Part 6 (2/2)
”She doesn't need six! Two years at the most would combine with the instruction she has already received from you.”
Hendrick faced him again. ”I'm not sure that you realize the difficulties involved. I don't know a single artist of my acquaintance who would take a woman pupil. It's not through prejudice against the weaker s.e.x, but the sheer mechanics of finding s.p.a.ce elsewhere for them to draw and paint plaster figures of cla.s.sical origin when there's a nude model on the rostrum. My daughters have been brought up to accept nudity in the studio and had their first lessons in life drawing almost from the start, although my male models have always kept their genitals covered at my instruction whenever the girls were present. No, it will not be easy to find a master willing to take Francesca as his apprentice.”
Willem's confident expression had not changed. ”I know of someone,” he stated firmly. ”He's of the school of Delft.”
Hendrick considered, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. Each of the seven states of Holland had local schools of painting attached to their main towns, and he would have preferred the Guild of Amsterdam for his daughter. Admittedly Delft was a good choice in that Rembrandt's pupil Carel Fabritius had gained fame there before his untimely death, and it could boast of the presence of Jan Steen and other painters.
”What is the name of the artist you have in mind?”
”Johannes Vermeer.”
Hendrick looked at Willem blankly. ”I've never heard of him.”
”Don't be surprised by that. Few people have, outside of Delft. On the whole he paints very little and his favorite model is his wife, to whom he is devoted. They have several children.”
”How does he support them, then?”
”For a short while he ran his late father's tavern, but he has now rented it out. These days he deals in paintings, which is how I first met him.”
”A tavernkeeper!” Hendrick's tone was so outraged that a stranger might have supposed him to be one who had never crossed a threshold where alcohol was sold.
”An artist of the highest merit,” Willem corrected. No need to add that he had met no one yet outside Delft who shared this view. It was simply his own personal conviction that Vermeer was a great painter. ”He would be the ideal choice as a tutor for Francesca,” he continued. ”He is easy-tempered, a conscientious man of thirty-eight years who has no other pupils and will devote time to her. You need not fear that he'll make any immoral advances, because, as I've already said, he has eyes only for his wife.”
”Hmm. n.o.body can be sure of that.” Hendrick reflected that no man could love a woman more than he had loved Anna, but that did not mean he had not strayed from time to time.
”Then be sure of Francesca instead. She has a head not easily turned.”
”Agreed.” Hendrick spoke proudly and then his voice took on a sarcastic edge. ”What qualifications does this Vermeer have besides being able to fill tankards with beer?”
”Don't grind on about that short period in his life. He is a master of the Guild of St. Luke, having served his six years' apprentices.h.i.+p in Delft, the city of his birth.”
”So I should expect.”
Willem ignored the gibe. ”There are two other important reasons why you should consider Vermeer as a tutor for Francesca,” he pressed on. ”Both she and Aletta have developed their own individual style, which pays tribute to the teaching you gave them in their early years, and there's something about Francesca's work that reminds me each time of Vermeer's. I'm certain the two would work in harmony.”
”How do you know he would take Francesca as a pupil?”
Willem smiled with compressed lips. ”I've already paved the way. She would be his only pupil. Think what an advantage that should give her.”
”Yes, that is so.”
”There are only two things more. I shall want some of her recent drawings and at least one of her paintings to show the Guild committee. I shall also need the doc.u.ment of her indenture.”
”There isn't one.”
Willem stared at him for a few moments. ”I don't believe this. Are you telling me you never indentured your daughters?”
Hendrick answered carelessly. ”I suppose I never thought about it. They came into the studio at such an early age.”
Willem almost ground his teeth. ”You realize that this will mean Francesca has to start from scratch. It will have to be the full six years.”
”I can't afford that.”
Willem slammed his hands on the chair arms. ”Then think! Rack your brains! Have you anything at all to show she has been painting for most of her life? A letter? A written entry anywhere? What about Anna's papers? Would she have kept anything? Whatever comes to light may not prove enough, but I'll have to present some doc.u.mentation.”
Hendrick thought deeply, leaning his head forward. ”I can't think of anything, unless my sister-in-law, Janetje, ever commented in her letters on something Anna might have told her about our daughters' progress. Anna kept all the correspondence, just as Francesca has ever since.”
”Then look through those letters! Now! Today! Let me have whatever you find. All this means that on no account must Francesca have an inkling of what we are trying to arrange. Neither of us wants her hopes to rise only to be dashed again. In any case it will be the New Year at the earliest before The G.o.ddess of Spring is sold, and some time after that before I can visit Delft again and set my appeal on her behalf before the Guild members. I'll take my leave of you and let you start your search.”
