Part 6 (1/2)
Hendrick located the last resting place of Frans Hals in the choir by the high gilded screen. As he stood with his daughters, looking down at the plain black stone inscribed with his late master's name, he bowed his head in respect, memories flooding back. He remembered that merry, drink-raddled face, the hearty laugh that had rocked the whole of the man's broad frame and the generous praise freely given when a pupil's work was well done.
The wealthiest and the grandest of Haarlem's citizens had commissioned their portraits from Hals, whose work had blazed with life and wit and sometimes irony. Not for him the quiet landscape or the history painting. He had liked to paint people from all walks of life: the topers he got drunk with, the tavern maids who fought his hand up their skirts, the jokers who told a jolly tale and anyone else who reminded him that life was for living to the full. And always those stately and often self-satisfied faces of the rich, some of whom never suspected he had painted them with his tongue in his cheek!
Hendrick wiped a tear from his eye and took out a kerchief to blow his nose vigorously. In the end this genius of a man had had to beg for a charity stipend from the city to keep him and his wife from starvation in their old age. Finally, the bill for his funeral had, through necessity, been on the city's accounts-he who had given Haarlem more in his lifetime than any other man who had ever been born there. Francesca, who had brought a small bunch of foliage and a few late flowers from home, laid the bouquet on the tomb.
As soon as they emerged from the church, Sybylla made a beeline for the stalls selling fripperies. Hendrick followed his daughters around quite amiably, although with the bored expression common to men while their womenfolk shop. Several purchases were made, including a blue shawl for Maria and a string of colored beads for Griet, gifts to be kept for St. Nicholaes's Day. They ate their picnic on a bench by a ca.n.a.l and afterward Hendrick showed his daughters Hals's old house, where he had served his apprentices.h.i.+p, narrowly missing being run down by horses and a wagon when he stepped into the street to point out which windows had been those of the studio.
Nearby was the house where he had had accommodation and with his face full of antic.i.p.ation he knocked on its door, Francesca and Sybylla standing at his side. A maidservant answered the door and showed them into a drawing room. A few minutes later a gray-haired woman in a dark red silk gown came to meet them. She was the eldest daughter of the couple with whom he had lodged and was of his own age.
”Joan!” Hendrick exclaimed on a roar of delight.
In spite of the pa.s.sing of time she recognized him at once. ”Mercy! It's Hendrick Visser!” She made them welcome and refreshment was served. Her good-looking son was at home and he and Sybylla were taken with each other from the start. The only sad note was when Hendrick learned that Joan's parents had died. They had taken him into their home when, after meeting him with Hals one day, they heard he needed somewhere to lodge.
Then it was time to leave if they were to make a short detour on the way home to visit van Doorne's place of business before dark. Joan gave them directions. Sybylla and the young man were in close conversation until the last minute, and he walked with them to where Hendrick had left the horse and sporting cart. Francesca noticed that Sybylla had a satisfied smile on her lips when she took her seat in the sporting cart. It was easy to guess she had had plenty of flirtatious compliments.
A lane led in a southwesterly direction to the van Doorne bulb fields, bare now in November with nothing to hint at the glory that would come in the spring. They came to what must have been a farm building at some time, its walls of stone and its dark brown thatch as neatly clipped as a head of hair. A sign proclaimed it was the van Doorne office. Hendrick and Sybylla stayed in the sporting cart while Francesca alighted to knock on the door and enter. A middle-aged man with a quill pen stuck behind one ear came from a desk to bow.
”Good day, mejuffrouw.”
”Am I addressing Heer van Dorne?”
”No, I'm his clerk. He is here if you should wish to see him, either at Haarlem Huis-that's his home just beyond the trees, although it can't be seen from this office or the lane-or else somewhere near at hand.”
”No, I don't wish to speak to him. I've only come to pay a bill.”
”Certainly. Such an intention is always good news.” His jovial air showed that it was not the first time he had made that particular jest.
Francesca paid the monies owing and left immediately, Hendrick having already turned the equipage in readiness for departure. She took a backward look at the old thatched building. Its centuries-old form and its setting would make a fine landscape. She registered the scene in her memory, something at which she had become an expert.
Then the trees slid across her view of it and as she turned back in her seat they were pa.s.sing an orangery. In the same instant a tall young man emerged from a doorway and he and Francesca looked right into each other's eyes. For an extraordinary moment the excitement she sensed in him seemed to course through her. She saw astonishment and recognition in his gaze, which she was at a loss to understand, and she was sure there must be bewilderment in hers, for to the best of her knowledge she had never seen him before. If she had she would have remembered. A grin spread across his face, his teeth as white as the keys of a virginal. To her further amazement, he dashed forward, leapt over a low fence and took a couple of running paces to catch the horse's bridle and cause Hendrick to draw up.
”Your pardon!” he exclaimed to Hendrick. ”I'm Pieter van Doorne. I didn't want to see you leave without a word. You are Master Visser of Amsterdam?”
”I am.”
”I trust the bulbs delivered to you were satisfactory.”
