The Golden Tulip (55 page)

“That was another life and I’ve put it behind me.”

“Nothing can destroy talent when it’s only lying dormant. The day will come when you’ll not be able to hold back from painting once more. Whatever your father said about your work it was voiced in anger in the heat of the moment and not heartfelt.”

“Has he said that to you?” she asked distantly.

“No,” Willem admitted, “but you could prove yourself again.”

“I think not. He condemned my meager talent all too vehemently.” She was full of pain at these reminders of a time in her life she wanted to forget.

“It grieves me to know of this gulf between father and daughter.”

“Why? Is he ailing?”

“No, he is well and so is Sybylla. As for Maria, she looked just the same as usual when I saw her at your home only a few days ago. How shall I report back to them about you?”

“My father won’t want to hear my name mentioned, but tell Sybylla and Maria that I’m in good health and have secured new employment.” She explained what she was doing and he noticed a rise of enthusiasm in her tone.

“Francesca told me she intends to take a long-delayed visit home soon. Will you be accompanying her?”

“No.” She was adamant. “It will be a long time—if ever—before I see Amsterdam again.”

“Then I’ll hope to see you whenever I’m in Delft. In the meantime I wish you good fortune. Just remember one thing—once an artist, always an artist. I’ve dealt with enough painters to know that.”

The old adage he had quoted lingered with her after they had said farewell, he to visit another gallery in Delft and she to go with Josephus into the master baker’s house. But, she thought, there were exceptions to every rule.

When Aletta returned to her new place of employment she found that Sara had made ready a bedchamber and an adjacent parlor for her that had previously been occupied by the housekeeper. They were the two most comfortable rooms in the domestic quarters of the house, and her status had been established. On a table was a large bunch of keys on a ring.

“These are yours now,” Sara said, gladly resigning all authority to her. “Josephus and I will call you ‘ma’am’ in future, as befits your position.”

Thoughtfully Aletta picked up the keys. “I’m going to make changes.”

“Whatever you say.”

“There will be no more meals served to the master on trays. He’s not an invalid. His lolling on that day couch will have to stop. From now on he can eat buckled into an armless chair with the table in his room drawn close to his chest. There will be a clean damask cloth and napkin every time as well as the best silver and porcelain. Josephus can carry a tray with the heavy silver dishes of hot food under covers to that long side table in the anteroom and I will serve the master from there.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Sara was smiling. This issuing of orders was like old times.

“Before I unpack I want to make a tour of the whole house and the cellars.”

“Only the wine cellar is open. The rest, taking up about two-thirds of the space under the house, have been locked up for many years.”

As Aletta began her tour with Sara she thought how her family would have recognized her commanding tone. It would have prompted Sybylla to taunt again that she was destined to be a sharp-tongued spinster for the rest of her life. Going from room to room, Aletta found the dust sheets and shuttered windows depressing. “How long have these rooms been like this?”

“Since after the house was opened up for the last party held here about three years ago. Previously the master always preferred living in Delft or in Amsterdam. That’s why only a skeleton staff was kept on here.”

“It will take us time, Sara, but gradually we’ll work our way through all the rooms and make each clean and polished and habitable as we go. The master is never going to be tempted out of his own pleasant apartment if the rest of the house remains in shrouds.”

“He ordered that they should be kept closed.”

Aletta made no reply, only setting her chin more determinedly, and Sara saw at a glance there was to be a tussle of wills between the new housekeeper and the master.

When viewing the wine cellar Aletta spared Sara any more stairs and went down alone. It was a large and square space with racks in a number of alcoves, two locked doors leading into the closed sections under the house. She tried the largest keys on the ring, but none opened the locks. As with most cellars, including that of her own home, sound was cut off from the rest of the house and she did not hear Sara call to her until the woman shouted from the top of the stairs.

“The oldest French brandies are in the far alcove. The master likes them when he asks for brandy.”

“I thank you for telling me. Where are the keys to these cellar doors?”

