The Golden Tulip Page 3

  “I assume that Hendrick has indentured the two older girls to himself?”

  She was puzzled. “What do you mean?”

  “Only that if he judges them to be as good as you say, it’s high time he accepted them as his apprentices in preparation for when each will be ready to apply for a mastership of the Guild of Amsterdam. Nobody gets that honor without serving the obligatory six years under a master. Naturally neither may develop to that standard, but each should have her chance.”

  She remained doubtful. “I’m not sure that Hendrick would do as you suggest. He is happy enough to give the girls instruction when it suits him, but he hates to be tied down to anything not quite of his choosing. By making Francesca and Aletta his pupils officially he might feel himself to be under an obligation to teach them on a regular basis and that could be calamitous. As you know, it’s the reason why the few apprentices he has had in the past never stayed with him. I wish he had been more successful as a teacher. It must have given you great pleasure and satisfaction to see your pupils become splendid artists in their own right.”

  “That is true, Anna.”

  She recalled Hendrick’s fit of wild jealousy when he had thrown out one hapless youth, who had been misguided enough to fall in love with her, and trouble had resulted over the refunding of the tuition fees, Hendrick being in financial difficulties at the time. Four or five other pupils had left of their own free will at various intervals, protesting to their parents that Hendrick had no interest in whether they progressed or not, a legitimate complaint that permitted the dissolution of their indentures. As a result, he had gained the reputation of being a poor teacher and the fees that supplemented the income of other artists never came his way.

  “Nevertheless,” Rembrandt continued, “I do advise you not to let the young years of your two older girls slip by without indenture papers.”

  She saw the wisdom of what he advised, but to confront Hendrick with an outright request for them would have the outcome she had mentioned.

  Then there came an interruption as the faces of Aletta and Sybylla appeared at the window, both girls requesting that Cornelia return home with them for the noon meal and asking if afterward they could continue the games they were playing.

  “Yes, of course!” she replied willingly.

  Her daughters exclaimed with delight and parted to let Cornelia through to the window. Her bright face, much like her mother’s, beamed at Anna. “I thank you, Vrouw Visser.” Then to her father, she added, “Am I allowed, Father?”

  “Yes. You go and enjoy yourself.”

  “We’ll see her home about six,” Anna promised, rising to her feet. The streets were safe enough by daylight, but after dusk there were the same dangers in Amsterdam as in any other capital. The city militia patrolled the streets by night, but they could not be everywhere.

  Rembrandt rose from the bench too. “There’s no need. Titus will be in your area about that time and he can collect her.”

  On the way home, with the girls chattering together at her side, Anna pondered over the advice Rembrandt had given her. That afternoon a downpour of rain, forcing the girls indoors, gave her an unexpected opportunity to do something about it. She sat the children down at the kitchen table, getting Francesca to join them, and introduced some word games on paper. When Hendrick, who had been out, came back home, Anna sent Sybylla to fetch him to add his name to each girl’s fresh sheet of paper, which she had just handed out. Hendrick obliged, but did not stay while Anna collected all four sheets and improvised some guessing game about them.

  Titus arrived at six o’clock. Anna met him, for the kitchen had been left to Francesca again and the other three girls had gone upstairs. “I trust I find you well, Vrouw Visser,” he said cheerily.

  “Yes, indeed,” she replied.

  “I’ve been delivering one of Father’s etchings to a buyer,” he explained, setting aside on a chair the leather folder that had held Rembrandt’s work. Titus possessed no exceptional artistic talent himself but, unlike his father, was businesslike and practical. Those who were able to remember Rembrandt in his youth always said that his son looked as like him at the same age as another pea from the same pod, being of average height and broadly built with a roundish, smiling face and a shock of brown curls. “Is my sister ready to leave?”