When Willem had left, Hendrick went upstairs to the bedchamber, where Anna still haunted him, and opened the lacquered box that held the only papers that had been hers. He had had to glance through them after her death to find the deed of trust that her late father had drawn up at the time of their marriage, securing the house and its effects to her for her lifetime, which in turn had saved it from being sold over their heads when at different times his creditors had become nasty about their unpaid dues. Anna had bequeathed everything to him, which was probably not what her father had expected, thinking it would pa.s.s to his grandchildren. Upon learning of the contents of her will Hendrick had immediately resolved never to take again the gambling risks on a grand scale as he had done before when he had been safe in the knowledge that whatever happened they would always have a roof over their heads. His father-in-law had not been a rich man, but Maurice Veldhuis had made a small investment for each of his daughters, enabling both Anna and Janetje to draw the interest in their lifetime, the capital to go to their offspring after them. On a sigh, Hendrick thought of how often what should have been Anna's spending money had gone to settle mounting bills incurred through his selfishness.
Grief had been blinding him when previously he had had to look in this box, but now he was able to see exactly what Anna had treasured and kept locked away. Here were letters tied with ribbon that he had written to her during their courts.h.i.+p. Beside these was early correspondence from Maurice Veldhuis and his wife when Anna and Janetje had been sent to an aunt's house in the country when plague was sweeping through Amsterdam. Taking up a great deal of s.p.a.ce were the children's first baby drawings with their later poems and birthday greetings. Then came a thicker package of Janetje's letters, Francesca having added each new one as it came, and he thought it would be a long dull task to go through every one. As he lifted them out he saw that among a few minor items still left in the box was a thin roll of paper tied with ribbon. He took it out, removed the ribbon and unrolled it to find it consisted of three sheets, each indenturing one of his daughters to him, the script in Anna's neat hand and bearing his own signature and those of the three girls. Anna had signed her own name on each indenture as a witness with the date clearly inscribed.
He had no idea how this had been done, having no recollection of the subject having been brought up, except on rare occasions and then only in pa.s.sing. To the best of his knowledge Anna had never thought of the girls becoming his apprentices officially any more than he had. Yet with exceptional foresight she had done this for her daughters.
He put her signature to his lips and kissed it. Then he rested a hand across his eyes and sat for some time, letting memories of Anna flood over him. When he did move again it was to return Aletta's and Sybylla's indentures to the box with everything else, taking only Francesca's downstairs with him.
When he had sealed it into a letter of explanation he gave it to Griet for immediate delivery to Willem's home. No sooner had it gone than he was struck by an uneasy thought. How could he send one daughter for tuition and not the other? Maybe he should paint a portrait of Aletta as Ariadne, daughter of King Minos of Crete, but then he dismissed the idea. Aletta was such a modest, retiring girl and would never agree to removing her cap to reveal her beautiful hair, which had such an exceptional color, so pale and yet full of lights. She was unself-conscious about it if they met by night or morning on the landing when it was hanging loose down her back, but it was clear she had never forgotten that horrific experience in the pa.s.sageway and still felt safer wearing a cap in public.
”We'll let her be,” Anna had said to him. ”In time she will come to realize that it was extreme ill fortune that caused her to suffer and she need not go through life fearing it will happen again.”
Since there had been no recision of the vow Aletta had apparently made to herself about keeping her hair covered, a history painting with her as a model was out of the question. In any case she was rarely in the studio these days, always off somewhere on her own when she should have been at hand, as Francesca was, for those moments when he chose to give tuition. Aletta's chance of an apprentices.h.i.+p would have to wait. There was no hurry since she was a year younger. At some time in the future, if funds were in hand again, her work could be a.s.sessed and the situation reconsidered.
With his mind easily settled, Hendrick reentered the studio, where he was a.s.sailed by the stench of the beggar's rags. He saw that the fellow had taken an orange from Francesca's recent still-life arrangement and had dripped juice, the peel scattered. Hendrick went to the window and opened it wider to fill his lungs with fresh air.
”There's a draft,” the beggar grumbled.
”You should be used to that,” Hendrick replied heartlessly, although he did draw the window in slightly. ”Resume your pose.”
He took up his palette and brush again as well as his maulstick, the ball-topped stick on which a painter rested his hand. There were spells when the pain in his knuckles made it difficult for him to paint without it.
ALETTA WENT OUT every day except Sundays to sketch in the city. Although she often showed her drawings to Francesca she preferred to paint upstairs in a side room with a communicating door that led off the bedchamber that she and Sybylla shared. Previously it had been a little parlor where either of them could read or entertain friends on their own. Aletta took whatever materials she needed from the studio and Sybylla with Griet had helped her carry up a spare easel. There was nothing unusual about this move to work alone, because it was known that Aletta liked solitude and her concentration was always disturbed in the studio when Hendrick was there too. Working on her own there with Francesca was a different matter.
”Why do you never show anyone except Sybylla your finished paintings?” Francesca asked one day. ”Your eye for perspective is so good. I'd like to see them.”
”They're not up to your standard and Father would tear them to pieces with his criticism. When I paint one that satisfies me I will show you.”
”Is that a promise?”
”It is indeed.”
Francesca was rea.s.sured. She knew how it was to feel full of doubt about a project in hand and sometimes one needed to work out difficulties on one's own.
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