I would never be rich enough to own such a comb. I tidied my hair with my fingers.
“It’s not that, sir.” All the other things he had asked of me I was able to do while cleaning or running errands. No one but Cornelia had become suspicious. But grinding things would take time—I could not do it while I was meant to be cleaning the studio, and I could not explain to others why I must go to the attic at times, leaving my other tasks. “This will take some time to grind,” I said feebly.
“Once you are used to it, it will not take as long as today.”
I hated to question or disobey him—he was my master. But I feared the anger of the women downstairs. “I’m meant to go to the butcher’s now, and to do the ironing, sir. For the mistress.” My words sounded petty.
He did not move. “To the butcher’s?” He was frowning.
“Yes, sir. The mistress will want to know why I cannot do my other work. She will want to know that I am helping you, up here. It’s not easy for me to come up for no reason.”
There was a long silence. The bell in the New Church tower struck seven times.
“I see,” he murmured when it had stopped. “Let me consider this.” He removed some of the ivory, putting it back in a drawer. “Do this bit now.” He gestured at what was left. “It shouldn’t take long. I must go out. Leave it here when you are done.”
He would have to speak to Catharina and tell her about my work. Then it would be easier for me to do things for him.
I waited, but he said nothing to Catharina.
The solution to the problem of the colors came unexpectedly from Tanneke. Since Franciscus’ birth the nurse had been sleeping in the Crucifixion room with Tanneke. From there she could get easily to the great hall to feed the baby when he woke. Although Catharina was not feeding him herself, she insisted that Franciscus sleep in a cradle next to her. I thought this a strange arrangement, but when I came to know Catharina better I understood that she wanted to hold on to the appearance of motherhood, if not the tasks themselves.
Tanneke was not happy sharing her room with the nurse, complaining that the nurse got up too often to tend to the baby, and when she did remain in bed she snored. Tanneke spoke of it to everyone, whether they listened or not. She began to slacken her work, and blamed it on not getting enough sleep. Maria Thins told her there was nothing they could do, but Tanneke continued to grumble. She often threw black looks at me—before I came to live in the house Tanneke had slept where I did in the cellar whenever a nurse was needed. It was almost as if she blamed me for the nurse’s snores.
One evening she even appealed to Catharina. Catharina was preparing herself for an evening at the van Ruijvens’, despite the cold. She was in a good mood—wearing her pearls and yellow mantle always made her happy. Over her mantle she had tied a wide linen collar that covered her shoulders and protected the cloth from the powder she was dusting on her face. As Tanneke listed her woes, Catharina continued to powder herself, holding up a mirror to inspect the results. Her hair had been dressed in braids and ribbons, and as long as she kept her happy expression she was very beautiful, the combination of her blond hair and light brown eyes making her look exotic.
At last she waved the powder-brush at Tanneke. “Stop!” she cried with a laugh. “We need the nurse and she must sleep near me. There’s no space in the girls’ room, but there is in yours, so she is there. There’s nothing to be done. Why do you bother me about it?”
“Perhaps there is one thing that may be done,” he said. I glanced up from the cupboard where I was searching for an apron for Lisbeth. He was standing in the doorway. Catharina gazed up at her husband in surprise. He rarely showed interest in domestic affairs. “Put a bed up in the attic and let someone sleep there. Griet, perhaps.”
“Griet in the attic? Why?” Catharina cried.
“Then Tanneke may sleep in the cellar, as she prefers,” he explained mildly.
“But—” Catharina stopped, confused. She seemed to disapprove of the idea but could not say why.
“Oh yes, madam,” Tanneke broke in eagerly. “That would certainly help.” She glanced at me.
I busied myself refolding the children’s clothes, though they were already tidy.
“What about the key to the studio?” Catharina finally found an argument. There was only one entrance to the attic, by the ladder in the studio’s storeroom. To get to my bed I would have to pass through the studio, which was kept locked at night. “We can’t give a maid the key.”
“She won’t need a key,” he countered. “You may lock the studio door once she has gone to bed. Then in the morning she may clean the studio before you come and unlock the door.”
I paused with my folding. I did not like the idea of being locked into my room at night.
Unfortunately this notion seemed to please Catharina. Perhaps she thought locking me away would keep me both safely in one place and out of her sight. “All right, then,” she decided. She made most decisions quickly. She turned to Tanneke and me. “Tomorrow you two move a bed to the attic. This is only temporary,” she added, “until the nurse is no longer needed.”
Temporary as my trips to the butcher and fishmonger were meant to be temporary, I thought.
“Come with me to the studio for a moment,” he said. He was looking at her in a way I had begun to recognize—a painter’s way.
“Me?” Catharina smiled at her husband. Invitations to his studio were rare. She set down her powder-brush with a flourish and began to remove the wide collar, now covered with dust.
He reached out and grasped her hand. “Leave that.”
This was almost as surprising as his suggestion to move me to the attic. As he led Catharina upstairs, Tanneke and I exchanged looks.
The next day the baker’s daughter began to wear the wide white collar while modelling for the painting.
Maria Thins was not so easily fooled. When she heard from a gleeful Tanneke about her move to the cellar and mine to the attic she puffed on her pipe and frowned. “You two could just switch”—she pointed at us with the pipe—”so that Griet sleeps with the nurse and you go in the cellar. Then there is no need for anyone to move to the attic.”
Tanneke was not listening—she was too full of her victory to notice the logic in her mistress’s words.
“Mistress has agreed to it,” I said simply.
Maria Thins gave me a long sideways look.
Sleeping in the attic made it easier for me to work there, but I still had little time to do so. I could get up earlier and go to bed later, but sometimes he gave me so much work that I had to find a way to go up in the afternoons, when I normally sat by the fire and sewed. I began to complain of not being able to see my stitching in the dim kitchen, and needing the light of my bright attic room. Or I said my stomach hurt and I wanted to lie down. Maria Thins gave me that same sideways look each time I made an excuse, but did not comment.
I began to get used to lying.
Once he had suggested that I sleep in the attic he left it to me to arrange my duties so that I could work for him. He never helped by lying for me, or asking me if I had time to spare for him. He gave me instructions in the morning and expected them to be done by the next day.
The colors themselves made up for the troubles I had hiding what I was doing. I came to love grinding the things he brought from the apothecary—bones, white lead, madder, massicot—to see how bright and pure I could get the colors. I learned that the finer the materials were ground, the deeper the color. From rough, dull grains madder became a fine bright red powder and, mixed with linseed oil, a sparkling paint. Making it and the other colors was magical.
From him I learned too how to wash substances to rid them of impurities and bring out the true colors. I used a series of shells as shallow bowls, and rinsed and rerinsed colors, sometimes thirty times, to get out the chalk or sand or gravel. It was long and tedious work, but very satisfying to see the color grow cleaner with each wash, and closer to what was needed.
The only color he did not allow me to handle was ultramarine. Lapis lazuli was so expensive, and the process of extracting a pure blue from the stone so difficult, that he worked with it himself.
I grew used to being around him. Sometimes we stood side by side in the small room, me grinding white lead, him washing lapis or burning ochers in the fire. He said little to me. He was a quiet man. I did not speak
