Girl with a Pearl Earring, The Page 12

  I could not hear Catharina’s response. I stopped sweeping the floor of the girls’ room for a moment.

  “You remember the last one,” Maria Thins reminded her. “The maid. Remember van Ruijven and the maid in the red dress?”

  Catharina snorted with muffled laughter.

  “That was the last time anyone looked out from one of his paintings,” Maria Thins continued, “and what a scandal that was! I was sure he would say no when van Ruijven suggested it this time, but he has agreed to do it.”

  I could not ask Maria Thins, who would know I had been listening to them. I could not ask Tanneke, who would never repeat gossip to me now. So one day when there were few people at his stall I asked Pieter the son if he had heard about the maid in the red dress.

  “Oh yes, that story went all around the Meat Hall,” he answered, chuckling. He leaned over and began rearranging the cows’ tongues on display. “It was several years ago now. It seems van Ruijven wanted one of his kitchen maids to sit for a painting with him. They dressed her in one of his wife’s gowns, a red one, and van Ruijven made sure there was wine in the painting so he could get her to drink every time they sat together. Sure enough, before the painting was finished she was carrying van Ruijven’s child.”

  “What happened to her?”

  Pieter shrugged. “What happens to girls like that?”

  His words froze my blood. Of course I had heard such stories before, but never one so close to me. I thought about my dreams of wearing Catharina’s clothes, of van Ruijven grasping my chin in the hallway, of him saying “You should paint her” to my master.

  Pieter had stopped what he was doing, a frown on his face. “Why do you want to know about her?”

  “It’s nothing,” I answered lightly. “Just something I overheard. It means nothing.”

  I had not been present when he set up the scene for the painting of the baker’s daughter—I had not yet been assisting him. Now, however, the first time van Ruijven’s wife came to sit for him I was up in the attic working, and could hear what he said. She was a quiet woman. She did what was asked of her without a sound. Even her fine shoes did not tap across the tiled floor. He had her stand by the unshuttered window, then sit in one of the two lion-head chairs placed around the table. I heard him close some shutters. “This painting will be darker than the last,” he declared.

  She did not respond. It was as if he were talking to himself. After a moment he called up to me. When I appeared he said, “Griet, get my wife’s yellow mantle, and her pearl necklace and earrings.”

  Catharina was visiting friends that afternoon so I could not ask her for her jewels. I would have been frightened to anyway. Instead I went to Maria Thins in the Crucifixion room, who unlocked Catharina’s jewelry box and handed me the necklace and earrings. Then I got out the mantle from the cupboard in the great hall, shook it out and folded it carefully over my arm. I had never touched it before. I let my nose sink into the fur—it was very soft, like a baby rabbit’s.

  As I walked down the hallway to the stairs I had the sudden desire to run out the door with the riches in my arms. I could go to the star in the middle of Market Square, choose a direction to follow, and never come back.

  Instead I returned to van Ruijven’s wife and helped her into the mantle. She wore it as if it were her own skin. After sliding the earring wires through the holes in her lobes, she looped the pearls around her neck. I had taken up the ribbons to tie the necklace for her when he said, “Don’t wear the necklace. Leave it on the table.”

  She sat again. He sat in his chair and studied her. She did not seem to mind—she gazed into space, seeing nothing, as he had tried to get me to do.

  “Look at me,” he said.

  She looked at him. Her eyes were large and dark, almost black.

  He laid a table rug on the table, then changed it for the blue cloth. He laid the pearls in a line on the table, then in a heap, then in a line again. He asked her to stand, to sit, then to sit back, then to sit forward.

  I thought he had forgotten that I was watching from the corner until he said, “Griet, get me Catharina’s powder-brush.”

  He had her hold the brush up to her face, lay it on the table with her hand still grasping it, leave it to one side. He handed it to me. “Take it back.”

  When I returned he had given her a quill and paper. She sat in the chair, leaning forward, and wrote, an inkwell at her right. He opened a pair of the upper shutters and closed the bottom pair. The room became darker but the light shone on her high round forehead, on her arm resting on the table, on the sleeve of the yellow mantle.

  “Move your left hand forward slightly,” he said. “There.”

  She wrote.

  “Look at me,” he said.

  She looked at him.

  He got a map from the storeroom and hung it on the wall behind her. He took it down again. He tried a small landscape, a painting of a ship, the bare wall. Then he disappeared downstairs.

  While he was gone I watched van Ruijven’s wife closely. It was perhaps rude of me, but I wanted to see what she would do. She did not move. She seemed to settle into the pose more completely. By the time he returned, with a still life of musical instruments, she looked as if she had always been sitting at the table, writing her letter. I had heard he painted her once before the previous necklace painting, playing a lute. She must have learned by now what he wanted from a model. Perhaps she simply was what he wanted.

  He hung the painting behind her, then sat down again to study her. As they gazed at each other I felt as if I were not there. I wanted to leave, to go back to my colors, but I did not dare disturb the moment.

  “The next time you come, wear white ribbons in your hair instead of pink, and a yellow ribbon where you tie your hair at the back.”

  She nodded so slightly that her head hardly moved.

