Van den Meer doesn’t stop to see what happens, but turns and mounts the staircase. Clara follows, holding out a steadying hand. Van Stolk mutters to Margarethe, “I could ask for the very building if I chose. Don’t provoke me, Dame van den Meer, for there isn’t anything in your manner that calls forth a warm response, even in the most kindly breast in town, which mine demonstrably is not.”
Van Stolk hasn’t been gone an hour before another knock on the door summons Margarethe. It’s the clothier again, Gerard van Antum, with some samples of lace and the first setting of undercoats and skirts to fit upon Margarethe’s bony hips. Iris shows him into the street room. “I could care for some sherry,” he admits, when he has been bustling about Margarethe with pins and scrutinizing glances, heaving for breath. His plumpness doesn’t help him in his profession. He is like a huge ambulatory pincushion—overpadded.
“I believe we’re just out of sherry,” says Margarethe. She invents a fit of coughing to hide the next information, that there’s nothing in the cupboard to substitute for sherry. Within a few days, at this rate, there will be no cupboard either.
“Give me a look at the pretty young thing, then,” says Gerard van Antum.
“Not till I have a finished costume,” says Margarethe.
“You forget,” says the clothier, “I still have the pins in my hands.”
“And when you loose them in me, you will have sacrificed your weapons, and it will be my turn,” says Margarethe with a forced, gay laugh. “In lieu of sherry I will supply you with a cup of cocoa, and lace it with a flavoring capable of causing you to retch your liver up through your gullet.”
He drops his hands; pins spill onto the floor.
“Learn from me, Iris, I’m a witty conversationalist, no?” says Margarethe. “I’m practicing for when I meet the Dowager Queen of France.”
“The material you choose is very becoming,” says van Antum in a humbled voice.
“I’m delighted you appreciate my taste,” says Margarethe. Her eyes stare flintily out the window. “You catch the gossip that drops from every female tongue in the better streets of town. Why really is Marie de Medici displaying her godson here?”
“He’s reputed to have an eye for the art of painting,” says van Antum. “She relies on his taste in selecting her last portraitist. And there are other reasons.”
“Pray tell.”
But van Antum purses his mouth primly in Iris’s direction. Margarethe sighs and tries another approach. “Clara?” she calls.
Ruth lumbers to the door of the kitchen. “I wanted Clara,” says Margarethe.
“Ashgirl,” says Ruth. Margarethe starts at the sound of comprehensible syllables from Ruth’s mouth.
“Ashgirl?” she says. She’s not so much questioning Ruth’s words as the fact that they can be uttered at all. Her voice goes up the register as if enraged. “Ashgirl?”
Clara appears then, pushing Ruth behind her into the kitchen to stem the tide of Margarethe’s apparent disapproval. “What is it?” she says tiredly.
“Since when is Ruth able to call you Ashgirl?” says Margarethe.
“She’s learned to sing some words,” says Clara. “I hardly know how.”
“You hardly know how, Ashgirl?” says Margarethe. “Charchild, Cinderfeet, you hardly know how?”
“We spend much time in the kitchen,” says Clara, “singing and telling stories. She’s growing older, too, and listens well.”
The clothier doesn’t care about the improvement in Ruth’s speech. His hands have dropped to the hem of Margarethe’s skirt, and he clutches it as if to keep himself from rocking on his knees straight onto the floor. He has seen Clara only once before, and that time she disappeared without a word. “Introduce me,” he mutters to Margarethe, and then hits her lightly on the ankle to get her attention. “Introduce me, will you?”
“Oh, very well,” says Margarethe. “Are we settled on the size of the ruff, then, and your finding a set of pearl drops to fix in my ears? I can’t locate Henrika’s diamond pendants. I’ll dig up her coffin if I must—”
Van Antum is too transfixed to reply to this comic boast. “Hello,” he murmurs, “hello hello.”
“So we’re agreed,” Margarethe continues. “Yes, then, I will tell you: This is my stepdaughter, Clara van den Meer. Don’t mind her filth; she enjoys nothing more than to pretend to be a maid. We call her Cinderella as a game.
