Wings over Delft (10 page)

The atmosphere in the studio was sometimes actually hostile. Her tap at the door would be met by a growl; Pieter was keeping his distance from them both. Louise too walked as if on eggs. What was wrong? When she glanced through the open sketchbook that lay beside the canvas, the crowded sketches tumbled over each other like
sparkling
wavelets rushing to the shore, but the face that stared from the canvas was as lifeless as a leaden sea. She wanted to ask Pieter, but he was aloof these days and tended to
disappear
into the far reaches of the studio, where she could hear him breaking things.

One hot, sultry morning, the storm broke.

‘You’re late!’ Louise was taken aback. The Master had not asked her to be there at any particular time. In fact she’d been late on purpose; she was getting tired of both of these men and their moods. The canvas was on the easel today and the Master was pacing, doing about-turns that set his painter’s smock swinging. He waved her towards her chair. ‘Sit, sit!’ he said as if talking to a dog. Louise was cautious.
He wasn’t clowning; this mood was dangerous. There were livid spots on his cheeks that reminded her of her mother, but his colour was from suppressed fury. ‘Pieter …’ he yelled, ‘maulstick!’ Pieter had it ready, but the Master still snatched it from his hand. Louise edged around them. Pieter looked pale and tight-lipped.

‘Do you know what that imbecile apprentice says?’ snapped the Master, doing a cruel imitation of Pieter’s flapping hands. ‘He says that you are dead. Do you
look
dead?’ He waved towards the canvas. ‘Pah! I am finished with him. Today I will tear up his indentures.’ He turned on the boy, ‘I can do it, you know. But,’ he went on
sarcastically
, ‘seeing as you know better than your betters, I want your
opinion
. Now, Pieter Kunst, perhaps you will gratify your master by telling him what colour he should use for the shadows that you claim
will bring Miss Eeden back to life
.’ He hissed like a snake, and Louise backed towards her chair, looking nervously at Pieter. What was going on?

‘There are some that would use brown, Master.’ Pieter’s face was white but he was staring the Master down. Louise wondered what would she do if the old man went for him – she remembered that he had attacked Pieter once before, over the painting of the wine glass.

‘Brown!’ the Master’s scorn was palpable. ‘And who said I would do as other people?’

‘I did not, Master, but I am not going to tell you what I think you should do, because then you will refuse to do it out of sheer obstinacy.’ Pieter’s mouth was set like a razor; she realised that this fight had been going on for some time.

‘Listen to him!’ the Master was shouting, turning to her for support.

But Louise was not going to take sides. You don’t walk between fighting dogs. She abandoned them to their
argument
. She only had one role in all this, and only one weapon. She thought back to her first day in the studio when this same little man had been provoking her, goading her with his astronomical nonsense. She remembered taunting him, and her moment of triumph. She leaned
forward
, and smiled at the memory. At that second she felt the remembered pose click into place. She had found the
password
– if only they would notice. She could hear Pieter arguing and the Master’s sarcastic whine. At last Pieter’s voice sliced across that of the Master.

‘Look!’ he said, ‘look at Louise.’ The effect on the studio was instant. Silence descended, sudden, but charged. She could hear the
froo froo
of ‘our friend’ on the windowsill. She heard the Master’s sharp intake of breath. Their eyes seemed to be burning her face. She tried to think of Pieter – she was doing this for him – but she dared not look. It was now or never. There was a spot of red paint on the back of the easel; she stared at that. Pieter and the Master were mere hazy
images
floating around the edges of her vision. She sensed, rather than saw, when the Master took his palette from
Pieter’s
hands. All their movements were slowed for her by the sheer energy that she was pushing out through her.

She heard the Master whisper: ‘Blue, Pieter, go … go get blue. You’ll have to make it up out of the lapis you ruined the day she came.’ When she heard Pieter respond: ‘It’s
here Master, it’s made up already,’ she wanted to laugh, or perhaps cry.

‘The way to build her shadows is to use her natural skin tints and then to darken them slightly with blue. Did you know, Pieter, that the blue of the sky can filter into
shadows
? Now, where are those damned paints?’

‘Here, ready.’ The children had stopped fighting, and Louise could feel her energy flowing out and into them, feeding their needs.

The Master’s quiet voice called for oil. Now the pace was changing.