Hendrick regarded him with amus.e.m.e.nt. ”I can scarcely tell until they flower.”
Pieter laughed. ”I didn't mean that question to be as foolish as it sounded. It was whether the condition of the bulbs themselves was up to your expectations.”
”It's pointless to ask me. I'm no gardener.” Hendrick glanced over his shoulder into the sporting cart. ”Francesca, you are the one to give judgment.”
She smiled rea.s.suringly at Pieter, who had come to stand looking up at her. ”I have no fault to find. I'm looking forward to the blooms.”
Sybylla spoke up, not wanting to be left out of this conversation. ”So am I. We came here specially to pay your bill after being in Haarlem for the day.”
Pieter turned again to Hendrick. ”Before you start on your journey home allow me to offer you some refreshment at my house before you leave.”
Hendrick shook his head. ”I thank you, but I want to go most of the way before darkness sets in. The evenings close in early at this time of year. Good day to you.”
With a flick of Hendrick's whip in the air, the horse moved forward. Pieter held Francesca's eyes with his demanding stare. ”Another time, then,” he said as if to her father, but the message in his gaze was for her.
The horse went trotting on its way. Before the lane curved to the road, Francesca felt herself compelled to look back and saw that Pieter was watching them out of sight. He raised his arm and waved to her. She responded and then he was lost from view.
Chapter 5.
THREE WEEKS HAD GONE BY SINCE THE TRIP TO HAARLEM WHEN Hendrick received Willem in his studio. It pleased him that the art dealer should find him at work. On the rostrum was a scrawny beggar in rags, whom he had sighted pleading for alms near the steps of the Exchange. He was painting him in the act of reaching a clawlike hand for a large jewel that was to be depicted in a watery gutter. Like the azure earbobs that Francesca had worn in the Flora painting, the jewel was only a worthless fairing from one of the trinket boxes in the storeroom.
Willem stood back to view the painting. Like Hals, Hendrick rarely made a preliminary drawing, but sketched in paint straight onto the canvas, his loosely applied brushstrokes giving spontaneity to his work. This painting looked as if it might be a worthy successor to his Flora, although the subject would not be to everyone's taste.
”A silver florin would be more plausible than a jewel of that size,” Willem remarked. ”Half of Amsterdam would have sighted that gaudy geegaw from a mile away.”
”Why do you a.s.sume that the setting for my painting is in this city?” Hendrick growled belligerently. ”There are beggars in every land. Maybe it's in a slum alley in London.”
”Has a thief dropped the jewel, then? The wearers of such gems as that piece of gla.s.s is supposed to represent don't usually wander about in dubious areas.”
Hendrick paused in his painting and glared. ”Don't jest with me! You know well enough that the jewel in this particular context symbolizes the world's wealth that is out of reach of the poor everywhere. And that includes artists whose agents never sell their work at a good price!”
Willem breathed deeply and let the matter rest. There was no one more bullheaded than Hendrick when his temper turned. Allegoric paintings and symbolic touches were more popular than ever, but symbols had to be a natural part of the picture, further enhancing its subject or theme. The jewel in Hendrick's painting jarred the eye, as did so many touches that he had persisted in adding to his pictures over the years, always surprised when one or another of his works fetched abysmally low prices. ”I've come for The G.o.ddess of Spring.”
Hendrick resumed his painting. ”Have you a buyer?”
”Better than that. I have several potential buyers, but I want to speak about that to you in private.”
Hendrick put aside his palette and brushes, telling the beggar to take a rest. Then he and Willem left the studio. In the parlor the art dealer explained he had let the word spread that he had an exceptional work, which he was reluctant to sell, partly because he saw it as an investment, but more for the beauty of the model herself who had posed as Flora. Already he had had keen inquiries, but he had acted mysteriously and evasively, not saying whether he would let it be viewed by the public or not.
”I need hardly say that the curiosity of certain people is almost more than they can bear. I've had offers for it unseen and when I let this be known more demands for the first right to buy came in.”
”So what is to happen next?” This stratagem appealed to Hendrick.
”I shall have it veiled in a room in my house and that will intrigue still more. When I have the right buyer and the right moment, I shall reveal the painting of Francesca and settle the deal.”
Hendrick laughed exuberantly. ”Well done, old friend!”
Willem remained sober-faced. ”I'm doing this as much for Francesca as for you.”
Hendrick frowned. ”What has my daughter to do with this?”
”I want to see the sum that you get for this painting put to the best possible use. Let it pay for her tuition in the studio of an artist who would teach her well and release the fount of talent that's ready to burst forth.”
Hendrick's gaze s.h.i.+fted and he half turned away. ”Do you think I haven't wanted that? My own patience has run out and, although I have tried to carry on instructing my daughters, it's as if a wall has come between them and me in that respect. Teaching was never my forte and now I seem to have lost whatever ability I had in that direction.”
”Then do as I say!” Willem urged. ”You'll have it in your hands to give Francesca the apprentices.h.i.+p she deserves.”
”But whatever I receive from the sale of the portrait would never run to her tuition and keep for the necessary six years.”