Francesca sat meditatively when she had finished the letter. So her description of the caged goldfinch had made its mark on Hendrick and her message had gone home. How long would it be before he had a change of heart toward her circ.u.mstances? She dropped her head in her hands as she anguished over Pieter's disappointment in her. Somehow she must get in contact with him. Perhaps the solution was to tell everything to Aletta and let her inform him. But she could not be sure that Aletta would hold back from taking up arms on her behalf against Hendrick, and the last thing she wanted was to create strife in her home during her absence. Yet this seemed to be the only path open to her. Although the hour was late she wrote to Aletta at once, impressing on her not to rile their father in any way and to call on Sybylla as a last resort.

She was about to get into bed when she heard a knocking on the entrance door of the house. Her window was open and she looked out in time to see a traveler admitted. There had been several comings and goings during the weeks since her arrival, but only once had she come face to face with one of the overnight guests. The man was from Utrecht and they had had a short conversation in the hall when leaving the house at the same time, she to go to the Mechelin Huis escorted by Clara, and he to catch a stage wagon to continue his journey. Although Geetruyd liked to emphasize her modest means, her way of living did not match her words, and it seemed to Francesca that the widow liked to pretend genteel poverty while actually having a good income, or else her visitors paid her exceptionally well for their accommodation. The former seemed the most likely. It would explain Geetruyd's fine gowns, good wines and rich food. Only when she attended one of her charity meetings did she dress in plain gray or black and even then the fabric was of the very best.

Francesca would have gone to sleep without another thought for the traveler if the m.u.f.fled sounds of a quarrel had not reached her from one of the ground-floor rooms. Since she was two floors above there should have been no chance of any noise reaching her, but this was an old house and she supposed some hollowness in a wall, or perhaps a deep crack in the plaster somewhere, was funneling the disturbance through to her. More than once the banging of a door in that downstairs room had made her sit up in bed or look toward her door in the momentary illusion that it was close at hand. She could not distinguish the words of the quarrel and neither did she want to, but there were the unmistakable shrill tones of Geetruyd and the angry rumble of a man's reply. Perhaps he had left last time without paying his bill and was about to be shown the door. Then as Geetruyd's voice rose to a piercing note a sc.r.a.p of what she said came through. "...she'll remember your face, you fool!" After that there was six or seven minutes of sustained quarreling in lower tones before Geetruyd left the traveler and came up to bed, the sharp tap of her heels seeming to convey that her anger was unabated.

Normally Francesca would not have looked out of the window when she heard a guest departing early in the morning, but this time she did. As he crossed the street and hurried away she saw to her surprise that it was the man from Utrecht to whom she had spoken on his previous visit. He was either catching an earlier stage wagon than before or else he could not get out of the house quickly enough. Not that he would have avoided meeting Geetruyd again, for she was always dressed and downstairs to receive her travelers' payment before they departed.

Francesca pondered over what she had heard. Why had Geetruyd been so furious about someone remembering his face? Surely the widow could not have been referring to her? Why should it matter in any case? If Geetruyd, for some obscure reason of her own, wanted her guests to have the ultimate privacy at all times, she should not have had an apprentice to stay in her house, for the odd chance of meeting was always there. One thing was clear. If this was a typical incident, she was on far more familiar terms with her travelers than she had admitted. Francesca frowned. Since Geetruyd had not been present when she had had her conversation with the man from Utrecht, Clara must have reported it. Unfortunately it put Clara in a new light as Geetruyd's spy, something that Francesca had not considered before, and she supposed that everything she told the little woman about her work and her home was reported back to build up some kind of casebook about her. What a mercy it was that she could forget everything connected with this house at the Vermeers'!

Before leaving for the studio Francesca went across to the fireplace, which was the source of the voices and sounds that had reached her. Careful examination revealed that at some time the fireplace had shifted slightly, leaving a gap between itself and the paneling, which was not unusual in a house of great age. Putting her hand to it, she could feel a draft, showing there was a definite funnel somewhere from the room two floors below. She had some spare paint rags and she stuffed them into the aperture, not wanting to overhear any more conversations not meant for her ears.