“Cinderella,” says Margarethe, as if to prove such, “Cinderella, don’t stand there looking sullen. Say hello to our own Gerard van Antum, and then, if you would be so kind, prepare for him a nice warm tankard of hot cocoa. Iris, go help her. Then, dear man, you can tell me more about Philippe de Marsillac and why he needs help procuring a bride.”
The Night
Before the Ball
“It’s to be the most stylish affair held in all of the Protestant Netherlands this year! And such sinful excess and expense!”
There are plenty of occasions for Haarlem folk to disapprove, Iris notices, but not many people who receive the precious invitations actually turn them down. “Better to observe firsthand—all the family will want to hear about the excesses” is the attitude most people take. And they keep the shoemakers busy with new footgear cut from the latest patterns imported from Paris.
For many it’s a good time for a ball. Most of those who have suffered in the collapse of the tulip market have sold out and fled, or else, like Margarethe, they are trying gamely to proceed as if the best prospects lie ahead. And who’s to say this isn’t true? In the family of nations, the Netherlands is still a fledgling in the nest . . . Sprung out of a local gabble of small farmers and fishermen, a handful of provinces has become a nation of international merchants who share a growing sense of destiny. The brave market talk asserts just this.
“Those who have fallen will arise.”
“Doesn’t Holland get the freshest air off the ocean each day, and breathe the newest thoughts? Isn’t the ocean itself our own high road to be galloped across in steeds of timber and sailcloth?”
Who cares that the crones and the predikants, using separate sets of words, murmur jeremiads that too much optimism is bad for the soul, and attracts perhaps more attention from God than, strictly speaking, is desirable?
But Marie de Medici is blowing into town like a galleon herself, with her godson, the profoundly handsome and well-positioned Philippe de Marsillac. He is said to have an eye for painting, and his godmother trusts his opinion. But how can it be that he isn’t equipped to select a wife for himself? An eye for painting also suggests an eye for feminine beauty, surely? Or is he a slow-wit?
Nonetheless, he has been seen, and so has she; Haarlem isn’t that large that a large person can easily hide herself or her nephew. And she is gross and unbecoming, and he her opposite in every way.
As the great day draws nearer, Iris and Ruth succumb to the various fittings that the clothier insists are necessary. Iris can see that van Antum is smitten with the splendor of Clara van den Meer, and that Margarethe limits his sight of Clara to a few moments at the end of each session. Even with her eyes continuing to ache and fail, Margarethe directs such occasions with finesse. She calls “Cinderella!” to the back of the house and then arrests Clara as she approaches, saying, “Don’t move, I’ve dropped a pin and you’ll step on it.”
So Clara, backlit by the sunlight splashing in a kitchen doorway and reflecting off newly washed tiles, hovers like a Catholic angel, her blond hair escaping its cap in a nimbus, her very arches poised to avoid fallen pins, giving her a look of one who has just set down from heaven.
Margarethe plays Clara even more deviously when Nicolaes van Stolk comes to call. It’s become clear that his interest in the painting of Young Woman with Tulips is simply a mask for his interest in the model. First Margarethe sends Ruth upstairs to sit with Papa Cornelius and make sure he doesn’t get out of bed. Then Iris is called in for the sake of propriety. Margarethe closes the doors to the front room so Papa
Cornelius can’t hear. “Our Cinderling? The poor thing is down with a cold,” says Margarethe to Nicolaes van Stolk. “Can’t you hear her sneezing in the inglenook?”
“I can’t,” says van Stolk irritably.
“It’s the strangest thing. As my eyes fail me, my hearing improves,” says Margarethe. “I can even hear her wiping her eyes, for she’d like to come and present herself to you, but she’s in far too miserable a state to do it, and she wouldn’t care for you to see her so trembling and vulnerable.”
Van Stolk coughs and adjusts himself in the chair. “I could tolerate it,” he manages.
“Nonsense,” says Margarethe. “I wouldn’t hear of it. The theory of contagion has some validity, and I’d never forgive myself if you were to come down with a sniffle just before the ball.”
“I don’t have any intention of going to pay homage to the Dowager Queen of France!” says van Stolk, drawing himself upright.
