Francesca ran out of the back door and into the street by way of the side pa.s.sageway. Upstairs the conversation of the regentesses had turned to the weather and if there would be rain in the night. Clara obliged by drawing a curtain to inform them that the evening was still clear.

With fluttering petticoats, Francesca crossed the little bridge over the ca.n.a.l of Oude Langendijk and seconds later was in the market square. On she ran, her feet flying over the cobbles, until she reached the tavern. Before entering it she saw that a light was glowing in Pieter's office window and a man she recognized was standing outside. She rushed to him.

"Gerard! I have to see Pieter! It's vitally important."

He wasted no words and opened the office door for her. "Go in!"

She realized he must have been on guard, for inside the office Pieter was in discussion with several men, all of them armed. He forestalled any question in her mind about disclosing what she wanted to say.

"What is it, Francesca? You may speak freely."

"The de Veere house! The traitors are going there tonight! I can't stop."

Pieter turned to the men. "Get the horses!" Then he took Francesca by the hand. "I'll go back with you. Tell me everything on the way!"

They hurried along together, speaking quietly, for there were people about. "I knew as soon as I saw the whip in the hall," she explained, "that something was surely about to happen."

Near the corner of Kromstraat they halted, for by then she had told him all she had seen and overheard. He pulled her into his arms and kissed her hard.

"You've done so well, my love," he breathed.

"Take care!" she whispered after him. Already he had gone, running back and soon out of sight to where she guessed those who had been at the office with him would be already in the saddle, his horse brought forward in readiness.

She would have broken into a run again herself to cover the last short distance to the house, but as she turned she saw ranged ahead of her at the corner of Kromstraat the outraged faces of the regents and regentesses, Geetruyd standing with them, her expression showing grim satisfaction. Clara was there too, but looking worried. It was not Geetruyd who spoke first, but the fiercest of the regents, Heer van Golpen. He stepped forward and his voice thundered forth.

"You wicked young woman! How many times have you crept out of this good lady's house to keep immoral liaisons with the men of this town?"

Francesca tilted her chin and approached them. Her relief that she had given the warning and that the true cause of why she had been out had not been suspected was all that mattered. She wondered why they had come in search of her and supposed Weintje had been unable to keep them at bay. But as they all parted to let her through Clara gave her the explanation.

"I saw you from the window in the light from the opposite house. Are you angry with me?"

"No, Clara."

The little woman was suddenly conscious of the fury in the faces around her and in her nervousness blurted out, "I recognized the young man who just kissed you. It was he who gave me the posy at the kermis."

Geetruyd grabbed Francesca's arm and wrenched her around. "I saw him too! It was Pieter van Doorne! Were you at the kermis with him?"

"I was."

"But that was before he began coming to Delft on business. So it has been lies! All lies!"

Francesca regarded her calmly. "Neither of us has ever lied to you. You drew your own conclusions. Release my arm. I'll pack a few overnight necessities and go to the Vermeers', as I wanted to do the first night I was in your home."

She entered the house, the others following her and speaking in shocked tones among themselves. Her glance went immediately to the place where the whips had been propped. They were gone! As she reached the foot of the stairs Weintje appeared in the kitchen doorway, her face distressed.

"I couldn't stop them," she whispered.

"I know," Francesca whispered back with a smile.

In her bedchamber she put a few things together and then came down to the reception hall. Dread swept over her when she saw Heer van Golpen waiting for her with two burly-looking men in gray livery. Of Geetruyd and everyone else there was no sign.

"Francesca Visser," the regent said sternly, "you have flouted the kindly rules of this respectable home, abused its hospitality and by self-admission revealed your waywardness and defiance. I am chairman of the board of the House of Correction for young women and on Vrouw Wolff's behalf I have ordered these attendants to take you there for your own good until such time as you have learned to mend your ways. I am accompanying you to register your name through my authority."

"No! I won't go! You have no right!"

He did not listen, signaling to the attendants, who took her by the arms and hustled her out of the house in his wake. Twenty minutes later Francesca was alone in a spa.r.s.ely furnished room on her own. There were bars on the window and the door was locked on the other side.

GEETRUYD HAD A feeling that something was terribly wrong. It was early morning, neither Clara nor Weintje yet awake, but she was up in order to rumple the sheets of her fellow conspirators' beds to deceive the maidservant into thinking they had been slept in. One man should have returned. That had been essential to the whole operation, for she was to report to Ludolf as to how well matters had gone when he came later in the day.

