Garlands of Gold (3 page)

Taking up the hand-mirror, Saskia displayed the back and sides of the woman’s head to her in the toilet table’s looking-glass. Vrouw Gibbons turned her head critically to the left and to the right, touching the new coiffure with her fingertips. Then, after what seemed an age to Diane, who was on the edge of her seat with anxiety, the woman smiled condescendingly.

‘That’s very pretty, Saskia. I like it. Now you shall assist me in dressing.’

As the girl helped her into a cinnamon-hued velvet gown Vrouw Gibbons continued to be pleased. There was no fumbling with the back lacing from these agile young fingers, and now the care with which the girl was smoothing down the fashionably wide lace collar over her shoulders showed an alert attention to detail. For choice she would never have taken on a fresh young beauty to be a constant reminder of her own fading looks, which no longer dazzled as much as in the past. Yet that was not the reason why she had opposed for so long Diane’s request for her to take the girl into the household. It was simply that she had always had a mature woman to wait on her and had feared that with Diane’s daughter she would have to deal with inexperience and blundering incompetence. Even as late as this evening she had hesitated uncertainly before finally committing herself to giving Saskia a trial, although it was becoming apparent that Diane with her failing health would not be able to carry on alone much longer. It was no wonder that Diane had immediately rushed from the house to fetch the girl.

Looking across at Diane in the mirror, she gave a little nod that conveyed her approval of Saskia and saw relief flood into the sick woman’s face. Now Diane could feel assured in the last months of her life that her daughter had a good home and perhaps even a secure future.

Immediately, Diane rose from her chair to come across the room and open a jewel-box from the toilet table. Then she held it as she had done so many times before for Vrouw Gibbons to make her choice. It also had a beautifully carved lid and she did not want her daughter making any more inappropriate remarks, but Saskia was gazing at it in wonder.

‘Your son must have magic in his fingertips,
mevrouw
,’ she said in awe.

‘You have a vivid imagination,’ Vrouw Gibbons replied on a cool note as she selected a pair of topaz earrings. She did not want this girl flattering Grinling with such praise, however innocently. ‘I assure you that it is all done mundanely with skill and a chisel.’

She exchanged a meaningful look with Diane. Over the years they had come to understand each other completely. Diane nodded. The Englishwoman’s message was clear. Saskia must be kept away from the son and heir. Then Vrouw Gibbons turned to the girl again. ‘My husband and I have a very busy social life and from tonight you shall attend me when I retire, which will spare your mother from keeping any more late hours.’

Saskia bobbed. ‘Yes,
mevrouw
,’ she answered, glad that this woman seemed to have the same protective attitude towards her mother as she did herself.

As Vrouw Gibbons went from the room and the door closed behind her Saskia spun around on her toes to Diane in jubilation. ‘I pleased her! Did you see that, Mama?’

‘Yes, I did,’ Diane said, her voice tired from the strain of the past hour, but then she added sharply, ‘I should have been most displeased if it had been otherwise. Now I’ll show you how to turn back her bed for tonight and where to place her night shift, robe and slippers.’ In the adjoining dressing room, which contained a hip bath painted with flowers, she indicated the close stool. ‘If she uses the close stool before going to bed or at any other time you ring the bell for a maidservant to come with a replacement container and the used one will be taken away.’

Together they made the bed ready and then left the room to have supper, which was served in Diane’s own little parlour. Vrouw Gibbons was not late to bed and again was privately pleased with Saskia’s careful attention. That night Saskia wore one of her mother’s spare night shifts and slept well.

Next morning Diane was in a state of collapse after the exertion of the previous evening and fell when she attempted to leave her bed. Saskia helped her back into it and then rushed to tell their employer what had happened. Deeply concerned, Vrouw Gibbons sent at once for the doctor. He came, an elderly man handsomely dressed in black velvet, his grey periwig curling all over his shoulders. The housekeeper accompanied him into the patient’s room, brusquely ordering Saskia out of the room to wait outside the door. When they emerged, the doctor, who looked grave, ignored the girl’s frantic questioning and the housekeeper cruelly thrust her aside.

‘Get out of the doctor’s way, girl!’

He made his report to Vrouw Gibbons, who in her turn had to break the news to Saskia that her mother’s days were numbered.

Diane never rose from her bed again. Everything possible was done for her comfort. She lingered for six weeks before she took her last breath, flickering out like a candle-flame. Bessie Gibbons shared Saskia’s grief, for Diane had been both friend and confidante in times of joy and trouble, once even saving her from what would have been a dangerous indiscretion. Even her husband, James Gibbons, a thin-faced, middle-aged man with kindly brown eyes that by chance were the colour of his favourite periwig, showed his compassion with gentle words to the bereaved girl.

‘This is a hard loss for you, Saskia, but time will heal and you will always know that you were blessed by having a good and caring mother.’

‘I thank you,
mijnheer
,’she answered in little more than a strained whisper, bobbing to him while keeping tears at bay.

She was sobered by her mother’s death. It was as if a cloak of responsibility had fallen on to her shoulders. Her first act was to inform the housekeeper that never again was she to be given orders as on the morning of her mother’s collapse.

‘In future I shall be the one giving instruction in everything relating to VrouwGibbons’
toilette
, her comfort and attire. Is that understood?’

The housekeeper turned a fiery red with anger, but tightened her lips and bobbed a curtsy. On her own again Saskia breathed a sigh of satisfaction at the bold step she had taken, but she had had to establish her authority in the hierarchy of the servants’ world and show that she was no longer ‘only Diane’s daughter’.

Saskia was grateful that Vrouw Gibbons, showing the kindness of which she was capable at times, had given her two other adjoining rooms to have as her own on another floor. As it was, it was very distressing to sort out her mother’s clothes and possessions, causing her to shed more tears.

