The Golden Tulip (76 page)

“You’re taking a lot, Vrouw Wolff,” the carpenter said without suspicion when she finally emerged from the house and shut the door quietly behind her. In one hand she carried a plain-looking casket that held gold pieces and another tucked under her arm was full of her jewels.

“My sister left some of her possessions behind when she stayed with me. This is an excellent chance to return them.” She gave the carpenter his money. He thanked her and would have waited to see her drive off, but there came a clattering of hooves and a man came riding up to her. Geetruyd faltered when she saw it was Ludolf in the saddle.

“Where are you going?” he demanded.

She turned swiftly to wave to the carpenter. “How fortunate! I’m to have an escort. Good day.” She shook the reins and as the cart moved forward Ludolf rode along beside her, asking her again what she was about. Succinctly she told him what she had heard. “I knew in my bones when Kuiper didn’t return in the early hours that something had gone wrong.”

He expelled a furious breath, his face flushed, hard and menacing, “What error did you make to bring all this about?”

“I?” It was because her nerves were so strained, fear of capture high in her, that her answer burst shrilly from her. “I did everything right, as I always have done! Seek elsewhere to allot the blame!”

“Keep your voice down!” he ordered. He glanced about alertly, but the mist was like a protective veil and passersby were too busy about their own early-morning affairs to pay any attention to a rider and a woman driving a cart.

She struggled to subdue her high-pitched notes. “Somebody betrayed us.”

“Yes, but who?” There was accusation in his stare.

“Would I be fleeing if I could seek protection from the militia?” she spat back.

He was forced to accept her defense. “The cache at the de Veere house was vital. Two others were uncovered yesterday and arrests made.”

“Then look there for those who betrayed us.”

He gave a nod. As yet he could not contemplate what this catastrophe might mean to his ministerial future. His immediate task was to try to salvage the situation for himself alone. If he used his influence to persuade some important Dutch cities to surrender to the French when the gates were reached it should surely compensate in Louis XIV’s eyes for the failure of those plans to take The Hague.

“There’s no more to be done here,” he said sourly. “I’ll delay no longer. I’ll ride back to Kromstraat to fetch Francesca and take her with me to Utrecht, where I’ll await the French.”

“She’s not at the house.”

“Where is she, then?”

“In the House of Correction, incarcerated for an indefinite term, and you will never get her out of there, because there are bars and locks and armed guards. Lovers have tried before to get their young women out and failed!”

“Did you—?” he began savagely.

“No, it was a regent who took her into custody!” Then her feelings gave way. “Why should you care about Francesca any longer when we’ve been so much to each other and should be together now!”

He sneered at her in his anger. “I only sought you out again because I knew you’d be useful to me. Even that has come to an end.”

She screeched, forgetting the need for caution, and lashed out at him with her whip. “Go to the devil!”

In her fury her aim was poor and the thong missed his face to catch him across the shoulder. Outraged, he swore at her, wheeled his horse about and rode away in the opposite direction. She turned the whip cruelly on the horse, weeping with temper, and it was as well the streets were all but deserted of traffic or else in the mist and half blinded with tears she would not have driven far without an accident.

She had reached a road leading out of town when Pieter began hammering on her door for admittance while another militiaman ran down the side passage to cut off any escape that way. In the countryside, as the laden cart jolted over the rough surface, the mist became thicker, rising from the river and the canals. Minuscule drops of moisture clung to Geetruyd’s clothes and her hair, beaded her lashes and sheened her bitter face.

With a rattling of wheels she disappeared like a fading shadow into the dense white mist.

Chapter 23

P
IETER, HAVING LEARNED FROM
W
EINTJE WHERE
F
RANCESCA
had been taken, went at once to see her, leaving the pursuit of Geetruyd to militiamen who had been called in for the task. He was told at the gate that the inmates of the House of Correction were allowed no visitors except by special permission, and he must apply to Heer van Golpen. At the regent’s office he was coldly received. The fact that Geetruyd was being pursued as a spy met with disbelief and hostility. But it was more than that, because the regent made it plain he was not a supporter of the Prince.

“You have condemned Vrouw Wolff without giving her a hearing,” the regent said, “In my opinion you have hounded a poor frightened and helpless woman out of her home, a woman whose only concern has ever been the welfare of the people of Delft and of our country. I will not fail her wishes for the protection of Francesca Visser from wild desires and unsuitable company.”

Pieter stood his ground. “Vrouw Wolff had fled from the house before I arrived to arrest her, and one of the men involved in the fighting at the de Veere property admitted she had organized the raid.”

Van Golpen was puce with fury. “I have only your word for this, and in any circumstances a common thief would say anything to save his own skin. I have no doubt it is all a pack of lies. All the time I am chairman of the board Francesca Visser will not leave the care of this house without my permission. Depart from these premises and don’t return.”

