Tracy Chevalier 3-Book Collection: Girl With a Pearl Earring, Remarkable Creatures, Falling Angels. Tracy Chevalier

she walked, or so she said. As she grew bigger she went about the house with a tired, pained look. She took to staying in bed later and later, so that Maria Thins took over her keys and unlocked the studio door for me in the mornings. Tanneke and I began to do more and more of her work — looking after the girls, buying things for the house, changing the baby.

      One day when Tanneke was in a good mood, I asked her why they did not take on more servants to make things easier. ‘With a big house like this, and your mistress' wealth, and the master's paintings,’ I added, ‘could they not afford another maid? Or a cook?’

      ‘Huh,’ Tanneke snorted. ‘They can barely manage to pay you.’

      I was surprised — the coins amounted to so little in my hand each week. It would take me years of work to be able to buy something as fine as the yellow mantle that Catharina kept so carelessly folded in her cupboard. It did not seem possible that they could be short of money.

      ‘Of course they'll find a way to pay for a nurse for a few months when the baby comes,’ Tanneke added. She sounded disapproving.

      ‘Why?’

      ‘So she can feed the baby.’

      ‘The mistress won't feed her own baby?’ I asked stupidly.

      ‘She couldn't have so many children if she fed her own. It stops you having them, you know, if you feed your own.’

      ‘Oh.’ I felt very ignorant of such things. ‘Does she want more children?’

      Tanneke chuckled. ‘Sometimes I think she's filling the house with children because she can't fill it with servants as she'd like.’ She lowered her voice. ‘The master doesn't paint enough to make the money for servants, you see. Three paintings a year he does, usually. Sometimes only two. You don't get rich from that.’

      ‘Can he not paint faster?’ I knew even as I said it that he would not. He would always paint at his own pace.

      ‘Mistress and young mistress disagree sometimes. Young mistress wants him to paint more, but my mistress says speed would ruin him.’

      ‘Maria Thins is very wise.’ I had learned that I could voice opinions in front of Tanneke as long as Maria Thins was in some way praised. Tanneke was fiercely loyal to her mistress. She had little patience with Catharina, however, and when she was in the right mood she advised me on how to handle her. ‘Take no notice of what she says,’ she counselled. ‘Keep your face empty when she speaks, then do things your own way, or how my mistress or I tell you to do them. She never checks, she never notices. She just orders us about because she feels she has to. But we know who our real mistress is, and so does she.’

      Although Tanneke was often bad-tempered with me, I learned not to take it to heart, as she never remained so for long. She was fickle in her moods, perhaps from being caught between Catharina and Maria Thins for so many years. Despite her confident words about ignoring what Catharina said, Tanneke did not follow her own advice. Catharina's harsh tone upset her. And Maria Thins, for all her fairness, did not defend Tanneke from Catharina. I never once heard Maria Thins berate her daughter for anything, though Catharina needed it at times.

      There was also the matter of Tanneke's housekeeping. Perhaps her loyalty made up for her sloppiness about the house — corners unmopped, meat burned on the outside and raw on the inside, pots not scrubbed thoroughly. I could not imagine what she had done to his studio when she tried to clean it. Though Maria Thins rarely scolded Tanneke, they both knew she ought to, and this kept Tanneke uncertain and quick to defend herself.

      It became clear to me that in spite of her shrewd ways, Maria Thins was soft on the people closest to her. Her judgement was not as sound as it appeared.

      Of the four girls, Cornelia was, as she had shown the first morning, the most unpredictable. Both Lisbeth and Aleydis were good, quiet girls, and Maertge was old enough to begin learning the ways of the house, which steadied her — though occasionally she would have a fit of temper and shout at me much like her mother. Cornelia did not shout but she was at times ungovernable. Even the threat of Maria Thins' anger that I had used on the first day did not always work. She could be funny and playful one moment, then turn the next, like a purring cat who bites the hand stroking it. While loyal to her sisters, she did not hesitate to make them cry by pinching them hard. I was wary of Cornelia, and could not be fond of her in the way I came to be of the others.

      I escaped from them all when I cleaned the studio. Maria Thins unlocked the door for me and sometimes stayed a few minutes to check on the painting, as if it were a sick child she was nursing. Once she left, though, I had the room to myself. I looked around to see if anything had changed. At first it seemed to remain the same, day after day, but after my eyes grew accustomed to the details of the room I began to notice small things — the brushes rearranged on top of the cupboard, one of the cupboard's drawers left ajar, the palette knife balanced on the easel's ledge, a chair moved a little from its place by the door.

      Nothing, however, changed in the corner he was painting. I was careful not to displace any of it, quickly adjusting to my way of measuring so that I was able to clean that area almost as quickly and confidently as the rest of the room. And after experimenting on other bits of cloth, I began to clean the dark blue cloth and yellow curtain with a damp rag, pressing it carefully so that it picked up dust without disturbing the folds.

      There seemed to be no changes to the painting, as hard as I looked for them. At last one day I discovered that another pearl had been added to the woman's necklace. Another day the shadow of the yellow curtain had grown bigger. I thought too that some of the fingers on her right hand had been moved.

      The satin mantle began to look so real I wanted to reach out and touch it.

      I had almost touched the real one the day van Ruijven's wife left it on the bed. I had just been reaching over to stroke the fur collar when I had looked up to see Cornelia in the door, watching me. One of the other girls would have asked me what I was doing, but Cornelia had just watched. That was worse than any questions. I had dropped my hand and she'd smiled.

      Maertge insisted on coming with me to the fish stalls one morning several weeks after I had begun working at the house. She loved to run through Market Square, looking at things, petting the horses, joining other children in their games, sampling smoked fish from various stalls. She poked me in the ribs as I was buying herring and shouted, ‘Look, Griet, look at that kite!’

      The kite above our heads was shaped like a fish with a long tail, the wind making it look as if it were swimming through the air, with seagulls wheeling around it. As I smiled I saw Agnes hovering near us, her eyes fixed on Maertge. I still had not told Agnes there was a girl her age in the house — I thought it might upset her, that she would feel she was being replaced.

      Sometimes when I visited my family at home I felt awkward telling them anything. My new life was taking over the old.

      When Agnes looked at me I shook my head slightly so that Maertge would not see, and turned away to put the fish in my pail. I took my time — I could not bear to see the hurt on her face. I did not know what Maertge would do if Agnes spoke to me.

      When I turned around Agnes had gone.

      I shall have to explain to her when I see her Sunday, I thought. I have two families now, and they must not mix.

      I was always ashamed afterwards that I had turned my back on my own sister.

      I was hanging out washing in the courtyard, shaking out each piece before hanging it taut from the line, when Catharina appeared, breathing heavily. She sat down on a chair by the door, closed her eyes and sighed. I continued what I was doing as if it were natural for her to sit with me, but my jaw tightened.

      ‘Are they gone yet?’ she asked suddenly.

      ‘Who, madam?’

      ‘Them, you silly girl. My husband and — go and see if they've gone upstairs yet.’

      I stepped cautiously into the hallway. Two sets of feet were climbing the stairs.

      ‘Can you manage it?’