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

I could not hear what he said.

      ‘Griet can get one for her,’ Maria Thins suggested. ‘She should be in the attic for she's meant to have a stomach ache. I'll just find her.’

      She was quicker than I had thought an old woman could be. By the time I put my foot on the top rung she was halfway up the ladder. I stepped back into the attic. I could not escape her, and there was no time to hide anything.

      When Maria Thins climbed into the room, she quickly took in the shells laid in rows on the table, the jug of water, the apron I wore speckled with yellow from the massicot.

      ‘So this is what you've been up to, eh, girl? I thought as much.’

      I lowered my eyes. I did not know what to say.

      ‘Stomach ache, sore eyes. We are not all idiots around here, you know.’

      Ask him, I longed to tell her. He is my master. This is his doing.

      But she did not call to him. Nor did he appear at the bottom of the ladder to explain.

      There was a long silence. Then Maria Thins said, ‘How long have you been assisting him, girl?’

      ‘A few weeks, madam.’

      ‘He's been painting faster these last weeks, I've noticed.’

      I raised my eyes. Her face was calculating.

      ‘You help him to paint faster, girl,’ she said in a low voice, ‘and you'll keep your place here. Not a word to my daughter or Tanneke, now.’

      ‘Yes, madam.’

      She chuckled. ‘I might have known, clever one that you are. You almost fooled even me. Now, get that poor girl down there a footwarmer.’

      I liked sleeping in the attic. There was no Crucifixion scene hanging at the foot of the bed to trouble me. There were no paintings at all, but the clean scent of linseed oil and the musk of the earth pigments. I liked my view of the New Church, and the quiet. No one came up except him. The girls did not visit me as they sometimes had in the cellar, or secretly search through my things. I felt alone there, perched high above the noisy household, able to see it from a distance.

      Rather like him.

      The best part, however, was that I could spend more time in the studio. Sometimes I wrapped myself in a blanket and crept down late at night when the house was still. I looked at the painting he was working on by candlelight, or opened a shutter a little to let in moonlight. Sometimes I sat in the dark in one of the lion-head chairs pulled up to the table and rested my elbow on the blue and red table-rug that covered it. I imagined wearing the yellow and black bodice and pearls, holding a glass of wine, sitting across the table from him.

      There was one thing I did not like about the attic, however. I did not like being locked in at night.

      Catharina had got the studio key back from Maria Thins and began to lock and unlock the door. She must have felt it gave her some control over me. She was not happy about my being in the attic — it meant I was closer to him, to the place she was not allowed in but where I could wander freely.

      It must have been hard for a wife to accept such an arrangement.

      It worked for a time, however. For a time I was able to slip away in the afternoons and wash and grind colours for him. Catharina often slept then — Franciscus had not settled, and woke her most nights so that she needed sleep during the day. Tanneke usually fell asleep by the fire as well, and I could leave the kitchen without always having to make up an excuse. The girls were busy with Johannes, teaching him to walk and talk, and rarely noticed my absence. If they did Maria Thins said I was running an errand for her, fetching things from her rooms, or sewing something for her that needed bright attic light to work by. They were children, after all, absorbed in their own world, indifferent to the adult lives around them except when it directly affected them.

      Or so I thought.

      One afternoon I was washing white lead when Cornelia called my name from downstairs. I quickly wiped my hands, removed the apron I wore for attic work and changed into my daily apron before climbing down the ladder to her. She stood on the threshold of the studio, looking as if she were standing at the edge of a puddle and tempted to step in it.

      ‘What is it?’ I spoke rather sharply.

      ‘Tanneke wants you.’ Cornelia turned and led the way to the stairs. She hesitated at the top. ‘Will you help me, Griet?’ she asked plaintively. ‘Go first so that if I fall you will catch me. The stairs are so steep.’

      It was unlike her to be scared, even on stairs she did not use much. I was touched, or perhaps I was simply feeling guilty for being sharp with her. I descended the stairs, then turned and held out my arms. ‘Now you.’

      Cornelia was standing at the top, hands in her pockets. She started down the stairs, one hand on the banister, the other balled into a tight fist. When she was most of the way down she let go and jumped so that she fell against me, sliding down my front, pressing painfully into my stomach. Once she regained her feet she began to laugh, head thrown up, brown eyes narrowed to slits.

      ‘Naughty girl,’ I muttered, regretting my softness.

      I found Tanneke in the cooking kitchen, Johannes in her lap.

      ‘Cornelia said you wanted me.’

      ‘Yes, she's torn one of her collars and wants you to mend it. Wouldn't let me touch it — I don't know why, she knows I mend collars best.’ As Tanneke handed it to me her eyes strayed to my apron. ‘What's that there? Are you bleeding?’

      I looked down. A slash of red dust crossed my stomach like a streak on a window pane. For a moment I thought of the aprons of Pieter the father and son.

      Tanneke leaned closer. ‘That's not blood. It looks like powder. How did that get there?’

      I gazed at the streak. Madder, I thought. I ground this a few weeks ago.

      Only I heard the stifled giggle from the hallway.

      Cornelia had been waiting some time for this mischief. She had even managed somehow to get up to the attic to steal the powder.

      I did not make up an answer fast enough. As. I hesitated, Tanneke's suspicion grew. ‘Have you been in the master's things?’ she said in an accusing tone. She had, after all, modelled for him and knew what he kept in the studio.

      ‘No, it was —’ I stopped. If I tattled on Cornelia I would sound petty and it would probably not stop Tanneke from discovering what I did in the attic.

      ‘I think young mistress had better see this,’ she decided.

      ‘No,’ I said quickly.

      Tanneke drew herself up as much as she could with a sleeping child in her lap. ‘Take off your apron,’ she commanded, ‘so I can show it to the young mistress.’

      ‘Tanneke,’ I said, gazing levelly at her, ‘if you know what's best for you, you'll not disturb Catharina, you'll speak to Maria Thins. Alone, not in front of the girls.’

      It was those words, with their bullying tone, that caused the most damage between Tanneke and me. I did not think to sound like that — I was simply desperate to stop her from telling Catharina any way I could. But she would never forgive me for treating her as if she were below me.

      My words at least had their effect. Tanneke gave me a hard, angry look, but behind it was uncertainty, and the desire indeed to tell her own beloved mistress. She hung between that desire and the wish to punish my impudence by disobeying me.

      ‘Speak to your mistress,’ I said softly. ‘But speak to her alone.’

      Though my back was to the door, I sensed Cornelia slipping away from it.

      Tanneke's own instincts won. With a stony face she handed Johannes to me and went to find Maria Thins. Before I settled him on my lap I carefully wiped away the red pigment with a rag,