The Golden Tulip (9 page)

“Is there some contest being held in Amsterdam as to which females can make themselves appear the most ridiculous?” he would demand, glaring at a ribboned topknot shaped like a steeple, or bunches of curls that danced high over her ears like cascades from a fountain. Then she would burst into tears and fly to her room, shrieking out that the women of Holland were always the last in Europe to follow French modes and she did not intend to be years behind the times.

What she said had been true in the past. It was not in the average Dutch woman’s nature to squander on passing frivolities, however comfortably off her circumstances might be, but over the past decade this had changed and the latest fashions from France led the way.

Sybylla always took note of elegant women whenever she went about in the city, yearning more than ever to rustle in rich garments, to have costly jewels and ride in a coach. Had she not loathed posing on the rostrum, partly because she and her father always started quarreling over her never keeping still, she would have gained some satisfaction in wearing the exotic garments from the studio chest, no matter that they were old and mended. But her feet never allowed her to sit quietly. It seemed to her that they were made for dancing and for setting out on new and adventurous paths. On the rare occasions when Hendrick had painted her portrait she had resented the results, for he never flattered his sitters and she did not consider he did justice to her fine looks. When she complained he took it as criticism of his work and that led to more trouble.

She was convinced that nobody in the house understood her. Least of all her father or else he would have gained rich patrons by painting the kind of pictures that were in demand and thereby earned enough to give her and her sisters handsome dowries to secure good marriages for them. What was more, he should be giving her special consideration after her disappointment over there being no betrothal. Her tears and anguish had been bitter enough at the time, but she was not pining deeply for Jacob. It had all happened and been over quickly, but it was galling to have lost such a prize. The Korvers were still her good friends and she was able to come and go at their house exactly as before, which was fortunate, for she liked having a bolt-hole when she knew Maria was after her to carry out some tedious domestic task.

She glanced at Hendrick as she passed him the basket of bread that he had asked for. He talked at table these days and had no loss of appetite. In all respects he was himself again, except that there was more gray in his hair than before losing her mother, a day that was too agonizing to think about.

When the meal was over Sybylla was the first to leave the dining hall out of curiosity to view the Flora painting. She moved fastidiously in the studio, not wanting to snag her skirt on the framed paintings stacked against one wall or soil her garments with dusty chalk or dollops of wet paint. When she reached her father’s easel and saw the likeness of her sister as the goddess of spring, a wave of appreciation of its beauty almost conquered her uppermost desire to estimate what it was worth. If all Hendrick’s work had such appeal all his financial troubles would be over and they need never have a peasants’ meal of vegetable soup and black bread again.

Sybylla wondered if perhaps she should grit her teeth and offer to sit for Hendrick herself. If he promised she should have a new cloak out of the price her likeness fetched, she would do it. Otherwise there was no point in submitting herself to his grumbling about her not sitting still and the general ordeal. She should have some personal gain.

The sound of the door opening made her turn hopefully, but it was Aletta come to view the painting. “Is Father still in the house?” Sybylla asked at once.

“I think he’s just gone out.”

Sybylla went to check for herself, only to find her sister was right. Too late she saw Maria, broad as a barge, waddling determinedly in her direction. “There you are, child. Why aren’t you in your apron yet? It’s your turn to brush down all the drapes in the bedchambers.”

Sybylla sighed wearily. She thought sometimes that women throughout Holland fought with broom and scrubbing brush to keep their homes spotless as resolutely as the menfolk, with sword and cannon, had once withstood the might of Spain. At least that freedom had been won, but dust and dirt never surrendered.