  Like all children when interrupted at play, Cornelia was not. Anna gained the girl another enjoyable half an hour by sitting to chat with Titus herself in the family parlor. She had a maternal fondness for him, having seen him grow up, and was pleased that recently he had begun courting a pretty girl, Magdelena van Lon, whose parents she knew well. As they talked he happened to glance up at the painting of himself as a boy on the wall.

  “I’m still in a place of honor, I see,” he joked.

  “Only just!” she replied on a little laugh. “Francesca asked recently for your portrait to be hung on a bare peg in the studio, where she can have a friendly face to look at when she’s on the rostrum with her gaze in that direction. She made the same request some long time ago, but Hendrick hung a landscape for her instead.”

  “I’m flattered that she should want to look at me! Does she pose often for Master Visser?”

  “Not now. She is too busy with her own artwork.”

  He glanced at the painting again. “I remember that I was puzzling over some mathematical problems in my homework from school when Father first took up his brushes for that painting. As you know, he takes a great deal of time over all his works and in the end, when the problems were long since solved, I sat there daydreaming. But then I suppose that was what Father had been aiming for in the first place.”

  Anna looked up at the painting too. Much of the impasto had still been wet when it had come into Hendrick’s hands. He had happened to meet Rembrandt in the street one day when the artist was desperate for cash, having been refused further credit by every supplier of art materials in Amsterdam. He had offered to sell Hendrick the painting of Titus for whatever he could pay. Hendrick had on him a purse that held the amount he had received from the Amsterdam art dealer, Willem de Hartog, for the sale of two paintings of his own. Promptly he had pulled the purse from his pocket and placed it in Rembrandt’s hands. Anna had come to appreciate the painting since then, but for a long time afterward it had reminded her of how she had fainted away at discovering her husband had come home penniless when every stiver in his purse had been urgently needed. It was Janetje who had kept the food on their table during the hard weeks that had followed until Hendrick sold half a dozen etchings and their fortunes took a turn for the better.

  Titus remembered the hour and sprang up from his chair. “I really must take Cornelia home. She’s almost as much at your house as she is at ours.”

  “Your sister is always welcome here.”

  When he and Cornelia had left, Sybylla came to ask for the papers from the word game. Anna gave her all except those bearing Hendrick’s signature, which the girls had also signed. On her own again, Anna threw away Cornelia’s paper before she went to an upper room. After turning the key in the lock, she began searching in a cupboard for a certain parchment document she knew to be stored there. Finding it, she took it across to a writing table where there was pen and ink, and sat down to copy the wording of Hendrick’s indentures to the late Frans Hals of Haarlem onto the sheet of paper bearing his signature and that of Francesca, incorporating them in the right places. She then did the same with Aletta’s and Sybylla’s. It was unlikely that Sybylla would develop into an artist at a later date, but it was not right to leave her out.

  When all was done, the ink dry and the document returned to its drawer, Anna rolled up the three improvised indentures, tied them with a ribbon, took them into her bedchamber and placed them in her Oriental lacquered box, which held Janetje’s correspondence and other items of importance to her. It was the only time in her life she had carried out a deception against Hendrick, but one day she would explain to him it had been for his good and that o
f their daughters. She smoothed the lace of her cuffs and brushed her hands down her skirt as if some evidence of what she had done might be clinging to her. Then, quite composed, she went downstairs.

  It was almost time for the evening prayers and the family was gathering with Griet in the parlor. Anna knelt in her place beside Hendrick and glanced around at the little circle to make sure the children had folded their hands and were ready. Only Maria sat, for she could no longer get down on her knees. Then Anna bowed her head. Her religious faith was strong. She felt she was particularly blessed in having seen the face of Christ in Rembrandt’s painting of Him. The Dutch Reformed Church rarely commissioned works of art, preferring its walls to be bare, and she thought it a sad loss to thousands of people that only a few of them would ever see the painting. Rembrandt, a devout man himself, had surely come as close as was humanly possible to portraying the Master’s intense compassion and love. She knew that through the painting she had come nearer to Him.