ALETTA WAS ON her way to see Pieter. She was anxious not to delay in telling him of the restrictions being placed on Francesca's freedom and correspondence, which she had read about with shock and dismay in the letter received only an hour before. She knew where to find him, for only yesterday he had told her that the flagstones for Ludolf's paths were being delivered and laid this morning and he would be there to oversee the work. She did not think she could just go through to the garden without making her presence known, and duly presented herself at the entrance door to the house.

"Is Heer van Deventer at home?" she inquired when it was opened.

The manservant recognized her as having been at the banquet with her father and sisters. "No, mejuffrouw, Heer van Deventer is away from home for several weeks."

"Oh, I am sorry to have missed him. I also want to speak with Heer van Doorne, who I understand is to be here supervising the work in the garden this morning."

The manservant smiled obligingly. "Heer van Doorne has been here for some time. If you will follow me I will take you through to the garden."

He showed her through to the drawing room, where doors opened out onto the terrace. There Aletta paused to gaze appreciatively down the stretch of the beautiful garden. She had no idea of how it had looked before Pieter had refashioned it, for it had been dark on the evening of the banquet when last she was here, but it was now a vista of parterres and lawns with a little avenue of newly planted half-grown trees that carried the eye forward to a glade with a fountain and the promise of more secluded areas of peace and charm beyond. She thought sadly how it would have enchanted Ludolf's late wife. She could not see Pieter, but his gardeners were everywhere. As she was about to go down the steps in search of him a woman's voice spoke to her.

"Juffrouw Visser."

Aletta turned to see a fair-haired woman in a white cap and black gown that proclaimed her to be a servant of the van Deventer household. "Yes?"

"I heard what you said at the door." The woman bobbed to her. "We have not met, but I'm Neeltje. I was the late Vrouw van Deventer's personal maid until her tragic death. Would you mind if we went down to a sheltered seat that is hidden from the house? My master has gone away, but I should not be seen idling and I have a warning to give you for your sister, Juffrouw Francesca."

Aletta, her curiosity aroused, went with her down the stone steps and along to the seat. There they sat down, turned slightly toward each other. "What is it you wished to say to me?" Aletta prompted.

But Neeltje was not to be hurried, and she began to tell Aletta about herself. "I was orphaned when I was twelve and had to get work wherever I could. My only a.s.set was my ability to sew and eventually I obtained regular employment with a seamstress making garments for well-to-do women. It so happened that I was given the task of making a wedding gown of blue satin for my late mistress's second marriage, this time to Ludolf van Deventer. When I heard that her personal maid had no wish to move with her to Amsterdam after she was married I went specially to ask her to let me become the replacement in her service. That same evening I was able to move out of the hovel where I had lived into the home that had been hers and her first husband's. I finished the wedding gown there."

"I'm sure it was the beginning of a much happier time for you."

Neeltje's eyes became hard and glittering. "It would have been if I had not seen her married to that monster!"

Aletta drew back startled. "What are you saying?"

"Van Deventer is a liar and a hypocrite! As soon as I can find other work better than that of linen maid, which I have become, I shall leave. I tell you that Juffrouw Francesca is in danger from him!"

"You must be mistaken," Aletta exclaimed. "She is working in Delft and will be there for a long time yet."

"Van Deventer's hand can reach out anywhere!" Neeltje made a grabbing gesture in the air. "Did your sister tell you that she would have been subjected to indignities by him if I had not entered the room in the nick of time?"

Aletta felt chilled. She guessed why Francesca had said nothing, wanting to spare her a revival of memory that still brought on the occasional nightmare. "When did it happen?"

"On the day of the banquet. Only hours before his wife-died." Neeltje had almost said "was murdered," because she was sure it had not been a natural death. Weeping with grief, she had laid Amalia out, in spite of the pain of her cracked ribs at the time, for she had been determined that n.o.body else should perform this last service to the woman who had always been good to her. It was then that she had seen a faint bruise at the jawline and almost under the ear. In addition, three fingernails were broken. A terrible suspicion had seared through her. At the first opportunity she had secretly examined the couch and found clawed threads in the silkwork. There was also the smear of carmine on the cushion consistent only with Amalia turning her face fully into it. In her own room she had held a cushion over the lower half of her face before a mirror and seen where knuckles of a hand holding it down with force might well have caused such a bruise as she had seen on her mistress. Her conclusion had made her shake so much that it was as if an ague had come upon her. She knew the ident.i.ty of the murderer as surely as if he had confessed. When the doctor came to see her again, in order to make sure her breathing was not affected by the state of her ribs, all she had intended to say to him about the conclusions she had drawn was silenced by his first words.