Throughout the quiet afternoon hours Francesca and Aletta worked in the studio on still-life paintings they had begun the previous week. In front of them, where they sat on stools at their easels, was a low table covered with a blue cloth on which were set in careful composition a number of items. Giving height to the arrangement was one of Anna’s most treasured possessions, a nautilus as pearly as the faraway foreign shore from which it had been plucked to be set in silver on a finely fashioned stand. With it were a large hourglass, a bunch of black grapes lying beside a glass of wine and a fan with the light shimmering on its topaz-colored feathers. A pewter plate had been placed to jut out over the edge of the table and on it lay a lemon with a knife’s blade wedged in it while a long strip of peel, already cut off, curled as it dangled down. Three late rosebuds, which Francesca had fetched from the courtyard’s little garden, lay across a tumbled damask napkin. It was an excellent exercise for the effect of light and shadow on various surfaces and textures.

Francesca always included flowers in her paintings whenever possible. It seemed to her that few pictures were complete without blooms, much as Holland would have looked bereft without the abundance of flowers that flourished everywhere from spring to autumn. They blossomed profusely in beds along the canals and streets, perfumed every garden, filled tubs and pots and, most dramatically of all, spread in glorious carpets of color in the bulb-growing districts along the coast north and south of Haarlem.

She and Aletta did not talk as they painted. The atmosphere was completely harmonious between them. It was never quite the same when Hendrick was there, his personality tending to vibrate through the air. Sometimes he did not so much as glance at their work and at other times, particularly when he was in a restless mood, he would stump across to them at all too frequent intervals and find fault, not constructively as in the past, but with undue savagery. Aletta was long past her crying days, but she still blanched at times. Francesca thought the explanation was that he was troubled by his conscience at no longer having the inclination to teach them as much as he should.

What had become clear to both girls was that they had reached a crossroads with regard to their work. Each was fully aware of the potential in her skills, but totally frustrated by Hendrick’s increasing tardiness in giving them instruction. If they could have entered as apprentices in the studio of an independent master of repute it would have given them the opportunity to develop and advance beyond their present achievements.

The barrier to their joint aim was the fees involved and not that they were female, for in a studio it was only talent that counted. Francesca was a great admirer of the late Judith Leyster, who had studied with Frans Hals, as Hendrick had done, and Maria van Oosterwyck, a fine painter of flowers, who had been a pupil of Jan Davidsz de Heem.

In the studio the only sounds were those of Griet cleaning upstairs and the rattle of passing wheels or the clack of wooden clogs in the street outside. Then Aletta broke the silence between them.

“There is only one solution.”

Francesca was able to follow her sister’s train of thought. She smiled but did not pause in her painting. “What is that? A public notice to announce that two would-be masters of a Guild will sing and dance in the streets for donations to raise tuition fees?”

“I was dreaming of something better than that,” Aletta confessed with a smile. “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could both find rich patrons able to recognize our talent and willing to foot all expenses until we were masters. That’s what happened to many Italian artists.”

“But Holland isn’t Italy. The attitude to art in that country is quite different. So many Italian painters and sculptors get commissions from the Church and from those holding political power. There is no munificence such as that here.”

“How true that is!”

“Ideally we should complete our training under an independent master. Have we not discussed this many times? But I don’t intend to be defeated by present circumstances and neither do you. Our path is one of hard work and more hard work. There are no shortcuts. The day Willem offers to sell our work we’ll know that we’re on the brink of true achievement and success.”

“Like Father?” Aletta’s voice was suddenly clipped in tone.

Francesca looked across at her. “He is as he is and not even Mama was able to change him. But you and I are both dedicated to our work to the exclusion of all else.”

“So we must struggle on, must we?”

“Recognition will be all the sweeter when it comes.”

“I suppose you’re right.” Aletta heaved a sigh as she continued painting. She was wondering what price this piece of work would fetch if she were able to sell it. A few stivers? Or, better still, a couple of florins. Suppose she could find a way of selling her work unbeknown to anyone in the household. She could hoard whatever she received and, although it would take quite a long time, eventually she should have collected enough to attend the classes some artists took turns in holding where their own pupils gathered with those of other studios for joint instruction in painting from life. Amateur artists, willing to pay, were allowed in small numbers to sit at the back, but they received the tutor’s guidance in their turn. If she attended regularly she would gain much from this source, but she had to get some money first. It was a problem she had to solve somehow.