  “You may sit back.”

  As he released her, I felt free to go.

  The next day he pulled up another chair to the table. The day after that he brought up Catharina’s jewelry box and set it on the table. Its drawers were studded with pearls around the keyholes.

  Van Leeuwenhoek arrived with his camera obscura while I was working in the attic. “You will have to get one of your own some day,” I heard him say in his deep voice. “Though I admit it gives me the opportunity to see what you’re painting. Where is the model?”

  “She could not come.”

  “That is a problem.”

  “No. Griet,” he called.

  I climbed down the ladder. When I entered the studio van Leeuwenhoek gazed at me in astonishment. He had very clear brown eyes, with large lids that made him look sleepy. He was far from sleepy, though, but alert and puzzled, his mouth drawn in tightly at the corners. Despite his surprise at seeing me, he had a kindly look about him, and when he recovered he even bowed.

  No gentleman had ever bowed to me before. I could not stop myself—I smiled.

  Van Leeuwenhoek laughed. “What were you doing up there, my dear?”

  “Grinding colors, sir.”

  He turned to my master. “An assistant! What other surprises do you have for me? Next you’ll be teaching her to paint your women for you.”

  My master was not amused. “Griet,” he said, “sit as you saw van Ruijven’s wife do the other day.”

  I stepped nervously to the chair and sat, leaning forward as she had done.

  “Take up the quill.”

  I picked it up, my hand trembling and making the feather shake, and placed my hands as I had remembered hers. I prayed he would not ask me to write something, as he had van Ruijven’s wife. My father had taught me to write my name, but little else. At least I knew how to hold the quill. I glanced at the sheets on the table and wondered what van Ruijven’s wife had written on them. I could read a little, from familiar things like my prayer book, but not a lady’s hand.

  “Look at me.”

  I looked at him. I tried to be van Ruijven’s wife.


  He cleared his throat. “She will be wearing the yellow mantle,” he said to van Leeuwenhoek, who nodded.

  My master stood, and they set up the camera obscura so that it pointed at me. Then they took turns looking. When they were bent over the box with the black robe over their heads, it became easier for me to sit and think of nothing, as I knew he wanted me to.

  He had van Leeuwenhoek move the painting on the back wall several times before he was satisfied with its position, then open and shut shutters while he kept his head under the robe. At last he seemed satisfied. He stood up and folded the robe over the back of the chair, then stepped over to the desk, picked up a piece of paper, and handed it to van Leeuwenhoek. They began discussing its contents—Guild business he wanted advice about. They talked for a long time.

  Van Leeuwenhoek glanced up. “For the mercy of God, man, let the girl get back to her work.”

  My master looked at me as if surprised that I was still sitting at the table, quill in hand. “Griet, you may go.”

  As I left I thought I saw a look of pity cross van Leeuwenhoek’s face.

  He left the camera set up in the studio for some days. I was able to look through it several times on my own, lingering on the objects on the table. Something about the scene he was to paint bothered me. It was like looking at a painting that has been hung crookedly. I wanted to change something, but I did not know what. The box gave me no answers.

  One day van Ruijven’s wife came again and he looked at her for a long time in the camera. I was passing through the studio while his head was covered, and walked as quietly as I could so I would not disturb them. I stood behind him for a moment to look at the setting with her in it. She must have seen me but gave no sign, continuing to gaze straight at him with her dark eyes.

  It came to me then that the scene was too neat. Although I valued tidiness over most things, I knew from his other paintings that there should be some disorder on the table, something to snag the eye. I pondered each object—the jewelry box, the blue table rug, the pearls, the letter, the inkwell—and decided what I would change. I returned quietly to the attic, surprised by my bold thoughts.

  Once it was clear to me what he should do to the scene, I waited for him to make the change.

  He did not move anything on the table. He adjusted the shutters slightly, the tilt of her head, the angle of her quill. But he did not change what I had expected him to.

  I thought about it while I was wringing out sheets, while I was turning the spit for Tanneke, while I was wiping the kitchen tiles, while I was rinsing colors. While I lay in bed at night I thought about it. Sometimes I got up to look again. No, I was not mistaken.

  He returned the camera to van Leeuwenhoek.

  Whenever I looked at the scene my chest grew tight as if something were pressing on it.

  He set a canvas on the easel and painted a coat of lead white and chalk mixed with a bit of burnt sienna and yellow ocher.

  My chest grew tighter, waiting for him.

  He sketched lightly in reddish brown the outline of the woman and of each object.

  When he began to paint great blocks of false colors, I thought my chest would burst like a sack that has been filled with too much flour.

  As I lay in bed one night I decided I would have to make the change myself.

  The next morning I cleaned, setting the jewelry box back carefully, relining the pearls, replacing the letter, polishing and replacing the inkwell. I took a deep breath to ease the pressure in my chest. Then in one quick movement I pulled the front part of the blue cloth onto the table so that it flowed out of the dark shadows under the table and up in a slant onto the table in front of the jewelry box. I made a few adjustments to the lines of the folds, then stepped back. It echoed the shape of van Ruijven’s wife’s arm as she held the quill.

