the younger ones to bed that I’m hardly needed, although I can manage Beatrix much better than anyone else when she’s in a mischievous mood.” Aletta gave a fond little laugh on her thought of the child. “But I must find some other employment soon.”
If Francesca had not been in the house already, Geetruyd would have offered Aletta board and a room and employed her to help Weintje with the domestic chores, but even if Master Vermeer was not going to heed Hendrick Visser’s latest whim, she herself was going to obey his orders to the letter. To have a sister in the house might give Francesca cover for more freedom and that was not to be allowed.
Geetruyd noticed that Ludolf was talking to Francesca again. She did not wonder, for the young woman had a bloom on her these days that enhanced her remarkable looks and Ludolf had always been a womanizer. Not that he was making much impression, for Francesca gave him no special response and talked more to her and Aletta and Clara than to him. Yet there was something in the air between the two of them, a tension that was almost palpable. Geetruyd thought how easily men gave themselves away when they were strongly attracted to a woman. The frequent glances, the easy laughter and the deliberately casual air were so transparent to any other female watching them, particularly wives, and she herself had been more than a wife to Ludolf through all they had done together, which was why thinking of herself as his mistress grated on her. It would not be hard to believe that Ludolf had become bewitched by Francesca’s unusual beauty. By the time the evening was over Geetruyd was convinced she was right.
The concert had been most enjoyable. Francesca and Aletta sat side by side with Clara and Geetruyd in the seats between them and Ludolf. He stayed at the Mechelin for almost a week, seeing Geetruyd on her own by day, which gave him plenty of chance to list those agents whom she was to direct to certain areas, and also to slake through her the desire that just seeing Francesca roused in him. Each evening, after dinner at the house, he took Geetruyd and Francesca to other concerts and twice to plays. Aletta did not attend again, reluctant to ask Catharina for further time off at the busiest hours of the day. Francesca would have liked the same reason to have stayed at home, but her excuses were overridden each time, for Geetruyd was determined not to give Ludolf any loophole in which to leave on his own from wherever they were and return to the house, where Francesca would have been alone.
“You’re a fool,” Geetruyd said to him one day. “Francesca isn’t going to allow herself to be seduced by a man of your age.”
“My dear woman,” he had countered with laughter and mock astonishment, “how could you suspect me of such a purpose?”
He knew in his own mind that Geetruyd would be less amiable and less amorous if she suspected that he intended more than the seduction of Francesca. It occurred to him that he was leading two women, twenty-four years between their ages, gradually along a certain path. Geetruyd to an acceptance of his not taking her as a second wife and Francesca to a point where she would come
to accept him as her husband. He felt he had made some progress on both counts.
EVERYTHING SEEMED peaceful again to Francesca when she no longer had to see Ludolf every evening. Even without Neeltje’s warning she would have come to the conclusion that it had been more he than her father who had tried to engineer her return to Amsterdam. She had never expected to be pleased with Geetruyd’s chaperonage, but she had been grateful during his visit. The woman had never left them on their own.
Aletta did not move far when eventually she left the Vermeers’ employ, her new position being next door in the home of the van Buytens. Her task was to give first lessons to the two youngest children before they went to school in the spring. What would happen then she did not know, but in the meantime she had a comfortable little attic room. Although she was now two floors higher than the bedchamber where across the square Constantijn de Veere slept, she still looked toward his lighted window every night before she went to bed. It was said on all sides that he was well out of danger and would live, but as yet he had not left his room.
She thought she knew why. Just as she could not face going into a studio, unable as yet to adjust to a life without painting, so it was for him. His was a far greater void to enter than hers, for he was without the limbs with which he had once skimmed the ice like a bird.
Chapter 16
FROM HIS PILLOWS CONSTANTIJN LOOKED TOWARD THE BEDCHAMBER door as it opened and put aside the book he was reading. His father entered, a written note folded in his hand.
“Isabella is here,” Heer de Veere said. “She and her parents arrived about half an hour ago. Your mother and I have been engaged in serious talking with them.”
“So Isabella has come at last,” Constantijn commented wryly. She had written to him at quite regular intervals, encouraging him affectionately to be well again and sending him news of mutual friends. There had been very many excuses for her not coming to see him, which ranged from the dangers of traveling in severe weather to the imminent demise of her great-grandmother.
“She wants you to read what she has written first.” Heer de Veere held out the letter. When no move was made to take it from him he laid it on the quilt in front of Constantijn, who, with a single sweep of his hand, knocked it to the floor.
“Surely you should read it, my son.”
Constantijn looked at his father’s grave face framed within the gray periwig. “Why? I know what it says. She no longer wishes to be my wife.”
Sadly Heer de Veere sat down on a bedside chair and rested a hand on each velvet-covered knee. “Isabella can be held to the marriage contract. The law is with you there.”
“I’ll marry no woman against her will.”
“A sum double the original dowry has been mentioned voluntarily as compensation.”
“I don’t want a stiver of it. I set Isabella free. She is no longer bound in any way to me.”
“How long have you known that she had changed her mind?”
“When she did not come to see me as soon as was possible after the accident. I kept hoping that the loss of my legs would not change the relationship between us, but at the back of my mind I knew I was deceiving myself. The Great Blizzard gave Isabella an excellent excuse to avoid visiting me for a while longer and now when she has run out of reasons to stay away she has had to come. You must have guessed the truth of it, Father, even if Mother couldn’t accept that anyone might reject her son, whatever the circumstances.”
Heer de Veere sighed and passed the tips of his beringed fingers across his forehead. “We knew on St. Nicholaes’s Eve. Isabella’s father wrote that under no circumstances could he allow his daughter to marry you now. You were too ill to be told then and afterward we continued to hope that he would revoke his decision.”
