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

master was much quieter. He spent most of his time in one corner of the great hall, talking to van Leeuwenhoek, though his eyes often followed Catharina around the room as she moved among her guests. He wore a smart black velvet jacket and his paternity cap, and looked comfortable though not much interested in the party. Large crowds did not appeal to him as they did his wife.

      Late in the evening, van Ruijven managed to corner me in the hallway as I was passing along it with a lighted candle and a wine jug. ‘Ah, the wide-eyed maid,’ he cried, leaning into me. ‘Hello, my girl.’ He grabbed my chin in his hand, his other hand pulling the candle up to light my face. I did not like the way he looked at me.

      ‘You should paint her,’ he said over his shoulder.

      My master was there. He was frowning. He looked as if he wanted to say something to his patron but could not.

      ‘Griet, get me some more wine.’ Pieter the father had popped out from the Crucifixion room and was holding a cup towards me.

      ‘Yes, sir.’ I pulled my chin from van Ruijven's grasp and quickly crossed to Pieter the father. I could feel two pairs of eyes on my back.

      ‘Oh, I'm sorry, sir, the jug's empty. I'll just get some more from the kitchen.’ I hurried away, holding the jug close so they would not discover that it was full.

      When I returned a few minutes later only Pieter the father remained, leaning against the wall. ‘Thank you,’ I said in a low voice as I filled his glass.

      He winked at me. ‘It was worth it just to hear you call me sir. I'll never hear that again, will I?’ He raised his glass in a mock toast and drank.

      After the feast winter descended on us, and the house became cold and flat. Besides a great deal of cleaning up, there was no longer something to look forward to. The girls, even Aleydis, became difficult, demanding attention, rarely helping. Maria Thins spent longer in her own rooms upstairs than she had before. Franciscus, who had remained quiet all the way through the feast, suffered from wind and began to cry almost constantly. He made a piercing sound that could be heard throughout the house — in the courtyard, in the studio, in the cellar. Given her nature, Catharina was surprisingly patient with the baby, but snapped at everyone else, even her husband.

      I had managed to put Agnes from my mind while preparing for the feast, but memories of her returned even more strongly than before. Now that I had time to think, I thought too much. I was like a dog licking its wounds to clean them but making them worse.

      Worst of all, he was angry with me. Since the night van Ruijven cornered me, perhaps even since Pieter the son smiled at me, he had become more distant. I seemed also to cross paths with him more often than before. Although he went out a great deal — in part to escape Franciscus' crying — I always seemed to be coming in the front door as he was leaving, or coming down the stairs as he was going up, or sweeping the Crucifixion room when he was looking for Maria Thins there. One day on an errand for Catharina I even met him in Market Square. Each time he nodded politely, then stepped aside to let me pass without looking at me.

      I had offended him, but I did not know how.

      The studio had become cold and flat as well. Before it had felt busy and full of purpose — it was where paintings were being made. Now, though I quickly swept away any dust that settled, it was simply an empty room, waiting for nothing but dust. I did not want it to be a sad place. I wanted to take refuge there, as I had before.

      One morning Maria Thins came to open the door for me and found it already unlocked. We peered into the semidarkness. He was asleep at the table, his head on his arms, his back to the door. Maria Thins backed out. ‘Must have come up here because of the baby's cries,’ she muttered. I tried to look again but she was blocking the way. She shut the door softly. ‘Leave him be. You can clean there later.’

      The next morning in the studio I opened all the shutters and looked around the room for something I could do, something I could touch that would not offend him, something I could move that he would not notice. Everything was in its place — the table, the chairs, the desk covered with books and papers, the cupboard with the brushes and knife carefully arranged on top, the easel propped against the wall, the clean palettes next to it. The objects he had painted were packed away in the storeroom or back in use in the house.

      One of the bells of the New Church began to toll the hour. I went to the window to look out. By the time the bell had finished its sixth stroke I knew what I would do.

      I got some water heated on the fire, some soap and clean rags and brought them back to the studio, where I began cleaning the windows. I had to stand on the table to reach the top panes.

      I was washing the last window when I heard him enter the room. I turned to look at him over my left shoulder, my eyes wide. ‘Sir,’ I began nervously. I was not sure how to explain my impulse to clean.

      ‘Stop.’

      I froze, horrified that I had gone against his wishes.

      ‘Don't move.’

      He was staring at me as if a ghost had suddenly appeared in his studio.

      ‘I'm sorry, sir,’ I said, dropping the rag into the bucket of water. ‘I should have asked you first. But you are not painting anything at the moment and —’

      He looked puzzled, then shook his head. ‘Oh, the windows. No, you may continue what you were doing.’

      I would rather not have cleaned in front of him, but as he continued to stand there I had no choice. I swished the rag in the water, wrung it out and began wiping the panes again, inside and out.

      I finished the window and stepped back to view the effect. The light that shone in was pure.

      He was still standing behind me. ‘Does that please you, sir?’ I asked.

      ‘Look over your shoulder at me again.’

      I did as he commanded. He was studying me. He was interested in me again.

      ‘The light,’ I said. ‘It's cleaner now.’

      ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes.’

      The next morning the table had been moved back to the painting corner and covered with a red, yellow and blue table-rug. A chair was set against the back wall, and a map hung over it.

      He had begun again.

       1665

      My father wanted me to describe the painting once more.

      ‘But nothing has changed since the last time,’ I said.

      ‘I want to hear it again,’ he insisted, hunching over in his chair to get nearer to the fire. He sounded like Frans when he was a little boy and had been told there was nothing left to eat in the hotpot. My father was often impatient during March, waiting for winter to end, the cold to ease, the sun to reappear. March was an unpredictable month, when it was never clear what might happen. Warm days raised hopes until ice and grey skies shut over the town again.

      March was the month I was born.

      Being blind seemed to make my father hate winter even more. His other senses strengthened, he felt the cold acutely, smelled the stale air in the house, tasted the blandness of the vegetable stew more than my mother. He suffered when the winter was long.

      I felt sorry for him. When I could I smuggled to him treats from Tanneke's kitchen — stewed cherries, dried apricots, a cold sausage, once a handful of dried rose petals I had found in Catharina's cupboard.

      ‘The baker's daughter stands in a bright corner by a window,’ I began patiently. ‘She is facing us, but is looking out the window, down to her right. She is wearing a yellow and black fitted bodice of silk and velvet, a dark blue skirt, and a white cap that hangs down in two points below her chin.’

      ‘As you wear yours?’ my father asked.