She drank a cup of coffee to calm her nerves. By rights she should have been in high spirits, because at last she had put Francesca where she had long wanted her to be. It was a sweet revenge against Ludolf and would thwart his marriage plans for a long time to come. She had been watching and waiting for some small error on Francesca's part to justify an incarceration, never dreaming that it would happen with no fewer than three regents and five regentesses as witness. Most fortunate of all was the presence of Heer van Golpen, who had shouldered full responsibility and was a man of such integrity and standing that no appeal by the young woman's father for her release, or by Ludolf in whatever high position he obtained, could release her before her morals were considered secure by the governing board. It was not unknown for incarceration to be up to two or three years in extreme cases, which Geetruyd had decided would be her personal aim as far as Francesca was concerned. Ludolf could yelp all he liked, but it would make no difference.

Although buoyed up by this thought, Geetruyd could not dismiss her anxiety. She kept glancing at the clock. It was dawn and still Gijsbert Kuiper had not returned. Where was the man? Weintje would be up soon and he should be back in his room to save arousing the maidservant's curiosity.

Restless with apprehension, Geetruyd went to the hall window and looked out. There was a thick mist, but very early risers were about. A carpenter driving a light cart drew up and began talking animatedly to an acquaintance on foot who beckoned another over to hear what was being said. Trying to rea.s.sure herself that the talk was of nothing more than the outcome of a c.o.c.kfight or some such sport, she opened the main door into the street.

"Is anything amiss, gentlemen?" she asked.

They all three looked toward her. "Quite the reverse, Vrouw Wolff," said one, who knew her. The carpenter a.s.serted himself as the bearer of the news.

"On my way into town I heard of an armed confrontation at young Constantijn de Veere's country house. I don't know yet what it was all about, but a farmer who helped catch one of the villains with a pitchfork said two others had been killed and four more arrested by the Prince's men. The sad news, which will grieve many in the town, is that old Josephus suffered a fatal wound and died in the arms of the new young mistress of the house."

"What had been going on?" Geetruyd asked stiffly. She was rigid with shock, but she had never panicked and she wouldn't do it now.

"Thieving of firearms from the de Veere cellars by traitors, ma'am, so the farmer gathered, but the matter isn't going to stop there. Others connected with the affair are to be rounded up, so he heard."

"Dear me! What times we live in!" Her mind was racing. "Are you busy today? I have need of a light cart such as yours."

The carpenter looked uncertain. The two men he had been talking to had moved off. "I've made a delivery already and I was thinking of getting back home to my workshop. What did you want transported, ma'am?"

"I would like to hire the cart itself for the day. I heard late last night that my sister is ill," she lied, "and I want to take her some things from my house that she needs, bedding and so forth. You could collect your cart here this evening. The matter is urgent and I will pay you well."

"Can you handle a horse, ma'am? This one can be speedy on a good road."

"I'm well used to horses. I had to drive my late husband on many occasions."

The carpenter thought to himself that she looked a capable woman. Nothing frivolous about her and he could do with the extra money while he did other work. It would not be difficult to get a lift back home or another into town later. "Very well. Shall I help you load up?"

"That's most obliging of you."

Collecting what she wanted to take with her was not unrehea.r.s.ed. She had long ago made preparations for flight in an emergency, although she had never expected it to come upon her as swiftly as this. There had been no liking between her and that Utrecht fellow and even Kuiper wouldn't be slow to give her away if put under pressure. The carpenter carried out a chest of her best linen, the table silverware, which she had always kept in a special box, two goose-feather pillows and a quilt and another chest containing her best garments into which she put an antique Chinese bowl and a valuable Delft vase to protect them from being broken. Silver pieces, such as a salver and some candlesticks, were wrapped into a velvet bag.

"You're taking a lot, Vrouw Wolff," the carpenter said without suspicion when she finally emerged from the house and shut the door quietly behind her. In one hand she carried a plain-looking casket that held gold pieces and another tucked under her arm was full of her jewels.

"My sister left some of her possessions behind when she stayed with me. This is an excellent chance to return them." She gave the carpenter his money. He thanked her and would have waited to see her drive off, but there came a clattering of hooves and a man came riding up to her. Geetruyd faltered when she saw it was Ludolf in the saddle.

"Where are you going?" he demanded.

She turned swiftly to wave to the carpenter. "How fortunate! I'm to have an escort. Good day." She shook the reins and as the cart moved forward Ludolf rode along beside her, asking her again what she was about. Succinctly she told him what she had heard. "I knew in my bones when Kuiper didn't return in the early hours that something had gone wrong."

He expelled a furious breath, his face flushed, hard and menacing, "What error did you make to bring all this about?"

"I?" It was because her nerves were so strained, fear of capture high in her, that her answer burst shrilly from her. "I did everything right, as I always have done! Seek elsewhere to allot the blame!"