"You were the last to see Vrouw van Deventer alive, Neeltje. How exactly was she at that time?"

Immediately she had seen that if foul play did come to light, she would be the first to be accused. No one would suspect Ludolf with his constant show of devotion that she knew to be totally false. So she had held her tongue while burning with rage and hatred against him. He had twice brought devastation into her life, even though he probably did not remember the first time, but that was something she had long kept to herself and was not to be divulged to this gentle-faced girl. "I would not wish van Deventer as a husband for my worst enemy and it is my belief that he means to have your sister as his next wife."

"She would never marry him! Neither would my father permit it! Your fears are groundless!"

"That's as may be. I tell you that van Deventer is a man easily obsessed by violent ambitions and at the present time he wants your sister above all else. He is besotted by the likeness of her as Flora. It draws his eyes as if he were magnetized by it and thus it was when she was in the house. He guarded himself when others were present and even when she looked directly at him-until that last time when they were alone. I had long observed him with her from the shadows and my own watch points in the house, and I saw such l.u.s.t in his face that I trembled for her safety and I still do."

Aletta could see that the woman meant every word said. "Why should you take such a risk yourself to tell me all this? How do you know that I will not speak of it and bring about your banishment from this house sooner than you antic.i.p.ate?"

Neeltje was unmoved by this testing. "Because I have heard your sisters speak of your love of family and your integrity. Both of them, especially your younger sister, brought such happiness to my late mistress in the last weeks of her life that I'll always feel indebted to them. It is for that reason that I am asking you to let Juffrouw Francesca know that her whole future might be hanging in the balance."

Aletta felt sick with dread. This well-meant and yet awful advice coming on top of her learning of the restrictions on Francesca's freedom, even though her sister had emphasized all that the Vermeers had done for her, made it easy to believe some disaster lay ahead. "I must tell you there is one person in whom I feel it is essential to confide all that you have told me."

Instantly Neeltje was wary. "Who is that?"

"Heer van Doorne, who has redesigned this whole garden. I know he is in love with Francesca and should some threat be leveled against her he is the one best able to deal with it. He will respect my confidence and I trust him completely."

Neeltje gave a nod. If the Visser family trusted him that was good enough for her. "Inform van Doorne by all means. I have done all I can for your sister by telling you what I believe. It is up to you, and those you can rally to help you, to see that what I fear never comes about." She rose from the seat to go back into the house.

Left alone in a daze of foreboding, Aletta went to ask one of the gardeners where Pieter was to be found. She almost ran in search of him.

Indoors Neeltje returned to the linen room, one window of which looked down into the garden. She kept her chair by it, partly because it gave her a good light over her left shoulder, but most of all because she liked to glance out at the work in progress. She sat down and picked up the damask tablecloth, which she was in the process of mending. The garden would look very fine when it was finished, but it would never have what had once bloomed in a small tulip bed outside the humble cottage that had been her childhood home.

She let her hands rest with needle and thimble as her thoughts drifted back to those days. Times had been hard and money always short, but her parents had been good and kind, her childhood a happy one. They had had a cow and Neeltje had helped her mother make the cheese and b.u.t.ter that they took to market together with the vegetables that her father grew. Long before tulipomania had swept through the land he had been given half a dozen tulip bulbs, probably believed to be of inferior quality, in lieu of payment for produce, and he had begun to grow tulips for sale.

One morning, not long after her mother had died and tulipomania was in full spate, he had rushed into the cottage where she was baking bread. He was shaking with excitement.

"Come and see!"

He had grabbed her by her floury hand and rushed her outside to look at a tulip on the point of bursting into bloom. It was that rarest and most sought-after color that all growers were seeking to achieve-a black tulip!