Constantijn smiled cynically. “The poor old fellow was covering up for Isabella. It would have been her decision and that of her mother, but not his. He is a mild man, too kind for his own good with such a wife, and I’m sure he would have come to see me out of concern and goodwill if she and Isabella had not forbidden it. Yet he must have dug in his heels over Isabella giving me my ring back herself or else I doubt if she would have come at all.”
“I’m of the same opinion myself.”
Constantijn pushed aside the bedclothes. “I want you to help me into the chair, Father. I’ll not appear bedridden when Isabella is here. Find a shirt and all else I need. I’ll have the coat and breeches of crimson velvet.”
While his father took the clothes from drawers, Constantijn pulled his nightshirt over his head and then thrust it under the pillows out of sight. Normally his nurse fetched whatever he wanted before he sat in the chair, but now his father was at hand. He had become expert at dressing in bed and hauling on his own breeches. When he was ready he was given a lift across his father’s back and then lowered into the nearby solid chair with its broad arms and leather upholstery in which his mother had sat for so many hours. He removed the wide belt that normally strapped him to it, for several times he had forgotten his handicap after reading or dozing and had fallen when he had automatically thought to stand.
“Put the belt away somewhere,” he said to his father. He could not endure the thought of Isabella seeing him strapped in. A rug was tucked around him and that would be the only visible sign to his visitor that he was not exactly as he had been at their last meeting.
“Tell Isabella to come up on her own, Father.”
“I will.”
Heer de Veere wondered as he went downstairs to the next floor if Constantijn hoped to win Isabella back to him if they could talk alone. She would be his first visitor, although he had been well enough for some time to have received visitors many times over. It was as if he had been waiting for her before he could start mending his life again.
Constantijn became consumed with impatience as he waited. He had been confined to this bedchamber for a long time, first through physical weakness and then through his stubborn refusal to be carried downstairs, which he thought of as being carted about like an infant.
He had borne the time of convalescence stoically, but now, waiting while Isabella put one foot in front of the other on her reluctant way up the flight, it seemed to him that she was taking all eternity.
His father had left the door ajar and for a split second before Isabella saw him he glimpsed dread in her eyes as she looked toward the bed, expecting to see him there. Had she supposed he might have been without covers over his severed limbs? Then she saw him and relief flooded her fine face with its clear pallor and sloe eyes, her lips pink and moist as oysters ready for serving.
“How well you look, Constantijn! Thinner, but that suits you.”
He held out his hands to her, but she pretended not to see them, seating herself in a chair his father had put ready beforehand and plucking nervously at the deep lace collar of her azure gown. She was holding something small within her left hand and he guessed what it was.
“You’re not wearing the betrothal ring I gave you.” He was angered already that she had chosen not to come in with it on her finger, but was cupping it in her hand like a cheap fairing. If she was set on returning it to him she should have drawn it with dignity from her finger in a moment between them as private as when he had given it to her, no matter that the whole mood had been reversed.
“As I said in my letter—”
“I didn’t read it. I want to hear from your own lips why you no longer want to marry me.” He watched her mercilessly, determined not to spare her.
She flushed uncomfortably. “I discovered my feelings were not as strong as I had believed. People make mistakes about love sometimes.”
“Then it has nothing to do with my losing my legs?”
There was a start of guilt in her eyes before she shook her head too quickly. “Of course not!”
“Have you met someone else?”
“No.”
“Then there are no obstacles in our path after all. We’ve been apart too long, Isabella. That is a
ll there is to it.” His voice softened deliberately to the tender note that in the past had never failed to have an effect on her. If only she was nearer he could touch her, for he knew her intimately and how to arouse her to fiery desire under his caresses. “Remember the last time we made love when we escaped to the stairs during your parents’ dreary party!”
“For mercy’s sake keep your voice down!” She half rose from her chair in panic as she looked toward the door that she had left open. “Mother may be on her way up here! I’ve only been allowed a few minutes to be on my own with you!”
“Or that time in the rose garden?” he urged, not mocking now, for on a sudden renewal of hope he saw that he was getting through to her after all.
There was anguish in her eyes. “Those days are gone. I did love you, Constantijn. I suppose I still do.”
“Then give me my ring that you’re holding and let me put it back on your finger.”
She opened her hand and looked down at the ring lying in her palm, a large emerald set in pearls and winking with all the colors of the sea. “No,” she said, her voice thick with regret.
“Why not? Nothing has really changed.”
“But it has.” She raised her sloe eyes swimming with tears, but all unconsciously her lips twisted with aversion. “I could never marry half a man.”
For a brain-splitting second he thought how easy it would be to slip from the ultimate pitch of rage into murder. Beyond speech, he held out his hand for the ring. She left the chair to give it to him and was within his reach at last. He seized her by the wrist, which sent the ring flying, and brought her falling with such force against him that the chair rocked as if it might have tipped them both backward. Before she could get away he drove his fingers into her hair to hold her head as he kissed her violently. Lost in their passionate struggle, neither heard her mother enter the room with a shriek of outrage.
The woman flew forward and struck him about the head. It was when she wrenched her daughter free that he was jerked forward and toppled, unable to save himself. He fell face downward to the floor, landing with a heavy thud, his arms sprawled awkwardly. Isabella gave a piercing scream and would instinctively have knelt to him, only to hesitate when she realized the covering rug now lay tangled beneath him. As she saw him without his legs, which previously had given him such a fine height that she had had to stand on tiptoe for his kisses, she began to scream again hysterically. Her mother, who had a fierce hold on her arm, drove her forward out of the room. He heard the piercing sounds continue with increasing force as she was bundled down the stairs. Then for the first time since the accident, and for as long as he could remember, he wept where he lay.
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