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

‘We'll take care of this. You keep your head down and go about your work, and not a word to anyone.’

      ‘Yes, madam.’

      I did tell one person, though. I felt I had to.

      It had been easy enough to avoid Pieter the son — there were auctions all that week at the Beast Market, of animals that had been fattening all summer and autumn in the countryside and were ready for slaughter just before winter began. Pieter had gone every day to the sales.

      The afternoon after Maria Thins and I spoke I slipped out to look for him at the market, just around the corner from the Oude Langendijck. It was quieter there in the afternoon than in the morning, when the auctions took place. By now many of the beasts had been driven away by their new owners, and men stood about under the plane trees that lined the square, counting their money and discussing the deals that had been made. The leaves on the trees had turned yellow and fallen to mingle with the dung and urine I could smell long before I reached the market.

      Pieter the son was sitting with another man outside one of the taverns on the square, a tankard of beer in front of him. Deep in conversation, he did not see me as I stood silently near his table. It was his companion who looked up, then nudged Pieter.

      ‘I would like to speak to you for a moment,’ I said quickly, before Pieter had a chance even to look surprised.

      His companion immediately jumped up and offered me his chair.

      ‘Could we walk?’ I gestured to the square.

      ‘Of course,’ Pieter said. He nodded to his friend and followed me across the street. From his expression it was not clear whether or not he was pleased to see me.

      ‘How were the auctions today?’ I asked awkwardly. I was never good at making everyday talk.

      Pieter shrugged. He took my elbow to steer me around a pile of dung, then dropped his hand.

      I gave up. ‘There has been gossip about me in the market,’ I said bluntly.

      ‘There is gossip about everyone at one time or another,’ he replied neutrally.

      ‘It's not true what they say. I'm not going to be in a painting with van Ruijven.’

      ‘Van Ruijven likes you. My father told me.’

      ‘But I'm not going to be in a painting with him.’

      ‘He is very powerful.’

      ‘You must believe me, Pieter.’

      ‘He is very powerful,’ he repeated, ‘and you are but a maid. Who do you think will win that round of cards?’

      ‘You think I will become like the maid in the red dress.’

      ‘Only if you drink his wine.’ Pieter gazed at me levelly.

      ‘My master does not want to paint me with van Ruijven,’ I said reluctantly after a moment. I had not wanted to mention him.

      ‘That's good. I don't want him to paint you either.’

      I stopped and closed my eyes. The close animal smell was beginning to make me feel faint.

      ‘You're getting caught where you should not be, Griet,’ Pieter said more kindly. ‘Theirs is not your world.’

      I opened my eyes and took a step back from him. ‘I came here to explain that the rumour is false, not to be accused by you. Now I'm sorry I bothered.’

      ‘Don't be. I do believe you.’ He sighed. ‘But you have little power over what happens to you. Surely you can see that?’

      When I did not answer he added, ‘If your master did want to paint a picture of you and van Ruijven, do you really think you could say no?’

      It was a question I had asked myself but found no answer to. ‘Thank you for reminding me of how helpless I am,’ I replied tartly.

      ‘You wouldn't be with me. We would run our own business, earn our own money, rule our own lives. Isn't that what you want?’

      I looked at him, at his bright blue eyes, his yellow curls, his eager face. I was a fool even to hesitate.

      ‘I didn't come here to talk about this. I'm too young yet.’ I used the old excuse. Some day I would be too old to use it.

      ‘I never know what you're thinking, Griet,’ he tried again. ‘You're so calm and quiet, you never say. But there are things inside you. I see them sometimes, hiding in your eyes.’

      I smoothed my cap, checking with my fingers for stray hairs. ‘All I mean to say is that there is no painting,’ I declared, ignoring what he had just said. ‘Maria Thins has promised me. But you're not to tell anyone. If they speak to you of me in the market, say nothing. Don't try to defend me. Otherwise van Ruijven may hear and your words will work against us.’

      Pieter nodded unhappily and kicked at a bit of dirty straw.

      He will not always be so reasonable, I thought. One day he will give up.

      To reward him for his reasonableness, I let him take me into a space between two houses off the Beast Market and run his hands down my body, cupping them where there were curves. I tried to take pleasure in it, but I was still feeling sick from the animal smell.

      Whatever I said to Pieter the son, I myself did not feel reassured by Maria Thins' promise to keep me out of the painting. She was a formidable woman, astute in business, certain of her place, but she was not van Ruijven. I did not see how they could refuse him what he wanted. He had wanted a painting of his wife looking directly at the painter, and my master had made it. He had wanted a painting of the maid in the red dress, and had got that. If he wanted me, why should he not get me?

      One day three men I had not seen before came with a harpsichord tied securely in a cart. A boy followed them carrying a bass viol that was bigger than he. They were not van Ruijven's instruments, but from one of his relations who was fond of music. The whole house gathered to watch the men struggle with the harpsichord on the steep stairs. Cornelia stood right at the bottom — if they were to drop the instrument it would fall directly on her. I wanted to reach out and pull her back, and if it had been one of the other children I would not have hesitated. Instead I remained where I was. It was Catharina who finally insisted she move to a safer spot.

      When they got it up the stairs they took it to the studio, my master supervising them. After the men left, he called down to Catharina. Maria Thins followed her up. A moment later we heard the sound of the harpsichord being played. The girls sat on the stairs while Tanneke and I stood in the hallway, listening.

      ‘Is that the mistress playing? Or your mistress?’ I asked Tanneke. It seemed so unlike either of them that I thought perhaps he was playing and simply wanted Catharina to be his audience.

      ‘It's the young mistress, of course,’ Tanneke hissed. ‘Why would he have asked her up otherwise? She's very good, is the young mistress. She played when she was a girl. But her father kept their harpsichord when he and my mistress separated. Have you never heard young mistress complain about not being able to afford an instrument?’

      ‘No.’ I thought for a moment. ‘Do you think he will paint her? For this painting with van Ruijven?’ Tanneke must have heard the market gossip but had said nothing of it to me.

      ‘Oh, the master never paints her. She can't sit still!’

      Over the next few days he moved a table and chairs into the setting, and lifted the harpsichord's lid, which was painted with a landscape of rocks and trees and sky. He spread a table-rug on the table in the foreground, and set the bass viol under it.

      One day Maria Thins called me to the Crucifixion room. ‘Now, girl,’ she said, ‘this afternoon I want you to go on some errands for me. To the apothecary's for some elderflowers and hyssop — Franciscus has a cough now it's cold again. And then to Old Mary the spinner for some wool, just enough for a collar for Aleydis. Did you notice hers is unravelling?’ She paused, as if calculating how long