‘Not that brush, Pieter … no no, wider Pieter, wider. Look, now I am the Master again. Remember how it was when the Begijnhof beggar began to sing his song. In a hundred years from now he and this girl will live … Dear God, I need more time, just a little more time.’ He was bent to the canvas, and Louise could almost feel his
brush-strokes
on her face. Then, at last he dropped his head and whispered, ‘Look, Pieter, she lives. Pieter, she lives!’

Pieter, watching over his shoulder, looked, and heard a fanfare of angels. But somewhere inside him there was also a tremor of dread.

Louise stood up, still stiff from her pose, and then looked at the canvas. She didn’t like what she saw. She knew she wasn’t pretty, but she hadn’t expected to find her own face disturbing. There were unexpected echoes of her mother – not Mother as she was now – but the mother that Louise
remembered
challenging the wind when she was little. And did she really come across as so argumentative?
You are a
 
demanding child
, her mother would complain. She smiled. The Master, sitting in an exhausted heap, patted her hand.

‘At least she makes you smile.’ For the first time Louise saw the picture, not as herself, but as an outsider would, and was a little shocked.

The following day, Louise tapped on the door of the studio, to find that they had moved an ancient suit of mediaeval armour into the centre of the room. Pieter was busy polishing it. She was a little jealous. It hadn’t occurred to her that, now that the Master was happy about her portrait, he could be starting on another one. She looked around and asked where the Master was. Suddenly the armour broke loose and started clanking towards her while a sepulchral voice boomed out from inside.

‘Squire, my horse! For we must

Pluck this damsel from the clay;

And let fair Hesperus,

Define her course.’

Louise had no time to untangle his riddle. All she could do was swoon into his arms, thinking that it was more like a collapse into a pile of saucepans than an armorial embrace.

It took Pieter and her a considerable time, and quite a lot of laughter, to extricate the Master, pink and triumphant, from his armour. It was a long time before she had reason to remember his courtly words.

Work on the painting was almost continuous now. When the Master was not engaged on Louise’s dress, Pieter was labouring on the tiles and on the background of the picture. To begin with, Louise sat for long hours, her hair carefully arranged by Kathenka, her dress billowing about her. After working on the silk for a while, the Master began to complain that the folds changed too much between sittings. After some serious rummaging at the back of the studio, he returned, doing a gavotte with a wickerwork manikin. With Kathenka’s help, they successfully dressed this in the green silk and persuaded it to adopt a proper pose. Now Louise had to live with herself as a headless effigy while the Master laboriously built up the blue foundation, layer by layer, for the later yellow.

‘Look at it, Miss Louise;’ he would beckon her over, and make her bend to his view. ‘See how it lies, a thousand
dimples
curving into every fold. It must seem to move to the eye, a living emerald, the most precious of all the stones.’

Louise made herself busy; an apprentice’s apprentice, she called herself. She ground and mixed and cleaned brushes and palettes. Kathenka would come up with a tray
and they would picnic together in the studio. Kathenka made cordials out of elderflowers and fruits as they came into season. It was a change from the small-ale they drank in winter. There was always a bowl of fruit and a basin of water to wash their hands, as many of the paints and
powders
seemed to contain deadly poisons: lead, arsenic, and mercury. After lunch, the Master would retire for a snooze, but Pieter would work on, and Louise would watch. If she became bored she would explore the far end of the studio. It was like an Aladdin’s cave, stacked high with the curios that Jacob Haitink had collected over the years. There were elephant tusks, and huge shells from tropical seas. There were piles of books and open portfolios of prints and
etchings
; strange creatures floated limply in bottles. There were swords hanging on nails, and the suit of medieval armour, now empty, hung its head despondently.

‘Where does he get all these things, and what does he want with them?’ she asked Pieter.

‘I don’t really know,’ he replied. ‘He says that they are useful as props in his paintings, like the globe that we dug out for you, but it’s actually that he can’t resist anything new and curious. Half the time when he should be painting, he’s poking about down here.’

One day when she came up to the studio, carrying the tray for Kathenka, she noticed that Pieter was grinning to himself. She waited till the Master and Kathenka had retired before she questioned him.

‘The Master’s given me the Turkey carpet!’ he explained.

‘Really? What do you want a carpet for?’

‘No, Miss Louise …’ sometimes he still called her that, ‘I am to
paint
it! Look at it – what detail – what combinations of colours: blue, red, green. It should be all wrong, but it pulses. That red is a challenge in itself. The Master says cinnabar red, but we don’t have any. He says that Master Fabritius has a recipe, and that I should ask him for it, but I’m not sure if he’ll be happy to give it to me – as an
apprentice
I mean.’