Exasperated, Pieter left to shout at the barred windows from the street. “All’s well, Francesca! I’ll get you out of there somehow!”

She did not hear him, being engaged in scrubbing floors, clothed in a gray gown and plain white cap such as all the inmates had to wear. But one of the other young women had heard him and told her in a whisper as they stood at a long table with their heads bowed in readiness for grace. Francesca gave the girl a grateful glance and smiled. It cheered her to know that Pieter would be trying to get her released, although she had no illusions about how long it might take. She had discovered already that newcomers were treated with the greatest strictness and were given the worst of the menial tasks. None of that mattered to her. The enormous disappointment she had to bear was that she would not be able to submit her work to the Guild. When she would get another chance she did not know, for if the war encompassed Delft nothing would settle down again for a long time to come. To be so near to the long-awaited day and then to be denied the right to attend was a bitter pill to swallow.

Yet even that took second place beside the knowledge that Pieter, as an officer in the reserve, his duty done in Delft, which he had most surely meant by saying all was well, would be going to the fighting. His safekeeping came above all else. She wished with all her heart that she could have lain with him once more before war took him away.

Francesca and her fellow inmates, who numbered twenty-three, heard about the success of the armed confrontation at the de Veere house, for local news and that of the war was given to them daily, all part of a scheme to awaken a sense of responsibility. For the same reason clothes were made for the poor and turns were taken in soup making for any who came hungry to the door. Francesca was saddened to know of the death of Josephus, who had been a friend to her sister and had done so much to help Constantijn.

She guessed that by now Aletta would have notified their father about this incarceration. Many times when a door opened she looked up from her work in the hope of seeing Hendrick with his broad red face and wide girth come striding in, full of indignation about what had happened, to snatch her away. But that did not occur. A fellow inmate explained why.

“When one of us is considered to be so wicked that even our parents can’t be trusted to have charge of us, we are put under the authority of the city of Delft. That has probably happened in your case, even if it was no more than a romp in the hay. What did you do anyway?”

“It’s too long and complicated a story to relate, but of one thing I’m certain. I wouldn’t be here at all if I hadn’t aroused needless jealousy in another woman.”

The day Francesca should have submitted her paintings came and went. She heard nothing from Pieter or her family because those newly admitted were allowed no correspondence, except on compassionate grounds in the case of illness or bereavement in the family, until a period of six months had elapsed. The war news was not good. The French army, as if leaving nothing to chance, was taking every place whether important or not in their steady advance toward Amsterdam, which they intended to reach before sweeping south to The Hague and, if surrender had not been signed before then, Delft as well. Yet there was hope. The Prince had moved with his staunch little army into a strong position of defense, which it was hoped might soon change into one of attack. During a temporary absence of van Golpen from Delft, another regent, whose sympathies were with the Prince, supplied the information that apathy and disagreement were melting away among many who had been against the House of Orange, but there were still far too many pockets of nonresistance where the French were welcomed, either through fear or concern for personal wealth and position or, in the case of Dutch soldiers, lack of adequate weaponry and good command.

Francesca came to know her fellow inmates well. There was much willfulness, tempers and screaming hysterics, especially among those parted from men they loved, whom their families had forbidden them to marry. She was full of compassion for them, not concerned with the rights or wrongs of any case, but understanding their heartache. Even more pathetic were girls, finally broken by incarceration, who were coming to terms with having to marry their parents’ choice of a husband after long defiance had proved in vain. All those in her section were from what were known as good homes, most from well-to-do backgrounds. In another part of the building were young prostitutes, who were kept segregated until such time as they were considered reformed, and Francesca only saw them when they waved from barred windows whenever she and her fellow inmates strolled for exercise for one hour twice a day within a walled garden.

When she was given duties of digging and weeding she was at her happiest since coming into custody, even though she had been assigned to the vegetable patch and not to the flower beds. One glorious morning she paused in her work to turn her face to the sun. To be out of doors on such a day made her yearn to be sketching and painting again. She watched swallows swooping overhead, dark against a pure sky blue—azurite mixed with just the right amount of lead white paint. She smiled, certain that Hendrick would have added a wispy cloud or two.

“Francesca!” It was one of the women in charge striding toward her. Francesca sighed to herself. She had been caught loitering. That would mean a punishment of going without supper, or some such petty penalty.

“Yes,
mejuffrouw
?” she replied sharply, expecting a further reproof for her tone, but there were times when she did not know how much longer she could endure the injustice of her incarceration. There was no cruelty in this place—all in authority were quietly spoken and extraordinarily patient and kind in many ways—but the rules were as inflexible as the bars on the windows.

“You are wanted in the board room.”

