Girl With a Pearl Earring

I stared at her. Her question must be a trick but I could not imagine any change that would make it better.

‘Isn’t it?’ I faltered.

Maria Thins snorted. ‘He’s been working on it for three months. I expect he’ll do so for two more months. He will change things. You’ll see.’ She looked around. ‘Done your cleaning, have you? Well, then, go on, girl – go to your other tasks. He’ll come soon to see how you’ve done.’

I looked at the painting one last time, but by studying it so hard I felt something slip away. It was like looking at a star in the night sky – if I looked at one directly I could barely see it, but if I looked from the corner of my eye it became much brighter.

I gathered my broom and bucket and cloth. When I left the room, Maria Thins was still standing in front of the painting.

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 realised 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 on 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 at me. It was hard to meet his eyes. I thought of the woman looking at herself in the painting upstairs, of wearing pearls and yellow satin. She would have no trouble meeting the gaze of a gentleman. When I managed to lift my eyes to his he was no longer looking at me.

The next day I saw the woman herself. On my way back from the butcher a man and woman walked ahead of me on the Oude Langendijck. At our door he turned to her and bowed, then walked on. There was a long white feather in his hat – he must have been the visitor from a few days earlier. From the brief glimpse I caught of his profile I saw that he had a moustache, and a plump face to match his body. He smiled as if he were about to pay a flattering but false compliment. The woman turned into the house before I could see her face but I did see the five-pointed red ribbon in her hair. I held back, waiting by the doorway until I heard her go up the stairs.

Later I was putting away some clothes in the cupboard in the great hall when she came back down. I stood up as she entered. She was carrying the yellow mantle in her arms. The ribbon was still in her hair.

‘Oh!’ she said. ‘Where is Catharina?’

‘She’s gone with her mother to the Town Hall, madam. Family business.’

‘I see. Never mind, I’ll see her another day. I’ll leave this here for her.’ She draped the mantle across the bed and dropped the pearl necklace on top of it.

‘Yes, madam.’

I could not take my eyes off her. I felt as if I were seeing her and yet not seeing her. It was a strange sensation. She was, as Maria Thins had said, not as beautiful as when the light struck her in the painting. Yet she was beautiful, if only because I was remembering her so. She gazed at me with a puzzled look on her face, as if she ought to know me since I was staring at her with such familiarity. I managed to lower my eyes. ‘I will tell her you called, madam.’

She nodded but looked troubled. She glanced at the pearls she had laid on top of the mantle. ‘I think I shall leave these up in the studio with him,’ she announced, picking up the necklace. She did not look at me, but I knew she was thinking that maids were not to be trusted with pearls. After she had gone her face lingered like perfume.

On Saturday Catharina and Maria Thins took Tanneke and Maertge with them to the market in the square, where they would buy vegetables to last the week, staples and other things for the house. I longed to go with them, thinking I might see my mother and sister, but I was told to stay at the house with the younger girls and the baby. It was difficult to keep them from running off to the market. I would have taken them there myself but I did not dare leave the house unattended. Instead we watched the boats go up and down the canal, full on their way to the market with cabbages, pigs, flowers, wood, flour, strawberries, horseshoes. They were empty on the way back, the boatmen counting money or drinking. I taught the girls games I had played with Agnes and Frans, and they taught me games they had made up. They blew bubbles, played with their dolls, ran with their hoops while I sat on the bench with Johannes in my lap.

Cornelia seemed to have forgotten about the slap. She was cheerful and friendly, helpful with Johannes, obedient to me. ‘Will you help me?’ she asked me as she tried to climb on to a barrel the neighbours had left out in the street. Her light brown eyes were wide and innocent. I found myself warming to her sweetness, yet knowing I could not trust her. She could be the most interesting of the girls, but also the most changeable – the best and the worst at the same time.

They were sorting through a collection of shells they had brought outside, dividing them into piles of different colours, when he came out of the house. I squeezed the baby round his middle, feeling his ribs under my hands. He squealed and I buried my nose in his ear to hide my face.

‘Papa, can I go with you?’ Cornelia cried, jumping up and grabbing his hand. I could not see the expression on his face – the tilt of his head and the brim of his hat hid it.