  MARIA HAD BEEN anxious about Anna’s health, able to see that this pregnancy was taking its toll on her. Fortunately Francesca was a great help in relieving her mother of numerous chores, although Anna did not like any extra duties keeping the girl away from the time she could spend in the studio. Then, as the months went by, Maria was thankful to see color returning to Anna’s cheeks while her step grew more vigorous and her energy returned. It was clear she was set on a steady course for the birth, which was due early in April. She was just into her seventh month when she came home from visiting a neighbor. Maria, who was teaching Sybylla a new embroidery stitch, told her that Aletta was playing at the Korvers’ house. Leaving them, Anna went to look in at the studio. Both Hendrick and Francesca were at their individual easels, painting a landscape from sketches they had made, he having retained the colors in his memory while she, less experienced, had made some notes on her drawings to help her. Neither saw Anna and she went out silently again. She thought, as she had often done before, what a pity it was that painting out of doors on location was not possible. The sheer weight of a large, heavy easel and a good-sized canvas on its stretcher made carrying them prohibitive from the start, quite apart from transporting everything else that was needed. No wonder artists chose to go unhampered with nothing more than their sketch pads and then paint afterward what they had seen.

  At the Korvers’ house Aletta was getting tired of waiting for someone to take her home. Heer Korver was with a buyer and his wife was supervising the arrangements for a family banquet to be held there that evening. Jacob, who would have taken her, was not home yet. He was serving an apprenticeship with another diamond merchant and, because the strictness of his indentures prevented his visiting his parents very often, there was always a celebration when he did come home. His grandparents and a host of other relatives were coming from far afield. Esther and the twins were up another flight to change clothing and there was nobody around to think of her. Even the old manservant, who usually escorted her home after sunset, had been dispatched on some special errand.

  Impatiently she went to the window and looked out. Dusk had fallen but it was not yet completely dark. If she ran all the way she could be home in less than five minutes. Already in her cape, she did not bother to fasten it or pull up her hood, but set off at once down the stairs and let herself out the front door. No sooner was she outside than she found it was a little darker than she had realized. There was only one city wall lantern alight in the whole seemingly deserted street, but it was too late to go back indoors now. She could see well enough and that was all that mattered.

  Swiftly she broke into a run, unaware of the dainty, mothlike appearance she presented, her primrose skirt billowing lightly and her mass of soft, silvery-fair hair dancing about her head like a tinseled cloud in the half-light. A roughly clad man, unshaven and half drunk, watched her with a stirring of his loins from the arch of a house’s passageway on the opposite side of the canal. Draining the bottle he held, he set it down quietly instead of tossing it into the canal as he would have done otherwise. Tensely he waited to see if she would cross the bridge. If not, he’d take a quick sprint after her. There was nobody else about as far as he could tell and he’d take his chance. She was coming over to this side! He reached out a hand and tested the passage door to see if the house owner had bolted it yet for the night. He grinned as it swung open with a slight creak into blackness. He drew back into it, no longer able to see her, but able to judge her approach by her light footsteps getting nearer. Then, as she came level, he pounced.

  To Aletta it was for one horrifying second as if a fairy-tale monster had sprung from the depths of the earth to seize her. Yet in the same instant she knew it to be a man. He had clapped a calloused hand over her mouth, muzzling her screams, and grabbed a handful of her hair down to the roots as if he would wrench it from her scalp. Terror possessed her utterly as he half swung her into the passageway and slammed her against the wall to pinion her with his body there. Already breathless from the pace at which she had run, she felt she would suffocate from the stench of foul breath, stale sweat and filthy clothing that filled her nostrils like the odor of plague. His chin rasped her forehead and her eyes threatened to start with renewed horror from their sockets as she felt him slobbering over her head. She thought in fear-crazed disbelief that he was trying to eat her hair and she could feel some strange part of him through her skirts. Her struggling arms and kicking feet had no effect and he was muttering hoarsely. His words, although breathy, were audible and in the dialect of another province.