“No, of course not,” says Margarethe soothingly. “You haven’t got an eligible daughter to parade before the desirable Philippe de Marsillac, nor have you a wife to prod you into going so that she can attend on your arm. You must be very lonely at times.” She smiles, but, Iris notes, not with anything like her old ability to flirt. As her eyesight deteriorates, so does her status as a coquette—her attraction now exists solely in the girls she is raising. “More lager for the gentleman,” says Margarethe to Iris, who comes forward and pours. “I could do with a bit of money to buy myself a new pair of shoes,” Margarethe continues. “The wonderful white kid leather shoes I had made for me will be unsuitable, I’m afraid. With my faltering step, I tend to kick out at the floor and the edges of walls and furniture, and the marks on white leather will offend. But the shoemaker won’t advance me any more credit. Might I trouble you for a small loan?”
“I would expect some collateral,” says van Stolk.
“I hear our Cinderella pulling the shawl tightly about her breast,” says Margarethe smoothly. “She is cold and needs warming. How very taxing for her. Even the kitchen with its ashy fires can’t satisfy her. I would put her to bed in an instant if I thought she would hear of it. In bed she might be warmed.”
Van Stolk collapses before Margarethe’s campaigns and hands over some coin for a new pair of shoes. The shoemaker is summoned within the hour, and Margarethe demands a pair of dark, elegant shoes with the brightest, largest buckles a lady’s foot could sensibly support. Or maybe shoe roses? “You or Ruth can take the white ones,” says Margarethe.
But Ruth’s big, splayed feet are far too big and Iris’s feet too narrow. The beautiful white shoes, almost like dancing slippers, are cut too low. Even if Iris inserts a wedge of padding she can’t keep the shoes from slipping off her feet and clapping their heels on the floor as she walks. “When my eyesight improves,” says Margarethe, “I’ll be able to maneuver in those slippers again. Put them aside, Iris, and let’s think about the matter of your hair.”
They consider her hair. It’s limp and lackluster. Margarethe washes it in eggs and holds up strands in the light. “Is my eyesight still getting worse,” she growls, “or is your hair an even less agreeable color than usual?”
“I can’t change the color of my hair at will,” says Iris.
“What good is it being a painter if you can’t paint yourself?” says Margarethe.
Ruth is even more difficult to deal with. Her hair has all the energy and abundance that Iris’s lacks; the problem is that exuberance is hard to rein in. Even strapped and capped, Ruth’s hair seems to have miraculous powers of escape. The only solution is to cut a good deal of it off and hope that Ruth can keep her cap on. But what if the French style requires women to remove their caps at a ball? This is the kind of small detail that plagues Margarethe and that bores Iris. As for Ruth, she hustles back to the kitchen as quickly as she is allowed. Splendid clothes and new shoes and renovations to her scalp! Iris can see that the ball is going to terrify her sister. Will Clara be there to keep Ruth calm? Iris still isn’t sure.
The house is half empty of furniture. All of Henrika’s luxuries are gone, but some chairs and tables and wardrobes remain. Despite herself, Iris sees how the light falls differently in emptier rooms. It is spring light, there is a touch of green to it, brought in when the sun filters through the tender leaves of the linden trees. Iris never expected to live in such a beautiful building, so the thought of leaving it soon seems only a return to the normal hard way of life. But she knows it will be torment for Clara, who by now even avoids approaching a window or standing in an open doorway in case van Stolk is outside.
Iris is in the kitchen, trying to help Clara come up with a meal out of what little they have left in the larder, when Margarethe stumps through, to root in chests once again with the hope of finding silver spoons or missing jewelry that she might pawn. It’s a fruitless task, but Margarethe is obsessed with the idea that Henrika’s wealth was limitless. “We don’t have much left to eat,” says Clara to Margarethe. “We’re down to almost nothing. We’ll be petitioning the regents of the Holy Ghost orphanage before long.”
“I’m told they won’t take children over the age of seven anymore,” says Margarethe. “But don’t worry.”
“Van Stolk is coming to claim possession of the house on the day after the ball!” says Clara. “What are we going to do? Do you mean to say that Papa has been so ruined by this crisis that he qualifies for the old men’s home, where he can sun himself in the courtyard with the other toothless indigents?”