She unlocked the Spanish strongbox in her new accommodation. She found that it held a fitted tray in which lay a ruby pendant on a gold chain, which she had never seen her mother wear, and she wondered if it had been a gift from her errant father. If that were its origins, then maybe Diane had found it too painful a reminder ever to display on her bosom. Lifting out the tray, she found underneath her mother’s small savings in a little leather drawstring pouch. There was also a large key, although there was no label on it to give any indication as to where it belonged. She replaced the tray and noted that there was just the right amount of space left to accommodate her red book of beauty receipts. She placed the volume in it and locked the box up again. Now it was doubly secure from any spying eye.

That same evening Vrouw Gibbons all unwittingly solved the mystery of the large key. ‘I have just remembered, Saskia,’ she said, ‘when your mother came into my employ she brought a travelling chest with her. It was taken up to the top attic where she had access to it, for it would have taken up too much space in her rooms.’

‘I believe I have found the key to it,
mevrouw
.’

‘Then tomorrow go up there and see if it contains anything you want to keep.’

Next morning, as Saskia mounted the stairs to the top attic, she wondered what the travelling box would contain and why her mother had never mentioned it to her. Then on second thoughts she recalled that her mother had never really conversed with her on any matter, the few facts she knew about her father had been like getting blood from a stone. But in any case she did not think the chest would hold anything of much importance or else Diane would have felt compelled to speak of it to her. Her guess was that it held books or perhaps some of her baby clothes, although her mother had never been in the least sentimental.

To her surprise it was a stout iron-bound wooden chest that awaited her. It had been placed under a circular window that gave her plenty of light as she knelt down and inserted the key. The lock turned easily and slowly she raised the lid.

To her astonishment it was packed full of tiny parcels, some wrapped in pieces of soft cloth, others in old French news-sheets or odd scraps of paper. Sitting back on her heels, she picked out one of the tiny parcels at random and removed the paper wrapping carefully. To her astonishment a beautiful little pot was revealed, suitable for containing any cosmetic cream or salve. The lid was delicately hand-painted with a spray of lilac. Putting it down on the floor beside her she opened another of the little parcels. This pot was slightly larger, but just as charming, although the rosebuds that covered it had obviously been painted by a different hand. Eagerly she uncovered yet another pot, which was of a rare fineness and from Japan, judging by the little figures with parasols standing together on a bridge. Holding it up to the light she saw that it was quite translucent and she marvelled that it had never been broken, which in itself was a tribute to her mother’s careful packing. Then came a rose water bottle and some perfume flasks, two of which had slightly dented gold tops.

There was no doubt in her mind that most of the items were antique, although none was cracked. She took a guess that Diane had hunted for them among worthless second-hand goods on market stalls, in the corners of dusty shops, even perhaps in stinking rubbish. Had any of them been new their cost would have been beyond her mother’s slender purse. The floor around her began to be covered by the pretty objects as if flowers were springing up all around her.

The striking of a clock in the distance forced her to halt in her discoveries, reminding her of her duties. A quick glance at a few of the news-sheets showed that some had been printed before her mother had left France. Others, wrapped around little pots of Delft china, were more recent, showing how her mother had continued the collection until her illness had begun to overtake her. It was impossible to estimate the number of items that were packed so closely together in the chest, but there were at least two hundred or perhaps even more.

Tears filled her eyes at the thought of her mother’s sacrifice. How many hours of hard searching had gone into buying just one of the pots and how many cobbled streets trod to find yet another pretty item to be washed and dried and then carefully packed away. It showed how ambitious Diane had been originally for herself before a pregnancy had changed the course of her life, for these lovely goods could stock the shelves of a shop or be sold containing beauty products at a high price to those who could afford them. Then Diane, putting aside her own dream, had continued collecting for her daughter’s future.

After Saskia had replaced all the pots and flasks that she had had time to examine she closed and locked the chest again, realizing at the same time that it held her true inheritance. It explained why her mother’s savings had been so small, for Diane had invested all she could spare in increasing her collection, clinging to the hope that her daughter would benefit greatly one day from the contents of the chest. Feeling a little dazed by her discovery Saskia made her way downstairs again.

Later that day Vrouw Gibbons made a stipulation, which Saskia knew she must obey if she was to keep her employment.

‘Your mother,’ the woman said, ‘had a sideline in selling her beauty preparations elsewhere. I ignored the matter simply because she had been with me so long and I never had any fault to find otherwise. But it has to stop now. Anything you make will be only for me. Is that understood?’

Saskia nodded. ‘Yes,
mevrouw
.’

There was no other answer she could give.

Her book was so thick with pages that were yet to be filled that she doubted if she would ever reach the last one, for her handwriting was small and neat, enabling her to list a number of processes on a single page. Yet she continued to make fresh entries in her book whenever she experimented and found a variation that seemed to be an improvement on a previous receipt. She had also begun another section, which had come about through observing how meticulously Vrouw Gibbons arranged flowers, how she organized suppers and banquets when she always made a beautiful setting for the table. Yet often Saskia wished she could add a touch herself and visualized how she would have arranged the candles and the flowers and the napery. So, since she was only able to view the finished table, there was consolation in writing up her own ideas into her book and making little drawings to illustrate them.

Once when Saskia was seated with a sketch pad in the courtyard, being free for a little while from her duties, she was drawing sprigs of herbs plucked from the kitchen garden when Vrouw Gibbons came by. The woman stopped to look over Saskia’s shoulder and was immediately full of admiration for the sketch in progress.

‘How delicately and accurately you have captured your chosen specimens, Saskia,’ she said. ‘What else have you sketched?’