  Yes, I thought, and pressed my lips together. He may send me away for changing it, but it is better now.

  That afternoon I did not go up to the attic, although there was plenty of work for me there. I sat outside on the bench with Tanneke and mended shirts. He had not gone to his studio that morning, but to the Guild, and had dined at van Leeuwenhoek’s. He had not yet seen the change.

  I waited anxiously on the bench. Even Tanneke, who tried to ignore me these days, noted my mood. “What’s the matter with you, girl?” she asked. She had taken to calling me girl like her mistress. “You’re acting like a chicken that knows it’s for the slaughter.”

  “Nothing,” I said. “Tell me about what happened when Catharina’s brother came here last. I heard about it at the market. They still mention you,” I added, hoping to distract and flatter her, and to cover up how clumsily I moved away from her question.

  For a moment Tanneke sat up straighter, until she remembered who was asking. “That’s not your business,” she snapped. “That’s family business, not for the likes of you.”

  A few months before she would have delighted in telling a story that set her in the best light. But it was me who was asking, and I was not to be trusted or humored or favored with her words, though it must have pained her to pass up the chance to boast.

  Then I saw him—he was walking towards us up the Oude Langendijck, his hat tilted to shield his face from the spring sunlight, his dark cloak pushed back from his shoulders. As he drew up to us I could not look at him.

  “Afternoon, sir,” Tanneke sang out in a completely different tone.

  “Hello, Tanneke. Are you enjoying the sun?”

  “Oh yes, sir. I do like the sun on my face.”

  I kept my eyes on the stitches I had made. I could feel him looking at me.

  After he went inside Tanneke hissed, “Say hello to the master when he speaks to you, girl. Your manners are a disgrace.”

  “It was you he spoke to.”

  “And so he should. But you needn’t be so rude or you’ll end up in the street, with no place here.”

  He must be upstairs now, I thought. He must have seen what I’ve done.

  I waited, barely able to hold my needle. I did not know exactly what I expected. Would he berate me in front of Tanneke? Would he raise his voice for the first time since I had come to live in his house? Would he say the painting was ruined?

  Perhaps he would simply pull down the blue cloth so that it hung as it had before. Perhaps he would say nothing to me.

  Later that night I saw him briefly as he came down for supper. He did not appear to be one thing or the other, happy or angry, unconcerned or anxious. He did not ignore me but he did not look at me either.

  When I went up to bed I checked to see if he had pulled the cloth to hang as it had before I touched it.

  He had not. I held up my candle to the easel—he had resketched in reddish brown the folds of the blue cloth. He had made my change.

  I lay in bed that night smiling in the dark.

  The next morning he came in as I was cleaning around the jewelry box. He had never before seen me making my measurements. I had laid my arm along one edge and moved the box to dust under and around it. When I looked over he was watching me. He did not say anything. Nor did I—I was concerned to set the box back exactly as it had been. Then I sponged the blue cloth with a damp rag, especially careful with the new folds I had made. My hands shook a little as I cleaned.

  When I was done I looked up at him.

  “Tell me, Griet, why did you change the tablecloth?” His tone was the same as when he had asked me about the vegetables at my parents’ house.

  I thought for a moment. “There needs to be some disorder in the scene, to contrast with her tranquillity,” I explained. “Something to tease the eye. And yet it must be something pleasing to the eye as well, and it is, because the cloth and her arm are in a similar position.”

  There was a long pause. He was gazing at the table. I waited, wiping my hands against my apron.

  “I had not thought I would learn something from a maid,” he said at last.

  On Sunday my mother joined us as I described th
e new painting to my father. Pieter was with us, and had fixed his eyes on a patch of sunlight on the floor. He was always quiet when we talked about my master’s paintings.

  I did not tell them about the change I had made that my master approved of.

  “I think his paintings are not good for the soul,” my mother announced suddenly. She was frowning. She had never before spoken of his work.

  My father turned his face towards her in surprise.

  “Good for the purse, more like,” Frans quipped. It was one of the rare Sundays when he was visiting. Lately he had become obsessed with money. He questioned me about the value of things in the house on the Oude Langendijck, of the pearls and mantle in the painting, of the pearl-encrusted jewelry box and what it held, of the number and size of paintings that hung on the walls. I did not tell him much. I was sorry to think it of my own brother, but I feared his thoughts had turned to easier ways of making a living than as an apprentice in a tile factory. I suspected he was only dreaming, but I did not want to fuel those dreams with visions of expensive objects within his—or his sister’s—reach.

  “What do you mean, Mother?” I asked, ignoring Frans.

  “There is something dangerous about your description of his paintings,” she explained. “From the way you talk they could be of religious scenes. It is as if the woman you describe is the Virgin Mary when she is just a woman, writing a letter. You give the painting meaning that it does not have or deserve. There are thousands of paintings in Delft. You can see them everywhere, hanging in a tavern as readily as in a rich man’s house. You could take two weeks’ maid’s wages and buy one at the market.”

  “If I did that,” I replied, “you and Father would not eat for two weeks, and you would die without seeing what I bought.”

  My father winced. Frans, who had been tying knots in a length of string, went very still. Pieter glanced at me.