Tracy Chevalier 3-Book Collection: Girl With a Pearl Earring, Remarkable Creatures, Falling Angels. Tracy Chevalier

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ to see the finished painting. In the morning my master and I prepared the room for their visit. He took the pearls and jewellery box down to Catharina while I put away everything else and set out chairs. Then he moved the easel and painting into the place where the setting had been and had me open all the shutters.

      That morning I helped Tanneke prepare a special dinner for them. I did not think I would have to see them, and when they came at noon it was Tanneke who took up wine as they gathered in the studio. When she returned, however, she announced that I was to help her serve dinner rather than Maertge, who was old enough to join them at the table. ‘My mistress has decided this,’ she added.

      I was surprised — the last time they viewed their painting Maria Thins had tried to keep me away from van Ruijven. I did not say so to Tanneke, though. ‘Is van Leeuwenhoek there too?’ I asked instead. ‘I thought I heard his voice in the hallway.’

      Tanneke nodded absently. She was tasting the roasted pheasant. ‘Not bad,’ she murmured. ‘I can hold my head as high as any cook of van Ruijven's.’

      While she was upstairs I had basted the pheasant and sprinkled it with salt, which Tanneke used too sparingly.

      When they came down to dinner and everyone was seated, Tanneke and I began to bring in the dishes. Catharina glared at me. Never good at concealing her thoughts, she was horrified to see that I was serving.

      My master too looked as if he had cracked his tooth on a stone. He stared coldly at Maria Thins, who feigned indifference behind her glass of wine.

      Van Ruijven, however, grinned. ‘Ah, the wide-eyed maid!’ he cried. ‘I wondered where you'd got to. How are you, my girl?’

      ‘Very well, sir, thank you,’ I murmured, placing a slice of pheasant on his plate and moving away as quickly as I could. Not quickly enough, however — he managed to slide his hand along my thigh. I could still feel the ghost of it a few minutes later.

      While van Ruijven's wife and Maertge remained oblivious, van Leeuwenhoek noted everything — Catharina's fury, my master's irritation, Maria Thins' shrug, van Ruijven's lingering hand. When I served him he searched my face as if looking there for the answer to how a simple maid could cause so much trouble. I was grateful to him — there was no blame in his expression.

      Tanneke too had noticed the stir I caused, and for once was helpful. We said nothing in the kitchen, but it was she who made the trips back to the table to bring out the gravy, to refill the wine, to serve more food, while I looked after things in the kitchen. I had to go back only once, when we were both to clear away the plates. Tanneke went directly to van Ruijven's place while I took up plates at the other end of the table. Van Ruijven's eyes followed me everywhere.

      So did my master's.

      I tried to ignore them, instead listening to Maria Thins. She was discussing the next painting. ‘You were pleased with the one of the music lesson, weren't you?’ she said. ‘What better to follow such a painting than another with a musical setting? After a lesson, a concert, perhaps with more people in it, three or four musicians, an audience—’

      ‘No audience,’ my master interrupted. ‘I do not paint audiences.’

      Maria Thins regarded him sceptically.

      ‘Come, come,’ van Leeuwenhoek interjected genially, ‘surely an audience is less interesting than the musicians themselves.’

      I was glad he defended my master.

      ‘I don't care about audiences,’ van Ruijven announced, ‘but I would like to be in the painting. I will play the lute.’ After a pause he added, ‘I want her in it too.’ I did not have to look at him to know he had gestured at me.

      Tanneke jerked her head slightly towards the kitchen and I escaped with the little I had cleared, leaving her to gather the rest. I wanted to look at my master but did not dare. As I was leaving I heard Catharina say in a gay voice, ‘What a fine idea! Like that painting with you and the maid in the red dress. Do you remember her?’

      On Sunday my mother spoke to me when we were alone in her kitchen. My father was sitting out in the late October sun while we prepared dinner. ‘You know I don't listen to market gossip,’ she began, ‘but it is hard not to hear it when my daughter's name is mentioned.’

      I immediately thought of Pieter the son. Nothing we did in the alley was worthy of gossip. I had insisted on that. ‘I don't know what you mean, Mother,’ I answered honestly.

      My mother pulled in the corners of her mouth. ‘They are saying your master is going to paint you.’ It was as if the words themselves made her mouth purse.

      I stopped stirring the pot I had been tending. ‘Who says this?’

      My mother sighed, reluctant to pass along overheard tales. ‘Some women selling apples.’

      When I did not respond she took my silence to mean the worst. ‘Why didn't you tell me, Griet?’

      ‘Mother, I haven't even heard this myself. No one has said anything to me!’

      She did not believe me.

      ‘It's true,’ I insisted. ‘My master has said nothing, Maria Thins has said nothing. I simply clean his studio. That's as close as I get to his paintings.’ I had never told her about my attic work. ‘How can you believe old women selling apples rather than me?’

      ‘When there's talk about someone at the market, there's usually a reason for it, even if it's not what's actually being said.’ My mother left the kitchen to call my father. She would say no more about the subject that day, but I began to fear she might be right — I would be the last to be told.

      The next day at the Meat Hall I decided to ask Pieter the father about the rumour. I did not dare speak of it to Pieter the son. If my mother had heard the gossip, he would have as well. I knew he would not be pleased. Although he had never said so to me, it was clear he was jealous of my master.

      Pieter the son was not at the stall. I did not have to wait long for Pieter the father to say something himself. ‘What's this I hear?’ he smirked as I approached. ‘Going to have your picture painted, are you? Soon you'll be too grand for the likes of my son. He's gone off in a sulk to the Beast Market because of you.’

      ‘Tell me what you have heard.’

      ‘Oh, you want it told again, do you?’ He raised his voice. ‘Shall I make it into a fine tale for a few others?’

      ‘Hush,’ I hissed. Underneath his bravado I sensed he was angry with me. ‘Just tell me what you have heard.’

      Pieter the father lowered his voice. ‘Only that van Ruijven's cook was saying you are to sit with her master for a painting.’

      ‘I know nothing of this,’ I stated firmly, aware even as I said it that, as with my mother, my words had little effect. Pieter the father scooped up a handful of pigs' kidneys. ‘It's not me you should be talking to,’ he said, weighing them in his hand.

      I waited a few days before speaking to Maria Thins. I wanted to see if anyone would tell me first. I found her in the Crucifixion room one afternoon when Catharina was asleep and Maertge had taken the girls to the Beast Market. Tanneke was in the kitchen sewing and watching Johannes and Franciscus.

      ‘May СКАЧАТЬ