Part 31 (2/2)
”I'll speak to their mother. Only yesterday she asked if I had secured any other employment yet, because they will be starting school next week.”
Later that morning Aletta was on her way. She had packed up all her belongings in readiness for transport, determined that somehow she would secure this new post. She left the town by the East Gate and knew she had a walk of two miles ahead of her. When eventually she left the road it was to follow a graveled drive flanked by elm trees which brought her half a mile farther on to the locked gates of an old house of mellow brick with many windows. A flight of wide steps led up to the entrance. Even as she reached for the iron bellpull of the gates a great barking went up and two snarling dogs came rus.h.i.+ng across the graveled courtyard to throw themselves against the ironwork. She stepped back quickly. A gruff voice called them to heel and a big burly man in good clothes roughly worn, his cravat askew, his coat incorrectly b.u.t.toned, inquired her business.
”I'm the new maidservant,” she claimed boldly.
”I've heard nothing about that. You must have come to the wrong house.” He turned away and went striding off.
She clutched at the railings and called after him. ”The de Veere housekeeper sent to the orphanage for someone to help with the work! Ask her! She'll confirm it!”
He halted and turned about to come back to the gates, taking out his keys. ”Why didn't you say so in the first place? I knew an orphan was expected, but I thought one of the regentesses would arrive in a coach with a child. Where's your baggage?”
”That will follow.”
He saw that she edged away from the dogs as she came through the gates. ”These won't hurt you. They're hunting dogs and I've trained them to keep guard. Pat their heads. Show you're friendly. You'll only find them dangerous if you start running away from them and then they'll see you as prey.”
She was unused to dogs, except for the little one in the baker's house. It wore a collar of bells, which was to avoid accidents underfoot with the elderly father, who lived with the family and was blind. Summoning up her courage she patted each of the guard dogs and when they responded with an enthusiastic wagging of tails she was rea.s.sured. ”What are their names?”
”Joachim and Johannes. I'm Josephus. How's that for a trio?” He laughed heartily, relocking the gates. ”And you?”
”Aletta Visser.”
”Come with me, Aletta, and on the way I'll give you a few tips to remember about the outdoor rules. The master never comes down to the front of the house, but that doesn't mean you can swan about here when you feel like it. Secondly, he doesn't go out into the garden at the rear of the house either, but as his windows look out on it he won't want to see you taking a shortcut to the orchard or the kitchen garden. You'll keep to the paths allotted to the servants of the household, which are hidden from sight of the main windows by tall hedges. At the present time there's only Sara, you and me and the gardeners, who don't live on the premises and are gone by three o'clock in winter and by five at this time of year.”
”Does Heer de Veere ever go outside?”
”No, he doesn't and you call him the master when you speak about him. He stays in his own apartment all the time. Old Sara will tell you why.”
”I already know.”
”Then don't ask foolish questions. He doesn't go out for two reasons. The first is that he can't walk and the second is that he won't be carried. Common sense should have told you that.” He had brought her to steps that led down to a door at bas.e.m.e.nt level. ”You go in there. If old Sara is not about you shout for her.”
Aletta found herself in the most neglected kitchen she had ever seen. There was a mountain of unwashed plates and dishes and cutlery stacked beside a bowl of cold and greasy water on the was.h.i.+ng-up table by the pump. The copper pans, which should have reflected light like mirrors, had not seen a polis.h.i.+ng rag for many a day. An iron pot of boiling water was steaming away pointlessly on the firebox, causing condensation to run down the walls of Delft tiles, which had a charming pattern in yellow, russet, green and blue of fruit and herbs and vegetables. The floor tiles had not seen water for some time and the white ones were almost indistinguishable from the black. Then the door opened and a hara.s.sed-looking woman who looked to be in her mid-sixties rushed across to the boiling pan to remove it to the cooler ledge at the side of the firebox. She was neat and clean in herself, but a long strand of gray hair had escaped from her folded cap. She was about to tuck it back when she sighted Aletta. Promptly she threw up her hands in dismay.
”Oh, my! You're an older orphan than I expected!”
Aletta realized that the battle to secure a position here was not yet won. ”I'm not an orphan, Sara. My father is living. Surely my being eighteen is all to the good. I'm better able to do hard work than any child could manage.” She removed her cloak as a gesture of determination to stay.
”But the master won't like it!” Sara was agitated.
”Why not?”
”Because you're a young woman, of course. Until he became betrothed there used to be plenty of females coming and going in the grand rooms of this house, but he wouldn't want any woman to see him now.”
”You see him.”
”That's different. He remembers me from his childhood. I used to smuggle his favorite foods to him whenever he'd been sent to his room without supper for one of his mischievous antics. His grandparents were stricter with him than his own parents, but I'm softhearted where children are concerned and didn't like to think of him being hungry.” Sara straightened her shoulders determinedly. ”You'll have to go. Now. Before he knows you've been let through the gates.”
Aletta stood her ground. ”The orphanage isn't going to send you anyone. I know that for a fact. And,” she added, glancing about disparagingly. ”it seems to me that I'm greatly needed here. This is a Jan Steen kitchen if ever I saw one!”