“I don’t know. They’ve never been opened in my time. You don’t want to clean in there too, do you?”

Sara sounded so incredulous that Aletta laughed. “No! But the flagged floor here must be washed regularly, even though the bottles must remain undisturbed in their dust and cobwebs.”

“Some of those wines were put down years and years ago.”

Aletta noted carefully where all the rarer wines were stored. Lastly she took a bottle of the old French brandy back to the kitchen with her. A glass of it would make a fitting end to the dinner Constantijn should have in style that evening.

T
HE NEXT
S
UNDAY
afternoon, when Francesca expressed a wish to see Aletta, Geetruyd was more than ready to escort her.

“It will be a most pleasant walk, Francesca. Naturally you want to tell your sister that you are going home for a week.” Geetruyd particularly wanted to see inside the de Veere country house and this seemed a splendid opportunity, although she suspected they would not be shown into the main part of the house. She had also heard of the manservant and the two ferocious dogs that kept guard. What she had not anticipated was that after Aletta had been fetched by the watchman to the gates they were not even admitted inside the grounds. Aletta came outside the gates to talk to them.

“I regret I can’t invite you in, but nobody except Sara, Josephus and myself is allowed in any part of the house. Even the gardeners are not permitted to enter the kitchen.”

“Is it true that most of the rooms are shut up?” Geetruyd inquired inquisitively, her gaze roaming over the front of the house.

“Yes, they are, but I’m keeping them fresh and clean.” Aletta took her sister’s hand. “It was good of you to walk all the way out here to see me.”

Before Francesca could reply, Geetruyd spoke again. “Where are the rooms that Constantijn de Veere uses?”

Aletta’s expression hardened. “I don’t think he would care to be discussed at his own gates.”

Geetruyd’s eyes glittered with annoyance. “It certainly shows a lack of courtesy that he doesn’t allow his maidservant’s own sister and her chaperone to be received with some refreshment.” Then she added on a vicious note, “Is he a slave driver? I’ve never seen you look more tired. It’s a pity you didn’t consult me before you accepted employment here.”

“I haven’t been sleeping well,” Aletta replied truthfully. There was conflict with Constantijn every day, and at night she could not dismiss it from her mind.

“Dear me!” Geetruyd shrugged indifferently, and began to wander along the railings, peering through as if she might glean something of interest for herself. Both sisters were glad to have her out of earshot. Francesca put an arm around Aletta’s shoulders.

“Are you sure you want to stay here?”

“I do!” Aletta affirmed vehemently. “Don’t worry about me. It’s good to see you.”

“I came to tell you that at last I’m taking a trip home. It’s not just because I’ve received the date of Griet’s marriage, but there’s something else. Sybylla has written to tell us that she has finally met the man of her choice and is to become betrothed.” Francesca took the letter from her purse. “Read what she says for yourself.”

Aletta read it, sighed and returned it to her sister. “All she can say is how rich he is and how handsome and what a fine coach he has and the rest of such nonsense. As if any of that mattered! She never once says that she loves him.”

“I noticed that too.”

“So you’re going home to see our future brother-in-law for yourself.”

“I want to be sure that she’s not making a mistake.”

“Knowing Sybylla when her mind is made up, you wouldn’t be able to do anything even if she were set on marrying Ludolf van Deventer.”

“Heaven forbid!”

Francesca looked so aghast that Aletta laughed. “At least this Adriaen van Jansz must be better than he.”

Francesca smiled agreement. “Sybylla wants both you and me to be at her betrothal party.”

“I read that. Our sister is still a child. She is just as Father used to be before he developed that unforgiving streak. Sybylla always thinks that trouble can be easily forgotten if one pretends it never happened in the first place, no matter that a serious aftermath still remains. She doesn’t give the slightest indication that Father has softened toward me in any way and it wouldn’t have made the slightest difference if she had. It’s my guess that this young man of hers has a united family and she wants to present us as being the same, no matter how Father and I feel toward each other.”