“You fret for nothing,” says Margarethe. “I’ve passed by the Oudemannenhuis many times. The regents run it well. Everyone is kept clean and quiet.”
Clara says with scorn, “For the rest of us, then? Do your daughters and I qualify as spinsters, to be taken in at one of the hofjes?”
“Pity you never learned to be a seamstress,” says Margarethe. “There’s still time.”
“And you, will you escape under cover of darkness and fly on your broomstick to thwart the happiness of some other household?”
Clara has spoken with zeal and contempt, but Iris starts and drops a kettle on the bricks. Margarethe peers as best she can from one to the other. “So Iris is peddling stories, is she?” says Margarethe coldly.
“I never—!” cries Iris.
“No, I’m sure you never have,” says Margarethe. “Clara, the root-bound, sun-starved cutting just concocts a story like that on her own. Wonderful, Iris. Thank you. Now, shall we remember the central tasks of the day, and abandon interest in such gossip? We have to eat. We have been hungry before, Cinderella, though perhaps hunger is a novelty for you.”
“Hunger makes us thin, but plague can make us bloat and buxom, for an hour before we die—” says Iris.
“Don’t mock your blind old mother,” says Margarethe, striking out with a walking stick. “I’ll have food in your mouths before three days are out, mark my words. You take me for a fool like my gibbering husband, but I’m not to be discounted yet. Philippe de Marsillac will have you for a bride, Iris. Wait and see.”
“You are mad,” says Iris. “Your blindness is seeping from your eyes into your brain. You’re forgetting what your daughters look like, and what the others look like next to us. We aren’t worthy to stand behind a bank of flowers. We aren’t acceptable for leading the ducks to the millpond. What can I offer to a prince that any other young woman of Haarlem cannot?”
“You have endurance,” says Margarethe harshly. “You’ve inherited that from me.”
“All of Holland has endurance, that’s Holland’s essential quality,” cries Iris. “You’re lying to yourself, because you can see no other way out!”
“I can see other ways out, and I can see more than you think,” says Margarethe. “Perhaps the cloud of darkness in my eyes now has dimmed the sharp aspect of the world to me, but I see other things that I couldn’t see before. I see how people worry and how their lives are bound and trapped along that thread.” She reaches for a knife; perhaps she is g
oing to try to harvest some of Ruth’s incredible hair. Half blind as she is. “Don’t I know it by knowing myself, with my own terror of poverty and hunger gnawing at me night and day? But I am cannier than the moon, my girls, because I am blinded now to appearances. This eligible young man has an eye for painting; it’s why he is here. You are one of Haarlem’s only young women to try your hand at it—”
“I have sketched once or twice! You are bewitched with worry yourself, and puff my abilities like a bubble of soap,” says Iris. “And bubbles pop.”
“We always have Cinderella to farm out to the highest bidder,” says Margarethe.
There’s nothing untoward in her remark. It’s the right and duty of a mother to amplify the family fortunes. But Margarethe hasn’t said this so bluntly before, and the room is still.
“I am not attending the ball,” says Clara quietly.
“I should say not,” says Margarethe. “We agree for once. But I’ll tell you why. However pleasant you look, you aren’t the intelligent girl that Iris is. And you have nothing in your face or manner of human kindness. But if you attended the ball, you might have a good chance at attracting the attention of Philippe de Marsillac. You’d put my own daughters in the shadows. If he found you worthy of pursuit, you’d allow it to happen, and turn from us all. You’d disappear into another life, and we’d be no better off than before—worse, in fact, for I have your father to feed now too until he comes to his senses.”
“I wouldn’t forsake my own father!” says Clara.
“No, perhaps not,” agrees Margarethe cannily, “but you haven’t offered to stand by your stepmother or stepsisters with the same passion. If your father dies, as well he might, of a broken spirit or a broken purse, your ties to your stepfamily are broken too. You don’t have any feeling of obligation toward us, and why should you?”
“But you’d marry me off to the clothier or to van Stolk?” says Clara.
“They’re local men, and for the sake of his trade a man needs to be seen to be kind to his wife’s kin,” says Margarethe. “If you marry van Stolk, we all might stay in this house.”
Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister Page 21