Girl With a Pearl Earring. Tracy Chevalier

turned red, but she did not cry. She ran back up the steps. Aleydis and Lisbeth peered down at me solemnly.

      I had a feeling then. This is how it will be with her mother, I thought, except that I will not be able to slap her.

      I filled the pots and carried them to the top of the steps. Cornelia had disappeared. Maertge was still sitting with Johannes. I took one of the pots inside and back to the cooking kitchen, where I built up the fire, filled the copper kettle, and put it on to heat.

      When I came back Cornelia was outside again, her face still flushed. The girls were playing with tops on the grey and white tiles. None of them looked up at me.

      The pot I had left was missing. I looked into the canal and saw it floating, upside down, just out of reach of the stairs.

      ‘Yes, you will be a handful,’ I murmured. I looked around for a stick to fish it out with but could find none. I filled the other pot again and carried it inside, turning my head so that the girls could not see my face. I set the pot next to the kettle on the fire. Then I went outside again, this time with a broom.

      Cornelia was throwing stones at the pot, probably hoping to sink it.

      ‘I’ll slap you again if you don’t stop.’

      ‘I’ll tell our mother. Maids don’t slap us.’ Cornelia threw another stone.

      ‘Shall I tell your grandmother what you’ve done?’

      A fearful look crossed Cornelia’s face. She dropped the stones she held.

      A boat was moving along the canal from the direction of the Town Hall. I recognised the man poling from earlier that day – he had delivered his load of bricks and the boat was riding much higher. He grinned when he saw me.

      I blushed. ‘Please, sir,’ I began, ‘can you help me get that pot?’

      ‘Oh, you’re looking at me now that you want something from me, are you? There’s a change!’

      Cornelia was watching me curiously.

      I swallowed. ‘I can’t reach the pot from here. Perhaps you could—’

      The man leaned over, fished out the pot, dumped the water from it, and held it out to me. I ran down the steps and took it from him. ‘Thank you. I’m most grateful.’

      He did not let go of the pot. ‘Is that all I get? No kiss?’ He reached over and pulled my sleeve. I jerked my arm away and wrestled the pot from him.

      ‘Not this time,’ I said as lightly as I could. I was never good at that sort of talk.

      He laughed. ‘I’ll be looking for pots every time I pass here now, won’t I, young miss?’ He winked at Cornelia. ‘Pots and kisses.’ He took up his pole and pushed off.

      As I climbed the steps back to the street I thought I saw a movement in the middle window on the first floor, the room where he was. I stared but could see nothing except the reflected sky.

      Catharina returned while I was taking down laundry in the courtyard. I first heard her keys jangling in the hallway. They hung in a great bunch just below her waist, bouncing against her hip. Although they looked uncomfortable to me, she wore them with great pride. I then heard her in the cooking kitchen, ordering about Tanneke and the boy who had carried things from the shops for her. She spoke harshly to both.

      I continued to pull down and fold bedsheets, napkins, pillowcases, tablecloths, shirts, chemises, aprons, handkerchiefs, collars, caps. They had been hung carelessly, bunched in places so that patches of cloth were still damp. And they had not been shaken first, so there were creases everywhere. I would be ironing much of the day to make them presentable.

      Catharina appeared at the door, looking hot and tired, though the sun was not yet at its highest. Her chemise puffed out messily from the top of her blue dress, and the green housecoat she wore over it was already crumpled. Her blonde hair was frizzier than ever, especially as she wore no cap to smooth it. The curls fought against the combs that held them in a bun.

      She looked as if she needed to sit quietly for a moment by the canal, where the sight of the water might calm and cool her.

      I was not sure how I should be with her – I had never been a maid, nor had we ever had one in our house. There were no servants on our street. No one could afford one. I placed the laundry I was folding in a basket, then nodded at her. ‘Good morning, madam.’

      She frowned and I realised I should have let her speak first. I would have to take more care with her.

      ‘Tanneke has taken you around the house?’ she said.

      ‘Yes, madam.’

      ‘Well, then, you will know what to do and you will do it.’ She hesitated, as if at a loss for words, and it came to me that she knew little more about being my mistress than I did about being her maid. Tanneke had probably been trained by Maria Thins and still followed her orders, whatever Catharina said to her.

      I would have to help her without seeming to.

      ‘Tanneke has explained that besides the laundry you want me to go for the meat and fish, madam,’ I suggested gently.

      Catharina brightened. ‘Yes. She will take you when you finish with the washing here. After that you will go every day yourself. And on other errands as I need you,’ she added.

      ‘Yes, madam.’ I waited. When she said nothing else I reached up to pull a man’s linen shirt from the line.

      Catharina stared at the shirt. ‘Tomorrow,’ she announced as I was folding it, ‘I will show you upstairs where you are to clean. Early – first thing in the morning.’ Before I could reply she disappeared inside.

      After I brought in the laundry I found the iron, cleaned it, and set it in the fire to heat. I had just begun ironing when Tanneke came and handed me a shopping pail. ‘We’re going to the butcher’s now,’ she said. ‘I’ll need the meat soon.’ I had heard her clattering in the cooking kitchen and had smelled parsnips roasting.

      Out in front Catharina sat on the bench, with Lisbeth on a stool by her feet and Johannes asleep in a cradle. She was combing Lisbeth’s hair and searching for lice. Next to her Cornelia and Aleydis were sewing. ‘No, Aleydis,’ Catharina was saying, ‘pull the thread tight, that’s too loose. You show her, Cornelia.’

      I had not thought they could all be so calm together.

      Maertge ran over from the canal. ‘Are you going to the butcher’s? May I go too, Mama?’

      ‘Only if you stay with Tanneke and mind her.’

      I was glad that Maertge came with us. Tanneke was still wary of me, but Maertge was merry and quick and that made it easier for us to be friendly.

      I asked Tanneke how long she had worked for Maria Thins.

      ‘Oh, many years,’ she said. ‘A few before master and young mistress were married and came to live here. I started when I was no older than you. How old are you, then?’

      ‘Sixteen.’

      ‘I began when I was fourteen,’ Tanneke countered triumphantly. ‘Half my life I’ve worked here.’

      I would not have said such a thing with pride. Her work had worn her so that she looked older than her twenty-eight years.

      The Meat Hall was just behind the Town Hall, south and to the west of Market Square. Inside were thirty-two stalls – there had been thirty-two butchers in Delft for generations. It was busy with housewives and maids choosing, bartering and buying for their families, and men carrying carcasses back and forth. Sawdust on the floor soaked up blood and clung to shoes and hems of dresses. There was a tang of blood in the air that always made me shiver, though at one time I had gone there every week and ought to have grown used to the smell. Still, I was pleased to be in a familiar place. As we passed between the stalls the butcher we used to buy our meat from before my father’s accident called out to me. I smiled at him, relieved