“We were close once.”

“That ended with Mama’s death. Nothing was ever the same again. You’ll have to go home on your own. When shall you leave?”

“Next week.”

They had a few more minutes together before Geetruyd returned to them, impatient to be on the way home again. Aletta went back inside the gates, waved and then walked slowly back to the house. It was no wonder that she looked tired. She had become Constantijn’s antidote to boredom and had to bear, through his goadings and taunts, all his pent-up frustrations. He never smiled unless cynically, never laughed unless savagely, and was at his worst during periods of deepest melancholia. Curiously he never protested again about her limiting his drinking and would sometimes not take or finish a second glass of wine, but he took his revenge by getting wildly drunk periodically from a source that she could not trace. The key to the cellar was in her possession, and since both Sara and Josephus had declared on oath that he did not get his supplies from them, she could only conclude that he had a stock hidden away behind a secret panel in his apartment, for he never went out of it. He gained immense enjoyment from seeing her search for it as she tapped the paneling and tried in vain to shift sections of skirting or carving.

“Why not take up the floorboards?” he would gibe. “Or look on top of the bed canopy?”

On one occasion, having found him insensible with empty Holland gin and grape brandy bottles beside the couch, she had fetched a short ladder and climbed up to look into the well of the carved canopy, to find nothing there. She knew he was considerably active, for although she had never seen him move from one place to another, he did much for himself and had a rope tied to his bed by which he was able to haul himself into it. What he would not do was to go outside, although he would have a chair on the balcony on fine days.

When she entered the kitchen his bell was jangling, as it did countless times a day. She wondered what he would want now as she went up the stairs. He took malicious pleasure in calling her upstairs to tell her to fetch him a book from the library downstairs or some such errand and then, when she had brought whatever he had requested, he would send her back again to get a second book, or a duplicated item. She had replaced Josephus as his partner at chess and cards, because she was able to beat him sometimes, and it was all part of the constant battle between them. Her victory would come on the day when she saw him take up the threads of a reasonable life again, going about, entertaining and receiving friends. Perhaps then her own shattered life might take on some meaning again. Opening the door, she went in to him.

G
EETRUYD AND
C
LARA
, as well as the Vermeer children, came to see Francesca leave on the stage wagon for Amsterdam. She waved until she could see them no more. Then she settled for the journey. She was going home! To see family and friends! To Pieter and to liberty! She felt intoxicated with excitement.

Jan had allowed her to take home her latest painting to show her father, which was a kindly concession on his part, for he could have sold it the day after it was finished. All her work found ready buyers and her flower painting, which she had completed with the first of Vrouw Thin’s tulips, had fetched quite a good price. She was glad about that, for she knew that Jan, with so many children to support, was more often in debt than out of it. He had finally finished and sold his exquisite painting of Catharina seated with pen and paper at a table, a brooch sparkling on her greenish-yellow bodice, her favorite pearl earbobs in her lobes and a pretty lace-trimmed cap covering her hair.
Lady Writing a Letter with Her Maid
had been the clear choice for the title, for Elizabeth stood behind her with arms folded, obviously waiting to deliver the letter when it was finished. Currently he was halfway through a painting of a local woman standing at the virginal in the drawing room, her hands on the keys.

“I’m going to change the picture on the drawing-room wall for this work,” Jan had said to Francesca beforehand. She knew how careful he was always to have the right background, for every detail added up to the whole message of the finished painting.

She had helped him lift down a large painting by Theodor van Baburen, entitled
The Procuress,
which would not have been at all suitable. Together they had replaced it with another from the opposite wall, which had appeared in two or three of his earlier paintings. It showed Cupid holding up a card, signifying that love should be confined to one person. Since the local woman was known to be happily and faithfully married, it was an appropriate picture to be shown hanging on the wall behind her in Jan’s painting.

He had already planned a companion painting—not that they would be sold as a pair. Since one portrayed pure love, he thought it would be interesting to paint profane love in the same subtle fashion.