Both of them knelt on the earth gazing at it. She felt bound to warn him against disappointment in case it should prove to be no more than a dark purple. "My dear child," he had said, "it will be black, you'll see."

He was right. When it came to its midnight-hued bloom there had been an almost velvety look to it. The local pastor, who could be trusted to keep the secret, came to bear witness to the color and write a testimonial while impressing on them both not to let a slip of the tongue betray them before the time of selling. But her father was so jubilant that he could not resist a word in confidence to one neighbor and then another.

Then on the evening before he was to take the bulb into town, two well-dressed strangers called at the cottage, a large man and a youth of about seventeen whom he introduced as his son. They had come to make an offer for the bulb before it reached the open market and mentioned a sum of so many hundred guilders that her father had stood openmouthed, for it was far more than he had ever expected. Although she was twelve at the time she was still shy in the presence of strangers and she kept back out of the way, watching everything. While her father and the large man talked, she studied the face of the youth, trying to think where she had seen him before.

Proudly her father brought out the precious bulb and the testimonial to place them on the wooden table. When the man asked if he might hold the bulb, her father willingly agreed and the youth took up the testimonial to read it. Then in the next second the man deliberately dropped the bulb to the floor and crushed it to pulp with his heel while the youth hurled the testimonial into the fire.

"What have you done?" her father shouted heartbrokenly. "That was the only black tulip in all Holland!"

To which the man had given an extraordinary reply. "On the contrary! Only yesterday I bought another, which is now the only one. If you had sold yours on the open market it would have halved the price of mine! Now you have no proof that yours ever existed!"

Her father had never been a violent man, but he was so incensed that he grappled with the man to stop him leaving, shouting to her to run to the neighbors for help. But the youth had drawn a heavy bludgeon from under his cloak and struck him such a mighty blow across the head that he fell with a cracked skull and blood spurting. Then both men fled to their horses and galloped away. It was a neighbor who heard her screaming and came running to find her temporarily out of her wits with shock.

After a while she did remember where she had seen the youth before. It had been in the marketplace when a band of strolling players were taking their bow at the end of a performance and he had been among them. Inquiries were made, but he had left the company on the day of the murder. When eventually the bulb of the black tulip had surfaced in the open market it had changed hands too many times, frequently in taverns, where many such deals took place, for the two criminals to be traced.

Yet Neeltje had never forgotten the youth's face. When she saw him again many years later she had recognized him instantly, although in no way did he connect her, a mature woman in her thirties, with a child he had barely noticed in the shadows of a candlelit cottage. Taking up her mending again, she thought how satisfying it was to be thwarting Ludolf van Deventer's chances with Francesca Visser, but it was not enough. True vengeance was needed. Not for one murder only, but for two.

Chapter 13.

HENDRICK PONDERED OVER ALETTA HAVING RECEIVED A letter from Francesca. The fact that she had not shared it with him or, to the best of his knowledge, with anyone else in the household was confirmation of what it contained. During the day he had seen the flash of accusation in her expressive eyes before she had lowered her pale lids and scurried away upstairs. Her speed had suggested that she was afraid of what she might say to him if she stayed any longer in his company.

That evening at dinner Aletta did speak of the letter from her sister, giving the information that Francesca was well and working hard. "She writes that Master Vermeer has an almost ethereal control of his brush, able to create vividly as well as sensitively and accurately. With a single touch of paint he can reveal the gleam of a pearl such as Francesca has never seen done before."

"That's nice," Sybylla commented mundanely, her thoughts busy with her own affairs. She had two suitors at the present time and had no intention of marrying either, since both were craftsmen of moderate standing with no chance of ever making a large fortune, good-looking though they might be. If Francesca had written only of painting she was not really interested in seeing the letter, although it was odd that Aletta had not offered to let her read it.

"Well?" Hendrick prompted, wanting to hear more of Vermeer's technique.

Aletta's glance fell on him as coldly as a dousing of ca.n.a.l water. She spoke meaningfully, knowing he alone at the table would grasp what lay behind her words. "Francesca didn't include anything else about her work or that of her master in the letter."

He stared her out with the bravado he could summon at times. "Then the rest of what is written can be of no interest whatever to me!"