"Keep your voice down!" he ordered. He glanced about alertly, but the mist was like a protective veil and pa.s.sersby were too busy about their own early-morning affairs to pay any attention to a rider and a woman driving a cart.

She struggled to subdue her high-pitched notes. "Somebody betrayed us."

"Yes, but who?" There was accusation in his stare.

"Would I be fleeing if I could seek protection from the militia?" she spat back.

He was forced to accept her defense. "The cache at the de Veere house was vital. Two others were uncovered yesterday and arrests made."

"Then look there for those who betrayed us."

He gave a nod. As yet he could not contemplate what this catastrophe might mean to his ministerial future. His immediate task was to try to salvage the situation for himself alone. If he used his influence to persuade some important Dutch cities to surrender to the French when the gates were reached it should surely compensate in Louis XIV's eyes for the failure of those plans to take The Hague.

"There's no more to be done here," he said sourly. "I'll delay no longer. I'll ride back to Kromstraat to fetch Francesca and take her with me to Utrecht, where I'll await the French."

"She's not at the house."

"Where is she, then?"

"In the House of Correction, incarcerated for an indefinite term, and you will never get her out of there, because there are bars and locks and armed guards. Lovers have tried before to get their young women out and failed!"

"Did you-?" he began savagely.

"No, it was a regent who took her into custody!" Then her feelings gave way. "Why should you care about Francesca any longer when we've been so much to each other and should be together now!"

He sneered at her in his anger. "I only sought you out again because I knew you'd be useful to me. Even that has come to an end."

She screeched, forgetting the need for caution, and lashed out at him with her whip. "Go to the devil!"

In her fury her aim was poor and the thong missed his face to catch him across the shoulder. Outraged, he swore at her, wheeled his horse about and rode away in the opposite direction. She turned the whip cruelly on the horse, weeping with temper, and it was as well the streets were all but deserted of traffic or else in the mist and half blinded with tears she would not have driven far without an accident.

She had reached a road leading out of town when Pieter began hammering on her door for admittance while another militiaman ran down the side pa.s.sage to cut off any escape that way. In the countryside, as the laden cart jolted over the rough surface, the mist became thicker, rising from the river and the ca.n.a.ls. Minuscule drops of moisture clung to Geetruyd's clothes and her hair, beaded her lashes and sheened her bitter face.

With a rattling of wheels she disappeared like a fading shadow into the dense white mist.

Chapter 23.

PIETER, HAVING LEARNED FROM WEINTJE WHERE FRANCESCA had been taken, went at once to see her, leaving the pursuit of Geetruyd to militiamen who had been called in for the task. He was told at the gate that the inmates of the House of Correction were allowed no visitors except by special permission, and he must apply to Heer van Golpen. At the regent's office he was coldly received. The fact that Geetruyd was being pursued as a spy met with disbelief and hostility. But it was more than that, because the regent made it plain he was not a supporter of the Prince.

"You have condemned Vrouw Wolff without giving her a hearing," the regent said, "In my opinion you have hounded a poor frightened and helpless woman out of her home, a woman whose only concern has ever been the welfare of the people of Delft and of our country. I will not fail her wishes for the protection of Francesca Visser from wild desires and unsuitable company."

Pieter stood his ground. "Vrouw Wolff had fled from the house before I arrived to arrest her, and one of the men involved in the fighting at the de Veere property admitted she had organized the raid."

Van Golpen was puce with fury. "I have only your word for this, and in any circ.u.mstances a common thief would say anything to save his own skin. I have no doubt it is all a pack of lies. All the time I am chairman of the board Francesca Visser will not leave the care of this house without my permission. Depart from these premises and don't return."

Exasperated, Pieter left to shout at the barred windows from the street. "All's well, Francesca! I'll get you out of there somehow!"

She did not hear him, being engaged in scrubbing floors, clothed in a gray gown and plain white cap such as all the inmates had to wear. But one of the other young women had heard him and told her in a whisper as they stood at a long table with their heads bowed in readiness for grace. Francesca gave the girl a grateful glance and smiled. It cheered her to know that Pieter would be trying to get her released, although she had no illusions about how long it might take. She had discovered already that newcomers were treated with the greatest strictness and were given the worst of the menial tasks. None of that mattered to her. The enormous disappointment she had to bear was that she would not be able to submit her work to the Guild. When she would get another chance she did not know, for if the war encompa.s.sed Delft nothing would settle down again for a long time to come. To be so near to the long-awaited day and then to be denied the right to attend was a bitter pill to swallow.

Yet even that took second place beside the knowledge that Pieter, as an officer in the reserve, his duty done in Delft, which he had most surely meant by saying all was well, would be going to the fighting. His safekeeping came above all else. She wished with all her heart that she could have lain with him once more before war took him away.