H
ENDRICK HAD NOT
returned when they ate dinner that evening. Afterward Aletta sat in the reception hall, playing on the virginal accompanied by Sybylla on the viol. The sweet music could be heard in the parlor, where Francesca sat by the fire reading. Maria was in a chair opposite her, making lace on a cushion resting on her ample lap, the click of the bobbins providing an accompanying rhythm. When eventually Aletta and Sybylla said good night and went to bed, Francesca put aside her book to go restlessly to the window. She cupped her hands to one of the diamond panes and looked out.

“Father promised he wouldn’t be late home,” she said on a sharp note that ranged from annoyance to anxiety. “When he’s been drinking, as I’m sure he has tonight, I’m always afraid he will topple into a canal.”

Maria glanced up from her lacework. “Your mother used to worry about that too,” she commented phlegmatically, remembering how often she had seen Anna waiting by that same window, “but the only time it happened the cold water sobered him up and when he broke the surface the first thing he saw was an old leather purse full of gold coins lodged in a crevice. Anyone but your father would have drowned, but that’s the sort of good luck that happens to men like him.” She almost said “rogues” instead of “men,” but he was her employer and it would not have been the way to speak of him to his daughter, not even after all these years.

Surprised, Francesca turned back from the window. “I’ve never heard of that before. No wonder he can be so optimistic whenever trouble is staring him in the face. How old was I at that time?”

“About six months, if I remember rightly. That gold should have been a nest egg for him and your mother, but it all went on new gowns of saffron velvet and gold brocade for her and a painting for himself by a Venetian artist whose name I don’t remember.” She shook her head despairingly. “Money has always burnt a hole in his pocket.”

“There is no Venetian painting in this house, Maria. What happened to it?”

“Need you ask?” Maria replied drily. “It had to be sold a year or two later when he couldn’t raise funds anywhere else. It was nothing special. I like your pictures and Aletta’s much more. The painting of tulips that you gave me last St. Nicholaes’s Day makes me feel I have a vase of fresh blooms in my bedchamber all the year round.”

Francesca was touched by the praise that was so sincerely meant and stooped down by the old woman’s chair to give her an affectionate hug. “You’re a dear, Maria. I want so much to be a really good painter and I’ve far to go yet.”

“You’ll get there, I know it.” Maria kissed Francesca’s cheek and then stayed her when she would have returned to the window. “Sit down now. There’s no point in watching for the master. The only lamp in the street doesn’t give you enough light to see any distance and your father is quite likely to set off home from wherever he is without thinking to borrow a lantern. It wouldn’t be the first time that he was fined by the Night Watch for not carrying one after dark.” She resumed her lace making, her fingers nimble with the bobbins. “I haven’t made this pattern for quite a while.”

“It’s pretty.” Francesca seated herself in the chair opposite Maria. “Is it for a collar?”

Maria gave her a direct look. “A bridal bodice, I hope.”

“It’s useless to have me in mind and don’t pin your hopes on Aletta, because she’s as ambitious as I am!” Francesca’s tone was firm. “Sybylla is the one most likely to wear it.”

Maria sighed in exasperation. “I don’t understand you. Suppose your heart should run away with you one day.”

“I’ll not let it.” Francesca spoke confidently, leaning back against the cushions in her chair and resting her hands on the rounded ends of its arms. “The prospect of marriage is specter enough for me to keep my head. The state of matrimony would stamp me into waiting on a husband and into motherhood as well as countless social duties that I can avoid now. Once a ring was on my finger I’d have no time to paint.”

“Fiddlesticks! Of course there would be.”

“Only if I married an artist.”

“Why is that?”

“Because he would understand and cooperate.”

“Then look for one.”

“I’m not sufficiently interested.”

Maria tried another angle. “But what of children? You’re so fond of them and so maternal toward everyone in the household when the need arises.”