Lisbeth and Aleydis abandoned their shells. ‘I want to go too!’ they shouted in unison, grabbing his other hand.

He shook his head and then I could see his bemused expression. ‘Not today – I’m going to the apothecary’s.’

‘Will you buy paint things, Papa?’ Cornelia asked, still holding on to his hand.

‘Among other things.’

Baby Johannes began to cry and he glanced down at me. I bounced the baby, feeling awkward.

He looked as if he would say something, but instead he shook off the girls and strode down the Oude Langendijck.

He had not said a word to me since we discussed the colour and shape of vegetables.

I woke very early on Sunday, for I was excited about going home. I had to wait for Catharina to unlock the front door, but when I heard it swing open I came out to find Maria Thins with the key.

‘My daughter is tired today,’ she said as she stood aside to let me out. ‘She will rest for a few days. Can you manage without her?’

‘Of course, madam,’ I replied, then added, ‘and I may always ask you if I have questions.’

Maria Thins chuckled. ‘Ah, you’re a cunning one, girl. You know whose pot to spoon from. Never mind, we can do with a bit of cleverness around here.’ She handed me some coins, my wages for the days I had worked. ‘Off you go now, to tell your mother all about us, I suspect.’

I slipped away before she could say more, crossed Market Square, past those going to early services at the New Church, and hurried up the streets and canals that led me home. When I turned into my street I thought how different it felt already after less than a week away. The light seemed brighter and flatter, the canal wider. The plane trees lining the canal stood perfectly still, like sentries waiting for me.

Agnes was sitting on the bench in front of our house. When she saw me she called inside, ‘She’s here!’ then ran to me and took my arm. ‘How is it?’ she asked, not even saying hello. ‘Are they nice? Do you work hard? Are there any girls there? Is the house very grand? Where do you sleep? Do you eat off fine plates?’

I laughed and would not answer any of her questions until I had hugged my mother and greeted my father. Although it was not very much, I felt proud to hand over to my mother the few coins in my hand. This was, after all, why I was working.

My father came to sit outside with us and hear about my new life. I gave my hands to him to guide him over the front stoop. As he sat down on the bench he rubbed my palms with his thumb. ‘Your hands are chapped,’ he said. ‘So rough and worn. Already you have the scars of hard work.’

‘Don’t worry,’ I answered lightly. ‘There was so much laundry waiting for me because they didn’t have enough help before. It will get easier soon.’

My mother studied my hands. ‘I’ll soak some mallow in oil,’ she said. ‘That will keep your hands soft. Agnes and I will go into the country to pick some.’

‘Tell us!’ Agnes cried. ‘Tell us about them.’

I told them. Only a few things I didn’t mention – how tired I was at night; how the Crucifixion scene hung at the foot of my bed; how I had slapped Cornelia; how Maertge and Agnes were the same age. Otherwise I told them everything.

I passed on the message from our butcher to my mother. ‘That is kind of him,’ she said, ‘but he knows we have no money for meat and will not take such charity.’

‘I don’t think he meant it as charity,’ I explained. ‘I think he meant it out of friendship.’

She did not answer, but I knew she would not go back to the butcher.

When I mentioned the new butchers, Pieter the father and son, she raised her eyebrows but said nothing.

Afterwards we went to services at our church, where I was surrounded by familiar faces and familiar words. Sitting between Agnes and my mother, I felt my back relaxing into the pew, and my face softening from the mask I had worn all week. I thought I might cry.

Mother and Agnes would not let me help them with dinner when we came back home. I sat with my father on the bench in the sun. He held his face up to the warmth and kept his head cocked that way all the time we talked.

‘Now, Griet,’ he said, ‘tell me about your new master. You hardly said a word about him.’

‘I haven’t seen much of him,’ I was able to reply truthfully. ‘He is either in his studio, where no one is to disturb him, or he is out.’

‘Taking care of Guild business, I expect. But you have been in his studio – you told us about the cleaning and the measurements, but nothing about the painting he is working on. Describe it to me.’

‘I don’t know if I can in such a way that you will be able to see it.’

‘Try. I have little to think of now except for memories. It will give me pleasure to imagine a painting by a master, even if my mind creates only a poor imitation.’

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