When Aletta dropped her gaze he knew that she understood she should not try to intercede on her sister's behalf for any change of the arrangements in Delft.

Maria, always concerned for the well-being of the three girls, did not notice the tension between Hendrick and his second daughter any more than Sybylla had. "When you write again, child, tell Francesca always to wear a straw hat in the sun."

"I will," Aletta replied in a strained voice.

Griet, who was observant, was curious to know what the trouble was. She wondered if the master ever realized that Aletta, in spite of her docile appearance, could be as stubborn as he when the need arose.

WILLEM MADE A visit to Delft to collect the Fabritius goldfinch painting that Jan Vermeer had kept for him. Their business was settled, Willem taking several other paintings by lesser artists as well, before he went along to the studio to see Francesca.

"How good to see a friendly face from home!" she exclaimed. "I trust I find you well. What news of my father and my sisters?"

All the time he was answering her he had one eye on her work. She had chosen as her subject one of the younger Vermeer children, the little girl called Beatrix, who was shown sitting on the floor in the full light from the window and playing with a doll. Not only was it enchanting, but Vermeer's influence showed in the impression of a single captured moment. Some portrayal of movement could have been expected with an active child at play, but by the tilt of the young head and the hand hovering over an arrangement of the doll's gown Francesca satisfied the beholder that all would have been still in that brief moment of contemplation. As with the master, so it was with the pupil. Francesca was learning fast and putting her own interpretation on canvas.

"It is good that you came to Delft, Francesca," he said in a congratulatory tone.

"I'm thankful for every day in this studio," she said enthusiastically, "but I should like to move from where I am staying into other accommodation." Quickly she explained everything, including all she had been forced to write to Pieter. "You know Father so well that I'm sure your backing would make all the difference when Aletta feels the time is right to appeal to him."

"I'm an old-fashioned man," he said staidly. "I believe young women should be chaperoned every step of the way. It is how my own daughters were guarded and I happen to think it's right for you here in a strange city. To be frank, I always thought you and your sisters had far too much liberty at home. Frequently you all went here, there and everywhere without escort, just as Aletta and Sybylla still do. For a long time Maria has been far too old to keep a properly caring eye on three pretty girls. I can't be sorry you are under the guardianship of a regentess. To me, that shows you could not be more safely protected. For once in his life, your father has made a wise move in my opinion."

"What of Vrouw Wolff's terrible threat of shutting me up if I should disobey her?"

"If you are obedient you have nothing to fear. I see that warning of hers as a deterrent to waywardness, such as a birch in a teacher's firm hand can quell uproar in the cla.s.sroom without action being taken."

She was bitterly disappointed that she had not gained his support. "Would you at least take a letter to Pieter for me and have it delivered when you are back in Amsterdam? I have one that I wrote a while ago and I have kept it here in the studio until such time as I could ask someone to do this for me."

"My dear girl," he said gently and not without sympathy, "I can't go against Hendrick's wishes. If he changes his mind at any time I will take any number of letters to this young man for you, but until then I have to refuse."

The disappointment in Francesca's face and the sad droop of her hands distressed Willem. He moved over to the window, troubled by the hurt he was causing and remembering how burdensome Francesca's life had been during the past five years since her mother's death. Not only had she shouldered increasing domestic responsibilities, but she had coped with a totally unreliable father whose drinking and gambling left her to struggle with debts on every side. As for Pieter van Doorne, it was possible that Hendrick's present unaccountable state of depression and melancholia might have caused an unreasonable aversion toward a young man whose advances he had previously encouraged. A very different life from that once enjoyed by his own daughters!

Willem turned back to Francesca. "Don't be so upset, dear child. I'm not sure I'm doing the right thing but I will take your letter to Pieter. As it may be some time before I return to Amsterdam I will post it in the next town I visit. But this letter only-no more until Hendrick gives consent!"

Francesca's grat.i.tude and thanks were overwhelming. True, she was still tied to Geetruyd Wolff, but she told herself this might prove only a minor setback and she was herself again by the time Clara came to walk back to Kromstraat with her.

