Girl With a Pearl Earring

  “What did she say when you told her?”

  “She’s not happy, of course, but she’s more afraid of his anger.” Maria Thins hesitated. “There’s another reason why she’s not so concerned. I may as well tell you now. She’s carrying a child again.”

  “Another?” I let slip. I was surprised that Catharina would want another child when they were so short of money.

  Maria Thins frowned at me. “Watch yourself, girl.”

  “I’m sorry, madam.” I instantly regretted having spoken even that one word. It was not for me to say how big their family should be. “Has the doctor been?” I asked, trying to make amends.

  “Doesn’t need to. She knows the signs, she’s been through it enough.” For a moment Maria Thins’ face made clear her thoughts—she too wondered about so many children. Then she became stern again. “You go about your duties, stay out of her way, and help him, but don’t parade it in front of the house. Your place here is not so secure.”

  I nodded and let my eyes rest on her gnarled hands as they fumbled with a pipe. She lit it and puffed for a moment. Then she chuckled. “Never so much trouble with a maid before. Lord love us!”

  On Sunday I took the comb back to my mother. I did not tell her what had happened—I simply said it was too fine for a maid to keep.

  Some things changed for me in the house after the trouble with the comb. Catharina’s treatment of me was the greatest surprise. I had expected that she would be even more difficult than before—give me more work, berate me whenever she could, make me as uncomfortable as possible. Instead she seemed to fear me. She removed the studio key from the precious bunch at her hip and handed it back to Maria Thins, never locking or unlocking the door again. She left her jewelry box in the studio, sending her mother to fetch what she needed from it. She avoided me as much as she could. Once I understood this, I kept out of her way as well.

  She did not say anything about my afternoon work in the attic. Maria Thins must have impressed upon her the notion that my help would make him paint more, and support the child she carried as well as those she had already. She had taken to heart his words about her care of the children, who were after all her main charge, and began to spend more time with them than she had before. With the encouragement of Maria Thins, she even began to teach Maertge and Lisbeth to read and write.

  Maria Thins was more subtle, but she too changed toward me, treating me with more respect. I was still clearly a maid, but she did not dismiss me so readily, or ignore me, as she did sometimes with Tanneke. She would not go so far as to ask my opinion, but she made me feel less excluded from the household.

  I was also surprised when Tanneke softened toward me. I had thought she enjoyed being angry and bearing me a grudge, but perhaps it had worn her out. Or perhaps once it was clear that he took my side, she felt it best not to appear to be opposed to me. Perhaps they all felt like that. Whatever the reason, she stopped creating extra work for me by spilling things, stopped muttering about me under her breath and giving me hard sideways looks. She did not befriend me, but it became easier to work with her.

  It was cruel, perhaps, but I felt I had won a battle against her. She was older and had been a part of the household for much longer, but his favoring me clearly carried more weight than her loyalty and experience. She could have felt this slight deeply, but she accepted defeat more easily than I would have expected. Tanneke was a simple creature underneath, and wanted an easy time of it. The easiest way was to accept me.

  Although her mother took closer charge of her, Cornelia did not change. She was Catharina’s favorite, perhaps because she most resembled her in spirit, and Catharina would do little to tame her ways. Sometimes she looked at me with her light brown eyes, her head tilted so that her red curls dangled about her face, and I thought of the sneer Maertge had described as Cornelia’s expression while she was being beaten. And I thought again, as I had on my first day: She will be a handful.

  Though I did not make a show of it, I avoided Cornelia as I did her mother. I did not wish to encourage her. I hid the broken tile, my best lace collar, which my mother had made for me, and my finest embroidered handkerchief, so that she could not use them against me.

  He did not treat me differently after the affair of the comb. When I thanked him for speaking up for me, he shook his head as if shooing away a fly that buzzed about him.

  It was I who felt differently about him. I felt indebted. I felt that if he asked me to do something I could not say no. I did not know what he would ask that I would want to say no to, but nonetheless I did not like the position I had come to be in.

  I was disappointed in him as well, though I did not like to think about it. I had wanted him to tell Catharina himself about my assisting him, to show that he was not afraid to tell her, that he supported me.

  That is what I wanted.

  Maria Thins came to see him in his studio one afternoon in the middle of October, when the painting of van Ruijven’s wife was nearly complete. She must have known I was working in the attic and could hear her, but nevertheless she spoke directly to him.