There were several doors to be unlocked by jangling keys before the room was reached. Francesca was instructed to knock and go in. She had learned through previous disappointments not to expect anything more than an interrogation as to her attitude and state of mind by the regentesses of the board, which took place at regular intervals. This time when she entered there were no white-capped, black-gowned ladies seated at the table. Instead Aletta and Jan Vermeer stood waiting to see her. She uttered a cry of joy and her sister rushed to embrace her.

“We’ve come to take you away!” Aletta exclaimed happily. “A letter ordering your release came from the Prince of Orange! Pieter put a request through to him!”

“How kind and generous of the Prince when he has so much to do and think about!”

“He knows how you served him and our country.”

“It was so little.” Francesca turned to Jan. “It’s good of you to have come too! I’ve had no chance to draw or paint.”

“I know. I tried to get materials in to you, but it was not allowed.”

“I realized that.” She was eager to collect her belongings and leave, but there was one question she had to ask her sister first. “How is Pieter? Do you know where he is?”

“Read for yourself.” Aletta handed Francesca a letter. “It came with the Prince’s order that your freedom be restored to you.”

Francesca could not resist reading it through as soon as she returned to her quarters to pack. It was a love letter always to be treasured. All she would be able to tell the others was that he was with the Prince, but he had not stated his exact whereabouts. She feared he was in the thick of the fighting.

Her packing was soon done, because she had only those items she had brought with her on the night she had arrived. She changed quickly out of the institution’s garments and into her own clothes. With a bundle looped over her arm she returned to her waiting sister and her master. The three of them rode to his house in the de Veere coach. Francesca was starved for family news. She learned that all was well with Hendrick and Maria. What was more, Aletta had heard again from Sybylla.

“She wanted to let me know she was pregnant. I think she was longing to tell one of us her good news and this time she gave me her address in Rotterdam. I was able to let her know that she and Hans have nothing to fear from the van Jansz family, which was a great relief to both of them. They have been living in fear of discovery.”

“Will they be coming back to Amsterdam?”

“No. Sybylla has Father’s touchy pride and she wants to wait until the whole affair has completely blown over and been forgotten.” Aletta chatted on, filling gaps. Geetruyd had never been found. Ludolf was to have been arrested as a major spy, but no trace could be found of him and it was believed he was with the French forces. “So you are safe from that dreadful man at last, Francesca!”

Jan hoped in his own thoughts that Francesca had been spared the wretched marriage, but everything depended on whether France could be kept from overrunning Holland. Pieter had told him that Geetruyd had revealed once to Francesca that Ludolf believed himself to be destined for high places, which surely meant at least a ministerial position in a Dutch puppet government under Louis XIV. Then none would be able to withstand Ludolf, Francesca least of all.

Catharina and the Vermeer children were waiting at Mechelin Huis to welcome Francesca back again and a feast had been prepared, at which Constantijn was to join them. As yet Francesca had not mentioned her lost mastership and neither had Jan, but as so often in the case of children, Beatrix was unable to hold back a secret and she blurted it out, the shushing from her mother and her older sisters coming too late.

“The Guild liked your paintings, Francesca!”

Wide-eyed, Francesca looked to Jan for confirmation. “Did you submit my work on my behalf?”

“I did,” he admitted smilingly. “We had planned a special surprise during which to tell you, because the children have written and prepared a song about it for you. It is to prelude our sitting down to table.”

She turned to the younger children and to Beatrix, who had hung her head in shame at her own foolishness in speaking too soon. Francesca tilted the child’s chin upward with a fingertip. “Do you know, Beatrix, I’m glad to have been told first. It will make the song twice as enjoyable. May I hear it now?”

The young ones scampered to the virginal and were arranged in their places by the older girls while Catharina seated herself at the keys. The song was simple and amusing and tuneful. Francesca clapped heartily. Then she spoke to Jan again. “Please tell me what happened on the day I should have been before the Guild Committee.”

“I gave a full explanation as to why you had been shut away. Not all those on the Guild Committee are for the Prince, but art has no boundaries or politics, race or creed, and your work was judged on its own merits. As you know, no decision is ever made on the day itself, but I was hopeful. Then I had to approach them again when notification came for you to appear on the set day in May. Again they were considerate in view of the quality of your work and said they would see you as soon as you were released, whenever that might be.”

“I can’t thank you enough!”

“There’s no need for thanks. You have worked hard and your painting more than deserves a mastership.”

Constantijn had arrived by then and he came to greet her, managing his legs and his crutches even more deftly than he had done when she had last seen him, but she was dismayed to see that he had a bruise down the side of his face and a black eye. He grinned at her concern.

“I took a tumble down the stairs,” he explained. “I smashed a crutch but I have a replacement. I’m touched by your sympathy, Francesca,” he joked. “I get none from your sister. She simply brings me another crutch she has in reserve and tells me to get up again.”