Francesca and her fellow inmates, who numbered twenty-three, heard about the success of the armed confrontation at the de Veere house, for local news and that of the war was given to them daily, all part of a scheme to awaken a sense of responsibility. For the same reason clothes were made for the poor and turns were taken in soup making for any who came hungry to the door. Francesca was saddened to know of the death of Josephus, who had been a friend to her sister and had done so much to help Constantijn.

She guessed that by now Aletta would have notified their father about this incarceration. Many times when a door opened she looked up from her work in the hope of seeing Hendrick with his broad red face and wide girth come striding in, full of indignation about what had happened, to s.n.a.t.c.h her away. But that did not occur. A fellow inmate explained why.

"When one of us is considered to be so wicked that even our parents can't be trusted to have charge of us, we are put under the authority of the city of Delft. That has probably happened in your case, even if it was no more than a romp in the hay. What did you do anyway?"

"It's too long and complicated a story to relate, but of one thing I'm certain. I wouldn't be here at all if I hadn't aroused needless jealousy in another woman."

The day Francesca should have submitted her paintings came and went. She heard nothing from Pieter or her family because those newly admitted were allowed no correspondence, except on compa.s.sionate grounds in the case of illness or bereavement in the family, until a period of six months had elapsed. The war news was not good. The French army, as if leaving nothing to chance, was taking every place whether important or not in their steady advance toward Amsterdam, which they intended to reach before sweeping south to The Hague and, if surrender had not been signed before then, Delft as well. Yet there was hope. The Prince had moved with his staunch little army into a strong position of defense, which it was hoped might soon change into one of attack. During a temporary absence of van Golpen from Delft, another regent, whose sympathies were with the Prince, supplied the information that apathy and disagreement were melting away among many who had been against the House of Orange, but there were still far too many pockets of nonresistance where the French were welcomed, either through fear or concern for personal wealth and position or, in the case of Dutch soldiers, lack of adequate weaponry and good command.

Francesca came to know her fellow inmates well. There was much willfulness, tempers and screaming hysterics, especially among those parted from men they loved, whom their families had forbidden them to marry. She was full of compa.s.sion for them, not concerned with the rights or wrongs of any case, but understanding their heartache. Even more pathetic were girls, finally broken by incarceration, who were coming to terms with having to marry their parents' choice of a husband after long defiance had proved in vain. All those in her section were from what were known as good homes, most from well-to-do backgrounds. In another part of the building were young prost.i.tutes, who were kept segregated until such time as they were considered reformed, and Francesca only saw them when they waved from barred windows whenever she and her fellow inmates strolled for exercise for one hour twice a day within a walled garden.

When she was given duties of digging and weeding she was at her happiest since coming into custody, even though she had been a.s.signed to the vegetable patch and not to the flower beds. One glorious morning she paused in her work to turn her face to the sun. To be out of doors on such a day made her yearn to be sketching and painting again. She watched swallows swooping overhead, dark against a pure sky blue-azurite mixed with just the right amount of lead white paint. She smiled, certain that Hendrick would have added a wispy cloud or two.

"Francesca!" It was one of the women in charge striding toward her. Francesca sighed to herself. She had been caught loitering. That would mean a punishment of going without supper, or some such petty penalty.

"Yes, mejuffrouw?" she replied sharply, expecting a further reproof for her tone, but there were times when she did not know how much longer she could endure the injustice of her incarceration. There was no cruelty in this place-all in authority were quietly spoken and extraordinarily patient and kind in many ways-but the rules were as inflexible as the bars on the windows.

"You are wanted in the board room."

There were several doors to be unlocked by jangling keys before the room was reached. Francesca was instructed to knock and go in. She had learned through previous disappointments not to expect anything more than an interrogation as to her att.i.tude and state of mind by the regentesses of the board, which took place at regular intervals. This time when she entered there were no white-capped, black-gowned ladies seated at the table. Instead Aletta and Jan Vermeer stood waiting to see her. She uttered a cry of joy and her sister rushed to embrace her.

"We've come to take you away!" Aletta exclaimed happily. "A letter ordering your release came from the Prince of Orange! Pieter put a request through to him!"

"How kind and generous of the Prince when he has so much to do and think about!"

"He knows how you served him and our country."

"It was so little." Francesca turned to Jan. "It's good of you to have come too! I've had no chance to draw or paint."

"I know. I tried to get materials in to you, but it was not allowed."

"I realized that." She was eager to collect her belongings and leave, but there was one question she had to ask her sister first. "How is Pieter? Do you know where he is?"

"Read for yourself." Aletta handed Francesca a letter. "It came with the Prince's order that your freedom be restored to you."