I filled the pots from the canal and set them on the fire, then went to find Tanneke. She was in the room where the girls slept, helping Cornelia to dress while Maertge helped Aleydis and Lisbeth helped herself. Tanneke was not in good spirits, glancing at me only to ignore me as I tried to speak to her. Finally I stood directly in front of her so that she had to look at me. “Tanneke, I’ll go to the fish stalls now. What would you like today?”
“Going so early? We always go later in the day.” Tanneke still did not look at me. She was tying white ribbons into five-pointed stars in Cornelia’s hair.
“I’m free while the water is heating and thought I would go now,” I replied simply. I did not add that the best cuts were to be had early, even if the butcher or fishmonger promised to set aside things for the family. She should know that. “What would you like?”
“Don’t fancy fish today. Go to the butcher’s for a mutton joint.” Tanneke finished with the ribbons and Cornelia jumped up and pushed past me. Tanneke turned away and opened a chest to search for something. I watched her broad back for a moment, the greyish brown dress pulled tight across it.
She was jealous of me. I had cleaned the studio, where she was not allowed, where no one, it seemed, could go except me and Maria Thins.
When Tanneke straightened, a bonnet in her hand, she said, “The master painted me once, you know. Painted me pouring milk. Everyone said it was his best painting.”
“I’d like to see it,” I responded. “Is it still here?”
“Oh no, van Ruijven bought it.”
I thought for a moment. “So one of Delft’s wealthiest men takes pleasure in looking at you each day.”
Tanneke grinned, her pocked face growing even wider. The right words changed her mood in a moment. It was simply up to me to find the words.
I turned to go before her mood could sour. “May I come with you?” Maertge asked.
“And me?” Lisbeth added.
“Not today,” I said firmly. “You have something to eat and help Tanneke.” I did not want it to become habit for the girls to accompany me. I would use it as a reward for minding me.
I was also longing to walk in familiar streets on my own, not to have a constant reminder of my new life chattering at my side. As I stepped into Market Square, leaving Papists’ Corner behind, I breathed in deeply. I had not realized that I had been holding myself in tight all the time I was with the family.
Before going to Pieter’s stall I stopped at the butcher I knew, who beamed when he saw me. “At last you decide to say hello! What, yesterday you were too grand for the likes of me?” he teased.
I started to explain my new situation but he interrupted me. “Of course I know. Everyone is talking—Jan the tiler’s daughter has gone to work for the painter Vermeer. And then I see after one day she is already too proud to speak to old friends!”
“I have nothing to be so proud of, becoming a maid. My father is ashamed.”
“Your father was simply unlucky. No one is blaming him. There is no need for you to be ashamed, my dear. Except of course that you are not buying your meat from me.”
“I have no choice, I’m afraid. That’s for my mistress to decide.”
“Oh, it is, is it? So your buying from Pieter has nothing to do with his handsome son?”
I frowned. “I have not seen his son.”
The butcher laughed. “You will, you will. Off you go. When you see your mother next tell her to come and see me. I will set aside something for her.”
I thanked him and passed along the stalls to Pieter’s. He seemed surprised to see me. “Here already, are you? Couldn’t wait to get here for more of that tongue?”
“I’d like a joint of mutton today, please.”
“Now tell me, Griet, was that not the best tongue you have had?”
I refused to give him the compliment he craved. “The master and mistress ate it. They did not remark on it.”
Behind Pieter a young man turned round—he had been cutting into a side of beef at a table behind the stall. He must have been the son, for though he was taller than his father, he had the same bright blue eyes. His blond hair was long and thick with curls, framing a face that made me think of apricots. Only his bloody apron was displeasing to the eye.
His eyes came to rest on me like a butterfly on a flower and I could not keep from blushing. I repeated my request for mutton, keeping my eyes on his father. Pieter rummaged through his meat and pulled out a joint for me, laying it on the counter. Two sets of eyes watched me.
The joint was grey at the edges. I sniffed the meat. “This is not fresh,” I said bluntly. “Mistress will be none too pleased that you expect her family to eat meat such as this.” My tone was haughtier than I had intended. Perhaps it needed to be.
Father and son stared at me. I held the gaze of the father, trying to ignore the son.
At last Pieter turned to his son. “Pieter, get me that joint set aside on the cart.”
“But that’s meant for—” Pieter the son stopped. He disappeared, returning with another joint, which I could immediately see was superior. I nodded. “That’s better.”
Pieter the son wrapped the joint and placed it in my pail. I thanked him. As I turned to go I caught the glance that passed between father and son. Even then I knew somehow what it meant, and what it would mean for me.
Catharina was sitting on the bench when I got back, feeding Johannes. I showed her the joint and she nodded. As I was about to go in she said in a low voice, “My husband has inspected the studio and found the cleaning suited him.” She did not look at me.
“Thank you, madam.” I stepped inside, glanced at a still life of fruits and a lobster, and thought, So, I really am to stay.
The rest of the day passed much as the first had, and as the days to follow would. Once I had cleaned the studio and gone to the fish stalls or the Meat Hall I began again on the laundry, one day sorting, soaking and working on stains, another day scrubbing, rinsing, boiling and wringing before hanging things to dry and be bleached in the noon sun, another day ironing and mending and folding. At some point I always stopped to help Tanneke with the midday meal. Afterwards we cleaned up, and then I had a little time free to rest and sew on the bench out front, or back in the courtyard. After that I finished whatever I had been doing in the morning, then helped Tanneke with the late meal. The last thing we did was to mop the floors once more so that they would be fresh and clean for the morning.
At night I covered the Crucifixion hanging at the foot of my bed with the apron I had worn that day. I slept better then. The next day I added the apron to the day’s wash.
While Catharina was unlocking the studio door on the second morning I asked her if I should clean the windows.
“Why not?” she answered sharply. “You do not need to ask me such petty things.”
“Because of the light, madam,” I explained. “It might change the painting if I clean them. You see?”
She did not see. She would not or could not come into the room to look at the painting. It seemed she never entered the studio. When Tanneke was in the right mood I would have to ask her why. Catharina went downstairs to ask him and called up to me to leave the windows.
When I cleaned the studio I saw nothing to indicate that he had been there at all. Nothing had been moved, the palettes were clean, the painting itself appeared no different. But I could feel that he had been there.
I had seen very little of him the first two days I was in the house on the Oude Langendijck. I heard him sometimes, on the stairs, in the hallway, chuckling with his children, talking softly to Catharina. Hearing his voice made me feel as if I were walking along the edge of a canal and unsure of my steps. I did not know how he would treat me in his own house, whether or not he would pay attention to the vegetables I chopped in his kitchen.
No gentleman had ever taken such an interest in me before.
I came face to face with him my third day in the house. Just before dinner I went to find a plate that Lisbeth had left outside and almost ran into him as he carried Aleydis in his arms down the hallway.
I stepped back. He and Aleydis regarded me with the same grey eyes. He neither smiled nor did not smile