‘Oh yes, he will,’ said Louise confidently, ‘He’s a
neighbour
of ours. I will shame him into giving it to you. Annie doesn’t approve of him, but he has always been polite to me.’

‘Why does Miss Annie not approve?’

‘Because,’ said Louise matter of factly, ‘he has hair on his chest.’

‘He has what!’ Pieter exclaimed.

‘Hair … on his chest.’

‘But how does Miss Annie, your respectable nurse, come to know this shocking detail?’ Suddenly Louise saw the funny side of what she’d said. Her Annie, with some dreadful skeleton in her cupboard, she hadn’t thought of that. Pieter was looking at her in amused horror. She
began
to explain, but could feel a bubble of laughter rising inside her.

‘He painted a portrait of himself. Father borrowed it when he was thinking of having my portrait done. In it his shirt is open, and his chest is …’ The bubble was
dangerously
near the surface now. ‘Annie saw the portrait and was scandalised. Either it goes, or I go, she said.’ For a split 
second Louise thought that Pieter was scandalised, too. Then, with a bray like a donkey, Pieter put his head back and laughed till the tears flowed. It was the most infectious laugh Louise had ever heard, so it was some time before they felt able to venture downstairs.

Louise still felt sore from laughing as they stood in the street outside the house of master painter Fabritius. She dared not look at Pieter, who was still fighting back
suppressed
little brays. He knocked, and then stepped back, leaving Louise to make the introduction. The door was opened by the artist himself.

‘Miss Eeden?’ he said with interest, recognising a
neighbour
. Then his eyes moved to Pieter, standing behind her. Louise began her introduction.

‘Master, this is Pieter Kunst … apprentice to Master
Haitink
. He –’

‘Oh, I know of Mr Kunst.’ He smiled. ‘Pleased to meet you, Pieter, I have heard well of you, and seen some of your work … perhaps more than Master Haitink would
admit
to.’ He chuckled. Louise stepped back, and while Pieter explained his needs, she took the opportunity to examine the famous artist on the step above them. Up to now she had only seen him on formal occasions. They had
interrupted
him at his work. He had on a painter’s gown, similar to the Master’s, though it looked better on him. His shoulder-length hair was unkempt and his shirt hung open. With some difficulty, she kept her eyes away from his chest and looked at his face. He had a full mouth, set over a strong jaw. Thought-lines crossed his forehead. He must
have felt her eyes on him because he looked straight at her; she felt the artist’s quick appraising glance and his eyes kept coming back to her while he talked to Pieter. There was something animal, exciting and not unpleasing in his stare. Suddenly she realised that he was talking to her. ‘You must excuse me, I was working, but the light is gone now. Come in and I will give Mr Kunst the recipe he needs.’

She followed him into the house. The parlour door was open, and Louise wondered if she should stay there, but he seemed to expect her to follow. They passed down a passage and into an artist’s studio in the return at the back of the house. Louise walked discreetly about the studio, looking at, but not touching, the now familiar objects. On an easel was a painting of a goldfinch. Louise was
entranced
; the paintwork was smudgy but this in itself seemed to bring the little bird to life. She gazed at it for a long time. Pieter and the painter were deep in
conversation
. She wanted to listen, they were talking of quicksilver and sulphur, but she decided it would be tactful to leave them alone.

An open door led into a small brick-paved courtyard at the back of the house. Evening light filled the yard and with it came the liquid trill and twitter as some small bird
celebrated
evening. Louise stepped cautiously into the
courtyard
; the song stopped in mid-bar. She looked around but saw nothing. Then a sharp tweet drew her eye up to where a small but indignant bird, head on one side, challenged her from its perch high on the whitewashed wall. It was the goldfinch, the subject of the portrait on the easel, a slender
chain attached it to its perch. She pursed her mouth to
whistle
at it. Annie did not approve of her whistling; neither did the bird.

‘Tweet!’ it demanded, fixing her with an eye as black as a bead of jet. She pursed her mouth to whistle again. ‘Tweet!’

‘I beg your pardon,’ Louise said curtsying, realising that this was not a proper form of address. ‘I’m Louise Eeden, I should have introduced myself.’ The little bird considered her, as if wondering if her apology was sufficient. He settled for haughty disdain. His face was scarlet, and when he turned, there was a bar of brilliant gold down each wing. She’d seen goldfinches before, but just in twittering flocks that blew through the garden like the thistledown they fed on. He began to work, bending down to lift the chain with his beak. He secured it with a claw while he lifted another section. When he reached the ring at the end of the chain, he dropped it in disgust. Louise felt a hand on her shoulder.