  “Your tresses! So fine a color is going to get you what you deserve!”

  His saliva had begun running down her face. Worse—oh! much worse—she heard him pull the leather thongs of his breeches free and then his awful devil hand was bundling up her skirts. Her eyes rolled up and her mind went blank with shock, her whole body rigid against violation.

  Then, without warning, the passageway reverberated with the thunderous voice of the furious house-holder as he shouted to them from the rear courtyard. “What in hell’s name is going on down there?”

  Her attacker cursed, releasing her, and she fell to the stone flags as he bolted. The hostile interruption gave her no thought of help forthcoming from its direction. She was up and out of the passageway into the street like a homing pigeon released from a basket, guided by instinct more than sense or sight to cover the few yards to safety.

  Griet, busy in the kitchen, turned in amazement as the back door went crashing open and Aletta, her face white to the lips, her eyes wild and dilated, dashed through, looking neither to right nor to left.

  “Aletta! Wait! What’s wrong?” Griet flew after her, but she had already disappeared up two flights of stairs to her room. Her bedchamber door gave an echoing slam. Turning about, Griet ran to the family parlor, where Anna and Maria sat sewing lace onto baby garments and Francesca was playing drafts with Sybylla. All looked up as Griet entered.

  “What has happened?” Anna demanded on a rush of anxiety, putting her sewing aside.

  “I don’t know, ma’am. Aletta has come home in a dreadful state. She went tearing through the kitchen and up to her room!”

  “Was anyone with her?” Anna was already out of her chair.

  “No, ma’am. She had no cloak and her hair was all over the place.”

  Anna, moving swiftly for the door, gave her daughters their instructions. “You are both to stay here with Maria.” Then to Griet she gave another order. “Fetch the master from the studio at once!”

  “But he’s not there, ma’am! He’s out!”

  Anna broke into a run as she made for the stair hall. She heard Maria shout after her that Aletta should be upbraided for breaking the golden rule of never being out alone after sunset. But this was no time for recriminations. All that was important was to discover what had happened and hope to put matters right.

  In her overwhelming concern for her daughter, Anna had forgotten her condition completely. She took the narrow flight at a fas
ter pace than she had done since her pregnancy. It was as she swept around the top newel post to continue up the second flight that she inadvertently stepped on the hem of a petticoat that she had failed to bunch high enough to leave her feet free. It was a strong, hand-woven linen that did not give and she was hurled off balance, a victim of her own haste. Thudding with full force against the banister, she felt the handrail lash into her side like a bullwhip. Her first lightning thought was one of thankfulness that she had not struck her belly and she cupped a hand over her unborn child, but for a matter of seconds she could not move and remained gasping for breath. Downstairs Griet had come running into the hall to call up to her. “Are you all right, ma’am?”

  Anna steadied herself and straightened her back, glad she was out of the maidservant’s sight or else she would have had Maria’s fussing to add to this present crisis with Aletta, whatever it might be. “Yes, Griet. Reassure Maria. I happened to stumble on my skirt hems.”

  It was a common enough occurrence and Griet did not come up the stairs to investigate further. Anna drew in a deep breath and thrust the pain from her mind. Time enough later to think about a few bruised ribs. She took the last stairs at a slower pace than she would have wished, and crossed the landing to Aletta’s door. It was locked on the inside.

  “Aletta! It’s Mama! Open the door and let me in.” There was no reply and she tried again. “Please do as I say. I know something has happened and I want to help you.”

  Still there was silence. Anna’s fear rose sharply. Aletta was always particularly close to her. Never before had there been a time of trouble when Aletta had not run straight to her. It could only be some kind of shame that was keeping the child away. She shook the door handle urgently and banged the panel with the flat of her hand, calling through in as level a tone as she could manage, but getting no response. Then, happening to glance down, she saw that from under the door a trickle of water had appeared. She renewed her efforts, trying another tactic.