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

      Pieter the son did not come every week to our church, but he came often enough that each Sunday I grew nervous, smoothing my skirt more than it needed, pressing my lips together as we sat in our pew.

      ‘Has he come? Is he here?’ my father would ask each Sunday, turning his head this way and that.

      I let my mother answer. ‘Yes,’ she would say, ‘he is here,’ or ‘No, he has not come.’

      Pieter always said hello to my parents before greeting me. At first they were uneasy with him. However, Pieter chatted easily to them, ignoring their awkward responses and long silences. He knew how to talk to people, meeting so many at his father's stall. After several Sundays my parents became used to him. The first time my father laughed at something Pieter said he was so surprised at himself that he immediately frowned, until Pieter said something else to make him laugh again.

      There was always a moment after they had been speaking when my parents stepped back and left us alone. Pieter wisely let them decide when. The first few times it did not happen at all. Then one Sunday my mother pointedly took my father's arm and said, ‘Let us go and speak to the minister.’

      For several Sundays I dreaded that moment until I too became used to being on my own with him in front of so many watchful eyes. Pieter sometimes teased me gently, but more often he asked me what I had been doing during the week, or told me stories he had heard in the Meat Hall, or described auctions at the Beast Market. He was patient with me when I became tongue-tied or sharp or dismissive.

      He never asked me about my master. I never told him I was working with the colours. I was glad he did not ask me.

      On those Sundays I felt very confused. When I should be listening to Pieter I found myself thinking about my master.

      One Sunday in May, when I had been working at the house on the Oude Langendijck for almost a year, my mother said to Pieter just before she and my father left us alone, ‘Will you come back to eat with us after next Sunday's service?’

      Pieter smiled as I gaped at her. ‘I'll come.’

      I barely heard what he said after that. When he finally left and my parents and I went home I had to bite my lips so that I would not shout. ‘Why didn't you tell me you were going to invite Pieter?’ I muttered.

      My mother glanced at me sideways. ‘It's time we asked him,’ was all she said.

      She was right — it would be rude of us not to invite him to our house. I had not played this game with a man before, but I had seen what went on with others. If Pieter was serious, then my parents would have to treat him seriously.

      I also knew what a hardship it would be to them to have him come. My parents had very little now. Despite my wages and what my mother made from spinning wool for others, they could barely feed themselves, much less another mouth — and a butcher's mouth at that. I could do little to help them — take what I could from Tanneke's kitchen, a bit of wood, perhaps, some onions, some bread. They would eat less that week and light the fire less, just so that they could feed him properly.

      But they insisted that he come. They would not say so to me, but they must have seen feeding him as a way of filling our own stomachs in the future. A butcher's wife — and her parents — would always eat well. A little hunger now would bring a heavy stomach eventually.

      Later, when he began coming regularly, Pieter sent them gifts of meat which my mother would cook for the Sunday. At that first Sunday dinner, however, she sensibly did not serve meat to a butcher's son. He would have been able to judge exactly how poor they were by the cut of the joint. Instead she made a fish stew, even adding shrimps and lobster, never telling me how she managed to pay for them.

      The house, though shabby, gleamed from her attentions. She had got out some of my father's best tiles, those she had not had to sell, and polished and lined them up along the wall so Pieter could look at them as he ate. He praised my mother's stew, and his words were genuine. She was pleased, and blushed and smiled and gave him more. Afterwards he asked my father about the tiles, describing each one until my father recognised it and could complete the description.

      ‘Griet has the best one,’ he said after they had gone through all those in the room. ‘It's of her and her brother.’

      ‘I'd like to see it,’ Pieter murmured.

      I studied my chapped hands in my lap and swallowed. I had not told them what Cornelia had done to my tile.

      As Pieter was leaving my mother whispered to me to see him to the end of the street. I walked beside him, sure that our neighbours were staring, though in truth it was a rainy day and there were few people out. I felt as if my parents had pushed me into the street, that a deal had been made and I was being passed into the hands of a man. At least he is a good man, I thought, even if his hands are not as clean as they could be.

      Close to the Rietveld Canal there was an alley that Pieter guided me to, his hand at the small of my back. Agnes used to hide there during our games as children. I stood against the wall and let Pieter kiss me. He was so eager that he bit my lips. I did not cry out — I licked away the salty blood and looked over his shoulder at the wet brick wall opposite as he pushed himself against me. A raindrop fell into my eye.

      I would not let him do all he wanted. After a time Pieter stepped back. He reached a hand towards my head. I moved away.

      ‘You favour your caps, don't you?’ he said.

      ‘I'm not rich enough to dress my hair and go without a cap,’ I snapped. ‘Nor am I a—’ I did not finish. I did not need to tell him what other kind of woman left her head bare.

      ‘But your cap covers all your hair. Why is that? Most women show some of their hair.’

      I did not answer.

      ‘What colour is your hair?’

      ‘Brown.’

      ‘Light or dark?’

      ‘Dark.’

      Pieter smiled as if he were indulging a child in a game. ‘Straight or curly?’

      ‘Neither. Both.’ I winced at my confusion.

      ‘Long or short?’

      I hesitated. ‘Below my shoulders.’

      He continued to smile at me, then kissed me once more and turned back towards Market Square.

      I had hesitated because I did not want to lie but did not want him to know. My hair was long and could not be tamed. When it was uncovered it seemed to belong to another Griet — a Griet who would stand in an alley alone with a man, who was not so calm and quiet and clean. A Griet like the women who dared to bare their heads. That was why I kept my hair completely hidden — so that there would be no trace of that Griet.

      He finished the painting of the baker's daughter. This time I had warning, for he stopped asking me to grind and wash colours. He did not use much paint now, nor did he make sudden changes at the end as he had with the woman with the pearl necklace. He had made changes earlier, removing one of the chairs from the painting, and moving the map along the wall. I was less surprised by such changes, for I'd had the chance to think of them myself, and knew that what he did made the painting better.

      He borrowed van Leeuwenhoek's camera obscura again to look at the scene one last time. When he had set it up he allowed me to look through it as well. Although I still did not understand how it worked, I came to admire the scenes the camera painted inside itself, the miniature, reversed pictures of things in the room. The colours of ordinary objects became more intense — the table-rug a deeper red, the wall map a glowing brown like a glass of ale held up to the sun. I was not sure how the camera helped him to paint, but I was becoming more like Maria Thins — if it made him paint better, I did not question it.

      He was not painting faster, however. He spent five months on the girl with the water pitcher. I often worried that Maria Thins would remind me that I had not helped him to work faster, and tell me to pack my things and leave.

      She