  She asked him what he intended to paint next. When he did not reply she said, “You must paint a larger painting, with more figures in it, as you used to. Not another woman alone with only her thoughts. When van Ruijven comes to see his painting you must suggest another to him. Perhaps a companion piece to something you’ve already painted for him. He will agree—he usually does. And he will pay more for it.”

  He still did not respond.

  “We’re further in debt,” Maria Thins said bluntly. “We need the money.”

  “He may ask that she be in it,” he said. His voice was low but I was able to hear what he said, though only later did I understand what he meant.

  “So?”

  “No. Not like that.”

  “We’ll worry about that when it happens, not before.”

  A few days later van Ruijven and his wife came to see the finished painting. In the morning my master and I prepared the room for their visit. He took the pearls and jewelry box down to Catharina while I put away everything else and set out chairs. Then he moved the easel and painting into the place where the setting had been and had me open all the shutters.

  That morning I helped Tanneke prepare a special dinner for them. I did not think I would have to see them, and when they came at noon it was Tanneke who took up wine as they gathered in the studio. When she returned, however, she announced that I was to help her serve dinner rather than Maertge, who was old enough to join them at the table. “My mistress has decided this,” she added.

  I was surprised—the last time they viewed their painting Maria Thins had tried to keep me away from van Ruijven. I did not say so to Tanneke, though. “Is van Leeuwenhoek there too?” I asked instead. “I thought I heard his voice in the hallway.”

  Tanneke nodded absently. She was tasting the roasted pheasant. “Not bad,” she murmured. “I can hold my head as high as any cook of van Ruijven’s.”

  While she was upstairs I had basted the pheasant and sprinkled it with salt, which Tanneke used too sparingly.

  When they came down to dinner and everyone was seated, Tanneke and I began to bring in the dishes. Catharina glared at me. Never good at concealing her thoughts, she was horrified to see that I was serving.

  My master too looked as if he had cracked his tooth on a stone. He stared coldly at Maria Thins, who feigned indifference behind her glass of wine.

  Van Ruijven, however, grinned. “Ah, the wide-eyed maid!” he cried. “I wondered where you’d got to. How are you, my girl?”

  “Very well, sir, thank you,” I murmured, placing a slice of pheasant on his plate and moving away as quickly as I could. Not quickly enough, however—he managed to slide his hand along my thigh. I could still feel the ghost of it a few minutes later.

  While van Ruijven’s wife and Maertge remained oblivious, van Leeuwenhoek noted everything—Catharina’s fury, my master’s irritation, Maria Thins??
? shrug, van Ruijven’s lingering hand. When I served him he searched my face as if looking there for the answer to how a simple maid could cause so much trouble. I was grateful to him—there was no blame in his expression.

  Tanneke too had noticed the stir I caused, and for once was helpful. We said nothing in the kitchen, but it was she who made the trips back to the table to bring out the gravy, to refill the wine, to serve more food, while I looked after things in the kitchen. I had to go back only once, when we were both to clear away the plates. Tanneke went directly to van Ruijven’s place while I took up plates at the other end of the table. Van Ruijven’s eyes followed me everywhere.

  So did my master’s.

  I tried to ignore them, instead listening to Maria Thins. She was discussing the next painting. “You were pleased with the one of the music lesson, weren’t you?” she said. “What better to follow such a painting with than another with a musical setting? After a lesson, a concert, perhaps with more people in it, three or four musicians, an audience—”

  “No audience,” my master interrupted. “I do not paint audiences.”

  Maria Thins regarded him skeptically.

  “Come, come,” van Leeuwenhoek interjected genially, “surely an audience is less interesting than the musicians themselves.”

  I was glad he defended my master.

  “I don’t care about audiences,” van Ruijven announced, “but I would like to be in the painting. I will play the lute.” After a pause he added, “I want her in it too.” I did not have to look at him to know he had gestured at me.

  Tanneke jerked her head slightly towards the kitchen and I escaped with the little I had cleared, leaving her to gather the rest. I wanted to look at my master but did not dare. As I was leaving I heard Catharina say in a gay voice, “What a fine idea! Like that painting with you and the maid in the red dress. Do you remember her?”

  On Sunday my mother spoke to me when we were alone in her kitchen. My father was sitting out in the late October sun while we prepared dinner. “You know I don’t listen to market gossip,” she began, “but it is hard not to hear it when my daughter’s name is mentioned.”

