Part 4 (1/2)
”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 cus.h.i.+ons 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.”
Francesca turned her head and gazed into the fire. The glow of the flames flickered over her face, but her lashes shadowed her eyes and hid the expression in them. ”I would like to have a child. Maybe when I have established myself as an artist there will be time before I'm too old to have a family of my own. But for the foreseeable future I've dedicated myself to an aim that will give me no peace until I have achieved it.” She pushed back the cuff of her sleeve with a half smile and regarded her wrist. ”I think there must be a mixture of oil and pigment flowing in these veins.”
”More's the pity,” Maria muttered under her breath. When it was a choice between paintings and babies she would have chosen a third generation to watch over any day.
Francesca heard her, but made no comment. Maria could never comprehend the creative force in her that made it impossible to follow any other path. It was how it had been for her father and now it was the same for Aletta and for her. A beacon that was forever beckoning.
The sound of someone crossing the reception hall caused her to spring to her feet in relief. ”Father is home!” But when she went to see for herself it was Griet coming from the kitchen. She had been spending the evening with a friend and was on her way up to her room. Francesca bade her good night and returned to the fireside. Not long afterward Maria went to bed too.
Francesca settled down to wait awhile longer, angry and disappointed that her father should have failed to keep his word yet again. Why was she always taken in by his promises? It was one of the many times when she had wanted to stamp her foot at his f.e.c.klessness, but she knew that if he should come staggering in now, displaying that shamefaced bravado that he adopted at such times, it would be hard not to let pity for him overwhelm her exasperation.
When the clock was well past midnight she left a lamp burning for him and took a candle to light the way upstairs. Ascending the flight, she pondered on the most tactful way to break the news to Willem in the morning that the Flora painting was not ready. Many times he had shown himself on the brink of refusing to handle Hendrick's work any longer and had issued a warning to that effect on his last visit. She feared that when he came on the morrow and found the long-promised painting unfinished, he would turn on his heel and go from the house forever. No other art dealer of repute would tolerate Hendrick's erratic ways. If her father should fall into the hands of rogue dealers he would never get a fair price for a painting again.
In the run of her thoughts she was gripped again by the sense of foreboding that had afflicted her earlier in the day, the same dread sweeping over her, and she gripped the handrail. In the glow of the candle fear was stark in her eyes.
Chapter 4.
ON THE STROKE OF HALF PAST ELEVEN THE NEXT MORNING, Griet opened the door to Willem de Hartog. He greeted her courteously and stepped indoors onto the long Persian rug that was always laid down to honor expected visitors. He handed her his cloak and gloves but not his large hat, since headgear was worn by men as much indoors as out. He doffed it to Francesca as she came across the stair hall and through the archway into the brightness of the reception hall. A silver-framed Venetian mirror reflected her approach. He was struck anew by the unusual beauty of the girl with her blazing hair, gold earbobs in her lobes, and her simple gown of russet wool.
”Good day, mijnheer. Welcome to our home again,” she said.
He observed her serious smile and was alerted to things not being quite as they should be. It could only mean what he feared. ”I thank you, Francesca. You're looking well. I trust it is the same with Hendrick and your sisters.”
”They are in good health. Please sit down. Griet has gone to fetch refreshment for you.”
He remained standing and a frown gathered his brows together ominously. ”Is the painting not finished?”
”If you will just sit for a few moments, I will tell you about it.” She sat down herself by the large stone-canopied fireplace that was inset with blue Delft tiles patterned with dancing figures and where peat burned with a cheerful flicker of flame. Her hope that he would take the chair opposite her came to nothing, for he did not move from where he stood.
”Do you mean that Hendrick is not even here to receive me?” His voice held a rising note of rumbling anger.
”I'm hoping for his return at any moment.”
”What time did he go out?”
She drew in a deep breath. ”Yesterday afternoon.”
”Bah!” He threw up his hands in exasperation, his complexion tinged red with annoyance. In his own mind he took a guess as to how those hours of absence had been spent by this errant artist. There would be gaming with cards, but something more as well. He was not setting himself up as a moralist, but he thought marriage a great deal tidier for such matters. But Hendrick would never marry again and the reason was obvious. No second wife must ever enter Anna's home and domain. It would continue to be hers in Hendrick's eyes until the end of his days.
”Aletta and Sybylla have been out an hour looking for him.” Francesca was disturbed by the way Willem was pacing up and down on the Persian rug, his fingers twitching as if he wished they were around Hendrick's neck. He did not appear to have heard her.
”I gave the idler a last warning when he agreed to paint you as Flora! I said that if he disappointed me once more I'd wash my hands of him. Let him fall into the clutches of the thieves and charlatans of the art world if that is what he wants!” He halted in front of Francesca so abruptly that he rucked the rug under his heel. ”I'll have my cloak and gloves back again. It's no fault of yours, but your father is impossible!”
She sprang to her feet again. ”Please don't go! The painting needs no more than a morning's work. It's the best thing he has done since Mama died. He's calling it The G.o.ddess of Spring. I'll show it to you.”
That calmed him down, but still he hesitated. ”I thought it was the rule in this house that only Hendrick showed his work for the first time.”
”In the present circ.u.mstances I'm breaking it!”
Slowly he smiled at her. ”Are you indeed? Well, it's time Hendrick discovered he can't ride roughshod over us all.” Out of the corner of his eye he had seen the maidservant bringing a tray with homemade wine and cakes. ”I'll drink to that after I've seen the painting.”
Francesca led the way to the studio, Willem following her. He considered Hendrick to be a very good artist, equal to several whose names were better known, but his work always fell short of reaching the peak. In his painting of Anna that was hanging in the studio and into which he had put his whole heart, he had come close to genius, but he had kept the essence of his wife to himself, too possessive to share what he had hidden in the tantalizing likeness of her. It had caused the painting to slip past greatness into a lesser mold. Rembrandt always withheld something of each person whose portrait he painted, intriguing the viewer and arousing the urge to discover more of that elusive, indefinable quality that lurked behind the faces captured, but he also gave generously and therein lay the difference. Not that Hendrick's work came anywhere near Rembrandt's extraordinary masterpieces. Neither did anyone else's, to Willem's mind, but in dealing with temperamental artists on one side and wealthy clients on the other, it was not politic for him to voice his own opinions.
They had come to the studio and Willem leaned forward in front of Francesca to open the door for her. She went in with swift steps to the painting on Hendrick's easel. ”Here it is!”
To reach it he had to pa.s.s the two still-life paintings that she and Aletta had left propped on their easels the previous day. Willem stopped to stand back and regard each in turn. He recognized the girls' individual work instantly, having observed their progress since they were young children. Each still showed errors and weaknesses, which could be corrected under the right tuition, but the remarkable standard of their work set them far ahead of other rising young artists of their respective ages. Aletta, being the younger, was as yet less mature in her use of color and in composition, but Francesca's still life had a jewel-like quality with tiny reflections of the objects and even of the window in the silver base of the nautilus.
He lifted the painting from the easel and took it to the window, where he scrutinized it closely. ”Your work is coming on extremely well.”
She blushed at his praise, knowing he did not give it lightly. ”Not fast enough for my choice.”
”How many hours' tuition a week does your father give you?” When she did not answer immediately he looked up sharply at her. ”None?”
”He guides and advises us sometimes when we're in special need of a.s.sistance,” she replied staunchly.
”None,” he repeated caustically, undeceived, and returned his attention to her painting. ”I'd like to keep an eye on your progress. Have you anything else you've done recently?”