THE MORNING OF Beatrix Vermeer's fifth birthday Francesca worked on her own in the studio. Upon her arrival earlier she had handed her a gift of a little wooden doll in a green gown, which had delighted the child. It was almost noon when Truyd and Rina came bursting into the studio with the birthday girl, who was prancing about in her excitement.

"No more work for today, Juffrouw Francesca!" Truyd and Rina chorused happily. "As soon as the noon meal is over everyone is to get ready for the party!"

Francesca had brought a best gown with her that morning to change into, as she always did when invited to one of the Vermeers' social functions. Twice Heer and Vrouw Dissius, who had such an enviable collection of Jan's paintings, had included her in invitations to musical evenings with her master and Catharina. On other occasions she was made welcome next door to the Mechelin tavern, where the master baker Heer van Buyten lived with his wife and family. Among the Vermeer paintings on their walls was a charming one of Catharina in a yellow gown playing the clavichord accompanied by a gentleman with a guitar and a woman singing. It was exactly how she had seen the Vermeers grouped with friends on their musical evenings.

Francesca changed in an upstairs bedroom. A mirror enabled her to check her appearance in her gown of grape-green silk with its falling frill of lace around the scooped neckline. In her lobes she slipped the gold earbobs that had been her mother's and her thoughts turned to the times when she had prepared for parties at home. With a pang of yearning she recalled the evening when Pieter had brought the hyacinth to the house. Her longing to see him again had become a persistent ache that she could only overcome by concentrating on her work.

When she came downstairs guests were beginning to arrive. There were plenty of young children. All the adults, in the old custom of bringing kindermaal, carried cakes and other delicacies to add to the feast. These good things were placed on the long damask-covered table in the dining hall. Catharina's face was joyous as she greeted everyone with a kiss and embrace, having a special word for every child. She looked beautiful and elegant in a gown of heavy cream satin with a little ermine-trimmed yellow silk jacket that she had worn for The Love Letter and in which Jan had painted her several times previously. Her mother, Vrouw Thin, was present, also handsomely gowned, and watching fondly her grandchildren at play.

At the height of the fun Jan was called away to see someone who had come to the house. When he returned soon afterward it was to speak quietly in Francesca's ear.

"Elizabeth had shown a visitor into my gallery, thinking he was a buyer, but that was not the case. He is waiting in the more comfortable anteroom and would like to speak to you."

Her eyes widened, but Jan turned away without giving her any clue as to who it might be. Yet she knew-and did not dare to know! She went swiftly from the room and by the time she was near the gallery she was running. She flung open the parlor door and saw Pieter within. Joy and panic rose simultaneously in her.

"Pieter!" she breathed.

He rushed to meet her and she flew without further thought into his arms. His kiss took away her words, her breath, her very will. The realization of how much she had missed him made her lose herself in his kiss, almost as if in a frenzy, and she clasped him tightly around his neck as he held her crushed to him. It was as if they would never be able to part again, but eventually sanity returned and she thrust herself out of his embrace. She was trembling and rested a hand on the lion head of a chair as if for support. Her voice came huskily, scarcely above a whisper.

"It is well meant that you are here, but you shouldn't have come."

"After what Aletta told me of all you had written to her and then a letter from you, posted in Leiden, reached me yesterday afternoon, do you suppose I could have stayed away?"

"At least you know now why I wrote to you the first time as I did." She could not think what was the matter with her, for even her lips were tremulous.

"That first letter, coming so soon after your giving me your word you would say if our friendship threatened to interfere with your work, made me believe you had reached the decision on the journey to Delft."

"I guessed that."

"It also added up with what your father said to me on the morning of your departure about my not seeing you at all."

Her head shot up. "He said that to you?"

He frowned, puzzled. "Didn't you know?"

She shook her head wearily. "I don't understand what has come over him. Did he give you an explanation?"

"Only that he wanted you to concentrate on your work with no distractions."

She gave an empty laugh. "He said that and yet I'm forced to live chaperoned almost night and day and under constant threat of incarceration in a house of correction if I disobey the rules! I try to put all that from my mind when I start work in the mornings, but sometimes when Geetruyd Wolff has made some niggling complaint at breakfast I find it hard to slam a mental door on her."

He took her hands into his. "I've something very serious to discuss with you about Ludolf van Deventer."