  I immediately thought of Pieter the son. Nothing we did in the alley was worthy of gossip. I had insisted on that. “I don’t know what you mean, Mother,” I answered honestly.

  My mother pulled in the corners of her mouth. “They are saying your master is going to paint you.” It was as if the words themselves made her mouth purse.

  I stopped stirring the pot I had been tending. “Who says this?”

  My mother sighed, reluctant to pass along overheard tales. “Some women selling apples.”

  When I did not respond she took my silence to mean the worst. “Why didn’t you tell me, Griet?”

  “Mother, I haven’t even heard this myself. No one has said anything to me!”

  She did not believe me.

  “It’s true,” I insisted. “My master has said nothing, Maria Thins has said nothing. I simply clean his studio. That’s as close as I get to his paintings.” I had never told her about my attic work. “How can you believe old women selling apples rather than me?”

  “When there’s talk about someone at the market, there’s usually a reason for it, even if it’s not what’s actually being said.” My mother left the kitchen to call my father. She would say no more about the subject that day, but I began to fear she might be right—I would be the last to be told.

  The next day at the Meat Hall I decided to ask Pieter the father about the rumor. I did not dare speak of it to Pieter the son. If my mother had heard the gossip, he would have as well. I knew he would not be pleased. Although he had never said so to me, it was clear he was jealous of my master.

  Pieter the son was not at the stall. I did not have to wait long for Pieter the father to say something himself. “What’s this I hear?” he smirked as I approached. “Going to have your picture painted, are you? Soon you’ll be too grand for the likes of my son. He’s gone off in a sulk to the Beast Market because of you.”

  “Tell me what you have heard.”

  “Oh, you want it told again, do you?” He raised his voice. “Shall I make it into a fine tale for a few others?”

  “Hush,” I hissed. Underneath his bravado I sensed he was angry with me. “Just tell me what you have heard.”

  Pieter the father lowered his voice. “Only that van Ruijven’s cook was saying you are to sit with her master for a painting.”

  “I know nothing of this,” I stated firmly, aware even as I said it that, as with my mother, my words had little effect. Pieter the father scooped up a handful of pigs’ kidneys. “It’s not me you should be talking to,” he said, weighing them in his hand.

  I waited a few days before speaking to Maria Thins. I wanted to see if anyone would tell me first. I found her in the Crucifixion room one afternoon when Catharina was asleep and Maertge had taken the girls to the Beast Market. Tanneke was in the kitchen sewing and watching Johannes and Franciscus.

  “May I speak to you, madam?” I said in a low voice.

  “What is it, girl?” She lit her pipe and regarded me through the smoke. “Trouble again?” She sounded weary.

  “I don’t know, madam. But I have heard a strange thing.”

  “So have we all heard strange things.”

  “I have heard that—that I am to be in a painting. With van Ruijven.”

  Maria Thins chuckled. “Yes, that is a strange thing. They’ve been talking in the market, have they?”

  I nodded.

  She leaned back in her chair and puffed on her pipe. “Tell me, what would you think of being in such a painting?”

  I did not know what to answer. “What would I think, madam?” I repeated dumbly.

  “I wouldn’t bother to ask some people that. Tanneke, for instance. When he painted her she stood there happily pouring milk for months without a thought passing through that head, God love her. But you—no, there’s all manner of things you think but don’t say. I wonder what they are?”

  I said the one sensible thing I knew she would understand. “I do not wish to sit with van Ruijven, madam. I do not think his intentions are honorable.” My words were stiff.

  “His intentions are never honorable when it comes to young women.”

  I nervously wiped my hands on my apron.

  “It seems you have a champion to defend your honor,” she continued. “My son-in-law is no more willing to paint you with van Ruijven than you are willing to sit with him.”

  I did not try to hide my relief.

  “But,” Maria Thins warned, “van Ruijven is his patron, and a wealthy and powerful man. We cannot afford to offend him.”

  “What will you say to him, madam?”

  “I’m still trying to decide. In the meantime, you will have to put up with the rumors. Don’t answer them—we don’t want van Ruijven hearing from the market gossips that you are refusing to sit with him.”

  I must have looked uncomfortable. “Don’t worry, girl,” Maria Thins growled, tapping her pipe on the table to loosen the ash. “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.”