‘He did that for you, Miss Eeden – a sign of respect.’ Louise did not turn around. ‘When he is in my studio he has a little bucket that he can lower into his water supply when he is thirsty. He draws the bucket up like that. He would have offered you a drink.’

‘I wish he’d sing again.’

‘Oh, he will, but in his own good time.’

Louise, feeling just a little disturbed by the hand on her shoulder, turned to go in. ‘I love his portrait,’ she said.

‘I’d give it to you, but alas, it has been sold. The captain of the watch bought it.’ The artist bowed gallantly and
followed
Louise inside.

Pieter had just finished transcribing the recipe. ‘I should melt the sulphur and quicksilver together first, you say?’ he asked.

‘Yes. And remember to crush it before firing it.’

‘It sounds like alchemy to me,’ said Louise. ‘I hope I may watch.’ The older artist chuckled. He spoke to Pieter, but looked at her. ‘I am beginning to think, Pieter, that you may have found the philosopher’s stone already. The question is – is it bespoke?’

As Louise made her way to the door she was only partly aware of the sound of Pieter knocking over a chair, and the painter’s rich laugh as he stood above them on the step. Was it she who was bespoke? She had not thought of Reynier for weeks. Soon it would be autumn, time was
running
out, and she wasn’t ready to be sacrificed. Not yet.

The door closed and they stood quietly for a moment, each absorbed in their own thoughts and their own
confusions
. Then, high over the house came the liquid trilling of the goldfinch from its perch in the yard.

‘Listen, Pieter!’ Louise said, and she took Pieter’s arm and held it tight.

Louise stepped back from the window into the darkness of her bedroom to observe the two men. Their figures stood out like black paper silhouettes against the soft luminescence of the star-glow outside. Father, his beard as sharp as a scimitar, was watching as Pieter crouched, all elbows, gazing up into the telescope.

‘Saturn…’ she heard Pieter breathe in awe.

‘You see how it appears to have arms out on each side?’ Father asked.

‘Yes … yes I do, I see them.’ He gazed. Then he looked around, his nose knocking the telescope out of line. ‘Louise! Oh, excuse me … Miss Eeden. You remember my empty glass? How I drew it with a halo? These arms of Saturn, they look like my halo, only it has dropped down over the planet’s eyes.’ He chuckled and turned back. ‘Oh, excuse me sir, I seem to have lost it.’

‘Don’t worry, I’ll find it again.’ Father crouched gracefully while Pieter scrambled away like a spider. Father swept the sky, murmuring, ‘Where are you now, old man … where… Got you!’ Silence, then Father chuckled. ‘Well, well! You could be right, my boy. You could just be right. We will write a paper together:
‘New evidence of a Slipped Halo about the head of Saturn
.’ That would set them arguing, eh?
‘Evidence of
pre-Christian
sanctity
.’ On second thoughts, we had better not mention a halo or someone will burn us at the stake.’ He scratched his head, ‘Why do we always have to end up fighting over religion? Catholic versus dissenter, dissenter versus freethinker. What are religions other than creation stories? I love a good story, but out there, Pieter, where we are looking now, that really is the truth.’

Louise sat on the floor, her skirts tucked about her knees, and watched their contrasting profiles as Father held forth and Pieter listened. The telescope, forgotten for the moment, pointed to heaven. This was familiar territory for her; they were absorbed, as she and Father had so often been absorbed. Now
she was the observer, the third point in their triangle. Father was telling Pieter about his visit to Baruch Spinoza, the lens grinder, with his strange and beautiful philosophy. How could anybody long for heaven, Louise wondered, when it was all here, a universe to see and a newer, wider world to discover? When just to hold a flower or clasp a hand, was to gentle the hand of God. Who was it had spoken of the
music
of the orbs? Poor old Aristotle, surely. Tonight the stars were singing for her. She wanted to hold on to this moment forever. The night watchman passed, calling out that all was well, and Pieter stirred.

‘I must ask you to excuse me, sir. I have told the mistress that I will be in tonight. You see, I am also the night watchman; she won’t sleep easy till I return.’

‘Of course, of course, but you must come again. Louise has told me some of your ideas about the artist’s eye – fascinating. I would like to hear more.’ They were all struggling to their feet. ‘I must ask you to be as quiet as possible, my wife is … is not well.’ Then Father whispered as he moved across the room. ‘Next time it will be Jupiter, you have yet to see his moons.’