She was using a phrase that had crept into the Dutch language through the popularity of paintings by Jan Steen, who drew a moral from disorderly domestic scenes. Sara, knowing the criticism to be just, sank down on the nearest chair, her face crumpling. ”I know it is, but I can't manage everything. There used to be a fully trained staff here until he sent them away. I could manage well enough cooking and cleaning for him, Josephus and me, if he didn't ring that bell of his a hundred times a day. I'm up and down stairs all the time. Occasionally in one of his rages he will break everything in the room. Sometimes he rips up his sheets in his fury and then I have to replace all the bed linen.” She shook her head despairingly. ”So you see, you have to go. He gave me permission to have a child to help me, but he'd never tolerate you in the house. I daren't disobey him. I tell you, I'm fast reaching my limit.” She clapped weary fingers over her eyes.
Aletta looked about for a caddy of tea, spotted it and put a spoonful of the precious leaves into a teapot. After ladling some of the steaming water into it, she left the tea to draw while she found two cups. She was about to hand a cup to Sara when in the outer kitchen a bell jangled. The woman jerked nervously in her chair.
”There he is again. I'll have to go.”
Aletta put a restraining hand on her shoulder, continuing to hold the cup in front of her. ”Let him wait another minute. You drink this and I'll answer his bell.”
”But I told you-”
”He'll either tell me to get out or he'll let me stay. Give me the chance!”
The tea tempted Sara and her back ached. At least if the girl answered this summons, whatever the outcome it would save her one trip up those stairs. ”Very well, but be warned. He has never thrown anything at me, but there's no telling what he'll do when he sees you.”
”I'm not afraid. Tell me how to find his room.”
Aletta went from the kitchen and reached the hall. It was quite a grand house but not pretentious. Plenty of good carving, some paintings of what were no doubt ancestors, including one of a military man in a handsome frame carved with banners, drums and bugles, and fine displays of Chinese porcelain. Upstairs she found Constantijn's door without difficulty. She knocked and entered an anteroom furnished with a writing table, a painted cupboard and a chest from the Zuider Zee area and a gilded clavichord. Another door led into the bedchamber. Once more she tapped before going in.
She was immediately a.s.sailed by a winey aroma that reminded her unpleasantly of her father's drunken bouts. For the moment Constantijn was hidden from her by the high end of the couch on which he lay fully dressed with a table to hand on which stood an elegant gla.s.s with a tall, twisted stem and a silver-topped wine flagon. A fire burned in the grate and although the flames were bright enough now there was a smoky atmosphere as if previously a gust of wind in the chimney had sent smoke billowing into the room. A four-poster, neatly made and hung with yellow silk curtains, was set between two windows, both of which were closed. Constantijn did not turn his head, merely indicating the flagon with a forefinger.
”Fill it up again, Sara,” he said in slurred tones. She looked down at him as she picked up the flagon, but his eyes were shut and he was too drunk to sense there was a stranger in the room. When she returned to the kitchen Sara sprang up anxiously from her chair. ”What did he say?”
”He only asked for the flagon to be refilled.” Aletta held it up. ”He didn't notice that I wasn't you. How often does he drink like this?”
”Whenever he's weary of reading or tired of beating Josephus at chess or cards. Then boredom sets in and he drinks himself into oblivion. After he arrived that first night he drank himself into a stupor that lasted for days.”
”So he's not drunk all the time?”
”Not yet, but his bouts are becoming more frequent. You had better fetch that wine. He doesn't like to be kept waiting. You'll find the door to the cellar in the outer kitchen. Take any bottle from the wine racks there. It's only when he's sober that he states a preference. Otherwise he doesn't care.”
”When did he begin this present drinking session?”
”When he woke this morning. He had had either a poor night's sleep or one of those nightmares when he thinks he's running or skating again. Twice he's hurled himself out of his bed in his sleep and I've found him on the floor.” Then Sara gave a startled exclamation, for Aletta had rinsed out the flagon from a bucket of water and was now ladling fresh water into it. ”What are you doing?”
”In future he will get wine only with his meals and a gentlemanly gla.s.s or two of brandy after dinner. If he is thirsty at other times he can drink water instead.”
Sara let herself flop back into her chair, not knowing whether to laugh or weep. ”You're mad,” she shrieked on a rising note close to hysteria. ”He won't tolerate that!”
Aletta shrugged. ”What can he do about it? You and I control everything that goes up to his room.”
Sara gasped at such audacious thinking. At a loss for words, she watched Aletta leave the kitchen again with the flagon of water. Then she set her elbows on her knees and let her head drop into her work-worn hands, waiting in dread of the outcome.
Constantijn heard returning footsteps and the faint clink of the lip of the flagon against the gla.s.s, followed by the sound of pouring. Still with his eyes closed, he held out his hand for the gla.s.s to be put into it. Then he took a gulp of the contents. Astonishment made him swallow the water and as he sat forward, propping himself on one hand, he saw a young woman crossing to the nearest window and opening it onto the balcony.
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